He went out from the faith, he went out from the counsel and number of the apostles, he went out from the banquet of Christ to the brigandage of the devil, he went out from the grace of sanctification to the snare of death—he who spoke vain things to the faithless; he went forth who left behind the inward mysteries of life; he went out who knew not the inner things of Scripture. For if he had known, he would have understood the one who says: 'Shall not he that sleeps add to it, that he may rise again?' He would also have understood that other word: 'But thou, a man of one mind, my guide and my familiar, who didst always take sweet food with me, we walked in the house of the Lord with consent.' He understood not, then, this psalm, nor the hundred and eighth, nor others, nor other testimonies of the Scriptures.
Concerning whom the evangelist John says well, of him and the rest of the faithless: 'They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us.' The traitor therefore did not remain with the apostles, he who went out and whispered with the faithless. By which word divine Scripture has shown that faithlessness is without authority, since it fears that what it speaks may be detected. But to the faithful it is said: 'Lift up thy voice with strength.' See from what a height the apostle Judas had fallen, who had been sent to preach the faith to the nations with full proclamation of authority, that he should whisper into the ear of those who lay in wait for his Master what he feared to have heard. Did he not condemn himself by his own judgement? But he blushed to be heard at what he did not fear to do;
he blushed, because against the author of his life, of his sanctification and honour, he was plotting evil, and was not repaying grace with benefits, but returning evil for good to his good Master—which even men of the world are wont to condemn; he blushed to be caught as ungrateful, he blushed to be seen as greedy, since for money he was betraying the salvation of his own author; he blushed to be seen faithless. So likewise the Jews, who in their faithlessness suborned false witnesses against the master of the faith, to say that he had preached that the temple of God which Solomon built should be destroyed, whereas he had meant the temple of his own body: 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' Truly they were outside, who were shut out from the knowledge of the heavenly word.
'They set forth an unjust word against me,' he says: that is, they put forth against me an unlawful speech, contrary to right and divine law, making bargains over human blood, which Judas most wickedly sold, and which the Jews believed must be bought with no lesser crime—most vain men, as though one who sleeps shall not add to it, that he may rise again. Let us consider what 'addition' means. It is natural to all earthly living creatures, and to the birds of heaven and the fishes of the sea, to be born and to die; but to man, whom God had made more precious than the other living things of the earth, he chiefly granted this grace, that being dead he should live again. This is called the 'addition' unto the renewal of the former life.
In short, even to King Hezekiah, when the Lord had foretold that the time of his life was fulfilled, and had charged him through Isaiah to set his house in order because he was to die, and when he had prayed to the Lord and wept with great weeping, the Lord, having had compassion, charged him: 'Behold, I add to thy time fifteen years.' And elsewhere holy David says: 'Thou wilt add days upon the days of the king, his years.' Something to be added, then, has been found for man, but to God nothing can be added, because it is written: 'There is nothing to add nor to take away,' in whom all things are perfect and full. And although Christ rose again, he rose indeed in that which he had assumed, in which nothing could either be diminished from or added to the fullness of his divinity.
For God is incorporeal and immortal, whose supreme nature and fullness of virtues is marked without any accession of flesh. But the flesh of the dispensation is in Christ, which he took up by the title of mercy and the right of compassion, that he might redeem the captive, cleanse the defiled, raise the dead. And beautifully he says: 'Shall not he that sleeps add to it, that he may rise again?' He did not say 'it is not added,' but 'he shall not add, that he may rise again,' because the Son of God himself raised himself, just as we said above that he had said to the Jews: 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.'
The flesh received the addition, as though taken from man, assumed from the Virgin; but as God he wrought that very addition, who rose again by his own power, so as to be the worker of his own resurrection. When you read that both the Father raised the Son, and the Son raised himself, recognize that that operation belonged to the divine power, because to the Father and the Son there is one power, a common operation, since the substance of the Trinity is one and the same. 'But why do I accuse the rest?' says the Lord Jesus; 'what wonder if the people did not know me and condemned me to the cross, when my own apostle exacted the wages of betrayal, when my own table-companion sold my death?
For indeed the man of my peace, in whom I hoped, who ate my bread, magnified his supplanting over me.' Some think Judas should be excused, because he gave back the money he had received as the price of the purchase. But behold, he is condemned beyond the unbelief of the Jews; for to whom more is given, more is required of him. 'Why,' he says, 'should I complain of the others? The man of my peace, to whom I had given my peace, to whom I had wished to leave my peace, betrayed me when my persecutors were brought, and deceived me in whom I had hoped.' Did he not know that his own betrayer was to come, of whom he foretold beforehand: 'One of you shall betray me'? [This he said of Judas, as it is written in the Gospel.] By no means.
But that he might condemn him the more, he said that he had hoped in his faith. Aquila said 'I had trusted,' Symmachus put 'I was confiding.' For we burden the more heavily the one in whom we say we had the greatest hope or confidence, if afterward he disappoints our hope and expectation. At the same time he shows how great is the power of divine sanctification, which excludes malice and amends a depraved disposition, if the form of a better purpose draws near. How many do we know to have been converted! That Zacchaeus the publican was changed, intent with greedy affection upon gain, who afterward by a fourfold restitution paid for his error, condemned avarice in himself, abjured the gains of former times, made compensation to the poor man, were the claimant lacking.
The thief himself changed his wickedness by a better purpose, recognized Christ upon the cross, confessed the Son of God, named him King with his own voice. At a time when most of the just were wavering, when the apostles themselves were certainly in hiding, the executioner himself, the centurion, did not deny him. Why do I speak of the time of the Gospel? Rahab was a harlot, who nourished herself on the wages of faithlessness and intemperance. Yet when she saw the spies whom Jesus son of Nun had sent, she put on faith, and amid imminent peril preserved righteousness, and did not betray those she had received, but protected them with faithful kindness.
Therefore he says that he had hoped, as though he had reasonably presumed that the apostle would lay aside his former things and follow what was better, and that one who had received the office of sanctifying others would himself keep in himself the grace of holiness and cleave to the duties of sincerity. Well does he say 'I hoped,' because he gave to man the free choice of what he should follow. 'I have set before thee,' he says, 'good and evil.' If you choose evil, it is not nature that sins, but the disposition of the chooser. If each man who has chosen evil is condemned, what shall we say of Judas, who betrayed him to whom he was joined by the sweetness of the banquet? 'He who ate,' he says, 'my bread, magnified his supplanting over me.' What is it that he added, 'my bread'? He could have said:
'who ate bread with me,' unless you understand that which is proper to Christ, that is, the nourishment of the heavenly word; for man does not live on bread alone, but on every word of God. In short, elsewhere he says: 'Who didst always take sweet food with me.' By which verses we may well use against those who have believed that those with whom they seem to have feasted ought to be slain. The Gentiles are remembered to observe this; enemies for the most part, even robbers, that they spare those with whom they recline. [By that very fellowship of food they grow gentle; whence, on account of such an affection of convivial grace, if we consider the words, not idly did he call it 'sweet food.' For how are those sweet which quickly are corrupted? But see whether by 'sweet food' he meant the words of life;
for no bitterness corrupts these foods, no corruption of death defiles them. Whence also he said 'always.' For not always can one eat, but always can we cleave to the word of God, both by night and by day, if we meditate on the law of God day and night. What too is 'magnified'? The Greek said emegalynen, that is, 'he made great.' The Lord has expounded to us both, which might trouble us, saying in the Gospel: 'He that eats bread with me has lifted up his heel against me.' Let us consider whence this saying was taken: 'We were,' he says, 'unbelieving, erring, serving desires and pleasures.' Let us confess our error, that we may be cleansed.
And I myself, as a boy, saw an athlete who, when he had thrown his adversary, struck his forehead with his heel, which was a sign that he insulted the vanquished. This is what he says: 'He magnified his supplanting over me,' by which word he declared the boasting of one who insults. Judas therefore lifted up his heel over Christ when he betrayed him, but he did not lift it up unpunished. Still Adam lifts up the heel that was wounded by the serpent. And surely Christ had washed his feet, he had heard him saying: 'He that is washed needs only to wash his feet, but is wholly clean.' But what grace had washed, faithlessness had defiled. Judas therefore lifted up his heel unto a wound. Truly he did not hold the head who lifted up his heel over Christ.
Adam lifted it up over himself, this man over Christ; and therefore the serpent wounded him more grievously than the rest. He lifted up his heel who held out a fraudulent kiss, by which he might supplant the Author; and therefore it is written in the prophet: 'He magnified his supplanting over me.' Esau too says of his brother: 'He has now supplanted me twice.' He who supplants commits a deceit, by which he overthrows or wounds the adversary. Therefore Judas also is said to have supplanted, because by his kiss he fixed a wound, by which he showed the persecutors the sign for assailing the Saviour. He supplanted, then, like a serpent, which pours venom from its own mouth and wounds the heel with its tooth; for this man too wounded not the divinity of Christ, but the lowest heel of the body.
Judas also lifted up his heel like an insolent and proud wrestler, with which he might strike the head of the Saviour. But he could not strike the head of Christ, because the head of Christ is God. His own head, however, he bound with the knot of a shapeless noose, that he might take from himself the remedy of salvation. See whether you can devoutly apply that which the holy patriarch Jacob said in Genesis, when he prophesied concerning his sons: 'Dan shall judge his people as one tribe in Israel,' and: 'Let Dan be like a serpent sitting in the way and on the path, biting the heel of the horse, and the rider shall fall backward, awaiting salvation from the Lord.'
We read indeed that Samson of the tribe of Dan was a judge in Israel, but here another future one is signified, who, springing from that tribe, will afflict the people with the punishments of sacrilegious impiety—that Antichrist who shall sit in the temple as though he were God: truly judgement, which the interpretation holds; for Dan signifies judgement. And beautifully he said that he shall judge his own people, who shall become liable to perpetual punishment; for he who believes not is already judged, but he who believes shall not be judged, because he believes in the Son of God, the redeemer of his own soul. And therefore, as it were a book of judgement, he says: 'He that judges me is the Lord.' He is to judge, then, the people of impiety, not the multitude of faith;
for those are judged who fall in the ruin of faithlessness, not those who rise again in the liberty of faith. He shall sit, then, in the way and lie in wait on the path like a serpent, to wound those passing by and to bite the heel of our horse; for he shall not be able to wound the soul of the faithful. But in what way shall he sit, and on what path, save those from which Christ the Lord, as we read, called the people of the nations to his supper, saying: 'Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled'? And because it is likewise read that Judas magnified his supplanting over Christ, it seems that he himself is signified in this place, in that he was to bite the heel of the horse on which Christ the Lord was carried. Whence it is said:
'Thy cavalry is salvation,' because his flesh was to take upon itself the sin of the whole world, that salvation might come instead of destruction and eternal life instead of death. The horse, then, was wounded—not the lying horse, but the one alone unto salvation; the horse was wounded who took upon himself the sins of the whole world and bore our burdens and was not wearied; the horse was wounded who knew not how to whinny to the frenzy of mating. And therefore perhaps to John the evangelist heaven was opened, and a white horse was shown, upon which sat one having on his head diadems and on his thigh a name written: 'King of kings and Lord of lords.' White was he who was immaculate, who had known no defilements of sin.
For if lust is dark, rightly does holiness shine and gleam. This horse, then, was wounded, but not slowed. In short, with that very wound he rose from the tomb, ran to heaven above all angels and archangels, found swifter than all the cavalry of the heavenly host, swifter even than those fiery horses by which Elijah was caught up. And deservedly swifter, who ascended above all the heavens and above the heaven of heavens to the seat of God Almighty and sits there, as the Scripture has taught us, saying: 'Henceforth you shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power.'
This horse, accordingly, was shown beforehand in figure also in the time of the Maccabees, the one whom that leader of the heavenly host rode, gleaming in golden armour, who laid low and struck down Heliodorus, that plunderer of the widow's deposit and of the rest that had been entrusted to sacred keeping, and afterward, entreated by the prayers of Onias the priest, restored him to the use of life. Whence truly in him the golden arms gleamed, because he alone rode this horse and conquered, on which no one immune from fault escaped: not Enoch, who was caught up lest malice should change his heart; not Abraham, not Isaac, not Jacob, not Moses. For all are under sin, all under death. In short, death reigned from Adam unto Moses.
He alone is the one who committed no sin, Christ alone is the one who took away the sin of the world, who said to death: 'Where is thy victory, O death? Where is thy sting, O death?' How, then, did Judas magnify his supplanting over him, and the rider fell backward? What was in Judas, he did by deceit; what was in Christ, he suffered willingly. Often we see the stronger willing to be struck, that, the more sharply provoked, he may rise up and be more vehemently stirred. The serpent therefore bit the heel of the horse, vomited forth the venom of its fraud; the rider willingly cast himself down, willingly fell, that he might lift us up. Yet what is it that the Scripture says: 'and the rider shall fall backward'? Why backward, unless to lead back behind him those who follow? Behind was Peter, to whom he said:
'Get behind me'; behind were the apostles and the other disciples. Therefore he fell backward, because he saves those upon whom he falls. For everyone, he says, 'who falls upon this stone shall be shattered, but upon whomsoever it falls, it shall cleanse him.' Others have: 'it shall winnow him'; others: 'it shall crush him.' For he who winnows grain cleanses it from chaff; he who crushes something reduces it to dust, that by the softness of dust it may profit either as a healthful draught or as the rest of medicine. Whence we gather that care must be taken lest anyone, once received by Christ through baptism, should stray from his body—that is, be shaken off from the Church; for that itself is the ruin of perpetual death.
But him who comes about to believe in Christ, so that his death may find him, his cross take him up, his nail pierce, his blood pour over, his burial also enwrap him, the grace of his resurrection raise up, awaken from sleep, quicken from death—him, I say, he frees from the world, cleanses from sin, heals from the wound, bends back from the hardness of impiety, softens unto the gentleness of godliness, that with circumcised heart he may drink in that sweet and incomprehensible Spirit, may drink the cup of eternal salvation. The rider therefore fell backward. Receive also another reason why he fell backward. After him are all, none before him. He fell, then, not for himself, but for all, that by falling upon us he might soften the hardness of our heart.
He fell upon Adam, whom he was seeking, that he might find him. He sought him behind, that as the good Shepherd he might place him upon his shoulders and carry him with himself into paradise in the redemption of that thief. But perhaps you may say: 'The persecutors too fell backward; for so it is written, that the chief priests, whom the traitor Judas had brought, and the rest who had come to seize the Lord Jesus, went backward and fell to the ground.' This is exactly what I too say, that he willed to fall upon sinners, not upon the just; for the just man needs not a physician, but sinners do. If the apostles' shadow healed, how much more does the flesh of Christ defend from death those whom it touches! In short, he touched the leper and cleansed him without delay.
But that you who read may know that he willed to free even his persecutors, question the witness of Christ. For when Peter inveighed against the Jews, that they had killed the Prince of life, he showed the remedy, that they should do penance and deserve to have remitted to them the sin which they had committed. But why do you doubt that he therefore fell, that he might raise up, since he himself said: 'I will strike and I will heal'? Yet observe the difference of the words. In Genesis it has: 'The rider shall fall backward, awaiting salvation from the Lord'—that is, that he turn not his eyes from God, bend not back his own mind, may claim the prerogative of his own resurrection and raise himself by divine power. But here it has: 'They went backward and fell to the ground.'
He who is earthly falls to the earth, he who is heavenly cleaves to heaven. Even if he falls in body, he falls not in virtue, but ever strains toward the things that are above; for he ever looks to the Father, that he may fulfil his will concerning us. Would that these too had not gone backward, but had received Christ, as Joseph received him and buried him in a new sepulchre! He who is faithful does not fall to the earth; he who is unfaithful falls and descends into the lower parts of the earth, as it is written: 'Let them go down alive into hell.' Therefore the persecutor falls upon the earth and into hell; Christ falls upon those who shall rise again, Christ upon the rock, Christ upon the Church. Hear how he falls upon the Church.
Peter was behind and followed him, when he was led by the Jews to the house of Caiaphas, the chief of the synagogue. This is the Peter to whom he said: 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.' Where Peter is, there therefore is the Church; where the Church is, there is no death, but life eternal. And therefore he added: 'And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and to thee I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.' Blessed Peter, against whom the gate of hell did not prevail, against whom the gate of heaven did not shut itself; but on the contrary he destroyed the vestibules of hell, threw open the heavenly places. Placed on earth, therefore, he opened heaven and shut hell.
That too can fit this place, that the Samaritan did not pass by the man wounded by robbers as he was going down from Jericho, but took him up and cured his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him upon his own beast and led him to the inn. Why do you doubt about the good horse, when you have read of a good beast too, when you have read that into that Jerusalem there entered many horsemen and very many with four-horse chariots and cars? Nor let it move you that you have read: 'These in chariots and these on horses, but we will be magnified in the name of the Lord our God. They were bound and fell.' But Elijah did not fall, who entered by a chariot; for where the name of God is, there no one is bound, but all are absolved.
But in the name of our God both the poor man is safe and the rich and the noble and the ignoble and the weak and the powerful. And therefore, having the name of God in himself, he says: 'But thou, O Lord, have mercy on me and raise me up, and I will requite them.' This indeed he says, not as one doubting about the resurrection, who had it in his power to say: 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,' but he gives a pattern to man, that he may hope for mercy from God and resurrection from God. Then he asks not that he himself be raised up, but he requests that Matthias be raised up for him in the place of Judas, that the apostolic number may be filled.
For indeed, because it was necessary that the son of perdition should perish, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, it behoved that a son of salvation be substituted in his place. Receive a third meaning. He asks that he himself, that is, his body, be raised up; but the body of Christ is the Church. And because Judas was a figure of the unfaithful people of the Jews, who either bought or sold Christ for money—which they do who reckon money of more worth than religion—in place of the perishing of the unfaithful people he signifies that the grace of the Church shall rise again for him. Whence she herself also says in the Canticles: 'If you stir up and raise up love,' when she was seeking Christ among the maidens, because Christ is love. But as for what he says:
'I will requite them,' this we understand to mean that they shall be tormented by the advances of the flourishing Church, and shall then know what the punishment of faithlessness is, when they perceive what is the splendour of faith and of grace. Or, because the Lord is good, who could say: 'They repaid me evil for good,' and the word 'requital' is a middle term, applicable either to good or to evil, he says that he will requite in good, because, although blindness in part befalls Israel, yet, when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, then all Israel shall be saved by the mercy of Christ. And he added: 'In this I have known that thou hast willed me, because my enemy shall not rejoice over me.'
Above he spoke of his Passion as a man; here now he discloses his majesty, in that he alone is without sin, he alone upon whom the sinner could not ride, he alone whom the Father loved as his only-begotten Son. For what reason, then, did the enemy not rejoice over him? Because, although he took death upon himself for our sake, yet he rose again and himself insulted the enemy, whose victory he destroyed and whose sting of death he broke. And we too, though in this world we are sorrowful, and though the enemy rejoices in our grief and in the contrition of our heart and soul, nevertheless by rising again we destroy his joy. Whence also Micah said: 'Rejoice not over me, O my enemy, because I have fallen, for I shall rise again.'
Resurrection, therefore, is that by which all the bonds of the enemy are loosed and his every triumph is brought to nothing. There follows: 'But because of my innocence you have upheld me and confirmed me in your sight forever. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel forever, from age to age; so be it, so be it.' The innocent man harms no one, sins against no one. Therefore Christ is marked out by the authority of the divine Scripture as without sin, without guile; and this too is here declared, where he says: 'But because of my innocence you have upheld me.' Yet what kind of upholding is meant? For elsewhere also we read: 'You upheld me from my mother's womb.'
Therefore, because he who is born of the Spirit and of a Virgin was born clean from every admixture of human generation, the Father for that reason upheld him, since no customary admixture of bodily generation darkened his origin. He upheld him as he rose again, because no defilement of a fall stained him. Spotless he returned to the Father from whom spotless he had gone forth when he descended to the earth. Whence the Father says to him: 'You are my Son, this day have I begotten you,' that is: 'I recognize in you the prerogative of my generation, you whom no stain of sin could defile.' You dwelt among sinners, you took upon yourself the sins of all, you were made sin for all, you were made a curse for all, yet no practice of sin could pass over to you.
Thus you dwelt among sinners as if you dwelt among angels. You made the earth to be what heaven is, so that there too you might take away sin. 'This day have I begotten you, in whom I am well pleased.' You proved yourself the Son, who fulfilled the Father's will in all things. 'This day have I begotten you, in whom I acknowledge the light of an unspotted offspring.' Yesterday and today you yourself are the same, and unto the ages. In you there is no night, for you are all day. He is well said to be confirmed in the Father's sight forever, because he is always with the Father and truly in his sight, he who is the brightness of his glory and the image of his substance. But just as the Father is well pleased in the Son, so also the Son blesses the Father; for the Father glorifies the Son and the Son glorifies the Father.
'Blessed,' he says, 'be the Lord God of Israel'—that is, of the people that sees God, who believes him to be both their Lord and their God—'from age to age; so be it, so be it.' In the Hebrew it has 'amen, amen,' as those have affirmed who read the book written in Hebrew letters. The Greek in this place said 'genoito, genoito,' which is 'so be it, so be it.' This word has various meanings: it may be at one time the word of one commanding, at another of one praying, at another of one confirming something. It is the word of one commanding, when a superior lays down to an inferior what is to be done or followed. It is the word of one praying, as in that phrase: 'Your will be done'; for no one commands God, but pours out a prayer.