Note 144 — Chapter III · RETIREMENT TO THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, ARREST, TRIAL, CONDEMNATION AND CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS.

All the Evangelists agree in stating that two malefactors δύο κακοῦργοι (Matthew and Mark call them λῃστὰς thieves) were crucified, one on each side of Jesus; and Mark, if his 28th verse be genuine, sees in this a literal fulfilment of the words: he was numbered with the transgressors, which, according to Luke xxii. 37, Jesus had the evening before quoted as a prophecy about to be accomplished in him. Of the further demeanour of these fellow-sufferers, John says nothing; the two first Evangelists represent them as reviling Jesus (Matt. xxvii. 44; Mark xv. 32): whereas Luke narrates that only one of them was guilty of this offence, and that he was rebuked by the other (xxiii. 39 ff.). In order to reconcile this difference, commentators have advanced the supposition, that at first both criminals reviled Jesus, but that subsequently one of them was converted by the marvellous darkness;144 more modern ones have resorted to the supposition of an enallage numeri:145 but without doubt those only are right who admit a real difference between Luke and his predecessors.146 It is plain that the two first Evangelists knew nothing of the more precise details which Luke presents concerning the relation of the two malefactors to Jesus. He narrates, namely, that when one of them derided Jesus by calling upon him, if he were the Messiah, to deliver himself and them, the other earnestly rebuked such mockery of one with whom he was sharing a like fate, and moreover as a guilty one with the guiltless, entreating for his own part that Jesus would remember him when he should come into his kingdom βασιλεία: whereupon Jesus gave him the promise that he should that very day be with him in Paradise ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ. In this scene there is nothing to create difficulty, until we come to the words which the second malefactor addresses to Jesus. For to expect from one suspended on the cross a future coming to establish the messianic kingdom, would presuppose the conception of the whole system of a dying Messiah, which before the resurrection the apostles themselves could not comprehend, and which therefore, according to the above representation of Luke, a thief must have been beforehand with them in embracing. This is so improbable, that it cannot excite surprise to find many regarding the conversion of the thief on the cross as a miracle,147 and the supposition which commentators call in to their aid, namely, that the man was no common criminal, but a political one, perhaps concerned in the insurrection of Barabbas,148 only serves to render the incident still more inconceivable. For if he was an Israelite inclined to rebellion, and bent on liberating his nation from the Roman yoke, his idea of the Messiah was assuredly the most incompatible with the acknowledgment as such, of one so completely annihilated in a political view, as Jesus then was. Hence we are led to the question, whether we have here a real history and not rather a creation of the legend? Two malefactors were crucified with Jesus: thus much was indubitably presented by history (or did even this owe its origin to the prophecy, Isa. liii. 12?). At first they were suspended by the side of Jesus as mute figures, and thus we find them in the narrative of the fourth Evangelist, into whose region of tradition only the simple statement, that they were crucified with Jesus, had penetrated. But it was not possible for the legend long to rest contented with so slight a use of them: it opened their mouths, and as only insults were reported to have proceeded from the bystanders, the two malefactors were at first made to join in the general derision of Jesus, without any more particular account being given of their words (Matt. and Mark). But the malefactors admitted of a still better use. If Pilate had borne witness in favour of Jesus; if shortly after, a Roman centurion—nay, all nature by its miraculous convulsions—had attested his exalted character: so his two fellow-sufferers, although criminals, could not remain entirely impervious to the impression of his greatness, but, though one of them did indeed revile Jesus agreeably to the original form of the legend, the other must have expressed an opposite state of feeling, and have shown faith in Jesus as the Messiah (Luke). The address of the latter to Jesus and his answer are besides conceived entirely in the spirit of Jewish thought and expression; for according to the idea then prevalent, paradise was that part of the nether world which was to harbour the souls of the pious in the interval between their death and the resurrection: a place in paradise and a favourable remembrance in the future age were the object of the Israelite’s petition, to God, as here to the Messiah;149 and it was believed concerning a man distinguished for piety that he could conduct those who were present at the hour of his death into paradise.150