Matt 26:24. The Son of Man indeed goeth, &c. Good were it for that man if he had not been born. For “far better is it not to exist at all, than to exist in evil. The punishment is foretold, that him whom shame had not conquered, the denunciation of punishment might correct,” says S. Jerome. He threatens him with the woe of damnation. For far better is it not to be, than to exist only to be endlessly miserable, as I have shown on Eccles. iv. 2, 3.
Wisely does S. Jerome say (Epist. ad Furiam), “It is not their beginning which is inquired about in Christians, but their ending. Paul began badly but ended well. Judas’ beginning was commended, but his end was to be condemned as a traitor.”
Goeth. “By this word,” says Victor of Antioch, “Christ showeth that His death is like rather to a departure or passing away, than to real death. He signifies, likewise, by it that He went voluntarily to death.” Moreover, the betrayal of Judas was an act of infinite sacrilege, perpetrated directly against the very Person of Christ and God. Thus it was true deicide. Wherefore it is exceedingly probable that Judas abides in the deepest pit of Gehenna, near to Lucifer, and is there grievously tormented. And this seems to be indicated by the word woe, which Christ here pronounces upon him above the rest of the reprobates. Blessed Francis Borgia was wont, in meditation, in the depth of his humility, to place himself at the feet of Judas, that is to say, in the lowest pit of hell, exclaiming that there was no other place fit for him, neither in Heaven, nor in earth, nor under the earth, as the due reward of his sins.
Trent on Sacred Scripture:
Furthermore, in order to restrain petulant spirits, It decrees, that no one, relying on his own skill, shall,--in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, --wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church,--whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures,--hath held and doth hold; or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; even though such interpretations were never (intended) to be at any time published. Contraveners shall be made known by their Ordinaries, and be punished with the penalties by law established...
Besides the above, wishing to repress that temerity, by which the words and sentences of sacred Scripture are turned and twisted to all sorts of profane uses, to wit, to things scurrilous, fabulous, vain, to flatteries, detractions, superstitions, impious and diabolical incantations, sorceries, and defamatory libels; (the Synod) commands and enjoins, for the doing away with this kind of irreverence and contempt, and that no one may hence forth dare in any way to apply the words of sacred Scripture to these and such like purposes; that all men of this description, profaners and violators of the word of God, be by the bishops restrained by the penalties of law, and others of their own appointment.
October 29, 2014: Franciscus preaches that Judas was not the worst sinner
“Judas was not the one who sinned the most: I don’t know who sinned the most...Judas, poor man, is the one who closed himself to love and that is why he became a traitor. And they all ran away during the difficult time of the Passion and left Jesus alone. They are all sinners.”
And again on April 11, 2016:
Pope Francis said: "It hurts when I read that small passage from the Gospel of Matthew, when Judas, who has repented, goes to the priests and says: ‘I have sinned' and wants to give ... and gives them the coins. ‘Who cares! - they say to him: it’s none of our business!’ They closed their hearts before this poor, repentant man, who did not know what to do. And he went and hanged himself. And what did they do when Judas hanged himself? They spoke amongst themselves and said: 'Is he a poor man? No! These coins are the price of blood, they must not enter the temple... and they referred to this rule and to that… The doctors of the letter. "
The life of a person did not matter to them, the Pope observed, they did not care about Judas’ repentance.
The Gospel, he continued, says that Judas came back repentant. But all that mattered to them “were the laws, so many words and things they had built”.
Lord have mercy. Why such repeated sympathy for this devil when that sympathy is in such opposition to what has always been taught about Judas by Saints and Pope Saints throughout Tradition?
What about Jesus, whom Judas condemned? What about Our Lord and Saviour; where is the sympathy for Him rather than Judas?
What about Jesus, whom Judas condemned? What about Our Lord and Saviour; where is the sympathy for Him rather than Judas?
Why such sympathy for Judas and not genuine anger at the wickedness of the Jews who insisted on the completion of the evil bargain?
One can listen and attend to the Pope and be misled, or, one can stick with Catholic Tradition which has no sympathy of the devil Judas and whose putative repentance was not a true and authentic repentance.
The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide:
Matthew 27:Vers. 3, 4. Then Judas, which had betrayed Him, when he saw that he was condemned, &c. Judas, when he sold Christ, did not expect that He would be killed, but merely seized, and either render them some satisfaction, or in some way escape, as before, out of their hands. But on finding Him condemned to death, he felt the gravity of his sin. And repenting, when too late, of what he had done, he was self condemned, and hanged himself. “The devil is so crafty,” says S. Chrysostom, ‘that he allows not a man (unless very watchful) to see beforehand the greatness of his sin, lest he should repent and shrink from it. But as soon as a sin is fully completed, he allows him to see it, and thus overwhelms him with sorrow and drives him to despair. Judas was unmoved by Christ’s many warnings; but when the deed had been wrought, he was brought to useless and unavailing repentance.”
That He was condemned.
By Caiaphas, i.e., and the whole Council, and that he would shortly be condemned by Pilate on their authority, and by their urgent importunity.
Repented himself.
Not with true and genuine repentance, for this includes the hope of pardon, which Judas had not; but with a forced, torturing, and despairing repentance, the fruit of an evil and remorseful conscience, like the torments of the lost. In Gr. μεταμεληθείς.
Brought again the thirty pieces or silver to the Chief Priests
. To rescind his bargain. As if he had said, “I give back the money; do ye, on your part, restore Jesus to liberty.” So S. Ambrose (in Luc. xxii.), “In pecuniary causes, when the money is paid back, justice is satisfied.” And S. Hilary, “Judas gave back the money that he might expose the dishonesty of the purchasers.” And S. Ambrose, “Though the traitor was not absolved himself, yet was the impudence of the Jews exposed; for though put to shame by the confession of the traitor, they insisted wickedly on the fulfilment of the bargain.”
I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent Blood
; Gr. α̉θω̃ον; for what more innocent than the immaculate Lamb? what purer than the purity of Jesus Christ?
But they said, What is that to us? see thou to that.
Carry out what thou hast begun. Bear the punishment of the guilt thou ownest. We own no fault in ourselves. But He is guilty of death as a false Christ, and therefore we insist on it. Now, as they refused to take back the money, Judas cast it down in the Temple, and hung himself, despairing of the life of Jesus and of his own salvation. For assuredly he would not have thus acted had the Chief Priests taken the money back and set Jesus free. Up to a certain point, then, his repentance was right, but when it drove him to despair it was wrong. “See how unwilling they were,” says S. Chrysostom, “to see the audacity of their conduct, which greatly aggravated their fault. For it was a clear proof that they were hurried away by audacious injustice, and would not desist from their evil designs, foolishly hiding themselves the while under a cloak of pretended ignorance.”
Verse 5- And he cast down the pieces of silver in the Temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.
He first took them to the house of Caiaphas, or certainly to that of Pilate, where the Chief Priests were prosecuting their case; and afterwards, on their refusing to take them, threw them down in the Temple for the Priests to pick up. Some of the Chief Priests were probably there, but anyhow by throwing them down in the Temple he devoted them, as the price of the Most Holy Blood, to sacred and pious uses, if the Priests refused to take them back.
And he went and hanged himself.
The Greek writers are mistaken in thinking that he did not die in this way, but was afterwards crushed to death (see on Acts i. 18). Judas then added to his former sin the further sin of despair. It was not a more heinous sin, but one more fatal to himself, as thrusting him down to the very depths of hell. He might, on his repentance, have asked (and surely have obtained) pardon of Christ. But, like Cain, he despaired of forgiveness, and hung himself on the self-same day, just before the death of Christ. For he could not bear the heavy remorse of an accusing conscience.
So S. Leo (Serm. de Pass. iii.; S. Augustine, Quæst. v., and N. Test. xciv.). David had prophesied respecting him, “Let a sudden destruction,” &c. (Ps. xxxv. 8). Thus S. Leo, “0 Judas, thou wast the most wicked and miserable of men, for repentance recalled thee not to the Lord, but despair drew thee on to thy ruin!” And again, “Why dost thou distrust the goodness of Him who repelled thee not from the communion of His Body and Blood, and refused thee not the kiss of peace when thou camest to apprehend Him? But thou wast past conversion (a spirit that goeth and returneth not); and with Satan at thy right hand, thou followedst the mad desire of thy own heart, and madest the sin which thou hadst sinned against the King of Saints to recoil on thine own head; that thus, as thy crime was too great for ordinary punishment, thou mightest pronounce, and also execute, the sentence on thyself.
Some say that Judas hung himself from a fig-tree, the forbidden tree of Hebrew tradition, and one of ill-omen. Hence Juventus—
“Even as his own wild punishment he sought,
He hung with deadly noose on fig-tree’s height.”
Now it was avarice that drove Judas to this fate. “Hear ye this,” says S. Chrysostom; “hear it, I say, Ye covetous. Ponder it in your mind what he suffered. For he both lost his money, and committed a crime, and lost his soul. Such was the hard tyranny of covetousness. He enjoyed not his money, nor this present life, nor that which is to come. He lost them all at once, and having forfeited the goodwill even of those to whom he betrayed Him, he ended by hanging himself.”
This confession of Judas, then (not in word, but in deed), was a clear proof of Christ’s innocence, and it assuredly ought to have kept the Jews from killing Him, if they had only had the smallest amount of shame. But their obstinate malice could not be restrained even by this strange portent.
Symbolically
: Bede remarks (in Acts i.), “His punishment was a befitting one. The throat which had uttered the word of betrayal was throttled by the noose. He who had betrayed the Lord of men and angels hung in mid-air, abhorred by Heaven and earth, and the bowels which had conceived the crafty treachery burst asunder and fell out.”
S. Bernard, too (Serm. viii. in Ps. xc. [vci.]), says, “Judas, that colleague of the powers of the air, burst asunder in the air, as though neither the Heaven would receive nor the earth endure the betrayer of Him who was true God and man, and who came to work salvation in the midst of the earth” (Ps. lxxxiii. 12, Vulg.).
Again, S. Augustine (Lib. Hom. 1., Hom. xxvii.), “That which he wrought on his own body, this was also wrought on his soul. For as they who throttle themselves cause death, because the air passes not within them, so do they who despair of the forgiveness of God choke themselves by their very despair, that the Holy Spirit cannot reach them.”