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Chapter 43OdoC.2.43

Caput XLII

The Coldness of Love and the Cry of the Prophets

Odo laments that love has grown cold and wickedness abounds, citing Amos, the snow of Selmon, and Isaiah to show how Israel has degenerated from its heavenly Father through disordered desire and greed.

For these and similar things that are happening in the condition of our present life — with love now growing cold and wickedness abounding — the Lord complains through Amos, saying: Are you not like the children of Ethiopians to me, O children of Israel? says the Lord.✦12 (Amos. 9, 7.) After the whitening that takes place on Selmon, we return to the blackness of sin: In the snow, it says, they will be whitened on Selmon.34 67, 15). And when Scripture says: Make the children of Israel modest and reverent, away from every uncleanness — by which word, clearly, every defilement is comprehensively included, whether hidden or open, which, as Jerome says, it is most shameful to name — we, on the contrary, burn with the passion of desire like the nations, and all of us, as Isaiah says, turn aside to greed, from the highest to the lowest, like a stallion neighing, so that deservedly, as if degenerate from our heavenly Father, we hear: Are you not children of wickedness, lying seed?✦567 (Isa. 57, 4.)

The Weight of Sin and the Call to Holy Grief

Odo reflects on God's mercy met with provocation, the childless desolation of Jacob, the crushing mass of wickedness, and the blessedness of grieving over the world's evils, citing Isaiah's angels of peace who weep bitterly.

And likewise he himself: in his mercy he redeemed them, and they provoked his Holy Spirit to anger and afflicted him, and he turned against them as an enemy (Isa.✦ 63, 9, 10). Hence also he says in the person of Jacob: 'I have become childless.'✦ See what the condition of this life is — if indeed it can be called a condition — when it inclines toward ruin through so many falls into sin, and when such a great mass of our own wickedness plunges us to the depths. For these and similar things, which are so many that they must be mourned rather than recounted, those who await the consolation of Jesus must grieve. O how good it is, venerable father, to be grieved over such things! For whoever that person is, he will be called an angel of peace, according to that word of Isaiah which we have already cited: 'The angels of peace will weep bitterly' (Isa.✦ 33, 7).

Marked with the Sign of the Cross

Odo draws on Ezekiel's sign of Tau — shaped like the holy cross — to show that those who grieve over sin are marked as God's chosen, and offers consolation under the shadow of God's wings while the wicked rage like Sodom.

And it deserves to be counted among the chosen, just as it is said through Ezekiel: 'Mark the sign of Tau on the foreheads of the men who grieve' (Ezek.✦8 IX, 4). The letter Tau bears the shape of the holy cross.9 See, then, how great a good it is to grieve over evils — for which cause anyone who grieves deserves to be marked with the sign of the holy cross.10 Let this consolation sustain you for now: while the rulers of Sodom hold their heads high, while the sons of Gomorrah run wild — those who have deserved to imitate righteous Lot are tormented by seeing and hearing such evils, yet they rest under the shadow of God's wings, hoping until this present iniquity passes away.✦1112

Read the original Latin

Pro his et hujusmodi quae in hujus vitae nostrae statu, jam frigescente charitate, et abundante iniquitate, geruntur, Dominus per Amos queritur dicens: Nunquid non ut filii Aethiopum vos estis mihi filii Israel, ait Dominus? (Amos. IX, 7.) Post dealbationem quae fit in Selmon, ad nigredinem peccati redimus: Nive, inquit, dealbabuntur in Selmon (Psal. LXVII, 15). Et cum Scriptura dicat: Verecundos et reverendos facite filios Israel ab omni immunditia; quo videlicet verbo generaliter omnis inquinatio vel occulta vel manifesta comprehenditur, quae, ut Hieronymus dicit, nominare turpissimum est; nos econtra in passione desiderii sicut gentes aestuamus, et omnes, ut ait Isaias, ad avaritiam declinamus a summo usque ad minimum, ut equus emissarius hinnientes, ut merito quasi degeneres a coelesti Patre audiamus: Nunquid vos non filii scelesti, semen mendax? (Isa. LVII, 4.)

Et item ipse: In indulgentia sua redemit eos, et illi ad iracundiam provocaverunt, et afflixerunt Spiritum sanctum ejus, et conversus est eis in inimicum (Isa. LXIII, 9, 10). Hinc quoque in persona ejus Jacob dicit: Sine filiis factus sum. Ecce qualis est hujus vitae status, si tamen status dicendus est, qui tot casibus delictorum ad ruinam vergit, et quem tanta suae pravitatis moles ad ima demergit. Pro his et hujusmodi, quae tam multiplicia sunt, ut magis defleri, quam referri possint, lugendum est his qui consolationem Jesu exspectant. O quam bonum est, venerabilis pater, super talia contristari! Quisquis enim ille est, angelus pacis vocabitur, juxta illud Isaiae quod praemisimus jam: Angeli pacis amare flebunt (Isa. XXXIII, 7).

Et inter electos assignari meretur, sicut per Ezechielem dicitur: Signa Tau in frontibus virorum lugentium (Ezech. IX, 4). Tau littera speciem sanctae crucis gerit. Videte ergo quam magnum bonum sit dolere pro malis, pro quo dolens quilibet schemate sanctae crucis meretur insignari. Haec igitur consolatio vos interim maneat, ut dum principes Sodomorum caput extollunt, dum filii Gomorrhae luxuriant, hi qui justum Loth imitari meruerint videndo et audiendo mala, cum ipso crucientur, sub umbra alarum divinarum sperantes donec transeat iniquitas.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Amos.9.7 — "Are you not like the sons of the Cushites to me, O sons of Israel? declares the LORD. Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and Aram from Kir?"
  2. ↩Isa.57.4 — Against whom do you make sport? Against whom do you open wide your mouth and stick out your tongue? Are you not children of transgression, offspring of deceit?
  3. ↩Isa.63.9-Isa.63.10 — In all their distress, it was no distress to him, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his compassion he redeemed them, and he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. Isa.63.10 — But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit; so he turned to become their enemy, and he himself fought against them.
  4. ↩Jer.31.15;Matt.2.18 — Thus says the LORD: A voice is heard in Ramah—lamentation, bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more. Matt.2.18 — A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be comforted, because they are not.
  5. ↩Isa.33.7 — Behold, their brave ones cry out in the streets; the messengers of peace weep bitterly.
  6. ↩Ezek.9.4 — And the LORD said to him, "Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are being done in it."
  7. ↩Ps.17.8;Ps.91.1 — Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings. Ps.91.1 — Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩Amos 9:7 — candidate quotation; final source resolution belongs to a later stage.
  2. 2 ↩charitate rendered as love (from caritas); iniquitate as wickedness.
  3. 3 ↩Psalm 67:15 (Vulgate) — candidate quotation; final source resolution belongs to a later stage.
  4. 4 ↩dealbatio/nigredo imagery: the 'whitening' on Selmon and return to 'blackness of sin' uses the snow on Mount Hermon as a figure for fleeting purification followed by relapse into sin.
  5. 5 ↩Isaiah 57:4 (Vulgate) — candidate quotation; final source resolution belongs to a later stage.
  6. 6 ↩The first scriptural imperative (Verecundos et reverendos facite filios Israel ab omni immunditia) does not correspond exactly to a known Vulgate text; it may be a conflation or paraphrase. Translated as it stands.
  7. 7 ↩verecundos rendered as modest; reverendos as reverent; immunditia as uncleanness; inquinatio as defilement; passione desiderii as passion of desire; avaritiam as greed; degeneres as degenerate; semen mendax as lying seed.
  8. 8 ↩Quotation from Ezekiel 9:4 (Vulgate). The sign of Tau — the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, shaped like a cross — marks those who mourn over the sins of the city.
  9. 9 ↩Tau — the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet — was written in a form resembling a cross (✕ or +). Medieval exegetes saw it as a prophetic sign of the cross.
  10. 10 ↩The logic is: those who mourn over sin (like the men of Ezekiel 9) receive the cross as a mark of election. Grief over evil is itself a grace.
  11. 11 ↩Allusion to Genesis 18–19 (Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot's escape). 'Under the shadow of wings' echoes Psalm 17:8 / Psalm 91:1.
  12. 12 ↩The passage draws a parallel between the righteous who grieve over the sins of their age and Lot, who was tormented by the lawlessness of Sodom (2 Peter 2:7–8).

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