Note 97 — Chapter III · RETIREMENT TO THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, ARREST, TRIAL, CONDEMNATION AND CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS.

A tradition referred to Papias appears to be allied to the narrative in the Acts rather than to that of Matthew. Œcumenius, quoting the above collector of traditions, says, that Judas, as an awful example of impiety, had his body distended to such a degree, that a space where a chariot could pass was no longer sufficiently wide for him, and that at last being crushed by a chariot, he burst asunder and all his bowels were pressed out.97 The latter statement doubtless arose from a misconstruction of the ancient legend; for the chariot was not originally brought into immediate contact with the body of Judas, but was merely used as a measure of his size, and this was afterwards erroneously understood as if a chariot in passing had crushed the swollen body of Judas. Hence, not only in Theophylact and in an ancient Scholium,98 without any distinct reference to Papias, but also in a Catena with an express citation of his εξηγήσεις, we actually find the fact narrated without that addition.99 The monstrous swelling of Judas, spoken of in this passage, might, it is supposed, originally be only an explanation of the displacing and protrusion of the viscera, and in like manner the dropsy into which Theophylact represents him as falling might be regarded as an explanation of this swelling: when, however, in Ps. cix., applied in the Acts to Judas, amongst other maledictions, we read: ‏וַתָּבֹא (קְלָלָה) כַּמַּיִם בְּקִרְבּוֹ‎ LXX: εἰσῆλθεν (ἡ κατάρα) ὡσεὶ ὕδωρ εἰς τὰ ἔνκατα αὐτοῦ, so let it (cursing) come into his bowels like water (v. 18): it appears possible that the dropsical disease, νόσος ὑδερικὴ, may have been also taken from this passage; as also one of the features in the monstrous description which Papias gives of the condition of Judas, namely, that from the enormous swelling of his eyelids he could no longer see the light of day, might remind us of v. 23 in the other psalm applied to Judas, where, among the curses this is enumerated: Let their eyes be darkened that they see not, σκοτισθήτωσαν οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ αὐτῶν τοῦ μὴ βλέπειν, a hindrance to sight, which when once the swollen body of Judas was presupposed, must necessarily assume the form of a swelling up of the eyelids. If then the tradition which is allied to the account in Acts i. developed its idea of the end of Judas chiefly in correspondence with the ideas presented in these two psalms; and if in that passage of the Acts itself the account of the connexion of Judas with the piece of ground is derived from the same source: it is no farfetched conjecture that what is said in the Acts concerning the end of the betrayer may have had a similar origin. That he died an early death may be historical; but even if not so, in Psalm cix. in the very same verse (v. 8), which contains the transfer of the office, ἐπισκοπὴ, to another, an early death is predicted for the betrayer in the words: Let his days be few, γενηθήτωσαν αἱ ἡμέραι αὐτοῦ ὀλίγαι, and it might also be believed that the death by falling headlong also was gathered from Ps. lxix. 22, where it is said: Let their table become a snare before them, γενηθήτω ἡ τράπεζα αὐτῶν—εἰς σκάνδαλον (‏לִמוֹקֵשׁ‎).