The Institutes 12.6–12.28

So it is most clearly proved by the examples and testimonies of the Scriptures that the stain of pride, though later in the order of conflicts, is earlier in origin and is the beginning of all sins and crimes; and that, unlike the other vices, it does not extinguish only its contrary virtue, that is, humility, but is the slayer of all the virtues together; and that it tempts not only the middling and the small, but especially those standing on the summit of strength. For so the prophet speaks of this spirit: "And his food is choice." And therefore blessed David, although he guarded the secrets of his heart with such circumspection that he boldly cried out to him from whom the secrets of his conscience were not hidden, "Lord, my heart is not exalted, nor are my eyes lifted up; nor have I walked in great things nor in wonders above me, if I was not humbly minded," and again, "He who works pride shall not dwell in the midst of my house" — yet, knowing how difficult this watchfulness is even for the perfect, he does not rely on his own effort alone, but in prayer implores the Lord's help, that he may escape the dart of this enemy unwounded, saying, "Let not the foot of pride come to me," trembling and fearing lest what is said of the proud should befall him: "God resists the proud," and again, "Everyone who exalts his heart is unclean before God."

How great an evil is pride, that it deserves to have as its adversary not an angel, not other virtues contrary to it, but God himself! For it should be noted that he by no means said of those entangled in other vices that they have the Lord resisting them — that is, the Lord resists the gluttonous, the sexually immoral, the angry, or the lovers of money — but only the proud. For those vices either rebound only on each of those who commit them or on their accomplices, that is, they are seen to be committed against other men; but this one properly reaches to God, and therefore especially deserves to have him as its opponent.

And therefore God, the creator and physician of the universe, knowing that pride is the cause and beginning of diseases, provided to heal contraries by contraries, so that what had fallen through pride might rise again through humility. For the one says, "I will ascend into heaven"; the other says, "My soul is humbled to the earth." The one says, "I will be like the Most High"; the other, "being in the form of God, emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death." The one says, "I will exalt my throne above the stars of God"; the other says, "Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart." The one says, "I do not know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go"; the other says, "If I say that I do not know him, I shall be a liar like you; but I know him and keep his commandments." The one says, "The rivers are mine, and I made them"; the other says, "I can do nothing of myself, but my Father who dwells in me does the works." The one says, "All the kingdoms of the world and their glory are mine, and I give them to whom I will"; the other, though he was rich, became poor, that by his poverty we might be made rich. The one says, "As eggs that are left are gathered, so I have gathered the whole earth, and there was none that moved a wing or opened the mouth or chirped"; the other says, "I have become like a pelican in the wilderness; I have watched and become like a sparrow alone on the housetop." The one says, "I have dried up with the sole of my feet all the streams of the embankments"; the other says, "Can I not ask my Father, and he will now give me more than twelve legions of angels?" If we have seen the cause of the principal fall and the foundations of our salvation — by whom and how the latter were laid and the former arose — let us be taught, by the fall of the one or the example of the other, how we ought to avoid so terrible a death as pride.

So we shall be able to escape this snare of the most wicked spirit in this way: if, in each of the virtues in which we feel we have made progress, we say that saying of the apostle, "Not I, but the grace of God with me," and, "By the grace of God I am what I am," and that it is God "who works in us both to will and to accomplish according to his good will"; as the author of our salvation himself also says: "He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing"; and, "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it have laboured in vain; unless the Lord guards the city, he who guards it has watched in vain"; and, "It is vain for us to rise before the light"; "for it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy."

For no one's will or running, however fervent and eager, can be so adequate that, surrounded by the flesh that fights against the spirit, he can reach so great a reward of perfection and the palm of integrity and purity, unless he has been protected by the divine mercy, so that he may deserve to reach what he greatly wills and runs towards. "For every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights." "For what do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?"

For if we remember that thief who was brought into paradise for one confession, we shall understand that he did not attain such blessedness by the merit of his own running, but obtained it by the gift of a merciful God. Or if we recall the two so grave and monstrous crimes of King David, blotted out by one word of repentance, here too we shall see that the merits of labour did not equal the obtaining of pardon for so great a crime, but that the grace of God abounded all the more, who, seizing the occasion of true repentance, consumed so great a mass of sins through the full confession of a single word. Examining too the beginning of human calling and salvation, by which, according to the apostle, we are saved not of ourselves nor by our works but by the gift and grace of God, we shall clearly be able to see how the sum of perfection is "not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy"; who makes us victors over the vices, not because the merit of our labours or running earns it, and who makes us climb, the flesh we bear having been subdued, to so arduous a summit of integrity, not because the effort of our will is equal to it. For no affliction of this body and no contrition of heart could be worthy of attaining that true chastity of the inner man, so as to obtain by bare human labour, that is, without God's help, so great a virtue of purity, which is inborn in the angels alone and native to heaven. For the effect of every good flows from the grace of him who, with multiplied generosity, has given so great an eternity of blessedness and so immense a glory to our small will and our short and little running.

For all the length of the present life, when you look at that eternity of future glory, vanishes; and all sorrows are put to flight by the contemplation of that immense blessedness, and, thinned to nothing like smoke, they melt away and appear nowhere, like ashes.

Therefore it is now time to set out the judgment of the fathers in the very words in which they hand it down — those, that is, who have depicted the way of perfection and its nature, not by boasting of words, but, possessing it rather in fact and deed and in the power of the spirit, have handed it down by their own experience and most certain examples. They say, then, that no one can be completely cleansed from carnal vices unless he has understood that all his labour and effort cannot suffice for so great an end as perfection, and unless he recognizes — taught not so much by the instruction of someone handing it on as by his own feeling, strength, and experience — that it cannot be grasped except by God's mercy and help. For however much labour of fasts, vigils, reading, solitude, and withdrawal may have been spent on attaining such magnificent and lofty rewards of purity and integrity, it cannot be worthy to obtain them by the merit of its diligence or sweat. For one's own labour or human diligence will never repay the divine gift, unless it has been granted to the one who desires it by the divine mercy.

I do not say this in order to make human efforts void and try to call anyone back from diligence and the intention of labour; but plainly and most firmly, not by my own judgment but by that of the elders, I define that perfection certainly cannot be grasped at all without these things, but that it can be completed by no one through these alone without the grace of God. For just as we say that human efforts cannot attain it by themselves without God's help, so we declare that the mercy and grace of God are given only to those who labour and sweat, and, to speak in the apostle's words, are imparted to those who will and run, according to what is also sung in the eighty-eighth psalm in the person of God: "I have laid help upon one who is mighty, and I have exalted one chosen from my people." For we say, according to the Saviour's saying, that it is given to those who ask, opened to those who knock, and found by those who seek; but that our asking, seeking, and knocking are not worthy unless the mercy of God gives what we ask, opens what we knock at, or causes what we seek to be found. For he is at hand to bestow all these things, if only the occasion of a good will is offered him by us. For he desires and awaits our perfection and salvation more than we do. And blessed David knew so well that the success of his work and labour could not be obtained by his own diligence alone, that he asked with repeated prayer to earn from the Lord the direction of his works, saying: "And direct the works of our hands over us; and direct the work of our hands"; and again: "Confirm, O God, what you have worked in us."

Therefore, if we wish to reach the true consummation of the virtues in effect and in deed, we must listen to those masters and guides who, not dreaming of it in vain-talking disputation but grasping it in fact and experience, can likewise teach us too and direct us to it, and show us by a most certain path the way by which we may reach it; and who testified that they had reached it by faith rather than by the merit of their labours. The purity of heart they had acquired gave them this especially: that they recognized more and more that they were weighed down by sins — for their compunction for sins grew daily as much as their purity of mind had advanced — and they continually drew sighs from the depths of their hearts, because they felt that they could by no means avoid the blemishes and stains of sins which were branded on them through the many trifles of their thoughts. And therefore they proclaimed that they hoped for the rewards of the future life, not by the merit of their works, but by the mercy of the Lord, granting themselves nothing for such great circumspection of heart in comparison with others, since they ascribed it, not to their own diligence, but to divine grace. Nor did they flatter themselves on the negligence of inferior and lukewarm men, but rather sought lasting humility by contemplating those whom they knew to be truly free from sin and already enjoying eternal blessedness in the kingdom of heaven. And so by this consideration they both avoided the ruin of pride and always found something to strive for and something to grieve over, understanding that they could not reach the purity of heart they desired while the burden of the flesh resisted.

So according to their traditions and institutions we ought to hasten towards it by giving ourselves to fasts, vigils, prayers, and contrition of heart and body, in such a way that we do not make all these void through the puffing up of this disease. For we must believe not only that we cannot possess perfection itself by our diligence or labour, but that we cannot even carry out the very things we practise for its sake — that is, our labours, efforts, and pursuits — without the help of divine protection and the grace of his inspiration, correction, and exhortation, which he usually pours graciously into our hearts, visiting us either through another or by himself.

Finally, let the author of our salvation teach what we ought not only to feel but also to confess in each of the things we do. "I can do nothing of myself," he says; "but the Father who dwells in me does the works." He, in the person of the manhood he assumed, says that he can do nothing of himself; and do we, dust and earth, think that in the things that concern our salvation we do not need the Lord's help? So let us too learn, feeling in each thing both our weakness and his help, to cry out daily with the saints: "I was pushed and overturned so that I might fall, and the Lord upheld me. The Lord is my strength and my praise, and he has become my salvation"; and: "Unless the Lord had helped me, my soul had almost dwelt in hell. If I said, My foot is moved, your mercy, O Lord, helped me. According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, your consolations have gladdened my soul." Seeing also our heart strengthened in the fear of the Lord and in patience, let us say: "And the Lord became my support, and he brought me out into a broad place." Understanding too that knowledge is increased in us through progress in works, let us say: "For you light my lamp, O Lord; my God, enlighten my darkness. For in you I shall be delivered from temptation, and in my God I shall leap over a wall." Then, feeling that we have gained the strength of endurance and are directed more easily and without labour on the path of the virtues, let us add: "God, who girded me with strength and made my way blameless; who made my feet like the feet of deer and set me on high places; who teaches my hands to war." Having attained also discernment, strengthened by which we can overthrow our adversaries, let us cry to God: "Your discipline has set me upright to the end, and your discipline itself will teach me. You have enlarged my steps under me, and my feet have not been weakened." And because I have been so strengthened by your knowledge and power, I shall confidently add what follows and say: "I will pursue my enemies and overtake them, and I will not turn back until they fail. I will crush them, and they will not be able to stand; they will fall under my feet." Again, mindful of our weakness, and that, surrounded by frail flesh, we cannot overcome such fierce enemies, the vices, without his help, let us say: "In you we will scatter our enemies, and in your name we will despise those who rise up against us. For I will not trust in my bow, and my sword will not save me. For you have saved us from those who afflict us, and have put to shame those who hate us." "But you have also girded me with strength for battle; you have tripped up under me all who rose up against me. And you have given me the backs of my enemies, and have put to shame those who hate us." But thinking that we cannot conquer even with our own arms, let us say: "Take hold of arms and shield, and rise up to help me. Draw out the sword and shut the way against those who pursue me; say to my soul, I am your salvation." "And you have made my arms a bow of bronze, and you have given me the protection of your salvation." "For our fathers did not possess the land by their sword, and their arm did not save them; but your right hand and your arm and the light of your countenance, because you were pleased with them." Lastly, surveying with an attentive mind and with thanksgiving all his benefits — that we have fought, or have obtained from him the light of knowledge or the discipline of discernment, or that he has equipped us with his arms and fortified us with the belt of strength, or that he has made our enemies turn their backs to us and given us the power to grind them like dust before the face of the wind — let us cry to him with the inmost feeling of our heart: "I will love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my support and my refuge and my deliverer. My God is my helper, and I will hope in him; my protector and the horn of my salvation and my upholder. Praising I will call upon the Lord, and I shall be saved from my enemies."

We should give him thanks not only because he created us rational, or endowed us with the power of free will, or bestowed the grace of baptism, or granted the knowledge and help of the law, but also for the things bestowed on us daily by his providence: that he frees us from the snares of the adversaries; that he works together with us so that we can overcome the vices of the flesh; that he protects us from dangers even without our knowing; that he fortifies us against falling into sin; that he helps and enlightens us so that we can understand and recognize the very help given us, which some wish to interpret as nothing other than the law; that we are secretly pricked with compunction for our negligences and sins by his inspiration; that, visited by his condescension, we are most healthfully chastised; that we are sometimes drawn by him to salvation even against our will; and finally, that he directs our free will itself, which is inclined more readily to the vices, to a better fruit, and turns it towards the way of the virtues by the visitation of his prompting.

This is properly humility towards God; this is the sincere faith of the most ancient fathers, which remains pure among their successors to this day. To this faith the apostolic miracles, which have often been shown through them, bear undoubted witness, not only among us but also among unbelievers and the incredulous. Keeping the simple faith of the fishermen with a simple heart, they did not conceive it in a worldly spirit by dialectical syllogisms and Ciceronian eloquence, but grasped by the evidence of their own eyes, through sincere experience of life, most pure action, and the correction of vices, and — to speak more truly — by the very nature of perfection, that without it neither piety towards God, nor cleansing of vices, nor amendment of morals, nor the consummation of the virtues can be attained.

I knew one of the brothers — whom I wish I had not known, since afterwards he allowed himself to be burdened with the rank of my own order — who confessed to a most approved elder that he was most severely attacked by a vice of the flesh: for he burned with an intolerable heat of lust, against the use of nature, with the desire of suffering disgrace rather than inflicting it. Then the elder, as a spiritual and true physician, at once saw the inner cause and origin of this disease; and sighing deeply he said: "The Lord would by no means have allowed you to be handed over to so wicked a spirit unless you had blasphemed against him in something." When the brother learned this, he at once fell at his feet on the ground, and, struck with the greatest wonder, as one who saw the secrets of his heart laid open as if by God, he confessed that he had blasphemed against the Son of God in an impious thought. From this it is clear that one who is possessed by the spirit of pride, or who is a blasphemer against God, as though he did injury to him from whom the gifts of purity must be hoped for, is deprived of the integrity of perfection and does not deserve the sanctification of chastity.

We read something like this in the book of Chronicles. For Joash, king of Judah, was raised to the throne at seven years of age by Jehoiada the high priest, and as long as that high priest lived he was praised in everything by the testimony of Scripture. Hear what Scripture relates of him after Jehoiada's death, and how, lifted up by pride, he was handed over to a shameful passion: "Now after Jehoiada died, the princes of Judah came in and worshipped the king; and he, softened by their flattery, agreed with them. And they forsook the temple of the Lord, the God of their fathers, and served groves and idols; and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this sin." And a little later: "And when a year had passed, the army of Syria came up against him; and it came into Judah and Jerusalem and killed all the princes of the people, and they sent all the spoil to the king at Damascus. And indeed, although a very small number of Syrians had come, the Lord delivered into their hands a countless multitude, because they had forsaken the Lord, the God of their fathers. On Joash too they executed shameful judgments; and departing, they left him in great sicknesses." You see to what shameful and filthy passions pride deserves to be handed over. For he who, lifted up by arrogance, allowed himself to be worshipped as a god, is handed over, according to the apostle, to dishonourable passions and to a reprobate mind, to suffer things that are not fitting. And since, as Scripture says, "everyone who exalts his heart is unclean before God," this man, who was puffed up by swelling pride of heart, is handed over to be mocked by most shameful confusion, so that, thus humbled, he might feel himself unclean by the uncleanness of the flesh and the awareness of an impure passion, which he had not wished to feel through the pride of his mind; and so that the shameful contagion of the flesh might reveal the hidden uncleanness of his heart which he had contracted through the evil of pride, and he who did not feel that he had become unclean through pride of spirit might be proved impure by the manifest pollution of his body.

By these things it is clearly proved that every soul possessed by the swelling of pride is handed over to the spiritual Syrians, that is, to the spiritual hosts of wickedness, and is entangled in the passions of the flesh, so that, humbled at least by earthly vices, it may recognize that it is unclean, polluted in the flesh — the soul which, lifted up in lukewarmness of mind, could not before understand that it had become unclean in the sight of God through pride of heart. So that, humbled even in this way, one may depart from his former lukewarmness, and, cast down and put to shame by the disgrace of fleshly passions, may hasten to give himself more ardently to spiritual fervour from then on.

So it is clearly shown that no one can reach the end of perfection and purity except through true humility, which he must show first to the brothers and also to God in the inner sanctuary of his heart, believing that without his protection and help, given him at every moment, he can by no means obtain the perfection he desires and towards which he runs with all his strength.

Let it be enough to have said this much, by God's gift, as far as the slenderness of our ability allowed, about spiritual pride, by which we said the perfect are attacked. This kind of pride is not known or experienced by many, because not many strive to attain perfect purity of heart so as to be able to reach these grades of battle, nor is any cleansing undertaken of the preceding vices, whose nature and remedies we have set out in the separate books. It usually attacks only those who, having conquered the vices above, are already almost placed at the summit of the virtues. Since the most subtle enemy could not overcome them by a fleshly fall, he tries to cast them down and trip them up by a spiritual ruin, striving by it to strip them of all the merits of their former service, gained with much labour. But us, who are still entangled in earthly passions, he by no means deigns to tempt in this way, but trips us up by a grosser and, so to speak, fleshly pride. And therefore I think it necessary, according to our promise, to set out a few things about this kind too, by which we, or men of our measure, and especially the minds of the young or of beginners, are usually endangered.

When, then, this carnal pride we have spoken of has settled in a monk's mind through a lukewarm and badly undertaken beginning of renunciation, it does not allow him to come down from his former worldly swelling to the true humility of Christ. First it makes him disobedient and harsh; then it does not allow him to be gentle and friendly; it does not let him become equal and common with the brothers, nor allow him, according to the command of God and our Saviour, to be stripped and made naked of earthly wealth. And although renunciation is nothing other than a sign of mortification and the cross, and cannot be begun or built on other foundations than that one should know oneself spiritually slain to the doings of this world and also believe that one will die bodily any day, pride on the contrary makes him hope for a long life, sets before him long and many illnesses, and strikes him with confusion and shame if, having been made naked, he should begin to be supported by the means of others and not his own. It also persuades him that it is much better for his food and clothing to be supplied from his own property rather than another's, according, that is, to that saying which, dulled by sluggishness and lukewarmness of heart, they will never be able even to understand in what sense it was said: "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

So, beset by such distrust of mind, and called back by diabolical unbelief from the spark of faith with which they had been kindled at the beginning of their conversion, they begin to guard more carefully the money they had begun to scatter, and keep it with more violent avarice, as though, once spent, they could not replace it; or, what is worse, they take back what they had cast away; or at least — the third and worst kind of wickedness — gathering what they did not possess even before, they are proved to have gained nothing more by leaving the world than just the name and title of monk. On these beginnings, badly and faultily laid, the whole structure must then rise more faultily, and nothing can be built on the worst foundations except what will lay the wretched soul low in a more lamentable ruin.

A mind hardened by such passions and beginning from a detestable lukewarmness must grow worse every day and end the rest of its life in a more shameful end. And while it delights in its former desires and, according to the apostle, is overcome by sacrilegious filargyria (as he declares of it, "and filargyria, which is the service of images or idols," and again, "the root of all evils is filargyria"), it can never receive into its heart the simple and true humility of Christ, since it glories in the nobility of its birth, or is puffed up with the rank of the world, which it has left in body but not in mind, or is lifted up by the money which it keeps to its ruin. Through these things it is no longer content to bear the yoke of the monastery or to be trained by the discipline of any elder; and not only does it not deign to keep any rule of submission or obedience, but it does not even admit the teaching of perfection to its ears. And such distaste for the spiritual word grows in his heart that, when perhaps such a conference has arisen, his gaze cannot stay in one place, but his stupid glance is carried here and there, and his eyes are fixed elsewhere and askance, contrary to custom. Instead of wholesome sighs, spittle is drawn up from a dry throat; clearings of the throat are provoked without any interruption of phlegm; the fingers play and flutter and draw as if writing something; and so all the limbs of the body are moved here and there, so that, while the spiritual conference is going on, he thinks he is sitting wholly on swarming worms or on the sharpest stakes; and whatever a simple conference brings out for the edification of the hearers he thinks was brought out to insult him. And the whole time during which the examination of the spiritual life is being discussed, occupied with his suspicions, he does not look for what he ought to take from it for his progress, but searches with anxious mind for the reasons why each thing was said, or conjectures with a silent turning over of his heart what he could object to them, so that he can grasp nothing at all of the things most wholesomely set out, or be corrected in anything. And so it comes about that the spiritual conference not only does him no good in anything, but even becomes more harmful and is made for him a cause of greater sin. For while, because of his conscience, he suspects that everything has been said against him, he is hardened with more violent obstinacy of heart and goaded more sharply by the stings of anger. Then after this come a loud voice, harsh speech, bitter and turbulent answers, a proud and restless walk, a ready tongue, insolent talk, never a friend of silence except when he has conceived some rancour in his heart against a brother; and his silence is a sign, not of compunction or of any humility, but of pride and indignation, so that it is not easy to discern which is more detestable in him, that diffuse and wanton merriment or this grim and poisonous seriousness. For in the former there is untimely talk, light and foolish laughter, and unbridled and undisciplined elation of heart; in the latter, a silence full of anger and poison, conceived only so that rancour against a brother, kept by silence, may be prolonged, not so that the virtue of humility and patience may be shown by it. And while he himself, possessed by swelling pride, easily brings sadness on everyone and disdains to submit himself to make satisfaction to a brother he has hurt, he also rejects and despises satisfaction offered to him by that brother; and not only is he not moved or softened by any satisfaction of the brother, but he is even more indignant that he has been anticipated in humility by him; and the wholesome humility and satisfaction which usually put an end to diabolical designs become for him the cause of a fiercer fire.

I have heard, in this very region — which I shudder and am ashamed to recall — that a certain young monk, when he was rebuked by his abbot for beginning to depart from the humility he had kept for a very short time after renouncing, and to be puffed up with diabolical pride, answered with the utmost insolence: "Did I humble myself for a time in order to be always subject?" At this so unbridled and wicked an answer the elder was so astounded and all his speech so cut off, as though he had heard these words uttered, not by a man, but by that ancient Lucifer himself, that he could utter no word at all from his mouth against such effrontery, but only groans and sighs from his heart, silently turning over within himself only what is said of our Lord and Saviour: that, "being in the form of God, he humbled himself, becoming obedient" — not, as that one said, possessed by a diabolical spirit and swelling, "for a time," but "unto death."