Caput I
The Ibex and the Scriptures as Refuge
Odo reads the ibex of Job 39 as a figure of the faithful who, dwelling among the rocks of the Fathers' examples and armed with the two horns of Scripture, fall into temporal ruin yet are sustained and unbroken by the consolation of the two Testaments, as Paul testifies in Romans 15:4.
Among those wonderful things God speaks to blessed Job to lay out the orders of the Church, naming certain animals figuratively, he also includes the ibexes.✦ Ibexes are four-footed animals that live among the rocks. These ibexes, when they rush down from the high summits of the rocks, catch themselves unharmed on their own flesh, so that they don't feel the loss of their fall. Through the ibexes, then, all good and cautious people are designated—people who live among the rocks because they strive to follow the examples of the Fathers. They also have horns—namely, the Scriptures of the two Testaments—concerning which it is written: "Horns are in his hands" (Habac.)✦ III, 4).✦ These people, just like the ibexes, when they have fallen are not dashed to pieces; because if any temporal ruin has come upon them, they escape by leaning, as upon two horns, on the protection of the two Testaments' Scriptures, and so that they may not fail in their distress, they sustain themselves by the consolation of the Scriptures.1 Just like Paul, who in the adversity of this world was cast down and said: "Whatever things were written, were written for our instruction, so that through patience and the consolation of the Scriptures we might have hope" (Rom.✦
The Suffering of the Church from Within and Without
Odo turns from the ibex allegory to his broader purpose: showing that the whole household of Christ—figured by Judah and the house of David—suffers oppression not only from pagans (the Assyrians) but also from corrupt Christians (the ten tribes), so that the children of the Church must expect trial from their own countrymen as much as from foreigners.
15, 4). Let what I've said so far serve as an incentive to study; now let me take up the purposes I've set for my mind. I've said above that the whole household of Christ — that is, the entire gathering of the elect, whether they live in clerical or lay station, in wealth or in poverty — serves the same Christ, the humble king, the one who serves with a humble heart, through Judah, that is, through the house of David. Through the ten tribes, however — those that, although they descended from the stock of the patriarchs just as the tribe of Judah did, nevertheless turned away from the worship of God and worshipped calves in Samaria — I've signified those Christians who are indeed reborn through the mysteries of faith, but who, by cultivating greed (which is slavery to idols) or by clinging wickedly to any other desires, deny with their actions the God they confess with their words. Through the Assyrians, on the other hand, I've signified any peoples at all that have not worshipped God. And so at that time those ten tribes were oppressed by foreigners. So too today corrupt Christians are subjected to the destruction of pagans, and so the house of Judah — which had frequently followed the aforementioned ten tribes in evil deeds — is recorded at that time to have been violently oppressed as much by those very ten tribes as by foreigners. And so now any good Christians, precisely because they frequently imitate the wicked, are for the most part tormented by pagans, by wicked Christians themselves, and by their own corrupt countrymen. Therefore, through those to whom all these things happened in figure, this is sufficiently shown: that the children of the Church must suffer much not only from pagans, but also from their own fellow countrymen.
Read the original Latin
Inter illa mirifica quae ad exprimendos ordines Ecclesiae Deus ad beatum Job loquitur, quaedam animalia figuraliter nominans, ibices quoque pariter interponit. Ibices autem quaedam quadrupedia sunt et morantur in petris. Quae videlicet ibices si quando de altis cacuminibus saxorum ruunt, sese in suis carnibus illaesas suscipiunt, ita ut jacturam sui casus non sentiant. Per ibices igitur quique boni viri et cauti designantur, qui in petris habitant; quia secundum Patrum exempla vivere student. Qui et cornua habent, videlicet Scripturas duorum Testamentorum, de quibus est illud: Cornua in manibus ejus (Habac. III, 4). Hi velut ibices cum ceciderunt, non colliduntur: quia si quid eis ruinae temporalis accesserit, scripturae duorum Testamentorum quasi duorum cornuum exceptioni innitentes evadunt, et ne in perturbatione deficiant, Scripturarum solatio se sustentant. Sicut Paulus, qui in mundi hujus adversitate dejectus dicebat: Quaecunque scripta sunt, ad nostram doctrinam scripta sunt, ut per patientiam et consolationem Scripturarum spem habeamus (Rom.
XV, 4). Haec ad legendi studium dicta sint, nunc ea, quae animo praeposita sunt, aggrediamur. Universam Christi familiam, id est omnem electorum collectionem, qui vel in clericali, vel in laicali ordine, aut in divitiis, aut paupertate degentes, eidem Christo, videlicet humili regi, humili corde militant, per Judam, id est per domum David, supra diximus designari. Per decem vero tribus, quae licet de genere patriarcharum, sicut et tribus Juda, descenderint, tamen a Dei cultura discedentes vitulos in Samaria coluerunt, illos Christianos figurari qui mysteriis quidem fidei regenerantur, sed avaritiam, quae est idolorum servitus, colentes, aut aliis quibuslibet desideriis male inhaerentes, Deum, quem vocibus confitentur, factis negant: per Assyrios autem quaslibet gentes exprimi, qui Deum non coluerunt. Igitur et tunc illae decem tribus ab alienigenis afflictae fuerunt. Sic et modo perversi Christiani paganorum exterminio subjiciuntur, et sic domus Juda, quae decem praedictas tribus in malis actibus frequenter secuta fuerat, tam ab ipsis decem tribubus, quam ab alienigenis vehementer legitur oppressa tunc fuisse. Sic et nunc boni quilibet Christiani, pro eo quod malos frequenter imitantur, et a paganis, et ab ipsis malis Christianis plerumque cruciantur. Per illos igitur quibus omnia in figura contingebant, hoc satis ostenditur, quod filios Ecclesiae non solum a paganis, sed etiam ab ipsis suis contribulibus multa oporteat pati.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Job.39.1 — Do you know the time when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch over the calving of the does?
- ↩Hab.3.4 — His brightness was like the light; rays came from his hand, and there his power was hidden.
- ↩Hab.3.4 — His brightness was like the light; rays came from his hand, and there his power was hidden.
- ↩Rom.15.4 — For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that through the endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
Notes
- 1 ↩exceptioni (dative) rendered as 'protection' — rare usage, dative of refuge/purpose.
Collationes (Conferences / Collations) companion
Day 11 and onward, delivered every morning
All 140 conferences — and the rest of the Sub Rosa library — in daily portions in the free Chosen Portion iOS app
Odo urged a daily return to sacred reading as the cure for the soul's slow decline; Chosen Portion makes that daily return a scheduled habit on your phone.
- Continue through all three books of the Conferences at 5 minutes a day
- Daily examination-style readings drawn from 78+ historic works
- One morning notification to keep the practice going past day 10