Good Samaritan Sunday

In the Extraordinary Rite, today would comprise "Good Samaritan Sunday" [In the Ordinary Rite, this reading is reserved for the Sunday after the Transfiguration (A Week Apart)]:

A Reading from the Gospel of Luke,

23 And turning to his disciples, he said: *Blessed are the eyes that see the things which you see.

24 For I say to you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see the things that you see, and have not seen them; and to hear the things that you hear, and have not heard them.

25 *And behold a certain lawyer stood up, tempting him, and saying: Master, what must I do to possess eternal life?

26 But he said to him: What is written in the law? how readest thou?

27 He answering, said: *Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbour as thyself.

28 And he said to him: Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.

29 But he willing to justify himself, said to Jesus: And who is my neighbour?

30 And Jesus answering, said: A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who also stripped him, and having wounded him, went away leaving him half dead.

31 And it happened that a certain priest went down the same way, and seeing him, passed by.

32 In like manner, also, a Levite, when he was near the place and saw him, passed by.

33 But a certain Samaritan being on his journey, came near him: and seeing him, was moved with compassion;

34 And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine: and setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

35 And the next day he took out twopence, and gave them to the host, and said: Take care of him; and whatsoever thou shalt spend over and above, I at my return will repay thee.

36 Which of these three, in thy opinion, was neighbour to him that fell among the robbers?

37 But he said: He that shewed mercy to him. And Jesus said to him: Go, and do thou in like manner.

I have heard many traditionalist Catholics push against the modern rendering of this parable as purely moralistic.  Today, my priest who belongs to a traditionalist fraternity did so. As he said during the homily, many since the Reformation (and by extension, the modern church) have characterized the Good Samaritan is primarily about how one ought to treat his neighbor.  Our laws--- called "Good Samaritan laws"--- do reflect this reading up unto the present day.  The traditionally minded will point out that charity cannot be reduced to philanthropy or external acts devoid of an overriding concern for the soul over and above the body. 

But is there more going on here?  My priest had argued that the moral reading had displaced the more venerable allegorical reading as if the former had no place in Sacred Tradition.

In the Haydock commentary, the allegorical reading of Patristic sources can be summarized accordingly: "The man that fell among robbers, represents Adam and his posterity; Jerusalem, the state of peace and innocence, which man leaves by going down to Jericho, which means the moon (etymologically), the state of trouble and sin: the robbers represent the devil, who stripped him of his supernatural gifts, and wounded him in his natural faculties: the priest and Levite represent the old law: the Samaritan, Christ; and the beast, his humanity. The inn means the Church; wine, the blood of Christ; oil, his mercy; whilst the host signifies St. Peter and his successors, the bishops and priests of the Church. (Origen, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and others)".

That is all true.  As my priest emphasized, the Church Fathers did have an allegorical reading of this parable.  That is not in dispute.  And it indeed offers precisely what my priest today, for instance, cited in his concern with philanthropy's misreading of the "Good Samaritan."  Is not the highest act of love to show neighbor the path to God?

So what then confused me?  I agree with everything that was just written above.

Something inside of me waivered.  There was something off about the sermon's assertion that the moral and allegorical were competing interpretations.  The "Either/Or" framing that even influenced my priest's rhetorical approach to the problem struck me as not so traditional.  And it reminds me of a tendency in general among what we call "Traditionalism": that the modernist assault on the fullness of the faith has opened up a new temptation to invoke an equal and opposite reaction to modernist assertions.  This is unfortunate because it causes further obscurities and alienates the faithful from the fullness of the faith (albeit for completing different reasons!).

Case in point: Haydock in another part of his commentary on the same parable notes "Our Saviour here shews the Jewish priests how preposterous was their behaviour, who, though scrupulously exact in performing all external acts of religion, entirely neglected piety, mercy, and other more essential duties (emphasis mine out of curiosity). The Jews despised the Samaritans as wicked and irreligious men; but our Saviour here tells them that they were less exact in works of charity towards their neighbours than the very Samaritans. (Tirinus)".

What then is the traditional reading?

Traditional sources--- notably the Church Fathers--- taught that true exegesis builds up from the historical and moral sense.  It is true that the allegorical sense is more "noble" (in the spiritual truths), but that does not mean that the allegorical can be stripped out from the moral any more than the soul can be stripped out of the body indefinitely.  The senses of Scripture are woven together.

As Aquinas writes, "That signification whereby things signified by words have themselves also a signification is called the spiritual sense, which is based on the literal, and presupposes it."  More flatly stated, Aquinas also mentions how "All the senses are founded on one, namely the literal, from which alone can any argument be drawn" (Summa Theologiae I, q.1, a.10).  And if that is true of the literal in general, then it can be logically inferred that the moral is the foundation of the allegorical.