"Lazarus then, He says, was carried by the
holy angels unto Abraham's bosom: but the rich man died and was buried."
For to that rich man who had shewn himself harsh and unmerciful the separation
from the body was death. For he was going from pleasure to torment: from glory
to shame: from light to darkness. Such were the things that the rich man must
suffer, who had been voluptuous, and close-handed, and unready for mercy. And
to torment him the more now that he dwells in Hades, he beheld, it says,
Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham: and made supplication that he might be sent to
drop a little water upon his tongue: for he was tormented, it says, as in a
fierce flame. And what reply does the patriarch Abraham make? "Son, you
received your good things in your life: and Lazarus his evil things." You
were enamored, He says, of these temporal things; you were clad in fine linen
and purple; you were boastful and haughty; all your time was spent in luxury;
you offered up your wealth to your appetite and to flatterers; but you never
once called to mind the sick and sorrowful: you had no compassion on Lazarus
when you saw him thrown down at your portals. You beheld the man suffering
incurable misery, and a prey to intolerable griefs: for two maladies at once
possessed him, |each worse than the other, the cruel pain of his ulcers, and
the want of the necessaries of life. The very beasts soothed Lazarus, because
he was in pain; "the dogs licked his sores," but you were more
hard-hearted than the beasts. "You have received therefore, He says, your
good things in your life, and Lazarus his evil: and now here he is comforted,
and you are tormented;" and, as the sacred Scripture says, "they
shall have judgment without mercy who have wrought no mercy." You would
have been a partner with Lazarus, and a portion of his consolation would have
been given you by God, if you had admitted him to be a partner of your wealth.
But this you did not do, and therefore you alone are tormented: for such is the
fitting punishment of the unmerciful, and of those whose mind feels no sympathy
for the sick.
Let us therefore make for ourselves friends of the
unrighteous mammon: let us listen to Moses and the prophets calling us unto
mutual love and brotherly affection: let us not wait for any of those now in
Hades to return hither to tell us the torments there: the sacred Scripture is
necessarily true: we have heard, that "Christ shall sit upon the throne of
His glory to judge the world in righteousness, and that He shall set the sheep
indeed on His right hand, but the goats on His left. And to those on His right
hand He shall say, Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from before the foundations of the world: for I was hungry, and you
gave Me to eat; and thirsty also, and you gave Me to drink: I was naked, and
you clothed Me; in prison, and you came unto Me." But upon those upon the
left hand He shall lay a heavy condemnation, saying, "Go to the eternal
fire prepared for the devil and his angels." And the charge against them
is, that they have done the very opposite of that for which the saints were
praised. "For I was hungry, and you gave Me not to eat; and thirsty, and
you gave Me not to drink: for inasmuch as you did it not, He says, to one of
these little ones, you did it not to Me."
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