The Destruction of Judas

(Matthew 27:3-10).

Only the Evangelist Matthew tells us about the further fate of Judas the traitor. "When Judas saw Him, betraying Him, as you would condemn Him, he repented, return the thirty pieces of silver as a bishop and an elder" – it is possible, of course, that Judas did not expect a death sentence for Jesus, or in general, blinded by the love of money, did not think about the consequences to which his betrayal would lead. When his Master was condemned, his conscience, already satiated with the possession of silver, suddenly awoke in him: all the horror of his insane act appeared before it. He repented, but, unfortunately for him, this repentance was combined in him with despair, and not with hope for the all-forgiving mercy of God. This repentance is only an unbearable torment of conscience, without any hope of correction, which is why it is fruitless, useless, and why it drove Judas to suicide. "Returned thirty pieces of silver" — what had seemed so tempting to him a short time ago, now that his conscience had spoken, seemed disgusting to him. Such is every sin in general. He should not have thrown down the pieces of silver before the chief priests, but had himself prostrated himself before the Lord Jesus Christ, beseeching Him for the forgiveness of his sin, and then, of course, he would have been forgiven. But he thinks, without help from above, by his own efforts alone, to somehow correct what he has done: he returns the silver, bearing witness at the same time: "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood." This testimony, in the words of St. Chrysostom, multiplies the guilt of both him and them, the high priests: "His because he did not repent, or repented, but it was too late, and pronounced condemnation for himself, for he himself confessed that he had betrayed the Lord in vain; multiplies their guilt because, while they could have repented and changed their thoughts, they did not repent." They treated Judas heartlessly, coldly, and mockingly: "What have we to do with that? See for yourself." This indicates their extreme moral coarseness. "And having cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, he went out: he went and hanged himself." He threw the money they had not taken from his hands in the church, thinking, perhaps, by this to calm the torments of his conscience, but in vain: these torments drove him to such despair that he went and hanged himself, after which he probably fell from the height on which he hung, since Ap. Peter in the book. Acts (1:18) testifies that "when he was cast down, his belly was split open, and all his intestines fell out."

For all their depravity, the chief priests nevertheless recognized that it was impossible to use this money for the benefit of the temple — "to invest it in the korban," that is, in the treasury of the church, since it was the "Price of Blood." However, they were probably based on Deut. 23:18, and in this case their extremely evil feeling towards the Lord Jesus Christ was revealed, as it was also revealed in the fact that they appreciated His betrayal with 30 pieces of silver. The Pharisees are strikingly characterized by this desire to fulfill a less important law while violating a more important one — not to condemn the innocent. "With them she bought a village of skudelniche" – the field of a well-known potter, good for nothing, since clay was dug there and pots were burned, "For the burial of strangers" – Jews and proselytes, who gathered in great numbers in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover and other great feasts. Then the words of Jeremiah the prophet came to pass: "And having accepted thirty pieces of silver, the price of the Precious One, the children of Israel valued it: "And they gave a potter for the land." We do not find anything similar to these words in the prophet Jeremiah: the only place in 32:7 speaks of the fact of buying a field at all. It is possible that this is an insertion by a later copyist. Similar sayings are found in another prophet, Zechariah, in 11:12-13. Chapters 18-19 of the prophet Jeremiah also speak of the potter, and it is possible that Zechariah took his image from there. In addition, in ancient times it was customary to abbreviate proper names, and it is possible that the scribe, instead of the name of Zechariah (ZRIU), mistakenly put the name of Jeremiah (IRIU). The meaning of this passage from the book of the prophet Zechariah is as follows: the prophet was appointed by God to shepherd the sheep of the house of Israel, as the representative of the Supreme Shepherd of God. The Jews did not heed the prophet, that is, they did not heed God Himself. In order to clearly show the Jews how little they value the care of the prophet and, consequently, God Himself, God commands the prophet to ask them: what payment will they give him for his pastoral labors? They gave him the price of a slave – 30 pieces of silver, that is, they valued the works of the prophet and, consequently, of God Himself for them, as insignificant, as the works of a slave. Then God said to the prophet, "Throw them into the storehouse of the church, the high (irony, of course) price they have valued Me! And I took (says the prophet) thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord for the potter (Zech. 11:11-12). This prophecy was fulfilled in the tradition of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Jews valued their Good Shepherd Jesus Christ at 30 pieces of silver — the price of a slave — and with this money they then bought a field from a potter.

At Pilate's trial

(Matt. 27:1-2, 11-32; Mark 15:1-19; Luke 23:1-25 and John 18:28-19:16).

"And having bound Him, they led Him away, and delivered Him up to Pontius Pilate the governor" — From the time of the subjugation of Judea to the Romans, the Sanhedrin was deprived of the right to punish criminals with death, which is also evident from John. 18:31. The stoning of Stephen was an arbitrary act. According to the law, those accused of blasphemy were stoned, but the Jews, unconsciously fulfilling the will of God, wanted to give the Lord Jesus Christ a more shameful death – crucifixion – and for this purpose, after the death sentence had been pronounced by the Sanhedrin, they took Him to the Pontius Pilate hegemon, that is, the governor.

Pontius, nicknamed Pilate, was the fifth procurator, or governor of Judea. He was appointed to this position in 26 A.D. From the Roman Emperor. Tiberias. A proud, haughty and cruel man, but at the same time cowardly and cowardly, he hated the Jews and, in turn, was hated by them. Soon after the crucifixion of Christ, he was summoned to Rome for trial, imprisoned in Vienna (in southern Galina) and there committed suicide. Procurators usually lived in Caesarea, but on the feast of Passover they moved to Jerusalem to observe order.

The most detailed account of Pilate's trial is given by the Holy Evangelist John. He says that the Jews took Jesus to the praetorium, that is, the court chamber of the Roman governor, probably in the fortress or near the fortress of Antonieva, northwest of the temple, in which the Roman garrison was stationed. Touching anything pagan was considered a defilement, and therefore they did not enter inside, so as not to prevent the eating of Passover (a clear indication that the Passover came on that day in the evening, and that Christ ate the Passover on the eve of the feast, but sacrificed Himself, as the true Lamb of the Passover, on the very day of the coming of the Old Testament Passover, which was the prototype of His suffering). Pilate, making in this case a concession to Jewish customs (it is known that the Romans tried to spare the habits and customs of the conquered peoples, so as not to turn them too much against themselves), himself went out to them on the lithostroton — an open elevated place in front of the procurator's dwelling (stone platform from the Greek lithos, lithos — stone) — and asked: "What do you accuse Him of?" the third with the accusations of the Lord on the part of those who brought Him, and St. John with Pilate's question to those who brought the Lord: thus, St. John begins from the very beginning and then, in the entire description, adheres to a more detailed and consistent order of legal proceedings, supplementing the narratives of the first three Evangelists.

"What evil has He done? I found nothing worthy of death in Him" – the Jews did not want a new trial of the case of Jesus: they hoped that Pilate would only be the executor of the sentence they had pronounced. Pilate understood well what kind of people he was dealing with, and therefore immediately put the accusers in the proper position in relation to himself as a representative of the Roman authorities: I cannot condemn without hearing the case, and therefore, "Take Him, and judge Him according to your law." The Sanhedrin was indeed granted the right to condemn and carry out certain punishments without the approval of the Roman authorities: it was impossible only to punish with death. Pilate also offers them to use their right. Changing their proud tone to a submissive one, the Jews confess that their rights are limited, and they cannot put to death a criminal worthy of death: "It is not fit for us to kill anyone, "that the word of Jesus may come to pass, as He said, by what death He wanted to die." The Lord indeed prophesied more than once that He would be delivered up to the Gentiles (Matt. 20:19), that He would be lifted up from the earth, that is, crucified (Matt. 26:2; John 12:32). The enemies of Christ were then compelled to expound their accusations against Christ, which we find in St. Luke: "We found that He corrupts our people, and forbids us to give tribute to Caesar, calling Himself Christ the King" (Luke 23:2)—the crafty hypocrites, who hate the Romans themselves, invent this slanderous accusation of a purely political nature in order to more easily obtain the confirmation of the death sentence for Jesus. To this accusation, as St. John relates (John 18:33), Pilate privately, inside the praetorium, asked Jesus: "Are you the King of the Jews?" – "Do you say this on your own behalf, or have others told you about Me?" the Lord asked to this: it was necessary to know what the origin of this question was – if Pilate himself came to him, then it was necessary to answer "no", because Christ was not a king in the sense of Pilate; if Pilate's question is only a repetition of what the Jews said, then the answer should have been in the affirmative, for Christ was indeed the King of Truth.

Christ was not the political king of the Jews, but was the theocratic king of the universe. The Lord wanted to force Pilate to express himself in what sense he used the word "king" in relation to him, that is, whether he himself accused Him of arrogating this title to Himself or only repeated the accusation of the Jews. Pilate's answer breathes contempt for Judaism: "Am I a Jew? Thy people and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?" — that is, he does not admit any royal dignity in Christ, but only wants to know why the people and the chief priests betrayed him, accusing him of arrogating to himself the title of king. Jesus answers: "My kingdom is not of this world" – the Lord affirms that He is indeed a king, but not in the political, but in the spiritual sense of the word, not such a king as you imagine. "And Pilate said to him, 'Are you therefore a king?'" – realizing that Jesus is not a political pretender to an earthly kingdom, Pilate expresses doubts about the possibility of the existence of any other spiritual kingdom. Then the Lord confirms that He is indeed the King, the King of the spiritual Kingdom of Truth, and came to earth in order to bear witness to the Truth, meaning by "Truth," of course, the religious truth of His Divine teaching. His subjects are those who are able to listen to this Truth. Pilate, of course, as a rude pagan, could not understand these words of the Lord and disdainfully said: "What is truth?", but he understood that the Kingdom of Jesus was not political and did not threaten Roman rule in any way.

The pagan Greco-Roman world at that time had reached such mental and moral corruption that it lost faith in the possibility of the existence of truth in general and did not believe that there was truth. An expression of this desperate disbelief in the truth is Pilate's historical question: "What is the truth?", the answer to which he did not even want to hear, but simply went out to the Jews and declared that he did not find any guilt in Jesus. This statement deeply wounded the pride of the members of the Sanhedrin, and they, as the first three Evangelists relate, began to persistently accuse the Lord of many things, wishing at all costs to achieve His condemnation.

The Lord kept a continuous silence at this, "so that the governor was greatly amazed" (Matt. 27:14). Then they mentioned that He was stirring up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, beginning with Galilee (Luke 23:5), and Pilate, then asking: "Is He a Galilean?", sent Him to King Herod, who was also living in Jerusalem on the occasion of the feasts. The Lord's judgment before Herod is reported only by the Evangelist Luke in 23:7-12. Pilate probably hoped to obtain from Herod more definite information about the person and case of the accused, which was not entirely clear to him. From the further remark of St. Luke that Pilate and Herod became friends from that time, we can conclude that Pilate deliberately sent the Lord to Herod, wishing in this way to put an end to the enmity that existed between them. Perhaps he hoped to get a favorable opinion of Jesus from Herod in order to deliver the Lord from the hands of His persistent accusers. It is not without reason that he later points out that Herod did not find in Him anything worthy of death (Luke 23:15).

Herod was very happy to see Jesus. This was the same Herod Antipas who killed John the Baptist, and when he heard about the works of Christ, he thought that this was John who had risen from the dead. Herod hoped to see a miracle from the Lord: not in order to believe in Him, but to satiate his eyesight, just as we look at the spectacles as sorcerers imagine that they swallow a serpent, swords, etc., and are amazed (Bl. Theophylact). Herod, apparently, considered the Lord to be something like a magician. He also asked Him many questions, hoping to hear something interesting, but the Lord kept complete silence to all his questions. The chief priests and scribes incessantly accused the Lord, probably proving that His preaching was as dangerous for Herod as it was for Caesar. Having mocked the Lord, Herod clothed Him in a white robe and sent Him back to Pilate. The Romans wore white (light) clothes for candidates for any managerial or honorable position (the word "candidate" itself comes from the Latin "candidus", which means white, light). By dressing the Lord in such a garment, Herod wanted to express that he looked upon Jesus only as an amusing pretender to the Jewish throne and did not consider Him a serious and dangerous criminal. That is how Pilate understood it.