CAPUT XLV. Quomodo, vel unde oriatur ordinatus pudor
The Impossibility of Sinless Living
The soul questions whether anyone can live without sin, acknowledging that even sins of ignorance cannot be fully avoided in this life.
But after these six offspring of the virtues, will anyone at least be allowed to live without sin, so that after hating the vices they can at least be free of vice? Who would presume that? Who would even dare to hope for it in this life, when the Apostle says, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us"? Who—to say nothing of the rest—can even fully leave behind and perfectly avoid the very sins of ignorance in this life?1
The Humility of the Corrector
Those who rebuke others are often allowed to fall themselves, so that they learn mercy and experience deep shame when they see their own faults mirrored in those they corrected.
Do even those who rebuke other people's faults thoroughly strip themselves of every contagion of sin? On the contrary: those through whom God means to correct other people's errors He often, by a dispensation of great kindness, allows to fall heavily, so that from their own fault they may learn how merciful they ought to be when they rebuke others.2 But how deeply do you think they blush, and with what humility they cast themselves down, when they see that they have fallen into the very thing for which they rebuke others—or perhaps into something worse—they who ought to have offered others a pattern of upright living?3 Who do you think could worthily weigh how deep a confusion pierces their hearts when, in their own life, they see something that can justly be rebuked even by the very people they remember often rebuking more sharply and chastising more harshly for their faults?
Dinah: The Birth of Ordered Shame
Dinah, born after Zebulun, symbolizes ordered shame that follows excessive zeal, and only those who have first brought forth Zebulun can truly possess this virtue.
This is why Dinah is born after Zebulun: because, naturally, when a fault occurs, shame often follows excessive zeal.✦ For by Dinah we mean nothing other than shame—ordered shame. To blush only at sin is to have good, ordered shame.4 But anyone who has not yet deserved to bring forth Zebulun mistakenly believes that he can bring forth Dinah.
Read the original Latin
Sed nunquid post has sex virtutum soboles, saltem dabitur cuivis sine peccato vivere, ut saltem post vitiorum odium, possit sine vitio esse? Quis hoc praesumat? Quis hoc in hac vita vel sperare audeat cum apostolus dicat: Si dixerimus quia peccatum non habemus nosipsos seducimus, et veritas in nobis non est? Quis est, ut de caeteris taceam, qui ipsa saltem peccata ignorantiae possit in hac vita plene deserere, perfecte devitare? Nunquid vel ipsi qui aliorum culpas corripiunt se ab omni peccati contagio penitus exuunt? Imo eos saepe per quos Deus aliorum errata corrigere disponit, ex magnae pietatis dispensatione graviter cadere permittit, ut ex propria culpa discant quam misericordes in aliorum correptione esse debeant. Sed quantum putas erubescunt, cum quali se humilitate deliciunt, cum se in id unde alios corripiunt, vel forte in aliquid gravius lapsos conspiciunt, qui aliis in statu rectitudinis formam praebere debuerunt? Quis putas digne pensare sufficiat quanta confusio corda eorum transfigat, cum in sua vita videant quod jure valeat ab ipsis etiam reprehendi, quos pro culpa eorum reminiscuntur a se saepe et acerbius corripi et durius castigari?
Hinc est quod post Zabulon nascitur Dina, quia nimirum saepe nimium zelum, interveniente culpa, sequitur verecundia. Nihil enim aliud, intelligimus per Dinam nisi verecundiam, sed ordinatam; solum peccatum erubescere, est bonam, est ordinatam verecundiam habere. Sed qui Zabulon nondum gignere meruit, frustra Dinam se posse gignere credit.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Gen.30.19-Gen.30.21 — Leah conceived again and bore a sixth son to Jacob. Gen.30.20 — Then Leah said, "God has given me a good gift; this time my husband will honor me, for I have borne him six sons." So she named him Zebulun. Gen.30.21 — Afterward she bore a daughter and called her name Dinah.
Notes
- 1 ↩peccata ignorantiae kept as 'sins of ignorance' (unwitting/unknowing sins), not mere mistakes.
- 2 ↩magnae pietatis dispensatione: 'pietas' rendered as divine kindness/tenderness rather than human piety; 'dispensation' kept for ordered divine arrangement.
- 3 ↩Latin surface 'deliciunt' is awkward; sense taken as self-abasement in humility (likely dejiciunt / cast themselves down). If read as delighting in humility, the force would soften slightly but still fit ordered shame.
- 4 ↩verecundia is moral shame/modesty, not mere social embarrassment; ordinatam marks shame rightly ordered toward sin alone (solum peccatum).
Benjamin Minor (The Twelve Patriarchs / Preparation of the Mind for Contemplation) companion
A daily portion of stillness
Chosen Portion delivers one short contemplative reading and a guided moment of silence each day — the ascent, one step at a time.
Chosen Portion is the paced doorway into this collection: it portions the dense mystical treatises into one daily reading plus guided silence, exactly as the 14-day plan teaches.
- Daily bite-sized excerpts from the contemplative classics, never a wall of text
- A built-in timed stillness practice that grows from 2 minutes to 10
- Gentle progression through the tradition — the app remembers where you are on the ascent