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60-422: (Redirected from Good Thief ) The Good Thief may refer to: The Good Thief (Christianity) , Saint Dismas, one of two thieves crucified alongside Jesus The Good Thief , an album by John Brannen The Good Thief (film) , a 2002 film directed by Neil Jordan The Good Thief (soundtrack) , the soundtrack album from the film The Good Thief (novel) ,

120-631: A Homily on the Crucifixion and the Good Thief , which is a classic of Coptic literature . In Coptic Orthodoxy, he is named Demas. This is the name given to him in the Narrative of Joseph of Arimathea . The apocryphal Syriac Infancy Gospel calls the two thieves Titus and Dumachus, and adds a tale about how Titus (the good one) prevented the other thieves in his company from robbing Mary and Joseph during their flight into Egypt . In

180-512: A Dutch (c. 1280), a Venetian manuscript of the 13th century, and a Middle English manuscript from 1400 that was once owned by Samuel Pepys . In a lost writing entitled On Perfection according to the Doctrine of the Savior, Tatian designates matrimony as a symbol of the tying of the flesh to the perishable world and ascribed the "invention" of matrimony to the devil. He distinguishes between

240-530: A 2008 novel by Hannah Tinti A Good Thief , a 2002 British television film Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title The Good Thief . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Good_Thief&oldid=1074945450 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

300-450: A Martian sandroot statue of Saint Dismas, to whom he frequently burns candles. At one point he runs out of candles and stuffs a large number of IOU's under the statue. He also comments "... Ho! Saint Dismas will think he was martyred in a grease fire.". Christian metal band Holyname’s last song on their self titled album is called “St. Dismas” and is about his and Jesus Christ's crucifixions. Tatian Tatian's most influential work

360-417: A chronological harmonization, wherein both thieves at first reviled Jesus, only for one thief to repent on the spot. Epiphanius—followed by Ambrose of Milan and Augustine of Hippo —contended that Mark and Matthew, for the sake of concision, employed a figure of speech called syllepsis whereby the plural was used to indicate the singular. Later commentators, such as Frederic Farrar , have drawn attention to

420-481: A degradatio mosaica, that is, as an imitative corruption of the writings of the Bible (40.1). Consequently he ends up sustaining several theses, the main one being that Moses is older than all the legislators and writers of humanity (31; 36.2-40.1); that there is no plurality of gods but creational monarchy (Oratio ad Graecos 29.2); that there is no plurality of worlds but only one with only one final judgment to come, which

480-483: A fictional charity where they send and store their stolen loot. St. Dismas is prominently mentioned throughout the 1946 film The Hoodlum Saint starring William Powell , Esther Williams and Angela Lansbury . Dismas Hardy is the main protagonist in a series of legal and crime thriller novels by John Lescroart . San Dimas, California and San Dimas High School are featured in the Bill & Ted media franchise . In

540-648: A narrative about the Passion found in the ruins of Dura-Europos in 1933 was once thought to have been from the Diatessaron , but more recent scholarly judgement does not connect it directly to Tatian's work. The earliest member of the Western family of recensions is the Latin Codex Fuldensis , written at the request of bishop Victor of Capua in 545 AD. Although the text is clearly dependent on

600-456: A teacher of your own doctrines and have examined many arts and conceptions and finally I was able to study with attention the variety of statues brought by you to the city of Rome. For I do not seek to confirm my doctrines, as the vulgar do, with opinions foreign to my own, but 'I wish to compose anagraphs' (τὴν ἀναγραφὴν συντάσσσειν βούλομαι) on all those things which by myself I have understood (Oratio ad Graecos 35.1). What Tatian seems to propose

660-476: Is attempting to redeem himself after killing an innocent woman and her child. A special achievement is granted if both starting characters reach the game's final challenge, fittingly titled "On the old road, we found redemption." In the 1967 romantic comedy caper film Fitzwilly , butler mastermind Claude Fitzwilliam ( Dick Van Dyke ) and his larcenous staff operate St. Dismas Thrift Shoppe in Philadelphia,

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720-693: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages The Good Thief (Christianity) The Penitent Thief , also known as the Good Thief , Wise Thief, Grateful Thief , or 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 comes into his kingdom . The other, as

780-533: 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" (the majority view), or the verb "say", as "Amen I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise" (the minority view), is dependent on analysis of word order conventions in Koine Greek . The majority of ancient Bible translations also follow

840-574: Is given the name Dismas in the Gospel of Nicodemus and is traditionally known in Catholicism as Saint Dismas (sometimes Dysmas ; in Spanish and Portuguese, Dimas ). Other traditions have bestowed other names: 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 53 :12 ("And he

900-486: Is impossible to say what is true of history" (31.4). The Greeks are embellishers of language and, in general, with respect to productive and artistic techniques they are skilled imitators, not creators or discoverers: "stop calling imitations inventions" (Oratio ad Graecos 1.1). He then asserts that the Greeks received from other cultures all the disciplines that they managed to practice: divination by dreams, prognostication by

960-572: Is the Diatessaron , a Biblical paraphrase , or "harmony", of the four gospels that became the standard text of the four gospels in the Syriac-speaking churches until the 5th-century, after which it gave way to the four separate gospels in the Peshitta version. Concerning the date and place of his birth, little is known beyond what Tatian tells about himself in his Oratio ad Graecos , chap. xlii ( Ante-Nicene Fathers , ii. 81–82): that he

1020-402: Is the image of God in man, and to it man's immortality is due. The first-born of the spirits (identified with Satan ) fell and caused others to fall, and thus the demons originated. The fall of the spirits was brought about through their desire to separate man from God, in order that he might serve not God but them. Man, however, was implicated in this fall, lost his blessed abode and his soul

1080-519: Is thus not a philosophy, theology, or exegesis of some revealed text, but a historical truth that attentive study can achieve. Nor does he do mythology because in impugning the mythologists as a whole, he uses an argument consonant with the critical historians: Greek theology is mythology, literary invention, with no content of truth. For the first time the voice μυθολογία appears in the Christian lexicon (Oratio ad Graecos 40.1); it specifically signifies

1140-588: The Harrowing of Hell as related in 1 Peter 3:19–20 and the Apostles' Creed (though neither text mentions the thief). Notable books that explore the place of the good thief in art include monographs by Mitchell Merback (The Thief, the Cross, and the Wheel), Mikeal Parsons and Heidi Hornik (Illuminating Luke, vol. 3), and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber (Le voleur de paradis). In Samuel Beckett 's Waiting for Godot ,

1200-749: The Vulgate , the order of the passages is distinctly how Tatian arranged them. Tatian's influence can be detected much earlier in such Latin manuscripts as the Old Latin translation of the Bible, in Novatian 's surviving writings, and in the Roman Antiphony. After the Codex Fuldensis, it would appear that members of the Western family led an underground existence, popping into view over the centuries in an Old High German translation (c. 830),

1260-666: The impenitent thief , challenges Jesus to save himself and both of them 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 (and the penitent thief) were crucified and died exactly on the anniversary of Christ's incarnation . He

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1320-417: The pneuma hylikon , "world spirit," which is common to angels, stars, men, animals, and plants. This world spirit is lower than the divine pneuma, and becomes in man the psyche or "soul," so that on the material side and in his soul man does not differ essentially from the animals; though at the same time he is called to a peculiar union with the divine spirit, which raises him above the animals. This spirit

1380-401: The 2022 film Clerks III , Elias mentions the Good Thief multiple times, quoting him as saying "Jesus did no wrong, whereas we are but thieves". In a running gag , everybody hears "but thieves" as "butt thieves" and wonders out loud what that means. In Poul Anderson 's Technic History (a science fiction story cycle), Nicholas van Rijn (2376 to c. 2500), CEO of Solar Spice and Liquors keeps

1440-568: The Christian religion and became the pupil of Justin Martyr . During this period Christian philosophers competed with Greek sophists. Like Justin, Tatian opened a Christian school in Rome. Knowledge of Tatian's life following the death of Justin in AD 165 is to some extent obscure. Irenaeus remarks ( Haer. , I., xxviii. 1, Ante-Nicene Fathers, i. 353) that after the death of Justin, he was expelled from

1500-892: 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

1560-491: The Diatessaron was replaced in those Assyrian churches that used it by the four original Gospels. Rabbula , Bishop of Edessa , ordered the priests and deacons to see that every church should have a copy of the separate Gospels ( Evangelion da Mepharreshe ), and Theodoret , Bishop of Cyrus, removed more than two hundred copies of the Diatessaron from the churches in his diocese. The Syriac Sinaitic manuscript of gospels

1620-452: The Greeks, Tatian describes himself as a prudent historian on the model of Thucydides , whom he never names. He presents himself as a scholar of documentation "with all my rigor <for you>" (Oratio 41.2.13) Thucydides' principle. He also distinguishes between annals and documents that are within the historian's reach and things that fall outside his direct knowledge (Oratio ad Graecos 20.2), another of Thucydides' principles. He then accepts

1680-453: The Music "Vida Loka, Pt. 2", the brazilian rap group Racionais MC's , refers Dismas as a "First Thug Life of All Time". 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. A comic showing his backstory (as well the descriptions of some items in the game) imply that he

1740-632: The Russian Orthodox Church and form one of the highlights of the Matins service on Good Friday. The earliest depiction of the thief may be the wooden relief of the doors of Saint Sabine in Rome. Here the good thief is apparently located to the right side of Jesus, similar to the famous late sixth-century depiction of the crucifixion in the Rabbula Gospels. In medieval art , St Dismas is often depicted as accompanying Jesus in

1800-763: The Russian tradition, the Good Thief's name is "Rakh" ( Russian : Рах). 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

1860-603: The apparent contradiction between the account in Luke and the overlapping account in Mark and Matthew. Tatian omitted/rejected the Markan/Matthean tradition in his Diatessaron , and Ephrem the Syrian apparently followed suit. Origen of Alexandria , Eustathius of Antioch , and Epiphanius of Salamis described the differences as reflections of different, yet complementary authorial intent. Origen and his many heirs promoted

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1920-609: The caution of the Greek historians who rejected the mythological 'archaeology' with which the ancient ethnographers and historians ( Titus Livy ) had covered the dark path between the known facts and the legendary origin of each city or ethnic group. Another characteristic of the rigorous historian is the personal inspection of places and cities with the discernment of the various types of documentation and sources: Well then, all these things I do not expound because I learned them from another but because, traveling through many lands I have been

1980-536: The church for his Encratitic ( ascetic ) views, as well as for being a follower of the gnostic leader Valentinius . Eusebius refers to a belief that Tatian had founded the Encratitic sect. It is clear that Tatian left Rome, perhaps to reside for a while in either Greece or Alexandria , where he may have taught Clement of Alexandria . Epiphanius relates that Tatian established a school in Mesopotamia,

2040-586: 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 (the troparion tou deipnou) 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.". According to

2100-494: The difference between the Greek words used: "The two first Synoptists tell us that both the robbers during an early part of the hours of crucifixion reproached Jesus (ὠνείδιζον), but we learn from St Luke that only one of them used injurious and insulting language to Him (ἐβλασφήμει)." The phrase translated "Amen, I say to you, today you will be in paradise" in Luke 23:43 ("Ἀμήν σοι λέγω σήμερον μετ’ ἐμοῦ ἔσῃ ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ." Amén soi légo sémeron met' emoû ése en tôi paradeísoi )

2160-504: The enjoyment of the divine glory. Hence to place, the thief went up with Christ to heaven, 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. Only the Gospel of Luke describes one of the criminals as penitent, and that gospel does not name him. Augustine of Hippo does not name

2220-407: The falsification of the philosophy of Moses perpetrated by the Greeks. Their poetry is shameful but, nevertheless, not false in an absolute way, because the 'gods' exist and act: they are the 'demons', who impinge on the deviation of human behavior and are the ones who manage the destructive and evil culture of the whole Greek παιδεία. Greek theology, then, is seen not as a praeparatio evangelica but as

2280-634: The influence of which extended to Antioch in Assyria, and was felt in Cilicia and especially in Pisidia. The early development of the Assyrian church furnishes a commentary on the attitude of Tatian in practical life. Thus for Aphrahat baptism conditions the taking of a vow in which the catechumen promises celibacy. This shows how firmly the views of Tatian were established in Assyria, and it supports

2340-602: The liturgical scholar Robert Taft, this hymn was inserted into the Holy Thursday liturgy in Constantinople in the late 6th century. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, one of the hymns of Good Friday is entitled, "The Good Thief" (or "The Wise Thief", Church Slavonic : " Razboinika blagorazumnago "), and speaks of how Christ granted Dismas Paradise. Several compositions of this hymn are used in

2400-504: 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?" The thief features in Christian popular music, as in Christian rock band Third Day 's 1995 song "Thief", and

2460-633: 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: The words of The Lord (This day ... 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

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2520-446: The moral life. Originally, the human soul possessed faith in one God, but lost it with the fall. In consequence, under the rule of demons, man sank into the abominable error of polytheism. By monotheistic faith, the soul is delivered from the material world and from demonic rule and is united with God. God is spirit ( pneuma ), but not the physical or stoical pneuma; he was alone before the creation, but he had within himself potentially

2580-520: The name of the Christian rock band Dizmas . The thief is the narrator in Sydney Carter 's controversial song "Friday Morning". He is 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 Uncharted 4: A Thief's End in which treasure hunter Nathan Drake uses a St. Dismas cross to aid in his search for pirate treasure. In

2640-485: The new Christian doctrine to philosophy, Tatian manifests a violent rejection of the forms of philosophical literature with which he is familiar and consequently turns to a safer literary genre: the writing of history. He thus recapitulates his treatise: Thus I believe I have summarily but with all my rigor analyzed the treatises of the sages, their 'chronologies' (χρόνοι) and their archives (ναγραφαί), each one in particular" (Tatian Oratio ad Graecos 41.2-3). Tatian gives

2700-462: The old and the new man; the old man is the law, the new man the Gospel. Other lost writings of Tatian include a work written before the Oratio ad Graecos that contrasts the nature of man with the nature of the animals, and a Problematon biblion , which aimed to present a compilation of obscure Scripture sayings. The starting-point of Tatian's theology is a strict monotheism which becomes the source of

2760-427: The sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom." He replied to him, "Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." The Gospel of John account of Jesus' death merely names both of these criminals as "....and two others" without naming their crimes. Various attempts have been made to reconcile

2820-411: The stars, observation of the flight of birds, the art of sacrifice, astronomy, magic, geometry, the alphabet, poetry, singing, the mysteries, plastic arts, anagraphic records, the manufacture of musical instruments and metallurgy (1.1-2) he specifies in each case the nation from which the knowledge that the Greeks have of the arts comes from. However, although he does not recognize the inventive capacity of

2880-529: The supposition that Tatian was the missionary of the countries around the Euphrates . His Oratio ad Graecos (Address to the Greeks) condemns paganism as worthless, and praises the reasonableness and high antiquity of Christianity. As early as Eusebius , Tatian was praised for his discussions of the antiquity of Moses and of Jewish legislation, and it was because of this chronological section that his Oratio

2940-514: 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" ( fratricide ). According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops commentary on John 18:40, the term commonly translated as thief – léstés – can also mean "a guerrilla warrior fighting for nationalistic aims." Luke's unnamed penitent thief

3000-467: 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 (385–412) wrote

3060-434: 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:

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3120-400: The top one, representing the titulus (the inscription that Pontius Pilate wrote and was nailed above Jesus' head); 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 ,

3180-517: The voice for the first time in the Christian lexicon to ναγραφή, annals or documentary chronology. Tatian claims that the Greeks learned historiography from the Egyptians (Oratio ad Graecos 1.1), who possessed exact techniques for chronology (38.1). For the Syriac the Greeks are skillful literati, bad philosophers, but they can never be good historians, for "for those who have a disjointed chronology it

3240-456: The whole creation. Some scholars consider Tatian's creation theology as the beginning of teaching "ex nihilo" (creation from "nothing"). The means of creation was the dynamis logike ("power expressed in words"). At first there proceeded from God the Logos who, generated in the beginning, was to produce the world by creating matter from which the whole creation sprang. Creation is penetrated by

3300-610: Was born in "the land of the Assyrians", scholarly consensus is that he died c. AD 185, perhaps in Adiabene . He travelled to Rome , where he first encountered Christianity. During his prolonged stay in Rome, according to his own representation, his abhorrence of the pagan cults sparked deep reflections on religious problems. Through the Old Testament , he wrote, he grew convinced of the unreasonableness of paganism. He adopted

3360-467: Was deserted by the divine spirit, and sank into the material sphere, in which only a faint reminiscence of God remained alive. As by freedom man fell, so by freedom he may turn again to God. The Spirit unites with the souls of those who walk uprightly; through the prophets he reminds men of their lost likeness to God. Although Tatian does not mention the name of Jesus, his doctrine of redemption culminates in his Christology . Unlike Justin, who had related

3420-631: Was later assigned the name Dismas in an early Greek recension of the Acta Pilati and the Latin Gospel of Nicodemus , portions of which may be dated to the late fourth century. The name "Dismas" may have been adapted from a Greek word meaning "dying". The other thief's name is given as Gestas . In the Syriac Infancy Gospel 's Life of the Good Thief ( Histoire Du Bon Larron French 1868, English 1882), Augustine of Hippo said,

3480-573: Was not generally condemned. His other major work was the Diatessaron , a "harmony" or synthesis of the four New Testament Gospels into a combined narrative of the life of Jesus . Ephrem the Syrian referred to it as the Evangelion da Mehallete ("The Gospel of the Mixed"), and it was practically the only gospel text used in Assyria during the 3rd and 4th centuries. In the mid 5th century

3540-502: Was numbered with the transgressors"). According to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, respectively, both of the thieves mocked Jesus; Luke, however, relates: Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us." The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply, "Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for

3600-680: Was produced in between AD 411 and 435 as a result of his edict. A number of recensions of the Diatessaron are extant. The earliest, part of the Eastern family of recensions, is preserved in Ephrem's Commentary on Tatian's work, which itself is preserved in two versions: an Armenian translation preserved in two copies, and a copy of Ephrem's original Syriac text from the late 5th/early 6th century, which has been edited by Louis Leloir (Paris, 1966). Other translations include translations made into Arabic , Persian , and Old Georgian . A fragment of

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