And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in.
Read Chapter 27
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And they look counsel, and bought with them the potter"s field, to bury strangers in. "They saw," says Origen, "that it was most fitting that, as the price of blood, it should be expended on the dead and their place of burial."
Strangers: for the inhabitants had their own burial-places. And God so ordered it that this field should be a standing witness both of Judas" repentance and of Christ"s innocence. "The name," says S. Chrysostom, proclaims their bloody deed with trumpet tongue, for had they cast it into the treasury, the circumstances would not have been made so clearly known to future generations."
Symbolically: It was thus signified that the price of Christ"s Blood would benefit not Jews only, but strangers, the Gentiles, i.e, who would hereafter believe on Him. So Hilary, "It belongs not to Israel, but is solely for the use of strangers."
Burying-place. this the Pharisees did, as a show of their charity to strangers; but their intention, according to St. Jerome, was to disgrace Jesus; thus to keep alive in the minds of the people, that he was sold by one of his own disciples, and delivered up to a disgraceful death. (Denis the Carthusian)
This was the case with the Jews without their being conscious of it. For if they had cast it into the treasury, the thing would not have been so clearly discovered; but now having bought a piece of ground, they made it all manifest even to subsequent generations.
Hear ye as many as think to do good works out of murders, and take a reward for the lives of men. These almsgiving are Judaical, or rather they are Satanical. For there are, there are now also they, that take by violence countless things belonging to others, and think that an excuse is made for all if they cast in some ten or a hundred gold pieces.
Touching whom also the prophet says, You covered my altar with tears. Malachi 2:13 Christ is not willing to be fed by covetousness, He accepts not this food. Why do you insult your Lord, offering Him unclean things? It is better to leave men to pine with hunger, than to feed them from these sources. That was the conduct of a cruel man, this of one both cruel and insolent. It i...
