"Dives and Lazarus"

In church last week for the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, one of the readings was Luke 16:19-31, the story of the rich man and Lazarus.  (Apparently this is a departure from the lectionary, but it's an appropriate text because Lazarus "was carried by the angels to Abraham's side" after he died.)

The reading reminded me of the song "Dives and Lazarus," which is derived from this particular text and which was included in Roger McGuinn's Folk Den a few years ago.  More recently, a different version also appeared on Worship Anew.

I wrote about the song about a year ago, when I discovered that Dives' name comes from a Latin word that means "rich."  In thinking about all of this again, I realized a second thing about the song.  A couple times, the rich man is called "Rich man Dives."  Since Dives means "rich [man]" in Latin, this is a redundant "rich man Rich [Man]."  This redundancy illustrates the excessive nature of the man's wealth, which is described in the first verse of the text: "There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day."

"Dives and Lazarus"

Last year, one of the songs that Roger McGuinn did for his Folk Den project was "Dives and Lazarus," based on Luke 16:19-31 (and sung to the tune "Kingsfold").  In the Bible, the rich man isn't named, but yester-day, I discovered why he's called Dives in the song.

As part of my self-assigned Latin homework, I lookt up the word divitias (riches) for a sentence I was translating.  Among the adjacent glossary entries was dives, an adjective that means rich or wealthy.  In the song, this adjective is used as a substantive:  the "rich [man] and Lazarus."