Papias, Matthew, and Judas Iscariot

I was looking over Papias' writings today and caught this tidbit in the 3rd fragment:

"Judas walked about in this world a sad example of impiety; for his body having swollen to such an extent that he could not pass where a chariot could pass easily, he was crushed by the chariot, so that his bowels gushed out."--Roberts-Donaldson English Translation: Fragments of Papias, courtesy of EarlyChristianWritings.com

Papias was Bishop of Hierapolis in the early 2nd century, and the significance and importance of the writings of people like Papias can't be overstated, because they shed just a glimmer of light on the earliest years of the Christian church. He is believed to have been written between 110 and 140 ce, which make his writings almost as old as the New Testament books themselves. Papias' writings survive today only as very short fragments included in citations of other early church fathers, Irenaeus (late 2nd cen) and Eusebius (early 4th cen). These two scholars state that Papias was a companion of Polycarp, who knew John. Papias says he asked everyone he could about the teachings of the apostles, and apparently wrote from his own recollections, since he says he valued the spoken testimony above the written word.

Anyway, getting back to what Papias wrote about Judas Iscariot, this is definitely not the story that appears in either the book of Acts and the gospel of Matthew regarding Judas' death. There is already a discrepancy in those two accounts in that Matthew says Judas hanged himself while Acts says he died after falling and splitting asunder. And of course apologists who defend Biblical inerrancy will insist that both accounts are true, that Judas hanged himself and then his body fell down from the gallows and his bowels gushed out. Now here's this third version of the story, involving a chariot. Perhaps Judas hanged himself downtown in the street, and fell in front of a chariot. Who knows?

Also interesting here is that in Fragment VI of Papias, he says:

"Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could." --ibid.

This has been cited numerous times as the basis for naming the apostle Matthew as the traditional author of the first gospel in the New Testament. Now, later scholars have disputed that, primarily because it's obvious to people who know the ancient languages that the gospel of Matthew was originally written in Greek and not Hebrew.

Now what's really intriguing here is that if Papias knew about the book of Matthew, why does he tell this tale of Judas and not the version that Matthew tells, that Judas hanged himself? Either Papias didn't know about that work, or he didn't agree with it for some reason. Of further interest here is that clearly the early church was intrigued by the character of Judas Iscariot. He was the hated betrayer, and he met a bitter end. But which bitter end? Did he fall and did his bowels gush out? Did he get hit by a chariot? Did he commit suicide by hanging himself? And why didn't everyone know exactly how Judas died? Why so many versions?

I'm guessing that Judas must have somehow disappeared after the death of Jesus, leaving people to speculate. And with a story that juicy, speculate they did, in spades. The speculations seem to have taken at least two forms--in Matthew we see Judas as remorseful, depressed, realizing the awful magnitude of what he's done, and driven quickly to suicide. In Acts, we see Judas as a cold, calculating monster who betrays his Lord to die, then goes and spends his ill-gotten money on real estate as if he hasn't a care in the world. Needless to say, God strikes him down, and his bowels gush out. Papias' version seems more in line with the version in Acts, of course, although he doesn't say anything about Judas' state of mind, only that he was hit by a chariot, and that he was grossly overweight due to "impiety."

So to sum up, we have another version of the death of the hated Judas, and the version raises further questions, in my mind at least, regarding Papias' claim that Matthew wrote a gospel in the Hebrew language. The work he's referring to is apparently lost, and that in itself would be an odd thing if it were true that an eyewitness had actually written an account of Jesus' life or sayings. Like so much else in church history, or ancient history in general, there are tantalyzing mysteries and unanswered questions.