Good Samaritan

The Gospel of Luc

Context

Initially, the doctor of the Law tries to put Jesus to the test while asking him: “Main, that do I have to make to have in heritage the eternal life? ” This question Jesus answers by another question: “In the Law, that is there of writing? How do you read? ” The doctor of the Law answers: “You will love the Lord your God of all your heart, of all your heart, all your force and all your spirit; and your next like yourself”. This sentence takes again two verses of the Pentateuque: “You will love the Lord, your God, of all your heart, all your heart and of all your force” (Deutéronome 6:5) and “You will like your next as yourself” ()
“You answered well, tells him Jesus; do that and you will live. The doctor of the Law then will continue by the question about the direction of the “nearest” word, which the parabola answers.

The parabola

The parabola of the Good Samaritan puts in scene a traveller Samaritan, representative of a population which the Jews hold for irreligious person (see low: the testimony of the Gospels ). However this Samaritan is capable of compassion towards a seriously wounded unknown whereas contrary, a priest and a Lévi passed you before him without stopping.

The text evangelic

But doctor of the Law, wanting to justify itself, known as in Jesus: " And which is my next? " Jesus began again: " A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and it fell in the middle of brigands who, after having stripped it and having coiled blows, from went away, leaving it to dead half. A priest had suddenly gone down by this way; he saw it and passed in addition to. Pareillement a Levite, occurring in this place, saw it and passed in addition to. But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, arrived close to him, saw it and was taken of pity. It approached, bandaged its wounds, pouring oil and wine there, then charged it on its own mounting, led it to hotel trade and took care of him. The following day, it drew two sums of money and gave them to hotel, while saying: " Take care of him, and what you will have spent moreover, I will refund it to you, me, with my retour." Which from these three, in your opinion, showed the next one of the man fallen to the hands from the brigands? " He says: " That one which exerted the mercy towards lui." And Jesus says to him: " Goes, and also, make you of the same ".

The origin of the parabola

The “gold rule”

The question which the doctor of the Law puts, in this episode of the New Testament, relates to the direction of the “nearest” word (or “close” according to the translation). This term appears in a passage of Lévitique, 19:17 - 18: “You will not have in your heart of hatred for your brother. You owe to réprimander your compatriot and thus you will not have the load of a sin. You will not be avenged and you will not keep resentment towards the children of your people. ” Here the precept intervenes: “You will like your next like yourself”, quoted in the Gospel right before the parabola.

The Jewish tradition attaches a fundamental importance to this regulation, usually called “Règle of gold”. Hillel, at the 1st century, makes of it the source of the principle of reciprocity, which summarizes all the Torah, if it is supplemented by the study (Talmud of Babylon, Shabbath , 31 a).

Rabbi Akiba comments on, at the 2nd century, in connection with this “gold law”: “basic principle of the Torah” and “the most important law”, during the discussion which opposes it to Ben Azzaï, and compares the central site of this precept - in the middle of Lévitique, itself in the middle of the five Books of the Torah - with the site of the Tabernacle in the middle of the procession of the Hebrew (Talmud of Jerusalem, Nedarim 9:4). One notes there that at the 2nd century separation between Jews and Christians is not carried out, as shows it the reciprocal permeability of the ethical principles and the comments.

The “next one” according to Lévitique

The significance of close” or “nearest” word the “is not clarified in the command of Lévitique, 19:18. The term used comes from the רעה root. It means near , friendly or the other , the interlocutor . One finds it in particular in Genesis 11:3 (“they said one to the other ”) and 11:7 (“so that they do not hear the language one of the other ”), Exode 20:16 and 20:17 (9th and 10th Commandements), Judges 6:29 (“they said the ones to the others ”) or in Proverbes 25:17 (“the house of nearest tone /friendly tone ”).

Samaritans

Relations between the Jews and the Samaritans

The people of the Samaritains evoked in the Second book of the Kings said themselves descending from the Hebrew and in particular from Jacob, as Flavius Josèphe in its judaïques Antiquités underlines it . Their religion is based on only the Pentateuque and they refuse the religious centrality of Jerusalem. With the return of their Captivity in Babylon, the Juifs refused to admit them among them. Since then, the two communities avoid any contact.

According to Flavius Josèphe, this reciprocal hostility would have been envenimée following a Profanation Temple of Jerusalem, Samaritans there having thrown human bones under the gantries. Aggravating circumstance taking into consideration Judaism, the fact of handling human bones, and thus of touching a corpse, is prohibited. It is following these events that the Samaritans would not have had access to the holy Lieu any more and that, for their part, the Jews would prefer not to venture in Samarie. However, the Critique history gives an account differently of this separation: the Samaritans refuse the centralism of the worship in a single Temple in Jerusalem founded by Josias.

The testimony of the Gospels

The Gospels evoke these difficult relations.

Thus, the text of Luc affirms that, for the Samaritain S, to offer hospitality to a Jew the violation of a Interdit would represent, so much so that they refuse to accommodate the travellers on the way towards the Temple of Jerusalem: “sent messengers in front of him. Being started, they entered a village Samaritan for all to prepare to him. But it was not accepted, because it travelled towards Jerusalem”. In the same way, at the time of the episode of the Well of Jacob, Sychar, when Jesus asks him for water, Samaritaine answers: “How! you, which are Jewish, you me requests to drink, with me which am a woman samaritaine? ”. And Jean to add: “The Jews indeed do not have relations with the Samaritans. ” By tradition, but also because of the profanation of the Temple, the Jews hold the Samaritans for the pagan ones, even of the henchmen of Satan, and it is for this reason that they express their opposition to Jesus: “The Jews answered him: " Aren't we right to say that you are a Samaritan and that you have a demon? " ”.

Characters of the parabola

The Samaritan

The priest and the Levite

According to the account evangelic, the man attacked by the brigands is seriously wounded, “with dead half”. In this case, the two Jews which see it at the edge of the road cannot, in theory, touch it.

According to the rules of the Torah, the Prohibited on the fact of touching deaths relates to the whole of the community, while admitting some exceptions due to bonds of close relationship. The Livre of the Numbers defines the seven days period of impurity which follow any contact with a death. The large priest, as for him, can in no circumstance transgress this interdict. Generally, the rule applies in a more rigorous way to the servants of the Temple, priests and Levites. The latter, serving as the priests, obey comparable laws of purity.

However the two travellers mentioned in the parabola are a priest (a Cohen ) and a Lévite. As Dr. Wilbert Kreiss raises it, perhaps this priest and this Levite go to Jerusalem, for officer with the Temple. Under these conditions, the simple fact of touching blood, and with stronger reason a corpse, " disqualifierait" , according to the term of Wilbert Kreiss, in the exercise of their service.

Interpretations

Topics of the Christian iconography

The traditional image

The Good Samaritan is a traditional figure of religious painting, at the same time in the worlds orthodoxe and roman catholic. He was in particular represented by Rembrandt in 1632 - 1633, Luca Giordano, George Frederic Watts (1817-1904), Gustave Doré, Gustave Moreau, Van Gogh in 1890, Maurice Denis in 1898, Aime-Nicolas Morot (1850-1913), or the sculptor François Sicard (1862-1934), whose Bon Samaritan is with Paris, with the Jardin of Tileries… In all these works, the character appears in itself, without theological implications others that the parabola.

The fall of Adam

With the the Middle Ages, however, the image of the Good Samaritan in the Stained glasses of the Cathedral S, with Chartres, Bourges or Direction, seems indissociable topic of the Chute of Adam: placed symmetrically compared to Adam, the Good Samaritan symbolizes the redemption, even Christ himself. This paradoxical bond owes its diffusion with various theologists among whom Irenee, Clément of Alexandria and Origène, but also Augustin d' Hippone, Ambroise of Milan or Jean Chrysostome.

Detailed indications come from Origène, which, in its Commentaires on the Gospel of Luc, saw a Allégorie in the parabola of the Good Samaritan. According to this interpretation, the attacked man represents Adam after the fall, Jerusalem is the paradise, Jericho is the world; the brigands are the hostile forces, and the wounds, the sins; priest represents Law, Levite means Prophets, inn which accommodates casualty is Church, and when the Good Samaritan, i.e. Christ redeemer, declares that it will return, it promises by there her return to earth.

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