“Erasmus distinctly perceived this sense in the words πρηνης γενομενος, although he did not discern it in the word ελακησε, which confirms it: ‘πρηνης Graecis dicitur, qui vultu est in terram dejecto: expressit autem gestum et habitum LAQUEO PRAEFOCATI; alioquin, ex hoc sane loco non poterat intelligi, quod Judas suspenderit se,’ (in loc.) And so Augustine also had understood those words, as he shows in his Recit. in Act. Apostol. l. i. col. 474. ‘et collem sibi alligavit, et dejectus in faciem,’ &c. Hence one MS., cited by Sabatier, for πρηνης γενομενος, reads αποκρεμαμένος; and Jerom, in his new vulgate, has substituted suspensus for the pronus factus of the old Latin version, which our old English version of 1542 accordingly renders, and when he was hanged.
“That which follows, and which evidently determined the vulgar interpretation of ελακησε——εξεχυνθη παντα τα σπλαγχνα αυτου, all his bowels gushed out——states a natural and probable effect produced, by the sudden interruption in the fall and violent capture in the noose, in a frame of great corpulency and distension, such as Christian antiquity has recorded that of the traitor to have been; so that a term to express rupture would have been altogether unnecessary, and it is therefore equally unnecessary to seek for it in the verb ελακησε. Had the historian intended to express disruption, we may justly presume that he would have said, as he had already said in his gospel, v. 6, διερρηγνυτο, or xxiii. 45, εσχισθη μεσος: it is difficult to conceive, that he would here have traveled into the language of ancient Greek poetry for a word to express a common idea, when he had common terms at hand and in practice; but he used the Roman laqueo, λακεω, to mark the infamy of the death.
“(Πρησθεις επι τοσουτον την σαρκα, ὡστε μη δυνασθαι δειλθειν. Papias, from Routh's Reliquiæ Sacræ tom. I. p. 9. and Oecumenius, thus rendered by Zegers, Critici Sacri, Acts i. 18, in tantum enim corpore inflatus est ut progredi non posset. The tale transmitted by those writers of the first and tenth centuries, that Judas was crushed to death by a chariot proceeding rapidly, from which his unwieldiness rendered him unable to escape, merits no further attention, after the authenticated descriptions of the traitor’s death which we have here investigated, than to suggest a possibility that the place where the suicide was committed might have overhung a public way, and that the body falling by its weight might have been traversed, after death, by a passing chariot;——from whence might have arisen the tales transmitted successively by those writers; the first of whom, being an inhabitant of Asia Minor, and therefore far removed from the theater of Jerusalem, and being also (as Eusebius witnesses, iii. 39,) a man of a very weak mind——σφοδρα μκρος τον νουν——was liable to be deceived by false accounts.)
“The words of St. Peter, in the Hellenistic version of St. Luke, will therefore import, [a]praeceps in ora fusus, laqueavit (i. e. implicuit se laqueo) medius; (i. e. in medio, inter trabem et terram;) et effusa sunt omnia viscera ejus]——throwing himself headlong, he caught mid-way in the noose, and all his bowels gushed out. And thus the two reporters of the suicide, from whose respective relations charges of disagreement, and even of contradiction, have been drawn in consequence of mistaking an insititious Latin word for a genuine Greek word of corresponding elements, are found, by tracing that insititious word to its true origin, to report identically the same fact; the one by a single term, the other by a periphrasis.”
Such was the end of the twelfth of Jesus Christ’s chosen ones. To such an end was the intimate friend, the trusted steward, the festal companion of the Savior, brought by the impulse of some not very unnatural feelings, excited by occasion, into extraordinary action. The universal and intense horror which the relation of his crime now invariably awakens, is by no means favorable to a just and fair appreciation of his sin and its motives, nor to such an honest consideration of his course from rectitude to guilt, as is most desirable for the application of the whole story to the moral improvement of its readers. Originally not an infamous man, he was numbered among the twelve as a person of respectable character, and long held among his fellow-disciples a responsible station, which is itself a testimony of his unblemished reputation. He was sent forth with them, as one of the heralds of salvation to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He shared with them the counsels, the instructions, and the prayers of Jesus. If he was stupid in apprehending, and unspiritual in conceiving the truths of the gospel, so were they. If he was an unbeliever in the resurrection of Jesus, so were they; and had he survived till the accomplishment of that prophecy, he could not have been slower in receiving the evidence of the event, than they. As it was, he died in his unbelief; while they lived to feel the glorious removal of all their doubts, the purification of all their gross conceptions, and the effusion of that spirit of truth, through which, by the grace of God alone, they afterwards were what they were. Without a merit, in faith, beyond Judas, they maintained their dim and doubtful adherence to the truth, only by their nearer approximation to moral perfection; and by their nobler freedom from the pollution of sordid and spiteful feeling. Through passion alone he fell, a victim, not to a want of faith merely,——for therein, the rest could hardly claim a superiority,——but to the radical deficiency of true love for Jesus, of that “charity which never faileth,” but “endureth to the end.” It was their simple, devoted affection, which, through all their ignorance, their grossness of conception, and their faithlessness in his word, made them still cling to his name and his grave, till the full revelations of his resurrection and ascension had displaced their doubts by the most glorious certainties, and given their faith an eternal assurance. The great cause of the awful ruin of Judas Iscariot, then, was the fact, that he did not LOVE Jesus. Herein was his grand distinction from all the rest; for though their regard was mingled with so much that was base, there was plainly, in all of them, a solid foundation of true, deep affection. The most ambitious and skeptical of them, gave the most unquestionable proofs of this. Peter, John, both the Jameses, and others, are instances of the mode in which these seemingly opposite feelings were combined. But Judas was without this great refining and elevating principle, which so redeemed the most sordid feelings of his fellows. It was not merely for the love of money that he was led into this horrid crime. The love of four dollars and eighty cents! Who can believe that this was the sole motive? It was rather that his sordidness and selfishness, and ambition, if he had any, lacked this single, purifying emotion, which redeemed their characters. Is there not, in this reflection, a moral which each Christian reader can improve to his own use? For the lack of the love of Jesus alone, Judas fell from his high estate, to an infamy as immortal as their fame. Wherever, through all ages, the high heroic energy of Peter, the ready faith of Andrew, the martyr-fire of James Boanerges, the soul-absorbing love of John, the willing obedience of Philip, the guileless purity of Nathanael, the recorded truth of Matthew, the slow but deep devotion of Thomas, the blameless righteousness of James the Just, the appellative zeal of Simon, and the earnest warning eloquence of Jude, are all commemorated in honor and bright renown,——the murderous, sordid spite of Iscariot, will insure him an equally lasting proverbial shame. Truly, “THE SIN OF JUDAS IS WRITTEN WITH A PEN OF IRON ON A TABLET OF MARBLE.”
MATTHIAS.
The events which concern this person’s connection with the apostolic company, are briefly these. Soon after the ascension of Jesus, the eleven disciples being assembled in their “upper room,” with a large company of believers, making in all, together, a meeting of one hundred and twenty, Peter arose and presented to their consideration, the propriety and importance of filling, in the apostolic college, the vacancy caused by the sad defection of Judas Iscariot. Beginning with what seems to be an apt allusion to the words of David concerning Ahithophel,——(a quotation very naturally suggested by the striking similarity between the fate of that ancient traitor, and that of the base Iscariot,) he referred to the peculiarly horrid circumstances of the death of this revolted apostle, and also applied to these occurrences the words of the same Psalmist concerning those upon whom he invoked the wrath of God, in words which might with remarkable emphasis be made descriptive of the ruin of Judas. “Let his habitation be desolate,” and “let another take his office.” Applying this last quotation more particularly to the exigency of their circumstances, he pronounced it to be in accordance with the will of God that they should immediately proceed to select a person to “take the office” of Judas. He declared it an essential requisite for this office, moreover, that the person should be one of those who, though not numbered with the select twelve, had been among the intimate companions of Jesus, and had enjoyed the honors and privileges of a familiar discipleship, so that they could always testify of his great miracles and divine instructions, from their own personal knowledge as eye-witnesses of his actions, from the beginning of his divine career at his baptism by John, to the time of his ascension.
Agreeably to this counsel of the apostolic chief, the whole company of the disciples selected two persons from those who had been witnesses of the great actions of Christ, and nominated them to the apostles, as equally well qualified for the vacant office. To decide the question with perfect impartiality, it was resolved, in conformity with the common ancient practice in such cases, to leave the point between these two candidates to be settled by lot; and to give this mode of decision a solemnity proportioned to the importance of the occasion, they first invoked, in prayer, the aid of God in the appointment of a person best qualified for his service. They then drew the lots of the two candidates, and Matthias being thus selected, was thenceforth enrolled with the eleven apostles.
Of his previous history nothing whatever is known, except that, according to what is implied in the address of Peter, he must have been, from the beginning of Christ’s career to his ascension, one of his constant attendants and hearers. Some have conjectured that he was one of the seventy, sent forth by Jesus as apostles, in the same manner as the twelve had gone; and there is nothing unreasonable in the supposition; but still it is a conjecture merely, without any fact to support it. The New Testament is perfectly silent with respect to both his previous and his subsequent life, and not a fact can be recorded respecting him. Yet the productive imaginations of the martyrologists of the Roman and Greek churches, have carried him through a protracted series of adventures, during his alleged preaching of the gospel, first in Judea, and then in Ethiopia. They also pretend that he was martyred, though as to the precise mode there is some difference in the stories,——some relating that he was crucified, and others, that he was first stoned and then dispatched by a blow on the head with an axe. But all these are condemned by the discreet writers even of the Romish church, and the whole life of Matthias must be included among those many mysteries which can never be in any way brought to light by the most devoted and untiring researches of the Apostolic historian; and this dim and unsatisfactory trace of his life may well conclude the first grand division of a work, in which the reader will expect to find so much curious detail of matters commonly unknown, but which no research nor learning can furnish, for the prevention of his disappointment.