The Death of Judas
Friday morning came. Immediately, the chief priests with the elders and scribes convened their council. They brought Jesus Christ and again condemned Him to death for calling Himself Christ, the Son of God.
When Judas, His betrayer, found out that He was condemned to death, he understood all the horror of his act. Perhaps, he did not expect such a sentence or supposed that Christ would not permit it or would deliver Himself from His enemies in some miraculous way. Judas understood to what his love of money had led. Tormenting guilt seized his soul. He went to the chief priests and elders and brought back the thirty pieces of silver saying, “I have sinned in betraying innocent blood.”
They said to him, “What is that to us? See to it yourself” (that is, you yourself must answer for your deed).
But Judas did not want to humbly repent in prayer and tears before the merciful God. Cold despair and depression overcame his soul. Throwing down the pieces of silver in the Temple before the chief priests, he departed, and he went and hanged himself. The chief priests taking the pieces of silver said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury since they are blood money.” So they took counsel and bought with it the potter’s field to bury strangers in. Therefore, that field (a cemetery) has been called in Hebrew Akaldema, which means “field of blood.”
Then, was fulfilled what had been spoken by the Prophet Jeremiah saying, “And they took thirty pieces of silver, the price of Him on Whom a price had been set by the sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter’s field.”
Note: See the Gospel of Matthew 27:3-10.
(from: The Law of Godby Fr. Seraphim Slobodskoy)
