The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 1 — Section 38

less gloom of the three days, this has travelled far into the past. It is no wonder. A little time suffices for dawn to drive away the darkness. How differently this present interva.l of ten days 'is passing I So when d1nkncss, storm, and fear arc vanishing, nil is hushed.in peaceful prayer, and the Church "waits" with a just and blissful expectancy !-B. Vers. 16-20, 25.-Judas, his oppo,·tunity and his t1"eatme11t of it. "Concerning J udRs, which was guide . . . might go to his own place." 'l'ho treason of Judas is rl'lated by every one of the evangelists; but bis subsequent history no one of them as 5Ucb even alludes to, except St. Matthew. The Evangelist St. Luke, however, here gives it, in bis capacity of historian of the" Acts of the Apostles." What be reports St. Peter as saying is not in verbal harmony with what St. Matthew says. But there is not the slightest difficulty in seeing the way to a real and perfect harmony. 'l'he only difficulty is in declaring absolutely that one way and not another is the authoritative harmony. That Judas" fell headlong and burst asunder" is a very easy sequel to his" banging himself." And that the chief priests took counsel, and determined to buy with the abandoned thirty pieces of silver the potter's field, and to devote it to the burial of strangers, is also a very conceivable sequel. It may be it was but the carrying into effect of a bargain which the covetousness of Judas had contemplated and bad arranged for-all but the transfer of the money and the thereby "completion of purchase." The chief priests bear of this, and in their prrplexity and desire to get rid of the accursed thirty pieces of silver, they close at once with the proposing vendor, whoever be was; but while they devote their purchase to an object the same, the purpose was very different from that which Judas bad grown in a covetous mind. We may be tolerably sure he bought for some sort of further gain. 'l'hey adapt (adsit omen) to a burial-ground. Once, such an end to such a career, of a professed disciple of the Lord, was unique, and then, for that reason, it would fascinate study. It not long remained so, alas! and for that reason, that practical, alarming reason, it has been suggesting for centuries, and still to this day it suggests-ay, it demands-solemn, heart-searching study. Let us get beneath our eye- L WJIAT INl"OBlU.TION WE HAVE TO BEST UPON IN FOR:MING A JUDGMENT RESPECTING JUDAS AND HIS ClllllACTEB. I. He was called in the same way as, at all events, 11, majority of the whole number of the twelve disciples were called. So far as we know, there was nothing special or emphatic in the circumstances that accompanied his call (Matt. L 2--4; Mark iii. 13-19; Luke vi. 12-19). St. John says nothing whatever of the call of Judas; but that he knew something about it is evident from his allu- sion to Christ's foreknowledge (John vi. 64, 70, 71). Why Christ, with his admitted perfect foreknowledge, did call Judas to be an immediate attendant upon him, is a question that cannot be answered, perhaps. Bnt three things may be remarked upon it: (1) 'l'hat Christ certainly did not do Judas harm, but gave him the grandest possible opportunity of help towards subduing whatever may have been his master-sin, by permitting his special and constant association with him and his other disciples. (~) Thate.tall events Christ did not, in calling Judas to the circle of his disciples, call one who would betray another, and have favourable opportunity of betraying another thereby, bot only himself. Jesus bore all the pain and suffered all the loss of what be did himself; he did not scatter harm in the path of others. (3) That after all, in deep principle, Jesus did nothing different from what bas ever since been transpiring under his Name, wherever his Name is known. His Church now-and his Church is his representative-admits within its most really hallowed enclosure many a traitor. It is true, not with foreknowledge; it is true, pleading ever, as its apology when discovered, its own confessed fallibility; and, let it be true also, that it is this which strikes us as constituting the difference. But is it to be so regarded? Without leaving out of siubt for one moment Christ's foreknowledge and infallibility of foreknowledge, we m7ist bring into sight the fact that this is traversed by another most evident principle and practice on the part of Jesus, which reveal him ever beforehand sharing the lot of his Church, and intending to share it in disappointment, in deception on the part of others, in woe as in weaL On much the same principle that Jesus did not take ad vantage of his ability to command stones into bread, so he does not t~ke certain kinds of e.dve.ntage from his foreknowledge, And what we have under consideration is  OH, L 1-20.] 'fllE AU'fS OF 'l'HE APOSTLES. 33