Volume 2

Jesus' Teaching on True Love of Neighbor 241
spoke to them of marriage in connection with the dispute
He had had with the Pharisees, at Sephoris, upon the
question of divorce. The conjugal bond is indissoluble.
Divorce was granted by Moses in favor of a barbarous,
sinful people only.
The disciples questioned Jesus also upon the reproach
made Him by the Nazarenes, that He had no love for His
neighbor, and in His own city, which ought to be the
nearest and dearest to Him, He would work no cures.
They asked if one's fellow townsmen should not be looked
upon as neighbors. Then Jesus gave them a long instruction
upon the love of the neighbor, proposing to them all
kinds of similitudes and questions, the former of which
He drew from different states of life in the world. He
dwelt long upon them and pointed out place after place
that rose up in the distance, and said in which such or
such an industry was especially pursued. He spoke, too, of
those that were to follow Him. They were, He said, to
leave father and mother, and yet obey the Fourth Commandment.
They must treat their native city as He had
done Nazareth, if so it deserved of them, and still exercise
the love of the neighbor. God, their Heavenly Father, and
He who had been sent by l-lim, had the first claim to their
love. Then He spoke of the love of the neighbor such as
the world understands it, and of the publicans of Galaad
(which city they were then passing), who loved those most
that paid them the highest tax. He pointed afterward to
Dalmanutha, which lay to the left, and said: "Those
tentmakers and carpet-weavers love as their neighbor
those that buy many tents from them, but their own poor
they leave without shelter."
He then borrowed a comparison from the sandalmakers,
which had reference to the vain curiosity of
the people of Nazareth. "I have no need," He said, "of
their homage which they clothe in beautiful colors like the
variegated sandals in the workshop of the sandalmaker,