Prodigal son
The biblical parable of the prodigal son is a parable told by Jesus according to the Gospel of Luke (15.11–32 EU ), which is part of a series of three parables with a related theme and belongs to the Lukan special property . In more recent translations it is also referred to as "parable of the two sons" or "of the love of the father".
action
The younger son demands his inheritance from his father. As soon as he receives it, he moves away and squanders the money abroad. Sunk into a beggar, he works as a swineherd and is so hungry that he longs ruefully back for his father's house and resolves to confess his sins to his father and ask him for a job as a minor day laborer . When he actually returns home, the father is so happy about his son's return that he hardly lets him finish and takes him back straight away. He dresses him festively and throws a big party.
When the older son, who has served the father faithfully all along, complains about the behavior of the father, the latter replies: “My child, you are always with me and everything that is mine is yours too. But now we have to be happy and have a party; for your brother was dead and is alive again; he was lost and has been found again ”( Lk 15.31 EU ).
Context and meaning
The parable concludes and climaxes in a series of three parables “of the lost” compiled by the Evangelist Luke . The other two parables of the lost sheep ( Lk 15.3–7 EU ) and of the lost coin ( Lk 15.8–10 EU ) also compare the kingdom of God with a person who feels great joy at finding a valuable good that was previously lost . The corresponding role is played by the “father” who wins his son back. The series is intended to rebut the accusation of the Pharisees and scribes against Jesus that he unlawfully associates with "sinners and tax collectors" ( Lk 15 : 1-3 EU ). These are represented here by the prodigal son, while the critics of Jesus find themselves in the role of the “older son” who remained with the father. The aim of the presentation is to emphasize the special focus of God and Jesus himself on the “lost”. With this theme of "getting lost" and "being found again" as a metaphor for the relationship between God and Israel , the three parables take up an essential motif of the Gospel of Luke. The unity with God as the Father is presented as the real goal of both sons in life.
Social history background
The parable is told against the background of legal conditions of the time. If there were two sons, the older one received two thirds of the property, usually the farm, and the younger one third. Younger sons had the opportunity to have their inheritance paid out so that they could start a business abroad. Whether a request for payment was offensive during the father's lifetime is controversial in research.
The fact that the son who is in distress abroad does not find any co-religionists, but has to turn to a citizen of the foreign country, shows how far he has moved from his homeland. Jewish communities in the diaspora also had their own poor welfare system . His forced acceptance of work as a swineherd, an unspeakable task for Jewish listeners, makes a religious life as a Jew impossible for him, if only because of the impurity of these animals. The carob pods , which he would have liked to have eaten in his distress, were considered the bread of the poor.
On return, a kiss , a hug and the upper garment indicate that the younger son has been accepted back into the socially respected position as the son of the householder. The (seal) ring gives him the power to act legally on behalf of the family. The shoes were a sign of a free man - slaves went barefoot. Finally, the father has a fattened calf slaughtered in order to celebrate the return of the son in a particularly festive way, which expresses his great benevolence and underlines the extraordinarily joyful occasion.
Impact history
Religious exegesis
Church fathers
The parable was a popular sermon text from the start. The oldest surviving sermon dealing with the parable is from Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century. Other sermons have been received from Athanasius , Augustine of Hippo, and John Chrysostom .
In the allegorical interpretation that certain early Christian schools (such as the Alexandrian one ) maintained, for example the dress for the righteousness of Christ was reinterpreted and associated with Isa 61,10 EU (“He clothed me with the cloak of righteousness”); the ring becomes the “seal of the Holy Spirit”; the shoes symbolize the ability to walk in the ways of God.
Augustine of Hippo saw himself in the role of the prodigal son, who first led a dissolute life and then returned to God. According to the catena aurea of Thomas Aquinas , Augustine saw in the "citizen of that country" a "certain prince of the air who belongs to the armies of the devil", and in the pigs unclean spirits who are subordinate to him.
Anti- Judaist interpretations were circulating early on that identified the negatively charged figure of the “older son” with Judaism. Already Cyril of Jerusalem , according to some say, the older son was Israel after the flesh, but the younger the amount of the heathen. In the Middle Ages this interpretation also shaped the style of the visual arts.
Orthodox tradition
The Orthodox Churches know a Prodigal Son Sunday immediately before the forty days of pre-Easter Lent.
Modern
John Paul II interprets the parable in his encyclical Dives in misericordia (On Divine Mercy).
Art, literature and music
Different representations in art
The work The Homecoming of the Prodigal Son , which Rembrandt painted in the year he died, shows the son's arrival back with his father after his journey. An example of the implementation in glass is the narrative divided into four glass windows in the Frankfurt Lukaskirche (1953/56) by Gisela Dreher-Richels and Gerhard Dreher . Another modern representation can be found at Hildesheim's Bugenhagen fountain .
Representations in literature and music
The Latin drama by Guilhelmus Gnaphaeus (1534) is one of the early adaptations of the motif . German comedies Burkard Waldis (1527), Johann Ackermann (1537), Johannes Salat (1537), Jörg Wickram (1540), Hans Sachs (1557), Nikolaus Loccius (1619) wrote about the prodigal son . Among the comedies of the "English comedians", Vom verlornnen Sohn (1620) seems to have been particularly popular.
The parable was often used in a moralizing way and embellished by the older German poets in smaller stories. It can be found as a secondary motif, for example, in Johanna Spyri at the end of the first Heidi volume.
In the 20th century, it was the French Nobel Prize laureate André Gide who modified the subject in The Return of the Prodigal Son (Le Retour de l'enfant prodigue) in an individualistic and emancipatory way and published it in 1907.
Franz Kafka's parable Heimkehr (1920) takes up the motif.
Inspired by Sergei Pavlovich Djagilew , the ballet “The Prodigal Son” op. 46 by Sergei Sergejewitsch Prokofjew was created in 1928 .
In 1934 Luis Trenker made his film The Prodigal Son (South Tyrol - New York - South Tyrol).
The British composer Benjamin Britten created the church opera “The Prodigal Son”, which premiered in 1968. The libretto was written by William Plomer.
The song Prodigal Son from the album "Killers" by the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden deals with the parable of the prodigal son, as does the song of the same name by the British rock band The Rolling Stones from the album " Beggars Banquet ".
1983 was posthumously The Prodigal Son of Keith Green published by his widow Melody, it would have part of a rock opera to be.
In 1998 Hans-Ulrich Treichel published his post-war novel The Lost .
The parable is also the subject of the children's musical The Prodigal Son by Dagmar Heizmann-Leuke and Klaus Heizmann , published by the music publisher Klaus Gerth (1999).
literature
Exegetical specialist literature:
- → see also the sections in the relevant commentaries (Bovon, Bock, Eckey and others) and the general literature on the parables of Jesus .
- Robert Baldwin: A Bibliography of the Prodigal Son Theme in Art and Literature. In: Bulletin of Bibliography, 44.3 (1987), pp. 167-171
- Derrett J. Duncan : Law in the New Testament: The Parable of the Prodigal Son. In: New Testament Studies 14 (1967), pp. 56-74.
- Derrett J. Duncan: The Parable of the Prodigal Son: Patristic Allegories and Jewish Midrashim. In: Studia Patristica 10 (1970), pp. 219-224.
- Albert Raffelt: "profectus sum abs te in regionem longinquam" (conf. 4.30; PDF; 719 kB). The parable of the “prodigal son” in the Confessions of Aurelius Augustine . In: Theologie und Glaube 93 (2003), pp. 208–222.
- Luise Schottroff : The parables of Jesus . Gütersloh 2005, pp. 177-197, ISBN 3-579-05200-4 .
Other literature:
- Kenneth E. Bailey : The Very Different Father - The biblical story of the prodigal son staged from a Middle Eastern perspective. Neufeld Verlag, Schwarzenfeld 2006. ISBN 978-3-937896-23-6 .
- Benedict XVI. (Joseph Ratzinger): Jesus of Nazareth , part 1: From baptism in the Jordan to the transfiguration . Freiburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-451-29861-5 .
- Herwig Büchele : On the parable of the merciful father. The dream of justice and peace. Wagner Verlag, Linz 2013, ISBN 978-3-902330-82-6 .
- Wolfgang Fenske : One person had two sons. The parable of the prodigal son in school and community . Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-525-61552-3 .
- Floyd McClung : The Father Heart of God. Translated by Monika Gibbs and Gabriele Horn-Merz. Asaph, Lüdenscheid 2004, ISBN 978-3-935703-23-9 . English edition: The Father Heart of God , Harvest House Publishers, 1984.
- Henri JM Nouwen : Take his picture in your heart: spiritual interpretation of a painting by Rembrandt . Freiburg im Breisgau 1995, ISBN 3-451-22404-6 .
- Susanne Schmid-Grether: Jesus the Jew or why Nicodemus came by night: New Testament texts re-read and understood against a Jewish background . Wetzikon (CH) 2nd edition 1997 ISBN 3-9521622-3-X .
- Manfred Siebald : The Prodigal Son in American Literature . Heidelberg 2003 (= American studies, 100), ISBN 3-8253-1302-6 .
- Franz Spengler: The prodigal son in the drama of the 16th century . Innsbruck 1888.
- Miroslav Volf : From exclusion to embracing. Reconciling action as an expression of Christian identity. Francke Marburg, 2012; ISBN 978-3-86827-355-7 ; Pp. 200-217. Original title: Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation .
Web links
- Thomas Aquinas : Catena aurea , excerpt (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Annette Merz: The burden and joy of sweeping (From the lost drachma) Lk 15.8-10 ; in: Ruben Zimmermann (Ed.): Compendium of the parables of Jesus ; Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2007; Pp. 610–617, here p. 610.
- ^ Karl-Heinrich Ostmeyer: Being there is everything (The Prodigal Son) Lk 15: 11–32 ; in: Ruben Zimmermann (Ed.): Compendium of the parables of Jesus ; Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2007; Pp. 618–633, here p. 631.
- ↑ Cf. the statement in the Midrash: "Rabbi Acha said: 'If the Israelites need carob, they will repent'" ( Leviticus Rabba 35).
- ^ Fritz Rienecker: Gospel of Lukas (= Wuppertal Study Bible, NT 3). Brockhaus, Wuppertal, 1994, DNB 942645340 .
- ^ Philip Schaff: Anti-Nicene Fathers: Fathers of the Second Century
- ↑ Albert Raffelt : "Profectus sum abs te in regionem longinquam" (conf. 4.30). The parable of the “prodigal son” in the Confessions of Aurelius Augustine . In: Norbert Fischer, Dieter Hattrup, Cornelius Mayer (eds.): Freedom and grace in Augustin's Confessiones .: The leap into living life . Schöningh, Paderborn 2003, pp. 82 * -96 * ( digitized version ).
- ↑ www.orthodoxfrat.de
- ↑ The parable of the prodigal son .
- ^ Art. To Willem de Volder alias Gnaphaeus Guilhlmus. In: Biographical Lexicon for East Frisia . Retrieved August 14, 2017 .