Categories: bible, christian-teaching
Date: 16 May 2012 00:33:01
I recently read the Parable of the Good Samaritan in the Gospel of Luke I have with commentary by Blessed Theophylact, an Archbishop and Teacher who lived from 1055–1107. Blessed Theophylact's complete -- and in my view rather wonderful -- explanation of this parable can be read here, but I was particularly intrigued and informed by the additional spiritual meaning he applied to the Parable after the teaching of our duties and love towards our neighbour, a meaning many Church Fathers and theologians through the ages have brought out not only in Christ's Life and His Teachings, but also for events in the Old Testament.
Here are a few of the spiritual insights from Blessed Theophylact on the Parable of the Good Samaritan; it seems hard to only pluck out a few, as his explanation is so detailed and wonderful, but here they are:
But this parable also teaches us the goodness of God towards man. It was our human nature that was going down from Jerusalem, that is, was descending from tranquillity and peace, for Jerusalem means vision of peace. Where was man descending? To Jericho, a place sunk down low and suffocating with heat, that is, to a life of passions.[The demons which are symbolised by the thieves] leave human nature half dead, that is, with a mortal body and an immortal soul. And human nature was left only half dead in the further sense that man did not lie completely in despair, but hoped to find salvation in Christ.
The priest and the Levite signify the law and the prophets, who desired to make human nature righteous, but were unable to do so. For it is not possible, says Paul, that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin. [Heb. 10:4] The law and the prophets took pity on man and sought to heal him. But they were defeated by the severity of the wounds of sin, and they passed into the past.
But our Lord and God, Who for our sake was made a curse [Gal. 3:13], and was called a Samaritan [Jn. 8:48], journeyed to us, that is, His journey had as its very purpose and goal our healing. He did not just catch a glimpse of us as He happened to pass by: He actually came to us and lived together with us and spoke to us. Therefore He at once bound up our wounds. He no longer permitted wickedness to operate in us freely and at will, but He bound and restrained our sinfulness and poured on oil and wine. Oil is the word of teaching which exhorts us to virtue by the promise of good things; wine is the word of teaching leading us towards virtue by the fear of punishment.
We can compare Christ's divinity to wine, which no one could tolerate if it were poured onto a wound, unless it were tempered with oil, that is, accompanied by His humanity ... And at every baptism those who are baptized are delivered from wounds of the soul when they are chrismated with the oil of myrrh and then immediately commune of the divine Blood.
The Lord lifted up our wounded nature upon His own beast of burden, namely, upon His own Body. For He made us members of Himself and communicants of His own Body; and when we were lying down, wounded, He raised us up to His own dignity, making us one Body with Himself.
The inn is the Church, which receives all. But the law did not receive all. For the law says, the Ammanite and the Moabite shall not enter into the Church of God [Dt. 23:3] But now, from every tribe and people, God accepts those who fear Him and who desire to believe and to become a member of Christ's Body, the Church. God receives all, even sinners and publicans