Caput XXXI
The Vanity of Worldly Glory
Odo argues that the glory of this present life ought to be despised, since all worldly pleasures and wealth have perished with those who once enjoyed them, and the lover of this life will discover at death that his pursuits were as empty as a dream.
But let us set aside for now the punishments that follow — surely the glory of this present life, because of that very failure, ought rather to have been despised? There were, before us, people who were powerful, and proud, and given to pleasure. But what good did their immoderate joy do them — their fine garments and perfumes, their various pleasures, and their wealth? Where are those things now — or where are they themselves? Let us go to their tombs — and what will we see there? Nothing but the stinking remains of worms. We shall prove true what is said of the impious: 'It will pass like a night vision' (Job 20:8).✦ For just as those placed in any punishment who, while awake, long for prosperity — perhaps in their dreams they see themselves as having it — yet when they have awakened, they realize that what they dreamed was empty, and they recognize it profited them nothing: so too the lover and pursuer of this life, when he departs from it.
The Greater Evil: Exclusion from Eternal Glory
Having shown that clinging to passing things profits nothing, Odo turns to the far greater horror of being shut out from the eternal goods prepared for the saints — especially the loss of Christ's sight — and challenges the reader to weigh even a thousand years of pleasure against eternity.
He learns that there was nothing he could have gained by clinging to what passes away — stripped bare, abandoned, and left with nothing. But would that all the pomp of mortals had come to nothing — to ashes and worms alone! But let us consider the horrendous judgment seat of the Judge — the burning river, the worms that will not die, the fires of Gehenna, the weeping and gnashing of teeth — and let us hold these things before our eyes as though we had already come to them. Let us tremble as though it were already here, for even if it delays, it is coming nonetheless.✦✦ And yet beyond what we have said, there is a far greater evil: to be shut out from the eternal goods that have been prepared for the saints. For every torment is surpassed by this: to be removed from that glory which you would have had the power to enjoy — especially to be cast out from the sight of Christ — when we see others too, with whom we shared this life, being welcomed in. Believe me — as it is said in rebuke of the fallen — this is what surpasses hell itself, what torments more heavily than all punishments. Let us grant — if you please — a hundred years of enjoying pleasures, or if you prefer, ten times as many. But what compensation will there be for these things against eternity?
The Foolishness of Choosing Pleasure Over Eternity
Odo addresses those who think him mad, showing that even if pleasures and punishments were equal in duration, no sane person would trade a single hour of torment for a day of pleasure — and since God has made this life brief but eternal rewards and punishments everlasting, we must not be deceived by fleeting delights.
But those who cling to these things in a way that makes them subject to suffering think we have lost our minds.1 Still, they cannot be unaware that pleasures pass by like a shadow and quickly flee, while punishments remain forever. But if the time and the span were equal, there would hardly be anyone so foolish and so insane as to choose one day of punishment in exchange for one day of pleasures — since a single hour's pain, and any bodily torment whatever, is enough to cast into oblivion all past time spent in pleasure. For God has provided that this life would indeed be one of toil, yet short in itself — so that our labors would quickly come to an end, while the rewards of our merits would last without end; so that the one who fears God would soon be secure, as it is written; but the reckless, who place the pleasures they prefer before Him, would swiftly lose those pleasures and incur the penalty they deserve — eternally.2 Let us not, then, choose among deceptive pleasures as though gazing at a delightful dream lasting but an hour — lest it befall us to undergo eternal torments amid true miseries.
Read the original Latin
Ut autem interim de sequentibus poenis taceamus, nonne pro ipso defectu contemnenda magis fuerat praesentis vitae gloria? fuerunt ante nos et potentes, et superbi, et voluptuosi. Sed quid illis profuit immoderata laetitia, vestes et odoramenta diversae voluptatis, et rerum opulentia? ubi illa nunc sunt, vel ubi ipsi? accedamus ad eorum sepulcra, et quid ibi videbimus? fetidas vermium reliquias. Probabimus verum esse quod de impiis dicitur: Transiet ut nocturna visio (Job XX, 8). Ut enim qui in poena qualibet positi prosperitatem, quam vigilantes desiderant, forte somniantes habere se vident, cum expergefacti fuerunt, vanum fuisse quod somniaverunt, nec sibi prodesse cognoscunt: sic amator et conquisitor hujus vitae, cum ab ea discedit.
nihil fuisse quod transire licet delectando potuit, et nudatus, et desertus, et annullatus addiscit. Sed utinam omnis pompa mortalium usque ad cineres et vermes solummodo evenisset! sed cogitemus horrendum judicis tribunal, ardentem fluvium, vermes qui non morientur, ignes gehennae, fletus et stridorem dentium, et prae oculis habeamus quasi jam ad haec ventum sit, pertimescamus quasi jam praesens, quod etsi tardet, futurum est tamen. Adhuc autem super his quae diximus est multo gravius malum excludi a perennibus bonis, quae praeparata sunt sanctis. Omnes enim superat cruciatus, removeri ab illa gloria, quam habueris in potestate fruendi, maxime a conspectu Christi foras ejici, cum viderimus alios etiam, cum quibus hanc vitam ducimus, intromitti. Crede mihi, ut in increpatione lapsi dicitur, hoc est quod gehennam superat, quod omnibus poenis gravius torquet. Demus, si placet, ad fruendum deliciis centum annos, et si mavis, decies tantum. Sed quae erit ex his compensatio ad aeternitatem?
Sed qui in eis passibiliter inhaerent delirare nos credunt. Attamen ignorare non possunt, quia deliciae quidem velut umbra pertranseunt, et velociter fugiunt, poenae vero perpetuo manent. Quod si aequale tempus et idem spatium esset, pene esset aliquis ita stultus, et ita demens, ut eligeret pro uno die deliciarum unum diem poenarum, cum soleat dolor unius horae, et quilibet corporis cruciatus, in oblivionem mittere omne praeteritum tempus voluptate transactum. Hoc enim providit Deus, ut haec vita laboris quidem esset, sed tamen ipsa brevis vita, ut labores cito finiantur, meritorum praemia sine fine durent, ut qui Deum timet, sicut scriptum est, cito sit securus; temerarii vero voluptates, quas ei praeponunt, velociter amittant, et mercedem, quam oportet, aeternaliter incurrant. Non igitur eligamus inter fallaces voluptates quasi unius horae delectabile somnium videre, ne nos contingat inter veras miserias aeternos cruciatus subire.
Scripture echoes
Notes
- 1 ↩passibiliter (rare form): 'in a subject-to-suffering manner' — i.e., they are so attached to passing pleasures that they become vulnerable to pain, and on that basis judge the speaker foolish.
- 2 ↩sicut scriptum est — the speaker appeals to a written source (likely a proverbial or psalmic text about the security of the God-fearing); exact reference pending Moses resolution.
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