Lazarus and the rich man
# Hippolytus of Rome wrote a treatise on purgatory based on Luke 16:19-31. The parable also provides one of the sources for the concept of limbo. Jacques Bénigne Bossuet made frequent use of it. In Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict XVI said that in the parable of the rich man and the poor man Lazarus, Jesus warned of a soul ravaged by arrogance and opulence, which has itself created an impassable gap between itself and the poor: the gap of being locked up in material pleasures, the gap of forgetting the other, of the inability to love, which is now transformed into a burning and now irremediable thirst.
Benedict XVI affirmed that this parable does not speak of the definitive destiny after the Last Judgement, but he took up a conception found in ancient Judaism, namely the conception of an intermediate condition between death and resurrection, a state in which the final sentence is still missing. According to the Pope, in this state purifications and healings are possible which make the soul ready for communion with God: the early Church took up these conceptions, from which the doctrine of purgatory gradually developed in the Western Church.
From the Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Luke
At that time Jesus said to the Pharisees : « There was a rich man, dressed in purple and fine linen, who gave sumptuous feasts every day. Outside his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, who was covered with sores. He wanted to be filled with what fell from the rich man’s table, but the dogs came and licked his sores. So the poor man died, and the angels took him to Abraham. The rich man also died, and they buried him. When he was in Hades, he was tortured, and when he looked up, he saw Abraham at a distance and Lazarus close by.
Then he cried out : »Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip his fingertip in water to cool my tongue, for I am suffering terribly in this furnace. » Abraham replied : »My child, remember that you received happiness in your lifetime and Lazarus received misfortune in his. » Now he finds consolation here, and you find suffering. And in addition to all this, a great chasm has been drawn between you and us, so that those who would pass over to you cannot do so, nor can they cross over to us from there.
The rich man replied : »‘Well, Father, I beg you to send Lazarus to my father’s house. For I have five brothers: let him bear his testimony to them, lest they also come to this place of torture !’ » Abraham said to him : »‘They have Moses and the Prophets : let them listen to them ! »
He said : »No, Father Abraham ‘but if one from the dead comes to them, they will be converted. » Abraham replied : »If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, someone may rise from the dead, but they will not be convinced. » (Lk 16, 19-31)
Parable of the rich man and Lazarus
A rich man enjoyed great luxury in clothing and food. Lazarus lay outside his door, covered with sores, wishing for the crumbs from his table; the dogs increased his suffering. The poor man was carried to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man was buried. In Hades, in the midst of suffering, he saw Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom from afar. He begged Abraham to send Lazarus to cool his tongue with the tip of his finger dipped in water. Abraham refused: the rich man’s misfortune, as well as the happiness enjoyed by Lazarus, were the just compensation of their respective conditions on earth ; moreover, an impassable abyss separated them.
Let Abraham at least send Lazarus to testify to his five brothers. Abraham replied that it was enough for them to listen to Moses and the prophets. The rich man said that the reappearance of a dead man would bring about their conversion. A rich man; this word is used quite frequently in an unfavourable sense in Scripture. The story of this one will vindicate in a striking way the serious warnings Jesus has just given to the greedy Pharisees who were mocking him, and complete the application of the previous parable.
The purple with which this rich man sumptuously clothed himself was the outer robe, the mantle, while the fine linen, a precious fabric made in Egypt, made up the tunic. A single feature paints his way of life: he made merry every day magnificently. To live in luxury, to indulge in the pleasures of the senses, while remaining selfishly indifferent to the needs and sufferings of the poor, such was the conduct of this rich man. His end was a warning all the more universal and all the more terrible for the honourable egotists who are to be found by the thousands in the society of all times. If Jesus gave a name to this poor man while He did not name the rich man, it was intentional.
To live in luxury, to indulge in the pleasures of the senses, while remaining selfishly indifferent to the needs and ills of the poor, such was the conduct of this rich man. His end was a warning all the more universal and all the more terrible for the honourable egotists who are to be found by the thousands in the society of all times. If Jesus gave a name to this poor man while He did not name the rich man, it was intentional; He wanted to indicate that this Lazarus sought and found help in God and that in the midst of his misery he was a pious Israelite.
This was the only time that Jesus gave a name to a character in a parable. The Church Fathers and Calvin concluded that he was telling a true story. In addition to poverty, this unfortunate man was sick and suffering. The rich man’s door refers to the entrance door, the gate, which in large houses led to the inner courtyard. The poor man had been thrown in there; this expression betrays the carelessness of the people who, having deposited him there, thus abandoned him in his misery.
The poor man’s ambition was very modest; it was limited to the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s sumptuous table. Were they given to him? His wounds were not even bandaged, and that these dogs, coming to lick them, added to his pains. Jesus represented here the happiness of heaven under the image of a banquet celebrated with the patriarchs, in a communion full of joy. Now, as they sat at table half-reclined on a couch, they leaned over the breast of their neighbour. The most intimate friend of the father of the family, the one to whom he wished to do the most honour, occupied this place very close to him.
Among the Jews, Abraham was considered the most revered and exalted figure in their history, so it is easy to see what honour and happiness this line of the parable conferred on Lazarus. Then came the last act of his earthly existence: he was buried. The rich man recognised Abraham and Lazarus. This detail shows that the personality subsists in the invisible world and that souls are related to each other. In the invisible world, memory is a cause of torment for some, for others a source of consolation and joy
What the rich man had to remember was that during his life he had his possessions, those which he had appropriated for himself, those which he had enjoyed as a selfish person, the only ones he desired and sought ; he made them his idol, his god; this was the cause of his torment. Lazarus had the evils, which he endured as a pious Israelite; they were his trial, and the rich man did not think of easing them. Retribution, whether good or bad, will only be the strict consequence of every man’s life. What he sows, he will also reap : »Do not be deceived: God is not mocked. What a man sows, he will also reap. » (Gal 6, 7)
The rich man made a terrible discovery: that a life such as his on earth necessarily led to where he found himself; and as he could no longer ask anything for himself, he remembered his brothers, who lived as he had lived ; he therefore prayed that Lazarus would be sent to them to testify to the realities of the invisible world and to the danger of their arriving in that place of torment. In speaking thus, he started from a prejudice which, if it were well-founded, would be his excuse: it is that man needs, in addition to divine revelations, extraordinary, miraculous warnings, to bring him to faith.
He did not dare to say that he was deprived of them and that his misfortune came from there. To repent, to change completely the innermost dispositions of the conscience and of the heart, this is what Jesus put into the mouth of this unfortunate man, to make his listeners feel that what he lacked was the cause of his worldly life and his ruin. But the rich man, enlightened as he was, persisted in his error, imagining that if the truth had been announced to his brothers by a dead man who had come back to life, it would produce repentance and faith in them. Jesus denied it.
Deacon Michel Houyoux
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