De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae
The Order of the Beatitudes and the Meek
The disciple must follow the Master’s order: meekness precedes mercy, and gentleness is required before one can rightly instruct others.
It is worth considering how well a disciple of Truth follows the order of the Master. In the beatitudes I mentioned above: just as the merciful are proclaimed before the pure in heart, so the meek are proclaimed before the merciful.✦ And when the Apostle was exhorting the spiritual to instruct the carnal, he added: In a spirit of gentleness.✦ The instruction of brothers belongs to the merciful; the spirit of gentleness belongs to the meek. And it is as if he were saying: One who is not meek in himself cannot be counted among the merciful.
Examine Yourself Before Helping Others
One must first confront one’s own sinfulness to become meek, so as not to fall under Christ’s rebuke for hypocrisy.
See, the Apostle openly shows what I promised earlier to demonstrate: that truth is to be sought first in ourselves rather than in our neighbors. Consider yourself, he says — that is, how prone you are to temptation, how quick to sin — so that from examining yourself you may become meek, and so approach helping others in a spirit of gentleness.✦✦ Otherwise, if you do not listen to the Disciple warning you, fear the Master rebuking you: Hypocrite, first take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother's eye.✦
Pride as a Beam That Blinds the Mind
Pride distorts self-perception by inflating one’s sense of excellence, whereas humility is the contempt of that false excellence.
Pride is a great, thick beam in the eye of the mind — swollen with a certain empty fullness of self, not healthy but puffed up, not solid — and it darkens the eye of the mind, casting a shadow over truth. So if pride has seized your mind, you can no longer see yourself clearly; you can no longer perceive yourself as you are, or as you are capable of being. Instead, you see yourself only as you wish to be — as you love yourself to be, or as you imagine or hope yourself to be.✦ For what else is pride — as a certain holy writer defines it — but love of one's own excellence? And so we can say, on the contrary, that humility is contempt of one's own excellence.
Love, Hatred, and the Corruption of Judgment
Love, like hatred and fear, clouds true judgment; only impartial hearing yields righteous discernment, as shown in scriptural examples.
Love, like hatred, does not know the judgment of truth. Do you want to hear the judgment of Truth? I judge as I hear, not as I hate, not as I love, not as I fear. There is a judgment of hatred, as when they said, 'We have a law, and by our law he ought to die.'1 There is also a judgment of fear, as when you said, 'If we let him go on like this, the Romans will come and take away our place and our nation.'2 And there is a judgment of love, as when David said of his parricidal son, 'Spare the boy Absalom.'3
Self-Love as the Greatest Deceiver
Just as friendship biases legal judgment, self-love far more dangerously deceives one’s own moral discernment.
I know it is established by human law and observed in practice, in both ecclesiastical and secular cases, that the close friends of litigants ought not to be admitted to the judgment, lest they either deceive or be deceived by love of their own. But if love of your friend diminishes the fault in your judgment, or hides it entirely, how much more does love of your own deceive your judgment against you?4
Read the original Latin
Considerare libet, quam bene discipulus Veritatis ordinem sequatur Magistri. In beatitudinibus; quas supra memoravi, sicut prius misericordes quam mundicordes, sic prius mites quam misericordes pronuntiati sunt. Et Apostolus cum spirituales hortaretur ad instruendum carnales, adiunxit: In spiritu lenitatis. Instructio quippe fratrum pertinet ad misericordes, spiritus lenitatis ad mites. Ac si diceret: Inter misericordes, deputari non potest, qui in semetipso mitis non est. Ecce Apostolus aperte ostendit, quod superius me ostensuruum promisi, prius, videlicet veritatem inquirendam esse in nobis quam in proximis: considerans, inquiens, te ipsum, hoc est, quam facilis ad tentandum, quam pronus ad peccandum, quatenus ex tui consideratione mitescas, sicque ad succurrendum aliis in spiritu lenitatis accedas. Alioquin si monentem non audis Discipulum, arguentem time Magistrum: Hypocrita, eice primum trabem de oculo tuo, et sic videbis festucam eicere de oculo fratris tui.
Trabes in oculo grandis et grossa, superbia in mente est, quae quadam corpulentia sui vana, non sana tumida, non solida, oculum mentis obscurat, veritatem obumbrat, ita tu si tuam occupaverit mentem, iam tu te videre, iam te talem, qualis es, vel qualis esse potes, non possis sentire, sed qualem te amas, talem te vel putes esse, vel speres fore. Quid enim aliud est superbia, quam ut quidam sanctus diffinit, amor propriae excellentiae? Unde et nos possumus dicere, per contrarium humilitatem propriae excellentiae esse contemptum.
Amor vero, sicut nec odium, veritatis iudicium nescit. Vis iudicium Veritatis audire? Sicut audio, sic iudico: non sicut odi, non sicut amo, non sicut timeo. Est iudicium odii, ut illud: Nos legem habemus, et secundum legem nostram debet mori. Est et timoris, tu illud: Si dimittimus eum sic, venient Romani et tollent nostrum locum et gentem. Iudicium vero amoris, ut David de filio parricida: Parcite, inquit, puero Absalon.
Et legibus humanis statutum, et in causis, tam ecclesiasticis quam saecularibus servatum scio, speciales amicos causantium non debere admitti ad iudicium, ne vel fallant vel fallantur amore suorum. Quod si culpam amici tuo iudicio amor illius aut minuit, aut prorsus abscondit, quanto magis amor tuis tuum contra te iudicium fallit?
Scripture echoes
- ↩Matt.5.5 — Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
- ↩Gal.6.1 — Brothers and sisters, even if someone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual should restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness, watching yourself, lest you too be tempted.
- ↩Gal.6.1 — Brothers and sisters, even if someone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual should restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness, watching yourself, lest you too be tempted.
- ↩Matt.7.3-Matt.7.5 — Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Matt.7.4 — Or how will you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye? Matt.7.5 — You hypocrite, first take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.
- ↩Matt.7.5 — You hypocrite, first take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.
- ↩Matt.7.3-Matt.7.5 — Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Matt.7.4 — Or how will you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye? Matt.7.5 — You hypocrite, first take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin quotes John 19:7 (Vulgate). Final resolution belongs to a later stage.
- 2 ↩The Latin quotes John 11:48 (Vulgate). Final resolution belongs to a later stage.
- 3 ↩The Latin alludes to 2 Samuel 18:5 (Vulgate). Final resolution belongs to a later stage.
- 4 ↩tuis (abl./dat. pl.) is ambiguous; rendered as 'your own' (i.e., those dear to you) to preserve the contrast with amicus.
De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae (On the Steps of Humility and Pride) companion
Humility is climbed one day at a time
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