The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. Luke
“ Before he asked any thing for himself, he laboured to benefit his companion. This was a mark of singular charity.” S. Chrysostom. Some in fact call this thief a martyr, like S. Cyprian in his letter to Fabian, and assert him to have been baptized in His own blood. He repeats the same in his Serms. de Cana and de Passione — where he says, “ The thief by his confession on the cross, not only merited indulgence, but was made the companion of Christ, and was sent before Him to Paradise, and made a sharer of His kingdom by confession , and a partner of martyrdom.” S. Augustine refers to these words of S. Cyprian, Lib. i. On the Soul and its Origin, and Lib. iv. On Baptism, chap. 22, where he says, “The thief had no need of baptism or martyrdom, but was saved by his contrition alone.” He had said before “ that although the thief did not die for Christ, yet his death was of equal avail with God (because he confessed the Lord crucified) as if he had been crucified for Him, and so the measure of martyrdom was found in him who believed in Christ when they who were to be martyrs fell away.”
S. Augustine again (serm. 120 De Tempore) : “The thief was not yet called, but was already an elect — he was not yet of the household, but he was a friend — not a disciple, but a master — and, from a thief, a confessor ; for although punishment had commenced in the thief it was perfected in the martyr.” De anima et ejus orig. cap . 9 : “The robber ranked as highly for his confession of his crucified Lord as if he had been martyred for Him.” S. Jerome (Ep. 13 to Paulinus) : “ The thief changed the cross for paradise, and made the punishment of his murder, martyrdom.” Drogo, Bishop of Ostia (Tract, de Sac. Dom. Pass. tom. ii. Bibliothica SS. Patrum ), calls him “ a martyr.” Some assert, as a probable reason of his martyrdom, that the Jews hearing his confession of Christ, by which he condemned their deeds and their judgment on Christ, were so stirred against him as to break his legs, as the Gospel relates, and to make his death more speedy and painful, and in the end to make him a martyr. And S. Hilary (lib. ii. de Trin.) calls him a martyr. “ He promised to His martyr paradise — His martyr, that is, His witness, because the thief on the cross bore testimony to his own faith and hope in Christ, or he would not have been properly and precisely a martyr, because he suffered for his own sins, and not for Christ : unless, as I have already suggested, we say that the Jews aggravated and accelerated his death, because of his confession.” Lastly, the Abbot Amaldes or Renald (Tract 29 on the Seven words of Christ on the Cross, in the Bibliotheca SS. Patrum), asserts that the thief was carried up into the heavens, and possessed a seat above all angels and above all cherubim and seraphim, even the throne of Lucifer himself. See Stephen Binettus' Book on the Good Thief, where he calls him “ The Archangel of Paradise, the first-born son of the crucified Christ, the martyr, the apostle and preacher of the whole world, who, from his chair of the cross, preached Christ to the whole world.” “ Paul,” he said, “ preached like the cherubim, the thief loved as the seraphim.” Hear now the praises of the fathers of him.
S. Chrysostom (Homily on the Cross and the Thief) : “The thief purchased salvation from the tree. This thief stole the heavenly empire, he used compulsion to Majesty.” And below, “We find no one before the thief to have merited the promise of paradise, not Abraham, not Isaac, not Jacob, not Moses, not the Prophets or Apostles, but before all we find the thief.” He then compares the faith of the thief to that of Abraham, Isaac, Ezekiel, Moses, and this because he believed in Him, not in the temple, nor on His throne, nor in His glory, but as He was on the cross and in torments . “ He sees Him,” he says, “ in torments and adores Him as if He were in glory. He sees Him on the cross and prays to Him as if He were sitting in heaven. He sees Him and he calls upon Him, hailing Him as King of kings, saying, ‘Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.’ Thou seest one crucified and thou callest Him a King, thou seest Him hanging on a tree and thou thinkest of the kingdoms of the heavens. O wonderful conversion of a thief!”
S. Ambrose (serm. 45) : “ It is the more to his grace and praise that he believed in Christ on the cross ; and the suffering which was a scandal to others, availed to him for faith. Rightly then did he purchase paradise who thought the cross of Christ not an offence but a virtue.” And serm. 50 : “ Let him see His gaping wounds, let him look at His blood gushing out — he still believes Him to be God whom he knew not to be a criminal, he confesses Him to be righteous whom he knew not as a sinner.” And shortly after, “ He understood that for the sins of others Christ bore these wounds. He knew that those wounds on the body of Christ were not the wounds of Christ, but of the thief, and he therefore began to love Him more when, on the Body of Christ, he had recognised his own wounds.” Again, “ Great and wonderful, indeed, is that faith which believed that Christ crucified was glorified rather than punished. For in this was the form of his whole salvation. He then recognised the Lord of Majesty, when he saw Him crucified with the patience of humility. He went before in devotion, who went before also in reward. For the thief came into paradise before the Apostles.”
Eusebius of Emissa (or whoever was the author, for the style shows that he was a Latin, not a Greek or Syrian like Eusebius) in his Homily “De Latrone beato:” “How singular and how stupendous that devotion. The criminal believed at the very moment when the elect denied. It was more praiseworthy and more admirable in the thief to believe in the Lord when in bonds, and falling under the last punishments, than if he had done so when He was doing mighty works. Not therefore without reason did he merit such a reward.” He adds the cause. “ The heart of the thief, I think, who was now a believer in Christ, was illuminated more properly by the Godhead in a bodily form, which had infused Itself more widely at that moment of the consummation of the redemption.” And again, “ He did not say, ‘ If Thou art God deliver me from this present suffering,’ but his ‘ because Thou art God deliver me from the judgment to come,’ shows to the world its Judge and the King of ages. Although punishment began in the thief, it was perfected in a new manner in the martyr.”
This penitent thief, again, is termed by S. Athanasius an evangelist. “ O Thou excellent one ! Thou wast crucified as a thief, thou comest forth suddenly as an evangelist.” He is called by S. Chrysostom in his Sermon on Parasc., “a prophet,” that is a preacher and enunciator of the greatness of Christ. “ O the might of Jesus!” he says, “the thief is now a prophet and preaches from the cross!” He calls him “a robber and seizer of paradise.” “Thou sawest,” He says, “how he did not forget his former craft, even on the cross, but, by his confession, stole the kingdom.” So Sedulius ( Carm . v. on Pasch) :
“ Abstulit ipse suis coelorum regna rapinis,”
“And he the heavenly kingdom took by force.”
S. Cyril (lib. ii. de Adoratione) and S. P. Damianus (Serm. on the Exaltation of the Holy Cross) calls him the first-fruit of the cross and of believers. Christ is thus pointed out by Drogo: “Thou wert Peter on the cross, and Peter in the house of Caiaphas was the thief, because he denied Christ, whom the thief on the cross confessed before the people. He is called by S. Cyprian, or whoever is the author of the Sermon de Passione, “The colleague of the martyrdom of Christ.” By Arnold, abbot of Bona Vallis, (tract de verb . Christ) : “The comrade” (collaterals) “of Christ, and the forerunner of His victory.” By S. Chrysostom (Homily on the Man Born Blind) : “ The advocate of Christ, because he defended Him against the Jews, like an advocate.” By Anastasius the Sinaite (lib. v. Hexam.), “The bird of heaven, the great eagle, flying through the air to paradise.” S. Athanasius classes together many eulogies in his aforesaid piece on Parasc: — Among other things he says, “O thief, fellow soldier of Christ, accuser of the Jews. O thief, merchant of the kingdom, keeper of paradise. O thief, the garland, as it were, of the cross, making a heaven for thyself. O thief, teaching men how to carry off a kingdom as if by theft. O thief, the last to come, the first to be crowned. O thief, mighty accuser of the Jews. O thief, colleague (symmista) of the Apostles, purchaser of Christ!” Hear S. Paulinus in his Panegyric of the youth Celsus :
Moeror abi, discede pavor, fuge culpa, ruit mors.
Vita resurrexit, Christus in astra vocat
Morte mea functus, mihi mortuus, et mihi victor,
Ut mors peccati, sit mihi Vita Dei.
Denique, servatum jam de cruce, duxit aperto
Limite, Latronem, qua Paradisus adest
O grief depart : depart, O fear :
Flee guilt, for death ends all.
Life, life has risen ; from out the stars
I hear my Master call.
Death’s debt is paid ! I’m dead to self;
O’er self I victory win ;
Be thou the life of God to me,
Who art the death of sin.
Sav’d by the cross, the contrite thief
He led unto the door —
The open door of paradise,
Open for evermore.
Christ’s promise to the thief.