Sunday Lectionary: The Hippo Gospel
I thought I’d write a brief entry on today’s Gospel, the parable of The Good Samaritan. The interpretation I’m going to give may be one you’ve never heard before. It comes from St. Augustine, bishop of fifth century North Africa in his work “Questions on the Gospels”.
I had never heard of this interpretation of the parable until I started studying the Early Church Fathers where I found this explanation also offered by others such as Ireneus and Origen.
I’ll talk about the Early Church Fathers specifically in another post, but for now, let’s look at one of the ways St. Augustine explained this parable:
On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
He answered: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’“