While almost all of the works in this vault use Victorian translations, due to the only English translation of this commentary being in copyright, it was machine-translated (by Claude, 2026) from the public-domain Latin. It has not been checked by a human translator.
Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, written about 353–356, before his exile to the East. Chapter 32: On Judas, one of the twelve disciples, coming to Jesus with a great multitude to betray Him; and on the sword which He bade Peter put up again into its place.
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And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude. In all these things is the order of the Passion. But in the kiss of Judas there was this meaning: that we should be taught to love all our enemies, even those whom we know will rage against us. For the Lord did not refuse his kiss. And by saying to Judas, Do what thou doest, He grants the power of betraying Him under the condition of this word. For He who had it in His right to call twelve legions of angels against the betrayers could far more easily have met both the counsels and the arts of one man. And so He says to Pilate, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee. He gives power over Himself, then, by saying, Do what thou doest: that is, since the guilt of the will is weighed with the odium of the deed, he should carry out in fact what he was already doing in will.
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And one of them which were with Jesus drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest’s, and smote off his ear. Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Is he himself, then, already judged, since, using the sword, he will perish by the sword? But death is not wont to come by the sword to all who use the sword. For fever or some other accident carries off many who have used the sword, either in the office of judgment or out of the need to resist robbers. So the ear of the high priest’s servant is cut off by the apostle: that is, the disobedient hearing of the people that served the priesthood is cut off by Christ’s disciple, and what was not hearing is cut away, so that it may become able to take in the truth. And the whole crowd had come out against the Lord armed with swords. He commanded the sword to be put away: because He would destroy them not with a human sword, but with the sword of His mouth. But if, according to His sentence, everyone who used the sword was to be destroyed by the sword, the sword was rightly drawn for the death of those who were using the same for a crime.
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The rest keep the order of the events. False witnesses were sought out; the priest, ignorant of that very Law in which he gloried, even demanded by an oath to be assured whether He were the Christ: as though the Law and the prophets spoke of Him in secret. Moreover he himself confessed Christ unwillingly, the Lord saying, Thou hast said. And having heard His majesty he rent his clothes: that is, he tore the very veil of the Law with which he was covered. And with blows of the hand and spitting every kind of insult was carried out upon Him, for the completing of the lowliness of man.
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And we must look carefully at the terms on which Peter denied Him, although this has been treated above. For first he says that he does not understand what she is saying; next, that he had not kept company with Him; and the third time, that he does not know the man. And in truth he was now denying, almost without guilt, the man whom he had been the first to recognise as the Son of God: yet because, through the weakness of the flesh, he had shown himself even doubtful, he wept most bitterly, remembering that, though he had been warned, he had not been able to avoid the guilt of this fear.
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Then He is delivered to Pilate, the judge of the Gentiles. For He could not be judged guilty by the Law, being without guile and without sin. Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, and so on. Judas, repenting, gave back to the priests the price of Christ’s blood: so that, though he himself was the author of the sale of righteous blood, yet the very confession of the seller might convict the unbelief of the buyers. They answered, What is that to us? see thou to that. A bold and blind declaration. They hear that they have bought righteous blood, and believe that they will be free from the guilt of the judgment: although, by saying see thou to that, they set the crime itself in the seller, while, on the other hand, by the seller’s testimony the wickedness of the buyers is confirmed. So he went and hanged himself, when Christ had been condemned. So the time of Judas’ death was arranged that — when, at the Lord’s Passion, all things below and above were shaken and torn apart, and the governance of all the elements was stunned into forgetting its office — he should neither be visited among the dead, nor have, among the living, the opportunity of repentance after the resurrection.
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And about the silver pieces that were given back: because they were the price of blood, and it was not lawful to mix them into the corban, that is, into the money of the offerings, they took counsel and bought the potter’s field, and set it apart for the burial of strangers. In this there is a great mystery of prophecy, and in the deeds of wickedness a meditation full of wonder. The potter’s work is to form vessels out of clay: and it is in his hand to fashion again, out of the same clay, either the same vessel or a fairer one. And that the field is called the world is contained in the words of our Lord Himself. So the world is bought with the price of Christ — that is, the whole of it is acquired — and is set apart for the burial of strangers and the poor. Nothing of it belongs to Israel, and the whole use of this world that was bought belongs to aliens: to those, that is, who will be buried in the price of Christ’s blood, by which all things were bought. For He received from the Father all things that are in heaven and that are on earth: and therefore this is the potter’s field, because all things are God’s, in whose hand it is to fashion us again as He will, like a potter. In this field, then, having died with Christ and been buried with Him, we shall obtain eternal rest from this our sojourning. And in proof of this the prophecy of Jeremias is added, so that the authority of the divine voice, given so long before, might be shown in the working of this deed.
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And to Pilate, when he asked whether He was the King of the Jews, He answered, Thou sayest. But how different is this saying from the one that had been to the priest! For to him, when he asked whether He was the Christ, He had said, Thou hast said. This is because the whole Law had preached that Christ would come; so the answer is given to the priest as about things past, because he himself had always said, from the Law, that Christ would come. But to this man, ignorant of the Law, asking whether He was the King of the Jews, it is said, Thou sayest: because the salvation of the Gentiles is through faith in a present confession; and because he who before did not know says this of Him, which those deny who before were saying it.