Chapter VI.

The Novatians, by excluding such from the banquet of Christ, imitate not indeed the good Samaritan, but the proud lawyer, the priest, and the Levite who are blamed in the Gospel, and are indeed worse than these.

27. Do you then, O Novatians, shut out these? For what is it when you refuse the hope of forgiveness but to shut out? But the Samaritan did not pass by the man who had been left half dead by the robbers; he dressed his wounds with oil and wine, first pouring in oil in order to comfort them; he set the wounded man on his own beast, on which he bore all his sins; nor did the Shepherd despise His wandering sheep.

28. But you say: “Touch me not.” You who wish to justify yourselves say, “He is not our neighbour,” being more proud than that lawyer who wished to tempt Christ, for he said “Who is my neighbour?” He asked, you deny, going on like that priest, like that Levite passing by him whom you ought to have taken and tended, and not receiving them into the inn for whom Christ paid the two pence, whose neighbour Christ bids you to become that you might show mercy to him. For he is our neighbour whom not only a similar condition has joined, but whom mercy has bound to us. You make yourself strange to him through pride, in vain puffing up yourself in your carnal mind, and not holding the Head.38    Col. ii. 18. For if you held the Head you would consider that you must not forsake him for whom Christ died. If you held the Head you would consider that the whole body, by joining together rather than by separating, grows unto the increase of God39    Col. ii. 19. by the bond of charity and the rescue of a sinner.

29. When, then, you take away all the fruits of repentance, what do you say but this: Let no one who is wounded enter our inn, let no one be healed in our Church? With us the sick are not cared for, we are whole, we have no need of a physician, for He Himself says: “They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.”

CAPUT VI.

Novatianos dum peccatores a Christi convivio excludunt, non pii Samaritani, sed superbi legisperiti nec non sacerdotis atque levitae, qui reprehenduntur in Evangelio, imitatores esse, immo iisdem etiam inclementiores.

27. [Alias cap. V.] Hos ergo, Novatiani, excluditis? Quid est enim aliud excludere, nisi spem veniae denegare? 0474D Sed neque semivivum illum derelictum a latronibus Samaritanus praeteriit: et vulnera ejus oleo vinoque curavit, prius infundens oleum quo foveret: supra jumentum 398 suum imposuit vulneratum, in quo ejus peccata vexit omnia (Luc. X, 0475A 33, 34); nec ovem pastor despexit errantem (Luc. XV, 4).

28. Vos autem dicitis: Noli me tangere. Vos dicitis volentes justificare vos ipsos: Non est proximus noster, superbiores quam legisperitus ille qui Christum tentare cupiebat; ille enim dixit: Quis est meus proximus (Luc. X, 29)? Ille interrogat, vos negatis; sicut sacerdos ille descendentes, et sicut levita praeterientes, quem curandum suscipere debuistis, nec recipientes hospitio, pro quo Christus du onumeravit aera, cujus te proximum fieri Christus jubet, ut facias in eum misericordiam. Ipse enim est proximus, quem non solum conformis natura conjunxerit, sed etiam misericordia copulaverit. Ab eo te alienum superbia facis, extollens te frustra inflatus mente carnis tuae, et non tenens caput. Si 0475B enim caput teneres, adverteres non tibi eum deserendum, pro quo Christus mortuus est. Si caput teneres, adverteres corpus omne compaginando potius quam solvendo, in incrementum Dei per copulam charitatis, et redemptionem crescere peccatoris.

29. Cum igitur fructum omnem aufertis poenitentiae, quid aliud dicitis, nisi hoc: Nemo de vulneratis nostrum ingrediatur hospitium: nemo sanetur in nostra Ecclesia? Apud nos non curantur aegroti: sani sumus, medicum non habemus necessarium; quia ipse ait: Non opus est sanis medicus, sed his qui male habent (Matth. IX, 12).