CAPUT LII Quomodo sub uno eodemque tempore unde una corrumpitur, inde aliae virtutes quandoque nutriuntur
While Dinah Falls, Her Brothers Feed Their Flocks
True love of neighbor feeds the soul's simple thoughts through the considered lives of others, while empty self-love provides the occasion for inward corruption.
It is worth noting that at the same time Dinah is corrupted, and her brothers are busy feeding their flocks. For the mind that is strong in love and the other virtues tends, just as it grieves over its own evils, so also to rejoice in its neighbors' goods. So when, surveying its neighbors' lives, it considers their goods and compares its own with theirs, just as it often cannot help favoring its own blessings, so too it will necessarily rejoice in the goods of others.1 A truly devout mind, while it looks more carefully at some people's progress and others' failings, at the weakness of these and the perfection of those, is of course touched by various affections in turn—now by these, now by those. So it begins to fear for some, to grieve for others, to hope for good things for these and better things for those. In some it sees what it can love and finds things over which it can also rejoice; and in certain people it finds what it may justly abhor, and over which it ought also justly to grieve. And so in this way, while good affections play upon the simple thoughts that arise here and there from neighbors' way of life—carefully observed and found pleasing—what else are Dinah's brothers, the sons of Leah, doing but feeding their flocks?2 Do you see how, at the same time, true love of neighbor works one thing, and empty self-love works another? True love of neighbor supplies the pasture for the brothers as they feed their flocks; vain self-love provides the opportunity for Dinah's corruption.
How the Report of Sin Reaches the Heart
The mind first knows corruption as thought, but when it turns the matter over in repeated meditation, the affection is pierced, until the brothers—the virtues—are stirred to awareness.
But the fact that the matter is not hidden from the father, even before word reaches the brothers—what else does this suggest to us, except that knowledge of the corruption strikes the mind first through thought, before it does through affection? But when the matter turns over longer in the heart and is replayed more often in thought, it sometimes reaches the innermost depths of the heart and pierces the heart's affection through. So when the mind is stirred by anxiety over the matter and is touched by various affections in turn, there is no doubt that word has already reached Leah's sons—Dinah's brothers.
Read the original Latin
Notandum sane quod uno eodemque tempore et Dina corrumpitur, et ejus in suis pecoribus pascendis fratres occupantur. Mens etenim quae charitate caeterisque virtutibus pollet, sicut de suis malis dolere, sic et de proximorum bonis gaudere solet. Dum igitur proximorum vitam lustrando eorum bona considerat, suaque cum illorum bonis comparat, sicut non potest suis saepe favoribus non favere, sic et de aliorum eam bonis congratulari erit necesse. Mens utique pia dum aliorum profectum, aliorum defectum, horum infirmitatem, illorum perfectionem diligentius intuetur, variis nimirum, nunc his, nunc illis vicissim affectibus tangitur. Incipit ergo pro aliis timere, pro aliis dolere, de his bona, de illis meliora sperare. Videt in aliis quae diligat pro quibus et gaudeat invenit, et in quibusdam quae juste abhorreat, pro quibus et juste dolere debeat. In hunc itaque modum dum affectus boni simplicibus cogitationibus alludunt, quae ex inspecta et sibi complacita proximorum disciplina hinc inde occurrunt, quid aliud fratres Dinae, filii Liae, quam pecora sua pascunt? Videsne quomodo uno eodemque tempore aliud verus amor proximi, atque aliud operatur vanus amor sui?
Verus amor proximi pascendis pecoribus fratrum pascua praestat, vanus amor sui corruptionis Dinae occasionem administrat. Quod autem res patrem non latet, etiam priusquam ad fratres sermo perveniret, quid aliud nobis insinuat, nisi quod corruptelae notitia animum prius per cogitationem quam per affectum pulsat? Sed cum res diutius in corde versatur, saepius per cogitationem replicatur, quandoque usque ad intima cordis penetrat, cordisque affectum transverberat. Cum igitur rei sollicitudine animus afficitur, variisque affectibus vicissim tangitur, jam usque ad filios Liae, fratres autem Dinae sermo pervenisse non dubitatur.
Notes
- 1 ↩suis...favoribus non favere plays on favere/favor: favoring one's own favors, gifts, or advantages. Rendered as 'favoring its own blessings' to keep the sense without stiff wordplay.
- 2 ↩affectus boni...alludunt: good affections 'play upon' (alludunt) simple thoughts. disciplina here is neighbors' ordered conduct or way of life, not formal monastic rule alone.
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