Caput XII
Pride Opens the Door to Lust
No one falls fully into lust without first falling through pride, as Adam's shame after his proud disobedience demonstrates.
In this area of lust, however, no one is plunged all the way to full consent unless that person has first fallen in God's eyes through pride. The first man showed this in himself: after he sinned through pride, he was soon ashamed of his genital members.✦1 For because he despised God through pride, he soon took up battle from his now-subjected flesh.
The Prophet's Witness: Hidden Pride, Open Shame
Hosea testifies that Israel's hidden pride answers openly in its face, and that a spirit of fornication arises from the merit of pride.
Hence the prophet: 'The arrogance of Israel will answer,' he says, 'in his face' (Hos.✦2 5:5), that is, by the merit of hidden pride one is permitted to fall into open lust. To show that lust burst forth from the merit of pride, the same prophet says: 'A spirit of fornication is in their midst' (Hos.✦ 5:4).✦3
The Proper Order of Flesh and Spirit
When the spirit of pride is humbled under God, the flesh does not unlawfully rise above the spirit.
For if the spirit of pride is pressed down under God, the flesh is not unlawfully raised above the spirit.
The Secret Fall Before the Visible One
Those who fall into open pleasure after seeking heavenly things had already fallen secretly before God through self-exalting pride.
So anyone who desires heavenly things — if they're later brought low by pleasure — shouldn't then judge themselves defeated when they're openly overcome, because at that point they had already, before the eyes of God, fallen into the abyss of guilt, since by exalting themselves beyond what was fitting, they had secretly swelled with pride.4
Read the original Latin
In qua tamen luxuria neminem usque ad consensum mergit, nisi eum qui prius in oculis Dei superbiendo cadit. Quod in se primus homo ostendit, qui postquam superbiendo peccavit, mox genitalia membra erubuit. Nam quia Deum superbiendo contempsit, mox a subdita carne praelium sumpsit. Unde propheta: Respondebit, inquit, arrogantia Israel in faciem (Ose. V, 5), id est per meritum superbiae latentis in apertam luxuriam cadere permittitur. Qui ut ostenderet quod libido ex merito superbiae proruperit, ait: Spiritus fornicationis in medio eorum (Ibid. , 4). Si enim spiritus superbiae sub Deo premitur, caro super spiritum illicite non elevatur.
Quisquis ergo superna appetit, si postea voluptate prosternitur, non tunc se judicet victum, cum aperte superatur, quia tunc utique ante Dei oculos in culpae voraginem cecidit, cum sese ultra quam deberet efferens latenter intumuit.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Gen.3.7 — Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
- ↩Hos.5.5 — And the pride of Israel will be humbled before his face; Israel and Ephraim will stumble in their iniquity; Judah also has stumbled with them.
- ↩Hos.4.12 — My people consult their wooden idol, and their divining rod declares to them; for a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have played the harlot, forsaking their God.
- ↩Hos.5.4 — Their deeds will not allow them to return to their God, for a spirit of whoredom is within them, and they do not know the LORD.
Notes
- 1 ↩Quod functions here as a relative pronoun referring back to the principle stated in s1 — 'which' or 'a truth that.'
- 2 ↩Scripture citation from Hosea; verse reference incomplete in source — continues in next sentence.
- 3 ↩Verse number completing the Hosea citation begun in s6.
- 4 ↩The two cum-clauses (tokens 13 and 26) are ambiguous between temporal ('when') and causal ('since'). Both are rendered as causal here, since the logic of the passage treats the secret swelling of pride as the reason for the fall into guilt, not merely its temporal frame.
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