Note 20 — Chapter XVII · THE JESUS-FIGURE OF M. LOISY

Now, the parable of the Good Samaritan is a plain documentary “patch,” an insertion without context, between the address of Jesus to the disciples after that to the returned Seventy (whose mission M. Loisy had somewhat nervously dismissed as the evangelist’s “figurative frame for the evangelizing of the pagans”20) and the resumption: “Now, as they went on their way....” It is impossible to imagine a more palpable insertion. First the mythic Seventy, the creation of a Gentilizing Christian, make their report on the exact lines of the report of the Twelve; then Jesus addresses them; then he “rejoices in the Holy Spirit.” Then, “turning to the disciples, he said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see....” This last suggests an earlier allocution to the Twelve which has had to be turned into a “private” speech to them to distinguish it from the reply to the Seventy.21 But however that may be, the natural sequel is verse 38, “Now, as they went on their way....” And it is between these points of natural connection that we get the parable episode beginning: “And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tempted him....”