The lost piece of silver (Notes)

Saint Luke - Chapter 15

The lost piece of silver. J-J Tissot.

[8] Aut quae mulier habens drachmas decem, si perdiderit drachmam unam, nonne accendit lucernam, et everrit domum, et quaerit diligenter, donec inveniat?
Or what woman having ten groats; if she lose one groat, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently until she find it?

Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, &c. “Sweep,” or as the Arabic renders it, “cleanse;” not “overturn,” as some read with S. Gregory.

The “piece of silver,” or drachma, (''groat'') was a coin weighing the eighth part of an ounce. Hence S. Cyril explains, that by the parable of the lost sheep we are to understand, mystically, that we are the creatures of God who made us, and the sheep of His pasture, but that by this second parable we are taught that we were created in the image and likeness of God, just as the coin bears the image of the king.

S. Gregory (Hom. 34), very fully explains the parable, and applies it in the following manner: “He who is signified by the shepherd, is signified also by the woman. For it is God Himself—God and the wisdom of God. And because there is an image impressed on the piece, the woman lost the piece of silver when man, who was created after the image of God, by sinning fell away from the likeness of his Creator. The woman lighted a candle, because the wisdom of God appeared in man. For the candle is a light in an earthen vessel, but the light in an earthen vessel is the Godhead in the flesh, and when the candle was lit she overturned (evertit) the house. Because as soon as His divinity shone forth through the flesh, all our consciences were appalled. But the word ‘overturn’ differs not from the ‘cleanse’ or ‘sweep’ of the other MSS. Because the corrupt mind, if it be not first overthrown through fear is not cleansed from its habitual faults. But when the house is overturned the piece of silver is found, for when the conscience of man is disturbed, the likeness of the Creator is restored in him.”

[9] Et cum invenerit convocat amicas et vicinas, dicens : Congratulamini mihi, quia inveni drachmam quam perdideram.
And when she hath found it, call together her friends and neighbours, saying: Rejoice with me, because I have found the groat which I had lost.

And again, “Who are the friends and neighbours but those heavenly powers aforementioned, who are near to the Divine Wisdom, inasmuch as they approach Him through the grace of continual vision?” Hence in conclusion he says, “The woman had ten pieces of silver, because there are nine orders of angels, but, that the number of the elect might be filled up, man, the tenth, was created, who even after his sin did not fall utterly away from his Maker, because the eternal Wisdom, shinning through the flesh by His miracles, restored him by the light of the earthen vessel.”

Or, as Theophylact interprets it, “The friends are all the heavenly powers; but the neighbours, the thrones—cherubims and seraphims—which are most nigh unto God.”

Lastly, S. Gregory Nyssen, says, “The ten pieces of silver are so many virtues, of which we ought to lack none, for like the commandments they are complete in themselves (decem). The candle is the divine word or perhaps the torch of repentance; the neighbours, reason, desire, anger, and such like affections.”

[10] Ita, dico vobis, gaudium erit coram angelis Dei super uno peccatore poenitentiam agente.
So I say to you, there shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam