Caput VI

The Mixture of Good and Evil in the Present Age

Odo explains that good and evil are thoroughly mixed among the faithful in this present life, and that those in religious life bear a greater responsibility, illustrated by the allegory of the ten tribes of Israel and the single tribe of Judah.

It must be understood that these two kinds are so thoroughly mixed together that in whatever ranks of the faithful you look, both are found advancing side by side — since until the Judge's winnowing fan is set in motion, the grain must necessarily remain on the threshing floor of this present life together with the chaff.^✦¹ Furthermore, the argument is pressed from this point against those who, while keeping faith with the world in their actions, are known to lie to God through the outward habit of religious life.² If, therefore, weak believers in secular dress are made worse by the examples of the wicked, it is not at all surprising; but this seems far more abominable if it happens to those who profess the religious life, to whom, as the Apostle says, the utterances of God have been entrusted (Rom.^✦³ III, 2), to serve carnal desires, to abandon heavenly things and gape after earthly ones, to despise God and serve mammon.^✦⁴ How abominable this is, the very force of the prophetic discourse openly shows, in which God threatens, saying: 'Though you play the harlot, Israel, at least let not Judah offend' (Hos.^✦⁵ IV, 15). For the ten tribes of the sons of Israel once withdrew from the house of David to idolatry; nevertheless the tribe of Judah, standing as it were in the house of David, retained the worship of divine service longer.⁶ Through the ten tribes, therefore, the multitude of secular people is represented; through the one tribe, the number of those in the religious life — which is smaller — is expressed.⁷

When Church Ministers Imitate the World

Odo shows how ecclesiastics, who ought to shine as lights in a perverse generation, instead grow dark by imitating secular people, fulfilling the prophetic complaint that 'as the people, so the priest.'

However far secular people may stray from God's laws—like those ten tribes—the ministers of the Church, like the tribe of Judah, ought to have held fast to Christ. Indeed, concerning those ten tribes—and likewise concerning those who now hold the faith in word but not in deed—there is that complaint of God, who says: 'Israel the adversary has gone away and has played the harlot for herself' (Jer.⁸ 3, 8). And at once, to show how church leaders who are made worse by imitating secular people fall through the same examples as the Israelites—just as the house of Judah fell—he adds, saying: 'And Judah, her transgressor sister, saw that Israel the adversary had committed adultery, and that I had dismissed her and given her a bill of divorce; yet she did not fear, but went and played the harlot also herself' (Ibid.)⁹ . All of this is now fulfilled when the ministers of the Church are cast down to the imitation of carnal people—when pride lifts them up, avarice wastes them away, pleasure inflates them, malice narrows them, anger sets them ablaze, discord tears them apart, envy eats at them, and luxury, defiling them, kills them.¹⁰ And likewise, those very people through whom secular people ought to have been corrected are the ones who incite them to contempt for God's commandments by their own evil example. And when they ought to have shone, as the Apostle says, in the midst of a perverse nation, so as to make them radiate—instead, by following the examples of those very people, they grow dark, as it is written: 'As the people, so the priest' (Isa.^✦^✦¹¹

God's Divorce Letter: Abandonment as Judgment

Odo interprets Deuteronomy's divorce law allegorically: when God withdraws discipline and lets sinners prosper after their iniquity, He gives them a 'letter of divorce,' abandoning them to their desires and bringing them nearer to destruction.

Deuteronomy 24:2.^✦ But it must be carefully considered that this is said by the voice of God: 'Because I have thus dismissed her'; and what is added — 'I gave her a letter of divorce' (Deut.^✦ Deuteronomy 24:3).^✦ For God dismisses either any secular persons, as though they were Israel, or those placed in the habit of religious life, as though they were Judah, when, as it is written, he lets them go according to the desires of their heart. But when security follows them after their fault, when no discipline or rebuke calls them back to their heart, they even receive a letter of divorce, so that like an adulterous wife they may be separated from union with the Lord, and may do what they wish, the more deeply to rush toward eternal punishment.^✦^✦ Hence it is necessary that we consider either those or the others all the more wretched, since we see them abandoned without a scourge in their own fault, and the more they prosper after their iniquity, the nearer they are to destruction.^✦ This in the twelfth Homily on Ezekiel.

Read the original Latin

Sciendum vero est quod eadem genera sic mista sunt, ut in quibuslibet fidelium gradibus procurrere pariter inveniantur: quoniam quousque ventilabrum judicis agitetur, grana cum paleis necesse est in area praesentis vitae simul contineri. Porro contra eos abhinc agitur, qui factis saeculo fidem servantes mentiri Deo per habitum religionis noscuntur. Si igitur infirmi fideles in saeculari habitu pravorum deteriorantur exemplis, non utcunque mirum est; sed hoc omnimodis exsecrabilius videtur, si religionis professores, quibus, ut ait Apostolus, Eloquia Dei credita sunt (Rom. III, 2), carnalibus desideriis contigerit ancillari, relictis coelestibus terrenis inhiare, contempto Deo mammonae servire. Quod quam exsecrabile sit ipsa prophetici sermonis invectio palam demonstrat, qua Deus comminatur dicens: Si fornicaris tu Israel, non delinquas tu saltem Juda (Ose. IV, 15). Decem namque tribus filiorum Israel a domo David, quondam ad idololatriam recesserunt; attamen tribus Juda, tanquam in domo David consistens, divinae servitutis cultum diutius retentavit. Per decem ergo tribus multitudo saecularium, per unam vero numerus ecclesiasticorum, qui brevior est, exprimitur.

Quantumlibet autem saeculares tanquam illae decem tribus a divinis legibus exhorbitent, ministri tamen Ecclesiae tanquam tribus Juda Christo debuerant inhaerere. Namque de illis decem tribubus, veluti de his qui nunc verbo non opere fidem tenent, est illa Dei querimonia dicentis: Adversatrix Israel abiit, et fornicata est sibi (Jer. III, 8). Et statim, ut ecclesiasticos, qui imitatione saecularium deteriorantur, exprimeret, qualiter per exempla Israelitarum domus Juda ceciderit, subdit dicens: Et vidit praevaricatrix soror ejus Juda, quod moechata esset adversatrix Israel, et quod dimisissem eam, et dedissem ei libellum repudii: non timuit; sed abiit, et fornicata est etiam ipsa (Ibid.) . Quae omnia nunc implentur, cum ad imitationem carnalium ministri Ecclesiae devolvuntur; cum similiter eos superbia erigit, avaritia tabefacit, voluptas dilatat, malitia angustat, ira inflammat, discordia separat, invidia exulcerat, luxuria inquinans necat. Et item ipsi per quos saeculares corrigi debuerant, eos ad contemptum mandatorum Dei per sua mala exempla instigant. Et cum debuerant lucere, ut ait Apostolus, in medio nationis pravae, ut eos resplendere facerent, magis illorum exempla sequentes tenebrescunt, ut scriptum est: Erit sicut populus sic sacerdos (Isa.

XXIV, 2). Sed solerter intuendum est, quod ex voce Dei dicitur: Quia sic dimisi eam; et quod additur, dedi ei libellum repudii (Deut. XXIV, 3). Nam vel quoslibet saeculares, quasi Israelem, vel quoscunque in habitu religionis positos, quasi Judam tunc Deus dimittit, cum eos, ut scriptum est, secundum desideria cordis eorum sinit: sed cum eos securitas post culpam sequitur, cum nulla disciplina vel increpatio ad cor suum revocat, etiam libellum repudii accipiunt, ut tanquam conjux adultera a conjunctione Domini separentur, et quod volunt faciant, quatenus ad aeterna supplicia profundius ruant. Unde necesse est ut vel istos, vel illos tunc consideremus amplius miseriores, quoniam eos conspicimus in culpa sua sine flagello derelictos, et quanto post iniquitatem prosperantur, tanto perditioni proximiores. Hoc in duodecima Ezechielis Homilia.

Scripture echoes

↩Matt.3.12;Luke.3.17 — His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but he will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. Luke.3.17 — His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.
↩Rom.3.2 — Much in every way! First of all, that they were entrusted with the very words of God.
↩Matt.6.24 — No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
↩Hos.4.15 — Though you, Israel, play the whore, let not Judah become guilty. And do not go up to Gilgal, and do not go up to Beth-aven, and do not swear, 'As Yahweh lives.'
↩Phil.2.15 — so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine like lights in the world,
↩Isa.24.2 — And it shall be: as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the creditor, so with the one indebted to him.
↩Deut.24.2 — and she goes out from his house, and goes, and becomes another man's wife
↩Deut.24.2-Deut.24.3 — and she goes out from his house, and goes, and becomes another man's wife Deut.24.3 — and the latter husband hates her, and he writes for her a certificate of divorce and places it in her hand and sends her from his house; or the latter husband dies, the one who took her as his wife.
↩Deut.24.3 — and the latter husband hates her, and he writes for her a certificate of divorce and places it in her hand and sends her from his house; or the latter husband dies, the one who took her as his wife.
↩Deut.24.1-Deut.24.3 — When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she does not find favor in his eyes because he has found in her some indecent thing, then he shall write her a certificate of divorce and put it in her hand and send her out of his house. Deut.24.2 — and she goes out from his house, and goes, and becomes another man's wife Deut.24.3 — and the latter husband hates her, and he writes for her a certificate of divorce and places it in her hand and sends her from his house; or the latter husband dies, the one who took her as his wife.
↩Deut.32.15 — But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked — you grew fat, you grew thick, you grew sleek — and he forsook God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.
↩Deut.24.1-Deut.24.3 — When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she does not find favor in his eyes because he has found in her some indecent thing, then he shall write her a certificate of divorce and put it in her hand and send her out of his house. Deut.24.2 — and she goes out from his house, and goes, and becomes another man's wife Deut.24.3 — and the latter husband hates her, and he writes for her a certificate of divorce and places it in her hand and sends her from his house; or the latter husband dies, the one who took her as his wife.

Notes

1 ↩The threshing-floor metaphor (grana cum paleis) echoes the Baptist's words in Matthew 3:12 / Luke 3:17; the 'judge' is Christ. The point is that the final separation of good from evil awaits the Last Judgment.
2 ↩The charge is hypocrisy: professing faith in word (fidem servantes) while living according to worldly standards (factis saeculo). The 'habit of religion' (habitus religionis) refers to the religious garb or outward appearance of the consecrated life.
3 ↩The Apostle's words about God's utterances being entrusted likely echo Romans 3:2 (sunt credita eloquia Dei), which is the verse cited in the Latin. The citation is cut off mid-reference.
4 ↩Mammonae servire echoes Matthew 6:24 / Luke 16:13 — you cannot serve God and mammon. The ablative absolutes (relictis coelestibus, contempto Deo) describe the conditions under which this servitude occurs.
5 ↩The quotation is from Hosea 4:15 (Vulgate). The Latin renders the sense of the Hebrew: Israel is warned against harlotry (idolatry), and Judah is urged not to follow suit. The citation is cut off mid-reference.
6 ↩The historical reference is to the division of the kingdom after Solomon's death (1 Kings 12), when the ten northern tribes under Jeroboam fell into idolatry while Judah maintained the worship of the Jerusalem temple.
7 ↩The allegory maps the ten tribes onto the mass of secular people and the single tribe of Judah onto the smaller body of those devoted to the religious life. The contrast is between the many who wander into worldliness and the few who remain faithful.
8 ↩The phrase 'in word but not in deed' (verbo non opere) captures a sharp distinction between professed faith and lived practice, applied here to those who outwardly claim belief.
9 ↩The prophetic voice is God's own speech within the Jeremiah passage; the Latin preserves the first-person divine speaker ('dimisissem…dedissem').
10 ↩The catalogue of vices (superbia, avaritia, voluptas, malitia, ira, discordia, invidia, luxuria) follows a rhetorical pattern common in monastic moral teaching; each vice is personified as acting upon the ministers.
11 ↩The Apostle's saying about shining in the midst of a perverse nation echoes Philippians 2:15; the closing quotation 'As the people, so the priest' is from Isaiah 24:2.

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