What pride is and whanne it is synne.
Defining the Nature of Pride
Pride is identified as the love of one's own excellence, manifesting as a subtle, interior sense of superiority over others.
Pride is nothing more, as the learned say, than a love of your own excellence—that is, of your own honor. So the more you love and take pleasure in your own honor, the greater your pride is—and the more this image exists within you. If you feel a stirring of pride in your heart—that you are holier, wiser, better, and more virtuous than someone else; that God has given you grace to serve Him better than others do; and it seems to you that everyone else is beneath you and you are above them—or any other thought of yourself that reveals to your soul any excellence or superiority over other men or women, and from this stirring you feel a love, a delight, and a vain self-pleasing that you are this way: this is a sign that you bear this black image. Though it is hidden from human eyes, it shows itself openly in God's sight.
The Grace of Baptism and the Reality of Sin
While the mere feeling of pride is not sin for the baptized, consenting to it through delight or negligence constitutes a spiritual failure.
But now you say that you cannot escape such stirrings of pride. Because you often feel them against your will, you maintain that they aren't a sin—or if they are, they are only venial sin. To this I say as follows: the mere feeling of these stirrings of pride, or of any other such stirrings that spring either from the corruption of this foul image or by the enemy's casting them in, is no sin, insofar as you feel them. This is a grace and a privilege granted by virtue of the Passion of Jesus Christ to all Christian people baptized in water and in the Holy Spirit; for truly, for Jews or Saracens who do not believe in Christ, all such stirrings are deadly sins. For Saint Paul says: "Everything that is not from faith is sin" (Romans 14:23).✦ Everything done without faith in Christ is a mortal sin.✦1 But we Christians have this privilege of His mercy: such feelings aren't sin, but rather the pain of original sin.2 Nevertheless, when through your own negligence and blindness this feeling is received unawares into your thought and turned into love and delight, then there is sin—more or less according to the measure of that love—sometimes venial and sometimes mortal. I can't fully explain to you when it is venial and when it is mortal.
Read the original Latin
Pride is not ellis, as clerkes tellen, but love of thyn owen excellence, that is, of thyn owen worschipe. Thanne the more thou lovest and likest in thyn owen worschipe, the more is thi pride, and so the more is this ymage in thee. Yif thou fele in thyn herte a stirynge of pride, that thou art holier, wisere, betere, and more vertuous than an nothir is, that God hath geven thee grace for to serve Hym betere than othir doon, and thee thenketh alle othire binethe thee and thee above hem, or ony othir thought of thisilf whiche schewith to the sight of thi soule ony excellence, and an overpassynge of othir men or of women, and of this stirynge thou felist a love and a delite, and a veyn plesynge in thi silf that thou art so: this is a tokene that thou berist this blak ymage, which though it be prevei in mannys iye, he schewith him opynli in Goddis sight. But now seist thou, that thou mai not flee siche styrynges of pride. For ofte sithes thou felist hem agens thi wil, and therfore thou holdest hem no synne, or if thei be synne, thei are not but venial synne. As unto this I seie thus, that the felynge of thise stirynges of pride or of ony othir sich springen out, oither of the corrupcion of this foule ymage or bi incastynge of the enemye, it is no synne, in as moche as thou felist hem. And that is a grace and a privelege bi vertu of the passioun of Jhesu Crist grauntid to alle Cristene men baptizid in watir and in the Hooli Goost; for sothli to Jewes or Sarzynes, whiche trowen not in Crist, alle siche stirynges aren deedli synnes to hem. For Seynt Poul seith: Omne, quod non est ex fide peccatum est (Romans 14:23).
Al that is doon withouten trouth in Crist is deedli synne. But we Cristene men have this privelegie of His merci, that sich felynges aren no synne, but thei are peyne of origynal synne. Neverthelees whanne bi necgligence of thisilf and blyndenesse of thisilf this felyng is receyved unwarli in thi thought and turned into love and a likynge, thanne is ther synne more or lasse aftir the mesure of the love sumtyme venyal and sumtyme deedli. Whanne it is venial and whanne deedli, fulli I cannot wel telle thee.
Scripture echoes
Notes
Scala Perfectionis (The Scale of Perfection) 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.
- Daily bite-sized excerpts from the contemplative classics, never a wall of text
- A built-in timed stillness practice that grows from 2 minutes to 10
- Gentle progression through the tradition — the app remembers where you are on the ascent