I was just pondering Dives and Lazarus. I knew that Evagrius (345-399), Christian monk and ascetic, follower of Origen had said the following in his (Commentary on the Book of Proverbs):
‘The seeds of virtue are indestructible. And I am convinced of this by the Rich Man almost but not completely given over to every evil who was condemned to hell because of his evil, and who felt compassion for his brothers; for to have pity is a very beautiful seed of virtue’
And I thought ‘Yay’ but presumed this was an isolated insight. However I have recently come across wider confirmation of Evagrius’ view. First D.P. Walker in ‘The Decline of Hell’ states that tow medieval Fathers realised the problem in Dives’s compassion for his brothers in terms of their doctrine of hell:
There is the awkward problem raised by the parable of Dives and Lazarus. If this parable is taken as representative of the afterlife, which it appears to be, then Dives charitable concern for the fate of his five brothers is difficult to fit in with the orthodox conception as the damned as immutable evil and locked in selfishness. The medieval theologians Bonaventura and Aquinas suggested that Dives would have liked everyone to be damned, but that, knowing that this would not happen, he preferred that his brothers should be saved rather than anyone else. Leibniz in his theodicy states – ‘ I do not think there is substance in this response’ (and it does seem torturous to me an unwarranted by the parable)
Again I recently have read a footnote to one of Fredrick Farrar’s sermons on ‘Eternal Hope’ where he tells us that Dives is in ‘Hades’ ) the exact equivalent of the Hebrew Sheol meaning ‘the unseen world of the dead’ which Farra argues is an intermediate condition of the soul after death and before Final judgement. And Farrar argues that it shows how rapidly in that condition improvements have been wrought in a sinful and selfish soul. Apparently Luther taught that the whole conversation between Dives and Lazarus took place in Dives’ conscience.