St. Theophylact On the Good Samaritan

This parable teaches us the goodness of God towards man.  It was our human nature that “was going down from Jerusalem”, that is, was descending from tranquility 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…  And man “fell among thieves”, that is, among demons.  For if a man did not come down from that high place where the spiritual mind (cf. “nous”) rules, he would not fall among demons who strip the man, depriving him of his raiment of virtue, and then inflict the wounds of sin.  They strip us of every good thought and of God’s protection, and when we are thus naked, they lay on the stripes of sin and leave us “half dead”…

The priest and the Levite signify the law and the prophets, who desired to make human nature righteous, but were unable to do so.  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 by”.  For indeed the law was not given for the express purpose of healing the wounds of sin, for Christ, not the law, was to be the healing of Adam’s wound.  Instead, the law was given as a stopgap measure on account of human weakness which could not immediately receive the mystery of Christ…

But our Lord and God, “Who for our sake was made a curse” and called a Samaritan, “journeyed to us”, that is, His journey had as its very purpose and goal our healing.  He came to us and lived together with us and spoke to us.  He at once bound up our wounds.  He “poured on oil and wine”:  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 commune of the divine Blood.  The Lord lifted up our wounded nature upon His own “beast”, 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.

This “inn” is the Church, which receives all, even sinners and publicans. Before He brought him to the inn, he had only bound his wounds.  When the Church was established, becoming the inn which receives all, and was increased by the faith of nearly all peoples, then there were the gifts of the Holy spirit, and the grace of God was spread far and wide for all men.   The “innkeeper” is a type and symbol of every apostle, teacher, and arch-pastor, to whom the Lord gave “two pence”, representing the two Testaments, Old and New, to serve unto man’s complete recovery.

~“The Explanation by Blessed Theophylact”