Thomas on the Parable of the Workers

Steinmetz summarizes Thomas’s remarkably “NTWrightian” commentary on Matthew 20:1-16. While acknowledging an Origenist tradition that sees the hours as moments of an individual life, Thomas is more interested in the Irenaean tradition that interprets the parable in terms of redemptive history: “The hours mentioned in the parable are not stages in individual human development but epochs in history of the world from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to David, and from David to Christ. The owner of the vineyard is the whole Trinity, the foreman is Christ, and the moment of reckoning is the resurrection of the dead. The works who are hired at the eleventh hour are the Gentiles, whose complaint that no one has offered them work can be interpreted to mean that they had no prophets as the Jews have had. The workers who have borne the heat of the day are the Jews, who grumble about the favoritism shown to latecomers, but who are still given the denarius of eternal life. As a comment on the history of salvation, the parable means that the generosity of God undercuts any advantage which the Jews might have had over the Gentiles with respect to participation in the gifts and graces of God.”

We need only to shorten the time frame, make the reckoning the moment of Jesus’ ministry rather than the resurrection, and Thomas turns into the Bishop of Durham.