Parable of the Good Samaritan

In the time of Jesus, the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was notorious for its danger and difficulty, and was known as the "Way of Blood" because "of the blood which is often shed there by robbers".[6] Martin Luther King Jr., on the day before his assassination, described the road as follows:

I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, "I can see why Jesus used this as the setting for his parable." It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles—or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about 2200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous road.

— Martin Luther King Jr., "I've Been to the Mountaintop" (April 3, 1968)

A map of Israel in the time of Jesus. Jericho is just north of the Dead Sea, with Jerusalem to the west.

Jesus' target audience, the Jews, hated Samaritans[7] to such a degree that they destroyed the Samaritans' temple on Mount Gerizim.[lower-alpha 1] The Samaritans, reciprocally, hated the Jews.[8] Tensions between them were particularly high in the early decades of the 1st century because Samaritans had desecrated the Jewish Temple at Passover with human bones.[9] Due to this hatred, some think that the lawyer's phrase "The one who had mercy on him" (Luke 10:37)[10] may indicate a reluctance to name the Samaritan.[11] Or, on another, more positive note, it may indicate that the lawyer has recognized that both his questions have been answered and now concludes by generally expressing that anyone behaving thus is a (Leviticus 19:18)[12] "neighbor" eligible to inherit eternal life.[lower-alpha 2]

As the story reached those who were unaware of its context—i.e., the oppression of the Samaritans, and the bitter hatred that Jesus' listeners and Samaritans had for each other—this aspect of the parable received less and less recognition; uninformed people saw "Samaritan" as merely a convenient name for that individual, when in fact it stood for "hated outsider who worships falsely and desecrates our religion". Today, to remedy this missing context, the story is often recast in a more modern setting where the people are ones in equivalent social groups known not to interact comfortably. Thus, cast appropriately, the parable regains its message to modern listeners: namely, that an individual of a social group they disapprove of can exhibit moral behavior that is superior to individuals of the groups they approve. Christians have used it as an example of Christianity's opposition to racial, ethnic, and sectarian prejudice.[13][14] For example, anti-slavery campaigner William Jay described clergy who ignored slavery as "following the example of the priest and Levite".[15] Martin Luther King Jr., in his April 1968 "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, described the Samaritan as "a man of another race".[16] Sundee Tucker Frazier saw the Samaritan more specifically as an example of a "mixed-race" person.[17] Klyne Snodgrass wrote: "On the basis of this parable we must deal with our own racism but must also seek justice for, and offer assistance to, those in need, regardless of the group to which they belong."[18]

Samaritans appear elsewhere in the Gospels and Book of Acts. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus heals ten lepers and only the Samaritan among them thanks him,[19][9] although Luke 9:51–56[20] depicts Jesus receiving a hostile reception in Samaria.[7] Luke's favorable treatment of Samaritans is in line with the favorable treatment elsewhere in the book of the weak and of outcasts, generally.[21] In John, Jesus has an extended dialogue with a Samaritan woman, and many Samaritans come to believe in him.[22] In Matthew, however, Jesus instructs his disciples not to preach to Gentiles or in Samaritan cities.[23][9] In the Gospels, generally, "though the Jews of Jesus' day had no time for the 'half-breed' people of Samaria",[24] Jesus "never spoke disparagingly about them"[24] and "held a benign view of Samaritans".[25]

Many see 2 Chronicles 28:8–15[26] as the model for the Samaritan's neighborly behavior in the parable. In Chronicles, Northern Israelite ancestors of Samaritans treat Judean enemies as fellow-Israelite neighbors.[lower-alpha 3] After comparing the earlier account with the later parable presented to the expert in Israel's religious law, one could conclude: "Given the number and significance of these parallels and points of correspondence it is hard to imagine how a first-century scholar of Scripture could hear the parable and not think of the story of the merciful Samaritans of 2 Chronicles 28."[27]

In Jewish culture, contact with a dead body was understood to be defiling.[9] Priests were particularly enjoined to avoid uncleanness.[9] The priest and Levite may therefore have assumed that the fallen traveler was dead and avoided him to keep themselves ritually clean.[9] On the other hand, the depiction of travel downhill (from Jerusalem to Jericho) may indicate that their temple duties had already been completed, making this explanation less likely,[28] although this is disputed.[7] Since the Mishnah made an exception for neglected corpses,[7] the priest and the Levite could have used the law to justify both touching a corpse or ignoring it.[7] In any case, passing by on the other side avoided checking "whether he was dead or alive".[29] Indeed, "it weighed more with them that he might be dead and defiling to the touch of those whose business was with holy things than that he might be alive and in need of care."[29]

In this folio from the 6th-century Rossano Gospels, the cross-bearing halo around the Good Samaritan's head indicates an allegorical interpretation. The first scene includes an angel.

Origen described the allegory as follows:

The man who was going down is Adam. Jerusalem is paradise, and Jericho is the world. The robbers are hostile powers. The priest is the Law, the Levite is the prophets, and the Samaritan is Christ. The wounds are disobedience, the beast is the Lord's body, the [inn], which accepts all who wish to enter, is the Church. [...] The manager of the [inn] is the head of the Church, to whom its care has been entrusted. And the fact that the Samaritan promises he will return represents the Savior's second coming.

— Origen 1996, p. 136, Homily 34, para 3

John Welch further states:

This allegorical reading was taught not only by ancient followers of Jesus, but it was virtually universal throughout early Christianity, being advocated by Irenaeus, Clement, and Origen, and in the fourth and fifth centuries by Chrysostom in Constantinople, Ambrose in Milan, and Augustine in North Africa. This interpretation is found most completely in two other medieval stained-glass windows, in the French cathedrals at Bourges and Sens."

— Welch 2007, pp. 26–33

The allegorical interpretation is also traditional in the Eastern Orthodox Church.[30] John Newton refers to the allegorical interpretation in his hymn "How Kind the Good Samaritan", which begins:

How kind the good Samaritan
To him who fell among the thieves!
Thus Jesus pities fallen man,
And heals the wounds the soul receives.[31]

Robert Funk also suggests that Jesus' Jewish listeners were to identify with the robbed and wounded man. In his view, the help received from a hated Samaritan is like the kingdom of God received as grace from an unexpected source.[32]

Parable of the Good Samaritan by Balthasar van Cortbemde (1647) shows the Good Samaritan tending the injured man while the Levite and priest are also shown in the distance.

John Calvin was not impressed by Origen's allegorical reading:

The allegory which is here contrived by the advocates of free will is too absurd to deserve refutation. According to them, under the figure of a wounded man is described the condition of Adam after the fall; from which they infer that the power of acting well was not wholly extinguished in him; because he is said to be only half-dead. As if it had been the design of Christ, in this passage, to speak of the corruption of human nature, and to inquire whether the wound which Satan inflicted on Adam were deadly or curable; nay, as if he had not plainly, and without a figure, declared in another passage, that all are dead, but those whom he quickens by his voice (John 5:25).[33] As little plausibility belongs to another allegory, which, however, has been so highly satisfactory, that it has been admitted by almost universal consent, as if it had been a revelation from heaven. This Samaritan they imagine to be Christ, because he is our guardian; and they tell us that wine was poured, along with oil, into the wound, because Christ cures us by repentance and by a promise of grace. They have contrived a third subtlety, that Christ does not immediately restore health, but sends us to the Church, as an innkeeper, to be gradually cured. I acknowledge that I have no liking for any of these interpretations; but we ought to have a deeper reverence for Scripture than to reckon ourselves at liberty to disguise its natural meaning. And, indeed, any one may see that the curiosity of certain men has led them to contrive these speculations, contrary to the intention of Christ.

— Calvin 1845, p. 54

The meaning of the parable for Calvin was, instead, that "compassion, which an enemy showed to a Jew, demonstrates that the guidance and teaching of nature are sufficient to show that man was created for the sake of man. Hence it is inferred that there is a mutual obligation between all men."[34] In other writings, Calvin pointed out that people are not born merely for themselves, but rather "mankind is knit together with a holy knot [...] we must not live for ourselves, but for our neighbors."[35] Earlier, Cyril of Alexandria had written that "a crown of love is being twined for him who loves his neighbour."[36]

Francis Schaeffer suggested: "Christians are not to love their believing brothers to the exclusion of their non-believing fellowmen. That is ugly. We are to have the example of the good Samaritan consciously in mind at all times."[37]

Other modern theologians have taken similar positions. For example, G. B. Caird wrote:

Dodd quotes as a cautionary example Augustine's allegorisation of the Good Samaritan, in which the man is Adam, Jerusalem the heavenly city, Jericho the moon – the symbol of immortality; the thieves are the devil and his angels, who strip the man of immortality by persuading him to sin and so leave him (spiritually) half dead; the priest and Levite represent the Old Testament, the Samaritan Christ, the beast his flesh which he assumed at the Incarnation; the inn is the church and the innkeeper the apostle Paul. Most modern readers would agree with Dodd that this farrago bears no relationship to the real meaning of the parable.

— Caird 1980, p. 165

Joel B. Green writes that Jesus' final question (which, in something of a "twist",[38] reverses the question originally asked):

[The question] presupposes the identification of "anyone" as a neighbor, then presses the point that such an identification opens wide the door of loving action. By leaving aside the identity of the wounded man and by portraying the Samaritan traveler as one who performs the law (and so as one whose actions are consistent with an orientation to eternal life), Jesus has nullified the worldview that gives rise to such questions as, Who is my neighbor? The purity-holiness matrix has been capsized. And, not surprisingly in the Third Gospel, neighborly love has been concretized in care for one who is, in this parable, self-evidently a social outcast

— Green 1997, p. 432

Such a reading of the parable makes it important in liberation theology,[39] where it provides a concrete anchoring for love[40] and indicates an "all embracing reach of solidarity."[41] In Indian Dalit theology, it is seen as providing a "life-giving message to the marginalized Dalits and a challenging message to the non-Dalits."[42]

Martin Luther King Jr. often spoke of this parable, contrasting the rapacious philosophy of the robbers, and the self-preserving non-involvement of the priest and Levite, with the Samaritan's coming to the aid of the man in need.[43] King also extended the call for neighborly assistance to society at large:

On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

— Martin Luther King Jr., "A Time to Break the Silence", quoted in Hicks & Valeri 2008, p. 31

Thomas Aquinas states that there are three points to be noted in this parable: Firstly, the manifold misery of sinners: "A certain man went down from Jerusalem." Secondly, is shown the manifold pity of Christ to the sinner: "A certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was; and when he saw him he had compassion on him." Thirdly, the rule which is given for imitation: "Go, and do thou likewise."[44]

Justus Knecht gives the deeper interpretation of this parable, according to the Church Fathers, writing:

Jesus Himself is the Good Samaritan, as proved by His treatment of the robbed and wounded human race. Sin and the devil are the robbers who have despoiled man of his robe of innocence and all supernatural gifts, and grievously wounded him in his natural gifts. Thus man lay, weak, helpless, and half-dead. He still, it is true, possessed his natural life, but he had lost the supernatural life of grace, as well as the prospect of eternal life, and was powerless to raise himself from the misery of sin by any effort of his own. Neither priest nor Levite, i. e. neither sacrifice nor law of the Old Covenant, could help him, or heal his wounds; they only made him realize more fully his helpless condition. Then the Son of God, moved by compassion, came down from heaven to help poor fallen man, living at enmity with God. He healed his wounds with the wine of His Most Precious Blood and the oil of His grace, and took him to the inn, His Church. When He left this earth to return to heaven, He gave to the guardians of His Church the twofold treasure of His doctrine and His grace, and ordered them to tend the still weak man, until He Himself came back to reward every one according to his works.[45]

Parable of the Good Samaritan by Samuel Nixon, St. Paul's Church, Halifax, Nova Scotia

In addition to these classical interpretations many scholars have drawn additional themes from the story. Some have suggested that religious tolerance was an important message of the parable. By selecting for the moral protagonist of the story someone whose religion (Samaritanism) was despised by the Jewish audience to which Jesus was speaking, some argue that the parable attempts to downplay religious differences in favor of focusing on moral character and good works.[46][47]

Others have suggested that Jesus was attempting to convey an anti-establishment message, not necessarily in the sense of rejecting authority figures in general, but in the sense of rejecting religious hypocrisy. By contrasting the noble acts of a despised religion to the crass and selfish acts of a priest and a Levite, two representatives of the Jewish religious establishment, some argue that the parable attempts to downplay the importance of status in the religious hierarchy (or importance of knowledge of scripture) in favor of the practice of religious principles.[48][49]

The story of the good Samaritan, in the Pauline Gospel of Luke x. 25–37, related to illustrate the meaning of the word "neighbor", possesses a feature which puzzles the student of rabbinical lore. The kind Samaritan who comes to the rescue of the men that had fallen among the robbers, is contrasted with the unkind priest and Levite; whereas the third class of Jews—i.e., the ordinary Israelites who, as a rule, follow the Cohen and the Levite are omitted; and therefore suspicion is aroused regarding the original form of the story. If "Samaritan" has been substituted by the anti-Judean gospel-writer for the original "Israelite", no reflection was intended by Jesus upon Jewish teaching concerning the meaning of neighbor; and the lesson implied is that he who is in need must be the object of love.

The term "neighbor" has not at all times been thus understood by Jewish teachers.[lower-alpha 4] In Tanna debe Eliyahu R. xv. it is said: "Blessed be the Lord who is impartial toward all. He says: 'Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor. Thy neighbor is like thy brother, and thy brother is like thy neighbor.'" Likewise in xxviii.: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God"; that is, thou shalt make the name of God beloved to the creatures by a righteous conduct toward Gentiles as well as Jews (compare Sifre, Deut. 32). Aaron b. Abraham ibn Ḥayyim of the sixteenth century, in his commentary to Sifre, l.c.; Ḥayyim Vital, the cabalist, in his "Sha'are Ḳedushah", i. 5; and Moses Ḥagis of the eighteenth century, in his work on the 613 commandments, while commenting on Deut. xxiii. 7, teach alike that the law of love of the neighbor includes the non-Israelite as well as the Israelite. There is nowhere a dissenting opinion expressed by Jewish writers. For modern times, see among others the conservative opinion of Plessner's religious catechism, "Dat Mosheh we-Yehudit", p. 258.

Accordingly, the synod at Leipzig in 1869, and the German-Israelitish Union of Congregations in 1885, stood on old historical ground when declaring (Lazarus, "Ethics of Judaism", i. 234, 302) that "'Love thy neighbor as thyself' is a command of all-embracing love, and is a fundamental principle of the Jewish religion"; and Stade 1888, p. 510a, when charging with imposture the rabbis who made this declaration, is entirely in error.