The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. Luke
S. Gregory adds that God and His angels rejoice the more, because penitents are wont to be more fervent in their love than those who have not fallen away. And elsewhere he says, “ The life of fervent devotion which follows after sins committed is often more pleasing to God than that innocence which grows sluggish in its security.” “ Just as the leader in battle loves that soldier more who, having turned from flight, bravely pursues the enemy, than he who never turned his back and never did a brave act.” “ And as again the husbandman loves that land more which, after bearing thorns, yields abundant fruit, than that which never had thorns, and never gave him a plentiful crop.” Finally (Horn. 34), he cites the example of Victorinus who, having fallen into carnal sin, entered a monastery, and there subjected himself to the severest penance, and so merited to be transfused with the light of heaven, and to hear the voice of God, “ Thy sin is forgiven thee ! ”
If therefore penance be of such avail in a sinner, how great, infers S. Gregory, must be its power in a just man ! For many, he says, are conscious of no evil, yet subject themselves to austerities as extreme as if they were beset by every kind of sin. They eschew all things, even such as are lawful, they gird themselves about with a lofty disdain of earth and earthly things, they consider every pleasure forbidden, they deprive themselves of such good things as are allowed them, things that are seen they despise, they yearn for the things which are invisible, they rejoice in mourning, in all things they humble themselves, and deplore sins of thought, as many mourn over sins actually committed.
Ver. 8. — Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, &c. “Sweep,” or as the Arabic renders it, “cleanse;” not “overturn,” as some read with S. Gregory.
The “ piece of silver,” or drachma, was a coin weighing the eighth part of an ounce. Hence S. Cyril explains, that by the parable of the lost sheep we are to understand, mystically, that we are the creatures of God who made us, and the sheep of His pasture, but by the second parable we are taught that we were created in the image and likeness of God, just as the coin bears the image of the king.
S. Gregory (Horn. 34), very fully explains the parable, and applies it in the following manner : “ He who is signified by the shepherd, is signified also by the woman. For it is God Himself— God and the wisdom of God. And because there is an image impressed on the piece, the woman lost the piece of silver when man, who was created after the image of God, by sinning fell away from the likeness of his Creator. The woman lighted a candle, because the wisdom of God appeared in man. For the candle is a light in an earthen vessel, but the light in an earthen vessel is the Godhead in the flesh, and when the candle was lit she overturned (evertit) the house. Because as soon as His divinity shone forth through the flesh, all our consciences were appalled. But the word ‘overturn’ differs not from the ‘cleanse’ or ‘sweep’ of the other MSS. Because the corrupt mind, if it be not first overthrown through fear is not cleansed from its habitual faults. But when the house is overturned the piece of silver is found, for when the conscience of man is disturbed, the likeness of the Creator is restored in him.” And again, “Who are the friends and neighbours but those heavenly powers afore mentioned, who are near to the Divine Wisdom, inasmuch as they approach Him through the grace of continual vision ?” Hence in conclusion he says, “ The woman had ten pieces of silver, because there are nine orders of angels, but, that the number of the elect might be filled up, man, the tenth, was created, who even after his sin did not fall utterly away from his Maker, because the eternal Wisdom, shining through the flesh by His miracles, restored him by the light of the earthen vessel.”
Or, as Theophylact interprets it, “The friends are all the heavenly powers ; but the neighbours, the thrones — cherubims and seraphims— which are most nigh unto God.”
Lastly, S. Gregory Nyssen, says, “ The ten pieces of silver are so many virtues, of which we ought to lack none, for like the commandments they are complete in themselves (decem). The candle is the divine word or perhaps the torch of repentance ; the neighbours, reason, desire, anger, and such like affections.”
Ver. 11. — And He said , A certain man had two sons. This parable is the third of the series, and like the two preceding ones, is designed to show the joy which is in heaven over the conversion of a sinner. And so there are three principal persons in the parable, the father and his two sons, the elder careful of his possessions, the younger a spendthrift. The father is God, who created all men, or Christ, who redeemed and regenerated all men with His blood, and who daily regenerates them by baptism. The two sons are understood by universal consent to represent the Jews and the Gentiles. By the elder, who was ever with his father, we may understand the Jews ; by the younger the Gentiles, who having worshipped God in the days of Adam and Noah, turned aside to idols and the sins of the flesh : an interpretation which is borne out by the 25th verse, for it was the Jews who murmured because the Gentiles were received into grace and favour by Christ.
But still more in accordance with the purpose of the parable, we may take the two sons to represent the just and the unjust, whether Jews or Gentiles. For the sinners with whom Christ companied, thereby causing the Pharisees to murmur against Him, were clearly Jews and not Gentiles.
The elder son represents the just, i.e. those who were really just, as well as those who, like the Scribes and Pharisees, claimed to be such.
The younger son, the prodigal, is put for open and notorious sinners, such as the publicans and harlots, with whom Christ was wont to associate in order that He might win them from the error of their way. So S. Jerome and most other interpreters explains the parable.
Ver. 12. — And the younger of them said to his father, Father , give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. The younger, i.e. sinners and harlots. For youth is less restrained, more foolish, more inconstant, and more prone to indulgences of every kind. According to the Fathers, the “goods,” “substantia,” must be taken to mean man’s free will, called in Greek βίος. “ Because by it,” says S. Jerome, “ man lives freely and as it pleases him.” “ For,” observes Theophylact, “ the substance of man is the capacity of reason which is accompanied by free will.” S. Ambrose and others, by substance, understand more fitly the grace of God, virtues and good habits. For it is these which are really wasted and destroyed by the sinner, whilst his free will cannot be lost, as is clear from the parable. You may therefore take the word to mean all the gifts of God, of body and soul, of nature and grace ; for these the younger son demands to be entirely given up to him, because he was unwilling any longer to submit to the authority of his father, but desirous of being his own master, and of being free to use or abuse the gifts of God as might seem to him good.
So S. Augustine (Quæst. Evang. lib. ii. q. 35) writes, “To live, to understand, to remember, to excel in quickness of intellect, these things are gifts of God, which men receive into their own power by freewill.” So also S. Jerome, Titus, and Euthymius.
And he divided unto them his living. Placing the gifts just mentioned at the free disposal of each, for “ He left man in the hand of his counsel.” Ecclus. xv. 14.
Ver. 13. — And not many days after the younger son gathered all together , or, according to the Syriac version, “ collected together all that had come to him,” and took his journey into a far country — “ far off,” says Euthymius, “ not by local separation, but by separation in point of virtue.” Such is a state of concupiscence and sin, for the sinner by sinning goes far from God and from heaven, and subjects himself to the dominion of Satan. “ But,” says Euthymius, “ the elder son being wise, remained with his father.”
Hence S. Augustine goes on to say, “The far country is forgetfulness of God, a forgetfulness which is mutual, for inasmuch as the sinner forgets God, God in His turn is in a manner forgetful of the sinner, i.e. God ceases to bestow on him light, grace, or guidance.”