56 Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, LegacyI. The first son refuses but afterward repents and goes. The second son says “yes,” but
does nothing. The question “which of the two did the will of the father?” is answered
“the first.”
) K W Π itc, q vg syrc, p, h al
II. The first son refuses but afterward repents and goes. The second son promises to go,
but does not. The question “which of the two did the will of the father?” is answered
“the second.”
D ita, b, d, e, ff^2 , h, l syrs al
III. The first son promises to go but does not. The second son refuses, but later repents
and goes. The question “which of the two did the will of the father?” is answered “the
s e c o n d .”
B f^13 700 syrpal arm geo alThough Tischendorf (editio octava critica maior) had cautiously limited himself to
claiming Irenaeus as a witness only to the order of sons in form I, the third edition of
the United Bible Societies Greek New Testament cites Irenaeus as a witness to form I
as a whole. But Irenaeus does not say expressly which of the two sons did the Father’s
will and, so far as concerns the order of the sons, he is as much a witness to form II as
to form I. Form II, although the most difficult, has found few champions. In general,
it is either said to require the far-fetched assumption, first suggested, and that half-
heartedly, by Jerome, that the chief priests and the elders gave an answer they knew
to be untrue, or it is written off as a scribal blunder. In either case, it is regarded as a
transitional stage in the evolution of form III from form I, or of form I from form III.^7
Josef Schmid and Antonio Orbe argued that Irenaeus knew the parable in form II.^8
In Orbe’s view, Irenaeus identified the first son, who said “no,” and then repented, with
the Jewish people, and the second son, who said “yes,” but did not go into the vine-
yard, with the Gentiles—the Christian people of the New Testament. Philippe Bacq,
however, claims that this “contredit formellement le texte de l’Evangile et la pensée
d’Irénée,” and that the exact opposite is true, that Irenaeus understood the first son to
represent the Gentiles, who at first refused the call of God and were then converted,
while the second son represents the Jews, who honor God with their lips “sans trouver
la force de ‘faire’ (cf Rom 7:18) sa volonté.”^9 It would appear that Bacq was unaware
that the “text of the Gospel” was itself problematical. As to the “thought of Irenaeus,” I
believe that attention to the purpose the parable serves in the context of his argument
and the exegetical comments he adds to the parable will show that it is to a high degree
probable that Irenaeus’s gospel-text showed the son who was said to have done the will
of the father to be the second, who did not go into the vineyard (form II), and that it
agreed with Codex Bezae also in omitting the negative in verse 32. I shall begin with
the context of the parable in Irenaeus’s argument.
Israel and the Gentiles: Which Son Is Which?
The third and last of the major sections of Book IV of Adversus haereses (IV.36.1—41.3)
is devoted to the proof of the unity of the two testaments from the parables of Christ.^10
The parables in question are