Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos
The parable of the rich Man and Lazarus
"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and
fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar
named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the
rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
The time came when the beggar died and the angels
carried him to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried.
In hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and and saw Abraham far
away, with Lazarus in his bosom. So he called to him, `Father Abraham,
have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water
and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire'.
But Abraham replied, `Son, remember that in your
lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad
things, but now he is comforted and you are in agony. And besides all
this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who
want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from
there to us'.
He answered, `Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus
to my father's house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so
that they will not also come to this place of torment'. Abraham replied,
`They have Moses and the prophets; let them listen to them'.
`No, father Abraham', he said, `but if someone from
the dead goes to them, they will repent'. He said to him, `If they do
not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if
someone rises from the dead'".
(Luke 16, 19-31)
In studying this famous parable of Christ one can
observe many things. One can deal with its social dimensions or even
draw numerous ethical and moral conclusions. However, we prefer to keep
within the subjects relating to life after death. In other words, we
shall concern ourselves with the eschatological analysis of the parable.
First. As we see, the parable is not about
life after the Second Coming of Christ, but about the life of the soul
between a person's death, when his soul leaves his body, and the Second
Coming of Christ. This interval is called the intermediate state of
souls. Other words spoken by Christ refer to His Second Coming, when He
will come to judge men. Before that, bodily resurrection will take
place, when the souls will enter their bodies again, and a person can
enjoy the things that he did in his lifetime.
Second. It points out that death exists in man's life.
The Rich Man and poor Lazarus died. Death is
separation of the soul from the body. This state is also called sleep,
because death was overcome by the Resurrection of Christ. Christ
overcame death ontologically by His Passion, His Cross and His
Resurrection, and He gave man the possibility of transcending it by
living in the Church. The fact that death is a sleep, a temporary state,
appears from the way in which saints die, for they all have hope in
Christ, and it can be seen in their uncorrupted and wonder-working
relics.
God did not create death, but death has inserted
itself into nature, as a fruit of man's sin and his withdrawal from God.
There is death of the body and death of the soul. Death of the soul is
the removal of the grace of God from the soul, and death of the body is
the separation of the soul from the body.
All people taste the terrible mystery of death, since
we all inherit corruptibility and mortality. In other words, we are
born to die. Death is the surest, most certain event in our life. Even
contemporary existentialist philosophers say that the truest fact is
"existence towards death".
Although death is the surest event, the day and hour of death are uncertain. No one knows when he will die. The point is to live right, so that the how of death may be eternal life.
In the text of the parable it says: "The time came when the beggar died...", and "the rich man also died and was buried".
Thus death is the greatest democrat, for it makes no exceptions.
Third. After Lazarus' soul left his body, it
was received by the angels and carried to Abraham's bosom. This means
that there are angels and, of course, each person's guardian angel as
his personal protector, who receive the souls of the just and take them
to God.
By contrast, another parable says that the demons
receive the souls of unrepentant sinners. The foolish rich man heard a
voice from God: "You fool! This very night your life will be demanded
from you; then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” (Lk.
12, 20). The verb `demand' suggests the demons, who claim the soul of
the sinful person in order to control it forever.
Therefore, at the terrible hour of death, when the
soul is forcibly separated from its harmony with the body, dreadful
things happen. The angels receive the souls of the saints, and the
demons receive the souls of sinners. The teaching of the Fathers of the
Church speaks of the `customs houses', which are the demons, the aerial
spirits which desire and attempt to rule the souls of all people
forever. Of course the souls of the saints, which have been united with
Christ and bear the seal of the Holy Spirit, cannot be controlled by the
demons.
When the Fathers of the Church speak of the customs
houses, they mean both the hatred and aggressive fury of the demons and
the existence of the passions, which seek satisfaction but cannot be
satisfied because of the non-existence of the body. It is just this
condition that suffocates the soul, which feels a terrible anguish. This
torment of the soul is like the complete solitary confinement of a
person in prison without any possibility of sleeping, eating, meeting
anyone, and so forth. Then his passions and his whole being are really
infuriated.
The fact that men's souls are received by angels or
by demons is relative to their condition. As the Fathers say, angels and
souls are noetic spirits in comparison with the material body, but in
comparison with God they have something material. So the angels are
called ethereal beings, they are not entirely immaterial. Furthermore,
the soul is a creature, which means that it is created by God. It is
immortal by grace, for immortality is God's gift to it. Every creature
has a beginning and an end. Since the soul is created, it has a definite
beginning, but it has no end, for God willed it so.
Fourth. While Lazarus' soul went to Abraham's
bosom and the Rich Man's soul went to hades, Christ says in the parable
that Lazarus went to Abraham's bosom and this particular Rich Man went
to hades. Then it says that the Rich Man "saw Abraham afar off, and
Lazarus in his bosom".
This is very significant, because it means that in
spite of the separation of the soul from the body, the hypostasis, or
substance or person, is not lost. Indeed the soul did not exist before
the body, but it was created at the same time as the body, and yet
neither soul nor body alone constitutes the man. Nevertheless, in spite
of the temporary separation of the soul from the body, the man is not
lost. This is seen from the fact that the soul maintains consciousness
and, as the Fathers explain, a man's soul recognises the elements of his
own body which remain in the earth and are probably scattered or broken
up into the elements of which they were composed. At the Second Coming,
by the grace of God the soul will reunite the elements of his body, the
whole man will be formed, and of course then the bodies of both the
just and the unjust will be spiritual, that is to say they will not need
food, nor will they be limited by distances and other restrictions.
Resurrection is a gift granted to all people, just and unjust.
It should be noted that in this parable Christ
mentions the name of the poor man but does not know the Rich Man's name.
This signifies that because Lazarus lived with God, he was
soteriologically a person, a true hypostasis, whereas the Rich Man,
although he was a man, had no hypostasis soteriologically. This means
that a real man is one who has a soul and a body but also the grace of
God in his soul and body. Although a man who does not have the Holy
Spirit is ontologically a person, he is not a person in relation to God,
for the very simple reason that he has become enslaved to things.
Instead of turning to God, his nous turns to matter and is enslaved by
it.
Fifth. The parable says that the Rich Man,
finding himself in hades, saw Abraham "and Lazarus in his bosom". The
person of Abraham is understood as meaning God. To be in the bosom of
God means to be in communion with God.
In the bosom, behind the chest, is the heart of man.
The heart, which is the source of biological life, is a symbol of love.
The greater the love, the greater the knowledge, since knowledge is
closely linked with love. Indeed this love constitutes communion and
union. Thus for a person to be in the bosom means that he is linked with
the loved one, that there is unity between them.
So the expression that Lazarus is in Abraham's bosom
points graphically to his communion with God, which is connected with
spiritual knowledge and love. When we speak of knowledge of God we mean
"communion in being". It is not cerebral knowledge, but the knowledge
that is connected with love, with this very life.
Lazarus does not seem to be troubled about the
terrible hardship of the Rich Man. He does not see hades, while the Rich
Man does see the glory of Paradise. Actually a person who lives in the
uncreated Light, in the great vision of God, as our Fathers say, forgets
the world. The Light is so great, so dazzling that it does not even
allow one to see anything else. This does not mean that the saints do
not pray for the whole world. They pray and entreat God, for they do
indeed have greater communion with Him. However, they are in a state
which we cannot comprehend. Only if we look into the divine experiences
of the saints can we grasp it.
Sixth. While Lazarus was in Abraham's bosom,
the Rich Man was burning in hades. Indeed he would ask Abraham to send
Lazarus to cool his tongue, because, as he expressed himself, "I am
tormented in this flame".
Here hades, not Hell, is being referred to. For Hell
will begin after the Second Coming of Christ and the future judgement,
while the souls of sinners experience hades after their departure from
the body. According to the teaching of the holy Fathers, hades is an
intelligible place, it is the foretaste of Hell, when a person receives
the caustic energy of God.
There was a great discussion about these matters at
the Council of Ferrara-Florence, and the views of Mark Eugenicus, which
were revealing, have been preserved. The fire in which the Rich Man was
burning was not what the Latins called the purifying fire, or
`purgatory' that all people's souls pass through. It was not a created
fire, but uncreated. That is to say, even sinners receive the rays of
divine Light, but since they die unrepentant, without being cured, they
experience the burning energy of the Light. Thus, according to the
degree of their cure or illness, people receive the same grace either as
light or as fire.
It should also be observed that the Rich Man saw
Abraham with Lazarus in his bosom. He saw the glory of Abraham, but he
had no share in this glory. By contrast, Lazarus both saw it and
participated in it. This is a very significant point, for it shows that
in that other life everyone will see God, but the righteous will have
communion, participation, while the sinners will not. A characteristic
example is what Christ said about the coming judgement. All will see the
Judge, all will converse with Him, but some will enjoy His glory and
others will experience the caustic energy of divine grace.
Seventh. The Rich Man was concerned about his
brothers living in the world and asked Abraham to send Lazarus to preach
repentance to them. Therefore in spite of the separation of a man's
soul from the present world, there is knowledge and social interest.
This fact, along with other elements, shows what we
said before, that the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus does not refer
to the life after Christ's Second Coming, but to the life up to the
Second Coming. Clearly it is about the so-called intermediate state of
souls.
The saints are interested in the salvation of the
world. By the grace of God they hear our prayers and lift them up to
God. That is why we pray to our saints. By the feasts which we have
dedicated to their memory we show that they are saints, that they have
been united to God, that they await the resurrection of their bodies,
which they are already receiving, with their imperishability, the
prelude of the age to come. We too are concerned for those who have
fallen asleep. We pray to the saints to pray to God for us, we ask for
their intercessions, while we pray to God to have mercy on all the
others who have fallen asleep. This, apart from being evidence of
communication among us, at the same time expresses something else that
is deeper.
According to the teaching of the holy Fathers, when a
person enters into repentance, the stage of purification, he progresses
continually. Perfecting continues both in the `intermediate' stage and
in the life after the Second Coming. The stages of the spiritual life
are purification, illumination and deification. These are not to be
conceived as water-tight states, but as degrees of participation in the
grace of God. If a person is struggling to be purified, the grace of God
which is purifying him is called purifying energy. When the nous is
illuminated, it means that it is receiving the energy of God which
illuminates it, and this is called illuminating energy. And when he is
in the process of deification, this happens by the grace of God which is
called deifying. The process is continuous. Thus those who have
repented before their soul's departure from the body, progress and
become increasingly receptive to uncreated grace. Therefore we hold
memorial services and pray for those who have fallen asleep.
However, since those who did not repent before their
soul left the body do not have spiritual vision, they experience only
the caustic energy of God and will never participate in the good. But we
pray for all, because we do not know their inner spiritual condition.
Eighth. It says in the parable that there was a
"great gulf” between hades, where the Rich Man was, and the place where
Abraham was, and that it was not possible to pass from one to the
other.
Of course this is not a question of particular
places, but as we said before, it refers to particular ways of life.
There is a clear difference between Paradise and Hell as particular ways
of life.
Paradise and Hell do not exist in God's view, but in
man's view. God sends His grace to all men, since "He makes His sun rise
on the just and the unjust and sends His rain on the evil and the
good". If God gives us a command to love all people, even our enemies,
He does the same Himself. It is impossible not to love sinners as well.
But each person feels God's love differently, according to his spiritual
condition.
Light has two properties, illuminating and caustic.
If one person has good vision, he benefits from the illuminating
property of the sun, the light, and he enjoys the whole creation. But if
another person is deprived of his eye, if he is without sight, then he
feels the caustic property of light. This will be so in the future life
too, as well as in the life of the soul after it leaves the body. God
will also love the sinners, but they will be unable to perceive this
love as light. They will perceive it as fire, since they will not have a
spiritual eye and spiritual vision.
Something similar applies to Holy Communion. All can
take part, but for those who are prepared and fit it is light and life,
for those who approach unworthily it is judgement and condemnation.
The Church shows this in the iconography of the
Second Coming. There we see the saints in the light that comes from the
throne of God; and from the same throne springs the river of fire, where
the unrepentant sinners are.
Therefore in the Orthodox Church we attach great
importance to man's healing. The Church is a spiritual Hospital, a
sanatorium that cures the spiritual eye, which is the nous. It is ill
and must be cured. This is the whole work of the Church.
Ninth. Abraham, who did not comply with the
Rich Man's plea to send Lazarus to earth and exhort his brothers to
repent, justified his position by saying that if people do not listen to
Moses and the Prophets, "they will not be convinced even if someone
rises from the dead".
A carnal man cannot repent, however many miracles he
may see in his life. He lives in a deathly sleep. This is a fact. If
man's freedom is not activated, there is no repentance. Everything takes
place by the energy of God and the cooperation of man.
The greatest fact in history is the incarnation of
Christ, His Resurrection, and the establishment of the Church, which is
the Body of the risen incarnate God-man Christ. If a man cannot be
inspired by this staggering reality, if he cannot be persuaded by the
lives of so many saints who are members of the risen Body of Christ, he
will not be persuaded by the greatest miracle.
The salvation and rebirth of a man is not a matter of
conjuring actions, but a fruit of the free expression of his will, a
fruit of suffering, struggle and much hard work. Unfortunately, many
people of our time content themselves with magical, external events. To
be convinced of the existence of the other life is a matter of inner
spiritual sensitivity. For even if someone should rise from the dead it
could be misconstrued as fantasy.
Much is being said today about so-called
`after-death' experiences. Some people claim that their soul had left
their body or was approaching the way out and then came back to the
body. They recount all the terrible things that they saw and faced.
In the Orthodox Church we say that there have been
cases in which the soul came back to the body. In other words, they were
resurrected by the power of Christ. These, however, are exceptional
cases; they do not happen to everyone. There are saints who had terrible
experiences, when in their personal lives they knew Hell and Paradise,
experienced the flames of hades, saw angels and demons. When they
returned to themselves, they lived a life of repentance and preached
repentance to others. However, we say that most of these experiences are
demonic or are the fruits of repressed experiences, or they are
fantasies, or the results of sedative and narcotic drugs given to
prevent suffering in the frightful ordeal of their illnesses. There is
certainly need for great discernment in order to be able to distinguish
these states, whether they come from God, from the devil or from
psychological and somatic anomalies.
We in the Church do not wait for resurrections of
saints or experiences of such states in order to believe. We have Holy
Scripture, the lives of the Prophets, Apostles and saints, we have their
words and their teachings, as well as their holy relics, and we believe
that there is eternal life. At times each of us is granted by God to
experience in his heart what is Hell and what is Paradise.
Beyond these things, we keep Christ's commandments in
order to be cured, so that we can solve many existential,
interpersonal, social and ecological problems. To abide by God's
commandments makes us balanced people.
Tenth. The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus
suggests the method which we should use in order to be cured and thus,
after death and after the Second Coming of Christ, to experience God as
light and not as fire. Abraham said to the Rich Man: "they have Moses
and the prophets; let them listen to them". We should observe the law
and obey the Prophets of every epoch.
A Prophet is one who by the grace of God sees the
mysteries of the coming age, who already tastes the Kingdom of God.
There were such Prophets in both the Old and New Testaments. They
themselves received the Revelation, they themselves lived the Kingdom of
God, became acquainted with its mysteries and then revealed them to the
people.
The Prophets, who are identified with the real
theologians and spiritual fathers, renew the people and guide them
towards life. Spiritual guidance is connected and identified with man's
spiritual rebirth. Actually one cannot be reborn without having been
associated with a deified person, a Prophet.
Even in our time there are Prophets who preach
repentance, turn our hearts towards God, and recommend another way of
thinking and living. Even if we have not been able to meet such a
Prophet, there are the words of the Prophets, and by reading them we can
learn what the Kingdom of God is and what we should do to attain it.
These general thoughts, which are the basic points in
orthodox eschatology, have been formulated here very briefly, in a
simple way. The reader can find the detailed analysis of these topics,
documented by the teaching of the holy Fathers, in the chapters which
follow. With these basic points in view he will also understand what he
is going to read.
Source-"Life After Death" by
Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos
