In studying this famous parable of
Christ one can observe manythings.
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 ThingsThat 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 bossom.
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?
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 ChristAnd 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 bothqThe 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 a far 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 theelements
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
bothSaw It And Participated In
It.This is a very significant
point,For It Shows That In That
Other LifeEveryone 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 LazarusDoes 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-
calledIntermediate 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
intercession, 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
greaimportance 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 re-birth 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
preventsuffering 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.
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