Acts 1:20Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

The same can also be applied to the Jews. If the former leader suffered such a fate, then with still greater justice should these men have experienced it.

But Peter does not yet say anything of this kind. Then, to show that the field was most justly called Akeldama, he cites the saying of the prophet: "Let his habitation be desolate."

Indeed, what could be more desolate than a field turned into a cemetery? And this field can naturally be called his field.

Whoever provided the payment made for it should rightly be considered the owner of this great desolation, even if others bought it.

If one looks carefully at the matter, this desolation already serves as the beginning of the Jewish desolation. It is known that the Jews destroyed themselves by hunger and killed many.

Their city became a cemetery for strangers, for soldiers. They were not permitted to bury their dead, because they were considered unworthy even of burial.

As it is written: "Let another take his office" (Ps 108:8). Therefore, if this aeon is signified by Judas, they should have said that the twelfth aeon was cast out of the Pleroma, and that another was produced or begotten in its place.

Moreover, they say that the aeon itself suffered, whereas Judas is the betrayer. They themselves acknowledge that Christ, not Judas, came to suffer.

How, then, could Judas, the betrayer of Him who was to suffer for our salvation, be the type and image of a suffering aeon?

Judas did not live long after his lawless act. By self-willed death he shortened his life and freed the place of an apostle of Christ, leaving it to another.

Thus, according to the Apostle Peter's view, David as God's anointed one was a type of Jesus Christ. Likewise, David's enemies prefigured the enemies of Jesus Christ, and in particular Judas the betrayer.

Therefore the curses pronounced by David upon his enemies came to complete fulfillment upon the Savior's enemies, and in this case upon Judas.

Near Jerusalem, traces of the Field of Blood are still shown. But someone will say: "If it was written that Christ should suffer this, why does He reproach Judas? For he fulfilled the Scriptures."

But he did not act with that intention, but from wickedness. If you do not examine his intention, then you will also free the devil from sin.

But this is not so, it is not. Both Judas and the devil deserve countless torments, even though the world was saved.

Judas's betrayal did not bring about our salvation, but Christ's wisdom and the richness of His skill, using the wickedness of others for our benefit.

You will say: "If Judas had not betrayed Him, would not another have betrayed Him?" What does this have to do with the question?

"If Christ had to be crucified, it had to be through someone," you say. "If through someone, then certainly through such a man. But if all had been good, the divine economy for us would not have taken place."

May it not be so. The All-Wise Himself knew how to arrange what was useful for us, even if this had not happened.

His wisdom is abundant and incomprehensible. Therefore, lest anyone think that Judas was a minister of the divine economy, He pronounces woe upon him (Chrysostom, Homily 18 on Matthew).

For his wickedness he was deprived of his high dignity and "went to his own place." His place had to be taken by someone else. This was considered necessary because Christ Himself had chosen twelve apostles, according to the sacred number of the tribes of Israel.

The Apostle Peter attended to this. He addressed the assembly with a speech in which he also set forth the very conditions of apostleship.

Whoever this sufferer may be, whether David himself as a type of the Messiah or another person, in any case these psalms have a typological and prefigurative meaning. Compare the note on Jn 13:18-19 and parallels.

What is portrayed in them was fulfilled in its whole fullness in the person and circumstances of the innocently suffering Messiah.

The enemies of the innocent sufferer portrayed in these psalms, against whom the threatenings are uttered, are the enemies of the Lord Jesus Christ who delivered Him to death.

This applies especially to one of them, their representative, His betrayer Judas Iscariot.

Being convinced that the prophetic words of the cited psalms speak precisely about this enemy of the Lord, the Apostle Peter changes the plural number of the original in the first citation to the singular.

He presents the threatening against the enemies as a threatening against one enemy, Iscariot, the representative of all the other enemies.

"Let his habitation be desolate," and so forth. The desolation of a courtyard or dwelling place is a symbol of God's wrath upon those who lived there (cf. Is 34:10-15 and parallels).

Banishment from such a place is God's punishment. Applied figuratively to Iscariot, it means that his apostolic place in the assembly of the apostles will be empty.

It will be abandoned by the one who occupied it. As an enemy of the Messiah, he had to be cast out from it by the judgment of God's righteousness.

God is angered against the enemies of His Son and punishes them. Judas must no longer occupy it.

Yet it must not remain empty forever. In place of the unworthy man, it must be filled by a worthy one. There is also a prophecy about this: "Let another take his dignity."

A friend must take the place of the expelled enemy. Taking the prophetic words in their narrower sense, Saint Chrysostom and Blessed Theophylact understand "habitation" as the field that was bought and Judas's house.

"For what could be emptier than a cemetery, and a public cemetery at that, as this field became?" By "dignity" they understand authority and priesthood.

Now the first word also has significance, in the sense of a place left empty that requires a replacement. Someone must come into it and watch over it as his possession, subject to his oversight.

All these ideas about occupying such a place are expressed in Greek by the single concept of "episcopacy," and in the Russian translation by "dignity."

Since the matter here concerns a spiritual dignity, one may say that here this word is first used in relation to ministry in the Church of the Lord by her highest representatives.

Whoever this righteous man may be, whether David himself or another, in any case he is an image of Christ, the Son of God. The enemies of the righteous man are an image of Christ's enemies, above all Judas the betrayer.

From Psalm 68 Peter cites the words of Ps 68:26: "Let their habitation be desolate, and let no one dwell in their tents." Peter does not cite these words literally.

They speak of many enemies, but Peter applies to one what is said of many, saying, "Let his habitation," not "their habitation," "be desolate."

This is because Peter, guided by the Spirit of God, sees Judas as the enemy of Christ who stands out from all the other enemies.

As applied to Judas, the words "Let his habitation be desolate, and let no one dwell in it" mean this: the place Judas occupied in the circle of the Apostles will no longer be his place and will no longer belong to him.

His habitation is desolate. He will not remain in it: "let no one dwell in it."

In the following words cited by Peter, taken from another psalm (Ps 108:8), it is said that Judas's place will be filled by another person: "Let another take his office," that is, his ruling dignity will be given to another person.