We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 May 2019
In early Christian literature the death of Judas is broadly understood as a fitting end to the life of the betrayer of Jesus. Papias’ description of Judas’ death can be illuminated by comparison with ancient biographical and medical literature, in which oedema and parasitic infections are a consequence of greed, and also apocalyptic texts, in which worms become an emblematic form of divine punishment after death. Viewed in this context the death of Judas serves a pedagogical function as a warning about the dangers of greed.
I am enormously grateful to Anna-Rebecca Solevåg and Jennifer Barry for sharing their work with me, and to Iveta Adams, Joel Baden, Meghan Henning and Francis Watson for their constructive comments and criticisms.
1 Acts 1.18 states that Judas used the money to purchase a field for himself. In Matt 27.3 Judas attempts to return the ‘blood money’ before he hangs himself. The field is purchased by the priests after his death and becomes known as ‘the field of blood’. Judas appears in the Gospel of Judas preserved in the Tchacos Codex, is discussed by a number of ancient commentators including Papias, and generated considerable media interest when the Gospel attributed to him was published in translation by the National Geographic Society in 2006. Translations of biblical texts have been taken from the NRSV. Unless otherwise noted additional translations are my own.
2 Matthew 27.3–10 and Acts 1.15–26.
3 The death of Judas is preserved in Apollinaris in two distinct yet compatible versions. Version A is taken from his Catena in Evangelium S. Matthaei while version B appears in Catena in Acta SS apostolorum. The former is found with variations in Oecumenius’ commentary on Acts (late 10th cent.) while the latter appears, also with small variants, in Theophylactus’ commentary on Acts (11th cent.).
4 Papias, fr. 4.2–3 (trans. Ehrman, LCL). The corresponding verses in Zwiep, A. W., Judas and the Choice of Matthias: A Study on the Context and Concern of Acts 1.15–26 (WUNT ii/187; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004) 112–15 are fr. 3.4–13Google Scholar.
5 For an excellent survey of these, see Robertson, J., The Death of Judas: The Characterization of Judas Iscariot in Three Early Christian Accounts of his Death (New Testament Monographs; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2012) 128–39Google Scholar. See the deaths of Herod the Great in Josephus, Ant. 17.6.5; Galerius in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.16.3–5. Compare also Memnon on Satyrus (FrGrHist 434.2.4–5) and Lucian on the death of Alexander the false prophet (Alex. 59). On the use of dramatic death scenes in ancient novels, see Webb, R., ‘Rhetoric and the Novel: Sex, Lies and Sophistic’, A Companion to Greek Rhetoric (ed. Worthington, I.; Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World; Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007) 526–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 2 Chr 21.11–19; Pausanias, Descr. 9.7.2 (trans. Jones, LCL). For a discussion of the infection of worms in tyrants, see Africa, T., ‘Worms and the Death of Kings: A Cautionary Note on Disease and History’, ClAnt 1 (1982) 1–17Google ScholarPubMed. In the majority of sources, retributive justice tends to have focused on men; the clear example is Pheretime, Queen of Cyrene, who utilised brutal strategies to harm her enemies (Herodotus, Hist. 4.205).
7 Josephus, Ant. 17.168–71 (trans. Marcus, LCL). See discussion in Ladouceur, D. J., ‘The Death of Herod the Great’, CP 76.1 (1981) 25–34Google Scholar and Nestke, W., ‘Die Legende vom Tode der Gottesverächter’, AR 33 (1936) 246–69Google Scholar. Luke records that Herod (almost certainly Herod Agrippa) died after being struck by an angel and consumed by worms in Acts 12.23. It is worth noting that he does not use identical language for the death of Judas.
8 Robertson, Death of Judas, 135–9, followed by Solevåg, A.-R., Negotiating the Disabled Body: Representations of Disability in Early Christian Texts (Atlanta: SBL, 2018) 127CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 For a discussion of this genre, see Barnes, T. D., ‘The Funerary Speech for John Chrysostom (BHG3 871 = CPG 6517)’, Studia Patristica 37 (2001) 332–4Google Scholar; Muehlberger, E., ‘The Legend of Arius's death: Imagination, Space, and Filth in Late Ancient Historiography’, Past and Present 77 (2015) 8–10Google Scholar; and Barry, J., ‘Diagnosing Heresy: Ps.-Martyrius's Funerary Speech for John Chrysostom’, JECS 24.3 (2016) 395–418Google Scholar.
10 Plutarch, Sulla 36.
11 Plutarch, Sulla 36.
12 So Blänsdorf, J., ‘“Würmer und Krebs sollen ihn befallen”: Eine neue Fluchtafel aus Gros-Gerau’, ZPE 161 (2007) 61–5Google Scholar, who argues that being devoured by worms was one of the most gruesome deaths that could be imagined in antiquity.
13 Urbanová, D., ‘Latin Curse Texts: Mediterranean Tradition’, Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientarum Hungaricae 57.1 (2017) 57–82, at 80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
14 See the discussion in Himmelfarb, M., Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983), 109, 118–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with assessment in Henning, M., ‘Metaphorical, Punitive, and Pedagogical Blindness in Hell’, Studia Patristica 81.7 (2017) 139–52Google Scholar. For the reception of this passage, see Jdt 16.17; Sir 7.17; Apoc. Pet. 9; Apoc. Paul 42; Gk. Apoc. Mary 18, 23; Apoc. Ezra 4.20; Vis. Ezra 34; Eth. Apoc. Mary 64.
15 See Henning, M., Hell Hath No Fury: Gender and the Conceptualization of Bodily Suffering in Early Christian Depictions of Hell (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, forthcoming)Google Scholar.
16 For the argument that tours of hell serve a pedagogical role: Henning, M. R., Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013) 279–354Google Scholar.
17 Although, given the ancient Jewish view that the distinction between life and death was not merely biological but qualitative, Judas’ state may well mark him as being ‘dead’ though actually alive.
18 One recent trend in scholarship on Papias has advocated for reading him in light of ancient rhetorical and literary conventions. On this, Kürzinger, J., Papias von Hierapolis und die Evangelien des Neuen Testaments (Eichstätter Materialien 4; Regensburg: Pustet, 1983) 9–87Google Scholar; Bauckham, R., Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006) 210–11Google Scholar and idem., ‘Did Papias write History or Exegesis?’, JTS n.s. 65.2 (2014) 463–88, at 484; W. R. Schoedel, ‘Papias’, ANRW 27.1.255–65. For criticisms of this approach, see Hengel, M., ‘Probleme des Markusevangeliums’, Das Evangelium und die Evangelien: Vorträge vom Tübinger Symposium 1982 (ed. Stuhlmacher, P.; WUNT 28; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1983) 244–52Google Scholar and Black, M., ‘The Use of Rhetorical Terminology in Papias on Mark and Matthew’, JSNT 37 (1989) 31–8Google Scholar. At stake here, of course, is the larger question of Papias’ value as a historian and preserver of oral traditions about Jesus. Elements of Papias’ version of the story seem reliant upon now-canonical traditions. The gate through which the bloated Judas struggles to enter is reminiscent of Jesus’ statement that it is easier for a ‘camel to pass through the eye of the needle’ (Mark 10.24–7; Matt 19.23–6; Luke 18.24–7), and the reference to Judas dying at home in a place that is now notorious gestures in the direction of ‘the field of blood’ Judas purchased with his blood money in Matthew and Luke.
19 C. B. Zeichmann, ‘Papias as Rhetorician: Ekphrasis in the Bishop's Account of Judas’ Death’, NTS (2010) 428. See Hermogenes, Progymnasmata 10; Aphthonius, Progymnasmata 12 and Nicolaus, Progymnasmata 11.
20 Solevåg, Negotiating the Disabled Body, 117–32.
21 Kurz, J., ‘Wassersucht’, Antike Medizin: Ein Lexicon (ed. Leven, K.-H.; Munich: C. H. Beck, 2005) 914–15Google Scholar.
22 Hippocrates describes one patient as ‘yellow; the whole body is oedematous; the face is red; the mouth is dry; he is thirsty; and when he eats, respiration quickens’ (Internal Affections 21). Celsus describes dropsy as ‘a chronic malady [which] may develop in those patients who suffer from a collection of water under the skin’ (De medicina 3.21.1).
23 Celsus describes compliance as the primary issue. He refers to Metrodorus, a student of Epicurus, who was unable to abstain from drinking and, thus, used to drink and then vomit. See discussion in Jarcho, S., ‘Ascites as described by Aulus Cornelius Celsus (ca. ad 30)’, American Journal of Cardiology 2 (1958) 507–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 See the discussions in Hippocrates, Int. 22, 61; Morb. 2.61; Epid. 7.20; Aretaeus, CA 2.1; Soranus in Caelius Aurelianus, De morb. chron. 3.8.104.
25 Galen, Galeni definitiones medicae 279 (19 K). As noted in Robertson, Death of Judas, 129.
26 Draining the oedema is the prognosis even in more supernatural cases: in a case of dream incubation a young girl's mother dreamt that her afflicted daughter's head was cut off and reattached once the liquid had been drained (IG iv2.1.121–2, B21). Treatment by excisions and fire (cautery) was in general considered especially dangerous in ancient medical texts: see Hippocrates, Aph. 87; Med. 8; Galen, Ad Glauconem 2.3 (89 K).
27 Robertson, The Death of Judas, 139; Solevåg, Negotiating the Disabled Body, 122. On the question of physiognomy and its role in descriptions of the grotesque, see Garland, R., The Eye of the Beholder: Deformity and Disability in the Greco-Roman World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995) 23–6Google Scholar. On the pedagogical function of ekphrasis in the context of judgement, see Henning, M. R., ‘Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth’ as Paideia in Matthew and the Early Church (WUNT ii/382; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014)Google Scholar.
28 Papias, fr. 4.2
29 Polemon states, ‘Largeness of the stomach and great fleshiness, especially if it has softness and droop, indicates much movement, drunkenness, and love of sexual intercourse. If it is very fleshy and strong, that indicates wickedness of deeds, malice, deceit, cunning, and lack of intellect’ (B14; trans. Hoyland, R., ‘A New Edition and Translation of the Leiden Polemon’, Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul: Polemon's Physiognomy from Classical Antiquity to Medieval Islam (ed. Swain, S.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) 329–464, at 405)Google Scholar. On physiognomy in general in the ancient world, see Popovic, M., Reading the Human Body: Physiognomics and Astrology in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Hellenistic–Early Roman Period Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Gleason, M. W. ‘The Semiotics of Gender: Physiognomy and Self-Fashioning in the Second Century ce’, Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World (ed. Zeitlin, F. I.; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990) 389–416Google Scholar.
30 Hoyland, ‘New Edition’, 421.
31 Hoyland ‘New Edition’, 341.
32 Hoyland, ‘New Edition’, 345.
33 Lucian, Gall. 21–3. The socioeconomic connotations of dropsy are noted with respects to Luke in Tannehill, R. C., Luke (ANTC; Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1996) 227Google Scholar.
34 Stobaeus, Flor. 3.10.45.
35 Polybius, Hist. 13.2.1–2.
36 Harstock, C., ‘The Healing of the Man with Dropsy (Luke 14:1–6) and the Lukan Landscape’, BibInt 21.3 (2013) 341–54, at 341Google Scholar. This exemplary article investigates dropsy in Luke 14 in light of the ancient rhetorical and metaphorical use of dropsy as a signifier for wealth and greed. My argument differs somewhat from that of Harstock in arguing that dropsy is not only a metaphor for greed, it was, in ancient medical thinking, a direct consequence of greed. On the metaphorical work done by dropsy in Luke, see also Braun, W., Feasting and Social Rhetoric in Luke 14 (SNTSMS 85; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Heil, J. P., The Meal Scenes in Luke-Acts: An Audience Oriented Approach (SBLMS 52; Atlanta: SBL, 1999) 99–113Google Scholar.
37 E.g. Amos 5.11; 8.5; Mic 3.9–10; Isa 5.8; Ezek 18.5–9. On the moral problems created by wealth in general for late antique Christians, see Brown, P., Through the Eye of a Needle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010)Google Scholar.
38 Plutarch, Mor. 523c (trans. De Lacy and Einarson, LCL).
39 Plutarch, Mor. 524f (trans. De Lacy and Einarson, LCL).
40 Galen, Aff. dig. 1.9 (45 K) (trans. Singer, P. N. in Galen: Psychological Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013) 275Google Scholar). Horace similarly remarks in a commentary on the dangers of hoarding wealth, writing that neither dropsy nor love of possessions could be cured simply by supplying the sufferer with the thing they claim to want (Carm. 2.2). See also Ovid, Fast. 1.213–18.
41 Horace, Sat. 2.2.20.
42 See discussion in Zanda, E., Fighting Hydra-like Luxury: Sumptuary Regulation in the Roman Republic (London: Bloomsbury, 2013) 51–2Google Scholar: Pompey and Crassus (Dio Cassius 39.37); Caesar (Suetonius, Iul. 1.33; Dio Cassius 43.25; Cicero, Att. 7.1); Augustus (Suetonius, Aug. 34; Gellius, 2.24.14–15).
