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
