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Chapter 22ViaRegia.1.22

Ut caveat unusquisque superbiam

The Royal Road of Humility

The king is exhorted to discern between the path of humility and the path of pride.

Up to this point, King, with God's help, we have laid out in order what you ought to do. Next, let us set forth for your benefit what you ought to avoid—for someone who carefully shuns evil is no less virtuous than one who wholesomely gathers what is good. So it is necessary, most renowned king, that in all your actions you keep the royal road with discernment, and walking it for your good, plant the steps of your work firmly; and while you hold gladly to the paths on the right, carefully and anxiously beware the left.1 For the right-hand path is the virtue of humility, which nourishes the other virtues and leads those who live well to eternal life. The left-hand path is the vice of pride, which nourishes the other vices and leads those who wickedly consent to it to eternal punishment. For pride is the first and highest vice, and as it is written in Ecclesiasticus: "Pride is hateful before God and before human beings." Pride is the beginning of every sin. Whoever clings to it will be filled with curses, and it will overthrow him in the end.

The Divine Judgment of the Proud

Scriptural testimonies illustrate how God consistently humbles the proud and exalts the lowly.

For that reason, the Lord has put the assemblies of the wicked to shame and destroyed them completely. God has destroyed the thrones of proud rulers and seated the gentle in their place; God has dried up the roots of proud nations and planted the humble from among those same peoples. The Lord has overturned the lands of the nations and destroyed them down to the foundation; he has dried them up from among them, scattered them, and made their memory cease from the earth. God has wiped out the memory of the proud, and left the memory of the humble. The Lord also uses a tree as a comparison for the humble and the proud, saying through Ezekiel: "All the trees of the field shall know that I, the Lord, have brought low the high tree and raised up the low tree; I have dried up the green tree and made the dry tree put forth leaves."✦2 I, the Lord, have spoken, and I have done it. The Lord also says in the Gospel: "Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted."✦ The Lord himself also threatens the proud through Jeremiah, saying: "Behold, I am against you, O proud one, says the Lord God of hosts. Because your day has come, the time of your visitation, the proud one will fall and collapse, and there will be no one to raise him up; I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it will devour everything around him."✦

The Peril of Pride and the Call to Grace

The king is warned of the internal mechanics of pride and urged to embrace humility as his royal duty.

Pride is a great evil: it cast the devil down from heaven and threw man out of paradise; and every day it also presses wretched people down from a state of uprightness into the lowest depths, and after death it plunges them into hell. Pride first lifts a person up in their thoughts and later exalts the arrogant in their actions. It first makes them feel swollen in the secret of their heart, and then it sends them headlong in public. That is why the proud fall outwardly from the very place where they first, poor souls, were lifted up within. It is only just that a person who, in pride, despises their Maker should lie prostrate under sin. So then, most prudent king, fear so great an evil, and watch out for the evil of pride.3 Turn aside from the slavish left-hand path and run swiftly along the right-hand way—the royal one.4 Love humility and hold it fast, and carefully heed what the Lord cries out to you through Scripture: "They have made you a ruler; do not exalt yourself. Be among them as one of them." Take care of them, and then rest confident; and when every care of yours has been discharged, rest, so that you may rejoice because of them and receive the crown, the adornment of grace.5

Read the original Latin

Hactenus quid, auxiliante Deo, rex, agere debeas ordinatim digessimus. Quid vero deinceps vitare debeas salubriter proferamus; neque enim minoris virtutis est homo qui mala sollicite vitat, quam qui bona salubriter congregat. Unde necesse est, clarissime rex, ut in omnibus actibus tuis viam regiam discrete custodias, et per eam salubriter ambulans, gressus operis firmiter ponas; et dextera feliciter tenens itinera, caute et sollicite cave sinistra. Dextera enim via est virtus humilitatis, quae caeteras nutrit virtutes, et bene viventes ad vitam perducit aeternam. Sinistra est vitium superbiae, quae caetera nutrit vitia, et sibi male consentientes aeternam perducit ad poenam. Superbia enim primum et summum vitium est, et sicut scriptum est in Ecclesiastico: Odibilis coram Deo est et hominibus superbia. Initium omnis peccati est superbia. Qui tenuerit illam adimplebitur maledictis, et subvertet eum in finem.

Propterea exhonoravit Dominus conventus malorum, et destruxit eos usque in finem. Sedes ducum superborum destruxit Deus, et sedere fecit mites pro eis: radices gentium superbarum arefecit Deus, et plantavit humiles ex ipsis gentibus. Terras gentium evertit Dominus, et perdidit eas usque ad fundamentum; arefecit ex ipsis, et disperdidit eos, et cessare fecit memoriam eorum a terra. Perdidit Deus memoriam superborum, et reliquit memoriam humilium. Dominus quoque dans de ligno humilibus et superbis comparationem, per Ezechielem ait: Et scient omnia ligna regionis, quia ego Dominus humiliavi lignum sublime, et exaltavi lignum humile: et siccavi lignum viride, et frondere feei lignum aridum. Ego Dominus locutus sum et feci. Dominus quoque in Evangelio ait: Omnis qui se exaltaverit, humiliabitur; et qui se humiliaverit, exaltabitur. Ipse quoque Dominus per Jeremiam superbo comminans ait: Ecce ego ad te, superbe, dicit Dominus Deus exercituum: Quia venit dies tuus, tempus visitationis tuae, et cadet superbus, et corruet, et non erit qui suscitet eum: et succendam ignem in urbibus ejus, et devorabit omnia in circuitu ejus.

Grande malum est superbia, quae diabolum de coelo deposuit, et hominem de paradiso projecit; quae et quotidie de statu rectitudinis miseros ad infima premit, et post obitum ad inferna demergit. Superbia prius in cogitatione elevat hominem, et postea elatum extollit in opere; prius in secreto cordis tumidum facit, et postea in publico praecipitem reddit. Inde superbi extrinsecus cadunt, unde prius miseri intrinsecus elevantur. Juste enim homo peccato substratus jacet, qui auctorem suum superbiendo contemnit. Tu ergo, prudentissime rex, time tantum et cave superbiae malum. Declina servilem sinistram, et per dexteram, quae est regia, velociter curre viam. Dilige et tene humilitatem, et quod tibi Dominus per Scripturam clamat diligenter attende; ait enim: Rectorem te posuerunt, noli extolli: esto in illis quasi unus ex ipsis. Curam illorum habe, et sic confide, et omni cura tua explicita recumbe, ut laeteris propter illos, et ornamentum gratiae accipias coronam.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Ezek.17.24 — And all the trees of the field shall know that I, the LORD, have brought low the high tree, have made high the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree flourish. I, the LORD, have spoken and I will do it.
  2. ↩Matt.23.12;Luke.14.11;Luke.18.14 — Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Luke.14.11 — For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted. Luke.18.14 — I tell you, this one went down to his house justified rather than that one; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
  3. ↩Jer.50.31-Jer.50.32 — "I am against you, O Arrogant One," declares the LORD of hosts, "for your day has come, the time of your punishment." Jer.50.32 — The proud one shall stumble and fall, with no one to raise him up; and I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it shall devour all his surroundings.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩dextera / sinistra here introduce the moral dualism of the following sentences: the right-hand path of humility versus the left-hand path of pride, not mere physical direction.
  2. 2 ↩Source reads 'frondere feei lignum aridum'; 'feei' is almost certainly a corruption of 'feci' ('I made'), matching the Ezekiel quotation and the parallel 'siccavi'.
  3. 3 ↩tantum read as intensifying the object of fear ('so great an evil') with superbiae malum as shared object of time and cave; an adverbial reading 'fear only' is less natural here.
  4. 4 ↩sinistram / dexteram / regia develop the moral left-vs-right road metaphor and the work's own via regia title; rendered as path/way, not mere physical hands.
  5. 5 ↩ornamentum gratiae...coronam treated as apposition: the crown is grace's adornment; alternatively, 'receive a crown as the adornment of grace'.

Via Regia (The Royal Road) companion

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