Caput XIX
The Mystery of Iniquity at Work
Odo laments how the mystery of iniquity works through the children of unbelief, citing Peter and Paul to warn that the time already past is sufficient for walking in debauchery and that believers must no longer live as the Gentiles do.
What grief! After the prince of this world was cast out, he was sent back in through us, and the mystery of iniquity now works in the children of unbelief — those who carry out the desires of the flesh and, in their own pursuits, make themselves abominable — especially since the prince of the apostles says that the time already past is sufficient for fulfilling their will: "They walked," he says, "in debauchery and drunkenness" (1 Pet.✦ 4:3), etc.✦ And when the teacher of the Gentiles warned us, saying: "I testify in the Lord Jesus that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, who have given themselves over to shamelessness."✦ But that is not how you learned Christ (Eph.✦ 4:17–20).✦
Divine Vengeance on the Unfaithful
Odo warns that those who rush into the same debauchery will render account to the Judge, and notes that although miracles have grown rare, God's evident vengeance has still struck some from the monastic order.
But as I see it, we — rushing together into that same confession of debauchery — will render an account, as the aforementioned Peter adds, to the one who is ready to judge.✦ Although the time has now come when past miracles — sufficient as they were to make known God's judgments — have rarely struck sinners, we are nonetheless not unaware that some from our own order have been struck down by evident vengeance.
The Demonic Assault on Hucbertus
Odo recounts, on the authority of Abbot Gorlantius, how a monk named Hucbertus was tormented and killed by phantasmal women he could see but others could not, unable to protect himself with the sign of the cross.
A certain man among the Senones, named Hucbertus, saw two women standing beside him in the night — and though he saw them, he realized they were not the ones who used to come, and understood them to be phantasms. Those who were present ran up, but no one saw the women except he himself. He fled therefore into the church, but he found this too full of phantasmal women, among whom one, sitting as if she were a queen, ordered him to be seized and beaten. When he seized the book of the holy Gospel and tried to make the sign of the cross over himself, he could not. But she said: 'It is too late — you have already been handed over to me.' When the bells sounded, the neighbors ran up. He had collapsed to the ground and was being beaten, and crying out, he kept saying what he saw and what he felt. After this had been going on for a long time and the phantasms had departed, those outside caught sight of a crowd of women leaving, going out over the bridge. He died a little while later. This is reported by Abbot Gorlantius.
The Bitterness Behind Carnal Sweetness
Odo closes with a stark warning that whoever delights in the sweetness of a prostitute should contemplate the bitterness of wormwood that follows.
Whoever, then, delights in the sweetness of a prostitute and her embrace, let him set before his mind the bitterness of wormwood that follows.✦✦
Read the original Latin
Proh dolor! postquam princeps hujus mundi foras abjectus est, per nos iterum intromissus, mysterium iniquitatis operatur in filiis diffidentiae facientibus voluntates carnis, et in studiis suis seipsos abominabiles facientibus, praesertim cum princeps apostolorum praeteritum tempus ad voluntatem eorum consummandam sufficere dicat: Qui ambulaverunt, inquit, in luxuriis et vinolentiis (I Petr. IV, 3), etc. Et cum doctor gentium nos contestaretur dicens: Testificor in Domino Jesu, ut jam non ambuletis sicut gentes, quae tradiderunt semetipsas impudicitiae. Vos autem non sic didicistis Christum (Ephes. IV, 17-20). Sed nos, ut video, in eadem luxuriae confessione concurrentes, reddemus rationem, ut praedictus Petrus subjungit, ei qui paratus est judicare. Licet vero jam tempus advenerit, quo sufficientibus ad insinuanda Dei judicia praeteritis miraculis peccatores raro feriri soleant: de nostro tamen ordine nonnullos evidenti ultione plexos non ignoramus.
Nam quidam apud Senones Hucbertus nomine duas sibi mulieres nocte vidit astantes, quas non eas, quae venire solebant, videns, phantasias intellexit. Accurrunt qui aderant, sed nemo mulieres nisi ipse videbat: fugit ergo in ecclesiam, sed hanc quoque phantasticis mulieribus plenam reperit: inter quas una quasi regina sedens jussit illum apprehendi et verberari. Cum ille codicem sancti Evangelii arripiens volebat se signare, nec poterat, illa vero dicebat: Tarde est, jam mihi traditus es. Sonantibus signis vicini accurrunt. Ille collapsus in terram verberabatur, proinde vociferans dicebat quid videret, quid sentiret. Cum hoc diu fieret, et phantasiae discessissent, hi qui foris erant discedentem turbam mulierum per pontem egredi conspexerunt; ille post paululum obiit. Hoc abba Gorlantius refert. Quisquis ergo dulcedine meretricis et amplexu delectatur, hujus amaritudinem absinthii animo proponat.
Scripture echoes
- ↩1Pet.4.3 — For the time that has passed is sufficient for carrying out the will of the Gentiles—having walked in sensuality, passions, drunken revelries, drinking bouts, and lawless idolatries.
- ↩1Pet.4.3 — For the time that has passed is sufficient for carrying out the will of the Gentiles—having walked in sensuality, passions, drunken revelries, drinking bouts, and lawless idolatries.
- ↩Eph.4.17 — So I say this and testify in the Lord: you must no longer walk as the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their minds.
- ↩Eph.4.20 — But that is not the way you learned Christ—
- ↩Eph.4.17-Eph.4.20 — So I say this and testify in the Lord: you must no longer walk as the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their minds. Eph.4.18 — Their minds darkened in understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their hearts. Eph.4.19 — Having become callous, they have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greed. Eph.4.20 — But that is not the way you learned Christ—
- ↩1Pet.4.5 — They will give an account to the one who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
- ↩Prov.5.4 — but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
- ↩Deut.29.18 — And it shall be, when he hears the words of this curse, that he blesses himself in his heart, saying, 'Peace will be to me, for in the stubbornness of my heart I walk' — so that the moist is added to the thirsty.
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