NONUS GRADUS: DE SIMULATA CONFESSIONE
The Danger of Deceitful Confession
A deceitful and proud confession is more dangerous than stubborn self-defense, because the crafty confessor uses the appearance of humility to evade true accountability.
Although these kinds of excuse are indeed judged evil to that extent — inasmuch as they are called, as if with a prophetic mouth, words of malice — yet a deceitful and proud confession is far more dangerous than an obstinate and stubborn defense. For not a few people, when they are accused of more obvious things, knowing that if they defended themselves they would not be believed, find a subtler argument for their defense, answering with the words of a deceitful confession.
The Theatrics of False Humility
Scripture warns of the one who wickedly humbles himself while his heart is full of deceit, and such a person performs penitence outwardly—with downcast face, tears, sighs, and groans—without interior compunction.
There is indeed, as it is written, one who wickedly humbles himself, and his inner parts are full of deceit. Their face is cast down, their body prostrated; they squeeze out a few tears for themselves, if they can; they break up their voice with sighs, their words with groans.
Exaggerated Confession as a Weapon
The false confessor exaggerates his own fault to cast doubt on the charges against him, and by invoking the scriptural image of the righteous self-accuser, he cloaks hidden iniquity in the appearance of praiseworthy humility.
And not only does such a person not excuse the charges against him, but he even exaggerates his own fault, so that while you hear something impossible or incredible about his guilt added by his own mouth, you might disbelieve even what you thought was settled, and from what you do not doubt to be false, the thing that was held as if certain might, while he confesses, come into doubt. And while they affirm what they do not wish to believe, by confessing they defend their fault, and by revealing they conceal it, since at the same time confession sounds praiseworthy in the matter and yet iniquity is still hidden in the heart, so that the one hearing might think it is being confessed more out of humility than out of truth, applying to them that word of Scripture: 'The righteous person is the first to accuse himself.'✦
Confession Without the Heart
When the fault is too obvious to hide, the proud penitent still assumes the voice of repentance without the heart, trading the shame of exposure for the honor of a public confession that erases reputation rather than guilt.
They would rather risk losing their credibility with people by telling the truth than embrace humility, even though before God they risk it either way. Or if their fault is so blatant that no amount of cunning can hide it, they still assume the voice of a penitent without the heart, using it to erase their reputation rather than their guilt — offsetting the shame of an obvious transgression with the honor of a public confession.
Read the original Latin
Licet vero genera haec excusationis eatenus mala iudicentur, quatenus ore prophetico verba malitiae appellentut, multo tamen periculosior est fallax ac superba confessio, quam pervicax et obstinata defensio. Nonnulli enim, cum de apertioribus arguuntur, scientes, si se defenderent, quod sibi non crederetur, subtilius inveniunt argumentum defensionis, verba respondentes dolosae confessionis. Est quippe, ut scriptum est, qui nequiter humiliat se, et interiora eius plena sunt dolo. Vultus demittitur, prosternitur corpus; aliquas sibi lacrimulas extorquent, si possunt; vocem suspiriis, verba gemitibus interrumpunt. Nec solum qui eiusmodi est obiecta non excusat, sed ipse quoque culpam exaggerat, ut dum impossibile aliquid aut incredibile culpae suae ore ipsius additum audis, etiam illud, quod ratum putabas, discredere possis, et ex eo quod falsum esse non dubitas, dum confitetur, in dubium veniat quod quasi certum tenebatur. Dumque affirmant quod credit nolunt, confitendo culpam defendunt, et aperiendo tegunt, quando et confessio laudabiliter sonat in re, et adhuc iniquitas occultatur corde,quatenus magis ex humilitate quam ex veritate confiteri putet qui audit aptans eis illud Scripturae: Iustus in principio sermonis accusator est sui.
Malunt enim apud homines veritate periclitari quam humilitate, cum apud Deum periclitentur utrimque. Aut si adeo culpa manifesta sit, quod nulla penitus tegi versutia possit, nihilominus tamen vocem, non cor paenitentis assumunt, qua notam, non culpam deleant, dum ignorantiam manifestae transgressionis decore recompensant publicae confessionis.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Prov.18.17 — The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.
De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae (On the Steps of Humility and Pride) companion
Humility is climbed one day at a time
Take the next step each morning with a free daily devotional in Chosen Portion.
Bernard frames humility as a ladder climbed by small repeated acts; Chosen Portion turns that into practice with one daily devotional step at a time.
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