Penitent thief


The Penitent Thief, also known as the Good Thief, Grateful Thief or the Thief on the Cross, is one of two unnamed thieves in Luke's account of the crucifixion of Jesus in the New Testament. The Gospel of Luke describes him asking Jesus to "remember him" when Jesus arrives at his kingdom. The other, as the impenitent thief, challenges Jesus to save himself to prove that he is the Messiah.
He is officially venerated in the Catholic Church. The Roman Martyrology places his commemoration on 25 March, together with the Feast of the Annunciation, because of the ancient Christian tradition that Christ were crucified and died exactly on the anniversary of Christ's incarnation.
He is given the name Dismas in the Gospel of Nicodemus and is traditionally known in Catholicism as Saint Dismas . Other traditions have bestowed other names:

Narrative

Two men were crucified at the same time as Jesus, one on his right and one on his left, which the Gospel of Mark interprets as fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah. According to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, respectively, both of the thieves mocked Jesus ; Luke, however, mentions that:
of The Good Thief in Paradise (Moscow school,

"Amen ... today ... in paradise"

The phrase translated "Amen I say to you today you will be in paradise" in Luke 23:43 is disputed in a minority of versions and commentaries. The Greek manuscripts are without punctuation, so attribution of the adverb "today" to the verb "be", as "Amen I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise", or the verb "say", as "Amen I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise", is dependent on analysis of word order conventions in Koine Greek. The majority of ancient Bible translations also follow the majority view, with only the Aramaic language Curetonian Gospels offering significant testimony to the minority view. As a result, some prayers recognize the good thief as the only person confirmed as a saint—that is, a person known to be in Paradise after death—by the Bible, and by Jesus himself. Thomas Aquinas wrote:

Christian traditions

Unnamed

Only the Gospel of Luke describes one of the thieves as penitent, and that gospel does not name him.
Augustine of Hippo does not name the thief, but wonders if he might not have been baptized at some point.
According to tradition, the Good Thief was crucified to Jesus' right and the other thief was crucified to his left. For this reason, depictions of the crucifixion of Jesus often show Jesus' head inclined to his right, showing his acceptance of the Good Thief. In the Russian Orthodox Church, both crucifixes and crosses are usually made with three bars: the top one, representing the titulus ; the longer crossbar on which Jesus' hands were nailed; and a slanted bar at the bottom representing the footrest to which Jesus' feet were nailed. The footrest is slanted, pointing up towards the Good Thief, and pointing down towards the other.
According to John Chrysostom, the thief dwelt in the desert and robbed or murdered anyone unlucky enough to cross his path. According to Pope Gregory I, he "was guilty of blood, even his brother's blood".

Named

"Dismas"

Luke's unnamed penitent thief was later assigned the name Dismas in the Gospel of Nicodemus, portions of which may be dated to the fourth century. The name "Dismas" was adapted from a Greek word meaning "sunset" or "death". The other thief's name is given as Gestas. In Syriac Infancy Gospel's Life of the Good Thief, Augustine of Hippo said, the thief said to Jesus, the child: "O most blessed of children, if ever a time should come when I shall crave Thy Mercy, remember me and forget not what has passed this day."
Anne Catherine Emmerich saw the Holy Family "exhausted and helpless"; according to Augustine of Hippo and Peter Damian, the Holy Family met Dismas, in these circumstances. Pope Theophilus of Alexandria wrote a Homily on the Crucifixion and the Good Thief, which is a classic of Coptic literature.

"Demas"

In Coptic Orthodoxy, he is named Demas. This is the name given to him in the Narrative of Joseph of Arimathea.

"Titus"

The apocryphal Syriac Infancy Gospel calls the two thieves Titus and Dumachus, and adds a tale about how Titus prevented the other thieves in his company from robbing Mary and Joseph during their flight into Egypt.

"Rakh"

In the Russian tradition, the Good Thief's name is "Rakh".

Sainthood

The Catholic Church remembers the Good Thief on 25 March. In the Roman Martyrology, the following entry is given: "Commemoration of the holy thief in Jerusalem who confessed to Christ and canonized him by Jesus himself on the cross at that moment and merited to hear from him: 'Today you will be with me in Paradise.
A number of towns, including San Dimas, California, are named after him. Also, parish churches are named after him, such as the Church of the Good Thief in Kingston, Ontario, Canada—built by convicts at nearby Kingston Penitentiary, Saint Dismas Church in Waukegan, Illinois, the Old Catholic Parish of St Dismas in Coseley and the Church of St. Dismas, the Good Thief, a Catholic church at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York.
The Eastern Orthodox Church remembers him on Good Friday, along with the crucifixion. The Synaxarion offers this couplet in his honor:


Eden's locked gates the Thief has opened wide,
By putting in the key, "Remember me."


He is commemorated in a traditional Eastern Orthodox prayer said before receiving the eucharist: "I will not speak of Thy Mystery to Thine enemies, neither like Judas will I give Thee a kiss; but like the thief will I confess Thee: Remember me, O Lord in Thy Kingdom."

Art

In medieval art, St Dismas is often depicted as accompanying Jesus in the Harrowing of Hell as related in and the Apostles' Creed.
In the Eastern Orthodox Church, one of the hymns of Good Friday is entitled, "The Good Thief", and speaks of how Christ granted Dismas Paradise. Several compositions of this hymn are used in the Russian Orthodox Church and form one of the highlights of the Matins service on Good Friday.
In Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, the main characters Vladimir and Estragon briefly discuss the inconsistencies between the Four Evangelists' accounts of the penitent and impenitent thieves. Vladimir concludes that since only Luke says that one of the two was saved, "then the two of them must have been damned why believe him rather than the others?"

In popular culture

The thief features in Christian popular music, as in Christian rock band Third Day's 1995 song "Thief", and the name of the Christian rock band Dizmas. The thief also is the narrator in Sydney Carter's controversial song "Friday Morning".
Portrayed by Stelio Savante in the award winning Good Friday film Once We Were Slaves directed by Dallas Jenkins
St. Dismas is central to the early plot of the video game in which treasure hunter Nathan Drake uses a St. Dismas idol to aid in his search for pirate treasure.
Dismas is the name of one of two starting characters in the video game Darkest Dungeon. He is also referred to as a rogue, thief, and highwayman in the in-game descriptions.
In the romantic comedy caper movie "Fitzwilly", butler mastermind Claude Fitzwilliam and his larcenous staff operate St. Dismas Thrift Shoppe in Philadelphia, a fictional charity where they send and store their stolen loot.