DIVES

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 30, 1879

Is the name Dives found in the Bible? If not, why is the rich man in the parable, Luke 16:19-31, so frequently quoted as Dives?

Ans. Dives is a Latin word meaning rich, or a rich man, just as in the Greek the word plousios is used. In the Latin versions of the Scriptures the word dives would of course be used to describe the man who was rich. From this it has come to be erroneously regarded as a proper noun. Webster says: “It has been suggested that this mistake originally arose from the fact that in old pictures upon this subject, the inscription, or title, was in Latin, ‘Dives et Lazarus,’ and that uneducated persons probably supposed that the first word was the name of the rich man, as the last unquestionably was that of the beggar.” It would be just as proper to call the rich man Plousios as Dives.