And went and hanged himself— When Judas found that he could not prevent the horrid effects of his treachery, his conscience lashed him more furiously than before, suggesting thoughts which by turns made the deepest wounds in his soul. His Master's innocence and benevolence, the usefulness of his life, the favoursthat he had received from him, with many other considerations, crowded into his mind, and racked him to such a degree, that his torment became intolerable. Wherefore, unable to sustain the misery of those agonizing passions and reflections, he makes a full confession of his Master's innocence, returns the wages of iniquity, and goes and hangs himself. St. Peter seems to give a different account of the traitor's death:—Falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out, Acts 1:18. And to reconcile the two passages, Tob 3:10 is commonly brought to prove that the word απηγξατο, in St. Matthew, may signify suffocation with grief, in consequence of which a man's bowels may gush out; and instances are cited from Virgil, Eclogue Matthew 7:26.:
Invidia rumpantur ut ilia Codro. and from Josephus, Antiq. 15. 100: 13 where one Zenodorus is mentioned, who is supposed to have died in this manner. The Talmudists make such a suffocation the punishment usually inflicted by God upon such persons as bore false witness against their neighbour. But as the above-quoted instances may be otherwise understood, it is more natural to suppose that Judas hanged himself on some tree growing out of a precipice, and that the branch breaking, or the knot of the rope wherewith he hanged himself opening, he fell down headlong, and dashed himself to pieces, so that his bowels gushed out. St. Peter's phrase, ελακησε μεσος, he burst asunder, favours this conjecture; for ληκεω signifies properly lacero cum strepitu, to rend or tear with a noise or cracking, and so may imply that Judas burst asunder by falling from an height. See Le Clerc, Grotius, and Wetstein. Thus perished Judas Iscariot the traitor,—a miserable example of the fatal influence of covetousness and worldly passions, and a standing monument of the divine vengeance, fit to deter future generations from acting contraryto conscience through love of the world; for which this unhappy wretch betrayed his Master, Friend, and Saviour, and cast away his own soul!