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Chapter 37OdoC.3.37

Caput XXXVI

Mercy and Judgment Held Together

Odo warns against despair and grumbling, calling the afflicted to hold together God's mercy and judgment as the twin lenses through which all divine dealings with the elect and the reprobate must be understood.

So do not let anyone fall into these two sins — I mean, despair or murmuring. On the other hand, there are two things the afflicted especially need to keep in view: namely, mercy and judgment. As the psalmist says: I will sing of mercy and judgment to you, O Lord. And similarly: All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth. XXIV, 10). Our Creator and Judge exercises these two in a wondrous way toward both the reprobate and the elect. Toward the elect, he holds out mercy for the future, yet even now he presses them with the judgment of harsh afflictions. Toward the reprobate, he tolerates them here through mercy, and for the most part allows them to be propped up by the temporal goods they desire — which is indeed what they pray for — but through judgment he shuts them out from the eternal goods that they freely despise. And so both the wicked and the good generally enjoy prosperity and adversity alike in common — but one in this way, the other in that.

Wisdom to Read Prosperity and Adversity

Outwardly, the wicked and the good share the same outward fortunes, yet with opposite inner effect; to discern this divine ordering one needs the wisdom that James teaches must be sought from God.

For those people are raised up by prosperity and broken by adversity. These people are sustained by prosperity and instructed by adversity. A certain wise man makes this point when he says: The necessities of human life are water, fire, and iron, milk, and bread, and honey (Ecclus.1 XXXIX, 31), etc. Some things he appoints on account of adversity, some on account of prosperity. Concerning which he also adds: All these things will be turned to good for the holy, but to evil for the impious and sinners (Ibid. , 33). To understand this dispensation, by which God exercises either mercy or judgment, the apostle James teaches that wisdom is necessary; for when he was speaking about the affliction of the just, he added, saying: If any of you is in need of wisdom, let him ask from God (James✦23

The Folly of Ignoring God's Plan

It is great wisdom to understand God's ordering of suffering and rest, and dangerous folly to ignore it, as shown by Job's wife, Israel's murmuring, and Moses' rebuke of a foolish people.

I, 5). So it is great wisdom to understand this divine ordering, and on the other hand, it is dangerous foolishness to remain ignorant of it. Hence both the wife of blessed Job — who was urging him to an excess of murmuring, as if she were speaking as one of the foolish women — is refuted, and the children of Israel, who were lodging complaints under their tribulations in the desert.✦ Moses says: 'O foolish and unwise people' (Deut.✦ XXXII, 6). For it is God's plan to lead His chosen ones through temporal afflictions to eternal rest.✦ The Apostle speaks of this very plan: 'For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God' (Acts✦ XX, 27).

Through Tribulations to the Kingdom

Christ's passion patterns the path of His members through suffering into glory, prefigured by Israel's desert journey and manna, and solemnly applied to monks who despise their rule and slide back toward the world.

For this purpose — namely, to make known the counsel by which it was fitting that our Head should suffer and so enter into his glory — he showed that all the members of that same Head must also, as it is written, enter the kingdom through many tribulations.✦ To further this counsel — that is, to make known this dispensation by which we must live in straits from the time of baptism right to the end — the children of Israel were delayed, so that they would not immediately cross the Red Sea and enter the promised land, but instead lingered in the desert for forty years and were afflicted by various trials. Yet those same people, though commanded through Moses to gather manna only by the measure of an omer, grew sick of it and murmured, understanding nothing of this dispensation and giving it no thought — they longed for pots of meat.✦ Therefore, as it is said of them: they did not understand the wondrous works of God, but they quickly fell away and did not endure his counsel.✦ But since the example just discussed has offered itself as an occasion, what creeps in the mind now breaks forth again in speech — namely, about us wretched monks, or rather Sarabaites, who kick unbridled against every yoke of regular discipline. We, I say, having been led out of the Egypt of this world through our professed religious life, running through the course of the present life as through a desert, under the mortification of the cross, ought to hasten toward the rest of the heavenly promise. But — alas, the grief! Offering ourselves as a laughingstock and spectacle to both angels and men, we slacken in the course of our professed purpose; and just as they, scorning the omer measure and the manna, longing for pots of meat, turned their hearts back to Egypt — so too do we, disdaining the measure and quality of sustenance prescribed for us by God through blessed Benedict, and craving bloody feasts like barbarians, slide back toward the apostasy of this world, not enduring his counsel.

Read the original Latin

Ne igitur in haec duo, desperationem videlicet, aut murmurationem incurrant, e contra duo maxime afflictis consideranda sunt, videlicet misericordia et judicium. Unde Psalmista: Misericordiam et judicium cantabo tibi, Domine (Psal. C, 1); et item: Universae viae Domini misericordia et veritas (Psal. XXIV, 10). Quae duo Conditor et judex noster miro modo tam erga reprobos quam erga electos exercet. Electis namque misericordiam in posterum exhibet, hic tamen eos per judicium duris afflictionibus premit. Reprobos autem hic per misericordiam tolerat, et plerumque bonis temporalibus, quae desiderant, ad votum quidem fulciri permittit: sed eos ab aeternis bonis, quae libero arbitrio contemnunt, per judicium excludit. Et prosperis quidem aut adversis communiter, ut supra dictum est, tam mali quam boni plerumque fruuntur, sed aliter illi, aliter isti.

Nam illi prosperis extolluntur, adversis franguntur. Isti prosperis sustentantur, adversis erudiuntur. Quod quidam sapiens ostendens ait: Necessaria vitae hominum aqua, ignis, et ferrum, lac, et panis, et mel (Eccli. XXXIX, 31), etc. Quaedam propter adversa, quaedam ponens propter prospera. De quibus etiam subjungit: Haec omnia sanctis in bona, impiis et peccatoribus in mala convertentur (Ibid. , 33). Ad hanc dispensationem intelligendam, qua divinitus aut misericordiam aut judicium Deus exercet, Jacobus apostolus sapientiam esse necessariam docet, qui cum de justorum afflictione loqueretur, subjunxit, dicens: Si quis vestrum indiget sapientia, postulet a Deo (Jac.

I, 5). Ergo magna sapientia est hanc dispensationem intelligere, et econtra periculosa stultitia nescire. Unde et uxor beati Job quae ei excessum murmurationis suadebat, quasi una de stultis mulieribus locuta esse redarguitur, et filiis Israel, qui sub tribulationibus in deserto querelabantur. Moyses dicit: Popule stulte et insipiens (Deut. XXXII, 6). Consilium quippe Dei est, electos suos per temporales afflictiones ad aeternum refrigerium introducere. De quo Apostolus dicit: Non enim subterfugi quin annuntiarem consilium Dei vobis (Act. XX, 27).

Pro quo, videlicet consilio manifestando, caput nostrum oportuit pati, et ita intrare in gloriam suam, ut ostenderet quod omnia membra ejusdem capitis oporteret, ut scriptum est, per multas tribulationes intrare in regnum. Ad hoc consilium, id est, ad hanc dispensationem insinuandam, qua necesse est a tempore baptismatis usque ad finem in angustiis vivamus, filii Israel dilati sunt, ut non statim transito mari Rubro terram repromissionis intrarent, sed per quadraginta annos in eremo demorati, nonnullis sunt afflictionibus afflicti. Qui tamen super manna, quod ad mensuram gomor per Moysen accipere jussi sunt, nauseantes murmurabant, et de hac dispensatione nihil intelligentes aut curantes, ollas carnium desiderabant. Quapropter ut de eis dicitur, non intellexerunt mirabilia Dei, sed cito defecerunt, et non sustinuerunt consilium ejus. Quia vero praedicti exempli sese occasio praebuit, quod in animo serpit in vocem rursus erumpit, videlicet de nobis miseris monachis, vel potius Sarabaitis, qui infrenes ad omne regularis disciplinae jugum recalcitramus. Nos, inquam, de hujus mundi Aegypto per professam religionem educti, per stadium praesentis vitae quasi per eremum sub mortificatione crucis excurrentes, ad supernae promissionis requiem festinare debuimus. Sed, proh dolor! ridiculum et angelis et hominibus spectaculum praebentes, in arrepti propositi stadio lentescimus; et sicut illi despicientes gomor et manna, et ollas carnium desiderantes corde reversi sunt ad Aegyptum, sic et nos, et mensuram, et qualitatem victus a Deo per beatum Benedictum praefixam fastidientes, et sanguineas dapes velut barbari desiderantes, ad apostasiam hujus mundi relabimur consilium non sustinentes.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Jas.1.5 — But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask from God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
  2. ↩Job.2.9 — Then his wife said to him, "Are you still holding fast to your integrity? Curse God and die."
  3. ↩Deut.32.6 — Is this the way you repay the LORD—O foolish and unwise people? Is he not your Father who created you, who made you and established you?
  4. ↩2Thess.1.7 — and to give relief with us to you who are being afflicted, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with the angels of his power
  5. ↩Acts.20.27 — For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.
  6. ↩Acts.14.22 — strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to remain in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.
  7. ↩Exod.16.1-Exod.16.35;Num.11.4-Num.11.6 — They set out from Elim, and the whole congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt. Exod.16.2 — And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. Exod.16.3 — And the children of Israel said to them, 'Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots, when we ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.' Exod.16.4 — Then the LORD said to Moses, "I am about to rain down bread from heaven for you. The people shall go out and gather a day's portion each day, so that I may test them, whether they will walk in my instruction or not." Exod.16.5 — And on the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather day by day. Exod.16.6 — And Moses and Aaron said to all the sons of Israel, "At evening you will know that the LORD has brought you out from the land of Egypt. Exod.16.7 — And in the morning you will see the glory of the LORD, when he hears your complaints against the LORD. And as for us—what are you that you should complain against us? Exod.16.8 — And Moses said, "When the LORD gives you meat in the evening to eat, and bread in the morning to satisfy you — because the LORD has heard your complaints that you lodge against him — what are we? Your complaints are not against us, but against the LORD." Exod.16.9 — Then Moses said to Aaron, "Say to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, 'Come near before the LORD, for He has heard your grumblings.'" Exod.16.10 — And it came about, as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, that they turned toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud. Exod.16.11 — Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, Exod.16.12 — I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Speak to them, saying, 'At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God.' Exod.16.13 — And in the evening the quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning the dew lay around the camp. Exod.16.14 — And when the layer of dew had lifted, behold, on the face of the wilderness there was a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. Exod.16.15 — When the sons of Israel saw it, they said to one another, 'What is it?' For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, 'It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat.' Exod.16.16 — This is the thing that the LORD has commanded: Gather from it, each person according to what he can eat—an omer per person, according to the number of your people; each one shall take it for those who are in his tent. Exod.16.17 — The people of Israel did just that—some gathered much and some gathered little. Exod.16.18 — And when they measured by the omer, the one who gathered much had no excess, and the one who gathered little had no lack; each gathered according to what they would eat. Exod.16.19 — Moses said to them, "No one is to leave any of it until morning." Exod.16.20 — But they did not listen to Moses. Some of them kept part of it until morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. Exod.16.21 — They gathered it morning by morning, each as much as he could eat; and when the sun grew hot, it melted. Exod.16.22 — And on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one; and all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses. Exod.16.23 — And he said to them, "This is what the LORD has spoken: a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD, is tomorrow. What you bake, bake; and what you boil, boil; and all that is left over, set aside for yourselves as a reserve until morning." Exod.16.24 — So they set it aside until morning, as Moses had commanded, and it did not stink, nor were there any worms in it. Exod.16.25 — And Moses said, "Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the LORD. Today you will not find it in the field." Exod.16.26 — Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none. Exod.16.27 — And it came about on the seventh day that some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. Exod.16.28 — Then the LORD said to Moses, "How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my instructions?" Exod.16.29 — See, the LORD has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day. Exod.16.30 — So the people rested on the seventh day. Exod.16.31 — The house of Israel called its name manna, and it was like coriander seed, white, and its taste was like wafers made with honey. Exod.16.32 — Moses said, "This is the thing that the LORD has commanded: Let an omerful of it be kept for your generations, so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt." Exod.16.33 — And Moses said to Aaron, "Take a jar and put in it a full omer of manna, and set it before the LORD, to be kept for your generations." Exod.16.34 — Just as the LORD commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the Testimony, for safekeeping. Exod.16.35 — The children of Israel ate the manna forty years, until they came to a settled land; they ate the manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. Num.11.4 — Now the rabble among them gave themselves over to craving, and the people of Israel also wept again and said, 'Who will give us meat to eat?' Num.11.5 — We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. Num.11.6 — But now we are dried up inside; there is nothing at all before our eyes except this manna.
  8. ↩Ps.106.13 — They quickly forgot his works; they did not wait for his counsel.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩Quod rendered as 'Because' (causal conjunction) rather than 'Which' (relative pronoun); the causal reading fits the argumentative flow of the passage.
  2. 2 ↩The aut...aut construction ('either mercy or judgment') is rendered with 'either...or' to preserve the disjunctive force: God exercises one or the other through the same temporal goods and adversities.
  3. 3 ↩The James citation is a candidate allusion to James 1:5 ('If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God'). Final resolution deferred to tx-08 Moses stage.

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