Matthew 27:4

I have sinned in that I have betrayed. — More accurately, I sinned in betraying.

What is that to us? — We instinctively feel, as we read these words, that deep as was the guilt of Judas, that of those who thus mocked him was deeper still. Speaking after the manner of men, we may say that a word of sympathy and true counsel might have saved him even then. His confession was as the germ of repentance, but this repulse drove him back upon despair, and he had not the courage or the faith to turn to the great Absolver; and so his life closed as in a blackness of darkness; and if we ask the question, Is there any hope? We dare not answer. Possibly there mingled with his agony, as has been suggested by one at least of the great teachers of the Church (Origen, Horn. in Matt. 35), some confused thought that in the world of the dead, behind the veil, he might meet his Lord and confess his guilt to Him.