The Eight Evils: Pride The Author of Downfall Chris Selmys Originally published in Issue XIII of Vulgata, February, 2004.

Pride, it is well known, is the sin which was responsible for disqualifying a certain light-bearing angel from the beatific vision. We should therefore be on our guard, for a thing that can cast the brightest angel of Heaven into Hell can surely do substantial violence to our own soul. The insidious nature of Pride resides in the power of invisibility which it has. Unlike Lust or Gluttony or Despair, as Pride worsens it becomes more and more difficult for the afflicted person to detect it. A man with hefty portion of venereal deseases obtained in brothels, or a man who cannot reach his knees over his belly will not easily fail to notice that he has a problem. Strangely enough however, the arrogant, blasphememing, unrepentantant, vain and self-righteous boaster may well be oblivious to the odium that he exudes and even believe himself to be a paragon of virtue. So, if the norm is for the proud to not see their pride and for the more objective observer to be repulsed by it, what happens if the afflicted man catches a glimpse of the truth? In those cases where a proud man is led to take notice of his pride, it will bolster itself by the even more pernicious means of establishing itself a sort of good in its own right. It will claim, for example, that what is clear snobbishness should be called instead by the euphamism “taste” or that obvious arrogance is merely good, solid “self-confidence.” Even if a man should see through these lies, there is a peak of pride in which he will be able to say, even with a sort of gloating self-adoration, “Yes, I am a boastful man,” or, “I find that I am utterly unrepentent.” This relish, which is the final recourse of pride when it is revealed, is obviously of diabolical manufacture, and yet often a man who seeks after holiness or hopes to cultivate the friendship of God will find himself, in his innermost heart, looking upon his own faults and follies in just such a way. Against this there is no shield except for shame and the grace of God.

The Spiritual Nature of Pride

Pride is, above all, a spiritual evil. Its true source and nature is not to be found in broadcasting our good works, or in thinking poorly of others, or in over-estimating our own talents, but in the way of appreciating ourselves and our world which must, of necessity, lie behind these outward signs. Thus it is that pride will persist unless we are able to entirely submit ourselves to God, to really come to that interior conviction, impossible to our own strength and only available through His grace, that He is indeed our Lord, King, and Master in all things. Until we may say, truly, that we are in a condition no less than utter poverty, that everything which we have is of God, and able to return it joyfully into His dominion, the vices will persist in our souls as naturally as a stench persists in the presence of putrifaction.

Pride will often decieves us into thinking that we are making progress against its dominion when, indeed, we are only being shuffled about like a poor dupe from one form of excessive self-esteem to another. Thus it is that, as is so common, a man will forcefully restrain himself from boasting, and will, if he is successful over a long period, quickly fall into contempt towards those who suffer from the same proud affliction that beset him only a few months before.
   
The nature of this evil is the source of all evils, and it is the failure to grant to God the authorship and dominion that is rightfully His. It is the act of claiming for oneself any part of the glory owed to God, or of valuing things because they are ours instead of valuing them on God's terms. This claim is, of necessity, false – it is founded upon the lie first spoken by the serpent that we may be as gods if only we will reject the True God and His commandments. Now as a single break in a knitted garment may cause the whole to unravel, this single lie will unravel every shred of value or merit in the works of the proud. For in every case a proud man ceases to have consideration for the genuine goods, which God alone bestows and which cannot, in truth, be construed to originate in himself, and begins to value only that which he can call his own. Of its nature, these lies serve to place a veil upon the eyes of the man so afflicted, so that he is quite unable to see whatever is truly good in himself (and thus ceases to develop and exercise his true gifts) and instead pursues relentlessly those self-reputed “goods” which, coming solely from himself, are entirely unable to work good either for himself or for anyone around him.

Vanity – Sign of Barenness

The first child of the vice of pride is that which most commonly is thought of when the word “pride” itself is mentioned. It may be called vanity, which includes not only the idolatry of one's own beauty, but all varieties of vice wherein a man believes himself superior on account of some talent or grace which he perceives himself to have. In its infancy, it is so seemingly innocent that it is often praised as a good, being called “positive self-image” or “good self-esteem,” for at this stage it amounts only to taking pleasure in one's own talents as though those talents arose within the self and were not truly granted unto us by God. As it grows, we not only annex to ourselves the credit for the goods that we have accomplished, but we begin to think that by these gifts we are made superior to others, who have not the same talents. Thus a man of intelligence comes to believe that his mental abilities cause him to have more value than those whose intelligence is lesser, or the man of strength comes to think of others as weak and worthless milksops. At last, when it is grown to a decedant and shrivelled old age, this vices causes the world to shrink in around the self, perverting that talent in which it once delighted, and causing an unsufferable disdain for all other persons who – even if, in truth, they possess the same faculty in greater abundance – are branded inferiors. It should also be noted that the more advanced vanity becomes, the less it has, as it's object, any true talent or ability. Thus a man who is, indeed, a very graced and talented painter will cease from making good art and will, instead, begin to paint meaningless or distasteful subjects in the belief that, because they are solely his own and “break free” from the conventions of reason and content, they are actually better. The cause of this is that a man cannot found excessive self-image on that which expresses or contains true beauty, value or truth, because in-so-far as it contains any of these properties it comes from and is proper to God. Thus, in seeking to worship alone that which is of the self, he comes to reject all true good in his own work, and to make an idol of the decay of his own talents.

Boasting – The Devilish Disposition

Boasting is to self-congratulation closely allied, for both are founded upon an excessive estimation of one's own talents and accomplishments. The boaster is, however, a less disgraceful creature, for though he desires for himself that glory which to God alone is owed, he none the less begins in finding some value in the estimation of others. In infancy, the vice of boasting lies in drawing attention to feats and accomplishments which we consider to be our own, coveting praise and trying to cover up God's glory as it is manifested in other ways. When formed into a habit, however, the boaster no longer takes joy in praise directed toward him, and begins to be suspicious of praise directed towards his true talents. Good work done honestly and well will, if praised as such, cause in him resentment – for he would rather that he were praised for those things which he thinks most essential to himself. Thus a truly beautiful woman may sniff at a complement to her beauty – which she cannot truly credit to herself – and then proceed to boast of her second-rate poetry. The praise which the boaster solicits by his boasting, he comes to expect as his due, and so when his boast is ignored or left unpraised, he becomes bitter and thinks himself surrounded by cretans and ingrates. When he has given himself over entirely to boasting, the boaster will begin to claim for himself talents and abilities which, in fact, he has not at all. The contempt and condescension which such blatant absurdities provoke ceases any longer to be a barb or a source of pain and becomes, instead, a pleasure, for he sees in the rejection of others no longer a lack of affirmation for himself, but rather a confirmation of their inferiority. For having set up himself as a standard, all who would correct his foolishness are dismissed simply as men of little discernment whose opinion is as far beneath him as is the earth below the stars.

Arrogance – Harbringer of Madness

The arrogant man is he who believes that he is able to do a great many things better, even, then those who have genuine talent or acumen. He looks upon the works and accomplishments of another and thinks only, “I could far surpass that, if only I had the time, or the training, or if my talents were recognized by some worthy patron.” In the beginning, arrogance disguises itself as confidence, so that we begin in this vice by thinking that perhaps we could do better than others, and by trying to do so. This is in contravention of the humility, which coaxes us to make the attempt in order that our talents may be put to good service, instead of making it simply in order to show up the works of another. In developing, however, arrogance ceases more and more to test its claims, and instead begins to rest upon excuses, assuming that if it were to try it would succeed, so that it need not risk the humilitiation of failure. Thus a man who has no more knowledge of politics than is granted in high-school declares that he could better manage the country than those to whom the electoral process has granted office. In his final state, the arrogant man is a useless and ineffectual braggard, full of wild schemes and tall-tales of what he could have been, bitter about the opportunities that were owed to him by life, resentful of those who have succeeded and cynical about all human accomplishment.

Judgementalism – Custodian of Sins

Judgementalism is displaced guilt. It is a parody of the virtue of charitable rebuke. The judgemental man has as his object not the edification of his neighbour, but seeks to glut his ego upon their faults. If someone unwisely seeks to mortify his conscience he will not succeed in making a corpse of his guilt but only to project the uncleanness inside him onto the people around him. At first he will convince himself that his criticisms are constructive and well meant. As this disorder flowers, he ceases to care whether any good is accomplished by his words, and like a man stepping over the corpses of his foes in order to approach the throne, believes that he may attain to sanctity by proving others to be fiends rather than by cultivating virtue in himself. The progress of this spiritual cancer drives out of the soul of man all compassion and understanding of human sin, all mercy and forgiveness towards the failings of others, and all introspection that may lead to genuine self-knowledge and solidarity with the whole of mankind. In time, judgementalism leads its thrall to find the festering stench of vice not only in the faults of others, but also in their virtues, so that he is constant in criticism and suspicion, believing himself a pillar of rectitude amidst a quagmire of human filth. In this, he is always led away from true morality, so that in time he his concern ceases to rest upon any very grevious errors, and like scruples focused outwards, fixes itself upon some arbitrary self-concocted rules to which he imagines all others to be subject.

Unrepentance – Fortress of Demons

The sin of unrepentence has as its foundation the desire to usurp unto oneself the moral authority of God. Whereas the judgemental man seeks the authority to condemn others, the unrepentent man ascribes to himself the power to absolve his own sins. He starts in excusing some minor fault, by claiming that it is, under the circumstances, entirely justified. The habit forms quickly, and he ceases any longer to see the evil in his own actions. Thus if he is an adulterer, he says that he is merely virile or that it is selfish of his wife to desire him entirely for herself. If he is a worrier, he claims that if he did not constantly saw at his nerves with the concerns of others that the entire world would dissolve into chaos. No longer is he sorry for his sins, for he believes himself to be a morally flawless creature, and thus all of his apparent failings are really goods that others simply do not appreciate. As he descends into the bowels of this monster, he begins to brood delightedly over the most malignant manifestations of his own sinfulness, declaring that unbridled vice is the rightful property of man, and that guilt and contrition are an affront to the dignity of human autonomy. Mistaking all morality for a scruple, he first refuses to recognize those moral imperatives that he finds it most difficult to keep, and then, finding that he is drawn to ever greater sin by the gravity of unchecked concupiscence, he ends by oblitarating all the demands of moral law and calls his utter depravity liberty.
   
Snobbery – Spiritual Drunkenness

It is the natural business of man's intellect to idenitify categories and to sort the world around him into generalities by which he may more easily understand it. When man makes application of this principle to his fellows he may come to see that the world is peopled not merely by billions of individuals, but rather by a much smaller and more manageable number of types. This, if left on its own, may be mere good sense, for many are the situations in which a man must interact with his fellows without having either time or opportunity of adequately examining their individual particularities. Snobbery has its birth, however, when the same man begins to think that these categories – whether they be of class, of interest, or of ability – reflect not merely the diversity with which God has invested his human creatures, but a ranking of those creatures according to worth or dignity. Thus a rich and powerful man ceases merely to be rich and powerful and is called by the designation noble – even if his entire life and countenance are ignoble in the extreme. Or, conversely, he may be called a bourgois capitalist swine, even though a man of unimpeachable character and charity. That one who believes himself qualified to justly make such distinctions of value amongst his fellow persons must is already proud, bet the snob will also tend to imagine himself in the highest circle and, by degrees, will begin to denigrate all others. Snobbery's beginnings are more humble, for a man begins in imagining himself outside of the greatest circle and seeks entrance to it in order to advance his own esteem. If he is admitted, he imagines himself to have abandoned the crass life of the outer realms, and to be a more refined, more intelligent, or more magnificent person. If he is rejected, however he will join the elite squadron of those who are “misunderstood,” whose intelligence, taste, originality or honesty simply is not appreciated by the general assembly of morons, posers and dullards who comprise the vast majority of the human race. In following this road, the man possessed by the spirit of snobbery will inevitably find that within the inner circle there is another, still more inner and more narrow circle, to which he will inevitably attach himself. Even here, his desire to be first class will not be extinguished, and he will secretly begin to disdain the other members of the inmost circle, believing himself their superior and finally posing himself as the ultimate arbiter of good taste, or athletic prowess, or intellectual acumen, or whatever quality supposedly allows his crowd to look down at the rest of the world from a height. He ends alone, despising and despised by his associates, feeling the whole world beneath him, convinced that he stands atop the social ladder even when there is not a man in the world who, except for charity, will pay him the honour of a smile.

Independence – The Flight from God's Help

The independent man thinks himself the pinnacle of virtue and liberty, for he imagines that he is a burden to no one, indebted to none, entirely sufficient unto himself, a bulwark to his community and a model of human autonomy. He may begin in desiring that he should avoid making demands upon others, and this arises out of a sort of concern that is in almost all cases mingled with a sort of cowardice – for at bottom the independent man is terrified either that he will be found inadequate, or that he will be rejected. Or else he may begin simply by desiring to show that he is able to do some little task for himself. Thus he insists upon performing some trifling feat -- such as tying his own shoes if he is three, or fixing his own computer if he is an adult – for which he is ill-equipped, and with which he will not accept assistance. The roots of this vice grow up into a sort of cactus, by which the man no longer wishes to do things for himself out of genuine solicitude for the ease of others, or even for the satisfaction of seeing his own work, but by which he bolsters himself against all assistance as though it were an insult to his own ability. Thus he proclaims that he needs no help, even when he is clearly floundering. By his very insistence that he will not be a burden he becomes burdensome. As independence grows it retracts from the world, allowing none to approach, leaving friends and relatives with a feeling of hurt and abandonment, endangering the life of its victim and rejecting the mercy of God which must be accepted as pure and undeserved charity.

False Humility – Parody of Holiness

False Humility is the ultimate obstacle to actual submission to God. Just as a conjuror draws our eyes to his left hand while he works his trick with his right, false humility aims to concentrate our strength on cultivating the appearances of sanctity while we grow unholy daily. The man so afflicted makes an idol of his saintly mannerisms and burns incense to himself while his duties are left undone. He mistakes a soft and pleasant voice for compassion, repetition of wise sayings for being wise and ritual observance for sanctity. He nails himself to heavy crosses in order to boast of his sacrifice and does not follow Christ when He calls him away. This worm-in-sheeps-clothing  undertakes each act of false humility with gritted teeth, and is dismayed and stirred to bitterness when others do not notice how much and in what manner he has made sacrifice on their behalf. Beneath this heaviness, he is sure to fall, and then to demand recompense for all that he has given – for he will feel that he has given much – whether he demand it of God or of his fellows. If this disease has already grown up in his soul, he will seek to continue as before, sweeping aside the momentary revelation of his true disposition as though it were a breif insanity. Whatever he imagines to be the path to the highest holiness, he will pursue it as an ambitious business man pursues the prestige of wealth. He ends in a self-deprecation that is focussed entirely on his own ego, throwing himself into every form of humiliation and ridicule without regard either for the effects upon his friends and family, nor for the true calling which God has put before him, nor for the scandal that his actions cause to those who mistake his imposture for true humility.

Self-Righteousness – The Bitter Pharisee

Self-righteousness is like unto judgementalism in that it sets up the self as a moral standard, but whereas judgementalism fancies itself the judge of other's souls, self-righteousness imagines itself the pinnacle of virtue. It differs from false-humility in that the self-righteous man need have no notion that humility is a good, and that where the man who would have others think him humble will needlessly grovel and render himself ridiculous, the man who deems himself righteous will call his fellows to sit at his feet as though he had much wisdom to impart. He may instruct them in their sins, or may overlook their faults with an abundance of falsified magnanimity. This man need not be a Christian, though if he is he will imagine himself the true image of Christ and will take care that this is known and is evident to all around him, usually by various external and irrelevant signs. If he is not a Christian, he might be appalled by the callous treatment of animals in the meat industry, or he may smilingly inform the suffering that all their pain is but an inllusion, or he may look with pitying condescension upon the poor and stupid dupes who have given themselves into the avaricious and dishonest clutches of the Church. He begins merely in thinking himself a good man – as good as any other – and then proceeds to notice that there lies, in other men, much that he does not think good. From this he concludes that he must be their moral superior, and qualified to guide them into true morality. Thus he shows all his good works before the world, holding out his philanthropy and rectitude in both hands that all might see. This, he claims, is for the edification of others, though in fact it is only that he might further enlarge his pride, and causes others to think him a sanctimonious hypocrite. His words are saccharine, his smile is venemous. He thinks himself above his common man, and his pity is condescension bereft wholly of compassion. He ends as a mask of sweetness, mouthing platitudes, reformed in the image of Satan who appears as an angel of light. His charity may be  barbed and his pity a fang but it matters not if any good is worked by his supposed kindness, or if any benefit is gained by his benefaction. All that matters is that he may end the day in the smug assurance that he is a better man than those who reject him.

Lord, make me glad to be your instrument and preserve me from trying to take your place. I love you now, because I see my weakness. Later, I will think I am strong, help me to love you then.