page_title: Parable of the Good Samaritan
section_title: Allegorical reading
hierarchical_section_title: Parable of the Good Samaritan / Interpretation / Allegorical reading
context_page_description: The parable of the Good Samaritan is a parable told by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. It is about a traveller who is stripped of clothing, beaten, and left half dead alongside the road. First a priest and then a Levite comes by, but both avoid the man. Finally, a Samaritan happens upon the traveller. Samaritans and Jews despised each other, but the Samaritan helps the injured man. Jesus is described as telling the parable in response to the question from a lawyer, "And who is my neighbour?". In response, Jesus tells the parable, the conclusion of which is that the neighbour figure in the parable is the man who shows mercy to the injured man—that is, the Samaritan.
  Some Christians, such as Augustine, have interpreted the parable allegorically, with the Samaritan representing Jesus Christ, who saves the sinful soul. Others, however, discount this allegory as unrelated to the parable's original meaning and see the parable as exemplifying the ethics of Jesus.
  The parable has inspired painting, sculpture, satire, poetry, photography, and film.
context_section_description: Origen described the allegory as follows:
  The man who was going down is Adam. Jerusalem is paradise, and Jericho is the world. The robbers are hostile powers. The priest is the Law, the Levite is the prophets, and the Samaritan is Christ. The wounds are disobedience, the beast is the Lord's body, the [inn], which accepts all who wish to enter, is the Church. ... The manager of the [inn] is the head of the Church, to whom its care has been entrusted. And the fact that the Samaritan promises he will return represents the Savior's second coming.
  John Welch further states:
  This allegorical reading was taught not only by ancient followers of Jesus, but it was virtually universal throughout early Christianity, being advocated by Irenaeus, Clement, and Origen, and in the fourth and fifth centuries by Chrysostom in Constantinople, Ambrose in Milan, and Augustine in North Africa. This interpretation is found most completely in two other medieval stained-glass windows, in the French cathedrals at Bourges and Sens."
  The allegorical interpretation is also traditional in the Orthodox Church. John Newton refers to the allegorical interpretation in his hymn "How Kind the Good Samaritan", which begins:
  How kind the good Samaritan
  
  To him who fell among the thieves!
  
  Thus Jesus pities fallen man,
  
  And heals the wounds the soul receives.
  Robert Funk also suggests that Jesus' Jewish listeners were to identify with the robbed and wounded man. In his view, the help received from a hated Samaritan is like the kingdom of God received as grace from an unexpected source.
caption: In this folio from the 6th-century Rossano Gospels, the cross-bearing halo around the Good Samaritan's head indicates an allegorical interpretation. The first scene includes an angel.
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