Caput L
The Field of God: An Allegory of Grain and Threshing
Drawing on Paul's image of believers as God's field, Odo unfolds an extended allegory in which grain receiving rain, being shaken by wind, carrying chaff, and finally being threshed and gathered into the barn mirrors the soul's reception of grace, testing by temptation, coexistence with sinners, and ultimate purification through heavenly discipline.
Because we have indeed spoken of grains and of threshing, it seems we should still take something from the use of the crop that we think needs to be added. "You are God's field," the Apostle says (1 Cor.✦ 3:9).✦ Since this is so, let us draw an example from it. In a field, grain alone is touched by the rain; it receives the showers of truth through the word and grows rich. That grain is shaken by the winds; this field is tested by temptations. That grain carries with it the chaff growing in this age; this field bears the wicked life of sinners. That grain is pressed in the threshing and stripped of its chaff; this field is scourged by heavenly discipline, so that it may be separated in heart from the company of the carnal. That grain, the chaff having been left behind, is carried into the barn; this field, with the reprobate remaining outside, is brought into the joy of its Lord.✦
The Time of the Elect and the Mark of False Brothers
Odo turns to Job 5:26 and John 7:6 to contrast the 'time' of the reprobate (this life) with that of the elect (the life to come), then interprets the ears of grain and chaff as signs of false brothers who grow alongside the good—erect, divided, and quarrelsome—while the true grains remain pressed together in humble agreement.
Hence it is said to the chosen people in Job: You will enter the grave in abundance, like a heap of grain gathered in its own time (Job 5:26).✦ The time of the reprobate is in this life; the time of the elect is in the life to come, as their Head says: My time has not yet come (John 7:6).✦ 7, 6). But of those others: But your time is always ready (ibid.).✦ . Therefore the grave, in its own time, like a heap of grain, receives each just person in his own time, because that person receives the rest to come who first here, as it were in a time not his own, endures the pressures of discipline, needing to be corrected. Now the ears of grain or the chaff signify false brothers through this: that they grow in the same ear of grain, as it were in one faith, together with the grains. These are now superior, because they frequently prevail over the good; they are erect and divided from one another, because the wicked are proud, and among them there are always quarrels.
Divine Discipline, the Devil's Husks, and the Coming Judge
Odo concludes by showing how heavenly grace uses affliction like frost to restrain the soul from pleasure and make it fruitful, warns that the devil's attendants now occupy the high place of husks in the Lord's harvest but will be shattered by the Judge's rod of iron, and promises that when chaff is burned the grains will be stored up for eternity.
Yet the grains touch one another, because in the oppression of the good they agree together among themselves. The bristly husks are fragile and brittle, because against anyone who would seize them they prove as intractable as if he were touching them — yet they quickly yield to vices.1 But it happens by a wonderful dispensation that while here, after receiving heavenly grace, they afflict us for our sins — as one might afflict a harvest sprouting badly among weeds after the rains — so that the grain may flourish more richly, frost holds it in check, so that they restrain us from the flow of pleasure, and render us more fruitful in the fruit of eternal reward.2 So let the devil's attendants go now and occupy a higher place in the ear of the Lord's harvest, as if they were the husks. Surely they will not keep even the least place in the storehouses; let them be bristly now, and let them set the little thorns of their excuse against the evil of the one who reproves them.3 The judge will surely come who shows no favor to persons — the one they continually afflict in his little ones. He will come with a rod of iron, with which he rules the nations, with which he will shatter the husks, and when the chaff is handed over to the fire, he will store up the grains for himself.✦4
Read the original Latin
Quia vero granorum atque triturae meminimus, videtur ut de usu quoque segetis adhuc quod ducimus astruendum aliquid assumamus: Dei, inquit Apostolus, agricultura estis (I Cor. III, 9). Quod si ita est, ergo de hac exemplum sumamus. Frumentum quippe in segete sola tangitur, illud pluvias percipit, haec veritatis eloquio pinguescit. Illud ventis concutitur, haec tentationibus exercetur. Illud saeculi crescentes paleas portat, haec nequam vitam sceleratorum portat. Illud tritura premitur, paleis exuitur, haec coelesti disciplina flagellatur, ut a societate carnalium corde separetur. Illud relictis paleis ad horreum refertur, haec foris remanentibus reprobis in Domini sui gaudium intromittitur.
Unde electo populo in Job dicitur: Ingredieris in abundantia sepulcrum sicut acervus in tempore suo (Job V, 26). Tempus reproborum in hac vita est, electorum in sequenti, sicut eorum Caput dicit: Tempus meum nondum advenit (Joan. VII, 6). De illis vero: Tempus autem vestrum semper est paratum (Ibid.) . Sepulcrum ergo in tempore suo, sicut frumenti acervus, justus quilibet in tempore suo infertur, quoniam ille futuram requiem percipit, qui prius hic velut in tempore alieno pressuras disciplinae corrigendus sentit. Aristae vero vel paleae per hoc falsos fratres significant, quod in eadem spica velut in una fide cum granis crescunt. Quae nunc superiores sunt, quia bonis frequenter praevalent; erectae sunt, et ab invicem divisae, quia mali superbiunt, et inter eos semper jurgia sunt.
Attamen super grana mutuo se tangunt, quia in oppressione bonorum sibi concordant. Hispidae sunt, et fragiles quia ad corripientem quasi tangentem intractabiles existunt, viciis vero mox cedunt. Mira autem dispensatione fit ut dum hic nos post perceptionem coelestis gratiae pro peccatis nostris affligunt, quasi messem post pluvias in herbis male pullulantem, ut in grano fecundior exuberet, gelu restringit, ut a fluxu voluptatis coerceant, et in fructu mercedis aeternae fecundiores reddant. Eant ergo nunc satellites diaboli, et in spica Dominicae messis altiorem locum quasi aristae teneant. Certe quia in horrea nec ultimum retinebunt, sint et nunc hispidi, et excusationis spinulas contra malum redarguentis opponant. Veniet profecto judex qui personam non accipit quem jugiter in suis pusillis affligunt. Veniet virga ferrea, qua gentes regit, qua aristas comminuet, et paleis ad ignem traditis grana sibi recondet.
Scripture echoes
- ↩1Cor.3.9 — For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.
- ↩1Cor.3.9 — For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.
- ↩Matt.13.24-Matt.13.30 — He put before them another parable, saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field." Matt.13.25 — but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away Matt.13.26 — But when the wheat sprouted and produced grain, then the weeds also appeared. Matt.13.27 — But the servants of the householder came and said to him, 'Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where then does it have weeds?' Matt.13.28 — But he said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' The servants said to him, 'Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?' Matt.13.29 — But he said, 'No, lest while gathering the weeds you uproot the wheat along with them.' Matt.13.30 — Let both grow together until the harvest; and at the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, 'First gather the weeds and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.'
- ↩Job.5.26 — You will come to the grave in full vigor, like a grain shock gathered in its season.
- ↩John.7.6 — So Jesus said to them, "My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready."
- ↩John.7.6 — So Jesus said to them, "My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready."
- ↩Ps.2.9 — You will shatter them with a rod of iron; like a potter's vessel you will dash them to pieces.
Notes
- 1 ↩Hispidae is a rare/uncertain term here, rendered as 'bristly husks' in keeping with the grain/harvest metaphor. The form and sense of corripientem and the nuance of existunt vs. sunt are uncertain.
- 2 ↩The multiple ut-clauses express result or purpose; the overall sense is that God's providential discipline uses affliction to purify and increase spiritual fruitfulness.
- 3 ↩Hispidi is a rare word; rendered as 'bristly' in keeping with the grain metaphor.
- 4 ↩Virga ferrea and the chaff/grain separation echo Psalm 2:9 and Matthew 3:12 (Luke 3:17). Final resolution deferred to Moses stage.
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