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Luke

About this book
Chapter 16

1 Jesus also said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who was informed of accusations that his manager was wasting his assets. 2 So he called the manager in and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Turn in the account of your administration, because you can no longer be my manager.’ 3 Then the manager said to himself, ‘What should I do, since my master is taking my position away from me? I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m too ashamed to beg. 4 I know what to do so that when I am put out of management, people will welcome me into their homes.’ 5 So he contacted his master’s debtors one by one. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 The man replied, ‘100 measures of olive oil.’ The manager said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and write 50.’ 7 Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ The second man replied, ‘100 measures of wheat.’ The manager said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write 80.’ 8 The master commended the dishonest manager because he acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their contemporaries than the people of light.⁠ 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon31,⁠ so that when it runs out, you will be welcomed into the eternal homes.⁠ 10 “The one who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much,⁠ and the one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. 11 If then you haven’t been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will entrust you with the true riches?⁠ 12 And if you haven’t been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you your own? 13 No servant can serve two masters,⁠ for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”⁠ 14 The Pharisees (who loved money) heard all this and ridiculed him. 15 But Jesus said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in men’s eyes, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly prized among men is utterly detestable in God’s sight. 16 “The law and the prophets were in force until John; since then, the good news of the kingdom of God has been proclaimed, and everyone is urged to enter it. 17 But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tiny stroke of a letter in the law to become void. 18 “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery, and the one who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery. 19 “There was a rich man who dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.⁠ 20 But at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus whose body was covered with sores, 21 who longed to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. In addition, the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 “Now the poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side.⁠ The rich man also died and was buried. 23 And in Hades, as he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far off with Lazarus at his side.⁠ 24 So he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am in anguish in this fire.’⁠ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus likewise bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in anguish. 26 Besides all this, a great chasm has been fixed between us, so that those who want to cross over from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’⁠ 27 So the rich man said, ‘Then I beg you, father—send Lazarus to my father’s house 28 (for I have five brothers) to warn them so that they don’t come into this place of torment.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they must respond to them.’ 30 Then the rich man said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ 31 He replied to him, ‘If they do not respond to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Texts in conversation

Compare Luke 16:24 and Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas 3:3

New Testament · Early Christian

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Summary

A vision by Perpetua, a young mother martyred in Carthage, resembles Luke's gospel in describing a tormented soul, thirsty, with water unreachable across an impassable gap. Perpetua’s prayers lower the pool’s rim so her dead brother can drink.

Passages

Luke 16:24

New Testament
23 And in Hades, as he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far off with Lazarus at his side. 24 So he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am in anguish in this fire.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus likewise bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in anguish. 26 Besides all this, a great chasm has been fixed between us, so that those who want to cross over from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’
75–85 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Luke

Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas 3:3

Early Christian · Passion of Perpetua
3 "After a few days, while we were all praying, suddenly in the middle of our prayer a name came to me, and I spoke the name Dinocrates; and I was amazed that that name had never come into my mind until then, and I was grieved as I remembered his misfortune. I felt myself immediately to be worthy and called to pray on his behalf. And for him I began earnestly to plead, and to cry out with groaning to the Lord. Without delay, that very night, this was shown to me in a vision. I saw Dinocrates coming out from a dark place, where there were also several others, and he was parched and very thirsty, with a dirty face and pale complexion, and the wound on his face that he had when he died. This Dinocrates had been my brother by blood, seven years of age, who died miserably of disease — his face so eaten away by cancer that his death caused horror in all who saw him. For him I had made my prayer, and between him and me there was a great distance, so that neither of us could approach the other. Moreover, in the same place where Dinocrates was, there was a pool full of water, but its rim was higher than the boy could reach; and Dinocrates stretched himself up as if to drink. I was grieved that, although the pool held water, the rim was too high for him to drink from. And I was distressed, and knew that my brother was in suffering. But I trusted that my prayer would bring help to his suffering; and I prayed for him every day until we were transferred to the military prison, for we were to fight in the games held there. It was then the birthday of Geta Caesar, and I prayed for my brother day and night, groaning and weeping that he might be granted to me."

References

"… In the portion of the text that is allegedly her diary (Passion of Perpetua 7–8), Perpetua indicates that one day while in prayer, for no obvious reason and to her own surprise, she said out loud, “Dinocrates.” That was the name of her brother who had died of skin cancer on his face at the tender age of seven. Perpetua realizes she is to pray for him. She does so and sees him in a vision. It is not a happy sight. She is separated from him by an impassable great abyss (as in the story of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16). Across from her, Dinocrates is in a foul place, coming out of a dark hole. Others with him are all “very hot and thirsty, pale and dirty.” On his face is still a gaping lesion from the cancer. Worst of all, he stands by a pool filled with water, but its rim is too high for him to reach. He is miserably thirsty. … In an interesting way Perpetua’s vision stands in stark contrast with the biblical account of Lazarus in Luke 16 (with which she may have been familiar), where the torment experienced by the damned “Rich Man” cannot be ameliorated, not even by the great patriarch Abraham himself. By contrast, Dinocrates is a hopelessly miserable soul granted relief and ending up with a happy existence, going off to play like the deceased child he is. …"
Bart D. Ehrman, Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020), 276–277.
"… there is a certain suggestion that he dwells in a kind of hell, since the great distance between him and Perpetua almost certainly derives from the Lucan episode about the rich man and the beggar Lazarus (16.24–6), where the rich man is in an extremely hot underworld; Tertullian also quotes this passage in connection with the underworld. However, hell did not yet play the same prominent role in the mental world of the early Christians as it did in medieval times. Given this lack of prominence and the absence of an authoritative description, it is understandable that Perpetua fills in the details of Dinocrates’ ‘hell’ with aspects from her own prison (dark, crowded, hot and dirty): one more indication of the impact the shocking conditions of the prison must have made on this elite young woman. …"
Jan N. Bremmer, Maidens, Magic and Martyrs in Early Christianity: Collected Essays I (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 374–376.

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Luke 16:24 and Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas 3:3

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