Matthew 26:15

What will you give me? The impious wretch did not betray his divine Master our of fear, but out of avarice. Of all passions the love of sordid lucre is the most vile; and the avaricious soul does not fear to plunge herself into the bottom of hell, for a trifling gain. There is no vestige of honour or justice, or probity, remaining in the heart of that man who is possessed with the love of base lucre; whose god is his money. The perfidious Judas, inebriated with this passion, while he thirsts after gain, sells with the most foolish impiety his Lord and his Master. (St. Leo the great) --- He sells him for the paltry consideration of thirty pieces of silver, about \'a33 15. the price of a common slave. See Exodus xxi. 32. It is probable that even the obdurate heart of Judas would not have betrayed his Master to the Jews, had he not expected that Jesus would escape from their hands on this occasion, as he had done at Nazareth, and in the temple.

The Pascal Supper.