And gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me.
All Commentaries on Matthew 27:10 Go To Matthew 27
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
De Cons. Ev., iii, 7: But if any one thinks this lowers the historian’s credit, first let him know that not all the copies of the Gospels have the nameHieremias, but some simply “by the Prophet. "And why He should have so determined, the first reason is, that it would convey the wonderful consent of the Prophets, who all spake by one Spirit, which is much greater than if all the words of allthe Prophets had been uttered through the mouth of one man; so that we receive without doubt whatever the Holy Spirit spake through them, each word belongs toall in common, and the whole is the utterance of each. Suppose it to happen at this day, that in repeating another’s words one should mention not the speaker's name, but that of some other person, who however was the other’s greater friend, and then immediately recollecting himself should correct himself, hemight yet add, Yet am I right, if you only think of the close unanimity that exists between the two. How much more is this to be observed of the holyProphets!There is a second reason why the nameHieremias should be suffered to remain in this quotation from Zacharias, or rather why it should have been suggested by the Holy Spirit. It is said inHieremias, that he bought a field of his brother’s son, and gave him silver forit, though not indeed the sum stated in Zacharias, thirty pieces of silver. That the Evangelist has here adapted the thirty pieces of silver in Zacharias to this transaction in the Lord’s history, is plain; but he may also wish to convey that what Hieremias speaks of the field is mystically alluded tohere, and therefore he puts not the name of Zacharias who spoke of the thirty pieces of silver, but of Hieremias who spoke of the purchase of the field. So that in reading the Gospel and finding the name of Hieremias, but not finding there the passage respecting the thirty pieces of silver, but the account of the purchase of the field, the reader might be induced to compare the two together, and so extract from them the sense of the prophecy, how far it refers to what was now accomplished in the Lord.
Hieron. in loc.: I have lately read in a Hebrew book given me by a Hebrew of the Nazarene sect, an apocryphal Hieremias, in which I find the very words here quoted. After all, I am rather inclined to think that the passage was taken by Matthew out of Zacharias, in the usual manner of the Apostles and Evangelists when they quote from the Old Testament, neglecting the words, and attending only to the sense.
