discerned in what manner the two were yoked together, he sets the lame man on the blind man's back, and examines both of them with scourges, and they cannot deny the fact. Each convicts the other, the lame man saying to the blind, "Didst thou not bear me and carry me off?" and the blind to the lame, "Didst not thou thyself become eyes to me?" In like manner, the body is joined with the soul and the soul with the body to convict them of their deeds done in common, and the judgment becomes complete from (for) both of them, body and soul, of the works they have done, whether good or bad.
A little later on Epiphanius returns to the parable and probably embodies in what he says the gist of the interpretation of it.
He says: God cannot separate the soul from the body for the purpose of final judgment. "For immediately the judgment will be found at a standstill. For if the soul be found all by itself, it would reply when judged, 'The cause of sin is not of me, but of that corruptible and earthly body, in fornication, adultery, lasciviousness. For since it left me, I have done none of these things,' and it will have a good defence and will paralyze the judgment of God. . . . The body cannot be judged apart from the soul: for it also could reply, saying, 'It was not I that sinned, it was the soul: have I, since it departed from me, committed adultery, fornicated, or worshipped idols?' and the body will be withstanding the justice of God, and with reason. On this account, therefore . . . God . . . brings our dead bodies and our souls to a second birth," etc.
This parable is found current in Rabbinic tradition. Three versions of it are given in a book by Fiebig (Die Gleichnisreden Jesu im Lichte der Rabbinischen Gleichnisse der N.T. lichen Zeitalters, p. 73). One is ascribed to R. Ishmael (cir. A.D. 130), the other two to R. Jehuda (cir. 200). Here the lame and blind are custodians of the King's garden and their transgression is eating the choice early fruits. There is nothing about the wedding-feast or the soldiers and pagani.
