Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 78–85

“Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said to them: What will you give me, and I will hand him over to you? And they fixed for him thirty staters; and from then on he sought an opportunity to hand him over.” Judas is interpreted “confessor.” Since there are two disciples called by this name, as the evangelist Luke counts among the twelve apostles Judas of James and Judas Iscariot, and since nothing in Christ is empty of mystery, I think that the two disciples named Judas were a figure of the Christians who confess the faith of Christ. One part of them remains faithfully with Christ, and Judas of James was its figure; but the other part, after believing and confessing the faith of Christ, left Christ out of avarice, and, becoming a betrayer of his truth, passed over to heresies and to the false priests of false Jews, that is, of pretended Christians, and handed Christ over to them, as far as lay in it, that is, the word of truth, so that the word of truth might be crucified and killed by them; and its figure was Judas Iscariot, who went to the priests and bargained a price for handing Christ over. I have heard someone explaining that the home town of the traitor Judas, according to its Hebrew meaning, is called “suffocation.” If so, there is a striking fitness between the name of his home town and the manner of his death, since he too, hanging himself with a noose, fulfilled, by being suffocated, the prophecy contained in the name of his home town. This Judas, then, to whom it was said through the prophet, “But you, a man of one mind with me, my guide and my acquaintance,” fell, though he had been one of those whom Christ took up for the leadership of the Christian people. And see how the words, “But you will die like men, and fall like one of the princes,” refer now to that prince who fell like lightning from heaven, now to Judas, who, chosen for the princely office of the apostleship and set, as it were, in heaven, also fell like lightning into the ruin of betrayal, going against the one high priest, who had been made priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek, to the many chief priests, the adversaries of the one high priest, to sell for a price him who wished to redeem the whole world from the curse of the law and of all sin, and to redeem us not with corruptible money but with his own precious blood. Let us hear what Judas said to the priests: “What will you give me, and I will hand him over to you?” For he wished to receive money and to hand over the Word of God. This is what all do who receive anything of bodily or worldly things in order to hand over and cast out of their soul the Saviour and the word of truth that was in them. And you will fittingly use this example for all who commit any sin out of avarice, for the sake of money or of some gain, and so hand over and despise the word of God. For such men seem as it were openly to cry out and say to the adverse powers who offer them some gain for the sin of transgressing the word: “What will you give me, and I will hand him over to you?” But even if the Word is handed over, this happens outside the one who hands him over; and, overcoming those who seem to have received him, he works what is worthy of himself, so that those who wish to make him void accomplish nothing against him. “And they fixed for him thirty staters,” setting a payment equal to the number of years the Saviour had sojourned in this world. For at thirty years of age, having been baptized, he began to preach the gospel, as Joseph at thirty years of age distributed grain to his brothers. For as that grain was then prepared by God for the sons of Israel, yet was distributed to the Egyptians as well, so the gospel was prepared for the saints, yet was preached also to the unbelieving and the wicked. “And from then on he sought an opportunity to hand him over.” What kind of opportunity Judas sought, Luke explained more plainly, saying: “And he sought an opportunity to hand him over to them without a crowd,” that is, when the people were not around him, but he was apart with his disciples. And this he did, handing him over after the supper, when he was apart in the estate of Gethsemane. For Judas thought his opportunity, after the pact he had made, was when Jesus was not with a crowd. And see whether even now this does not seem the opportunity to betrayers of the word of truth, who wish to betray Christ, God the Word, in a time of persecution of Christians, when the multitude of believers is not around the word of truth and cannot hinder or stop the persecutors, especially where there are few faithful. And since there is a time for all things, as Solomon says, “A time to suffer and a time to die,” and the rest, the proper time of the betrayers of the truth is this: when there are not many faithful around Christ. “On the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying to him: Where do you wish us to prepare for you to eat the Passover? And Jesus said: Go into the city to a certain man and say to him,” and the rest. In Mark it is said thus: “And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover was sacrificed, his disciples say to him: Where do you wish us to go and prepare for you to eat the Passover? And he sent two of his disciples, saying: Go into the city, and as you go in, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; and wherever he goes in, say to the householder: The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples? And he will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready; prepare for us there.” So it appears that the day of the Passover was one and the same, when the Passover of Unleavened Bread had to be sacrificed, and when the old leaven had to be removed and unleavened bread eaten with the flesh of the lamb. The day of the Passover was one, but the days of Unleavened Bread seven, the day of the Passover being counted with the other six. On this basis perhaps one of the unskilled, falling into Ebionism, will argue from the fact that Jesus kept the Passover bodily in the Jewish manner, as also the first day of Unleavened Bread, that it is fitting for us, as imitators of Christ, to do likewise; not considering that Jesus, when the fullness of time had come and he had been sent, was made of a woman, made under the law, not to leave those under the law under the law, but to lead them out of the law. If, then, he came to lead out those who were under the law, how much less fitting is it for those who were formerly outside the law to enter into the law! So we go out from the letter of the law; but, placed within its power, the spiritual law, and celebrating spiritually, we fulfil all that is there commanded to be celebrated bodily. For we cast out the old leaven of malice and wickedness, and we celebrate the Passover with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, Christ feasting with us according to the will of the Lamb who says, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have life abiding in you”; who took away the sin of the world, and forbids the true destroyer, the destroyer not of Egypt alone but of the whole human race, to touch us as we celebrate the feast of the Passover with him. And with the Lord himself among us, we go up from the lower places to the upper place where the guest room is, which is shown by the understanding, the householder in each man for the disciples of Christ. Let this upper house be large for us, so as to hold Jesus, the Word of God, and Wisdom, and Truth, and all that the Son of God is, who is held only by those great in understanding. And let this house be prepared by the householder, the understanding, for the Son of God, not only in an upper place, nor only large, but also cleaned, having no dirt of malice at all, as if swept together and thrown out by the brooms of the law. Let this house also be in the city of God, that is, in the Church. And let its master be one whose name is not known to just anyone: that is why Jesus says mystically, “Go to a certain man.” And let those who prepare the Passover for Christ say, “The Teacher says, I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples”; let them also announce to that householder what he says, “The Teacher says, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”, so that the householder who prepares a guest room for Jesus and his disciples may go up to the upper place, furnished and prepared and large, so that Jesus may come there and keep the feast with his disciples. And I think that the man who met the disciples as they entered the city carrying a jar of water, whom Jesus wished his disciples to follow as he went into the house, and who carried that fine water to the house so that it might be not only cleaned but more fully washed with water, was one who served the householder, that is, the understanding, carrying cleansing water in an earthen vessel, so that the surpassing greatness of the power may be God's. Or else he supplied drinking water in that earthen vessel, so that the Son of God may provide the fruit of the vine, and that servant of the understanding may carry from the law and the prophets water to be mixed with the wine of the gospel word. So we who wish to belong to the Church, wishing to celebrate the Passover with Jesus, let us follow that man who carries a vessel of such water, whom I take to be Moses the lawgiver, carrying spiritual teaching in bodily histories. But those who approach the law and the prophets as the very words of God, yet do not follow spiritually him who carries the vessel of living water, do not celebrate the Passover with Jesus, nor drink the cup of the new covenant. Let the disciples prepare the Passover for Jesus; and after the words of the disciples by which they have instructed the householder, that is, the understanding, let the divinity of the Only-begotten also come, feasting with his disciples in that house. But we must know that those who are absorbed in the feastings and cares of the world do not go up into that upper house, nor see its greatness, nor consider its furnished adornment. Therefore they neither celebrate the Passover with Jesus, nor receive from him the bread of blessing, nor the cup of the new covenant.

“When evening came he reclined with his disciples, and as they were eating he said: Truly I say to you, one of you will hand me over.” While the disciples were eating the Passover according to the commandment of the law, Jesus, who knew what was in man, and therefore had no need for anyone to bear witness to him about man, spoke of Judas with his customary oath: “Truly I say to you, one of you will hand me over.” For though he could from the beginning have pointed out the traitor by name, he did not do so; but he said generally, “One of you will hand me over,” so that each one's quality might be proved by the testimony of his stricken heart, and so as to show both the goodness of the disciples, that they believed Christ's words more than their own conscience, and the malice of Judas, that he did not believe even the one who knew his counsels, so as to be troubled or saddened. I think that at first he thought he could stay hidden, as from a man; and after he saw that his conscience was known to Christ, he clung to the concealment offered in Christ's words; the first of these was a mark of unbelief, the second of shamelessness. “And being greatly saddened they began to say, each one: Is it I, Lord?” Someone will ask: if the eleven apostles were of good conscience, since they were free of any betrayal of their Master, why were they saddened at what they heard, as if it were possible that one of them was the one meant? I think that each of the disciples knew, from what Jesus had taught, that human nature is changeable and can be turned to evil, and that in the wrestling against the principalities and powers and the rulers of this world of darkness it can happen that a man falls, either deceived or overpowered by the adverse powers into doing evil. Considering this, then, each of the disciples, fearing lest perhaps he himself was the one foreknown as the traitor, was greatly saddened because it had been said to them, “One of you will hand me over”; and they began to say, each as one not knowing the future concerning himself, “Is it I, Lord?” And if there is reason in this, that for this cause each of them said in fear, “Is it I, Lord?”, then we who are weak, and have not yet received the wisdom of perfection, must fear about all things to come; the perfection according to which the Apostle said: “For I am confident that neither death nor life,” and the rest, “can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.” But he who is not yet perfect has doubts about himself, as one who could also fall. In keeping with this human weakness Paul, writing to the Corinthians, said: “But I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, after preaching to others, I myself should become reprobate.” And see that when he says, “lest perhaps, after preaching to others, I myself should become reprobate,” he speaks as one who fears that he might fall and become reprobate. But when he said, “I am confident,” and the rest, it is the word of a confident and firm man, because of his perfection, since a thousand adversaries cannot separate him from the love of Christ. That the apostles were still weak and justly afraid is plain from what is said by him who knew the purpose of each: “All of you will stumble because of me this night.” And that one who sets before himself better things is sometimes turned to evil, overcome in the wrestling with the adverse powers, is plain from what is written of Peter: considering his own purpose, and what affection he had toward Christ, he answered not with pretence but from the truth of his heart, as far as he himself knew: “Even if all stumble, I alone will not stumble.” But the Saviour, knowing that he would be weak in his promises, and that a brief fear of a human being would make him fall away from his better purpose, said to him: “Truly I say to you, this night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” And to such people it is never out of season to say: “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what the coming day will bring forth.” And Paul likewise says: “Brothers, if a man is overtaken in any fault, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering lest you too be tempted,” teaching that our end is uncertain to us, even if perhaps we have a purpose of better things. Remembering all these things, then, that we do not know what the coming day will bring us, we will not be puffed up, nor be proud, nor ever boast, though we know we have many good things; as Paul too, after saying of himself, “I am conscious of nothing against myself,” adds, “but I am not justified by this,” as one who knew that it is God who sanctifies those whom he foreknows, and calls those whom he has predestined.

“He who dips his hand with me in the dish, he will hand me over.” Seeing them afraid for themselves, he pointed out the traitor by the sign of the prophetic word that says: “He who eats my bread with me has lifted up his heel against me.” For that does not differ from what he says here: “He who dips with me …” … they dipped the meat as they ate the Passover. I think he said this wishing to make plain Judas's great malice: that the one he had received at a common table, and who had eaten with him, perhaps because he had acted well at the beginning, was himself the one who betrayed Jesus, who had embraced him with such honours; and he remembered neither the salt they shared, nor the table, nor the bread they had shared, but, transgressing all these for the promise of thirty staters, handed over the giver of so many good things. And this is truly the proper habit of very wicked men, that after salt and bread they plot against men, especially against those who do them no harm, with whom they have shared bread and salt. So Daniel, prophesying of certain such savage and very wicked men, said: “At one table they will speak lies.” And if you can understand the spiritual table and the spiritual food, and the Lord's supper, with all of which he had been honoured by Christ, you will see more fully the multitude of his evils, by which he handed over his Master, the Saviour, together with the food of the divine table and the cup, and that on the day of the Passover, remembering neither the Master's love in bodily goods nor his teaching in spiritual goods, always shared without grudging. Such are all those in the Church who plot against their brothers, with whom they have often been together at the same table of the body of Christ and at the same drink of his blood. If we must also take up an interpretation of the dish itself, we for our part refrain from such things, lest we seem to some to say something frigid. Yet whoever wishes to find something moral even in this, let him consider the place in the law where gifts were offered by the leaders of each tribe at the dedication of the altar. Perhaps he will understand that there too the dish is to be understood as something. “On the first day,” it says, “Nahshon son of Amminadab, leader of the tribe of Judah, offered his gift; and he offered as his gift a silver dish, its weight a hundred and thirty shekels, and one silver bowl of seventy shekels, according to the holy shekel.”

“The Son of Man goes as it is written of him; but woe to that man through whom the Son of Man is handed over.” And Jesus, as it appeared, was going to suffer on the cross; but as he truly was, he both went and remained in the world with his disciples, guarding them in the faith. For they could not have persevered in faith in him, especially once they had seen him dead, unless their hearts had been invisibly guarded by him. And he did not say, “Woe to that man by whom he is handed over,” but “through whom he is handed over,” showing that there was another by whom he was handed over, namely the devil, while Judas himself was the agent of the handing over. And woe not only to Judas but to all betrayers of Christ. For whoever hands over the disciples of Christ hands over Christ himself. So they are handed over by the devil, yet through those men; and therefore woe to them. For if the devil works all malice in men through men, then whoever is killed by someone, even if not by the devil himself, is yet killed through him. And if a judge kills someone by passing an unjust sentence of death on him, it must be understood that he, giving place to the devil in himself, has made himself the devil's agent for killing an innocent man. “It would have been good for that man if he had not been born”: that is, it would have been good for him not to have been born, because he was not worthy even of this good, to be born. But since, by his own free choice, he had made himself fit for this service of betrayal to be accomplished through him, he was born to his own harm, so as to fall into the evil he deserved by his own purpose. “And Judas answered and said: Is it I, Rabbi?” And see how Judas, waiting for all that Christ would say about him, did not cut short Christ's account with his answer, but answered after all the others, saying, “Is it I, Rabbi?” He did so not from a desire to learn, but by the custom of naming the Master, calling him Master as if mocking him, since he was called master though in Judas's eyes he was not worthy of the name. “And Jesus said to him: You have said it,” so as to judge him out of his own mouth; since he had said, as if in doubt, “Is it I, Rabbi?”, not doubting in his conscience, but pretending to doubt about it. For he did not have the fear which the other apostles had; without fear he spoke as one afraid. And so perhaps, after all the apostles had asked one by one, and after Christ's account of him, he too at last, with reluctance, asked, as from a certain calculation and crafty design, so that by asking the same as the other apostles he might meanwhile conceal his plan of betrayal. For true and pressing sorrow does not endure delay, as that of the apostles did not.

“While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and giving thanks, broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying: Take and eat; for this is my body. And taking the cup and giving thanks, he gave it to them, saying: Drink of this, all of you; for this is the blood of the new covenant, which will be poured out for many for the remission of sins.” This bread, which God the Word confesses to be his body, is the word that nourishes souls, the word proceeding from God the Word, and bread from the heavenly bread, which is set on the table of which it is written: “You have prepared a table before me against those who afflict me.” And this drink, which God the Word confesses to be his blood, is the word that gives drink to the hearts of those who drink and gloriously inebriates them; it is in the cup of which it is written: “And your inebriating cup, how glorious it is!” And this drink is the fruit of the true vine, which says, “I am the true vine”; and it is the blood of that grape which, put into the winepress of the passion, brought forth this drink. So too the bread is the word of Christ made from that wheat which, falling into the ground, yielded much fruit. For it was not that visible bread which he held in his hands that God the Word called his body, but the word in whose mystery that bread was to be broken. Nor did he call that visible drink his blood, but the word in whose mystery that drink was to be poured out. For what else can the body or the blood of God the Word be but the word that nourishes and the word that gladdens the heart? But why did he not say, “This is the bread of the new covenant,” as he said, “This is the blood of the new covenant”? Because the bread is the word of righteousness, by eating which souls are nourished; but the drink is the word of the knowledge of Christ according to the mystery of his birth and passion. Since, then, God's covenant with us has been established in the blood of Christ's passion, so that, believing that the Son of God was born and suffered according to the flesh, we may be saved, not by righteousness, in which alone, without faith in the passion of Christ, there could be no salvation, therefore it was said only of the cup: “This is the cup of the new covenant.”