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| Concerning the Eradication of the Love of Human Praise, Because All the Glory of the Righteous is in God.
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Chapter 14.—Concerning the
Eradication of the Love of Human Praise, Because All the Glory of
the Righteous is in God.
It is, therefore, doubtless far
better to resist this desire than to yield to it, for the purer one
is from this defilement, the liker is he to God; and, though this
vice be not thoroughly eradicated from his heart,—for it does not
cease to tempt even the minds of those who are making good progress
in virtue,—at any rate, let the desire of glory be surpassed by
the love of righteousness, so that, if there be seen anywhere
“lying neglected things which are generally
discredited,”
if they are good, if they are
right, even the love of human praise may blush and yield to the
love of truth. For so hostile is this vice to pious faith, if the
love of glory be greater in the heart than the fear or love of God,
that the Lord said, “How can ye believe, who look for glory from
one another, and do not seek the glory which is from God
alone?”211
Also,
concerning some who had believed on Him, but were afraid to confess
Him openly, the evangelist says, “They loved the praise of men
more than the praise of God;”212
which did not the holy apostles,
who, when they proclaimed the name of Christ in those places where
it was not only discredited, and therefore neglected,—according
as Cicero says, “Those things are always neglected which are
generally discredited,”—but was even held in the utmost
detestation, holding to what they had heard from the Good Master,
who was also the physician of minds, “If any one shall deny me
before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven,
and before the angels of God,”213
amidst maledictions and reproaches,
and most grievous persecutions and cruel punishments, were not
deterred from the preaching of human salvation by the noise of
human indignation. And when, as they did and spake divine things,
and lived divine lives, conquering, as it were, hard hearts, and
introducing into them the peace of righteousness, great glory
followed them in the church of Christ, they did not rest in that as
in the end of their virtue, but, referring that glory itself to the
glory of God, by whose grace they were what they were, they sought
to kindle, also by that same flame, the minds of those for whose
good they consulted, to the love of Him, by whom they could be made
to be what they themselves were. For their Master had taught them
not to seek to be good for the sake of human glory, saying, “Take
heed that ye do not your righteousness before men to be seen of
them, or otherwise ye shall not have a reward from your Father who
is in heaven.”214
But again,
lest, understanding this wrongly, they should, through fear of
pleasing men, be less useful through concealing their goodness,
showing for what end they ought to make it known, He says, “Let
your works shine before men, that they may see your good deeds, and
glorify your Father who is in heaven.”215
Not, observe, “that ye may be
seen by them, that is, in order that their eyes may be directed
upon you,”—for of yourselves ye are, nothing,—but “that
they may glorify your Father who is in heaven,” by fixing their
regards on whom they may become such as ye are. These the martyrs
followed, who surpassed the Scævolas, and the Curtiuses, and the
Deciuses, both in true virtue, because in true piety, and also in
the greatness of their number. But since those Romans were in an
earthly city, and had before them, as the end of all the offices
undertaken in its behalf, its safety, and a kingdom, not in heaven,
but in earth,—not in the sphere of eternal life, but in the
sphere of demise and succession, where the dead are succeeded by
the dying,—what else but glory should they love, by which they
wished even after death to live in the mouths of their
admirers?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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