ACELDAMA ('A,caSatai, from the Syro Chaldaic, field of blood), the field purchased with the money for which Judas be trayed Christ, and which was appropriated as a place of burial for strangers (Matth. xxvii. S ; Acts i. 19). [There is an apparent discrepancy between the statement of Matthew and that of Peter in the Acts. According to the former, what had been called the potter's field was purchased by the chief priests with the money which Judas had cast down in the temple, and from this came to be called the field of blood (flypbs argaros); whereas Peter, as reported by Luke, seems to intimate that Judas bought the field himself with the reward of his iniquity, and that it was called the field of blood (xconiop ai;u.aras), from the tragical manner of his own death. It is possible, however, that Peter, speaking rhetorically, may attribute to Judas him self a purchase, which was really made by others, with the money he had received as the reward of his iniquity ; and as respects the naming of the locality, Peter's statement may be understood to mean that from the notoriety the whole affair, in cluding both the purchase with the price of blood and Judas's own bloody death, had acquired, it was called the field of blood. See the notes of Bloom field (N. T.) and Lechler (in Lange's Bibelwerk) on the passage in Acts, and the notes of Meyer and Lange himself on that in Matthew.] The field now shewn as Aceldama lies on the slope of the Hills beyond the valley of Hinnom, south of Mount Zion. This is obviously the spot which Jerome points out (Ononzast. .e. v. and which has since been mentioned by almost every one who has described Jerusalem. Sandys thus writes of it : On the south side of this valley, neere where it meeteth with the valley of Jehoshaphat, mounted a good height on the side of the mountain, is Aceldama, or the field of blood, purchased with the restored reward of treason, for a burial] place for strangers. In the midst whereof a large square roome was made by the mother of Constantine; the south side, walled with the naturall rocke; flat at the top, and equall with the vpper level; out of which ariseth certaine little cupoloes, open in the midst to let doune the dead bodies. Thorow these we might see the hottome, all cowered with bones, and certaine corscs but newly let doune, it being now the sepulchre of the Armenians. A greedy
grave, and great enough to deuoure the dead of a whole nation. For they say (and I believe it), that the earth thereof within the space of eight and forty houres will consume the flesh that is laid thereon' (Relation of a "ounzey, p. 187). He then relates the common story, that the empress referred to caused 270 ship-loads of this flesh-consuming mould to be taken to Rome, to form the soil of the Campo Sancto, to which the same virtue is ascribed.
The plot of ground originally bought ' to bury strangers in,' seems to have been early set apart by the Latins, as well as by the Crusaders, as a place of burial for pilgrims (Jac. de Vitriaco, p. The charnel-house is mentioned by Sir John Mandeville, in the fourteenth century, as belonging to the Knights Hospitallers. Sandys spews that, early in the seventeenth century, it was in the posses sion of the Armenians. Eugene Roger (La Ten-e Saincte, p. 161) states that they bought it for the burial of their own pilgrims, and ascribes the erection of the charnel-house to them. They still possessed it in the time of the Maundrell, or rather rented it, at a sequin a day, from the Turks. Corpses were still deposited there ; and the traveller observes that they were in various stages of decay, from which he conjectures that the grave did not make that quick despatch with the bodies committed to it which had been reported. ' The earth here abouts,' he observes, ' is of a chalky substance ; the plot of ground was not above thirty yards long by fifteen wide ; and a moiety of it was occupied by the charnel-house which was twelve yards high' (yournty, p. 136). Richardson (Travels, p. 567) affirms that bodies were thrown in as late as ISIS; but Dr. Robinson alleges that it has the appearance of having been for a much longer time abandoned : ' The field is not now marked by any boundary to distinguish it from the rest of the hillside; and the former charnel-house, now a ruin, is all that remains to point out the site....The bottom was empty and dry excepting a few bones much decayed' Researches, i. 524, Narrative of a voyage along the shores of the Mediterranean, by Dr. Wilde, 1844).