Κεφ. ΙΓ'
The Deception of Vainglory
The demon of vainglory lures the ascetic with false visions of spiritual prestige before abandoning them to more severe temptations.
The thought of vainglory is extremely subtle and readily slips in beside those who are making progress, eager to publicize their struggles and hunt for praise from others; it conjures up demons crying out, women being healed, and a crowd touching their clothes. Then it even predicts that they will become priests, stations people at their doors asking for them, and tells them that if they refuse, they will be carried off in chains. And so, after leaving him suspended in these empty hopes, it flies away and abandons him to be tested either by the demon of pride or by the demon of sadness, which also brings him thoughts that contradict those hopes. Sometimes it even hands over to the demon of sexual immorality the man who, only a moment before, imagined himself a prisoner and a holy priest.c11
Read the original Latin
Ὁ τῆς κενοδοξίας λογισμὸς λεπτότατός τίς ἐστι καὶ παρυφίσταται τοῖς κατορθοῦσι ῥᾳδίως δημοσιεύειν αὐτῶν τοὺς ἀγῶνας βουλόμενος καὶ τὰς παρὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων δόξας θηρώμενος, δαίμονάς τε κράζοντας ἀναπλάττων καὶ θεραπευόμενα γύναια καὶ ὄχλον τινὰ τῶν ἱματίων ἐφαπτόμενον· μαντεύεται δὲ αὐτῷ καὶ ἱερωσύνην λοιπὸν καὶ τοὺς ζητοῦντας αὐτὸν ταῖς θύραις ἐφίστησι· καὶ ὡς εἰ μὴ βούλοιτο δέσμιος ἀπαχθήσεται. Καὶ οὕτως αὐτὸν μετέωρον ταῖς κεναῖς ἐλπίσι ποιήσας ἀφίπταται καταλιπὼν ἢ τῷ τῆς ὑπερηφανίας δαίμονι πειράζειν αὐτὸν ἢ τῷ τῆς λύπης, ὅστις ἐπάγει καὶ λογισμοὺς αὐτῷ ταῖς ἐλπίσιν ἐναντιουμένους· ἔστι δὲ ὅτε καὶ τῷ τῆς πορνείας δαίμονι παραδίδωσι τὸν πρὸ ὀλίγου δέσμιον καὶ ἅγιον ἱερέα.
Notes
- 1 ↩“Prisoner and holy priest” is deliberately ironic, recalling the fantasies in the preceding sentence.
The Praktikos companion
A daily portion of stillness
Chosen Portion delivers one short contemplative reading and a guided moment of silence each day — the ascent, one step at a time.
Chosen Portion is the paced doorway into this collection: it portions the dense mystical treatises into one daily reading plus guided silence, exactly as the 14-day plan teaches.
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