XLVIIII. Superhia mater vitiorum.

XLVIIII. Superhia mater vitiorum.

Therefore, pride must be restrained. Pride is indeed the first deception, which rejects God, and from which all vices arise. Just as a person governs their whole body with the five senses, pride attracts to itself a certain set of vices, namely hatred, disobedience, and empty glory, and it draws in every kind of vice, leading one into error. For pride wanted to rise above God and tested what its own power could achieve; however, it refused to confess God, but fought against His justice, where it received many wounds; moreover, disobedience did not submit itself to His commandments, and it claimed that God had no power at all. Empty glory also desired this, which should not have happened, namely, that it wanted to be called God. Deception even desired to impose an end on God, and rejected the living God, choosing instead a mute god for itself. Just as every kind of being came from Eve, so too all the evils of vice arose from pride; from this, the Devil also overcame that same woman through pride when he persuaded her to eat the fruit. Whoever draws pride to themselves lacks the love of God and does not bear fruit in the dew of blessing from virtue. Therefore, anyone who wants to serve God humbly should avoid pride and completely reject it from themselves. These things are said about the repentance of souls being purified and saved, and they are faithful; let the faithful pay attention to them and keep them in mind for the good of knowledge. I also saw other spirits from the same multitude who were crying out, saying: What glory and what kingdom is there that no one can grasp? These people persuade others not to love any gift of God in humanity, but to seek what pleases themselves and to envy the prosperity and good fortune of others' happy deeds. Regarding the punishments of envy in purgatory, 63. And I saw a great and deep mountain, which burned inside with fire and blazing pitch, and on which a multitude of vipers was running about, and which had a narrow opening through which souls entered and exited. But next to that mountain, there was a cold of the greatest horror, with a fiery cloud above it, and in it, many scorpions were crawling. However, their souls were tormented by these tortures, which, while they were in the world, had been heated by envy and hatred; so that from the punishments of this mountain they passed to the punishments of the cold nearby, and from the punishments of that cold to the punishments of this mountain. Because they had burned with envy against others in their hearts, they were burning in the fire of this mountain; and because they had maliciously slandered the prosperity and actions of others, they were being tainted by its pitch; and because they had cruelly and wickedly tormented others, they were being tormented by its vipers. But because of the hatred they had harbored in envy, they endured the cold near that same mountain; and because of the cruelty of that hatred, they felt a fiery mist; and because of the biting ferocity of it, they suffered the scorpions. Since they held envy with hatred and hatred with envy within themselves, they went from those torments to these and from these to those.