In latronem

On the Robber, and on the Betrayal of Our Savior Jesus Christ. 1. Oh, what power our faith has! Oh, how strong is the prayer of a Christ-loving people interceding for a sinful priest! And let not what is said astonish you; for I have been taught to say this to you by the divine Paul, who explicitly writes in his own Epistles to his disciples: Pray for me, that speech may be granted me when I open my mouth. If Paul, the chosen vessel, the heavenly man, the orator of grace, begged for the gift of prayers from his own disciples, how much more should I, whom you all know to be a sinner! But nevertheless, even a tax collector, once he changed his evil purpose, became a disciple of the Lord; and I know also a harlot who offered tears of repentance at the Master's footsteps and washed away the much-talked-of defilement of prostitution; and I know that prudent robber, who through faith plundered great things well—for the profit of such his robbery has become paradise. I too am aware, having seized hold of such an anchor.

For we have a Master so philanthropic that, if he only receives our petition sincerely, he immediately grants mercy in return. For he gave a law; but the law, being a shadow of the good things to come and not the very truth of realities, was unable to enlighten. He sent the prophetic people as an ambassador; but even the prophetic people, overcome by death, cried out saying, "I am earth and ashes." An angel could not be incarnate without change. It was not an angel, it says, nor an ambassador who redeemed them, but the Lord himself. For he saw the inhabited world bereft of help and crying out to him: "Bend, O Lord, your heavens, and descend." For if you, it says, do not descend to us, we are unable to ascend to you through any other means. So he saw, and he did not disregard the petition, but he bent the heavens and descended to earth, without emptying the heavens. He was conceived in a virginal womb broader than all creation. For he whom a patriarchal hut could not contain, a virginal womb contained. He was incarnate, as he himself knows, not as the heretics interpret, who are ignorant of their own affairs and measure divine things. He was born, as he willed.

He mounted the wood, healing the wood of Paradise, and cries out: "I alone trod the winepress, and no one was with me—no angel, no elder, no archangel, no prophet, no king, none of the righteous with me; and one alone was with me, not with me in crushing death, but with me in inheriting Paradise; with me on the wood, not with me in the war of death." For it says, "The Lord who shatters wars, Lord is his name." One thief confessed. O strange and paradoxical things! The thief with Christ, and the disciple Judas with the devil; light became darkness, and darkness was transformed into light; the lamb became a wolf, and the wolf a lamb. The thief, his hands pierced with nails, greeted the Master with a faithful voice, saying, "Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom"; and the disciple, offering a kiss with his lips, prepared the sword in his heart; with his lips he uttered joy, and with his heart he belched forth deceit, saying, "Hail, Rabbi"; then he kisses him, and turning, he said to the Jews, with a nod.

not by word: "Bind him and take him away." O lawless Judas, where do you command the one who says, "The heaven is my throne, and the earth is the footstool of my feet," to be taken? 2. But I see your love more eager, and the body constrained; and I wished to stop the discourse here. But since your love of hearing urges us to lengthen the discourse, let us return to the sequence of the word. "Hail, Rabbi," he says. And the philanthropic Master, conquering the treachery of the traitor by his forbearance, said well, "Friend, for what purpose have you come? I greet you, Judas, not that I may bestow love, which you have cast off, but that I may empty the grace which I have given you; for an unworthy vessel cannot bear heavenly myrrh." But what do I say about Judas? Peter, who received the key of the kingdom, seeing the King of Glory crucified, threw away the keys and fled; and the thief, who was opening the doors of men, himself seized the keys of paradise. Peter, who said, "Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you," denied him three times; and the thief, not promising with words but dying together with the resurrection in deeds, said, "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom." The thief did not respect authorities and powers, and Peter did not endure the threat of a girl; the thief cried out, "Lord," and Peter said, "I do not know this man," whom shortly before he called Son of God. Peter, who walked on the sea, denied the one who trod the liquid nature; and the thief, not walking on the back of the sea but at the gates of the rich, cried out, "Lord.

The sons of Zebedee, who said, "We can drink the cup which you are about to drink" (for that was the case), fled at the time of the cup. And the robber seized the cup of salvation from the hand of the sons of Zebedee, saying, "I will take the cup of salvation, and I will call upon the name of the Lord." Thomas, the curious investigator of the incomprehensible mystery, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, so that we may die with him," and seeing him crucified, he fled. He sees him crucified, and he flees; he sees him risen, and he hesitates, saying, "Unless I put my finger into the mark of the nails, and my hand into his side, I will not believe." But the philanthropic God, who came down for one sheep, did not despise the one sheep; but he lifts it onto his shoulders, and says, "Bring your hand here, and put it into my side. I endured a soldier's lance, and shall I not endure an apostolic right hand?" But O good robber (for my speech is to you), you learned to rob, you were not taught to believe; you did not become a disciple, and how do you call the Creator, saying, "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom"? You spoke well, you believed piously.

You plundered dangerously many times, you opened the treasuries of the rich many times, and you did not find such a pearl as Christ. You did not become an apostle, you did not hear the lawgiver saying, "You will see your life hanging"; and how did you harvest life from a tree? You did not hear Isaiah saying, "By the wound of his passion, the passions of men receive healing"; and how did you find a remedy in passions? Yes, says the robber: I see the whole creation shaken and trembling, and I recognize the one hanging on the tree as the Master of creation. For if he were not the Maker of all things, the sun, seeing him stripped, would not, out of shame, have hidden its own rays and darkened the God-fighters. If he were not the Maker of heaven and earth, the sky, seeing him crucified, would not have put on darkness as a sackcloth. If he were not the Master of the whole earth, the earth, receiving the blood from his side, would not have been shaken from its foundations. If he were not the Master of life and death, death, approaching him, would not have been overthrown, and the tombs of the saints would not have been opened.

If this one were not the Lord of the temple, the temple, seeing him crucified, would not have rent its own veil. If this one were not the one who does not desire the death of sinners, he would not have interceded for sinners, saying, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they do." For this one's death established everything. For he goes down into Hades and comes up with all. Therefore I cry out, saying, "Lord, remember me." I do not entreat as a slave, "Remember me when you are well," but "Remember me when you come into your kingdom." And what does the Master say to him? "Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise." Let the precise accountants of the incomprehensible birth say how he said to the thief, "Today you will be with me in paradise." First let them interpret this, and then his ineffable birth, which he proclaims prophetically, "Who will recount his generation, that his life is taken from the earth?" The Fathers expanded this faith; thus they glorified the incomprehensible, believing and not meddling. "Today you will be with me in paradise." He spoke, and it came to pass. But, O philanthropic Master, all the righteous stand outside paradise, and you bring a thief into paradise? Yes, I bring a thief first into paradise, so that I may persuade the world that I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Glory to Christ himself unto the ages of ages. Amen.