As to the wretched Judas of Kerioth, terrible legends were current about his death.  It was maintained that he had bought a field in the neighborhood of Jerusalem with the price of his perfidy.  There was, indeed, on the south of Mount Zion, a place named Hakeldama (the field of blood[1]).  It was supposed that this was the property acquired by the traitor.[2] According to one tradition,[3] he killed himself.  According to another, he had a fall in his field, in consequence of which his bowels gushed out.[4] According to others, he died of a kind of dropsy, accompanied by repulsive circumstances, which were regarded as a punishment from heaven.[5] The desire of showing in Judas the accomplishment of the menaces which the Psalmist pronounces against the perfidious friend[6] may have given rise to these legends.  Perhaps, in the retirement of his field of Hakeldama, Judas led a quiet and obscure life; while his former friends conquered the world, and spread his infamy abroad.  Perhaps, also, the terrible hatred which was concentrated on his head, drove him to violent acts, in which were seen the finger of heaven.

[Footnote 1:  St. Jerome, De situ et nom. loc. hebr. at the word Acheldama.  Eusebius (ibid.) says to the north.  But the Itineraries confirm the reading of St. Jerome.  The tradition which styles the necropolis situated at the foot of the valley of Hinnom Haceldama, dates back, at least, to the time of Constantine.]

[Footnote 2:  Acts i. 18, 19.  Matthew, or rather his interpolator, has here given a less satisfactory turn to the tradition, in order to connect with it the circumstance of a cemetery for strangers, which was found near there.]

[Footnote 3:  Matt. xxvii. 5.]

[Footnote 4:  Acts, l.c.; Papias, in Oecumenius, Enarr. in Act.  Apost., ii., and in Fr. Muenter, Fragm.  Patrum Graec. (Hafniae, 1788), fasc. i. p. 17, and following; Theophylactus, in Matt. xxvii. 5.]

[Footnote 5:  Papias, in Muenter, l.c.; Theophylactus, l.c.]

[Footnote 6:  Psalms lxix. and cix.]

The time of the great Christian revenge was, moreover, far distant.  The new sect had no part whatever in the catastrophe which Judaism was soon to undergo.  The synagogue did not understand till much later to what it exposed itself in practising laws of intolerance.  The empire was certainly still further from suspecting that its future destroyer was born.  During nearly three hundred years it pursued its path without suspecting that at its side principles were growing destined to subject the world to a complete transformation.  At once theocratic and democratic, the idea thrown by Jesus into the world was, together with the invasion of the Germans, the most active cause of the dissolution of the empire of the Caesars.  On the one hand, the right of all men to participate in the kingdom of God was proclaimed.  On the other, religion