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| Of the Prodigal Son.
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Chapter VIII.—Of
the Prodigal Son.
But, however, the majority of interpreters of the
parables are deceived by the self-same result as is of very frequent
occurrence in the case of embroidering garments with purple. When
you think that you have judiciously harmonized the proportions of the
hues, and believe yourself to have succeeded in skilfully giving
vividness to their mutual combination; presently, when each body (of
colour) and (the various) lights are fully developed, the convicted
diversity will expose all the error. In the self-same darkness,
accordingly, with regard to the parable of the two sons also, they are
led by some figures (occurring in it), which harmonize in hue with the
present (state of things), to wander out of the path of the true light
of that comparison which the subject-matter of the parable
presents. For they set down, as represented in the two sons, two
peoples—the elder the Jewish, the younger the Christian:
for they cannot in the sequel arrange for the Christian sinner, in the
person of the younger son, to obtain pardon, unless in the person of
the elder they first portray the Jewish. Now, if I shall succeed
in showing that the Jewish fails to suit the comparison of the elder
son, the consequence of course will be, that the Christian will not be
admissible (as represented) by the joint figure of the younger
son. For although the Jew withal be called “a son,”
and an “elder one,” inasmuch as he had priority in
adoption;789
although, too, he envy the Christian the
reconciliation of God the Father,—a point which the opposite side
most eagerly catches at,—still it will be no speech of a Jew to
the Father: “Behold, in how many years do I serve Thee, and
Thy precept have I never transgressed.” For when has the
Jew not been a transgressor of the law; hearing with the ear,
and not hearing;790
holding in hatred him
who reproveth in the gates,791
and in scorn holy
speech?792
So, too, it will be no speech of the
Father to the Jew: “Thou art always with Me, and all Mine
are thine.” For the Jews are pronounced “apostate
sons, begotten indeed and raised on high, but who have not understood
the Lord, and who have quite forsaken the Lord,
and have provoked unto anger the Holy One of Israel.”793
That all things, plainly, were
conceded to the Jew, we shall admit; but he has likewise had
every more savoury morsel torn from his throat,794
not
to say the very land of paternal promise. And accordingly the Jew
at the present day, no less than the younger son, having squandered
God’s substance, is a beggar in alien territory, serving even
until now its princes, that is, the princes of this world.795
Seek, therefore, the Christians some
other as their brother; for the Jew the parable does not admit.
Much more aptly would they have matched the Christian with the elder,
and the Jew with the younger son, “according to the analogy of
faith,”796
if the order of each
people as intimated from Rebecca’s womb797
permitted the inversion: only that (in that case) the concluding
paragraph would oppose them; for it will be fitting for the Christian
to rejoice, and not to grieve, at the restoration of Israel, if it be
true, (as it is), that the whole of our hope is intimately united with
the remaining expectation of Israel.798
Thus, even
if some (features in the parable) are favourable, yet by others of a
contrary significance the thorough carrying out of this comparison is
destroyed; although (albeit all points be capable of corresponding with
mirror-like accuracy) there be one cardinal danger in
interpretations—the danger lest the felicity of our comparisons
be tempered with a different aim from that which the subject-matter of
each particular parable has bidden us (temper it). For we
remember (to have seen) actors withal, while accommodating allegorical
gestures to their ditties, giving expression to such as are far
different from the immediate plot, and scene, and character, and yet
with the utmost congruity. But away with extraordinary
ingenuity, for it has nothing to do with our subject. Thus
heretics, too, apply the self-same parables where they list, and
exclude them (in other cases)—not where they
ought—with the utmost aptitude. Why the utmost
aptitude? Because from the very beginning they have moulded
together the very subject-matters of their doctrines in accordance with
the opportune incidences of the parables. Loosed as they are from
the constraints of the rule of truth, they have had leisure, of course,
to search into and put together those things of which the parables seem
(to be symbolical).E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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