ACC ~ Matthew 27 v6 - 8

NOT LAWFUL TO PUT INTO THE TREASURY

CHRYSOSTOM: If they had put the blood money into the treasury, their deed might have remained relatively more hidden. But the religious leaders make clear their guilt to all subsequent generations by buying the piece of land for burial. They thereby unconsciously declare their guilt.

So do not imagine that someone might do a good work through murder and use the reward for some supposed good purpose. Such alms are satanic. Such reasoning is twisted. Do not be naive about this. There are still many who imagine that they are permitted to violently take countless things that belong to others. Then they make an excuse for their violence if they give some ten or a hundred gold pieces to charity. Of these the prophet has said, “You have covered my altar with tears.” [1] Christ is not willing to be fed by covetousness. He does not accept these gifts. Why do you insult your Lord by offering these unclean things? It is better to leave people to pine with hunger than to feed them from these polluted sources. THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW, HOMILY 85.3. [2]

[1] Mal 2:13.

[2] PG 58:761; NPNF 1 10:509.

PROOF OF TREASON

CHRYSOSTOM: Once again they are self-condemned by their own conscience. Don’t you see this? They knew that they had been paying straightaway for a murder. They even bought a field for the burial of strangers. They did not even put the silver into a treasury. So this directness itself became a witness against them and a proof of their treason. THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW, HOMILY 85.3. [1]

[1] PG 58:760-61; NPNF 1 10:508.

TO BURY STRANGERS

ORIGEN: Because the quality of resting places for the dead varies (for many are buried in their ancestral tombs which were secured by a pledge, but those who suffer misfortune are often buried in the graves of the homeless), those who received payment in exchange for the blood of Jesus used it to acquire a potter’s field for the purpose of having a place in which to bury those foreigners who could not supply a pledge to secure a proper tomb. If it is suitable to interpret these foreigners typologically, we can consider those persons to be foreigners who remained strangers to God until the end and alien to his covenants. Vagabonds such as these meet their end buried in a potter’s field acquired with blood money. The righteous are able to say, “We are buried with Christ in a new tomb cut from the rock in which no dead body had yet been laid,” but those foreigners who remain finally estranged from Christ and alien to God will have to say, “We are buried with strangers in the field which is called the ‘Field of Blood.’” COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 117. [1]

[1] GCS 38.2:248-49.

THEY TOOK COUNSEL

CHRYSOSTOM: They did not make these decisions randomly but took counsel together. This indicates that no one is innocent of the deed. All are guilty. So it is in cases of conspiracy. THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW, HOMILY 85.3. [1]

[1] PG 58:761; NPNF 1 10:509.

THE FIELD OF BLOOD

CHRYSOSTOM: Even the very name of the place proclaims more sharply than a trumpet their guilt of murder. THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW, HOMILY 85.3. [1]

[1] PG 58:761; NPNF 1 10:508-9.