Caput XXIII
Wretched Monks and Hardened Hearts
Odo laments that those called monks have become sarabaites who reject regular discipline, and despairs that no scriptural witness can soften their hardened hearts.
Prompted by that word in which God, speaking through the prophet, calls the sons of Israel apostate nations, we have taken the occasion to speak — against us wretched men, who are not monks, as we are falsely called, but sarabaites, that is, refusers, who have rejected the yoke of regular discipline.1 But what will happen when neither the examples of the patriarchs, nor the mysteries of the prophets, nor the arrows of the apostles, nor the words of any of the holy Fathers — no, even the thunderings of the holy Gospel — can soften the hardness of our heart?✦✦2 So thoroughly is all religious life held in contempt, so completely does each person's own whim rule over them, that the saying of the poet seems to fit us:34
God's 'Perhaps' and the Duty of Preachers
Odo reflects on God's doubtful 'perhaps' as a sign that few will accept correction, yet draws comfort for preachers from God's own persistence in speaking to those who despise him, even amid the repeated punishments of the unrepentant.
Other things bring anxiety; God alone brings forgetfulness. Still, what God added after that word the prophets spoke earlier — in case perhaps even they might hear it and take it to heart — deserves serious consideration, so great is the force it carries. If 'perhaps' is indeed a word of doubt, the reason God interjects it into his own discourse is surely to signify that there are only a few who are going to receive his correction. But God also consoles and exhorts his preachers, so that when they remember that God himself, in his own discourses, hints that he is to be despised — and yet he does not stop speaking to those who despise him — those same holy preachers will not be disheartened while they are despised, nor will they in any way whatsoever abandon the duty of correction. For what he adds — or he himself adds — carries great weight, and it surely applies to those who recall that their predecessors were punished, yet do not stop imitating them. And immediately they suffer tribulations, just as those predecessors suffered — or rather, as he says, they themselves, that is, those who could have had the example of their predecessors as a help toward correction: they who were afflicted, besieged, shut in, who lost all the goods they had in this world, who saw cities overthrown, camps destroyed, fields laid waste, churches torn apart — and yet they follow those same predecessors into iniquity, and they are not changed or turned away from that pride of theirs, on account of which they saw them punished so many times.
Read the original Latin
Occasione illius verbi, quo Deus ad prophetam loquens filios Israel apostatrices gentes vocat, occasionem sumpsimus, qua contra nos miseros, non monachos ut falso nominamur, sed sarabaitas, id est renuitas, qui jugum regularis disciplinae renuimus ista diceremus. Sed quid fiet cum jam nec patriarcharum exempla, nec prophetarum mysteria, nec apostolorum spicula, nec quorumlibet sanctorum Patrum verba, quin etiam nec sancti Evangelii tonitrua cordis nostri duritiem emollire valeant? Ita omnis religio in contemptu est, ita cuique libitus dominatur, ut illud poeticum nobis convenire videatur:
Caetera sunt curae, Deus est oblivio solus. Hoc tamen quod prophetae post illud verbum superius dictum Deus subjunxit, si forte et deinde vel ipsi audiant, magnopere pensandum est quantam vim habeat. Si forte etenim dubitativum adverbium est, quod id videlicet verbum Dei idcirco sermoni suo interserit, ut paucos esse significet qui correptionem ejus recepturi sunt. Sed et praedicatores suos consolatur, et exhortatur; ut cum meminerint quod ipse Deus in suis sermonibus se contemnendum insinuet, et tamen ad contemptores suos loqui non cessat, non contristentur iidem sancti praedicatores dum contemnuntur, sed nec omnino a correptionis officio ullatenus cessent. Nam et hoc quod addit vel ipse, magnum pondus habet, eisque nimirum congruit qui praedecessores suos recolunt punitos: qui tamen eos imitari non desinunt, et evestigio tribulationes sicut ipsi patiuntur, vel ipsi, inquit, id est qui praedecessorum suorum exemplum in adjutorium correptionis habere poterant, qui et afflicti, obsessi, conclusi, omnia quae in hoc mundo habuerunt bona perdiderunt, urbes erutas, eversa castra, depopulatos agros, suffossas ecclesias vident: et tamen eosdem praedecessores suos ad iniquitates sequuntur, nec ab eorum elatione mutantur, aut recedunt, propter quam eos toties plecti conspexerunt.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Mark.16.14;Rom.2.5;Heb.3.8 — Later, as the eleven were reclining at table, he appeared to them and rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because those who had seen him risen from the dead did not believe. Rom.2.5 — But because of your hard and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and revelation of God's righteous judgment. Heb.3.8 — Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness,
- ↩Ps.29.3-Ps.29.9 — The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders; the LORD is over many waters. Ps.29.4 — The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is majestic. Ps.29.5 — The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars; yes, the LORD shatters the cedars of Lebanon. Ps.29.6 — He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox. Ps.29.7 — The voice of the LORD splits flames of fire. Ps.29.8 — The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. Ps.29.9 — The voice of the LORD makes the deer give birth and strips the forests bare, and in his temple all say, "Glory."
Notes
- 1 ↩Sarabaites is a technical monastic term for monks living without a rule or superior. Renuitas (refusers/rejecters) is a rare form coined here to explain the term.
- 2 ↩Spicula (arrows/darts) used metaphorically for the piercing arguments or rebukes of the apostles. Tonitrua (thunderings) applied to the Gospel's solemn warnings.
- 3 ↩Libitus (pleasure/caprice) is a rare noun in later Latin, here rendered as 'whim' to capture the sense of self-willed desire overriding religious discipline.
- 4 ↩Illud poeticum (that poetic saying) — the poet's quotation is expected to follow in the next section. The source is not yet supplied in this section.
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