And Jesus said unto him,
Verily I say unto you, Today shall you be with me in paradise.
All Commentaries on Luke 23:43 Go To Luke 23
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise. That Isaiah , in a place of pleasure where thou mayest be in the beatitude and beatific vision of God, i.e. To-day I will make thee for ever happy; I will make thee a king reigning in the kingdom of glory with me this day. So S. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechet. Lect. c13); S. Chrysostom (Hom. ii. de Cruce et Latrone); S. Gregory of Nyssa (Serm. on the Resurrection); S. Augustine (Tract. III on John). He explains paradise by heaven, that is celestial beatitude. It is certain that Christ on the day on which He died, did not go up to heaven with the thief, but went down into the Limbus Patrum (S. Augustine Lib. ii. de Genese ad litt. chap34; and Maldonatus by paradise here understand Abraham"s bosom), and imparted to them the vision of His Godhead and thus made them blest, changing the order of things; for He then made limbus to be paradise, and the lower parts the upper, so that hell should be heaven. For where Christ Isaiah , there is paradise; where, the vision and beatitude of God, there, heaven. For, as to what Euthymius and other Greeks say, denying that the souls of the saints see God before the judgment and are happy: by paradise they understand an earthly place; that to which Enoch was carried. But it cannot be so—for it is of the faith that Christ, shortly after His death went down in infernum—that Isaiah , the limbus of the Fathers, but He did not go into any earthly paradise. It Isaiah , moreover, uncertain whether, after the Deluge, there be any earthly paradise remaining. But grant that there be such, it is the happy and joyful habitation, not of souls, but of bodies only. Hence it is plain from this passage, against the Greeks, Calvin, and the other innovators, that the souls of the saints, when thoroughly purged from sin, do not sleep till the day of judgment, but there behold God, and are beatified by a vision of Him.
Moraliter. Observe here the liberality of Christ, who exceeds our prayers and vows. The thief only prayed Christ to remember him when He came into His kingdom. Christ at the same time promised him a kingdom, that he might reign in it as a king. "This day," says Eusebius of Emissa, in his "Homily on the Blessed Thief"—"as if He would say, 0 my faithful companion and one only witness of so great a triumph, dost thou think that I need to be so earnestly entreated to remember thee? this day shalt thou be with Me in paradise." And again, "Christ when placed in the yoke (patibulum) as an arbiter between the two condemned, rejected him who denied, and received the one who confessed; on the latter He bestows a kingdom, the former He leaves in hell. Let us then believe that He will come to Judges , whom we see to have already on the cross exercised judgment." This is that most sweet answer of Christ to the thief which Fulgentius (serm. nov60), calls "the testament of Christ, written with the pen of the cross."
Lastly, the name of this most blessed thief is said to have been Dismas, for some chapels are found, in the name of "Dismas the Robber." His day in the Cataloaue of Saints is the25th March, for on that day he seems to have suffered, and Christ in consequence on the same day. For we find in it, "At Jerusalem, the commemoration of the holy thief who confessed Christ on the cross, and who therefore merited to hear "This day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.""
