Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (847 page)

^†
Thesauius, vid.
a
p
a
g
c
w
.

^‡
Grotius.

^§
Heinsius.

^||
Perizonius.

^¶
Thus the Vulgate and Erasmus. See in opposition to all these interpretations, Kuinöl, in. Matth, p. 473 ff.

^*
Œcumenius, on the Acts, I.:
o
I
o
u
d
a
V
o
u
k
e
n
a
p
e
q
a
n
e
t
h
a
g
c
o
n
h
,
a
l
l
‘
e
p
e
b
i
w
k
a
t
e
n
e
c
q
e
i
V
p
r
o
t
o
u
a
p
o
p
n
i
g
h
n
a
i
.
Comp. Theophylact, on Matth. xxvii. and a Schol.
A
p
o
l
i
n
a
r
i
o
u
ap. Matthæi.narrate the last moments of the traitor: the two epochs, the account of which is supposed to be respectively given by Matthew and the Acts, have in later times been placed in closer proximity, and it has been held that Judas attempted to hang himself to a tree on an eminence, but as the rope gave way or the branch broke, he was precipitated into the valley over steep cliffs and sharp bushes, which lacerated his body.* The author of a treatise on the fate of Judas in Schmidt’s Bibliothek
^†
has already remarked as a surprising circumstance, how faithfully according to this opinion, the two narrators have shared the information between them: for it is not the case that one gives the less precise statement, the other the more precise; but that one of them narrates precisely the first part of the incident without touching on the second, the other, the second without intruding on the first; and Hase justly maintains that each narrator knew only the state of the fact which he has presented, since otherwise he could not have omitted the other half.
^‡

After thus witnessing the total failure of the attempts at reconciliation in relation to the first difference; we have now to inquire whether the other, relative to the acquisition of the piece of ground, can be more easily adjusted. It consists in this : according to Matthew, it is the members of the Sanhedrim who, after the suicide of Judas, purchase a field with the money which he had left behind (from a potter moreover — a particular which is wanting in the Acts); whereas, according to the Acts, Judas himself purchases the piece of ground, and on this very spot is overtaken by sudden death; and from this difference there results another, namely, that according to the latter account, it was the blood of the betrayer shed on the piece of ground, according to the former, the blood of Jesus cleaving to the purchase money, which caused the ground to be named
the field of blood,
a
g
r
o
V
or
x
w
r
i
o
n
a
i
m
a
t
o
V
. Now here Matthew’s manner of expressing himself is so precise, that it cannot well be twisted so as to favour the other narrative; but the word
e
k
t
h
s
a
t
o
(he purchased or acquired)
in the Acts presents inviting facilities for its adaptation to Matthew. By the reward of treachery, Judas acquired a field — such, it is said, is the meaning in the Acts — not immediately, but mediately; since by returning the money he gave occasion for the purchase of a piece of ground; not for himself, but for the Sanhedrim or the public good.|| But however numerous the passages adduced in which
k
t
a
s
q
a
i
has the signification: to acquire for another, still in such instances it is necessary that the other party for whom one acquires should be specified or intimated, and when this is not the case, as in the passage in the Acts, it retains the

^*
Thus, after Casaubon, Paulus, 3, b, s.
457
f.; Kuinöl, in Matth. 747 f.; Winer, b. Realw. Art. Judas, and with some indecision Olshausen, 2, s.
455
f. Even Fritzsche is become so weary on the long way to these last chapters of Matthew, that he contents himself with this reconciliation, and, on the presupposition of it, maintains that the two accounts concur
amicissime.

^†
2 Band, 2 Stück, s,
248 1.

^‡
L. J., § 132. Comp. Theile, zur Biographie Jesu, § 33.

^||
Vid. Kuinöl, in Matth., p. 748.original meaning: to acquire for one’s self.* This Paulus felt, and hence gave the facts the following turn: the terrible fall of Judas into a lime pit was the cause of this piece of ground being purchased by the Sanhedrim, and thus Peter might very well say of Judas ironically, that in death by the fall of his corpse he had appropriated to himself a fine property.
^†
But in the first place this interpretation is in itself strained; and in the second, the passage cited by Peter from the Psalms:
let his habitation be desolate,
g
e
n
h
q
h
t
w
h
e
p
a
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l
i
V
a
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t
o
u
e
r
h
m
o
V
shows that he thought of the piece of ground as the real property of Judas, and as being judicially doomed to desolation as the scene of his death.

According to this, neither the one difference nor the other admits of a favourable reconciliation; indeed the existence of a real divergency was admitted even by Salmasius, and Hase thinks that he can explain this discrepancy, without endangering the apostolic origin of the two statements, from the violent excitement of those days, in consequence of which only the general fact that Judas committed suicide was positively known, and concerning the more particular circumstances of the event, various reports were believed. But in the Acts nothing is said of suicide, and that two apostles, Matthew and Peter (if the first gospel be supposed to proceed from the former, the discourse in the Acts from the latter), should have remained so entirely in the dark concerning the death of their late colleague, a death which took place in their immediate vicinity, that one of them represented him as dying by accident, the other voluntarily, is difficult to believe. That therefore only one of the two accounts can be maintained as apostolic, has been correctly perceived by the author of the above-mentioned treatise in Schmidt’s Bibliothek. And in choosing between the two he has proceeded on the principle that the narrative the least tending to glorification is the more authentic; whence he gives the preference to the account in the Acts before that in the first gospel, because the former has not the glorifying circumstances of the remorse of Judas, and his confession of the innocence of Jesus. But, it is ever the case with two contradictory narratives, not only that if one stands it excludes the other, but also that if one falls it shakes the other: hence, if the representation of the facts which is attested by the authority of the Apostle Matthew be renounced, there is no longer any warrant for the other, which professedly rests on the testimony of the Apostle Peter.

If then we are to treat the two narratives on the same footing, namely as legends, with respect to which it is first to be discovered how far their historical nucleus extends, and how far they consist of traditional deposits; we must, in order to be clear on the subject, consider the data which form the roots of the two narratives. Here we find one which is common to both, with two others of which

^*
Vid. Schmidt’s Biblioth., ut sup. s. 251
f.

^†
Paulus, 3, b, s.
457 f. ; Fritzsche, p. 799.each has one peculiarly to itself. The datum common to both narratives is, that there was in Jerusalem a piece of ground which was called
the field of blood
a
g
r
o
V
or
c
w
r
i
o
n
a
i
m
a
t
o
V
, or in the original tongue, according to the statement of the Acts,
a
k
e
l
d
a
m
a
. As this information is concurrently given by two narratives in other respects totally divergent, and as, besides, the author of the first gospel appeals to the actual practice of his day in proof that the field was called by this name: we cannot well doubt the existence of a piece of ground so named. That it really had a relation to the betrayer of Jesus is less certain, since our two narratives give different accounts of this relation: the one stating that Judas himself bought the property, the other that it was not purchased until after his death, with the thirty pieces of silver. We can therefore draw no further conclusion than that the primitive Christian legend must have early attributed to that field of blood a relation to the betrayer. But the reason wherefore this relation took various forms is to be sought in the other datum from which our narratives proceed, namely, in the Old Testament passages, which the authors cite (from different sources, however), as being fulfilled by the fate of Judas.

In the passage of the Acts, Ps. lxix.
25,
and Ps. cix. 8, are quoted in this manner. The latter is a psalm which the first Christians from among the Jews could not avoid referring to the relation of Judas to Jesus. For not only does the author, alleged to be David, but doubtless a much later individual,* dilate from the opening of the psalm on such as speak falsely and insidiously against him, and return him hatred for his love, but from v. 6, where the curses commence, he directs himself against a particular person, so that the Jewish expositors thought of Doeg, David’s calumniator with Saul, and the Christians just as naturally of Judas. From this psalm is gathered the verse which, treating of the transfer of one office to another, appeared perfectly to suit the case of Judas. The other psalm, it is true, speaks more vaguely of such as hate and persecute the author without cause, yet this also is
ascribed to David, and is so similar to the other in purport and style, that it might be regarded as its parallel, and if curses might be applied to the betrayer out of the former, they might be so out of the latter.
^†
Now if Judas had actually bought with the wages of his treachery a piece of land, which from being the scene of his horrible end, subsequently remained waste: it was a matter of course to refer to him precisely those passages in this psalm which denounce on the enemies the desolation of their
habitation
e
p
a
u
l
i
V
.
As, however, from the divergency of Matthew, the fact that Judas himself bought that piece of ground and came to his end upon it, is doubtful: while it can scarcely be supposed that the piece of land on which the betrayer of Jesus met his end would be so abhorrent to the Jews