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Chapter 31OdoC.3.31

Caput XXX

The Madness of Worldly Distinction

Odo rebukes those who abuse power over their brothers, arguing that worldly nobility is no ground for pride since all share a common nature, a common origin, and a common baptismal regeneration before God.

By what madness do they not shrink from offending God, burdening their neighbor, and losing all sense of proper measure — all for the sake of passing things? And by that same madness they consider themselves all the better the more they use those very things through which they are made worse to stand out above good and devout brothers. They think they have more the more power they have seen themselves able to wield, and though they are slaves to many vices themselves, they rejoice that they can lord it over whichever brothers they please. But if they are so unspiritual that they can understand nothing in a spiritual way, as the Apostle says, they should at least consider the equality of their common nature.✦ Worldly nobility is a gift not of nature but of ambition. To show the value of unity, Eve was formed from Adam himself; and though Adam was the greater, he was placed outside paradise, while she was placed within it.✦ Hence it is written: No king had any other beginning of birth, and there is one entrance into life for all, and a similar departure (Wis. 7, 5). And certainly, as Jerome says, we are all made equal through divine grace, those whom a second birth has regenerated: through which both the noble and the ignoble are made children of God, and earthly nobility is overshadowed by the splendor of heavenly glory.✦ Are the poor conceived more basely, when even David laments that he was conceived in sin?✦

God Chooses the Lowly

Drawing on James, Job, St. Martin, Esau and Jacob, and the labor of the poor, Odo shows that God favors the humble and that worldly power is both morally suspect and built on the exploitation of the weak.

Are the nobility reborn in any more splendid way, since — as James says — God chose the poor, and the rich only in faith?✦ Job weighed equality highly — he did not refuse to submit to judgment with his own servant, even though he was a king. And Lord Martin, who served his own servant in return — the roles reversed — so much so that he would wipe clean his servant's sandals.✦ Esau, whom the Lord hated, went about with four hundred men.✦✦ Jacob, whom God chose, crossed the Jordan with nothing but his staff.✦ Consider all the records of ancient times — you will always find the more powerful to be the worse. For — to bring this point home — the sweat of the poor is what prepares the feasts by which the powerful are fattened. Those fine clothes, those embroidered canopies — and those exotic foods too — are they not prepared by the hands of the poorest?

The Fleeting Glory of the Wicked Rich

Odo concludes with Boethius and Jerome on the emptiness of borrowed beauty, then turns to Job's warning that the riches of the wicked will be vomited up and their long prosperity consumed in a single moment.

If there is indeed any beauty in them, or any charm, it is the craftsmen who deserve praise, as Boethius says — not those who merely use them. For when people long to be adorned with truth drawn from outward things, having sought it from external sources, they reveal that what is their own is not enough for them. Hence Jerome: He who seeks to please by another's scent fears to offend by his own. But those who chase the winds and put their trust in nothing ought to remember that, according to Job, the riches they have devoured they will vomit up, and God will draw them out of their bellies; and if they have spent their days in prosperity, in a moment they will descend to the grave.✦✦ In a moment — because just as a stylus, while it is being set down, is lifted up, so the wicked rich man, the very moment he touches present joy, loses it. For however many years he may have lived happily, when he comes to his end, that long stretch of time is consumed as though it had been brief.

Read the original Latin

Qua vero dementia pro transitoriis rebus et Deum offendere, et proximum gravare, et mensuram bonam perdere non trepidant, ea quoque dementia tanto se meliores putant, quanto in eisdem rebus, per quas pejores sunt, bonis et piis fratribus excellere videntur; et putant se tanto plus habere, quanto plus viderint posse, et cum ipsi multorum vitiorum sint servi, gaudent quibusque fratribus se posse dominari. Sed si adeo sunt animales, ut nihil, juxta Apostolum, spiritaliter intelligere possint, vel aequalitatem naturae considerare deberent. Nobilitatem quippe mundanam non natura, sed ambitio praestitit. Ad unitatem quippe commendandam, Eva de ipso Adam formata est, et Adam licet major, tamen extra paradisum, illa in paradisum. Unde scriptum est: Nemo ex regibus aliud habuit nativitatis initium, et unus est omnibus introitus ad vitam, et similis exitus (Sap. VII, 5). Et certe, ut ait Hieronymus, omnes per divinam gratiam aequales efficimur, quos nativitas secunda regeneravit: per quam tam nobilis quam ignobilis Dei filius efficitur, et terrena nobilitas splendore coelestis gloriae obumbratur. An pauperiores sordidius generantur, cum et David plangit se in peccatis conceptum?

An nitidius regenerantur nobiles, cum juxta Jacobum pauperes elegit Deus, divites in fide? Job aequalitatem pensabat, qui non contempsit subire judicium cum servo suo, licet esset rex. Et domnus Martinus, qui ita servo suo versa vice serviebat, ut ejus calceamenta detergeret. Esau, quem Dominus odio habuit, cum quadringentis viris gradiebatur. Jacob, quem elegit, in baculo suo Jordanem transiit. Omnes libros antiquitatum considera, potentiores semper invenies pejores. Nam, ut hoc inferam, sudoribus pauperum praeparatur unde potentiores saginantur. Vestes illae, et histriata tentoria, sed et exotici cibi num pauperiorum manibus preparantur?

Si qua vero pulchritudo in eis est, aut suavitas, artifices laudandi sunt, ut Boetius dicit, et non hi qui eis utuntur: qui cum emendicata ab exterioribus rebus veritate decorari gestiunt, propriam sibi non sufficere produnt. Unde Hieronymus: Offendere timet odore proprio qui placere quaerit alieno. Sed hi qui amplexantur ventos, et confidunt in nihili, meminisse debent quia, juxta Job, divitias quas devoraverunt evoment, et de ventre eorum extrahet eas Deus, et si duxerint in bonis dies suos, in puncto ad inferna descendent. In puncto videlicet, quia sicut stylus dum ponitur elevatur, sic iniquus dives praesens gaudium dum tangit amittit. Nam quantislibet annis feliciter vixerit, cum ad finem venerit, ita tempus illud longum consumitur, ac si breve fuisset.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩1Cor.2.14;Gal.3.28 — But the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. Gal.3.28 — There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
  2. ↩Gen.2.21-Gen.2.22 — So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place. Gen.2.22 — And the LORD God built the rib that He had taken from the man into a woman, and brought her to the man.
  3. ↩Gal.3.28 — There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
  4. ↩Ps.51.5 — For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
  5. ↩Jas.2.5 — Listen, my beloved brothers: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?
  6. ↩John.13.14-John.13.15 — If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. John.13.15 — For I have given you an example, that just as I have done to you, you also should do.
  7. ↩Gen.32.6 — and there came to me cattle and donkey, flock and male servant and female servant, and I sent to tell my lord, to find favor in your sight
  8. ↩Mal.1.2-Mal.1.3;Rom.9.13 — "I have loved you," says the LORD. "But you ask, 'How have you loved us?' "Was not Esau Jacob's brother?" declares the LORD. "Yet I have loved Jacob. Mal.1.3 — but Esau I hated. And I made his mountains a desolation and his inheritance a haunt for the jackals of the wilderness. Rom.9.13 — Just as it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
  9. ↩Gen.32.10 — And Jacob said, "God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, 'Return to your land and to your kindred, and I will do good with you.'"
  10. ↩Job.20.15 — He swallowed wealth and vomits it up; from his belly God will drive it out.
  11. ↩Job.20.5 — For the rejoicing of the wicked is brief, and the joy of the godless lasts but a moment.

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