NOTES for Luk 16:19-31

Reflecting on today's text, one can notice one of its features. The rich man's name is not given. Lazarus's name, by contrast, is given. One may think, what is so special about that? But if we try to recall other parables and stories in the Gospel, it becomes clear that the names of bad people are almost nowhere mentioned, with those rare exceptions when not mentioning them is impossible, as in the case of Judas, Caiaphas, and Pontius Pilate, because this is factual testimony to historical authenticity. This differs from the Old Testament. If one were to sketch, somewhat conditionally, two tables for the Old and New Testaments, each with two columns, names of evil people and names of good people, then in the first case these columns would, perhaps, be comparable in length, also with some qualification, simply as a trend. But in the case of the New Testament... It seems that the column of good names would be much longer than that of evil names. Not, of course, because there was much less evil. But this seems to be a sign of the new theology of the New Testament. Several reasons can be given for this.

A name is something very important for a Christian. Why? For some, because of superstition; someone sees in a name some sacred meaning; we often hear from our contemporaries that by giving your child a name you influence his destiny. But superstitions leave no room for true faith, and true faith lies in the very important circumstance that, by assigning Adam the right to give names to the things He had created, the Lord called the human being to participate in His Creation. To give a name means to share creativity in the world with God; a name serves, as it were, as an icon of Synergy.

Why does a person change his name when being tonsured a monk? There is an opinion that this is done in order to break completely with one's life in the world. Such an interpretation seems doubtful: life in the world, from the point of view of Orthodox doctrine, is not in any way considered something lower in relation to life in monasticism. The fact that a monk changes his name, on the contrary, testifies to the meaning of the name as an icon of co-working. And so Jesus comes and, as it were, renews that moment when Adam gave names to the animals and birds.

Such a small ratio of evil names to good ones in the Gospel draws, as it were, an icon of the Kingdom of Heaven, where evil will no longer exist. Let us note in parentheses that icons differ from paintings precisely in this: above every saint depicted on an icon, and above all, above the Lord, there is always a name. Evil is described, but it is not named, and by that very fact it is allotted, as it were, a lesser degree of existence, just as Adam, by giving names, completed the creation of things in the world.