Annotation CXX

”And going away, he hanged himself with a noose.” — Matthew 27:5

Whether Judas died by hanging in a noose.

Euthymius, in the commentaries on Matthew, asserts that Judas did not die by hanging in a noose, but that — before he was choked — he was taken down by certain [persons] who recognized him; and that he at last, after some time, perished, burst by a fall, his intestines poured out — the conjecture [being] taken from the fact that Luke, in the first chapter of Acts, writes that Judas possessed a field from the reward of iniquity, and that, being made prone [falling headlong], he burst asunder in the middle, and his bowels were poured out — which kind of death does not pertain to one hanged. The contrary opinion Origen, Chrysostom, Augustine, Bede, and all the Latins hold, who write that Judas was choked by the noose. Read below, Annotation 222.