Luke 10:29

Who is my neighbour?] The 'lawyer' intended to justify himself by showing that, even upon a liberal interpretation of the word 'neighbour,' he had done his duty. He expected Christ to say that a neighbour was a friend or at least an Israelite. The idea that a 'neighbour' might be a foreigner had never occurred to him. The rabbis said, 'He excepts all Gentiles when he saith His neighbour.' 'An Israelite killing a stranger-inhabitant doth not die for it by the Sanhedrin, because it is said, If any one lifts up himself against his neighbour.' 'We are not to contrive the death of the Gentiles, but if they are in any danger of death we are not bound to deliver them, e.g. if any of them fall into the sea you need not take him out, for such a one is not thy neighbour.' In answer Christ appealed to the man's conscience, not to his reason. If Christ had said 'a heathen is thy neighbour,' the man would have argued the point with learned subtlety. Instead of this Jesus told him a story in which a man treated a foreigner as a neighbour, and the lawyer was bound to confess that this was in accordance with the mind of God.

30-37. A sufficient motive for this parable is provided, if it be understood as simply inculcating the duty of benevolence to persons of all kinds with whom we are brought in contact, enemies as well as friends, foreigners as well as fellow-countrymen, because 'God has made of one (blood) all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth' (Acts 17:26; Acts 10:28). The traditional allegorical interpretation, however, is too interesting to be entirely passed over. We give it in the words of Euthymius: 'The man is Adam and his offspring, the descent from Jerusalem to Jericho is the Fall. The thieves are the demons who beset our path, and strip us of the garments of virtue and the fear of God, and wound us spiritually by causing us to sin. Man was made half dead, in that he remained immortal in the soul, but mortal in the body. The Priest is the Law given by Moses, the Levite is the teaching of the prophets, and the good Samaritan is Christ Himself. The inn is the Church which receives every kind of man. The innkeeper is every ruler of the Church, i.e. every bishop and successor of the apostles. And the two pence are the Old and the New Testaments, which minister healing to the sick.'