Good Boy versus Bad Boy

A few months ago, I visited the Galleria Borghese in Rome with a dear friend. She is Protestant, religious, and far more fluent in the Bible than I am. As we walked through the museum, we came across the painting below, and she recognised it before I had even finished looking at it. ‘That’s the Lost Son, returning home,’ she said, ‘in the arms of his father.’ Then, after a pause: ‘It’s a story about the mercy of God. The Lost Son comes home and is received in his father’s arms — which is really a comparison to God’s mercy; with no questions asked.’

I barely knew the story. So I went and studied it.

What struck me was how well the story survives being stripped of its religion entirely. At its bone structure, it’s simply this: a father has two sons. One leaves, spends everything — mostly on gambling, drinking and women — and comes home in disgrace. The other stays, works hard, does everything right, and grows quietly bitter about it. But both are equally his sons, and his love doesn’t distinguish between them. There is no good boy. There is no bad boy.

1. The beginning; getting the money

But let’s now start at the very beginning, with a young man who has just been handed his inheritance, and who has a very clear idea of how he intends to spend it.

The Bible describes the moment quite simply, and so does this small stained glass panel from 1532.

A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, "I want my share of your estate now." And his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons. 

Luke 15:12, adapted from the New Living Translation

The story comes from the Gospel according to Luke. In it, Jesus explains to his followers some essentials about God and God’s mercy, not by giving them a theological lecture, but by telling short and simple stories. These stories are called parables.

The word comes from the Greek παραβολή (parabolē), meaning ‘comparison’. A parable puts a familiar situation from everyday life next to a deeper truth, allowing the listener to compare the two and discover the meaning. In the Dutch Protestant church, these stories are called gelijkenissen, which can be translated quite literally as ‘comparisons’.

Before we go to the next picture, one small note about the title. The story is usually called The Return of the Prodigal Son. But I have always found the word ‘prodigal’ rather difficult. As a non-native English speaker, I had to look it up. It means someone who spends money freely and recklessly. It is a rather old-fashioned word. So throughout this story I will call him what my friend called him when she recognised Guercino’s painting in the Galleria Borghese: The Lost Son. And this story will be The Return of the Lost Son.

2. Spending the money

When the younger son got his share of the inheritance, he spent it all. The Bible – the Gospel according to Luke – describes what happened pretty clearly:

A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. 

Luke 15:13

Rembrandt’s painting of the Lost Son having fun is quite funny in itself. Rembrandt used himself and his wife Saskia as models: Rembrandt plays the Lost Son, drinking and enjoying himself, while Saskia sits on his lap as an entertaining woman in a tavern.

But there is a warning hidden in the painting, and you have to look carefully to see it. In the top left corner, hanging on the back wall, is a small board. It appears to be a tavern tally board, used to keep track of drinks and debts. The bill will soon arrive!

This painting from the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht makes the ‘wild living’ even clearer. Read it from left to right.

First, wine is being poured. Then we see the Lost Son embraced by a prostitute. Next to them, the old woman who runs the brothel keeps track of the drinks and spending, writing the amounts with a piece of chalk on the tally board. On the table are dice, telling us that gambling is part of the entertainment too.

And then comes the disaster, happening in the background on the right. The money is gone, the bill has arrived, and the Lost Son is chased out of the brothel. Even his clothes are gone. From an upper window, a pisspot is being emptied over him. And further to the right, almost reduced to a beggar, the Lost Son walks away. In the far distance, we can already see where he is heading: towards the swine.

Here are some details in the print by Crispijn de Passe. Look at the pisspot being emptied over his head. And look at the signboard, featuring a swan. A swan was a very common sign for an inn or tavern in the Netherlands, but it has another meaning too. In the old Dutch language, swaentje, or ‘little swan’, could also refer to a prostitute. So the swan on the signboard is another clue that this is not simply an inn, but a house of prostitution.

And there is the Latin verse underneath:

Omnibus absumptis ferventi expellitur ira
When everything has been spent, he is kicked out in anger.

The money is gone, the party is over, and the Lost Son is out on the street, humiliated and stripped of almost everything he had.

3. Broke, Living with Pigs, Plan B

The next image, by the Flemish engraver Philip Galle, reads like a comic book, from right to left. And Luke describes the scene similarly:

About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. 

Luke 15:14–16

That is what we see on the right and in the middle. The Lost Son is broke, starving and reduced to feeding pigs.

But now an interesting part begins. On the left, the Lost Son is looking upwards, towards a heavenly figure. Is he praying? Is he repenting? Or is he simply crying out to God in desperation?

We need to think one step ahead now. The Lost Son is about to go home. And when he gets there, his father will receive him with mercy, the father as a symbol of God. And here we encounter a difference in the way Catholics and Protestants understand this part of the story. In Catholic theology, God’s mercy is closely connected with the sacrament of confession and penance. In Protestant tradition, the emphasis is placed directly on God’s grace and forgiveness, received through faith rather than through sacramental confession. Remember, during the Reformation Luther and Calvin rejected confession as a sacrament.

So I dare to make a small leap. Could this engraving have been made for a Catholic audience? The Lost Son is not simply suffering. In the scene on the left he is turning towards God, and is it his repentance that’s the first step on the road home?

Dürer’s print is probably the most famous depiction of the Lost Son with the swine. It is the moment when he realises that things cannot go on like this, that he needs to follow Plan B and return home.

When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, "At home even the servants have food enough, and here I am dying of hunger! I will go home to my father and say, Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a servant."

Luke 15:17–19

In my personal view, the Lost Son is taking the opportunistic route. Going home is now simply the least bad option. Leaping forward, when he arrives home and is received with happiness, it is the mercy of the father that deserves the credit, not necessarily the Lost Son’s feeling of guilt.

And then there is Dürer himself! He was in his mid twenties when he made this engraving. Only a few years earlier, during his travels through Germany, his father had summoned him home, and Dürer was married to Agnes Frey, who brought a substantial dowry. Within months, however, Dürer left his new wife and travelled to Italy, spending much of his time (and Agnes’ money) in Venice. So here is an intriguing coincidence. Dürer himself had left home, travelled south and enjoyed the pleasures of Italy before returning to Nuremberg. Did he, like his Lost Son, eventually come to his senses and decide to go home?

4. Home, Happy Father

And then the Lost Son finally comes home.

So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. His son said to him, "Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son."

Luke 15:20–21

Looking at Guercino’s painting from the Timken Museum, the Lost Son arrives playing his little crying game. But do we really need that? The core of the parable is not the Lost Son’s tears, or even his repentance. It is the father’s reaction. He sees his son coming and runs to meet him. He embraces him. No blaming. No questions. No punishment. Just happiness.

And that, after all, is the point of the parable. The father in the story is the comparison with God the Father. The Lost Son may cry, repent, apologise or say nothing at all. God does not need the performance. No tears needed. Just come home. Jesus told this parable to his followers as an understandable way of showing God’s grace and mercy. And Luke recorded it in his Gospel.

Murillo makes it like a film scene in this monumental painting, following literally the words of Luke, from right to left:

His father said to the servants, "Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found." So the party began.

Luke 15:22–24

5. Unhappy Brother

Now about his brother, the elder son, who watches all this with growing resentment. Why is there so much joy over his wasteful brother, when he himself has always listened, worked hard and done everything properly?

Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, and he asked one of the servants what was going on. "Your brother is back", he was told, "and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return."

Luke 15:25–27

Mercy towards sinners, and forgiveness towards sons who have squandered everything, would probably not have been an easy message for many people at that time. The accepted idea was surely that bad behaviour should be punished and good behaviour rewarded. We see exactly this attitude in the elder son. He is angry because there is no reward for him, despite everything he has done right, and no punishment for his brother, despite everything he has done wrong.

The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, but he replied, "All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!" 

Luke 15:28–30

Now it’s the older brother who doesn’t want to come home. In a way, he is now the Lost Son. And suddenly the elder son is no longer quite so different from his younger brother.

6. Happy End!

At the beginning of the story, the father gives the younger son the freedom to leave and spend his inheritance. He also gives the elder son the freedom to stay, work hard and do everything right. When the younger son returns, the story focuses entirely on the interaction between the father and this Lost Son. There is, in Luke’s telling, no interaction between the two brothers at all.

But I am missing the Happy End. Does the elder brother eventually join the welcome party? Does he sit down at the festive table and eat the fattened calf? Do the two brothers finally put their differences aside and make peace? Luke leaves us hanging. His final verse has the father speaking to the elder son, who is still standing outside:

"We have to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!"

Luke 15:32

And then? Well, I am going to add one more verse myself.

And the older brother went into the house, embraced his brother and said: "Welcome home. I am happy you are back." And the younger brother said: "I am happy to be back, and sorry for the troubles." And the father and his two sons sat together, ate the festive meal and raised their glasses together. Cheers!

A Happy End is not so difficult, once one dares to take that step!