Saint Dismas, the Good Thief

Life story

The Gospels say that Jesus was crucified between two other men. Matthew 27 and Mark 15 call them robbers, while John 19 says only that there were two others. According to Matthew and Mark, both of them insulted him. No New Testament book gives their names or says what they had done beyond being sentenced to death.

The Gospel of Luke, in chapter 23, adds a detail of its own: one of the two abused Jesus, but the other rebuked him, saying that the two of them were receiving the just penalty for their deeds while Jesus had done nothing wrong. He asked Jesus to remember him when he came into his kingdom, and Jesus replied that this very day he would be with him in Paradise.

The name Dismas is not in the New Testament. It appears in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus (the Acts of Pilate), where the other thief is called Gestas; other traditions use other names, such as Demas in the Coptic tradition. In the Arabic Infancy Gospel a robber who spares the Holy Family on the flight into Egypt is called Titus (his companion is Dumachus), and later tradition identified him with the Good Thief; this is folklore with no historical basis. The Church commemorates him on 25 March, following an ancient idea that the Passion fell on the anniversary of the Annunciation.

Works and witness

• Crucified beside Jesus at Calvary (Luke 23)
• According to Luke, rebuked the other man and admitted his own guilt
• Asked Jesus to remember him and was promised Paradise that day
• The name Dismas appears only in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus
• Commemorated by the Church on 25 March

Patron of

Prisoners

Saints from the same country

Saint Peter, Saint Andrew the Apostle, Saint James the Greater, Saint John the Apostle

References

• Gospel according to Luke
• Gospel of Nicodemus (Acts of Pilate), apocryphal
• Martyrologium Romanum

Written by Anawim from documented history. Some details about ancient saints rest on tradition and are marked as such.