CAPUT LX. De principalium affectuum numero, et ordinandi modo compendiosa recapitulatio
The Birth of Dinah and the Seven Principal Affections
Dinah, born after Issachar and Zebulun, represents modesty, and together with the earlier affections, the seven principal affections are enumerated.
This is Dinah, who is born after Issachar and Zebulun, because after tasting the joy of interior sweetness, and after true hatred of the vices, each person is confounded by their own weakness—the more truly, the more keenly. For by Issachar we understand the joy of conscience; by Zebulun, hatred of malice; by Dinah, the beauty of modesty. And these are, in fact, the last three of Leah's children.1 If we count these with the four earlier ones, we find without a doubt that there are seven.
Ordering the Affections into Virtues
The seven principal affections, when set in order within the soul, become virtues, as exemplified by the sequence of fear, sorrow, hope, love, joy, anger, and modesty.
For we already said much earlier that the principal affections are seven; and when we set them in order within ourselves, we count them among the virtues. So first fear is set in order, then sorrow, and after these hope and love. After these four, joy and anger are set in order; and last of all comes modesty.2 So for Jacob to have begotten children of this kind from Leah is nothing more than for the mind, by ordering the movements of its affections, to have brought forth from itself a worthy offspring of virtues.
The Allegorical Identification of the Ordered Affections
Each of Leah's sons is identified with a specific ordered affection: Reuben with fear, Simeon with sorrow, Levi and Judah with hope and love, Issachar with joy, Zebulun with anger, and Dinah with shame.
Therefore by Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, we understand ordered fear; by Simeon, ordered sorrow; by Levi and Judah, ordered hope and ordered love. Through Issachar, however, is understood ordered joy; through Zebulun, ordered anger; through Dinah, ordered shame.3
Read the original Latin
Haec est Dina quae post Issachar et Zabulon nascitur, quia post degustatum internae dulcedinis gaudium, et post verum vitiorum odium, quanto verius tanto vehementius quisque de sua infirmitate confunditur. Per Issachar etenim intelligimus gaudium conscientiae, per Zabulon odium malitiae, per Dinam venustatem verecundiae: et sunt quidem hi novissimi tres liberorum Liae. Quos si cum quatuor superioribus annumeramus, septem esse absque dubio invenimus. Principales enim affectus septem esse longe superius jam diximus: quos cum in nobis ordinamus in numerum virtutum redigimus. Primo itaque ordinatur timor, deinde dolor, post hos spes et amor. Post hos quatuor ordinantur laetitia et ira; novissime autem omnium verecundia. Itaque nihil aliud est Jacob hujusmodi liberos ex Lia genuisse, quam animum affectionis suae motus ordinando dignam virtutum sobolem de seipso procreasse. Per Ruben igitur primogenitum Jacob intelligimus ordinatum timorem, per Simeonem ordinatum dolorem, per Levi et Judam ordinatam spem et ordinatum amorem.
Per Issachar autem intelligitur ordinata laetitia, per Zabulon ordinata ira, per Dinam ordinata verecundia.
Notes
- 1 ↩venustatem verecundiae: rendered as 'the beauty of modesty' (loveliness/grace of a proper sense of shame); next section glosses Dinah as ordinata verecundia.
- 2 ↩verecundia: rendered 'modesty' as the ordered proper sense of shame (cf. Dinah allegory); not generic embarrassment.
- 3 ↩verecundia is the ordered principal affect of shame/modesty at one's own weakness (cf. 1.60.1 on Dinah as the beauty of shame); rendered here as 'shame' to keep the affect-name parallel with fear, sorrow, hope, love, joy, and anger.
Benjamin Minor (The Twelve Patriarchs / Preparation of the Mind for Contemplation) companion
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