Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Bruce W. Longenecker - The Story of The Samaritan and Inkeeper
Bruce W. Longenecker - The Story of The Samaritan and Inkeeper
Biblical
Interpretation
brill.nl/bi
Abstract
The aphorism context is everything has been a guiding principle in many studies of
Jesus parabolic sayings. This is true, for instance, of studies attempting to recover a
parables significance in relation to the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, or in relation to
its literary placement and function, or in relation to its polyvalent potential. It is also
true of this study, which examines Jesus narrative of the Samaritanusually referred
to as the parable of the good Samaritan. It suggests that, when the Samaritan story is
placed within a certain contextual configuration, its narrative features align themselves
in ways that have either been conspicuously neglected or consciously avoided in the
history of the storys interpretation. Rather than neglecting or avoiding the significance
of these narrative features, this essay seeks to exploit their interpretative significance in
a fresh manner, entertaining possibilities of meaning beyond the Lukan interpretative
framework. In particular, consideration is given to the relationship between the
Samaritan and the innkeeper as representing an exceptional partnership that testifies
to the reign of God in making each party vulnerable to loss while promoting goodness
towards others.
Keywords
parable, Samaritan, innkeeper, characterisation, empire of God
Mary Ann Tolbert, Perspectives on the Parables (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979),
p. 59. The claim is exaggerated when put in terms of inconsistency.
DOI: 10.1163/156851509X447645
423
424
Since Jesus took none of these narrative options, his rhetorical goals lay
elsewhere. Again, Crossan makes the point effectively:
[W]hen the story is read as one told by the Jewish Jesus to a Jewish audience,
this original historical context demands that the Samaritan be intended and
heard as the socio-religious outcast which he was The whole thrust of the story
demands that one say what cannot be said, what is a contradiction in terms: Good
+ Samaritan [In this way], a world is being challenged and we are faced with
polar reversal [The hearers world is being] turned upside down and radically
questioned in its presuppositions. The metaphorical point is that just so does the
Kingdom of God break abruptly into human consciousness and demand the
425
overturn of prior values, closed options, set judgments, and established conclusions.
In brief, the Samaritan story performs functions far beyond those given
to it by the Lukan frame, to the extent that the literary context in which
the parable currently resides appears to be a secondary feature.
It would not be out of character for the Lukan evangelist (or a preLukan handler) to have dealt with the Samaritan story in ways that
limit its function to highlight a certain moral tenet. Similar applications
are evident elsewhere in the Lukan handling of Jesus narratives,5 and
in other texts from the early Christian movement.6 And the truncation
of meaning suspected in the extant assemblage of the Samaritan story
of Luke 10 is best understood as the consequence of applying Jesus
words far beyond their original context in Galilee and Judaea into contexts of predominately gentile constituents.7 In those predominately
non-Jewish environments into which the Christian movement spread,
5)
The story of the shrewd steward in Luke 16:1-13 demonstrates, for instance, the
manner in which a series of independent interpretations (16:9-13) are appended in
secondary fashion to the story itself (16:1-8), each interpretation serving to apply the
story in one direction or another. In 16:9 the steward is a positive example modelling
generosity; in 16:10-12 he is a negative example modelling the opposite of faithfulness;
in 16:13 an independent saying (cf. Matt 6:24) gives the story the effect of denouncing
the love of money. If the parable was likely to have originally lauded resoluteness in the
face of impending eschatological accountability, it is being used in the Lukan Gospel
primarily to exhort audiences to make proper use of their material resources. The two
are not unrelated, but the interpretative applications are derivative of and secondary to
the broader story that they amplify. Another parable in which the same is suspected is
the story of the widow and the judge in Luke 18:1-8. On this see, Stephen Curkpatrick, A Parable Frame-Up and Its Audacious Reframing, NTS 48 (2003), pp. 22-38.
And more broadly, William R. Herzog, Parables as Subversive Speech (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994).
6)
This is clear from Phil. 2:6-11, a pseudo-narrative with a rich theological and soteriological agenda that is put to the particular service of enhancing the corporate life of
Philippian Christian communities.
7)
The point is sometimes made that Lukes acceptance of many of Jesus reversal
parables as actual examples of good and/or bad ethical action has probably preserved
them for us where otherwise they might well have been lost to us forever (Crossan, In
Parables, p. 55), since the parable stories would otherwise have been rendered unintelligible in the Graeco-Roman world at large.
426
427
11)
The difference between the first and the third is that the first involves the innocent
neglect of the innkeeper while the third involves the wilful exclusion of him.
428
Here Pauls self-portrait as one who toiled instead of receiving compensation for his efforts as a Christian missionary (i.e., 1 Cor 9; cf. Acts
20:33-35) has been wedded with Augustines portrait of the innkeeper.
Augustine makes the same emphasis in his Of the Work of Monks 6
(dated to 400 ce): For it had been said to the innkeeper to whom that
429
Chrysostom does not just make the innkeeper peripheral to the storys
meaning, as in most non-allegorical interpretations; he eliminates the
12)
The same allegorizing weight was placed on the figure of the innkeeper by Origen
(185-254 c.e.) in his Homilies in Luke 34, with the innkeeper representing not Paul
exclusively but the apostles collectively.
430
There is no basis for imagining that the physician was part of the innkeepers establishment. Inns were not known for providing physicians among their staff. They are
absent from Lionel Cassons exhaustive study of inns and restaurants in the ancient
world (chapter 12 of his Travel in the Ancient World [London: George Allen & Unwin,
1974], pp. 197-218).
14)
So, Chrysostom writes (The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 64.3): The saying is a parable, wherefore neither is it right to inquire curiously into all things in parables word
by word, but when we have learnt the object for which it was composed, to reap this,
and not to busy ones self about anything further. The point was forcefully repeated by
Adolf Jlicher, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu, 2 vols. (2nd ed.; Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul
Siebeck], 1899).
15)
John R. Donahue, S.J. The Gospel in Parable (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1988),
p. 133.
16)
In reconstructing the cultural information necessary for interpreting this story,
K. Snodgrass is able to table data on Jewish-Samaritan relations for almost two full
pages, but deals with the issue of inns in three short sentences, with no discussion of
innkeepers themselves; see his Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables
of Jesus (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 2008), pp. 345-47.
431
432
Cattle may not be left in the inns of the gentiles since they are suspected of
bestiality; nor may a woman remain alone with them since they are suspected of
lewdness; nor may a man remain alone with them since they are suspected of
shedding blood.
The view that innkeepers will stoop to immoral levels for personal
satisfaction and gain, at the expense of their clientele, is embedded in
the common criticism that innkeepers water down the wine that they
serve their guests, while saving the best wine for themselves. One irate
customer at an inn in Pompeii put his frustrations into what Lionel
Casson calls quite respectable verse, as follows:
May you soon, swindling innkeeper,
Feel the anger divine,
You who sell people water
And yourself drink pure wine.19
But as with wine, so too with meat. So, for instance, the second-century
physician Galen (129-99 ce) says that he knows of many innkeepers
who have been caught selling human flesh as pork.20 Innkeepers of the
ancient world were not the respectable proprietors of modern day hotel
chains (one hopes); instead, they were distrusted as morally dubious
figures who were thought to take advantage of their clientele in any way
possible in order to advance their own prospects.
It is likely that this general distrust of innkeepers has motivated
Chrysostom to eliminate the presence of the innkeeper from his retelling of the story. For Chrysostom, replacing the immoral innkeeper with
a respectable doctor preserves Jesus story from unnecessary oddity. That
is, the substitution keeps the focus on the singular Samaritan who is
in the gate of the inn (according to one manuscript). The connection between Rahab
and inns is likely explained by the fact that inns could be the place where prostitution
was practiced. In the light of all this, it is possible to postulate a difference between a
or inn on the one hand, as in Luke 10:34, and a or guest room,
as in Luke 2:7, with Mary and Joseph inhabiting the stable of a guest house but not an
inn. The idea was helpfully made to me by Csilla Szechy of Durham University.
19)
Cited by Casson, Travel in the Ancient World, p. 214, with other examples on
p. 215.
20)
Cited by Casson, Travel in the Ancient World, p. 215.
433
not only good but also exercises wisdom by enlisting a doctor with the
work of caring for the half-dead man, rather than someone like a dubious innkeeper.
This negative view of innkeepers has currency in modern parable
studies too. Most notably, Donahue builds his interpretation of the
story explicitly on this view about the ignoble reputation of innkeepers
in the ancient world in order to heighten his positive portrait of the
Samaritan. So he writes:
According to the law of the time, a person with an unpaid debt could be enslaved
until the debt was paid (cf. Matt. 18:23-35). Since the injured man was robbed
and strippeddeprived of all resources[and if his debts were left unpaid] he
could have been at the mercy of the innkeeper, a profession that had a bad
reputation in antiquity for dishonesty and violence.21
434
435
configuration: the innkeeper of 10:35. Except for the readings of allegorists and of atypical interpreters like Donahue, the Samaritan story
could just as well have ended without any mention of the innkeeper.
In fact, most interpretations would have been wholly unaffected if the
story had ended simply with reference to the Samaritans compassion
for the man, as evident in his concrete actions: He went up to him and
bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them. Then he put him
on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. For
most commentators, the omission of the account in 10:35 would be of
little interpretative consequence. The Samaritan would still be depicted
as one willing to compromise his personal agenda in order to help others, unlike the priest and Levite who are thought to pass by on the other
side in order to avoid compromising something of themselves. In fact,
it might even be argued that the omission of the final verse (10:35)
would assist most interpretations of the Samaritan story. To have ended
the story at 10:34, with the Samaritan at the inn caring for the man,
would have left the time-frame for the Samaritans involvement indefinite; he might be imagined as having stayed at the inn to care for the
man (and to protect him from the ravenous innkeeper?) for a period
of a week or two, instead of just a single night.
But the story does not end at 10:34. Instead, in 10:35 the focus of
attention is broadened out to include the innkeeper, whose efforts are
to be imagined even if they fall beyond the articulated storyline.25 Consequently, the first of Tolberts interpretative controls would suggest
that the details of 10:35 expect substantial interpretative consideration.
25)
Crossan misses the point when he, constrained by the interpretative tradition that
goes back to the secondary frame of Luke 10:36, credits the whole of 10:33-35 as being
about the Samaritans reputation: [f ]ar more spaceis devoted to this description
[i.e., of the Samaritan] than to any of the other elements of the story. Why? When the
hearer is confronted with the rhetorical question in 10:36 he might negate the entire
process by simply denying that any Samaritan would so act. So, before the question
can be put, the hearer must see, feel, and hear the goodness of the Samaritan for himself. The function of 10:34-35 and its detailed description is so to involve the hearer in
the activity that the objection is stifled at birth (In Parables, p. 62). In fact, almost half
of the words of 10:33-35 pertain to the Samaritan in league with the innkeeper,
suggesting that whatever merits Crossans point has would need to be rearticulated in
relation to that association.
436
And on this score, Donahue operates along the right lines since, as we
have seen, he places significant weight on the action of 10:35: The final
action of the Samaritan when he brings the injured man to the inn is
more than a narrative epilogue or an added indication of the excess of
charity in a person we have come to admire.26 In this, Tolberts first
interpretative control is rightly being observed.
To his credit, Donahue goes further than most in seeking to account
for the whole story, offering an explanation of the relational dynamics
between the Samaritan and the innkeeper of 10:35. But despite the
promise of his interpretation, it is not clear that Donahue offers the
most satisfactory explanation of 10:35. Several facets of that verse suggest that the innkeeper is not one that the injured man needs to be
protected from, as Donahue postulates; instead, he plays the far more
positive role of the Samaritans willing accomplice, collaborating with
the Samaritan in a mutual effort (initiated by the Samaritan) to restore
the health of the injured man.
To demonstrate the point, more needs first to be said about the
Samaritan himself, not least in relation to the motif of trust that lies
implicit within 10:35, for in many ways this is a story about trust. The
Samaritan simply has to trust that, during his absence, his two denarii
will be put to good use to benefit the ill man, rather than being squandered in some fashion by the innkeeper. We can easily imagine the
innkeeper spending the two denarii for his own personal gain in the
Samaritans absence and then saying to the Samaritan upon his return,
I spent the two denarii caring for the man, but he simply did not
recover. I then paid for his body to be buried, so Ill need to be reimbursed for that now, please. According to the data assembled above,
this is precisely the sort of underhanded scheming expected of innkeepers in antiquity. But the Samaritans actions are not rooted in common
stereotypes about the moral deficiencies of innkeepers. Instead, he acted
on the basis of blind trust in the general goodness of this single man
who operated an inn. Caricatures ingrained within cultural codes can
often spawn distrust, fear or hatredany and all of which can reduce
ones perceptions of the range of options available for action. But in
this situation, the Samaritan did not permit generalized stereotypes to
26)
437
be the basis and context for his own engagement with others. He acted
without such restraints. And consequently, he acted on the basis of an
uncommon trust.
The benefit of interpreting the parable in this way is, crucially, that
it keeps the characterization of the Samaritan stable throughout the
whole of the narrative, in his interactions with both the injured man
and the innkeeper. The Samaritan enters the story in 10:33-34, where
he is shown to act simply on the basis of need, without regard for any
other factor. The very fact that the Samaritan stopped to help a wounded
man in the first place would itself have been remarkable to the first
audiences, who would have considered the Samaritan to be potentially
exposing himself to the dreaded evil eye, often thought to be wielded
by those in situations like the one afflicting the wounded man, whose
health was in peril and who had no resources to fortify his health other
than to steal it from others through suprahuman assistance.27 In the
ancient world (as in many societies today), people whose health had
been compromised were prime suspects of being evil eye practitioners.
Tapping into the powers of suprahuman daimons or deities, one whose
health had been jeopardized through infirmity or misfortune could
attempt to acquire the health of another and secure it as his own, creating a deficit in the health of the targeted victim. None were more suspect of being wielders of the evil eye than strangers whose health had
been compromised, precisely what the suffering man along the roadside
would have been to the Samaritan.28 Cultural codes would have dictated
that the Samaritan should do one of several things to protect himself
from the prospect of being injured by the evil eye, including various
gestures of protection, spitting to keep the injury at bay, or simply
avoiding the half-dead man by keeping his distance. This last strategy
27)
On the evil eye phenomenon in the ancient world (and its relevance to Pauls letter
to the Galatians), see Bruce W. Longenecker, Until Christ is Formed in You: Suprahuman Forces and Moral Character in Galatians, CBQ 61 (1999), pp. 92-108.
28)
Note, there is no indication in the story that the half-dead man was unconscious
(and therefore unable to wield the evil eye). In fact, the Samaritans efforts described in
Luke 10:34a are more easily imagined in relation to one who was conscious rather than
unconscious. And even if he was unconscious, the Samaritan would have known that
at any moment the half-dead man could have regained consciousness, at which point
the dangers of being bewitched by an evil-eye wielder would have been in full play.
438
is precisely what the priest and the Levite are said to do, in complete
conformity with the cultural codes of evil-eye avoidance.29
But the Samaritan did not act out of fear of the evil eye; instead, he
exposed himself to danger (or so the first hearers would have imagined)
simply because he saw need, without other factors constraining his
perception. He acted in a fashion that was out of character to the codes
of his culturetestifying to another code of culture altogether.30 And
in caring for the injured man in need along the roadside, he also acted
without regard to common sense prescriptions in a second way, if he
knew the man to be a Jew (as many think is implied in the parable)
this, for the simple reason that Jews have no [positive] dealings with
Samaritans (John 4:9), and vice versa.31
But Donahue would have us believe that the Samaritan reverts to
culturally expected form in 10:35, unlike Jesus characterization of the
Samaritan in 10:33-34. In 10:33-34 we see Jesus (in effect) lauding a
Samaritan who sheds stereotypes with regard to Jews and/or potential
wielders of the evil eye, but in 10:35 the Samaritan maintains the cultural stereotype with regard to innkeepersor so Donahue would have
us believe. For him, the innkeeper stereotype guides the Samaritans
course in 10:35, since the Samaritan knows (by virtue of a widespread
29)
Consequently, the attempt to analyse the (in)action of the priest and the Levite in
terms of corpse defilement is probably misguided; after all, the half-dead man is not
dead, only wounded and suffering (and likely to have been conscious). Cf. L. Shottroff,
The Parables of Jesus (trans. L.M. Maloney; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006), p. 135.
See also M. Gourges, The Priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan Revisited: A Critical
Note on Luke 10:31-35 (JBL 117 [1998], 709-13), where the corpse-defilement interpretation is seen as unsatisfying. The (in)action of the priest and the Levite is wholly
explicable, however, against the backdrop of the prospect of evil-eye injury.
30)
In this way, there are notable parallels between the Samaritan of this story and the
Galatians described in Gal 4:12-15. When Paul arrived in Galatia, a stranger and one
whose health had been compromised, his condition did not pose a threat to them;
they did not scorn him or spit to protect themselves from the evil eye; instead of
doing him wrong, they welcomed him to such an extent that they would even have
plucked out [their] eyes if they could have (see Longenecker, Until Christ is Formed
in You). Their behaviour much resembles that of the Samaritan of this story.
31)
So Kenneth E. Bailey writes: [A] Jewish audience would naturally assume that the
traveler is a Jew (Through Peasant Eyes [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980], p. 42);
cf. Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, p. 355. On the tense relations between ancient Jews
and Samaritans, see Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, pp. 345-46.
439
The same insight motivated Chrysostoms interpretation, and provided the scaffolding for Augustines allegorisation.
440
441
have been responsible for. For instance, one can imagine the requirement of dealing with the half-dead man at times when he needed to
defecate. Then there would have been the need to remove the sullied
bandages, refresh the dressings on the mans wounds, and wrap them
with clean bandages. These particular duties, and others like them,
remain unmentioned within the story, but are clearly not unimagined.
They are precisely the functions that Chrysostom imagines when he
replaces the innkeeper with the paid physician (as noted above). Whereas
the Samaritan seems to have undertaken those duties during the time
that he resided at the inn (as in 10:34), they are now handed over not
to a paid physician, but to the innkeeper (in 10:35), who evidently
accepts them as his own responsibilities upon the Samaritans departure.33
This is not, then, a despicable character intent on swooping in on
vulnerable prey. Neither is he in the employ of the Samaritan as one
who receives a beyond-expenses payment for carrying out of his responsibilities. Instead, the arrangement between the Samaritan and the innkeeper involves a conjoining of different types of care for the injured
man. The Samaritan expects to supply the financial resources for the
mans care but not the non-financial resources required to restore him
to healththe simple tasks of care. Those responsibilities are to be
transferred to the innkeeper while the Samaritan is away. Accordingly,
the Samaritan and the innkeeper are depicted as entering into a pact to
pool their respective resources towards the single goal of effecting the
good to benefit another.
It is notable that the pact between the two characters of 10:35 will
expose the innkeeper to financial vulnerability that far exceeds the
Samaritans promise to repay you whatever more you spend when I
come back. Although the Samaritan genuinely expects to return and
reimburse the innkeeper for his additional expenses, there is no guarantee that the Samaritan ever will return. He might encounter any
number of set-backs affecting his ability to honour his promise.
For instance, he could become laid low by a long-term illness, or by a
33)
This point is signalled when the phrase (he took care of him)
describes the Samaritan in 10:34 and the phrase (take care of him)
is applied to the innkeeper in 10:35.
442
34)
Cf. Casson (Travel, p. 200): Anyone making his way along major routeshad no
problem [finding accommodation at an inn]: he could choose where to stop, [and] in
places even have a choice of inns. Note also that the audience is not told which way
the Samaritan was travelling. The man was going to Jericho, and so too was the priest,
and probably the Levite too. But the direction of the Samaritans travels is not noted.
The inn need not necessarily be thought of as being at the bottom of the JerusalemJericho road; it could just as easily have been at the top, nearing Bethany. Interestingly,
the next episode in Luke (10:38-41) seems to occur in Bethany.
443
Towards the end of his discussion of the Samaritan story, Donahue considers
whether any other creative readings can be derived in polyvalent fashion, going beyond
the storys extant literary context. So he writes: Though the action of the Samaritan is
at the center of the parable, as polyvalent, it invites us to identify with the other characters (The Gospel in Parable, p. 133). One might imagine that Donahue would include
in his exploration of polyvalence a consideration of the story in relation to the innkeepers point of view. Instead, Donahue explores the storys polyvalence in relation to
the victim in the ditch (133-34). At no point is the innkeeper considered, perhaps
another indication of the way in which, even when polyvalence is to the fore, foremost
parable scholars still demonstrate themselves to be under the influence of the nonpolyvalent literary frame.
444
445
This is the basis on which Jeremias frequently operated. Parables of the kingdom
are not always headed as such in their literary context, as in the case of the narrative of
the sower (Mark 4:3-8 and parallels).
37)
Cf. V. George Shillington, Engaging with the Parables, in Jesus and His Parables,
pp. 1-20 (14-19).
446
38)
With respect, then, I demur from Snodgrass (Stories with Intent, p. 351), when he
writes: Is there any reason to think an original version of this parable would enable
hearers to see a reversal of values and conclude that the kingdom must have such a
reversal? I do not see how.
447
39)
Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevskys Poetics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), p. 117.