Ladder of Divine Ascent - Step Twenty Three on Pride

St. John says that pride flows out of our love of the praise of men (Vainglory).  Its midpoint is "the shameless parading of our achievements, complacency, and unwillingness to be found out."  It is "the spurning of God's help, the exalting of one's own efforts and a devilish disposition."  In rather frightening words, St. John writes: "A proud monk needs no demon.  He has turned into one, an enemy to himself." 

            How can we recognize that this spiritual ailment is afflicting us?  In a series of proverbs, St. John gives us several signs which manifest its presence in our hearts: 1)  a know-it-all, argumentative spirit, 2) a refusal to obey, a belief that we know better than our spiritual elders, 3) an aversion to correction, a belief that we are beyond the need for reproach and/or instruction, 4) a desire to lead and an innate belief that we know what needs to be done and how it needs to be done better than others, 5) a false humility, 6) a lack of awareness of our own sins and shortcomings, 7) an inflated opinion of our own virtues, 8) a belief that we have attained the blessedness of heaven, a forgetting of the need to finish the race and of the possibility of failure.

            How do we overcome pride in our lives?  Once again, St. John's words are practical and to the point.  His advice can be summarized as follows: 1) it is helpful to keep before us the struggles and virtues of the holy Fathers and saints.  It is so easy for us to compare ourselves with our contemporaries and think that we are doing pretty well.  In our day and age, it is a great temptation for those who are trying to live pious and prayerful lives to begin to think that they are somehow doing a lot for the Lord, that they are waging a serious and dedicated struggle and that they have achieved a level of spiritual maturity.  One has only to look to the Fathers and the Saints to see how shallow and false this kind of thinking is, 2) it is helpful for us to remember how many blessings we have received and to remember how any advancements we have made in the spiritual life are the result not of our own efforts but God's mercy, 3) it is helpful to remember that everything we obtain by way of struggle in the spiritual life is offered to us only because of the struggle of Christ.  No matter how hard we struggle, without Christ there would be no victory.  The doors of Heaven would still be closed.  The grave would still have its claim on us and we would be shut out from the presence of God.  "If we were to die ten thousand times for Christ, we should still not have repaid what we owe, for in value rather than in physical substance there is no comparison between the blood of God and that of His servants."

            "Such is the twenty-third step.  Whoever climbs it, if indeed any can, will certainly be strong."

  

1-4            Pride defined: Where it begins and ends.

            Pride is a denial of God, an invention of the devil, contempt for men.  It is the mother of condemnation, the offspring of praise, a sign of barrenness.  It is a flight from God's help, the harbinger of madness, the author of downfall.  It is the cause of diabolical possession, the source of anger, the gateway of hypocrisy.  It is the fortress of demons, the custodian of sins, the source of hardheartedness.  It is the denial of compassion, a bitter pharisee, a cruel judge.  It is the foe of God.  It is the root of blasphemy.

            Pride begins where vainglory leaves off.  Its midpoint comes with the humiliation of our neighbor, the shameless parading of our achievements, complacency, and unwillingness to be found out.  It ends with the spurning of God's help, the exalting of one's own efforts and a devilish disposition.

5-13            Signs which manifest prides presence in our hearts.

            A proud monk argues bitterly with others.  The humble monk is loath to contradict them.

            The cypress tree does not bend to the ground in order to walk, nor does the haughty monk in order to gain obedience.

            The proud man wants to be in charge of things.  He would feel lost otherwise.

            For the proud correction is a fall . . .  .

           

            To reject criticism is to show pride, while to accept it is to show oneself free of this fetter.

            Pride loses the profits of all hard work and sweat.  They clamored, but there was none to save them, because they clamored with pride.  They clamored to God and He paid no heed since they were not really trying to root out the faults against which they were praying.

            An old man, very experienced in these matters, once spiritually admonished a proud brother who said in his blindness: "Forgive me, father, but I am not proud."  "My son," said the wise old man, "what better proof of your pride could you have given than to claim that you were not proud?"

14-24            What attitudes and behaviors help one to overcome pride.

            A help to the proud is submissiveness, a tougher and humbler mode of life, and the reading of the supernatural feats of the Fathers.

            While it is disgraceful to be puffed up over the adornments of others, it is sheer lunacy to imagine that one has deserved the gifts of God.  You may be proud only of the achievements you had before he time of your birth.  But anything after that, indeed the birth itself, is a gift from God.  You may claim only those virtues in you that are there independently of your mind, for your mind was bestowed on you by God.  And you may claim only those victories you achieved independently of the body, for the body too is not yours but a work of God.

            If we were to die ten thousand times for Christ, we would still not have repaid what we owe, for in value rather than physical substance there is no comparison between the blood of God and that of His servants.

            We should always be on the lookout to compare ourselves with the Fathers and the lights who have gone before us.  If we do, we will discover that we have scarcely begun the ascetic life, that we have hardly kept our vow in a holy manner, and that our thinking is still rooted in the world.

25-31            Some of pride's distinctive qualities.

            Pride makes us forget our sins, for the remembrance of them leads to humility.

            Pride is utter poverty of soul disguised as riches, imaginary light where in fact there is darkness.  This abominable vice not only stops our progress but even tosses us down from the heights we have reached.

            A proud monk needs no demon.  He has turned into one, an enemy to himself.

            It happens, I do not know how, that most of the proud never really discover their true selves. They think they have conquered their passions and they find out how poor they really are only after they die.

            The man ensnared by pride will need God's help, since man is of no use to him.

32-34            Origin and Offspring.

            I captured this senseless deceiver once.  It was rising up in my heart and on its shoulders was vainglory, its mother.  I roped them with the noose of obedience and flailed them with the whip of humility.  Then I lashed them and asked how they had managed to gain access to me.  "We have no beginning and no birth," they said, "for we are the source and the begetters of all the passions.  The strongest opposition to us comes from the contrition of heart that grows out of obedience.  We can endure no authority over us, which is why we fell from heaven where we surely had authority.  In short, we are the authors and the progenitors of everything opposed to humility, for everything that favors humility brings us low.  We prevail everywhere except in heaven.  So, then, where will you run to escape us?  You will find us often where there is patient endurance of dishonor, where there is obedience and freedom from anger, where there is willingness to bear no grudge, where one's neighbor is served.  And our children are the falls of those who lead the life of the spirit.  Their names: Anger, Calumny, Spite, Irascibility, Yelling, Blasphemy, Hypocrisy, Hatred, Envy, Argumentativeness, Self-will, Disobedience.

            There is only one thing with which we cannot interfere, and the violence you do us will make us admit what this is.  If you can honestly condemn yourself before the Lord, then indeed you will find us as flimsy as a cobweb.  For, you see, Vainglory is pride's saddle-horse on which I am mounted.  But holy Humility and Self-deprecation will laugh at the horse and its rider and will joyfully sing the song of triumph: `Let us sing to the Lord, for He has been truly glorified.  Horse and rider He has thrown into the sea' (Exodus 15:1), into the depths of humility."

35-48            In these final paragraphs St. John discusses blasphemy and blasphemous thoughts and how they may be overcome.

            This atrocious foe has the habit of appearing during the holy services and even at the awesome hour of the Mysteries, and blaspheming the Lord and the consecrated elements, thereby showing that these unspeakable, unacceptable, and unthinkable words are not ours but rather those of the God-hating demon who fled from heaven because, it seems, of the blasphemies he uttered there too against the Lord.  It must be so, for if these dreadful and unholy words are my own, how could I offer humble worship after having partaken of the sacred gift?  How could I revile and praise at the same time?

            This deceiver, this destroyer of souls, has often caused men to go mad.  And no other thought is as difficult to admit in confession, which is why so many are dogged by it all their days.  In fact nothing gives demons and evil thoughts such power over us as to nourish them and hide them in our hearts unconfessed.

            If you have blasphemous thoughts, do not think that you are to blame.  God knows what is in our hearts and He knows that ideas of this kind come not from us but from our enemies.

            Those unclean and unspeakable thoughts come at us when we are praying, but, if we continue to pray to the end, they will retreat, for they do not struggle against those who resist them. 

            This unholy demon not only blasphemes God and everything that is divine.  It stirs up the dirtiest and most obscene thoughts within us, thereby trying to force us to give up praying or to fall into despair.  It stops the prayer of many and turns many away from the holy Mysteries.  It has evilly and tyrannously caused the bodies of some to be worn away with grief.  It has exhausted others with fasting and has given them no rest.  It has struck at people living in the world, and also at those leading the monastic life, whispering that there is no salvation in store for them, murmuring that they are more to be pitied than any unbeliever or pagan.

            Anyone disturbed by the spirit of blasphemy and wishing to be rid of it should bear in mind that thoughts of this type do not originate in his own soul but are caused by that unclean devil who once said to the Lord: "I will give you all this if only You fall down and adore me." (Matt. 4:9).  So let us make light of him and pay no regard whatever to his promptings.  Let us say: "Get behind me Satan!  I will worship the Lord my God and I will serve only Him" (Matt. 4:10).  May your word and your effort rebound on you, and your blasphemies come down on your own head now and in the world to come."  To tackle the demon of blasphemy in any way other than this is to be like a man trying to hold lightning in his hands.  For how can you take a grip on, seize, or grapple with someone who flits into the heart quicker than the wind, talks more rapidly than a flash, and then immediately vanishes?  Every other kind of foe stops, struggles a while, lingers and gives one time to grapple with him.  But not this one.  He hardly appears and is gone again immediately.  He barely speaks and then vanishes.

            Let us refrain from passing judgment or condemnation on our neighbor.  If we do, then we will not be terrorized by blasphemous thoughts, since the one produces the other.

            Hold this foe in contempt and you will be liberated from its torments.  Try cleverly to fight it and you will end up surrendering, for the man who tries to conquer spirits by talk is like someone hoping to lock up the winds.

            He who has defeated this vice has banished pride.