Caput XXIX
Scripture Against the Love of the World
Odo opens by quoting those who justify worldly indulgence, then answers them with a chain of scriptural warnings—from Paul, John, James, and Proverbs—and the example of Esau, showing that love of the world excludes love of God and that greed brings punishment.
Those who are too delighted by present glory and this life — the ones the prophet describes when he says, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" (1 Cor.✦ 15:32) — are accustomed to say, "Why did God create the riches of this life if we're not supposed to use them as we please?" But the force of that passage should be enough, where it says, "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (1 John✦ 2:15), and "Whoever wishes to be a friend of it is made an enemy of God" (Jas.✦ 4:4). And likewise: "Whoever is in a hurry to get rich will not go unpunished" (Prov.✦ 28:22). This is what was shown in Esau, who in his eagerness to grab a dish of lentils gave up the birthright he was going to receive in its own time.✦
The Blindness of Fallen Desire
Odo explains that since the Fall, fallen human nature is so enslaved to the senses that it cannot grasp spiritual realities, illustrating this with Gregory the Great's parable of a child born in darkness who cannot understand descriptions of visible things.
So these arguments, and many others like them, ought to be enough — because Scripture cannot be set aside. Yet if anyone insists on measuring this by human example, it must be understood that ever since we fell from the joys of paradise, we are utterly unable to think about spiritual things as they truly are. This is why it has come about that people who are governed by the flesh now know nothing except what can be grasped — if I may put it this way — by the physical eyes through touch. They no longer lift themselves to the highest care; instead they gladly consent to lie among the lowest things. Their blindness of mind has grown so dense that when they cannot perceive invisible things through any direct experience of the reality, they now actually doubt whether there is anything at all that is not visible to the physical eyes — unless, that is, certain visible things were to point to those same invisible realities by way of illustration. This is in line with the example that blessed Gregory gives in his Dialogues about a mother who happened to be pregnant when she was condemned to a dark prison, and who gave birth there and raised her child there. If she should want to describe to her son — now old enough to understand — the appearances of worldly things, he can certainly hear what his mother says, but he, having seen nothing but darkness, is utterly unable to understand those appearances as they are without having experienced them himself.
Earthly Delights as Traces of Heaven
Odo teaches that God created sensory pleasures not as ends in themselves but as vestiges pointing toward heavenly goods, using the hunter's analogy: we should follow the tracks of earthly delight toward the reality they signify, not rest in the signs.
So let our blindness not cut us off entirely from understanding the highest things. Divine Providence was pleased to create certain things in this world that are perceived as pleasing by the five bodily senses. Namely, some things please through color, some through scent, some through taste, some through sound, some through gentle touch. The idea is this: just as hunters, upon seeing the track of an animal, learn from the evidence of that track what kind of animal it is, so we, by seeing the things that delight us in this world, should understand how great the heavenly things must be — if the earthly things are seen to be of such great importance. And desiring those heavenly things as though we already knew them, we should leave these earthly things behind, just as hunters press forward following the track after the animal. Otherwise, just as hunters are frustrated if they admire only the track and never seek the animal itself, so we too will lose the benefit of our task if we cling too tightly to things that pass away. All these things, then, that delight us in the world are traces of heavenly goods. So let us not fix our desire on these earthly traces, but on the direct experience of those goods on which our desire is rightly fixed.
Created Things Are Means, Not Ends
Odo closes with rhetorical questions showing that no one should plunge into water merely to be refreshed or embrace fire for its utility, and observes that even robbers who afflict the poor unknowingly serve God's providential purpose of driving souls toward heavenly things.
Surely no one should plunge into the water just because they need to be refreshed by it? Or is fire to be embraced merely because it proves useful for cooking or for warding off the cold? Robbers, then, who afflict the poor in temporal matters seem to themselves to be choosing a path of folly, yet they are, though unwilling, being driven toward the pursuit of heavenly things in a way that works for their salvation.1
Read the original Latin
Hi sane, quos praesens gloria et vita nimis delectat, quorum voce propheta dicit: Manducemus et bibamus, cras enim moriemur (I Cor. XV, 32), dicere solent: Cur Deus divitias hujus vitae creavit, si eis ad libitum uti non debemus? Sed sufficere deberet illa vis eloquii, quo dicitur: Nolite diligere mundum, neque ea quae in mundo sunt: quia si quis diligit mundum, non est charitas Patris in eo (I Joan. II, 15), et si quis amicus ejus voluerit esse inimicus Dei constituitur (Jac. IV, 4). Et item: Qui festinat ditari, non erit innocens (Prov. XXVIII, 22). Quod in Esau expressum est, qui lentis edulium praeoccupare gestiens, primogenita quae erat suo tempore percepturus amisit.
Haec ergo, et multa hujusmodi sufficere deberent, quia non potest solvi Scriptura; si tamen hoc humano metitur exemplo, sciendum quia postquam a paradisi gaudiis decidimus, spiritualia, ut sunt, cogitare nullo modo valemus. Unde factum est, ut carnales quique nulla jam noverint, nisi ea quae corporeis oculis palpando, ut ita dixerim, cognosci valent: nec se jam ad summam curam erigere, sed in infimis consentiunt libenter jacere. Quorum mentis excaecatio in tantum densata est, ut iidem, cum illa invisibilia sentire per experimentum rei non valent, jam dubitent utrumne sit aliquid quod oculis corporeis non videtur, nisi quibusdam visibilibus exemplis eadem visibilia quodammodo monstrarentur, juxta illud exemplum quod beatus Gregorius in Dialogo ponit de matre, quae forte praegnans caeco carcere damnata sit, et ibi pariat, et nutriat: quae si filio jam intelligenti rerum mundalium species narrare voluerit, ille qui nihil nisi tenebras vidit, audire quidem potest quae mater dixerit, sed ipsas ut sunt species sine experimento intelligere nequaquam potest. Ne ergo nostra caecitas nos ab intellectu principali omnimodis excludat, placuit divinae providentiae quaedam in hoc mundo creare, quae quinque sensibus corporeis placida videantur. Videlicet quaedam placent colore, quaedam odore, quaedam sapore, quaedam sono, quaedam levi tactu: ut sicut venatores viso vestigio bestiae jam qualis illa bestia sit experimento vestigii cognoscunt, ita nos quae in hoc mundo delectant videntes, intelligamus quanta sint coelestia, si tanti momenti videntur esse terrestria, et illa velut jam nota concupiscentes, ista retro faciamus sicut venatores vestigium post bestiam festinantes. Alioquin sicut venatores frustrantur, si vestigium tantum admirantes, bestiam non quaesierint; sic officiperdi nos erimus, si caducis nimium inhaeserimus. Haec ergo omnia quae in mundo delectant, vestigia quaedam sunt coelestium bonorum. Non ergo istis inhiemus, sed experimento illorum bonorum, quibus merito inhiandum est.
Nunquid idcirco se debet in aquam quis mittere, quia sitim indiguit ex ea refocillare? Aut ob hoc ignis est amplexandus, quia vel ad coquendum, vel ad frigus arcendum probatur accommodus? Raptores igitur, qui pauperes in rebus temporaliter affligunt, videntur sibi stultitiae vestigium eligere, illos vero, licet nolentes, ad quaerenda coelestia salubriter impellere.
Scripture echoes
- ↩1Cor.15.32 — If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what good is it to me? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.
- ↩1John.2.15 — Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
- ↩Jas.4.4 — Adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity toward God? Whoever therefore chooses to be a friend of the world is constituted an enemy of God.
- ↩Prov.28.22 — A person with an evil eye hastens after wealth, and does not know that poverty will come upon him.
- ↩Gen.25.29-Gen.25.34 — Jacob was cooking stew when Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. Gen.25.30 — And Esau said to Jacob, "Let me gulp down some of that red stuff—this red stuff—because I am exhausted." That is why his name was called Edom. Gen.25.31 — But Jacob said, "Sell me your birthright today." Gen.25.32 — And Esau said, 'Look, I am about to die, so what good is the birthright to me?' Gen.25.33 — And Jacob said, "Swear to me today," and he swore to him, and he sold his birthright to Jacob. Gen.25.34 — Then Jacob gave Esau bread and a stew of lentils, and he ate and drank, and rose and went on his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.
Notes
- 1 ↩salubriter impellere — the paradox that even the wicked, against their will, serve God's salvific purposes for those they afflict; rendered as 'in a way that works for their salvation' to capture the instrumental force.
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