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| Chapter XXVII. A description of the faults which spring from the evil of pride.
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Chapter XXVII.
A description of the faults which spring from the evil
of pride.
The mind then that is
hardened by such feelings, and which begins with this miserable
coldness is sure to go daily from bad to worse and to conclude its life
with a more hideous end: and while it takes delight in its former
desires, and is overcome, as the apostle says, by impious avarice (as
he says of it “and covetousness, which is idolatry, or the
worship of idols,” and again “the love of money,”
says he, “is the root of all evils”1079
)
can never admit into the heart the true and unfeigned humility of
Christ, while the man boasts himself of his high birth, or is puffed up
by his position in the world (which he has forsaken in body but not in
mind) or is proud of his wealth which he retains to his own
destruction; and because of this he is no longer content to endure the
yoke of the monastery, or to be instructed by the teaching of any of
the elders, and not only objects to observe any rule of subjection or
obedience, but will not even listen to teaching about perfection; and
such dislike of spiritual talk grows up in his heart that if such a
conversation should happen to arise, he cannot keep his eyes fixed on
one spot, but his gaze wanders blankly about here and there, and his
eyes shift hither and thither, as the custom is. Instead of wholesome
coughs, he spits from a dry throat: he coughs on purpose without any
need, he drums with his fingers, and twiddles them and scribbles like a
man writing: and all his limbs fidget so that while the spiritual
conversation is proceeding, you would think that he was sitting on
thorns, and those very sharp ones, or in the midst of a mass of worms:
and if the conversation turns in all simplicity on something which is
for the good of the hearers, he thinks that it is brought forward for
his especial benefit. And all the time that the examination of the
spiritual life is proceeding, he is taken up with his own suspicious
thoughts, and is not on the watch for something to take home for his
good, but is anxiously seeking the reason why anything is said, or is
quietly turning over in his mind, how he can raise objections to it, so
that he cannot at all take in any of those things which are so
admirably brought forward, or be done any good to by them. And so the
result is that the spiritual conference is not merely of no use to him,
but is positively injurious, and becomes to him an occasion of greater
sin. For while he is conscience stricken and fancies that everything is
being aimed at him he hardens himself more stubbornly in the obstinacy
of his heart, and is more keenly affected by the stings of his wrath:
then afterwards his voice is loud, his talk harsh, his answers bitter
and noisy, his gait lordly and capricious; his tongue too ready, he is
forward in conversation and no friend to silence except when he is
nursing in his heart some bitterness against a brother, and his silence
denotes not compunction or humility, but pride and wrath: so that one
can hardly say which is the more objectionable in him, that
unrestrained and boisterous merriment, or this dreadful and deadly
solemnity.1080
| 1080 Serietas
(Petschenig): Taciturnitas (Gazæus). | For in the former
we see inopportune chattering, light and frivolous laughter,
unrestrained and undisciplined mirth. In the latter a silence that is
full of wrath and deadly; and which simply arises from the desire to
prolong as long as possible the rancorous feelings which are nourished
in silence against some brother, and not from the wish to obtain from
it the virtues of humility and patience.
And as the man who is a victim to passion
readily makes everybody else miserable and is ashamed to apologize to
the brother whom he has wronged, so when the brother offers to do so to
him, he rejects it with scorn. And not only is he not touched or
softened by the advances of his brother; but is the rather made more
angry because his brother anticipates him in humility. And that
wholesome humiliation and apology, which generally puts an end to the
devil’s temptation, becomes to him an occasion of a worse
outbreak.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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