Therefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Wherefore that field was called Arcedama. A Chaldee word. The Ethiopic and Persian versions agree as to its meaning. Adrichomius (Descr. Jerus. Numbers 216) describes the spot, and a peculiar property of the soil, that it destroys within a few hours the dead bodies which are placed in it, a property which it preserves even when taken elsewhere. Some of it the Empress Helena is said to have taken to Rome, where it forms the Campo Santo. "It still retains," says Cornelius, "the same property."
Tropologically: "The field bought for strangers with Christ"s Blood is the Church (S. Chrysostom in loc.; S. Augustine, Serm. cxiv. de Temp.), and particularly the state of "Religious," who count themselves strangers upon earth, and citizens of Heaven, and of the household of God," &c. See also
1 Peter 2:11, where S. Chrysostom says, "Nothing is more blessed than this burial, over which all rejoice, both angels and men, and the Lord of angels. For if this life is not our life, but our life is hidden, we ought to live here as though we were dead." So S. Paul, Colossians 3:3. It was perhaps for this symbolical reason that this soil possessed the remarkable property mentioned above. See Comment. on Acts 1:18-19.
