It marks a shameless debtor either to delay what is entrusted to him or to deny what he has promised; but it marks an honorable one to pay both without delay and at once. We promised that we would render all that remains concerning that rich man, who, though he was seen to be pitiless toward Lazarus, proved yet more savage and cruel toward himself. Thus far both the holy Evangelist and our own sermon have declared, as far as they could, what the rich man said to Abraham. It was said: And lifting up his eyes, being in torments, he saw Abraham afar off, and crying out he said: Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. To whom Abraham now answered: Son, you received good things in your lifetime (Luke 16). O wondrous compassion!
Still he calls him son, though he beholds him thus degenerate through his own cruelty. O singular goodness! Still he calls him son, though he saw him become a homeborn slave of hell, an offspring of punishments, henceforth the lowest chattel of Gehenna. Yet he calls him son, that the son's impiety may be all the more exposed, since even toward such a one the tenderness of a father's word perseveres. You call me father; I call you son, that you may grieve grievously to have lost what you were by birth. Still I call you son, that you may more bitterly grieve to have lost what grace and nature had given you; for not to have had is not so great a sorrow as, having had, to have lost it in mourning. I call you son, that you may understand that what you suffer belongs to judgment, not to fury; I call you son, that in me my patience may remain, and in you your punishment.
But this man, brethren, understands that he is not a son, since he confesses and weighs that it was by his own desert that he lost what belonged to so kindly a father by nature. He would surely then have answered to his lineage, had he been kindly, had he been hospitable, had he been merciful, had he been humane toward the poor man. He who does not do the works of his begetter denies his lineage, as the Lord teaches thus: If you were the children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham (John 8). That man proves the faith of his lineage who stands forth as the upholder of his father's work. But what does Abraham say? Son, you received good things in your lifetime. If it is a crime for this rich man merely that he received good things —
how much more guilty is he who seizes what is not owed to him? If he is so criminal who shuts up his own goods, who does not bestow what he has received, how much more deserving of punishment is he who broods over his own and overruns another's? Brethren, let us give of what is ours — if indeed it is ours; let us give at least what we think to be ours; let us shun what belongs to others, let us turn aside from what is foreign; and surely, if we have taken anything from anyone, let us restore it with all speed, lest, leaving all things here, we be brought yonder to that rich man, poor in wealth but rich in guilt. Let the rich man, however, learn that he received good things, but did not accept them.
You see, brethren, how by the word of holy Abraham this rich man's soul is exposed, his mind convicted, his understanding punished, since he believed that whatever he possessed by the Lord's bounty was not given to him but repaid to him. Understand with what a mind he went forward, with what a heart he walked, who believed God to be his debtor, and who, evil rich man that he was, bound his own Lord over as liable to his usury — not knowing that the Lord, though he walked poor upon the earth, yet ascended rich into heaven. And he gave, he did not receive at interest, who gave to one five talents, to another two, to another one; whence also he promises that he will exact, not repay, the interest, when he says to the servant:
Wicked and slothful servant, you should have given my money to the bankers, and I at my coming would have exacted it back with interest (Matthew 25). Hence, moreover, this rich man is the more impious, because he was not kindly toward another; who, even though he received good things, unworthily received not good for good, but good for evil. But let us pass over to Lazarus, and let us ask what this means: And Lazarus likewise received evil things. And let this suffice for his merit, let it abound to his glory, if he did not do good things but received evil ones. Plainly he is blessed, brethren, who faithfully believes that he receives good things from God, and receives evil things. Blessed is he who always renders to God his due debts; surely, if he cannot, let him beg with all humility that his debts at least be forgiven him, as the Lord himself teaches thus: Say —
Forgive us our debts (Matthew 6). Blessed is he who pays his debts to God even when he does not understand that he has contracted them, as the prophet more profoundly instructs when he says: What I did not seize, then I was paying back (Psalm 68). Blessed is he who, that he may excuse himself before God, always accuses himself, as Scripture thus admonishes: The just man is his own accuser at the outset of his speech (Proverbs 18, according to the Septuagint). And if he is just, why does the just man accuse himself? Because no living man shall be justified in your sight (Psalm 42). A man may perhaps boast before a man of his justice, of his innocence, of his desert; but the man who before God vaunts himself of his innocence, who glories in his own justice, is no man at all.
Hence it is that that Pharisee, when he does not pray but reckons up, imputes to himself, and belches forth his own righteous deeds, departs unjust and worse than the publican (Luke 18). But let us come to what remains. Now, however, it says, here he is comforted, but you are tormented. See, brethren, understand, brethren, from what has been said, that although a distinction of places held the just and the unjust apart, yet one region of the underworld still contained them; and although now a great chasm did lie between, yet the heavenly habitation did not yet separate them; and if a mournful gulf divided them, yet the height assigned above to the angels did not yet do so. A flaming sword (as the Lawgiver relates) turned at the gate of paradise, lest access should lie open there for man (Genesis 3):
the gates of the nether prison were barred and shut with bronze doors and iron bars, lest for the souls that had been cast down thither from above any egress should lie open. For the bond of the paternal debt too — the bond that consigned each man to death — was held written down with the pen of guilt and the ink of that very indictment, and upon the offspring's harm the interest of many ages went running on. Nor was there any fit to enter paradise, to quench the flame divinely ordained, or to open the barred gates of the infernal assembly, or to loose the bond which in the enclosure of the law was held shut by the command of God. Hence it is that the Lord himself came as one who would recall from exile the first man, that is, the disobedient servant;
the same Lord who had barred paradise, who had shut up hell, descended in all his power to the earth and to the lower regions, that he might quench what was kindled, open at once what was closed, and abolish the crime of the first-formed man. Hence it is that he bears the battering-ram of his own cross as he goes to assault hell, that he may shatter and break down the very gates of Tartarus fortified with bronze and iron. From his side he pours forth water, that he may temper the way to paradise; the fire of hell he quenches on behalf of the saints, he washes away the whole bond of debt and cancels the ancient one, and by suffering he himself remits this which he himself had incurred by bearing it. Acknowledge, brethren, rejoice, brethren, that after Christ's triumph the custody of the saints was dissolved, and that to the saints nothing further is owed to hell:
since Christ, that he might set free the just, not the unjust, penetrated even to the lower regions. Let us understand, brethren, how great a benefit Christ has been; nay rather, how without Christ there was in no one any salvation, since, besides that loosing of bodies, the very souls of the saints too were held bound fast in the underworld. Blessed then was Lazarus, who owed all to God, that he might owe nothing to guilt. Blessed, because here he received so many evils, that there he might possess all good things. And Abraham added, saying: Neither from here can any pass over to you, nor cross over hither.
It terrifies, brethren, it exceedingly terrifies to hear this saying, which shows that after death, and once assigned in the underworld to the custody of punishment, souls cannot be transferred to the rest of the saints — unless, already redeemed by the grace of Christ, they be loosed from this desperate state by the intercession of the holy Church; so that what the sentence denies, the Church may obtain and grace bestow. Here, however, the rich man still begs, and says: Father Abraham. Still he calls him Father — he who by his own deserts thus lost both father and fatherland. Father Abraham. Here the wretch even in his punishment lies. Father Abraham, send him to my father's house. If he truly calls this man father, whose house of another father does he then require?
unless perhaps he believes that he has in his absence as father the one whom in his presence he thus beholds himself to have lost; and so he believes that by that father's grace his father's house is kept guarded — that father in whose bosom he sees his own place denied him there, sees repose utterly refused. Father Abraham, send him. Whom? Lazarus, of course. Whither? To my father's house. Now, and too late, the rich man — not merciful but pitiable — invites Lazarus to his father's house; the very Lazarus whom, all the while he had his substance, he did not receive as he lay in his pity at his own doors; and under a show of piety he wants Lazarus to return to his old wounds, to his past groanings — the Lazarus whom his own torments could not, at his first petition, summon down to his own. Before he said: Send to me. Now he says: Send to my brothers.
The unhappy man grieves, he is in anguish, lest he should see happy the one whom he had once thought unhappy. Send to my brothers. Whither? To my father's house. To what end? For I have, he says, five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they too come into this place of torments. To whom is he kindly, who is so unkind to himself? Shamelessly he presumes to obtain repentance for others, who so cruelly provided nothing for his own pardon. Send Lazarus to my father's house, for I have five brothers. And do you suppose that Lazarus, who profited you nothing for so long a time, with so many of his wounds, crying out with his whole body, will suffice for your five brothers? Deservedly Abraham answered him: They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
Let Lazarus rest after such great labors, and do you bewail your own punishments, which by your own desert you endure. But God long ago provided for your brothers and for all men unto salvation, not according to your counsel but according to his own gift: he gave the Law through Moses, he bestowed prophecy through Elijah; let them therefore hear those, lest they feel your torments. The rich man answered: No, Father Abraham; but if someone from the dead shall rise again, they will believe him. To whom Abraham replied: If they do not believe Moses and Elijah, neither will they believe if someone shall rise again from the dead. Nothing is so true, brethren: he who refused to believe God speaking from heaven through the Law, Christ coming from heaven, will now assuredly not deserve to believe one returning from the dead.
Christ himself, brethren, our God and Lord, spoke to Moses from heaven; the same one on earth spoke as an earthly being in the body; the same one with his earthly body returned from the dead:
and yet, brethren, when he told what good things are in heaven, what evils are in the underworld, the brothers of that rich man — who are understood to be in the Jewish peoples — refused with all obstinacy to believe. But truly, brethren, since the time now forbids us to say who the rich man is, or who the poor Lazarus, and who are the rich man's five brothers, nor does it permit us to lay open what of spiritual understanding lies hidden in this history — having been taught by Christ what awaits the just with him and what awaits the unjust in the underworld, let us act, let us run, in word, in deed, in mercy, that we may both lay hold of the good things above, and, being terrified, be able to shun and turn aside from the evils.