[6109] The words, with them,' in St. Luke xxiii. 35, are spurious.
[6110] St. Mark introduces the mocking speeches (xv. 29) by the particle o (Ah') which occurs only here in the N.T. It is evidently the Latin Vah,' an exclamation of ironical admiration. (See Bengel and Nebe, ad loc.) The words literally were: Ha! the downbreaker of the sanctuary and upbuilding it in three days, save Thyself.' Except the introductory particle and the order of the words, the words are the same in St. Matthew. The katalon is used in the sense of a substantive (comp. Winer, Gram. p. 122, and especially p. 316).
[6111] The language of St. Matthew and St. Mark is quite general, and refers to the thieves;' that of St. Luke is precise and detailed. But I cannot agree with those who, for the sake of harmony,' represent the penitent thief as joining in his comrade's blasphemy before turning to Christ. I do not deny, that such a sudden change might have taken place; but there is no evidence for it in the text, and the supposition of the penitent thief first blaspheming gives rise to many incongruities, and does not seem to fit into the text.
[6112] Tradition names the impenitent thief Gestas, which Keim identifies with stegans, silenced, hardened - although the derivation seems to me forced. The penitent thief is called Dysmas, which I would propose to derive from dusm in the sense of the setting,' viz, of the sun: he who turns to the setting sun. Sepp very fancifully regards the penitent thief as a Greek (Japhetisch), the impenitent as a negro.
[6113] So according to the right reading.
[6114] See the quotations in Nebe, ii. 258.
[6115] Dost not thou even fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?' Condemnation here means that to which one is condemned: the sufferings of the cross; and the expostulation is: Suffering as thou art like Him and me, canst thou join in the jeers of the crowd? Dost thou not even fear God - should not fear of Him now creep over thy soul, or at least prevent thee from insulting the dying Sufferer? And this all the more, since the circumstances are as immediately afterwards described.
[6116] Fully to understand it, we ought to realise what would be the Jewish ideas of the penitent thief,' and what his understanding of the words of Christ. Broadly, one would say, that as a Jew he would expect that his death would be expiation of his sins.' Thoughts of need of forgiveness through the Messiah would not therefore come to him. But the words of Christ must have supplied all this. Again when Christ spoke of Paradise,' His hearer would naturally understand that part of Hades in which the spirits of the righteous dwelt till the Ressurection. On both these points there are so many passages in Rabbinic writings tht it is needless to quote (see for ex. Westein, ad loc., and our remarks on the Parable of Lazarus and Dives). Indeed, the prayer: let my death be the expiation of my sins, is still in the Jewish office for the dying, and the underlying dogma is firmly rooted in Rabbinic belief. The words of our Lord, so far from encouraging this belief, would teach him that admission to Paradise was to be granted by Christ. It is scarcely necessary to add, that Christ's words in no way encouraged the realistic conceptions which Judaism attached to Paradise ({hebrew}). In Biblical Hebrew the word is used for a choice garden: in Eccl. ii. 5; Cant. iv. 13; Nehem. ii. 8. But in the LXX. and the Apocr. the word is already used in our sense of Paradise. Lastly, nothing which our Lord had said to the penitent thief' about being to-day' with Him in Paradise, is in any way inconsistent with, rather confirms, the doctrine of the Descent into Hades.