CAPUT LIV. Quomodo, vel quam caute oporteat intentionem mutare, et morum honesta non deserere
The Lesson of Circumcision and Intention
The author reflects on the story of Dinah and the circumcision, teaching that even good actions done with wrong intentions must be corrected gently rather than destroyed.
What can we say about this? Or would it perhaps be better to groan in silence than to give any answer—we who can't deny these things? This much I would certainly say: circumcision rightly and deservedly displeased the brothers, and deservedly could not win them over—for it was done not so much for God as for Dinah, not so much for a divine ordinance as for human shame.1 Yet it was still an evil in them to go beyond the measure of just severity, and in avenging the injury to have kept no measure of fairness at all. So Jacob was right to rebuke their rash boldness, and justly to reprove severity so lacking in discernment. Oh, how much better it would have been to lead those men—though circumcised not so much for God as for Dinah—little by little into the true worship of God, than to strike them down with unexpected, sudden death! From this, then, let each person draw the lesson; from this let him carefully take note how he ought to spare his own circumcised ones—whom he still remembers he did not circumcise for God's sake.2 What are circumcised ones of this kind, if not habits corrected with a bad intention?
Preserving Good Works, Changing the Heart
The author concludes that we must not discard good habits begun with bad intentions, but rather change the intention, warning against the violent error of destroying them outright.
Even so, in cases like these we must not destroy what is honorable in our habits, but change the intention. So they are wrong—they are certainly wrong—who cast aside good works, even if those works may have been begun with a bad intention. So what else do such avengers of their own errors do but rush upon the circumcised with Simeon and Levi and kill them violently?3
Read the original Latin
Quid ad ista dicemus? An forte melius erit tacite gemere quam aliquid respondere, qui ista negare non possumus? Illud sane dixerim quod digne fratribus merito displicuit, merito eos placare non potuit circumcisio, quae non tam pro Deo quam pro Dina, non tam pro institutione divina quam pro verecundia humana fuit facta. Malum tamen in eis fuit justae severitatis modum excedere, et in ulciscenda injuria aequitatis mensuram minime servasse. Merito ergo Jacob inconsultam eorum audaciam redarguit, severitatemque tam indiscretam juste reprehendit. O quanto satius erat viros quamvis non tam pro Deo, quam pro Dina circumcisos ad verum Dei cultum paulatim perducere, quam inopinata et repentina morte percutere! Hinc itaque colligat, hinc diligenter attendat quomodo quisque debeat circumcisis suis parcere, quos tamen se meminit non propter Deum circumcidisse. Qui sunt istiusmodi circumcisi, nisi mores non bona intentione correcti?
Nec tamen in talibus debemus morum honesta destruere, sed intentionem mutare. Errant ergo, utique errant qui abjiciunt opera bona, quamvis forte inchoata sint intentione mala. Erratuum ergo suorum ultores hujusmodi quid aliud faciunt, quam super circumcisos cum Simeon et Levi irruentes violenter occidunt?
Notes
- 1 ↩verecundia humana: human shame/modesty/concern for reputation—here the motive of correcting habit for appearance rather than for God.
- 2 ↩circumcisis suis: in Richard's allegory, the 'circumcised' are habits/morals already cut back or corrected, even if the motive was not pure devotion to God.
- 3 ↩Following the chapter’s allegory, the ‘circumcised’ are habits corrected without a right intention (cf. 1.54.1); destroying the good work itself in order to avenge a bad intention is cast as Simeon and Levi’s slaughter after the circumcision of Shechem.
Benjamin Minor (The Twelve Patriarchs / Preparation of the Mind for Contemplation) companion
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