And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.
And he said, He that showed mercy on him. He does not answer, 'The Samaritan'-that would have sounded heterodox, heretical-but "He that showed mercy on him." It comes to the same thing, no doubt, but the circumlocution is significant.
Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.
Remark: O exquisite, matchless teaching! What new fountains of charity has not this opened up in the human spirit-rivers in the wilderness, streams in the desert! what noble Christian Institutions have not such words founded, all undreamed of until that Divine One came to bless this heartless world of ours with His incomparable love-first in words, and then in deeds which have translated His words into flesh and blood, and poured the life of them through that humanity which He made His own! But was this parable designed merely to magnify the law of love, and show who fulfils it and who not? Is not the mind irresistibly directed to Him who, as our Brother Man, "our Neighbour" did this as never man did it? The priests and Levites, says Trench, had not strengthened the diseased, nor bound up the broken (Ezekiel 34:4), while He bound up the broken-hearted (Isaiah 61:1), and poured into all wounded spirits the balm of sweetest consolation. All the Church-fathers saw, through the thin veil of this noblest of stories, the Story of love, and never wearied of tracing the analogy, though sometimes fancifully enough. 'He hungered'-exclaims Gregory of Nazianzum, in the fourth century, in a passage of singular eloquence, in one of his Sermons-`but He fed thousands; He was weary, but He is the Rest of the weary; He is saluted "Samaritan" and "Demoniac," but He saves him that went down from Jerusalem and fell among thieves,' etc. More of this noble passage will be found at Luke 19:28-44, Remark 2, at the close of that section.