Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 2.djvu/67

CHAP XXVII chiefs were led away to idolatry in Nineveh, and Gentiles were placed in her. The Jews abhorred their fellowship, making them a byword of malediction. So when reviling the Lord, they called Him a Samaritan. The Lord was the true Samaritan, being called guardian (custos) since the human race is guarded by Him. He went down this way when from heaven He came into this world. He saw the wounded traveller, inasmuch as He saw man held in misery and sin. He was moved with compassion for him, since for man He undergoes all pains. Approaching, He bound his wounds when, proclaiming eternal life, He taught man to cease from sin. He bound his wounds together with the two parts of the bandage when He quelled sins through two fears—the servile fear which forbids through penalties, and the filial fear which exhorts the holy to good works. He drew tight the lower part of the bandage when He struck men's hearts with fear of hell. Their worm, He said, does not die, and their fire is not quenched. He drew tight the upper part when He taught the fear which belongs to the study of good. 'The children of the kingdom,' said He, 'shall be cast into outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.' He poured in wine and oil when He taught repentance and pardon. He poured in wine when He said, 'Repent ye'; He added oil when He said, 'for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' He set him upon His beast when He bore our sins in His body on the Cross. He led him to the inn when He joined him to the supernal Church. The inn, in which living beings are assembled at night, is the present Church, where the just are harboured amid the darkness of this life until the Day of Eternity blows and the shadows of mortality give way.

"The next day He tendered the two pence. The first day was of death, the next of life. The day of death began with Adam, when all die. The day of life took its beginning from Christ, in whom all shall be made alive. Before Christ's resurrection all men were travelling to death; since His resurrection all the faithful have been rising to life. He tendered the two pence the next day when after His resurrection He taught that the two Testaments were fulfilled by the two precepts of love. He gave the pence to the innkeeper when He committed the doctrine of the law of life to the Order of Doctors. He directed him to tend the sick man when He commanded that the human race should be saved from sin. The stench drove the sick man from the inn, because this world's tribulation drives the righteous to seek the things celestial. Two pence are given to the innkeeper when the Doctors are raised on high by Scriptural knowledge and temporal honour. If they should require more, He repays them on His return; for if they exemplify good preaching with good works, when the true Samaritan returns to judgment and leads him, aforetime wounded but now healed,