Minns—The Parable of the Two Sons in Irenaeus and Codex Bezae 59actual disobedience of the second son is excused by appeal to a universal law of human
nature. This first impression is confirmed by closer analysis.
The notion that the first son repented “when repentance availed him nothing” can
only make sense on the assumption either that the first son had lost his chance when
the father went to the second son, or that there was something amiss with the quality of
his repentance. If the first of these is Irenaeus’s meaning, then we have a first son whose
obedience is valueless, and a second son who does not obey at all, and in this case the
only truthful answer to the question of Jesus at Matthew 21:31 would be “neither of
the two.” That is to say, the parable would be utterly without point. But, as J. Ramsey
Michaels noted, while μεταμέλεσθαι “can be virtually synonymous with μετανοεῖν [‘to
repent’], it does not necessarily point to any decisive turning from one way of life to
another,” and when this verb is used of Judas at Matthew 27:3, it must mean a regret or
remorse that is futile. If that was the meaning of the verb at Matthew 21:28-32, and if
ἀπῆλθεν at verse 29 originally meant not that the son went into the vineyard, but simply
that he went away (cf. Matt. 19:22; 22:5; 27.3), one could see why “the son of whom it
is said μεταμεληθεὶς ἀπῆλθεν is not the son who ‘did the will of his Father.’”^14 Irenaeus’s
use of μεταμέλεσθαι can be checked at only one other place, and there its use is entirely
consistent with regret induced by a calamity that has befallen one: “Stesichorus was
blinded for having reviled Helen in his poems, and then, after he repented [μεληθέντα
αὐτόν/penitentem] and wrote the palinodes in which he celebrated her, he regained
his sight” (Hae r. I.23.2). Justin Martyr, speaking of the “consciousness” (αἴσθησι) to
be experienced by the unjust when they are being punished says “and then they shall
repent when they shall gain nothing” (τότε μετανοήσουσιν, ὅτε οὐδὲν ὠφελήσουσι) ( 1
Apol. 52.8-9).
Orbe correctly saw that Irenaeus’s qualification of the repentance of the first son
is derived from the interpretation of the parable in Matthew 21:32.^15 That is to say,
Irenaeus has seen the link between parable and interpretation in the double use of the
idea of repenting later. The late repentance of the first son symbolizes, according to
Orbe, the repentance of the Jews after the fall of Jerusalem: a repentance that is late
and inefficacious, because it does not involve faith—in fact, no true repentance at all,
but merely the lamenting of the distress that has befallen them. However, Orbe creates
several difficulties for his case by accepting the most widely attested reading at Matthew
21:32, with the negative οὐδέ before μετεμελήθητε: “but even after you saw it, you did
not repent and believe him.” Riggenbach had similarly supposed that Irenaeus’s text
had οὐδὲ μετεμελήθητε, and he chided Irenaeus for doing violence to the text in deriv-
ing from the negative the supposition that the first son’s remorse came too late, and was
therefore fruitless.^16 However, if this is what Irenaeus did, he must have understood
Matthew 21:32 to mean “but you, having seen, did not repent afterward so as to believe
him,” and not, as Orbe would have it “but you, having seen, repented afterwards, but
did not repent in such as way as to believe him.”^17 Otherwise, Irenaeus would have to be
supposed to be taking ὕστερον in different senses in each case: it will be equivalent to
“too late” in Matthew 21:29 and equivalent to “later” or “afterward” in Matthew 21:32.
In fact, however, if οὐδέ is to stand, then the first son and the chief priests and elders are
not compared, but contrasted, since the latter are said not to have repented. Moreover,