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Chapter 9OdoC.2.9

Caput VIII

The Vanity of Consecrated Bodies

Odo rebukes religious men and women who pursue worldly adornment, warning that vanity forfeits heavenly ornaments and invites lustful violation of Christ's brides.

If married people are held back in this way, how wicked is it — how wicked — to pursue this, whether by men who wear the holy habit or by nuns? Saint Germanus said to Genovefa among other things: "If even the slightest beauty of this world has overcome your mind, you'll be deprived of eternal and heavenly adornments." Then there is Lord Martin, who in a brief saying — but one of great weight — captured the dignity of a woman's character: "The highest virtue for a woman," he said, "is not wanting to be seen." Bishop Cyprian speaks thus about virgins: "Those clothed in silk and purple can't put on Christ; adorned with gold and pearls and necklaces, they've lost the ornaments of heart and body."✦ But if Peter, as he says, admonishes women to be restrained — women who are accustomed to excuse their finery by pointing to their husbands — how much more is it right for a virgin to observe this, for whom no excuse of personal adornment applies, nor can the lie of guilt be shifted onto another, but she alone remains responsible in her own body?✦ But those who are like this don't accept that holy voice of blessed Cyprian; on the contrary, they render Christ's pledge of faith void, and in their own eyes they adorn themselves more like prostitutes. These men — that is, these would-be seducers — as blessed Jerome says in his letter to a mother and daughter, when they dare to gaze more frequently at the wives of Christ, his brides, they speak with nods and gestures, and what is less permitted they desire all the more ardently. "It is less permitted," he says, "because the more detestable it is to break into a sacred household than a common one, the more wicked it is to violate the bride of Christ than the wife of one's neighbor."

Jerome on the Wantonness of Holy Women

Drawing on Jerome's letter, Odo contrasts a sister wed to Christ with one wed to a man, then catalogs the seductive dress of religious women with shameful vividness.

Surely, since one of two sisters is joined to a husband and keeps faith with him — why doesn't the other, who is betrothed to Christ, guard that same reverence toward him? But as the same letter goes on to say: those women dress in sleek clothes, forgetting that Christ is described in Zechariah as clothed in filthy garments.✦1 For these women, a beautiful garment is the mark of a wanton soul: it's dragged along the ground so that their figure might appear taller, and it's deliberately unstitched so that something may show through for them to desire.2 Black and gleaming shoes, with their creaking, arouse lustful eyes toward savage desires. The hair hangs down too little and is gathered up. The neck and throat are bared by a light cloak slipping off by chance, and they hasten to cover up as if they hadn't wanted to be seen.3 These are Jerome's words. I'm ashamed to report more.

The Worm and the Bridegroom's Hidden Goods

Odo concludes that such women walk according to the old self, their pleasure is a worm, and they exchange eternal, ineffable heavenly goods for fleeting rags.

But in all these matters and others like them, they walk not according to the Son of the Virgin but according to the old self.✦ For as Job says, the whole pleasure of these men, or of these women, is a worm.✦ For although in this life they are eager to adorn the flesh with excessive finery, nevertheless the word of the book of Ecclesiasticus still stands: sleep will be clothed with rags (Prov. 23, 21). And as it says in the same book: Whoever joins himself to the sexually immoral will become wicked; rottenness and the worm will inherit him, and he will be removed from the number of his soul (Eccli. 19, 3). But the heavenly goods of the Bridegroom, which they lose in exchange for these beggarly things, are eternal — and they are such that they have not yet reached even the hearing of Paul, nor ascended to his heart, even though he was caught up to paradise.✦

Read the original Latin

Si ergo sic a conjugatis inhibetur, quantum nefas est, hoc aut sancti habitus viros, aut sanctimoniales appetere? Sanctus Germanus ad Genovefam inter alia: Si, inquit, saeculi hujus vel exiguus decor tuam superavit mentem, aeternis et coelestibus ornamentis carebis. Hinc domnus Martinus brevi quidem, sed magni ponderis sententia, mulieris honestatem complexus: Summa, inquit, virtus est mulieris nolle videri. Cyprianus episcopus de virginibus sic ait: Serico et purpura indutae Christum induere non possunt; auro et margaritis, et monilibus adornatae, ornamenta cordis et corporis perdiderunt. Quod si Petrus, inquit, mulieres admonet coercendas, quae excusare soleant cultus suos per maritos: quanto magis id observare virginem fas est, cui nulla ornatus sui competit venia, nec derivari in alterutrum possit mendacium culpae, sed sola ipsa remaneat in corpore? Sed quae ejusmodi sunt, non sanctam illam vocem beati Cypriani recipiunt, quin potius irritam faciunt fidem Christi, et scortatorum oculis se magis comunt. Qui scilicet scortatores, ut ait beatus Hieronymus in epistola ad matrem et filiam, quando audent uxores Christi sponsas frequentius respectant: loquuntur nutibus, et quod minus licet ardentius affectant. Minus, inquit, licet, quia quanto detestabilius est infringere sacrosanctam quam plebeiam domum, tanto scelestius est sponsam Christi quam uxorem proximi violare.

Certe cum una ex duabus sororibus viro conjungitur, et illi fidem servat; cur altera, quae Christo desponsatur, eamdem ei reverentiam non custodit? Verum ut in eadem epistola sequitur: Istae nitidulis vestiuntur, oblitae quod Christus in Zacharia sordidis vestibus legatur indutus. Siquidem istis pulchra vestis animae lascivientis indicium est: per terram trahitur ut statura procerior videatur, de industria dissuitur, ut aliquid appareat quod amet. Calcei nigelli et nitentes stridore suo oculos lascivos in saevos excitant appetitus. Capilli parum defluunt, et recolliguntur. Collum et guttur defluente palliolo casu nudatur, et quasi videri noluerint operire festinant. Haec Hieronymus. Plura referre pudet.

Sed in his omnibus et hujusmodi, non secundum filium virginis, sed secundum veterem hominem ambulant. Nam, ut ait Job, omnis istorum, vel istarum dulcedo, vermis. Licet enim in hac vita superfluo cultu carnem ornari gestiant, illud tamen libri Ecclesiastici restat, quia vestietur pannis dormitatio (Prov. XXIII, 21). Et ut in eodem item dicitur: Qui se jungit fornicariis erit nequam, putredo et vermis haereditabunt illum, et tolletur de numero anima ejus (Eccli. XIX, 3). Bona vero coelestia sponsi, quae pro his emendicatis perdunt, aeterna sunt, et talia sunt, ut adhuc nec ad Pauli quidem auditum pervenerint, nec ad cor ejus ascenderint, quamvis ad paradisum raptus fuerit.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Gal.3.27 — For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
  2. ↩1Pet.3.3-1Pet.3.4 — Let it not be the outward adorning of braiding of hair, and wearing of gold, or putting on of clothing, 1Pet.3.4 — but the hidden person of the heart, in the imperishable garment of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.
  3. ↩Zech.3.3-Zech.3.5 — Now Joshua was clothed in filthy garments, and he was standing before the angel. Zech.3.4 — And he answered and said to those standing before him, 'Remove the filthy garments from off him.' And he said to him, 'See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich garments.' Zech.3.5 — And I said, "Let them set a clean turban on his head." So they set the clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments, and the angel of the LORD was standing by.
  4. ↩Eph.4.22;Col.3.9 — you were taught to put off your former way of life, the old self, which is being corrupted according to the desires of deceit; Col.3.9 — Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices,
  5. ↩Job.25.6 — how much less, then, is man—a maggot—and the son of man—a worm!
  6. ↩2Cor.12.4 — that he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a person to speak.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩Allusion to Zechariah 3:3–5 (Joshua the high priest in filthy garments). Final resolution deferred to tx-08 Moses stage.
  2. 2 ↩lascivientis: 'wanton' captures the disordered desire; could also be rendered 'lascivious' but 'wanton' is more natural in contemporary register while preserving moral force.
  3. 3 ↩quasi videri noluerint operire festinant: the irony is deliberate — they pretend they didn't want to be exposed while actively hastening to cover themselves. The ablative absolute 'defluente palliolo casu' is rendered naturally as a causal/temporal clause.

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