Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/464

 by the proud priests, with as much regard as might have been expected from exulting tyranny, when in the enjoyment of the grand object of its efforts. With a cold sneer they replied, "What is that to us? See thou to that!" Maddened with the immovable and remorseless determination of the haughty condemners of the just, he flung down the price of his infamy and woe, upon the floor of the temple, and rushed out of their presence, to seal his crimes and eternal misery by the act that put him for ever beyond the power of redemption. Seeking a place removed from the observation of men, he hurried out of the city, and contriving the fatal means of death for himself, before the bloody doom of him whom he betrayed had been fulfilled, the wretched man saved his eyes the renewed horrors of the sight of the crucifixion, by closing them in the sleep which earthly sights can not disturb. But even in the mode of his death, new circumstances of horror occurred. Swinging himself into the air, by falling from a highth, as the cord tightened around his neck, checking his descent, the weight of his body produced the rupture of his abdomen, and his bowels bursting through, made him, as he swung stiffening and convulsed in the agonies of this doubly horrid death, a disgusting and appalling spectacle,—a monument of the vengeance of God on the traitor, and a shocking witness of his own remorse and self-condemnation.

A very striking difference is noticeable between the account given by Matthew of the death of Judas, and that given by Luke in the speech of Peter, Acts i. 18, 19. The various modes of reconciling these difficulties are found in the ordinary commentaries. In respect to a single expression in Acts i. 18, there is an ingenious conjecture offered by Granville Penn, in a very interesting and learned article in the first volume of the transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, which may very properly be mentioned here, on account of its originality and plausibility, and because it is found only in an expensive work, hardly ever seen in this country. Mr. Penn's view is, that "the word [Greek: elakêse] (elakese,) in Acts i. 18, is only an inflection of the Latin verb, laqueo, (to halter or strangle,) rendered insititious in the Hellenistic Greek, under the form [Greek: lakeô]." He enters into a very elaborate argument, which can not be given here, but an extract may be transcribed, in order to enable the learned to apprehend the nature and force of his views. (Trans. R. S. Lit. Vol. I. P. 2, pp. 51, 52.)

"Those who have been in the southern countries of Europe know, that the operation in question, as exercised on a criminal, is performed with a great length of cord, with which the criminal is precipitated from a high beam, and is thus violently laqueated, or snared in a noose, mid-way—medius or in medio; [Greek: mesos], and medius, referring to place as well as to person; as, [Greek: mesos humôn hestêken]. (Joh. i. 26.) 'Considit scopulo medius ' (Virg. G. iv. 436.) ' medius prorumpit in hostes.' (Aen. x. 379.)

"Erasmus distinctly perceived this sense in the words [Greek: prênês genomenos], although he did not discern it in the word [Greek: elakêse], which confirms it: '[Greek: prênês] Graecis dicitur, qui vultu est in terram dejecto: expressit autem gestum et habitum ; alioquin, ex hoc sane loco non poterat intelligi, quod Judas suspenderit se,' (in loc.) And so Augustine also had understood those words, as he shows in his Recit. in Act. Apostol. l. i. col. 474. 'et collem sibi alligavit, et dejectus in faciem,' &c. Hence one MS., cited by Sabatier, for [Greek: prênês genomenos], reads [Greek: apokremamenos]; and Jerom, in his