and went away into his room that his tears should not be seen, and for a
while neither of them spoke any more of this matter. But the son
suffered, was sullen, and lost all his ardor and animation even to the
fresh color of his face. And the father, seeing his son suffer, suffered
himself, and yet suffered more at the thought of losing him. But finally
paternal love conquered self-love. The estimations and valuations of the
property were made, and the father gave to both his sons their rightful
part and kept the rest for himself. The young man lost no time, he sold
what he could not carry away, gathered together a goodly sum, and one
evening, without saying anything to any one, mounted his fine horse and
went away. The older brother was rather pleased by his departure; the
younger would never have the courage to come back; so now he was the
only son, first in command, and no one would take away the rest of his
inheritance from him.
But the father secretly wept many tears, all the tears of his old
wrinkled eyelids. Every line of his old face was washed with tears, his
aged cheeks were soaked with his grieving. His son was gone and he
needed all the love of the remaining son to make up for the sorrow of
the separation.
But he had an intuition that perhaps he had not lost his son forever,
his second-born, that before his death he would have the happiness to
kiss him again; and this idea helped him to endure the loneliness.
In the meantime the young man drew rapidly near to the rich city of
revels where he meant to live. At every turning of the road he felt of
the money-bags which hung at either side of his saddle. He soon arrived
at the city of his desire and began his feasting. It seemed to him that
those thousands of coins would last forever. He rented a fine house,
bought five or six slaves, dressed like a prince, and soon had men and
women friends who were guests at his table, and who drank his wine till
their stomachs could hold no more. He did not economize with women and
chose the most beautiful the city contained, those who knew how to dance
and sing and dress with magnificence, and undress with grace. No
presents seemed too fine or too rich to please those bodies which
abandoned themselves with such voluptuous softness, and which gave him
the wildest, most torturing pleasure. The little provincial lord from
the dull country, repressed in the most sensual period of his life, now
vented his voluptuousness, his love of luxury, in this dangerous life.
Such a life could not go on forever: the money bags of the prodigal son
were not bottomless—no money bags are—and there came a day when there
was neither gold nor silver, and not even copper, but only empty bags of
canvas and leather lying limp and flabby on the brick floor of his room.
His friends disappeared, the women disappeared, slaves, beds and
dining-tables were sold. With the proceeds he had enough to buy food,
but only for a short time. To complete his misfortune, a famine came on
the country and the prodigal son found himself hungering in the midst of
a famine-stricken people. The women had gone off to other cities where
the situation was better; the friends of his drunken night-revels had
hard work to look out for themselves.
The unfortunate man, stripped and destitute, left the city, traveling
with a lord who was going to the country where he had a fine estate. He
begged him for work, till the lord hired him as swine-herd because he
was young and strong and hardly any one was willing to be a swine-herd.
For a Jew nothing could be a greater affliction than this. Even in
Egypt, although animals were adored there, the only people forbidden to
enter the temples were swine-herds. No father would have given his
daughter to wife to a swine-herd and no man for all the gold in the
world would have married the daughter of a swine-herd.
But the prodigal son had no choice and was forced to lead the herd of
swine out to the pasture. He was given no pay and very little to eat,
because there was only a little for any one; but there was no famine for
the hogs, because they could eat anything. There were plenty of carob
beans and they gorged themselves on those. Their hungry attendant
enviously watched the pink and black animals rooting in the earth,
chewing beans and roots, and longed to fill his stomach with the same
stuff and wept, remembering the abundance of his own home and his
festivals in the great city. Sometimes overcome with hunger he took one
of the black bean-husks, from under the grunting snouts of the pigs,
tempering the bitterness of his suffering with that insipid and woody
food. And woe to him if his employer had seen him!
His dress was a dirty slave’s smock which smelt of manure, his foot-gear
a pair of worn-out sandals scarcely held together with rushes; on his
head a faded hood. His fair young face, tanned by the sun of the hills,
was thin and long, and had taken a sickly color between gray and brown.
Who was wearing now the spotless home-spun clothes, which he had left in
his brother’s chests? Where now were the fair silken tunics dyed purple
which he had sold for so little? His father’s hired servants were better
dressed than he, and they fared better than he.
Returned to his senses, he said to himself, “How many hired servants of
my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!”
Until now he had brushed away the idea of going home as soon as it had
appeared. How could he bear to go back in this condition and give in to
his brother after having despised his home, after having made his father
weep? To return without a garment, unshod, without a penny, without the
ring—the sign of liberty—uncomely, disfigured by this famished slavery,
stinking and contaminated by this abominable trade, to show that the
wise old neighbors were right, that his serious-minded brother was
right, to bow himself at the knee of the old man whom he had left
without a greeting, to return with opprobrium as a ragged fellow to the
spot from which he had departed as a king! To come back to the
soup-plate into which he had spit—into a house which contained nothing
of his!
No, there was something of his always in his home, his father! If he
belonged to his father, his father belonged also to him. He was his
creation, made of his flesh, issued from his seed in a moment of love.
Though hurt, his father would never drive away his own flesh and blood.
If he would not take him back as son, at least he would take him back as
a hired servant, as he would any stranger, like a man born of another
father. “I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him,
Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, And am no more
worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.” I do
not come back as son but as servant, a worker, and I do not ask love
from you, for I have no more right to that, but only a little bread from
your kitchen.
And the young man gave back the hogs to his master, and went towards his
own land. He begged a piece of bread from the country people, and wept
salt tears as he ate this bread of pity and charity in the shadow of the
sycamores. His sore and blistered feet could scarcely carry him. He was
barefoot now, but his faith in forgiveness led him homeward step by
step.
And finally one day at noon he arrived in sight of his father’s house;
but he did not dare to knock, nor to call any one, nor to go in. He hung
around outside to see if any one would come out. And behold, his father
appeared on the threshold. His son was no longer the same, was changed,
but the eyes of a father even dimmed by weeping could not fail to
recognize him. He ran towards him and caught him to his breast, and
kissed him and kissed him again, and could not stop from pressing his
pale, old lips on that ravaged face, on those eyes whose expression was
altered but still beautiful, on that hair, dusty but still waving and
soft, on that flesh that was his own.
The son, covered with confusion and deeply moved, did not know how to
respond to these kisses, and as soon as he could free himself from his
father’s arms he threw himself on the ground and repeated tremulously
the speech he had prepared. “Father, I have sinned against heaven and
before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son.”
But if the young man had brought himself to the point of refusing the
name of son, the old man never felt himself more father than at this
moment; he seemed to become a father for a second time, and without even
answering, with his eyes still clouded and soft, but with the ringing
voice of his best days, he called to the servants:
“Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his
hand, and shoes on his feet.”
The son of the master should not return home wretchedly dressed like a
beggar. The finest garment should be given him, new shoes, a ring on his
finger, and the servants must wait on him because he, too, is a master.
“And bring hither the fatted calf; and kill it, and let us eat and be
merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is
found.”
The fatted calf was kept in reserve for great feast days: but what
festival can be greater for me than this one? I had wept for my son as
dead and here he is alive with me. I had lost him in the world and the
world has delivered him back to me. He was far away and now is with me,
he was a beggar at the doors of strange houses, and now is master in his
own house; he was famished and now he shall be served with a banquet at
his own table.
And the servants obeyed him and the calf was killed, skinned, cut up and
put to cook. The oldest wine was taken from the wine-cellar, and the
finest room was prepared for the dinner in celebration of the return.
Servants went to call his father’s friends and others went to summon
musicians, that there should be music. And when everything was ready,
when the son had been bathed, and his father had kissed him many times
more—almost as if to assure himself with his lips that his true son was
there with him and it was not the vision of a dream—they commenced the
banquet, the wines were mixed and the musicians accompanied the songs of
joy.
The older son was in the field, working, and in the evening when he came
back and was near to the house he heard shouts and stampings and
clapping of hands, and the footsteps of dancers. And he could not
understand. “Whatever can have happened? Perhaps my father has gone
crazy or perhaps a wedding procession has arrived unexpectedly at our
house.”
Disliking noise and new faces, he would not enter and see for himself
what it was. But he called to a boy coming out of the house and asked
him what all that clatter was.
“Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf,
because he hath received him safe and sound.”
These words were like a thrust at his heart. He turned pale, not with
pleasure, but with rage and jealousy. The old envy boiled up inside. It
seemed to him that he had all the right on his side, and he would not go
into the house, but stayed outside, angry.
Then his father went out and entreated him: “Come, for your brother has
come back and has asked after you, and will be glad to see you, and we
will feast together.”
But the serious-minded young man could not contain himself, and for the
first time in his life ventured to reprove his father to his face.
“Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any
time thy commandment; yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make
merry with my friends: But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath
devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted
calf.”
With these few words he discloses all the ignominy of his soul hidden
until then under the Pharisaical cloak of good behavior. He reproaches
his father with his own obedience, he reproaches him with his avarice.
“You have never given me even a kid”—and he reproaches him, he, a
loveless son, for being a too-loving father. “This thy son.” He does not
say “brother.” His father may recognize him as son, but he will not
recognize him as brother. “He hath devoured thy living with harlots.
Money that was not his, with women that were not his; while I stayed
with thee sweating on thy fields with no recompense.”
But his father pardoned this son, as he did the other son. “Son, thou
art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we
should make merry, and be glad; for this thy brother was dead, and is
alive again; and was lost, and is found.”
The father is sure that these words will be enough to silence the other.
“He was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found. What other
reasons can be needed, and what other reasons can be better than
these—grant that he has done what he has done, that he has spent my
money on women; he has dissipated as much as he could; he left me
without a greeting; he left me to weep. He could have done worse than
that and still would have been my son. He could have stolen on the
streets, could have murdered the guiltless, he could have offended me
even more, but I never could forget that he is my son, my own blood. He
was gone and has returned, was disappeared and has reappeared, was lost
and is found, was dead and is alive again. This is enough for me and to
celebrate this miracle a fatted calf seems little to me. Thou hast never
left me, I always enjoyed thee, all my kids are thine if thou asketh for
them; thou hast eaten every day at my table; but he was gone for so many
days and weeks and months! I saw him only in my dreams; he has not eaten
a single piece of bread with me in all that time. Have I not the right
to triumph at least this day?”
Jesus stopped here, He did not go on with His story. There was no need
of that, the meaning of the parable is clear with no additions. But no
story—after that of Joseph—that ever came from human lips is more
beautiful than this one or ever touched more deeply the hearts of men.
Interpreters are free to comment and explain, that the prodigal son is
the new man purified by the experience of grief, and the older son, the
Pharisee who observes the old law but does not know love. Or else that
the older son is the Jewish people who do not understand the love of the
Father welcoming the pagan, although he had wallowed in the foul loves
of paganism and had lived in the company of swine.
Jesus was no maker of riddles. He Himself says expressly that the
meaning of this and similar parables is: “More joy shall be in Heaven
over one sinner who repents than over all the righteous” who vaunt
themselves in their false righteousness; than for all the pure who are
proud of their external purity; than for all the zealots who hide the
aridity of their hearts by their apparent respect for the law.
The truly righteous will be received in the Kingdom, but no one ever
doubted them, they have made no one tremble and suffer and there is no
need to rejoice; but for him who has been near perdition, who has gone
through deep sufferings to make himself a new soul, to overcome his
bestiality, who merits his place in the Kingdom the more because he has
had to deny all his past to obtain it, for him songs of triumph shall
arise.
“What man of you having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth
not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which
is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on
his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together
his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have
found my sheep which was lost.”
Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece,
doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till
she find it? And when she hath found it she calleth her friends and her
neighbors together, saying, “Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece
which I had lost.”
And what is a sheep compared to a son returned to life, to a man saved?
And of what value is a piece of silver compared to one astray, who finds
holiness again?
THE PARABLES OF SIN
But forgiveness creates an obligation for which there are no exceptions
allowed. Love is a fire which goes out if it does not kindle others.
Thou hast burned with joy; kindle him who comes near you if thou wilt
not become like stone, smoky but cold. He who has received must give; it
is better to give much, but it is essential to give a part at least.
A king one day wanted a reckoning with his servants and one by one he
called them before him. Among the first was one who owed him ten
thousand talents, but as he had not anything to pay this, the king
commanded that he should be sold and his wife and his children and all
that he had, in payment of a part of the debt. The servant in despair
threw himself at the feet of the king. He seemed a mere bundle of
garments crying out sobs and promises. “Have patience with me, wait a
little longer and I will pay you all, but do not have my wife and my
children separated from me, sent away like cattle, no one knows where.”
The king was moved with compassion—he also had little children—and he
sent him away free and forgave him that great debt. The servant went out
and seemed another man; but his heart, even after so much mercy shown to
him, was the same as before. And he met one of his fellow-servants who
owed him a hundred pence, a small thing compared with ten thousand
talents, and he sprang on him and took him by the throat. “Pay me what
thou owest and at once, or I will have thee bound by the guards.” The
unlucky man assaulted in this way did what his persecutor had done a
little while before in the presence of the king. He fell down at his
feet and besought him and wept and swore that he would pay him in a few
days and kissed the hem of his garment, and recalled to him their old
comradeship and begged him to wait in the name of the children who were
waiting for him in his home.
But the oaf, who was a servant and not a king, had no compassion. He
took his debtor by the arm and had him cast into prison. The news spread
abroad among the other servants of the palace. They were full of
compassion, and it came quickly to the ears of the king, who called that
pitiless man and delivered him to the tormentors: “I forgave you that
great debt, shouldst thou not have had compassion on thy brother, for
his debt was so much smaller? I had pity on thee, oughtest thou not to
have had pity on him?”
Sinners when they recognize the evil which is in their hearts and abjure
it with true humility are nearer to the Kingdom than pious men who daub
themselves with the praise of their own piety.
Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, the other a
Publican. The Pharisee, with his phylacteries hanging upon his forehead
and on his left arm, with the long, glittering fringes on his cloak,
erect like a man who feels himself in his own house, prayed thus: “God,
I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust,
adulterers, or even as this Publican. I fast twice in the week, I give
tithes of all that I possess.”
But the Publican did not have the courage even to lift his eyes and
seemed ashamed to appear before his Lord. He sighed and smote on his
breast and said only these words: “God be merciful to me a sinner.”
“I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the
other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that
humbleth himself shall be exalted.”
A lawyer asked Jesus who is one’s neighbor, and Jesus told this story:
“A man, a Jew, went down from Jerusalem to Jericho through the mountain
passes. Thieves fell upon him, and after they had wounded him and taken
away his clothes, they left him upon the road half dead. A priest passed
that way, one of those who go to all the feasts and meetings, and boast
that they know the will of God from beginning to end. He saw the
unfortunate man stretched out but he did not stop, and to avoid touching
something unclean he passed by on the other side of the road. A little
after came a Levite. He also was among the most accredited of the
zealots, knew every detail of all the holy ceremonies, and seemed more
than a sacristan, seemed one of the masters of the Temple. He looked at
the bloody body and went on his way. And finally came a Samaritan. To
the Jews the Samaritans were faithless, traitors, only slightly less
detestable than the Gentiles, because they would not sacrifice at
Jerusalem and accept the reform of Nehemiah. The Samaritan, however, did
not wait to see if the unfortunate man thrown among the stones of the
street were circumcized or uncircumcized, were a Jew or a Samaritan. He
came up close to him, and seeing him in such an evil pass, he was
quickly moved to pity, took down his flasks from his saddle and poured
upon his wounds a little oil, a little wine, bound them up as well as he
could with a handkerchief, put the stranger across his ass and brought
him to an inn, had him put to bed, tried to restore him, giving him
something hot to drink, and did not leave him until he saw him come to
himself and able to speak and eat. The next day he called the host apart
and gave him two pence: ‘Take care of him, do the best thou canst and
whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.’
“The neighbor, then, is he who suffers, he who needs help, whoever he
is, of whatever nation or religion he may be; even thine enemy, if he
needs thee, even if he does not ask help, is the first of ‘thy
neighbors.’”
Charity is the most valid title for admission to the Kingdom. The
wealthy glutton knew this, he who was clothed in purple and fine linen
and fared sumptuously every day. At the gate of his palace there was
Lazarus, a poor man, hungry, covered with sores, who would have been
glad to have the crumbs and the bones which fell from the rich man’s
table. The dogs took pity on Lazarus and on his wretchedness, and did
for him all they could, which was to lick his sores. And he caressed
these gentle, loving animals with his thin hands. But the rich man had
no pity on Lazarus. It never once came into his head to call him to his
table, and he never sent him a piece of bread or the leavings of the
kitchen destined for the refuse heap, which even the scullions refused
to eat. It happened that both of them, the poor man and the rich man,
died, and the poor man was welcomed into Abraham’s bosom, and the rich
man was cast into the fire to suffer. From afar off he saw Lazarus, who
was banqueting with the patriarchs, and from the midst of the fire he
cried: “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may
dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am
tormented in this flame.”
He had not given Lazarus even a tiny morsel of food when he was alive,
and now he did not ask to be let out of the fire, nor a cup of water,
nor even a draught, nor even a drop, but he was content with a little
dampness which would cling on the tip of a finger, of the smallest
finger of the poor man. But Abraham answered: “Son, remember that thou
in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil
things; but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.” If thou hadst
given the smallest part of thy dinner to him, when thou knewest he was
hungered and was crouched at thy door in worse plight than a dog, and
even the dogs had more pity than thou, if thou hadst given him a
mouthful of bread only once, thou wouldst not need now to ask the tip of
his finger dipped in water.
The rich man delights in his property and it grieves him to have to give
away even the smallest part of it because he thinks that this life will
never end and that the future will be like the past. But death comes to
him also, and when he expects it least. There was once a landed
proprietor who had an especially profitable year in all his possessions.
He had fantastic imaginings about his new riches, and he said: “I will
pull down my barns and build greater, and there will I bestow all my
fruits and my goods, the wheat, the barley and the other grains, and I
will make other barns for the hay and the straw and other stables for
the oxen that I will buy, and still another stable where I can put all
my sheep and goats, and I will say to my soul: Thou hast much goods laid
up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.”
And the idea did not come to him even for a moment that from this
largesse of the earth he could have put aside a portion to comfort the
poor of his country. But on that very night when he had imagined so many
improvements in his property, the rich man died, and the day after, he
was buried naked and alone, under the earth, and there was no one to
intercede for him in Heaven.