Quod superhia radix malorum est, et coiicupi'
The Root of All Evil
Pride is identified as the innate, poisonous root of self-love that, when unchecked, inevitably leads to sin.
Knowledge is a kind of leprosy that infects everyone. Pride, however, is the root of all evil and the fuel for death. Streams dry up if the spring's vein is cut, and branches cannot thrive once the root is severed. Vices fail if pride is killed; but if you pile manure on the root, the branches grow fat and the barrenness of the dry wood comes back to life. If you pour liquid onto a spring, the overflow passes into the streams; if you add fire to a hearth, the blaze flares up in the wood. In the same way, if you feed the poison of innate pride in a corrupted nature, you won't be able to stop it from infecting your very life, even if you want to. For everyone has a love of self that is not so much learned as it is innate. If this love exceeds its proper measure, it turns into sin.
The Incurable Leprosy of Craving
The author warns that unchecked desire is a spiritual leprosy that consumes the senses and leads to the loss of salvation.
Every virtue is limited by its own boundaries and consists in moderation; if you exceed these, you're off the path, not on it. If this love takes hold, no one should hope for a cure. For this leprosy is truly more incurable than any other. Don't you know that craving is a form of leprosy? Look at Gehazi. If someone is ashamed to confess what they feel, convict them with the mark on their body. But why do I talk about looking at Gehazi, as if he were the only one? I have surveyed the world, and because the whole of it—for those who do not restrain craving, that fountain and fuel of evils—incurs the loss of salvation, what will become of those who inflame it with the goads of flatterers and, as it were, kindle the fuel of vices? What will they do, or rather, what will they suffer, who turn their hearing away from the truth, who do not close their eyes to the admiration of corruptible and corrupting things, who stretch out their hands, and who exercise the liveliness of all their senses?
The Conspiracy of Vice
The world is filled with flatterers and wicked actors who fuel the fires of desire, ultimately setting all of creation against them.
Then, as if the day's own malice weren't enough, one person's deceit fuels the deceit of another. I prefer to use the Terentian term, since flatterers, tale-bearers, informers, backbiters, the envious, the ambitious, the arrogant, the factious, the superstitious, the wicked, and those who betray every duty all gather to kindle the tinder of desire; and because they are found almost everywhere on earth, it's easier to find them than to count them. Every law stands against such people, all justice conspires against them, and eventually every creature will be armed against them as if they were enemies of the public good.
Read the original Latin
scentia lepra genercdis, quae omnes inficit. Superbia uero radix omnium malonmi est mortisque fomentum. Arescunt riuuli, si fontis uena praeciditur; nec rami conualescunt radice succisa. Deficiunt uitia, si elatio iugulatur; at si stercora radici congerantur, pinguescunt rami et arentium sterilitas resiluescit. Si fonti liquentia superfundas, accessio transit in riuulos; si camino ignem adicias, in ligna incendium recrudescit. Sic si uitiatae naturae elationis innatae toxicum foueas, quin uitalia ipsa mortif erum uirus inficiat, nec si uolueris, poteris impedire. Est enim omnibus non tam cognatus quam innatus amor sui. Qui si modum excesserit, uergit ad culpam.
Omnis enim uirtus suis finibus limitatur et in modo consistit; si excesseris, in inuio es et non in uia. Si amor hic inualuerit, nemo speret de cura. Lepra siquidem est incurabilior omni lepra. An nescis concupiscentiam lepram esse? Giezi consule. Si erubuerit confiteri quod sentit, conuince eum macula corporis. Sed quid dico Giezi consulendum, ac si solus sit? Orbem conueni, quia totus illi qui non reprimunt coneupiscentiam, malorum utique fontem et fomitem, dispendium salutis incurrunt, quid erit illis qui eam assentatorum inflammant stimulis et quasi fomenta uitiorum accendunt Quid facient aut potius quid patientur, qui a ueritate auertunt auditum, in ammiratione rerum corruptibilium et corrumpentium non claudunt oculos, manus expandunt, et omnium sensuum uiuacitatem exercenf?
Deinde quasi diei non sufficiat malitia sua, fallacia unius alterius fallaciam trudit. Terentiano siquidem uerbo libentius utor, dum ad concupiscentiae fomacem succendendum conueniunt adulatores et relatores delatores et detractores inuidi ambitiosi elati factiosi superstitiosi flagitiosi officiorumque omnium praeuaricatores; quos, quia fere ubique terrarum sunt, facilius est inuenire quam dinumerare. Aduersus huiusmodi est omnis lex, in hos omnia iura coniurant, et in eosdem quasi in publicae salutis hostes quandoque omnis armabitur creatura.
Policraticus companion
Study the argument weekly; pray the tradition daily
Pair the outline with the Chosen Portion app, which serves short daily portions from the same royal devotional tradition — free on iOS.
John of Salisbury argued that rulers must keep the law of God before their eyes daily; Chosen Portion gives modern readers that same daily discipline in five minutes a morning.
- 8 weeks, one book per week, with the 3-4 key chapters flagged in each
- Discussion questions usable for a reading group from week one
- A daily 5-minute companion portion in the app alongside your weekly study