The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. Luke
For S. Jerome says, “ We must bear in mind that we are with God, or depart from Him, according to our disposition, not according to ‘distances of place.’ ”
Therefore, adds Theophylact, “when a man departs from God, and from the fear of God, he wastes and consumes all God’s gifts.”
And there wasted his substance , i.e., all the gifts of nature and grace. For the sinner, giving himself up to pleasure and licentiousness , incurs the loss of all God’s gifts of grace.
He becomes dull of understanding and is unable to recognise God, or the beauty of holiness. He grows forgetful of God’s law and God’s goodness towards him. He so corrupts his will as to prefer vice to virtue, pleasure to reason, earth to heaven, the evil one to God ; and forsaking the paths of virtue, gives himself up to every kind of evil. Hence he becomes destitute of counsel, reason, sense, and everything that is good ; and at last, with all the powers of his soul and body, he worships the creature rather than the Creator, and falls into that sin to which the Psalmist refers, “So they that forsake Thee shall perish ; Thou hast destroyed all them that commit fornication against Thee.” Ps. lxxiii. 26.
The prodigal son “ wasted all the graces of nature,” says Euthymius , because, adds S. Augustine, “he made a wrong use of his natural gifts.” “He then,” says Titus, “expended his goods” (substantiam ), i.e. the light which was in him, temperance, the knowledge of the truth, the remembrance of God. And lastly, says Euthymius again, “he corrupted the gift which he had received at his baptism, i.e. nobility of soul, and the capability of living a godly life, for such things as these made up the riches of the prodigal.”
With riotous living , By living an abandoned life (ἀσώτως), not only sinful but also luxurious and intemperate.
“ A prodigal life,” says the Gloss, “ loves to occupy itself in outward show, forgetful of God, who has His dwelling within.”
Ver. 14. — And when he had spent all ... he began to be in want. Or, according to the Arabic, “ he became destitute,” as those who lose by one year’s debauchery all that their parents have left them ; and after that are reduced to misery and to begging their bread. Nor do they lose their property only, but their health and good name as well, and by reason of the foulness of their habits and the diseases which they contract, become a burden to themselves, and a disgust to their fellowmen. For it is acknowledged by all that luxury and extravagance make the richest poor, and reduce men to the very verge of starvation.
Mystically . The sinner suffers from the want of all things, whether of nature or of grace, because he turns the gifts which he possesses to his own destruction, and therefore is in a far worse condition than if he had never received them.
And again, the sinner being without God, lacks everything ; for all things depend upon Him, and in Him live and have their being. Hence the Interlinear, “ Every place whence the Father is absent, is a place of penury and want.” For he who has not God possesses nothing, although he be king of the whole world. Again, he who has God possesses all things, although he may not have a farthing to call his own. Or, as S. Francis expresses it, “ God is mine and all things.” For God alone can be said to be ; and all things else compared to Him, not to be. See Exod. iii.
Moreover, the Gloss says, “ Pleasure always hungers for itself —the more we indulge in it, the more insatiably we thirst after it ; ” and S. Jerome, “ Our health and strength depart from us by reason of our sinful indulgences, yet we do not lose the desire of indulging.
‘While yet in sport, for other sports we burn,
In gardens fair, for other gardens yearn.’”
Ver. 15. — And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country , i.e., to an evil spirit, for the devils are the citizens of the country far off from God. So S. Augustine ( Quæst. Evang. lib. ii. q. 33.) says, “He joined himself to a certain prince of the air belonging to the army of the devil, whose fields signify the manner of his power. The swine are the unclean spirits which are under him, and to feed them is to work those things in which they delight.”
So also S. Ambrose, “ The citizen is the prince of this world,” and in like manner the Gloss.
S. Peter Chrysologus (Serm. a.) says, “Behold the effect of desires. It turned a citizen into an alien, a son into a hireling, a rich man into a beggar, a free man into a slave. It associated him whom it separated from a kind father with swine ; that he who had despised a holy affection might be the slave of the greedy herd.”
S. Ambrose judges rightly that by the expression “ he joined himself to ” we are to understand a dangerous as well as a laborious service. For as a bird is snared when seeking food, so the unhappy sinner, hoping for the delights of freedom, falls into a perilous slavery.
And he sent him into his field. That is, says Bede, “ he became a slave of earthly desires.”
To feed swine. “To feed swine,” says S. Chrysostom in the Catena , “ is to nourish in the soul sordid and unclean thoughts. See here how marvellously the condition of the sinner is changed, as a just punishment for the foolish use he made of his freedom. He who was unwilling to be held in honour as a son, is obliged to become the bond slave of an alien. He who would not obey the laws of God, is compelled to serve Satan. He who would not abide in his father's palace, is sent to dwell amongst clowns. He who would not associate with his brethren and with princes, becomes the attendant and companion of swine. He who refused the bread of angels, would fain satisfy his hunger with husks from the hogtrough .”
Ver. 16. — And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat. So those who foolishly squander their possessions on others, find none to give them even husks in their misery and want. S. Chrysostom (Serm. i) says, “Hunger, to luxury a torment, is now his lot, that where his guilt had been flagrant there an avenging punishment might rage.” And again, “ How cruel a service ! He lives with unclean animals, yet does not share in their feast. Wretched man that he is ; half famished, he hungers for the swine’s coarse food, yet does not obtain it.”
S. Jerome (Epist. 146) here remarks, “that the Devil, when he brings a man into subjection, fires his soul with desires of all kinds, but cheats him of their gratification, that by longing after them he may increase his guilt, and by failing to gratify them may add to his punishment and misery.” Such is the deceitfulness and the tyranny of Satan. “ Husks ” are the empty pods of beans, peas, and the like, which fill but do not nourish the body. Yet country folk mix these husks with flour or meal, and make thereof a common kind of black bread on which they live. Hence Horace ( Epist 1, lib. ii.) writes, “He lives on husks and coarse bread.” Jansenius understands by “ husks,” the fruit of the Carob tree, which is like a bean, of a blackish colour, curved, as long as a man’s finger, and as broad as his thumb. Each pod contains four berries called ceratia from their likeness to a horn (κέρας). These afford excellent food for swine, and are also eaten by men.
But by “ husks ” the Fathers understand “ that worldly and vain knowledge which begets vanity, such as the writings of the poets, or the harangues of the orators.” “ Wherein,” says S. Augustine, “ this man sought to find something belonging to the higher life, but could not.” The word, however, may be taken to mean more fully “ carnal gratifications which puff out and afflict the soul but do not satisfy its yearnings.” So S. Chrysostom in the Catena writes, “ If thou lovest good wine, thou lovest husks ; if thou longest for gold, thou dost seek for husks ; if thou followest after sensual pleasures, thou askest for the food of swine.”