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The Parable of the Regretful Son

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

J. Ramsey Michaels
J. Ramsey Michaels
Affiliation:
Gordon Divinity School
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Extract

The textual problems involved in the parable of the two sons (Matt. 21:28–32) are well known and extraordinarily complex. The parable has been handed down in the manuscript tradition in three forms.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , January 1968 , pp. 15 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1968

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References

1 Though it was adopted by Lachmann, C. in his Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine, I (Berlin, 1832), 125f.Google Scholar, II (Berlin, 1850), v.

2 Comm. in Matt. ad loc. (Migne, PL 26, 162)Google Scholar.

3 Die vier kanonischen Evangelien nach ihrem ältesten bekannten Texte, I (Berlin, 1897), 237–41Google Scholar; II (1902), 291–97.

4 Das Evangelium Matthaei (Berlin, 1914), 102fGoogle Scholar.

5 Frühgeschichte des Evangeliums, II (Tübingen, 1941), 317Google Scholar.

6 Zur Exegese und Textkritik zweier Gleichnisse Jesu, Aus Schrift und Geschichte, Festschr. A. Schlatter (Stuttgart, 1922), 17–34Google Scholar.

7 Ibid., 29f.

8 Das textgeschichtliche Problem der Parabel von den zwei Söhnen, Vom Wort des Lebens, Festschr. M. Meinertz (Münster Westf., 1951), 68–84Google Scholar, especially 75, 83f. This view that III represents the middle term between II (the original parable) and I (the latest form of the text) is also held by Riggenbach, op. cit., 28f., 32, and by Westcott, B. F. and Hort, F. J. A., The New Testament in the Original Greek, II (Cambridge and London, 1881), Appendix, 15–17Google Scholar.

9 On the basis of a supposed Aramaic Vorlage, Joachim Jeremias argues that v. 31b should be rendered, “the publicans and harlots shall (at the Last Judgment) enter the Kingdom of God rather than you,” The Parables of Jesus, rev. ed. (New York, 1963), 125Google Scholar. But since Riggenbach and Schmid present the temporal view precisely as a scribal misinterpretation, Jeremias' point does not affect their construction.

10 The present Matthean context of the latter passage is of course very different from that of our parable: Matt. 7:21 has to do with matters within the Christian community, while 21:28–32 contrasts church and synagogue. But this does not rule out possible links between the two passages in pre-Matthean tradition.

11 Op. cit., 29f.

12 Cf. also ἀμεταμέλητoϛ in Rom. 11:29 and 2 Cor. 7:10.

13 Note the interplay among μεταμέλεσθαι, μετάnu;oια, and ἀμεταμέλητoϛ in 2 Cor. 7:8–10.

14 Cf. Michel, O., μεταμέλoμαι, TWNT 4 (Stuttgart, 1942), 632Google Scholar.

15 For this use of ύστερoϛ, see Liddell, H. G. and Scott, R., A Greek-English Lexicon, rev. H. Stuart Jones and R. McKenzie (Oxford, 1940), 1906Google Scholar. It is attested, for example, in Homer, Iliad XVIII, 320; Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus 222; Euripides, Hercules Furens 1174; Aristophanes, Lysistrata 57, 69; Thucydides IV, 90. In the New Testament, “too late” seems to be the meaning in Matt 25:11. On this use of the comparative degree, see Schwyzer, E., Griechische Grammatik, 2e Aufl., II (München, 1959), 184fGoogle Scholar.

16 On the other hand it should be admitted that in Matthew's parable of the laborers in the vineyard (20:1–16) the words oὶ δὲ ἀπῆλθoν (v. 5) do seem to express obedience to the householder's request to “go (ὐπάγετε) into the vineyard.” Although the groups of workers to whom these words apply, recruited at the third, sixth, and ninth hours, do not appear in the reckoning in the latter half of the parable (vv. 8–16), their presence seems to be taken for granted. The fact that only the “first” and the “last” are mentioned (vv. 8, 10, 12, 16) might conceivably be taken as meaning that the intervening groups had refused and “gone away” (oἰ δὲ ἀπῆλθoν!). The language of v. 8, however (“beginning with the last, up to the first”), makes it more likely that all the groups mentioned are at work in the vineyard. If so, then ἀπέρΞεσθαι here indicates a positive response, and some flexibility in Matthew's usage must be admitted.

17 See below, n. 22.

18 A. Jülicher lists r 1 among the manuscripts having this longer reading, but with a question mark, Itala. Das Neue Testament in Altlateinischer Überlieferung, I, Matthäusevangelium (Berlin, 1938), 153Google Scholar.

19 Ibid. Most Vulgate manuscripts also have this reading. The parentheses indicate that aur differs on the location of “postea” and g 1 omits “ei.” The last part of this reading is also preserved in d and ff 1 but “nec” before “paenitentiam” is omitted: “you repented afterwards so as to believe him.”

20 The Latin text quoted is that of e, the African Latin; c agrees except for the omission of “ei” at the end and the addition of “haec” before “paenitentiam.” Several other manuscripts (a, b, ff 2, h, r 1) agree with the ending, but change the whole point by including “nec”: “you did not repent afterward, because you did not believe him.” See Jülicher, loc. cit.

21 The negative is found in most Greek manuscripts, but is missing in D and 700.

22 ύστερoϛ as “too late” is used with nouns in the genitive case in such places as Herodotus VI, 120 (“too late for battle”) and Aristophanes, Vespae 690 (“too late for a signal”). It is used with τoῦ δέoντoϛ in Aristophanes, Lysistrata 57 to mean simply “later than one should be” or “too late.”

23 The correspondence would in fact be perfect except for D's inclusion of εἰϛ τòν ἀμπελῶνα in V. 29.