CAPUT LXVIII. De discretionis utilitate, vel ejus proprietate
The Many Faces of Discretion
Through a series of allegorical portraits of Joseph, discretion is shown as the virtue that moderates action, is preferred above others, discerns temptations, accepts counsel, guards purity, and reports the damages of the soul.
This is that Joseph who alone among his brothers wears a full-length robe, because only the action that is moderated by the prudence of discretion is carried through to completion and to its proper end.✦1 This is that Joseph, the one his father loves more than all his brothers, because the virtue that guards every virtue is rightly preferred to the rest.✦ This is that Joseph, the dreamer and interpreter of dreams; because true discretion, at the very crisis of temptation, amid the very illusions of the suggestions, detects from their nature the dangers still to come, and for anyone who comes to confess their thoughts, it uncovers the snares of the evils closing in and makes them wary of future dangers. This is Joseph, the one his own people envy and strangers revere, the one the Hebrews sell and the Egyptians buy, because those who know the darkness of their own error accept counsel more readily and yield more easily to another's prudence than those who presume on their own justice or prudence.✦ This is that Joseph, the virgin's spouse—a lover, not a violator, of chastity—because discretion is usually the guardian, not the corrupter, of inner purity.✦ This is that boy and messenger who alone could remain for blessed Job through all his persecution, who was careful to report to him at once the losses that had been done, because without discretion the mind neither recognizes nor corrects the damages done to the virtues.✦
The Unceasing Growth of Discretion
Discretion does not fail under trial but advances, turning losses into gains, and its very name 'Joseph' means increase, signifying a growth that never ends.
That boy does not know how to perish with those who are perishing; discretion does not know how to fail under the losses of things and the growth of temptations, but how to advance. For the more fiercely we are pressed by temptations, and the more often we are exercised by dangers, the more perfectly we are schooled in discretion—and often the losses of other virtues are gains for discretion. So Joseph knows how not only to grow with those who are growing, not only to advance with those who are advancing, but even to press toward progress from his brothers' failings, and to gain the profits of prudence from other people's losses. It's right that such a son is called Joseph, since Joseph means increase.2 That's why his father rightly says of him: A growing son is Joseph, a growing son, and handsome in appearance. So he is rightly named increase, and rightly called a growing son: the one who is always being increased, whose growth never ends, even to the end.
Read the original Latin
Hic est ille Joseph qui solus inter fratres tunica talari vestitur, quia sola illa actio ad consummationis talum debitique finis terminum perducitur, quae per discretionis prudentiam moderatur. Hic est ille Joseph qui a patre plus cunctis fratribus amatur, quia cunctarum virtutum virtus custos caeteris jure praefertur. Hic est ille Joseph sommiator somniorumque interpretator; quia vera discretio in ipso tentationis articulo, inter ipsa suggestionum phantasmata ex eorum qualitate futura pericula deprehendit, et aliis quibuslibet ad cogitationum suarum confessionem imminentium malorum insidias detegit, et de futuris periculis cautos reddit. Hic est Joseph quem aemulantur sui, venerantur alieni, quem vendunt Hebraei, emunt Aegyptii, quia citius consilio acquiescunt, faciliusque alienae prudentiae cedunt erroris sui tenebras cognoscentes, quam de justitia sua, vel prudentia praesumentes. Hic est ille Joseph sponsus virginis, amator, non violator castitatis, quia discretio custos non corruptor esse solet internae puritatis. Hic est ille puer, et nuntius qui beato Job in omni persecutione sua solus remanere potuit, qui ei perpetrata damna statim renuntiare studuit, quia nisi per discretionem, virtutum damna animus nec cognoscit, nec corrigit. Nescit puer ille cum pereuntibus perire; nescit discretio per rerum detrimenta, per tentationum augmenta deficere, sed proficere. Quanto enim acrioribus tentationibus urgemur, quanto crebrioribus periculis exercemur, tanto perfectius ad discretionem erudimur, et saepe aliarum virtutum damna, discretionis sunt lucra.
Novit itaque Joseph non solum cum crescentibus crescere, non solum cum proficientibus proficere, verum etiam ex fratrum defectu ad profectum tendere, et ex aliorum detrimentis prudentiae lucra acquirere. Merito talis filius Joseph nuncupatur, Joseph siquidem augmentum interpretatur. Unde recte de ipso per patrem ejus dicitur: Filius accrescens Joseph, filius accrescens, et decorus aspectu. Recte itaque augmentum nominatur, recte filius accrescens dicitur qui semper augmentatur, cujus incrementum usque in finem non finitur.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Gen.37.3 — Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a long robe with sleeves.
- ↩Gen.37.3-Gen.37.4 — Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a long robe with sleeves. Gen.37.4 — And his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and they hated him and could not speak to him peaceably.
- ↩Gen.37.28 — And Midianite men, traders, passed by, and they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and they sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, and they brought Joseph to Egypt.
- ↩Gen.39.7-Gen.39.12 — And after these things, his master's wife fixed her eyes on Joseph and said, \"Lie with me.\ Gen.39.8 — But he refused and said to his master's wife, \"Look, my master pays no attention to what is with me in the house, and he has put everything he has into my hands.\ Gen.39.9 — No one in this house is greater than I am, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. So how could I do this great evil and sin against God? Gen.39.10 — And it came about, as she spoke to Joseph day after day, that he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or be with her. Gen.39.11 — But one day he went into the house to do his work, and none of the men of the household were there in the house. Gen.39.12 — She seized him by his garment and said, \"Lie with me.\" But he left his garment in her hand, fled, and went outside.
- ↩Job.1.14-Job.1.19 — and a messenger came to Job and said, "The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing beside them," Job.1.15 — and Sabeans fell upon them and took them, and the young men they struck down with the edge of the sword—and I alone have escaped to tell you. Job.1.16 — While this one was still speaking, another came and said, 'The fire of God fell from the sky and burned up the sheep and the servants, and it consumed them. And I alone have escaped to tell you.' Job.1.17 — While this one was still speaking, another came and said, "The Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on the camels and carried them off, and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword. I alone have escaped to tell you." Job.1.18 — While this one was still speaking, another came and said, "Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their brother's house," Job.1.19 — And behold, a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they died. And I have escaped alone to tell you.
Notes
- 1 ↩Richard plays on tunica talaris (the ankle-length robe) and talum consummationis (the heel of completion): only action governed by discretion reaches its full and proper end.
- 2 ↩Medieval etymology takes Joseph as 'augmentum' (increase/addition), from the Hebrew name-sense of adding; the claim is exegetical, not modern philology.
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