But while the spurious compassion is thus vile and worthless, the true is beyond expression beautiful and good. It breaks forth in power, and sweeps down whatever obstacles may be thrown in its way. In this parable the Lord expressly points to the fountain of compassion opened before he invites us to follow the stream of beneficence in its course.
The nationality of the compassionate traveller is an important feature of the parable; he was a Samaritan. The Jews and Samaritans were locally nearest neighbours, but morally most unneighbourly. An enmity of peculiar strength and persistency kept the communities asunder from age to age. The alienation, originating in a difference of race, was kept alive by rivalry in religion. The Samaritans endeavoured to cover the defects of their pedigree by a zealous profession of orthodox forms in divine worship. The temple which they presumed to erect on Gerizzim as a rival to that of Jerusalem was naturally more odious to the Jews than others that were more distant in space, and more widely diverse in profession. Distinct traces of the keen reciprocal enmity that raged between the Jews and the Samaritans crop out here and there incidentally in the evangelical history, as in chapter ix. 54.
Most certainly the Lord does not here intend to intimate that all the priests and Levites were cruel, and all Samaritans tender-hearted: to apply them so would be to wrest his words. This teacher grasps his instrument by the extremity, first one extremity and then the other, that his lesson may reach further than if he had grasped it by the middle. The honourable office, and even the generally high character, of priest and Levite will not cover the sin of selfishly neglecting the sufferings of a fellow-creature: self-sacrificing love is approved by God and useful to men as well in a Samaritan as in a Jew. There is no respect of persons with God. It is quite certain that there were benevolent priests and unkind Samaritans; and it is also certain that the Lord would not overlook kindness in the one, nor sanction cruelty in the other. The lesson was addressed to a Jew; and therefore the lesson is so constructed as to smite at one blow the two poles on which a vain Jewish life in that day turned—“they trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others.” That high thing, the scribe’s self-righteous trust in his birth-right, the Lord will by the parable bring low; and this low thing, the mean position of a Samaritan in the estimate of the scribe, he will at the same moment exalt. He hath done all things well.[63]
The Samaritan had compassion on the wounded man; and the emotion is known to be genuine by the fruits which it immediately bears: he bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine. These methods doubtless represent the opinions and practice of the time and place as to the treatment of wounds. They constituted the expression of the Samaritan’s painstaking compassion; and for our present purpose no further notice of them is needful.[64]
The inn to which the patient was conducted must have been more than a khan built on the way-side, and left empty, a free shelter to each party of travellers who chose to occupy it for a night. It must have been something more nearly allied to our modern system; for there was a resident manager, who kept in store such provisions as travellers needed, and supplied them to customers for money.
The Samaritan remained all night with his patient, and then intrusted the case to the care of the inn-keeper, paying a sum to account, and pledging his credit for the balance, if the expense should ultimately exceed the amount of his deposit. Two denaria (pence) were at the time and in the circumstances of value sufficient to meet the probable outlay.
Now comes the searching question, “Which of these three thinkest thou was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?” The scribe, shut up to one answer, gives it rightly, beginning perhaps to be dimly conscious of its bearing upon himself,—“He that showed mercy on him.” Here, as has been already noted, the tables are turned upon the questioner. The point on which attention is fixed is not, Who of all mankind have a right to receive kindness? but, Are you willing to show kindness, as far as you have opportunity, to every human being who is in need? The scribe desired to select a few who might rank as his neighbours, hoping that by limiting their number he might show kindness to each, without any substantial sacrifice of his own ease. The Lord shows him that love is like light: wherever it truly burns it shines forth in all directions, and falls on every object that lies in its way. Love that desires to limit its own exercise is not love. Love that is happier if it meet only one who needs help than if it met ten, and happiest if it meet none at all, is not love. One of love’s essential laws is expressed in those words of the Lord, that the apostles fondly remembered after he had ascended, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
“Then said Jesus, Go and do thou likewise.” Through the self-sufficient Jewish theologian the command is addressed to us. The direct form of the injunction intimates, what might be gathered from the nature of the case, that this parable is more strictly an example than a symbol. It does not convey spiritual lessons under the veil of material imagery: it rather describes a case of practical beneficence, and then plainly demands that we should imitate it. However various the required reduplications may be in their form, they are the same in kind with the sample which is here exhibited.
Besides this more obvious and literal application, almost all the expositors find in the parable an allegorical representation of the world’s lost state and Christ’s redeeming work. In this scheme the wounded man represents our race ruined by sin; the robbers, the various classes of our spiritual enemies; the priest and Levite, the various legal and ineffectual methods by which human wisdom endeavours to cure sin; and the Samaritan shadows forth the Redeemer in his advent and his office. I mention this scheme in order to intimate that I cannot adopt it. From the nature of the things, there must be some likeness to our Redeemer’s mission, wherever a loving heart pities a fallen brother, and a strong hand is stretched out to help him; but beyond this general analogy I see nothing. I can derive no benefit from even the most cautious and sober prosecution of the details. I find in it a reproving and guiding example of a true and effective compassion; but I find nothing more. Nor should we think the lesson unworthy of its place, although it does not directly reveal the redemption of Christ; He who loved us, and whose love to us is the fountain and pattern of all our benevolent love to each other, counted it a suitable exercise of his prophetic office to teach his disciples their relative duties in life. The lesson of this parable is parallel with that other lesson, “Love one another, as I have loved you.”[65]
Some who experience a genuine love are so poor that when they meet a sufferer they cannot supply his wants. In such a case the Lord acknowledges the will, and knows why the deed does not follow. In the example of the widow’s mite he has left it on record that he does not despise the gift because of its smallness. Nay, further, he approves and rewards the emotion when it is true, although the means of material help be altogether wanting: “I was sick and in prison, and ye came unto me.”[66]