Sign in
LUKE 15:17 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
Luke 15:16Luke 15:18
“And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!”
When he came to his senses, he said, how many of my father's hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death — when he came to his senses (eis heauton de elthōn, coming to himself): the awakening is the return to his true self. How many of my father's hired servants have food to spare: the comparison between the servants' abundance and his own starvation is the catalyst of the return.

Church Fathers on Luke 15:17

The younger son had despised his father when first he departed, and had wasted his father’s money. But when in course of time he was broken down by hardship, having become a hired servant, and eating the same food with the swine, he returned, chastened, to his father’s house. Hence it is said, And when be came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, but I perish with hunger.

Gregory the Great · 6th century

He rightly returns to himself, because he departed from himself. For he who returns to God restores himself to himself, and he who departs from Christ rejects himself from himself.

Ambrose · 4th century

But he returned to himself, when from those things which without unprofitably entice and seduce, he brought back his mind to the inward recesses of his conscience.

Augustine · 4th century
Read all 38 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS
Publish a reflection on this verse
No reflections on this verse yet. Be the first to write one!