Caput XXIII
The Unspeakable Flood of Lust
Odo opens with a vehement denunciation of lust as an inexpressible vice that silences its own victims, despises the witness of the saints and even the Virgin's Son, profanes sacred spaces, and steals away the heart so that no fear of God remains before the sinner's eyes.
But when it comes to lust — that instigator of the very same gluttony — who could possibly find words strong enough to speak about it? Those who are maddened by its flames are certainly not the ones to spit it out. These men pay no heed to the voices of the patriarchs, the prophets, or the apostles — not even to all the saints who have spoken about the religious life from the very beginning of the world. Indeed, they go so far as to despise even the Virgin's own Son — they commit fornication in His very courts while He looks on, and in those very lodgings that were built by the devotion of the faithful for the express purpose of preserving chastity in the enclosed places of the whole community. So overflowing is the flood of their lust that there is no place left for Mary where she might lay the child Jesus.✦ And it is no surprise, truly, if slaves of lust feel no fear — for as the prophet says: 'Fornication steals away the heart' (Hosea 4:11).✦ For the fear of God is not before the eyes of those whose throat is like an open grave.✦
The Flood and Sodom: God's Wrath Against Lust
Odo appeals to reason and sacred history, recalling that God punished lust with the universal flood at the mingling of Seth's sons with Cain's daughters, and later destroyed Sodom and the five cities with fire and sulfur — a punishment unmatched for any other crime, even before the Law was given.
Yet for those in whom some reason still remains, it would be fitting to weigh the gravity of such a great crime — whether from events that have taken place in the world or from the sayings of the saints. Let us recall a few things about which, if they should perhaps deign to listen, we may speak. So that God might show future generations of this age how this vice above all would provoke His wrath, as soon as the sons of Seth mingled themselves with the daughters of Cain, He declared that He regretted having made man, and He threatened every creature with a flood.✦ For although God cursed the earth when Adam sinned and punished Cain's fratricide with the stroke of His curse, He was not — as is claimed in this case — moved by heartfelt grief or repentance, nor did He decree that the world should perish in universal destruction, nor did He ever avenge Himself with such terrible punishment for any other crime as He did for this one — when, in that most infamous conflagration, He consumed five cities with fire and sulfur even before the Law was given.✦✦
The Enduring Witness of Sodom and the Call to Circumcise Desire
Odo notes that even pagan authors record Sodom's destruction, that the land still bears ashes, and that God's severity before the Law was meant to teach all future generations to flee lust — a lesson sealed in Abraham's circumcision as a sign that God's people must cut away vice and desire by the sword of the cross.
The fame of this deed is celebrated even in the books of the heathen. For even now everything born in that place is found full of ashes, with Orosius as witness. Why lust should be punished either by fire that burns or by sulfur that stinks, we are taught more fully in the Dialogue of Saint Gregory. By this act, without doubt, God chose to instruct all future generations, so that they would know just how greatly this crime must be fled after coming to know the faith — the very crime that He punished with such severity even before the law forbade it. Indeed, when He had decided to lead the human race back to the grace of reconciliation, He immediately commanded Abraham — whom He was initiating in the first beginnings of faith — to be circumcised as a sign of lust that keeps returning, thereby showing at that time that everyone who belongs to Him must circumcise themselves from vices and desires by the sword of the cross.
Paul's Severity: Handing the Fornicator to Satan
Odo cites Paul's immediate handing over of a fornicator to Satan (1 Corinthians 5:5), noting that the Apostle showed no leniency even though the offender might have been excused by the newness of his religious life or ignorance of monastic restraint.
The one who was first caught in the guilt of fornication after the grace of redemption — the Apostle handed him over to Satan at once, the same Apostle who was also accustomed to rescuing others whom Satan was perhaps tormenting on account of various other shameful acts.✦ For this crime, however, he handed him over to the same Satan, who certainly could have been excused either by the newness of the religious life recently undertaken or by ignorance of a restraint not yet experienced.
Read the original Latin
At vero de luxuria suggestrice ejusdem gulae quis aliquid loqui valeat, quod illi non despuantur, qui ejus flammis insaniunt? quandoquidem hi nec patriarcharum, nec prophetarum, nec apostolorum, sed nec omnium sanctorum ab origine mundi de religione loquentium voces curant. Quin et ipsum filium virginis ita contemnunt, ut in atriis ejus ipso vidente fornicentur, et in ipsis diversoriis, quae ad hoc devotione fidelium constructa sunt ut castitas in septis locis totius servaretur, ita fluxu libidinis redundant, ut non sit Mariae locus ubi puerum Jesum reclinet. Nec mirum sane si mancipia libidinis non formident, quia sicut ait propheta: Fornicatio aufert cor (Osee IV, 11). Non enim est timor Dei ante oculos eorum, quorum guttur est ut sepulcrum patens. Quibus tamen aliquid rationis adhuc inest, oporteret ut pondus tanti sceleris, vel ex rebus in saeculo gestis, vel ex sanctorum dictis pensarent, de quibus pauca, si forte audire dignentur, commemoremus. Ut itaque Deus futuris hujus saeculi aetatibus ostenderet quod maxime per hoc vitium exacerbaretur, mox ut filii Seth filiabus Cain sese commiscuerunt, et se perhibuit poenitere quod hominem fecisset, et omni creaturae diluvium comminatus est. Nam licet Adam peccante terram maledixerit et Cain fratricidium jaculo maledictionis mulctaverit, non tamen dolore cordis, aut poenitudine sicut hic tactus asseritur, neque generali exitio mundum perire decrevit, neque pro qualicunque alio scelere tanta animadversione sese ultus est, quam pro isto, cum illa famosissima conflagratione quinque civitates igne et sulphure etiam ante legem consumpsit.
Cujus fama facti libris quoque gentilium celebratur. Nam et adhuc omnia quae ibi gignuntur plena cineribus, teste Orosio, reperiuntur. Quare autem vel igne qui exurit, vel sulphure quod fetet, luxuria puniatur, in Dialogo sancti Gregorii plenius edocemur. Quo nimirum facto Deus omnes in futurum generationes erudire noluit, ut scirent quantopere fugiendum sit istud flagitium post fidei cognitionem, quod ille tanta animadversione punivit etiam ante legis prohibitionem. Sane cum ad gratiam reconciliationis genus humanum reducere decrevisset, mox Abrahae quem fidei primordiis initiabat ad indicium recidendae libidinis circumcidi praecepit; ita tunc demonstrans quia necesse est ut omnes qui ad eum pertinent, a vitiis et concupiscentiis mucrone crucis se circumcidant. Illum vero qui post redemptionis gratiam primus in reatu fornicationis deprehensus est Apostolus illico Satanae tradidit, qui et alios, quos forte Satanas ob alia quaelibet flagitia vexabat, eripere solitus erat. Propter hoc tamen scelus hunc eidem Satanae mancipavit, qui utique vel novitate nuper susceptae religionis, vel ignorantia necdum expertae constrictionis poterat utcunque excusare.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Luke.2.7 — And she gave birth to her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
- ↩Hos.4.11 — Prostitution and wine and new wine take away understanding.
- ↩Rom.3.13;Ps.5.10 — Their throat is an open grave; they deceive with their tongues. The venom of asps is under their lips. Ps.5.10 — For there is nothing reliable in their mouth; their inward part is destruction; their throat is an open grave; they flatter with their tongue.
- ↩Gen.6.1-Gen.6.7 — When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, Gen.6.2 — The sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they took wives for themselves from all whom they chose. Gen.6.3 — Then the LORD said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred twenty years." Gen.6.4 — The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God went in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men of old, the men of renown. Gen.6.5 — And the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Gen.6.6 — And the LORD regretted that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. Gen.6.7 — And the LORD said, "I will blot out the human beings whom I have created from the face of the ground—from human to beast to creeping thing to the birds of the sky—for I regret that I have made them."
- ↩Gen.19.24-Gen.19.25 — Then the LORD rained down on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven. Gen.19.25 — and He overthrew those cities and all the plain and all the inhabitants of the cities and what grew on the ground.
- ↩Gen.3.17 — And to Adam he said, "Because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat from it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.
- ↩1Cor.5.5 — Hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.
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