Then he said, I pray you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house:
All Commentaries on Luke 16:27 Go To Luke 16
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Then he said, I pray thee, therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him, &c. Probably these words are spoken as the former ones, after the manner of a parable (see verse24). For it is a very common occurrence in everyday life that those who have met with misfortunes wish to warn their brethren against incurring a similar fate. But of one thing worldly-minded men, who ridicule or else think lightly of the pains of hell, may be assured, no one has ever returned from thence to tell us what their sufferings are.
That thou wouldest send him. Lazarus again in the body, that Hebrews , being known to the brethren, and a witness to be seen of all, might move them to faith and penitence. We are taught therefore that the rich man after his death had need of the aid of him whom in his lifetime he had despised.
Touching the appearances of the spirits of the departed, see S. Augustine (De cura pro mortuis); Debrius (in Magicis); and Peter Thyrus (De apparitionibus spirituum).
