“Who is my neighbor?”
A certain lawyer questions our Savior how to gain eternal life.  He himself is asked what is written in the law.  Having correctly answered the question, he responds, “but who is my neighbor?”  Our Lord then presents the event of the Good Samaritan.

We will speak on this event and present the insight of the Fathers of the Church.

A certain man journeyed down (descendebat) from Jerusalem to Jericho.  Jericho is the first city the Israelites took when they came into the Promised  Land after their 40 years in the desert.  It is just north of the Dead Sea and West of the Jordan River.  The man is said to be going down for Jerusalem is 2400 feet above sea level while Jericho is 750 feet below sea level.   Seventeen miles separates these two towns.   Christ was familiar with this winding and lonely road.  In 1937, in his Life of Christ, Isidore O’Brien O.F., writes of this area as plagued with bandits.  

The man falls among robbers (latrones, also thieves) who beat him and strip him of his garments and go their way, leaving him half dead (semivivo).  Mon. Boylan in his volume, The Sunday Sermons, says the robbers took everything either because the man resisted or to prevent him from reporting the attack.

A certain priest chances by, “going down the same way” (descenderet eadem in via) we are told, who, after he sees him, passes by.  Some say the priest did not help for touching either blood or a heathen would have made him ritually unclean, prohibiting him from fulfilling his priestly duty.  But we read, “the priest was going down the same way” meaning, he is coming from Jerusalem.  Likely the priest had already fulfilled his priestly duties. At any rate, the question “why did he not help?” has no firm answer.

Next a Levite, also a man of the priestly cast, comes.  He too sees the wounded man and passes by... nor are we told his direction of travel as if it were only important to know the direction of the priest.

Finally, a Samaritan approaches the scene (iter faciens ‘making a journey’, as if to indicate a definite purpose).  Now Samaritans were enemies to the Jews. 

Recall that after king Solomon’s death, the 12 tribes break-up and form two smaller kingdoms: the tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the south form the Kingdom of Judah; the other 10 tribes in the north became the Kingdom of Israel.  Around 900 B.C., Amri, king of Israel, builds the city of Samaria atop Mount Someron which becomes the capital of the 10 tribes.  His son, Achab marries Jezabel, of infamous memory, who introduces worship to Baal.  For this and all Israel’s infidelity to true religion, God allows a succession of conquering powers to rule over her

 The Samaritans themselves originate after the King of Assyria sends heathens to occupy Samaria, the square of land between Judah (south) and Galilee (north), during a period when the Isaelites were exiled from their homeland.  These heathens mixed superstition with the Jewish religion to form Saramaritan worship. (4 Kg 17:29-34). They did not worship at Jerusalem but atop Mount Gerizim, a rival temple to Jerusalem.  Around 100 B.C., Manasses, grandson of the high priest Eliasib, offered sacrifice here for which reason the historian, Josephus, calls him the first schismatical high-priest.  This temple became a temple to Jupiter, was later destroyed then rebuilt and dedicated to the true God.  This is the temple the Samaritan woman at the well refers to when she asks Christ at which place was worship to be done at Gerizam or Jerusalem. (Jn 4:20).

Although for his false worship an enemy of Jews the Savior presents the Samaritan as the only wayfarer with compassion for the wounded man. He goes “up to him”; binds the wounds; pours oil and wine; sets him on his own beast; brings him to an inn; and in all manner of way cares for him.  He even remains with him until the next day when, before his departure, he hands the innkeeper two denarii (two day’s wage) telling him, “Take care of him; and whatever more thou spend over this, I, on my way back, will repay thee.”

This is the story of the good Samaritan.  It is debated whether the event actually happened or was presented by way of a parable.  Regardless, it is a word from our Savior meant for our instruction.  But is one a neighbor only when he helps one who is stripped and beaten by thugs?  No, and a gloss on the Fathers of the Church give us a deeper insight.

The man who “goes down from” Jerusalem to Jericho is Adam, and all his posterity (you and I).  By his sin of disobedience, Adam falls from God’s friendship, taking all mankind with him.  Jerusalem is the holy city, the City of Peace; Jericho means moon, an image of wavering, unstable dispositions, and so it signifies a City of Discord or Sin.

The robbers who strip him of his clothes and beat him until he is half dead are the devil and his angels.  They rob Adam of his supernatural gifts and wound him in his natural faculties so that all mankind enters this world wounded, without Faith, Hope, Charity; and bruised with a darkened intellect and weakened will... in short, we can say every man is born into this world semivivo.

The priest and Levite come who represent the Old Law, the covenant established with Moses, which can do nothing to heal the soul of mankind.   And so, being able only to look on but not give assistance, they pass on.

The Samaritan, in his purposeful (iter faciens) journey, goes up to the man and takes compassion on him.  This good man is Christ for ‘samaritan’ means guardian, a role the Savior has come to fulfill.  The Samaritan binds wounds and pours wine and oil, meaning he doctors the man to health.  The wine recalls the blood of Christ which satisfies  for our sin; the oil stands for divine mercy which Christ showers upon all mankind.   Next, the Samaritan sets the man “on his own beast” which is to say, Christ, by suffering in His own flesh, bore the weight of our sins.  The bruised man is brought to the inn which stands for the Catholic Church; the innkeeper is St. Peter and his successors, bishops, and priests also, who, in their proper respects, are given the charge, “take care of him.”  For his service to the wounded man, the innkeeper will be repaid by the good Samaritan who will return, “I, on my way back, will repay thee.”

Ending the story, Christ asks the lawyer, “Which of these, in thy opinion, proved himself neighbor to him who fell among the robbers?”  He responds, “He who took pity on him.”  “Vade, et tu fac similiter,”orders our Lord.  So, in this way, does Christ teach that He is our compassionate neighbor and how we become worthy of eternal life.  So, take pity on the wounded; and who is not wounded?  If every man is wounded in his soul, every man is a neighbor to each other.  Bind those wounds; pour mercy; and bring to the inn (which is the Church)... on the beast of prayer, sacrifice, and good example.  Only at this inn will we find our health.  “Outside this inn,” says St. John Chrysostom, “is all that is evil and destructive; within is contained all peace and health.”