And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.
All Commentaries on Matthew 27:5 Go To Matthew 27
Theophylact of Ochrid
AD 1107
Judas began to have second thoughts and he repented, but it was not a good repentance. To pass judgement against oneself is good, but to hang oneself is of the devil; for Judas was not able to endure the thought of the reproaches that would later be heaped upon him and so he fled from this life, when he ought instead to have wept and reconciled himself to Him Whom he had betrayed. Some say that Judas in his greed believed that he himself could gain the silver by betraying Christ, without Christ actually being slain, as He would escape from the Jews as He had done on many occasions. But when Judas saw that Jesus had been condemned and already sentenced to die, he repented that the affair had not turned out as he had planned. Whereupon he hanged himself thinking to precede Jesus into hades and there to plead for his own salvation. Nevertheless, know that while he did put his neck into the noose and hanged himself from a tree, the tree bent and he survived, as God wanted to save his life, either so that he could gain the silver by betraying Christ, without Christ actually being slain, as He would escape from the Jews as He had done on many occasions. But when Judas saw that Jesus had been condemned and already sentenced to die, he repented that the affair had not turned out as he had planned. Whereupon he hanged himself thinking to precede Jesus into hades and there to plead for his own salvation. Nevertheless, know that while he did put his neck into the noose and hanged himself from a tree, the tree bent and he survived, as God wanted to save his life, either so that he could repent, or to make an example of him and to shame him. They say that Judas later became so bloated from dropsy that he could not pass through an opening that a wagon could easily pass through; and then falling face forward he burst asunder, or ruptured, as Luke says in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1:18).
