[114] A topic everywhere represented in church windows and cathedral sculpture.
[115] Printed at the end of his Paedagogus; see Taylor, Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages, pp. 253-255, where it is translated.
[116] Although the dogmas of Christianity were formulated by reason, they were cradled in love and hate. Nowadays, in a time when dogmas are apt to be thought useless clogs to the spirit, it is well for the historically-minded to remember the power of emotional devotion which they have inspired in other times.
[117] Gautier, Œuvres d’Adam (1st ed., vol. i. p. 11); Gautier (3rd ed., p. 269) doubts whether this hymn is Adam’s. But for the purpose of illustrating the symbolism of the twelfth-century hymn, the question of authorship is not important.
[118] Ante, Chapter XXVII.
[119] In these closing lines the “salubre sacramentum” is in apposition to “Ille de Samaria”—i.e. the “sacramentum” is the Saviour, who is also typified by the Good Samaritan. In another hymn for Christmas, Adam speaks of the concurrence in one persona of Word, flesh, and spirit, and then uses the phrase “Tantae rei sacramentum” (Gautier, o.c. p. 5). Here the sacramentum designates the visible human person of Christ, which was the life-giving signum or symbol of so great a marvel (tantae rei) as the Incarnation. Adam has Hugo’s teaching in mind, and the full significance of his phrase will appear by taking it in connection with Hugo’s definition of the Sacrament, ante, Chapter XXVIII.
[120] Gautier, o.c. p. 10.
[121] The reference is to Aaron’s rod in Numbers xvii.
[122] The reference is to Gideon’s fleece, Judges vi. 37, which is a type of the Virgin Mary.
[123] Gautier, o.c. 1st ed., i. 155 (Migne 196, col. 1464). In his third edition, Gautier is doubtful of Adam’s authorship of this hymn because of its irregular rhyme.