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Articles
The Robber and the Rabbi
Rome may have ruled Israel during Our Lord’s
time on earth, but robbers ruled the land. Nestled in the rugged hills,
they patrolled the roads, threatening travelers with robbery and mayhem.
Herod’s quick rise to power was due to his father, of course, but the son’s
ruthlessness in dealing with robbers was no hindrance.
A robber who eluded Herod for years was named Dismas, the thief who was
crucified next to Our Lord. What we know of Dismas prior to his crucifixion
is handed down from tradition. His father was a robber chief, and the apple
fell not far from the tree. Whether Dismas ever considered a different way
of life is unknown, but upon reaching adulthood he became more infamous
than his father.
He dwelt in the desert, St. John Chrysostom tells us, and robbed or
murdered anyone unlucky enough to cross his path. The thousands of deaths
attributed to Dismas may be hyperbole, but that Dismas was a murderer is
beyond dispute. According to St. Gregory the Great, he “was guilty of
blood, even his brother’s blood (fratricide).” Dismas, whose name in Greek
means “sunset” or “death,” spent his life sinking to ever lower depths of
corruption and wickedness.
The one recorded good deed before this hardened criminal’s crucifixion also
occurred in the desert. As he plodded under his cross, bleeding from
scourges, dizzy and weak, the memory of his good deed was probably driven
far from his mind, especially since it happened almost thirty-three years
previously, when he and his men came across a family traveling across the
desert and waylaid them.
It was like many other robberies, except for two things. This family,
unlike most travelers who carried supplies of food and money, had almost
nothing of material value. This was because the husband, Joseph, had obeyed
the Angel’s message to leave for Egypt so promptly that he and Mary left
most of their possessions in Nazareth. Had they any money they could have
avoided the desert and traveled to a port with boats for hire. Instead they
made for Egypt overland, exchanging the pursuit of Herod for the pursuit of
wild animals and brigands.
It would have been a brutal journey. The holy travelers were not spared
from hunger, thirst, and fatigue. In one of her visions, Blessed Anne
Catherine Emmerich saw the Holy Family “exhausted and helpless,” Mary in
particular being upset because She had so little to feed Her child. It was
in these circumstances that — according to St. Augustine, St. Peter Damian,
and other Church Fathers — the Holy Family met Dismas.
That the Holy Family ran into robbers in the desert is not recorded in
Sacred Scripture, but given the times they lived in, such an event may be
regarded as inevitable rather than unusual. Which brings us to the second
unusual part of this robbery: the infant Jesus. As the story goes, the
robbers searched the Holy Family in hopes of plunder, and came across a
real Treasure. Something about the infant stopped Dismas dead in his
tracks. Not only did he stop looking for plunder, he paid his comrades to
do the same.
Stories concerning the desert robbery of the Holy Family vary in the
details. Some accounts, including the account of Sister Emmerich, have the
robbers taking the Holy Family back to their cave and feeding them. Other
versions omit this. What all agree on is the effect the (perhaps nine month
old) baby Jesus had on Dismas. When the Holy Family departed, their meager
possessions intact, Dismas, according to St. Augustine, said to Jesus, “O
most blessed of children, if ever a time should come when I should crave
Thy Mercy, remember me and forget not what has passed this day.”
It is unlikely Dismas recognized the infant Jesus as the Messiah, for he
was not a Jew. Several authors, including St. John Damascene, have stated
he was an Egyptian. Consequently he was most likely a pagan at the time he
met the Holy Family. His encounter with Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, however
edifying it was for Dismas at the time, does not appear to have moved him
to change professions. He remained a robber and a murderer until finally he
was caught, perhaps around the age of fifty. That the justice meted out to
Dismas was crucifixion confirms he was a notorious criminal. Crucifixion
was an excruciating (a word derived from crux, or cross) and humiliating
death penalty reserved for the most grave crimes. One of the reasons the
Jews clamored for Christ to be crucified was their assumption that such an
ignoble death would be proof against the Messiah’s life of miracles for the
afflicted and admonitions for the comfortable.
The process of crucifixion included scourging and public cross carrying.
While Dismas and his fellow thief, Gestas, were spared the brutality meted
out to Christ, it is likely they were scourged and made to carry their
crosses to the place of their impending death. So they set off under the
weight of their doom, cursing their captors, their fate, and any gods
within earshot. They probably arrived at Calvary before Christ, and waited
as their fellow “criminal” made His tortuous way of the Cross.
Then the three were fastened to their crosses, and raised on high for all
to see and revile. For Dismas and Gestas, their violence against the
innocent was at last avenged, and the ransom was their lives. As they hung
there with no one to mourn their passing, they saw a holy group mourning
the crucified Christ. In despair, impotent rage, and perhaps force of
habit, Gestas turned against another Innocent. Dismas joined him in the
mockery, according to St. Mark: “They that were crucified with Him
reviled him” (Mark 15:32); and St. Matthew: “The thieves also, that
were crucified with Him, reproached Him (Matthew 27:44).”
It is hard to breathe when you are being crucified. Gestas’ final recorded
words were hurled through choked breath like a curse: “If Thou be the
Christ, save Thyself and us! (Luke 23:39)” His words were not an act of
faith, but the spittle of mockery. Then came the miracle. Dismas, hanging
on the other side of the Savior, turned on his fellow thief:
“Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art under the same
condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our
deeds: but this man hath done no evil. (Luke 23: 40-41)”
These are perhaps the most unlikely words ever recorded. Dismas was hanging
next to a Man whose body was horribly broken, on the verge of death; too
weak or beaten to even curse his tormenters; a fellow criminal able only to
rouse himself occasionally to utter words that, though they were uttered in
a clear voice, were difficult to comprehend. Yet Dismas’ change of heart
came after Christ painfully raised Himself up on the nails transfixing Him,
and spoke to the Father of Mercies: “Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do.”
It was then that Dismas rebuked Gestas, then turned to the Lord and said,
“Lord, remember me, when Thou shalt come into Thy kingdom (Luke 23:
42).” We are left to echo the words of St. Leo: “Whence has Dismas received
his faith? Who has explained the mysterious doctrine? What preacher has
inflamed him? For he now confesses, as his Lord and King, One who seems to
be no more than his fellow sufferer?”
It is divine grace that removed the scales from Dismas’ eyes, and gave him
the faith, hope, and charity not only to proclaim the Christ, but to dare
to ask to enter His Kingdom. This most generous of Kingly gifts, eternal
life, was swiftly bestowed by the Dying upon a most miserable sinner with
the blessed words: “Amen, I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me
in Paradise.”
What was the agent of this grace? Some Fathers have speculated that the
prayers of the Virgin Mary to spare Dismas because of his kindness to the
Holy Family. Others say Christ Himself repaid Dismas, remembering the
thief’s plea: “If ever a time should come when I should crave Thy Mercy,
remember me and forget not what has passed this day.”
Still others, like St. Vincent Ferrer, claim the shadow of Christ’s body
touched Dismas, and that this, like the healing shadow of St. Peter,
effected his conversion. Whatever the instrument, Dismas was transformed by
a divine moral miracle into a firmer apostle than the men who had for years
seen Christ perform miracles, drive out devils, and confound the evil. They
had fled, leaving Dismas to proclaim Christ as the Son of God, even as He
lay dying on the Cross.
It is this faith that the Fathers say warranted Dismas’ speedy entrance
into Paradise, that is, the extraordinary promise of Christ after he heard
Dismas’ confession: “Amen, I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in
Paradise.” Paradise is not the same as Heaven, for Christ would not ascend
to Heaven for more than forty days. Paradise is interpreted by the Fathers,
including St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, to mean Limbo. Aquinas says,
“That word of the Lord (‘This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise’) must
therefore be understood not of an earthly or corporeal Paradise, but of
that spiritual paradise in which all may be, said to be, who are in the
enjoyment of the divine glory. Hence, as to place, the thief went down with
Christ into hell, that he might be with Christ, as it was said to him:
‘Thou shalt be with Me in Paradise’; but as to reward, he was in Paradise,
for he there tasted and enjoyed the divinity of Christ, together with the
other saints.”
The Fathers agree that from the moment of his death Dismas enjoyed the
Beatific Vision uninterrupted. A number of Fathers even believe that Dismas
was the first of the saints to enter Heaven. Such an end should give
courage to the weary, hope to the sinners — that is, all of us — and fervor
to ask St. Dismas to intercede for us so that we may persevere until death
with as lively a faith, hope, and charity as he acquired in the last
moments of his life. Truly has it been said:
“Suddenly, from being an enemy, he became a friend; a stranger, he became a
loving companion; coming from afar, he showed himself the true neighbor; a
robber, he was changed into a glorious confessor. Great, indeed was the
confidence of the thief. Conscious to himself of every sort of guilt and
sin, without a single redeeming good work, he had passed his lawless life
in taking the goods and even the lives of men; yet, at the end of his days,
at the very gates of death, when all hopes of this present life were over,
he conceived a hope of the life to come, which he had so grievously
forfeited, or rather which he had never done anything to deserve. If the
thief had cause to hope, who shall henceforth despair?”
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