HACELDAMA. - Name of that field which the Sanhedrin (because the potter's clay had run out?) bought from a potter with 30 pieces of silver that the traitor Judas (v.) had received for his crime and which he then, in despair, threw against the Sanctuary (εἰς ναόν: the only building). Thus relates Acts 1:19 (in fact in the text of Mt. 27:8 the name H. is spurious, being proper only to the Vulgate and to a few codices of the Itala [b, c]).
The form Ἀκέλδαμαχ is composed of the Aramaic noun (foreign to the Hebrew language) ḥaqlā "field" and dēmā (Heb. dam) "blood"; the final consonant is added as in Σειράζ (Ecclus., prologue) and Ἰωαέζ = Ἰωαέ "Joseph" (Lk. 3:26) because of the vulgar pronunciation of the consonant (G. Dalman, Grammatik des jüd.-paläst. Aramäisch, 2nd ed., Leipzig 1905, p. 202, n. 3).
Three errors must be avoided: a) the name H. is not connected to the Syriac verb dēmek "to sleep," such that H. would mean "cemetery"; for that verb is found only in the Syriac language, nor does it have any meaning other than the primitive one of "to sleep"; b) A. Schulz (Biblische Zeitschrift, 7 [1909], p. 153 ff.) does not think of the blood of Christ, but of the blood of Judas (shed along with his intestines); but it is not known what the place of the suicide was; c) what St. Peter says: "this one (Judas) took possession of the field" does not require that Judas in life bought that plot; metaphorically, in fact, a dead man can be said to be the owner of the place where his body is buried.
The authors of the first centuries inform us of the location of this plot. According to St. Jerome, it is "on the southern slope of Mount Zion"; but Eusebius (III, 38, 21; 39, 26), whose text he translates, says ἐν βαρείοις τοῦ Σιὼν ὄρους, "to the north." The Itinerarium Placentinum reads: "leaving Zion we came to the field, which was acquired with the Lord's price" (26: CSEL, 39, p. 177, 10). Another recension says that the place is found "leaving Siloam" (26: loc. cit., p. 208, 9). Adamnan and Bede look for "illum agellulum, qui hebraice Acheldemach vocatur" on the western slope of Mount Zion (19: loc. cit., p. 243, 17; 307, 18). Modern authors agree: G. Dalman, Orte und Wege Jesu, Gütersloh 1924, p. 351; G. Perrella, I Luoghi Santi, Piacenza 1936, pp. 297-302.
Urban Holzmeister