CAPUT LXXI. De gemina prole rationis, gratia videlicet discretionis, et gratia contemplationis
The Twin Graces of Reason
The mind is trained through discernment (Joseph) and lifted to contemplation (Benjamin), both born of reason.
So through this Joseph the mind is continually trained, and at times is led on to full knowledge of itself, just as through his full brother Benjamin it is at times lifted up to the contemplation of God. For just as through Joseph we understand the grace of discernment, so through Benjamin we understand the grace of contemplation.1 Both are born of the same mother, because knowledge of God and knowledge of oneself are both grasped through reason.2
The Priority of Self-Knowledge
Self-knowledge must precede knowledge of God; one cannot presume to grasp divine things without first knowing oneself.
Benjamin is born long after Joseph, because a mind that has not long been practiced and fully trained in knowledge of itself is not raised up to knowledge of God.3 Anyone not yet fit to see himself lifts the eye of the heart in vain to see God. Let a person first learn to know his own invisible things before he presumes he can grasp the invisible things of God. You first have to know the invisible things of your own spirit before you can be fit to know the invisible things of God. Otherwise, if you can't know yourself, how dare you presume to grasp the things that are above you?4
Read the original Latin
Per hunc itaque Joseph animus assidue eruditur, et quandoque perducitur ad plenam cognitionem sui, sicut per uterinum fratrem ejus Benjamin, quandoque sublevatur ad contemplationem Dei. Sicut enim per Joseph gratiam discretionis, sic per Benjamin intelligimus gratiam contemplationis. Uterque de eadem matre nascitur quia et Dei cognitio, et sui ex ratione percipitur. Longe post Joseph Benjamin gignitur, quia animus qui in sui cognitione diu exercitatus, pleneque eruditus non est, ad Dei cognitionem non sustollitur? Frustra cordis oculum erigit ad videndum Deum, qui nondum idoneus est ad videndum seipsum. Prius discat homo cognoscere invisibilia sua, quam praesumat posse apprehendere invisibilia divina. Prius est ut cognoscas invisibilia spiritus tui, quam possis esse idoneus ad cognoscendum invisibilia Dei. Alioquin si non potes cognoscere te, qua fronte praesumis apprehendere ea quae sunt supra te?
Notes
- 1 ↩Latin discretio here is the spiritual gift of discernment (judgment of spirits, motives, and movements), not social tact.
- 2 ↩In Richard's allegory the shared mother is reason (ratio); both graces are offspring of the rational mind.
- 3 ↩Source ends with a question mark; sense is causal and affirmative (self-knowledge must mature before contemplation), so rendered as a statement.
- 4 ↩qua fronte is the idiomatic 'with what forehead/face' = with what boldness or nerve.
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