Spiritual Love
Spiritual love is wine and perfume. [78] People who anoint themselves with it enjoy it, and while these people are present, others who are around also enjoy it. If the people who are anointed leave them and go away, the others who are not anointed but are only standing around are stuck with their own bad odor.
The Samaritan gave nothing to the wounded person except wine and oil—that is, only ointment. The ointment healed the wound, for “love covers a multitude of sins.”
The analogy in the following lines presents the relation of the Gnostic to the outside world: the fragance of a perfume is enjoyed not only by those who wear it but by others in their company, but when the wearers depart the others are left in their own ill odour (c£ perhaps Ign., Eph. xvii).
Spiritual love is wine [blood] and fragrance [sacrifice]. All those who anoint themselves with it take pleasure in it [these will sacrifice even the good inside of them at the hands of evil in others for this is the will of the Father]. While those who are anointed are present, those nearby also profit (from the fragrance) [they subjectively benefit from your sacrifice when you return good for evil]. If those anointed with ointment [the saints] withdraw from them and leave, then those not anointed, who merely stand nearby, still remain in their bad odor [their sacrifices are fowl and unacceptable to the Father (they are from the ground, their own depraved heart and mind and not according to the Father’s will)]. The Samaritan gave nothing but wine and oil to the wounded man. It is nothing other than the ointment [the sacrifice and offering of love]. It healed the wounds, for "love covers a multitude of sins" [so acts of love and obedience move the Father to forgive us our sins] (1 Pe 4:8). (Philip 86)
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