60 Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, Legacythe repentance spoken of in Matthew 21:32 will in this case be equivalent to faith, and
therefore cannot be compared with the profitless repentance of the first son. All these
difficulties would evaporate if, with Josef Schmid,^18 we assumed that Irenaeus’s biblical
text, in common with most witnesses for form II, did not have οὐδέ at Matt. 21:32, and
was understood to mean “you repented too late to believe him.” That is how J. Ramsey
Michaels proposed to understand that verse, but he was embarrassed by the lack of
exact parallels to the use of ὕστερον (“later”) which it requires.^19 Irenaeus’s exegesis of
postea as meaning “when it profited him nothing” (quando nihil profuit ei) suggests that
he understood ὕστερον to be functioning in just this way, and that he understood this
word to be the clue to the exact comparison between the first son and the chief priests
and elders: both repent, but too late—quando nihil profuit... paenitentia.
All commentators are agreed that in his comments on the behavior of the second
son, Irenaeus appeals to Rom. 7:18ff: “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it, for
I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” Irenaeus takes
Paul to be speaking here of a universal law of human experience (“every human being
is a liar”—cf. LXX Psalm 115:2 [116:11])—the inability to do the good one wills, an
inability grounded not in the mind but in the members, an inability, moreover, which
amounts to a lack of liberty (cf. Rom 7:23). Now, if all of this is to be applied to the sec-
ond son in explanation of his behavior, it is very difficult to see how that son could be
taken by Irenaeus to represent Israel. For, if that was Irenaeus’s meaning, what would
have been the point of his qualifying remarks, even if they were not excusatory but
merely explanatory? If, as Philippe Bacq argues, Irenaeus’s point was that Israel was
never converted, why should he explain this in terms of a universal law, when, accord-
ing to the same explanation, the Gentiles (here the first son) are not bound by this law,
since they do in fact repent? Again, why should Irenaeus introduce such an explana-
tion (flawed as it is) so shortly before a lengthy excursus designed in part to prove “the
ancient law of liberty,” to prove, that is, that what Israel did not do it could have done?
It is not a question of their not being able to effect what they willed, but of their not
willing, and this is made abundantly clear by the text with which Irenaeus introduces
this excursus: “how often have I willed to gather your sons, and you would not?” (Matt.
23:37, Hae r. IV.37.1). That Jesus could address this remark to Jerusalem is, as Irenaeus
tells us in the course of the excursus, a sign that human beings are autonomous and
free-willed (Hae r. IV.37.5).
This analysis of Irenaeus’s exegetical comments on the behavior of the two sons
yields the same conclusion as our investigation of the function of the parable in the
general context of his argument: that Irenaeus favored the second son, who said “yes,”
but did not in fact go into the vineyard. This can only be explained on the assumption
that his gospel-text identified this son as the one who was said to have done the father’s
will: a circumstance sufficiently paradoxical to prompt Irenaeus to suggest an explana-
tion. But the explanation is no more than suggested. Nevertheless, the failure of the
second son to fulfil what he had willingly undertaken can be explained in terms of a
distinction found elsewhere in Irenaeus between heeding a divine calling and produc-
ing the fruits of righteousness.