Caput XXXIV. De cenodoxia, id est, vana gloria
What Vanity Is
Vainglory is claiming personal credit for good works instead of giving all glory to God, who alone enables every good thing.
Vanity is when someone wants to be praised for the good things they do, and doesn't give the glory to God but to themselves; when they don't credit any of their good works to divine grace, but act as though they possess either worldly honor or the spiritual beauty of wisdom on their own, while a person can have nothing good without God's grace or help, just as Truth itself says in the Gospel to his disciples: 'Without me you can do nothing' (John 15:5).✦ 15:5. So whoever boasts should boast in the Lord, because no one can have any good thing without God giving it.✦✦
The Branches of a Poisonous Root
From vainglory spring boasting, arrogance, discord, and hypocrisy, especially when people perform for human praise and so receive their only reward.
From the root of this vice many branches of wickedness seem to sprout: boasting, arrogance, resentment, discord, the craving for empty glory, and hypocrisy—that is, pretending to do good works when someone wants praise for things they don't actually know how to do. In fact, they do almost everything with the aim of being praised by people—and about these people the Lord himself says: "Truly I tell you, they have received their reward" (Matthew 6:2).✦ 6:2.
The Hidden Reef
Vanity is a many-sided assault that attacks the monk in every practice and, like a hidden reef, brings sudden shipwreck even to the spiritually prosperous.
This plague—that is, vanity—is a many-sided greed, and it confronts the soldier fighting against vices from every direction, and it even confronts the victor of vices from every side. For it tries to wound the soldier of Christ in dress and physical appearance, in walk, in voice, and in work, in vigils, in fasting, in prayer, in withdrawal, in reading, in knowledge, in silence, in obedience, in humility, in patience and long-suffering—and like a most dangerous reef hidden beneath swelling waves, it brings sudden and wretched shipwreck on those who are sailing along prosperously, when they aren't watching out.✦
No Safe Harbor in Virtue
Vainglory tempts through both honor and humility, through public practice and secret devotion, so that even virtues become wounds when self-praise creeps in.
If vainglory couldn't take root under the appearance of a beautiful and splendid garment, it tries to plant itself in a shabby, neglected, and humbler one; the person it couldn't overthrow through honor, it trips up with humility; the person it couldn't puff up with the adornment of knowledge and eloquence, it crushes with the weight of silence. If someone fasts publicly, they're struck by the vanity of glory; if they do it in secret to avoid glory, they're inwardly bruised by that same vice of pride within themselves. To avoid being stained by the contagion of vainglory, someone avoids praying at length in the sight of the brothers — and yet, because they practice it in secret, they don't escape the stings of vanity. It tries to puff up one person because they're so patient in works and labor, another because they're so quick to obey, another because they excel the rest in humility. One person is tempted through knowledge, another through devotion to reading, another through length of vigils. So this disease aims to wound a person not only through worldly deeds but even through their own virtues.
The Godward Remedy
The cure is to remember God's goodness, to work for His praise alone, and to fear more the loss of divine approval than the loss of human esteem.
The cure for this disease is remembering God's goodness, through which every good thing we seem to have was given to us, and the enduring love of God himself, in whose praise we ought to do everything, whatever good we work in this age — and to desire more to be praised by God on the day of eternal reward than by any person in the passing life of this world. In this way we too can escape this beast, as we reflect on that verse of David: 'The Lord will shatter the bones of those who please men' (Psal.✦
Guarding the Good Intention
To preserve our works from vanity we must begin with pure intention, avoid what draws special attention, and shun whatever seems to set us apart from the community.
LII, 6). First, let's do nothing for the sake of empty glory; then, whatever we've begun with a good intention, let's guard it by holding on to that same intention. Otherwise the disease of vain glory, creeping in afterward, may empty out the fruit of all our labors. Whatever in our life among the brothers falls outside common practice, let's set it apart from all zeal, and as if it were devoted to boasting let's turn away from it; and those things that could make us stand out among the others, and that praise among people seems to belong to us alone as if we were the only ones doing them — let's avoid these.
The Captains of Christ and Satan
The eight deadly vices are leaders of impiety, but through confession, penance, and the help of God they are conquered by the corresponding virtues under the four cardinal commanders.
These eight are the leaders of all impiety, with their armies, and they are the most fierce warriors of diabolical deceit against the human race. Therefore, whoever dies holding on to even one of these vices without confession and penitence is condemned to eternal punishment. This is why John says in his letter: There is a sin that leads to death — I'm not talking about that kind of sin when I say someone should pray (John✦ 5:16). But these warriors, with God's help, are conquered very easily by the warriors of Christ through holy virtues. First, pride is conquered through humility; gluttony through abstinence; sexual immorality through chastity; greed through self-control; anger through patience; sloth through persistence in good work; destructive sadness through spiritual joy; and empty glory through the love of God. So from among these leaders of the Christian religious life, whom we have set against the warriors of diabolical impiety, four stand out as most glorious commanders, whose names are these: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.
Read the original Latin
Vana gloria est, dum homo appetit in bonis suis laudari, et non dat Deo honorem sed sibi: nec divinae imputat gratiae quidquid boni facit, sed quasi ex se habeat vel saecularis dignitatem honoris, vel spiritualis decorem sapientiae, dum homo nihil absque Dei gratia vel adjutorio habere possit boni, sicut ipsa Veritas in Evangelio discipulis suis ait: Sine me nihil potestis facere (Joan. XV, 5). Quapropter qui gloriatur, in Domino glorietur: quia nihil sine Deo donante boni habere poterit. Ex cujus vitii radice multi malitiae germinare videntur ramusculi: inde jactantia, arrogantia, indignatio, discordia, inanis gloriae cupido, et hypocrisis, id est, simulatio boni operis, cum de se homo vult laudari, quod se agere nescit. Imo pene omnia quae facit, eo tenore agit, ut ab hominibus laudetur, de quibus ipse Dominus ait: Amen dico vobis, receperunt mercedem suam (Matth. VI, 2). Ista pestis, id est, vana gloria, multiformis avaritia est, et undique bellatori contra vitia pugnanti, et ex omni parte victori etiam vitiorum occurrit. Nam et in habitu et in forma corporis, in incessu, in voce, et in opere, in vigiliis, in jejuniis, in oratione, in remotione, in lectione, in scientia, in taciturnitate, in obedientia, in humilitate, in patientiae longanimitate militem Christi vulnerare conatur, et velut perniciosissimus scopulus tumentibus undis obtectus improvisum ac miserabile naufragium prospere navigantibus, dum non cavetur, importat.
Nam cui sub specie pulchrae vestis ac nitidae cenodoxiam non potuit generare, pro squalida et inculta ac viliori conatur inserere; quem non potuit per honorem dejicere, humilitate supplantat; quem scientiae et elocutionis ornatu nequivit extollere, gravitate taciturnitatis elidit. Si jejunat palam, gloria vanitatis pulsatur; si illud contemnendae gloriae causa contexerit, eodem vitio elationis intus in seipso homo subtunditur. Ne vanae gloriae contagione maculetur, orationes prolixius sub fratrum vitat celebrare conspectu et quod eas latenter exerceat, non effugit aculeos vanitatis. Alium quod patientissimus sit operum ac laboris, alium quod ad obediendum promptissimus, alium quod humilitate caeteros praecellit, conatur extollere. Alius scientiae, alius lectionis studio, alius vigiliarum prolixitate tentatur. Non solum ergo saecularibus operibus, sed etiam suis virtutibus hominem hic morbus nititur sauciare. Cujus morbi medicina est recordatio divinae bonitatis, per quam omnia bona nobis collata sunt, quae habere videmur; etiam et perpetua ipsius Dei charitas, in cujus laude omnia agere debemus, quidquid boni in hoc saeculo operemur, et magis desiderare a Deo laudari in die retributionis aeternae, quam ab homine quolibet in hujus transitoriae vitae conversatione. Ita etiam hanc bestiam poterimus evadere, ut cogitantes illum Davidicum versum: Dominus dissipabit ossa eorum, qui hominibus placent (Psal.
LII, 6). Primitus nihil inanis gloriae gratia faciamus, deinde quae bono initio fecerimus, observatione simili custodiamus. Ne omnis laborum nostrorum fructus post irrepens vanae gloriae morbus evacuet. Quidquid etiam in conversatione fratrum minime communis usus recipit, exsecremus omni studio, et veluti jactantiae deditum declinemus, et ea quae nos possunt inter caeteros notabiles reddere, ac veluti solis facientibus laus apud homines sit conquirenda, vitemus.
Hi sunt octo totius impietatis duces cum exercitibus suis, et fortissimi contra humanum genus diabolicae fraudis bellatores. Qui ergo unum vitium de istis habens sine confessione et poenitentia moritur, aeterna poena damnatur. Unde dicit Joannes in Epistola sua: Est peccatum ad mortem, non pro illo, dico, ut quis roget (Joan. V, 15). Isti vero bellatores Deo auxiliante facillime vincuntur a bellatoribus Christi per virtutes sanctas. Prima superbia per humilitatem, gula per abstinentiam, fornicatio per castitatem, avaritia per abstinentiam, ira per patientiam, acedia per instantiam boni operis, tristitia mala per laetitiam spiritualem, vana gloria per charitatem Dei vincitur. Igitur ex his Christianae religionis ductoribus, quos opposuimus diabolicae impietatis bellatoribus, quatuor praesunt duces gloriosissimi, quorum nomina haec sunt: prudentia, justitia, fortitudo, temperantia.
Scripture echoes
- ↩John.15.5 — I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who abides in me, and I in him, this one bears much fruit; for apart from me you can do nothing.
- ↩1Cor.1.31 — so that, as it is written, 'Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.'
- ↩Jer.9.23-Jer.9.24 — Thus says the LORD: Let not the wise boast in their wisdom, let not the strong boast in their strength, let not the wealthy boast in their riches. But let the one who boasts boast in this: understanding and knowing me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight, declares the LORD. Jer.9.24 — Behold, days are coming — declares the LORD — and I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh.
- ↩Matt.6.2 — So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by people. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.
- ↩1Tim.6.9 — But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction.
- ↩Ps.52.6 — You love all words that devour, a deceitful tongue.
- ↩1John.5.16 — If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life — to those who sin not leading to death. There is sin leading to death; I do not say that he should ask about that.
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