QUOTATION: On the Meaning of the Name 'Judas'

Judas means 'confessor.' Luke the Evangelist numbers both “Judas the son of James and Judas Iscariot” among the twelve apostles. Since two of Christ’s disciples were given this same name and since there can be no meaningless symbol in the Christian mystery, I am convinced that the two Judases represent two distinct types of confessing Christians. The first, symbolized by Judas the son of James, perseveres in remaining faithful to Christ. The second type, however, after once believing and professing faith in Christ, then abandons him out of greed. He defects to the heretics and to the false priests of the Jews, that is, to counterfeit Christians, and (insofar as he is able) delivers Christ, the 'Word of truth,' over to them to be crucified and destroyed. This type of Christian is represented by Judas Iscariot, who 'went out to the chief priests' and agreed on a price for betraying Christ.

--Origen

QUOTATION: Despair

It was not the crime of Judas so much as his despair of pardon that brought him to total destruction. He killed himself in despair suffocating himself with a noose. What he did to his body is what happened to his soul. Just as those who pull something tight around their throats kill themselves by driving from their lungs the earthly spirit of air, so to do those who despair of God’s merciful kindness inwardly suffocate themselves and make it impossible for the Holy Spirit to remain in them.

--St. Augustine, Sermon 352

QUOTATION: Why Judas?

And although He kept a purse, yet He entrusted it to Judas, who He knew to be a thief, that so we might comprehend how free His soul was from the love of money.

--St. Robert Bellarmine, The Eternal Happiness of the Saints