THE THIRTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER.

Jesus was numbered with thieves.

Moreover, our Lord Jesus Christ was numbered with transgressors, and lifted upon the Cross between two thieves, as if He had been the chief thief. This was done by the wickedness of the Jews, that Christ, Who was in Himself most innocent, might share in their guilt, and that all might believe that He was like to them in conduct, since He had been condemned to like punishment; and that thus through the wickedness of others He might become infamous, Who was Himself the Just One. But our humble Jesus refused not to hang between those for whom He desired to die. And, indeed, He was numbered with the transgressors upon earth, that we might be numbered among the choirs of angels in heaven. For a little while His good name was blotted out amongst men, that our names might be written for ever in the Book of Life. He was hung up between two thieves, not as partaker of their wickedness, but that He might make them partakers of His Godhead. He hung, I say, between them, not 301as their fellow in murder, but as the Medicine of Life. He hung between the transgressors, not as a wicked one, but as the Judge, signifying thereby that all power had been given Him in heaven and on earth, and that He had been appointed to be the Judge of the living and the dead. This was why He ascended the judgment-seat of the Holy Cross between two of the wicked, that He might in His mercy bestow life upon the one, and in His justice pass sentence of death everlasting upon the other, and that He might show in like manner that in His hands was the empire of life and of death. By this He also shadowed forth the form of the judgment to come, when He will place the good on His right hand and the wicked on His left.