A final post about Clement that includes some items that most likely
will not be discussed in the book, primarily because the parable
of the Prodigal Son is one of the four parables most prevalent in various types
of interpretations. I have so many other Prodigal Son examples to include that I think are more valuable and interesting.
Clement’s oration on the Passover
places the parable of the Prodigal Son in the context of those who have become
exiles and fugitives from God. Such exiles, who have squandered their
inheritance from God in a “profligacy of debauchery,” can arise and return to
God. In response, God is moved with compassion, takes the first step while the
son is still far away, runs toward the prodigal, and bestows upon him glory and
honor. The actions of the father in the parable are symbolic: The best robe
denotes the robe of immortality; the ring is a royal signet ring and divine
seal of “consecration, signature of glory, pledge of testimony” (citing John
3:33); the shoes are “not those perishable ones”—and not “the shoes of the
sinful soul, by which it is bound and cramped”—but are instead shoes that do
not wear out and “are suited for the journey to heaven,” such as the ones put
on by those whose feet have been washed by “our Teacher and Lord” (an apparent
allusion to John 13:13). The shoes given to the repentant son thus “are
buoyant, and ascending, and waft to heaven, and serve as such a ladder and
chariot as he requires who has turned his mind towards the Father.”
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| Jan Luyken, The Man Without a Wedding Garment |
Clement then takes a brief detour to
connect the parable of the Wedding Feast’s garment and the delicacies of that
dinner (Matt. 22:1-14) to the feast celebrating the return of the prodigal. The
fatted calf killed for the celebration of the son’s return may be “spoken of as
a lamb (not literally)” because it is not small but “the great and greatest.”
Christ, then, is the fatted calf (lamb), because he is “the Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:19) and who “was led as a sheep to the
slaughter” (Acts 8:32; cf. Is. 53:7). The sacrifice of the lamb symbolized in
the killing of the fatted calf is also symbolic of the Eucharist, because
Christ “is both flesh and bread and has given himself as both to us to be
eaten.” To the “sons” who return to God as father, God gives them the calf,
“and it is slain and eaten.” But those who do not return to God, God “pursues
and disinherits, and is found to be a most powerful bull,” whose “glory is as
that of an unicorn” (Numbers 23:22) and who gives this strength to those who
partake in the Eucharist and are given the power to “butt our enemies” (Psalm
44:5).
The elder son reacts negatively to the
party the father gives for the younger son, but Clement asks, “what greater joy
and feast and festivity can be than being continually with God, standing by his
side and serving him?” The text then, after giving this “strict meaning of the
parable,” includes an interpretation that some scholars believe is written by a
later hand, a hand that explicitly moralizes the parable: God gives
human beings the power to reason, to discern between good and evil, and the
responsibility to pursue what is good and avoid what is evil. Many, however,
act like the prodigal and choose evil (e.g., “swinish gluttony”), even after
being baptized, because their “reason is darkened.” When they repent, though,
God restores them. The prodigal thus represents the love that God shows to
those who return and repent, putting on the best robe is baptism and
forgiveness, and the giving of the ring symbolizes the mystery of the Trinity.
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