15. Jesus answered and spoke again to them in parables, saying, ‘The kingdom of the heavens is like unto a man who is king, who put on a wedding feast for his son and sent his servants, etc., up to, For many are called, but few are chosen ^[205]. The meaning of this parable seems, in general terms, to be clear, in which the God and Father of Christ Jesus is figuratively said to be a man who is king, and the wedding feast of the king’s son is the restoration (ἡ ἀποκατάστασις) of the bride, Christ’s church, to Christ, her bridegroom. The servants who are sent to call those who have been summoned to the feast are the prophets who, in their season, turned back those from the people through their prophecies to the joyous festivity that accompanies^[46] the restoration of the church to Christ. Those who do not want to come despite being the first to be called are those who did not listen to the words of the prophets, and the other servants who are sent are another group of prophets, and the meal that is prepared, in which there are the oxen of the king and his sacrificed fatlings, are the solid and rational foods of the mysteries of God. So also all the things prepared are the logoi <prepared> concerning all existing things, which are what (“whenever the perfect may come” ^[206]) those who obey the call eat and drink. Now, among those who were summoned through the prophets there were some who only neglected the things [the prophets] spoke because they were occupied with the matters of this life but they did not act wickedly <against the prophets, whereas there were others who did act wickedly> against them. It is because he wishes to present this difference between them that he says: But they were negligent and went away, one to his own farm, another to his business; and the rest of them seized his servants and abused and killed [them] ^[207].

So, the wrath of the king should be understood in accordance with <this> general explanation, about which the Apostle speaks in reference to the Jews: “The wrath is coming on them unto the end” ^[208]. Then the war against the Jews is prophesied, and the conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of the people after the coming of Christ [when he says], And sending his army he destroyed those murderers and burned their city [209.

16. The passage, Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is prepared, but those who have been called are not worthy. Go therefore into the intersections of the highways, and call whomsoever you might find to the wedding feast ^[210], might be referred to the apostles of Jesus Christ who say to the Jews, “It was necessary for us to announce the word of God to you, but since you judge yourselves unworthy, behold we are turning to the nations” ^[211]. The “intersections of the highways,” therefore, are the <heathen> matters <of the nations> outside of Israel, at which [place] those whom the apostles find are called to the wedding feast, with the apostles gathering together all whom they might find. They find those who listen and they do not determine beforehand when they call whether those who are called are wicked or good, for they call all those who are found. One should consider good ones here to be a simpler way of referring to those more moderate^[48] folk among those who come to the divine piety, with whom you might bring this apostolic [saying] into agreement: “Whenever the nations who do not have the law do by nature the things of the law, these ones though not having a law are law for themselves. Such ones demonstrate the work of the law written on their hearts, with their conscience testifying together” ^[212]. Indeed the wedding feast of Christ <and> the church is filled with the guests who were found by the apostles and have returned <to God> so as to enjoy the wedding feast ^[213].

Then, since it was necess<ary on the one hand> that both the wicked and good be called, not so that the wicked might remain wicked, but so that having stripped off and put away garments alien to the wedding feast they might be clothed with the [garments] of the wedding feast, [namely] “the bowels of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” ^[214] (for these are the clothes of the wedding feast)—for this reason the king enters to observe the guests, before whom the prepared dinner was presented, [consisting of] oxen and the sacrificed fatlings and all the things prepared, in order that having observed he might keep those who have the garments of the wedding feast and rejoice [with them], but condemn the opposite group. After entering, therefore, he finds a certain person among those who were summoned and who have come because of the call who has not changed his character (τὸ ἦθος) nor clothed himself with the garment of the wedding feast, and he says to him: ‘How did you enter here not having a wedding garment?’ Then, since the sinner who has neither been renewed nor clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ, as though not having a “place of defense” ^[215], is silenced, on account of which it is written, But he was silent. And it is not sufficient for him who has dishonored the call to be cast out of the wedding feast, for he who is bound with chains by the appointed servants of the king, [having been bound] to the manner of life in which he did not do what is required and to the effectual power in which he did not bring good practices to completion, must not only be cast out from the wedding feast, but must be condemned unto a place estranged from <all> light, such that the darkness is so deep in darkness as to be called outer darkness.^[49] Now if someone among us who, because of the call of the king, has come unto the wedding feast of his Son, seems to obey and to come along with those who are summoned, except he is not clothed with the aforementioned garment of the wedding feast, these things will befall him and being bound hand and foot he will be cast out unto the outer darkness, where in accordance with the [passage], “Woe to those who laugh now, for you will weep” ^[216], the weeping [will be] for those who sinned in ways worthy of weeping and lamentation, and they will weep, lamenting their own hardship. Then, in order that the word might present the fear and the trembling and the gloomy matters and the pains in which they will be who are not clothed with the garment of the wedding feast, it says that there will be weeping and not only weeping, but also gnashing of teeth. And the [phrase] many are called, but few chosen is applied to the whole parable on account of the many who are indicated as having been called, and yet only a few of them, not all, have come.

17. Let these things be said in a general way about the parable, but we will also attempt to ascend in our inquiry insofar as our present ability permits it, if with the help of the Spirit of wisdom we might be able to inquire into something of the deeper matters involved in the parable, seeking to edify and when it is fitting to be silent, or to speak in riddles [when fitting] or to expound. The kingdom of the heavens, then, in regard to the one who rules, is like unto a man who is king, and with regard to one who co-rules with the king, to his son, and with regard to those who are ruled [is like unto] both the servants and those who are called unto the wedding feast, among which there are those who do not want to enter, and those who are negligent to enter and go away, one to his own farm, another to his business, <while> still others who seize the servants, abuse and kill [them]. Further, among those who are ruled there is also “the army of the king,” as well as those evil and good people who are gathered from the “<intersections of the> highways,” until the wedding feast is filled with guests. And there is one among the guests who does not have a wedding garment, and the servants who are ordered to bind him who does not have a wedding garment hand and foot and to cast him out into the outer darkness.

It certainly could have been written, the kingdom of the heavens is like a king, without the addition of [the word] “man.” But since the word man is present [in the text], this must also be explained in such a way (as it seems to me) as to become clear. Now someone before us has composed a book of allegory on the sacred laws,^[50] and when he described the texts which present God as though subject to human suffering [ὡσπερεὶ ἀνθρωποπαθῆ] and those [texts] which show forth his divinity, he used one text for when God is spoken of as a man adapting [himself] to [other] men, that “The Lord your God cared for you in the way a certain man would care for his son” ^[217],^[51] but another [text] with regard to God not being a human, that “God is not as a man so as to waver” ^[218].

18. But we have plenty of material at our disposal from the the evangelical examples concerning God, in which he is like unto a man according to certain parables. Let us use, therefore, those parables which name God as a man for a defense of the [passages] which affirm—in so far as the literal text is concerned—that the Father of Christ is subject to human suffering [ἀνθρωποπαθῆ], and let us suggest to the heterodox who, because they have not understood the things spoken in this way in the Old [Testament] Letters, have taken offence at the God [both] of the Law and Prophets and of the creation of the cosmos^[53] that, if indeed (according to the Gospel parables) God is similar to a man, why would you not accept, in a way consistent with these parables, [it] as a parable [when Scripture speaks of] God’s wrath <and> anger, regret ^[219] and the turning away of [his] face, and [his] sitting, standing, and walking? For what is described as his sleep in the Prophetic [scriptures] either let them not observe carefully or let them confess to be a parable. Again we would say to such people that, except you choose to hear as parabolic speech^[54] those scriptures which describe him as subject to human suffering in a way consistent with God being called a man in a parable, you should present how it is that the God of all who is said to have nothing human in himself (as you yourselves would maintain) is called a man in the Gospel.

From this abundance of resources let us reprove those who do not examine closely the writings of the New Covenant, in which according to the present parable the man who is king, who puts on a wedding feast for his son, becomes angry at those who do not wish to come in to the wedding feast in accordance with his summons and who are neglectful of dining at the feast, and instead go away to their own farm or business, but [the king] also becomes angry at those who seize his servants and abuse and kill them. For let them tell us whether this [father] who gets angry, seeing that he put on a wedding feast for his son, is the Father of Christ, or his Father is someone other than he who gets angry (insofar as the parable is concerned). They will find themselves in difficult straits with either option, either because they do not want him who puts on the wedding feast for the son and gets angry to be the Father of Christ on account of the anger, or because of the wedding feast and the son they will be compelled to accept that He is indeed the Father of Christ and that He gets angry. And if they can manage to bear this explanation of getting angry, we would say to them: O you men, does it not seem absurd to on the one hand flee Him who puts on the wedding feast in the Gospel for his son on account of wrath and to seek another [god], but then to seek to fashion another [god] than the God of the Law and Prophets because the term for wrath and [other terms] similar to it [are used for God] in the Law and the Prophets?^[55]

19. Insofar, therefore, as we are men, and we are not suited to contemplate the wealth “of the benevolence” of God ^[220] and the “exceeding abundance of” his “benevolence” ^[221] which has been hidden by him (so that we are not injured), the kingdom of the heavens is necessarily like unto a man who is king, in order that he might speak to men as a man and might accommodate himself [οἰκονομήσῃ] to men who could not accept to be accommodated to [οἰκονομηθῆναι] by God while remaining absolute God except by speaking through the Prophets and by accommodating himself [ἐν τῷ οἰκονομεῖν] to men.^[56] And at some time the kingdom of the heavens will cease being similar to a man, whenever zeal and strife and the rest of passions and sins and going about “in a human manner” cease ^[222], and we become worthy to hear from God, “I said, You are all gods and sons of the Most High” ^[223], or of His Christ, no longer practicing such things about which he would say <to us>: “But you will die as men” ^[224]. Indeed I myself think that not only will the similarity between the kingdom of the heavens and the man who is king cease, but also a myriad of other things of which a sinful man might be needful, in the manner it is written in Hosea: “I myself am like a panther to Ephraim, and as a lion to the house of Judah” ^[225], and in another place, “I will encounter them” he says “as a bereaved she-bear” ^[226]. He will cease at one time being as a panther and as a lion and as a bereaved she-bear, when because the created things here are no longer needful of <God> as panther and as lion and as a <bereaved> she-bear, he no longer has <these things> needful of Him in this way, he manifests himself “just as he is” ^[227]. This is the same way I understand this [text], “Our God is a consuming fire” ^[228], since insofar as <in us> there are things that are worthy of being consumed, it is for that reason that “Our God is a fire consuming” such things. But whenever he might consume with the consuming fire those things that are by nature consumed by it, then “our God” will no longer be “a consuming fire,” but only Light, as John says, “God is Light” ^[229]. Having advanced these [arguments], do attend if you are able to accept in the same way this passage of the catholic epistle from John which reads: “Beloved ones, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been manifested what we will be. I know that if he is manifested, we will be like him, for we will see him just as he is” ^[230]. For now, though we may be [made] worthy to see God in the mind and the heart, we do not see “him just as he is,” but just as he becomes for us in the economy on our behalf. But at the end of things and of the “restoration of all things which he spoke through the mouth of his saints, from the age of his prophets” ^[231], we will see Him, not as [we do] now, what He is not, but as is fitting then, what He [truly] is.

20. Once these things have been said about the passage, The kingdom of the heavens is like unto a man who is king, we are able also to discover the reason why the Savior continually refers to himself by the name “son of the man” or “son of man.” This indicates that, just as God who accommodates himself to men is called a man as in parables, and perhaps also somehow is [a man], so in the same way the Savior, who <on the one hand> is initially Son of God and “God” ^[232] and the Son “of his love” and “image of the invisible God” ^[233], and yet does not remain in [the state] he was in initially, but when he accommodates himself to men [ἀνθρώπους οἰκονομῇ], he becomes “son of man” (of him who, while being God, is called a man in the parables) in the economy in accordance with imitating God who is called man in parables and somehow is a man. ^There is no need to seek out a certain man from this one to call the Savior to be son, but only to listen with understanding to the understanding of God and of the parables which refer to him as a being a man where he calls himself son of man.^^[57] For our part, therefore, [it is] for men that the kingdom of the heavens is like unto <a man who is> king, but for those who are called “gods” in the Scriptures, with whom “God stands in the synagogue, in the midst of gods” judging ^[234], the kingdom of the heavens is similar to God who is King.

21. You should inquire if, just as with men who are inferior (insofar as their own nature is concerned) to angels and thrones and principalities and rules and powers the kingdom of the heavens is similar to a man who is king, <so also> with thrones the kingdom of the heavens is similar to a throne which is king, and a principality to a principality who is king, and to rulers a ruler which is king, and to authorities an authority who is king. For someone might say, what is the reason that^[59] the kingdom of the heavens is compared to a man who is king for inferior things, but with things greater than men there would be no analogy for this?

Now He who is like unto a man who is king, who puts on a wedding feast for his son, sent his servants to call those summoned to the feast. And you should attend carefully that if, just as <with regard to somatic realities> when any other bride is getting married there are servants who call and there are those summoned to the wedding feast, so in the same way with regard to mystical matters there are some people who are retrieved for the party of the bride, but others in the order of the servants who are sent to call those summoned to the feast, and a third group besides [namely,] those who are summoned to the feast. God would show the different orders of souls or of the powers with them, and the reason for the retrieval of such a one to the party of the bride, [and would show] others by the servants who are administering <this> call, and still others by those who are summoned. And let one understand the <reception> of the Bridegroom as communion [κοινωνίαν] with the Logos in the spiritual wedding feast, and childbirth [τόκον] as the good things produced from ^the bride which is the soul who is married to the Logos and is not spoiled by him,^[60] but also the communion with him in regard to each person which makes them partakers of incorruption and of birth, such that rational offspring might come from these marriages.^^[61]

22. And in these wedding feasts one might understand the meal that is prepared [to be] from the solid food in the spiritual Oracles [of Scripture] ^[235]. And in my figurative reading let one understand in the oxen the solidity of the food, but also the spiritual [quality] of its contemplation in the sacrificed fatlings, and the other various items [as] the spiritual contemplation on analogy to somatic things, <in> the [figure] of all the things prepared. For the king in his regal abundance puts on a meal such as is worthy of the kingdom and of his own wealth.

It seems to me that the call to the feast first took place for certain Israelite souls of noble stock. For initially God desires to have those more well-disposed for understanding come to this blessed hearth through those who call by the word of the teaching. Yet it is evident that they do not desire to come at the call, and because of this, servants other than those previously called are sent to those who do not desire to come and proclaim that, if those who are summoned might come, they would partake of the meal that has been prepared by the king, [consisting] of the oxen which are [the thoughts] among the pure that are greater than all the pure ones,^[63] and of [the thoughts] which have been fattened on the grain of various and abundant demonstration of the things pertaining to each question. For he who produces a full and abundant demonstration concerning the question at hand presents a word, as though it were a fatling, which is divided and sacrificed when it is communicated in a figurative reading.^[64] So if (according to this interpretive premise [καθ' ὑπόθεσιν]) one might produce something small and feeble for the demonstration of problems in accordance with the things that they seem [able] to prepare, it is as though the [animals] sacrificed are lean, meagre, and (if I may name it like this) dry and fleshless. But such are not the things that have been prepared in the king’s dinner, about which it says, My oxen and sacrificed fatlings, and thus all the things prepared, in order that in the places of the servants and in the service [τῇ λειτουργίᾳ] of the spiritual cupbearers each of the servants stationed might bring to the meal these excellent things, in which he has learned to be a servant. And so he is encouraging the second group (as I would say) in the parable when he says, Behold, the meal is prepared, my oxen and the sacrificed fatlings, and all things prepared; Come to the feast.

23. But those who are called in the first place, as though poor and inexperienced in mind, were negligent and went away, tending to their own matters and rejoicing over them rather than over that which the king accounced [to them] through the servants who were sent. You should also note that a certain person among them who has his own farm did not come to the feast, but one who had acquired a business desired in some way to imitate what was said in the parable concerning the selling of pearls, about the person who sought the “good pearls” and found “one of great value” and gave away the many so as to buy the one ^[236]. Ceratinly this business was inopportune, since he who had been called went away because of it and did not participate in the meal prepared by the king and of the sacrificed oxen and fatlings and all the things prepared. Such ones, then, who are called and are perceptive [τῶν διορατικῶν]^[65] yet do not come at the call, but in no wise abuse and kill those servants who were sent, are more respectable [μετριώτεροί] than those who dared [to do] these things, and they take [their] leave, one to his own farm, another to his business. But let us take a look at the remaining group which differs from the others, as to what sort they are. It seems to me that these ones have fallen away^[66] by the preparation of combative and sophistic words, by which they seize, or seem to seize, the servants who are sent who have been prepared to refute the sophisms, and abuse those who are administering the call. One might also observe that it is those who are devoted to the exercise of the divine words and who desire to cultivate themselves^[67] with the divine wisdom that are abused by those who are indeed perceptive but who do not desire to believe in the truth. It is because of certain ones of them and those who are destroyed by them that the king is said to become angry, wherefore “the wrath” as it called “has come on them” ^[237].

The operation of wrath is the army of the king which is sent out, whether it is the “abundance of the heavenly army” ^[238] or those angels that have been assigned for [administering] punishments, and they destroy the murderers of the servants of the Word and the king sets fire to their whole city. For it is as if the system with respect to each of the doctrines which have been compiled in the wisdom “of the rulers of this age” ^[239] were a city <of impious people> that the king burns down and razes, as though having been established by wretched builders. And whenever you observe the pulling down whether “of falsely-named knowledge” ^[240] or whatever sort of words which profess of truth, and their violent^[68] refutation, do not shrink back from saying that such a thing came to pass by the armies of God who set fire to the cities of the enemies of the truth <of God>. The city of Jewish teaching was indeed set on fire after the coming of Christ, which having been set on fire the king says to his servants, the apostles of Christ or to the angels of God arranged for the call of the nations: The wedding feast is prepared, but those who have been summoned are not worthy. Go, then, to the intersections of the highways, and whosoever you find, call [them] to the feast. And one should observe that he orders those [who are sent that] those who are called to the wedding feast [are to be] from every way of doctrine whether private or public such as is in accordance with the customs [τὰ ἔθη] of the nations, cities, villages and places. The servants who went out, whether the apostles of Christ from Judea and Jerusalem, or the blessed angels from the regions wherein they were, and came to the highways and gathered and will gather all whom they might find, wicked ones ***, in order that having put away wickedness (the garment foreign to the wedding feast) and having been clothed with the good <works> which are called the garment of the wedding feast, they might fill up the hearth of the wedding feast with their own guests.

24. When, therefore, the wedding feast is filled up with guests and they have come to rest at the [Christian] faith and piety, then the king will come in to inspect and to judge with regard to the guests, so that after convicting the person who does not have the wedding garment he might punish [him], but to the rest he might present the meal that has been prepared and the sacrificed fatlings with the oxen and all the rest of the things such as he prepared. Now the one whom he sees who has not been clothed with the wedding garment refers to one kind or form [of people] who retain the vice [they had] before the faith and do not strip themselves of it. And he censures this person as having acted wickedly in that he dared to enter into this wedding feast without taking on the garment of the wedding feast, the robe of virtue, the bright garment, about which Solomon commanded in Ecclesiastes, saying, “Let your garments be white at all times” ^[241]. Yet the one who dared to enter into this bright feast without the wedding garment is silent and not able to speak; he is condemned as one worthy of punishment and judgment by him who says to the servants (which is another group different from the armies [mentioned] above) that they should bind him hand and foot by which [members] he did not put to use for what is fitting (for he neither walked in the manner of life he ought, nor did he complete the practices he should have) and they should cast him out, not only outside the hearth of the feast, but even should ca<st [him] int>o the outer darkness that is completely devoid of light, so that ^after thirsting for light after having been in the outer darkness he might cry out to the God who is able to show kindness and to save him even from there, and he might gnash the teeth which on account of vice ate the sour grapes and therefore were set on edge ^[242]. For “the teeth” of him who ate the “sour grapes” are set on edge, and one must consider that “sour grapes” here are referring to the vice of him who is not <forgetting the things “behind” nor> stretching forth “to the things before” ^[243] but is remaining with it, when he should rather move on to produce the ripe and sweet grape cluster of virtue.

He concludes the whole parable with for many are called on account of the many who were called and yet were not worthy, and but few are chosen on account of those few who entered the wedding feast and reclined there. And if someone might consider the numerous human throng of the churches (if I may put it more simply) and inquire as to how many of them live in a more modest fashion and are being transformed “by the renewal of the mind,” whereas how many are conducting themselves in a more careless fashion and are [still] being conformed “to this age” ^[244], one might see that the expression of the Savior is useful: for many are called, but few are chosen. Indeed it reads elsewhere, “Many will seek to enter and they will not be able” and “do struggle to enter through the narrow gate, for few will find it” ^[245].^^[70]