11 APRIL 1970, Page 30

The tenth commandment

Sir: Not so, Mr Wright (Letters, 4 April). Back to Luke X. The neighbour whom you, a Jew, are to love is the Samaritan (i.e. a Jew of a different sect) who has done you a kindness. It is also the duty of you, a Jewish Doctor of the Law, to 'do likewise', presumably to befriend Samaritans in dis- tress.

Others before me have pointed out that nobody is commanded to love the Priest and the Levite, and that, if Christ had en- visaged a universalist application, he would have made the hero a Roman soldier. The point of the story, as reported, is Jewish solidarity. What the Church has made of it is a different matter: but the 'plain man's' interpretation happens to be in flat contradic- tion with the text.