And when he had begun the reckoning, one was brought unto him, who owed him ten thousand talents.
Read Chapter 18
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Ten thousand talents. It is put as an example for an immense sum. It is not certainly agreed what was the value of a talent. A talent of gold is said to be 4900 lb.; of silver 375 lb. See Walton's Prologomena, Dr. Harris's Lexicon (Witham)
The 10,000 talents, according to some authors, amount to £1,875,000 sterling, i.e., 740,000 times as much as his fellow-servant owed him; the hundred pence amounting to not more than £3 2s. 6d.
It is we ourselves who owe ten thousand talents, receiving benefaction every day yet giving back nothing good to God in return. He who owes ten thousand talents is also that ruler who has received from God the protection and allegiance of many men, each man being like a talent, and then does not employ his sovereignty well. Selling the debtor along with his wife and children indicates alienation from God, for the one who is sold goes to another master. And is the wife not the flesh, being the mate of the soul, and the children, the evil deeds done by the soul and the body? He commands the flesh to be given to Satan for ravaging, that is, to be given over to illnesses or to the torment of the demons, but the children, that is to say, the doing of evil deeds, are given over to torture on the rack, as, for example, when God withers the hand that has stolen, or constricts it by means of a demon. See how the woman, which is the flesh, and the children, which is the doing of evil, have been ...
