01.17. Chapter 6. The Good Samaritan

Chapter 6.
The Good Samaritan Or, Charity the True Sanctity. The connection in which this parable was spoken is so distinctly indicated by the Evangelist that it will be best to quote his introductory sentences as part of our text:

And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up to tempt Hint, saying: Master! what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And He said unto him, What is written in the law?[1] how readest thou? And he answering said: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind;[2] and thy neighbour as thyself. And He said unto him: Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. But he wishing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour? And Jesus answering said: A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell in with robbers,[3] who having both stripped him of his raiment, and inflicted on him wounds, went away leaving him half dead. Now by chance there came down a certain priest that way; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. And likewise also a Levite arrived at the place, and having come and looked at him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, on a journey, came where he was, and seeing (his plight) he was moved with pity, and approaching him he bound up his wounds, pouring on them oil and wine, and mounting him on his own beast he brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow [when he was departing] he took out two denarii. and gave them to the host, and said: Take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, I, on my return, will repay. Which now of these three seems to thee to have become neighbour to him that fell among the robbers?[4] And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, do thou also likewise.— Luk 10:25-37.

[1] Kuinoel suggests that Christ pointed at the phylactery on which the words of this law were written, as He spake. Unger quotes this opinion with approval.

[2] There are variations in the text here, but of no importance for the interpretation of the parable.

[3] Field prefers this to the rendering in A. V. and R. V. on the ground that the verb is often joined with a noun in the singular number, when of course ’among’ would be unsuitable; περιέπεσει might be rendered by the one word ’encountered.’

[4] γεγονἐναι; suggesting the adage, "Neighbour is who neighbour does." In the interpretation of this parable great regard must be had to the original question of the lawyer. Formally an answer to the question, Who is my neighbour? evasively asked by one who was not thoroughly in earnest about the subject of his professed solicitude, the parable is really an answer to the wider question, What is the supreme duty, by the performance of which a man may hope to attain eternal life? The moral of the charming story is—Charity the true sanctity. This is the key to the construction of the parable, especially to the selection of its dramatis persona—a priest and a Levite—persons holy by profession and occupation, and a Samaritan stranger of a different race from that of the man in need of neighbourly succour. Through the introduction of the two former the lesson of the parable is accentuated by suggesting a contrast between the genuine holiness of love, and spurious forms of holiness; through the introduction of the latter, as doing the requisite good deed, the supreme value of love in God’s sight is emphasised. It means: Even in a Samaritan love is acceptable to God; wherever it is there is true goodness, and therefore eternal life; like faith, love, wherever manifested, breaks down all conventional barriers: "Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God." Such being its import, our parable is emphatically a parable of grace, revealing to us the nature of God and of His kingdom. Its teaching can be true only if God be love, and His kingdom a kingdom of grace, and the Speaker, not typically, as in the Patristic interpretation, but literally, the Good Samaritan par excellence—one, that is, to whom every human being who needs help is a neighbour; one who is ever ready to render, to those who require it, seasonable succour. It was not Christ’s intention, perhaps, under the guise of the Samaritan stranger, to describe Himself; the less we introduce the spiritual motive into the parable itself the greater our sense of its natural beauty and pathos will be. But the present parable is one of those peculiar to Luke, in which the vehicle of instruction is not a type taken from the natural sphere to teach a truth in the spiritual, but an example of the very action recommended. In connection with such a parable it is legitimate exegesis to say that Jesus was the supreme example of the virtue inculcated.[1]

[1] So Goebel, who points out that this parable is the first of those in Luke in which instruction is conveyed, not by type, but by example. The didactic drift of the parable being such as indicated, it is obvious that the appearance on the scene of the three contrasted figures is as intentional as it is admirably fitted to serve the purpose the Speaker has in view. The Priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan do not enter on the stage by accident; they are carefully and skilfully chosen to convey the moral. In apparent contradiction with this, it is indeed said that by chance[1] a priest went down that way; and perhaps we ought to extend the scope of the phrase to the other two travellers also, as if Jesus would say: By a singular fortuitous concurrence these three men turned up in that lonely place just at the time the poor wayfarer came to grief. But the reference to the chance character of the meeting only makes the intention of the Artist in the selection of his dramatis persona more marked. It is a virtual apology for the unlikelihood of a concurrence which the purpose of the story demands. It says in effect: That these four men should come together in such a place, about the same time, and under such circumstances, seems, I admit, a somewhat unlikely supposition; yet suffer me to make it, for I need it in order to point duly my moral.[2] The apology will be accepted by all who are satisfied that the characters who figure in the parable are well selected for the didactic purpose. On this point, however, doubts have been expressed by some, as, e. g., by Keim, who, disbelieving in the genuineness of the parable, adduces in support of his opinion the fact that nowhere else do we find Jesus assuming a polemic attitude towards the priests and Levites—the usual objects of His attacks being the scribes.[3] But this objection has but little force, if the classes referred to laid themselves open to attack, after the manner of our parable. And who can doubt that they did? Who does not know that men holy by profession and occupation are very prone to come short in the duties of humanity?—so divorcing holiness from charity, religion from morality. Were the officially holy persons in Israel in the last stage of her degeneracy likely to be an exception?[4] And if not, were their shortcomings likely to escape animadversion on Christ’s part, due opportunity offering itself? Far from doubting the genuineness of the parable on this score, and resolving it into a mere traditional expansion of a simpler utterance of our Lord in conversation with some legal interrogant,[5] we gladly welcome it as filling up what would otherwise have been a blank in His many-sided teaching. It was too much needed to complete the picture of the time not to have been spoken by Him who was at once the most faithful and the wisest of all the prophets; and it is too good to have been spoken or invented by any one else.[6] [1] κατὰ ουγκυρίαν.

[2] Godet remarks that there is a certain irony in the expression, by chance, as it is certainly not accidental that the narrative makes the two characters, priest and Levite, appear on the scene.

[3] ’Jesu von Nazara,’ iii. 13, note 2.

[4] Goebel says that the priest and the Levite are introduced because they were peculiarly given to literalism.

[5] So Keim and others of similar proclivities.

[6] Keim’s doubts are only a part of his general scepticism in regard to all the Samaritan incidents and sections in the Gospels, and especially in Luke, and are entitled to all the less consideration on that account.

While seeing in the reference to chance an apology for a needed combination, we must be careful not to make too much of it, as if the improbability of the concurrence were so great as to mar the natural felicity of the parable. This is so far from being the case that the Speaker might quite well have omitted the expression, and probably would have done so but for His desire to fix attention on the characters He introduced, and we may add, His exquisite sense of the fitting in narration, which was such that He felt inclined to apologise for the slightest appearance of a departure from the dictates of good taste. It was quite within the limits of natural possibility that all the persons alluded to should make their appearance in the scene of the deed of violence—the rugged, rocky pass between Jerusalem and Jericho, arduous for the traveller even on account of its physical characteristics, and dangerous as the haunt of desperadoes who lived by plunder.[1] Travellers on various errands must have frequented that road, for there had been no robbers had there been no one to rob. Among these travellers priests and Levites might occasionally be found; for Jericho was a city of priests, and officials would come and go between that place and Jerusalem in connection with their service at the temple. The pass of Adummim was not indeed the only way from the City of Palms to the capital, but it was the most direct, and would therefore be at least occasionally taken in spite of its bad renown as the "Way of Blood." A Samaritan stranger might also now and then appear there, journeying to or from Jerusalem on his private business; for his errands might require him to choose the route which lay through Jericho.

[1] Vide the passages in Josephus and Jerome, usually referred to in the Commentaries, and modern books of travel, such as Stanley’s ’Sinai and Palestine.’ Stanley’s note on the pass of Adummim at p. 424 is worth consulting. In truth, whether we have regard to the construction of the story, or to its moral aim, we must acknowledge that in the parable before us the artistic tact of the Speaker appears in a conspicuous degree. The place, the persons, and the moral, all fit into each other admirably. A situation is chosen in which the occurrence of a calamity demanding active benevolence is probable. A wounded man in the Bloody Way, how likely a phenomenon! There, too, the men from whom help in such an emergency might naturally be expected, but from whom, alas, it will not be forthcoming, may also be met with: priests and Levites punctually attending to their religious duties according to law and custom, but deaf to the call of charity. In that same grim, perilous pass might by chance be met a Samaritan, hated of the Jews, and most probably hating in turn, yet not necessarily, conceivably nearer the kingdom of God than those who proudly despised him as a heretic and alien, by the possession of a heart susceptible of the gentle emotion of pity, and prompt to act on its benignant impulses; not staying to inquire who or what the object of pity may be, content to know that he is a human being—"a certain man"[1] in distress. Finally, in the situation chosen love will have an opportunity of showing its true nature as an heroic passion. For the love that shall prove itself equal to the occasion must possess very uncommon attributes. It must be stronger than fear and the instinct of self-preservation which so often harden the heart It must be superior to the prejudice which chills pity by the thought that the claimant is one of another race and religion. It must be generous and uncalculating, grudging no expenditure of time, pains, or money, which may be necessary for the effectual succour of distress. In a word, it must be a love like that of God—self-sacrificing, ready to die for its object, even though that object should be an enemy; a love in which is revealed the maximum of gracious possibility, and which finds its secret reward in the blessedness of its own deed.

[1] "He was a human being (Mensch.), that is all he says; not a word about his rank, descent, or religion," quaintly remarks Arndt, whose whole treatment of the parable is spirited, graphic, and instructive, without having recourse to spiritualising. In details, not less than in general structure, the delineations of the parable are faithful to reality. The plight of the wounded man is desperate, as the didactic purpose requires; yet the description thereof cannot at any point be charged with exaggeration. It is just thus that the victims of bandits in those regions would be treated in those days, as it is just thus they are treated still. To be robbed of his purse, stripped of his garments, wounded, and heartlessly abandoned to his fate, is the lot of any one who has the misfortune to fall into such hands. The first of these particulars is omitted in the narrative, a circumstance diversely explained by the commentators; some suggesting poverty, others that plunder is taken for granted as a matter of course. The latter view is the more probable, whether we have regard to the verbal expression at this part of the story, or to the aim of the whole. The καὶ before ἐκδύσαντες (also having stripped him) seems to imply some previous act of violence, which could only have been the forcible appropriation of that which robbers chiefly seek—the purse. Then the supposition that this misfortune also befell the victim, harmonises best with the design of the parable to signalise the supreme worth of humanity: for the graver the case the greater the opportunity afforded for the display of that virtue. But why, then, is this feature not introduced? In reply, we ask, Is it quite certain that it is not? It is not indeed expressly mentioned in the description of the victim’s condition; but is it not indirectly alluded to in the picture presented of the humane conduct of his benefactor? Among the kind services of the Samaritan to the object of his care, payment of his bill at the inn is carefully specified. That implies that the wounded one was unable to pay his own way; for the services rendered by love are all supposed to be necessary, the virtue inculcated being not quixotic, uncalled-for generosity, but readiness to succour real and urgent need. Then it may further be regarded as certain, that the poverty does not belong to the man’s ordinary condition, but forms a part of the calamity which has lately overtaken him; for it belongs to the felicity of the parable that all the particulars specified should arise out of the supposed situation. The behaviour of the priest and Levite is very simply but suggestively described. They came, they saw, and they passed by. Inhuman, unnatural conduct, one is ready to exclaim. It was inhuman, but it was not unnatural. These men did exactly what all the world is inclined to do; what the majority are doing in one form or another every day—passing by need without giving pity time to rise in the bosom—what every one will certainly do in whom the impulses of fear and the instinct of self-preservation are stronger than the nobler instincts and impulses of benevolence. The language of the parable betrays a consciousness on the part of the Speaker that the conduct he describes is not exceptional but usual. Very noticeable is the repetition of the expressive word ἀντιπαρῆλθεν. The very monotony suggests the idea of what is customary—the way of the world—and, in the present case, of the religious world. The first comer passed by, the second passed by; and in nine cases out of ten that is what you may expect.[1] It is the exceptional case when, instead of ἀντιπαρῆλθε, you can say ἐσπλαγχνίσθη—not he passed by, but he was moved with pity. So it is with the beggar in the street; so it is with men placed in extreme danger whom you cannot help without serious risk to yourself. There is doubtless everything in so grave a plight as that of the wounded man in the pass of Adummim to rouse the dormant feelings of compassion which minor afflictions of everyday occurrence fail to touch. Yet let us not imagine that the priest and the Levite would necessarily have a bad conscience, or go away feeling that they were behaving in an altogether monstrous manner. Nothing so easy as to invent excuses for their conduct. Every commentator suggests a list of excuses, each one inventing his own list—so plentiful are they. "Another of these robberies. How frequent they are growing! One ought to help, but what can one do? This poor fellow seems beyond help. It is impossible to attend to every unfortunate. Then one must think of himself. True, these robbers do not meddle with us; they leave us holy men to go and come in the performance of our sacred duties; but we cannot expect them to act with such forbearance unless we observe a discreet silence as to their lawless deeds." "Alas, for the rarity of Christian charity under the sun!"—and alas for the multitude of plausible, prudent reasons by which that rarity can be accounted for!

[1] Grotius interprets ἀντιπαρῆλθε as signifying—passed in the opposite direction. ’Praeterivit contrario itinere ab Jerichunte, scil. Hiersolyma properans.’ Godet, with his usual insight, renders it—’In face of such a spectacle they passed.’ The thing emphasised is surely not the direction in which they were going, but that they avoided the sufferer, gave him a wide berth, and hurried on from the place. The reasons are good enough for all who want an excuse. But if one happen to have a big, tender heart he will not be able to avail himself of such reasons for neglecting a duty lying in his way. When the emotion of pity is strong, it prevents a man from acting on the suggestions of prudence; when it is very strong, amounting to a passion, it prevents these from even arising in the mind. Thanks be to God, there are always some such men in the world. Though such charity be rare it is not unexampled; therefore the good Samaritan is not an incredible character. His picture is one of unearthly beauty, yet it is not unreal or impossible. We exclaim as we read—"He did as he ought to have done; as we all ought to do." It has been said of the story of the good Samaritan that it has been "the consolation of the wanderer and the sufferer, of the outcast and the heretic, in every age and country."[1] It may also be said of it that it has been as a conscience in the heart of Christendom condemning inhumanity, breeding shame of cowardice and selfishness, and prompting to deeds of kindness by a heavenly yet sober and practicable ideal of benevolence. This ideal is painted with a few strokes, but with consummate art, which the Limner has learnt from His own gracious spirit. The Samaritan traveller, like the two others, comes up to the half-dead victim of violence, and sees his sorrowful condition; but, unlike the two others who preceded him, he does not pass by, but feels pity. They, too, perhaps felt a little pity, but it was just enough to scare them away in horror, and to send them on their journey inventing excuses to hide from themselves their own heartlessness. But the Samaritan’s pity was a passion and an agony; therefore he could not get away from the object which excited it, but was compelled rather to draw near to him, and that not to gaze but to succour. The sufferer has taken full possession of his heart, and he must do for him all that he needs. And he does all promptly, without hesitation, or intrusion of any thought or feeling that can interrupt the flow of the commanding emotion. The several acts are carefully enumerated, not for mere pictorial effect, but for the sake of moral impression; even to show the genius of true love, as that which renders help with promptitude, thoroughness, self-denial, and unwearying patience;[2] and also with tact, doing all things in their proper order, and in the best, most considerate way: first staunching the wounds with wine and oil,[3] which with due forethought for emergencies it has at hand; then conveying the patient to the inn where he can stay till he recover; and making itself answerable for all charges incurred during convalescence. Noticeable yet further in this picture is the absence of all sentimentality, for this, too, is a sure mark of genuine love. All things are done without parade, and with good sense. Specially to be remarked in this connection is the pecuniary part of the transactions. The benefactor does not give to the host a large sum of money amply sufficient to pay all possible expense with a liberal margin over. He gives a limited sum, small, but sufficient to pay past outlay, and promises to pay the rest on his return. There is thrift without niggardliness, as you expect in one who is not performing a solitary act of charity in an ostentatious way, because he happens to be in the humour, but is in the habit of doing kind actions as he has opportunity, and therefore does them in sober, business style. It may indeed appear unbusiness-like to expect the host to give him credit for future expense on account of his beneficiary. But, doubtless, the host knows his man: he has been that way before, and he will come again, and he has always been a good customer.[4] [1] Stanley, ’Sinai and Palestine,’ p. 425.

[2] Arndt is good on the attributes of love developed in the conduct of the Samaritan.

[3] Schöttgen asks how came the Samaritan to have wine and oil, and thinks it was usual in hot countries to carry oil. Jacob had oil to anoint the pillar, and Lot had wine with him.

[4] Possibly the inn in the dangerous pass (of which ruins are still traceable) was kept by a Samaritan. So Unger.

Such is the charming tableau. How beautiful, and also how suggestive of didactic meanings! In the first place, it completely answers the immediate question: Who is my neighbour? The whole doctrine of neighbourhood is virtually and effectively taught in the parable. First, and directly, what it is to be a neighbour, viz. to render effectual succour when and where it is needed, having regard to nothing beyond the fact of need. Next, indirectly, but by obvious consequence, Who is my neighbour?—viz. any one who needs help, and whom I have power and opportunity to help, no matter what his rank, race, or religion may be. Neighbourhood is made co-extensive with humanity. Any human being is my neighbour who needs aid, and to whom I can render aid; and I am neighbour to him when I do for him what his case demands. It matters not on which of the two sides the doctrine is approached. The relation of neighbourhood is mutual; he is my neighbour to whom I am neighbour. Jesus applied the parable on the latter side of the doctrine, as leading up most directly to the practical appeal to the conscience of His interrogant—"Go, and do thou likewise." "Which of these three," He asked, "appears to thee to have become neighbour to the man who fell among the robbers?" Had the Scribe been in the mood in which he began the interview he might have parried the question, and raised another quibble, saying: What I want to know is, not to whom I am neighbour, but who is neighbour to me? In so doing he would have acted as reasonably as when he first put the question; for he asked it not because he did not know, but because he did not wish to act on his knowledge. But the legal quibbler has lost all his briskness and courage. The pathos of the parable has subdued and solemnized him, and for the moment called into play those feelings of nature which even in a Jewish Rabbi were only overlaid, not extinguished, by the sophistries of conventional morality. Therefore, though it went against the grain to praise a Samaritan, and his pride refused even to name him, he could not help replying: "He who showed mercy on Him."[1] And when Jesus bade him go and practise the virtue his conscience approved he had no heart for further fencing, but went away profoundly impressed with the wisdom and moral authority of Him whom he had tried to puzzle.

[1] Godet. The parable further answered the larger question first propounded by the lawyer: which is the virtue that saves? The Scriptures teach that without holiness no man shall see the Lord, that is, have eternal life; and in this parable two kinds of holiness are set before us, the one spurious, the other genuine. The spurious holiness is that of the priest and Levite, or sanctity divorced from charity. It is not indeed formally described; but the idea is suggested by the introduction of two officially holy persons. The very motive of their introduction is to suggest the thought of a religion separated from morality, and especially from that which is the soul and essence of all morality, love. The two sacerdotal characters appear on the scene as concrete embodiments of a type of piety which God abhors, sacrifice without mercy. By placing them alongside of the humane Samaritan Jesus eloquently re-utters the prophetic oracle, "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice." In the person of the Samaritan the nature of true sanctity is exhibited. We are taught that the way to please God, the way to genuine holiness, is the practice of charity. It has been remarked indeed, that in applying the parable Jesus did not repeat the words, "This do, and thou shalt live," and that He could not do so, because charity, though necessary, is not sufficient for salvation, faith being indispensable. But it is evident that if life could be promised to him who kept the commandments, it could also be promised to one who acted as the Samaritan, for what was such action but a most emphatic keeping of the commandments? In that action, it is true, only the second of the two great commandments is expressly involved, but neither of these commandments can be kept apart from the other. He that truly loveth God loveth his brother also; and conversely he that truly loveth his brother loveth God also, unconsciously if not consciously. The claims of faith as a condition of salvation were fully acknowledged by our Lord in His teaching, and we must take care that they suffer no neglect at our hands. But there is a better way of protecting these claims than to be jealous of the life-giving power of love. That better way is to teach that charity presupposes faith; in other words, that the man whose religion consists in loving God and his neighbour, is inevitably a man who believes in a God whose nature is love. And this leads us to remark that our parable likewise answers the question which lies behind the first question of the lawyer, viz. What is God? The parable virtually, though not formally, solves that problem; implying, though not saying, God is love; His kingdom is a kingdom of grace; the way to please Him is to walk in love; I, Jesus, am His well-beloved Son, because I delight in saving the lost and succouring the miserable. What the parable expressly teaches is true only because these things are true. To ascribe this extended significance to the parable is not, as already hinted, to indulge in a licentious, tropical exegesis; it is merely to extend its didactic import within the same sphere. For the spiritualising interpretation of the fathers, followed by some moderns, we have no taste. It seems to us frigid, trifling, even pernicious, as tending to blunt our perception of the true, natural sense. When carried far enough it becomes ridiculous; and hence the illogical moderation and discretion exercised by some patrons of this style of exegesis, as by a leading English writer on the parables, who, having gone so far with the fathers, draws the line at the two pence, which, in the tropical interpretation, denote the two sacraments![1] But we have no hesitation in saying that this parable is a most important contribution to Christ’s general doctrine of God, and of the kingdom of God, and in that view pre-eminently a parable of grace. It is implied that God is a God of love, and that His love is catholic, not partial; a love of mankind, not of Jews only, a φιλανθρωπία, as it is termed by an apostle;[2] a love kindred in nature to that pity which moves one human being to help another in need, to which also the name philanthropy is applied in Scripture notably, too, in the case of the kindness shown by Maltese barbarians to Paul and his shipwrecked companions.[3] How significant this juxtaposition of the love of God most high with the humane feelings to which even the most uncultured of mankind are not strangers! The catholic scope of our parable was doubtless one of its chief attractions in the eyes of Luke, the Pauline evangelist. Invent the parable he certainly did not, for that was a task above his genius; but select it with pleasure he certainly did on account of its universalism. It pleased him that it was a Samaritan who did the good action;[4] it pleased him that love in man, disregardful of conventional barriers, in the parable had free course and was glorified, as implying a similar love in God, wide as the world, and bringing healing without stint for its sin and misery. And the Church and the whole world have reason to be thankful that in such things Luke took delight; for to that fact we owe the preservation of one of the most precious morsels of our Lord’s incomparable teaching.

[1] Trench, who says: "It would be an entering into curious minutiae, one tending to bring discredit on this scheme of interpretation, to affirm decidedly of the ’two pence’ that they mean either the two Sacraments, or the two Testaments, or the Word and the Sacraments, or unreservedly to accede to any one of the ingenious explanations which have been offered for them" (pp. 325-6).

[2] Tit 3:4.

[3] Acts 28:2.

[4] Vide Renan, ’Les Evangiles,’ p. 267.