12. Pride and Vainglory.

We have already mentioned that anger is often linked with another passion — pride.

Now we will go so far as to say that anger does not often appear as an independent or

fundamental passion in the human heart. Most often anger expresses the dissatisfaction of

another passion, or even of the casual desires that a person may have from time to time.

In the latter case, anger is called impatience or obstinacy, which in turn are expressions of

a general self-love, lack of brotherly love and lack of desire to attend to oneself and

struggle with oneself. The stronger a passion is in a person, the quicker and more fiercely

it turns into anger when it is not satisfied. Thus the vainglorious and lovers of money

become envious, the lustful become jealous, the gluttonous become over-critical and

irritable, and so on. In general, anger is an indication of various sinful passions, and one

can find out about these by noticing when a person begins to get angry: if it is during a

conversation about fasting and sobriety, then he sins with the passion of overeating and

drunkenness; if it is on occasions when he loses money — love of money; if during talks

about the saints’ feats of humility — he is proud, and so on. This is why we began our

instructions to spiritual fathers with the struggle against anger, as it is an involuntary

indicator of other passions. A person’s enslavement to them is expressed first of all as

enslavement to anger, which bursts out even with very cunning people who are otherwise

able to hide their passions and keep quiet about their bad habits.

Perhaps it will seem to the reader that we have spoken too long about anger and

its sinfulness; but here we have also given some indications about struggle with all

passions in general, and so perhaps we will be able to express our thoughts about other

passions more briefly. However, we must forestall one objection that priests will

probably raise: “Is it possible, even in a confession lasting ten minutes, to enter into such

depths of the human soul? People talk about their sins, sinful deeds, and am I going to

explain to them about passions?” Yes, explain this to them beforehand in sermons, then at

confession they will understand what you mean from only a few words. These subjects

are very close and comprehensible to the soul of an Orthodox Christian, even of an

illiterate one. But it should be understood that in confession, since it is so short, you

should say as much as you can manage, and leave the rest for sermons in church (without

personal allusions, of course) — and for private conversations with your parishioners.

Here it is a great thing if you can direct the spiritual gaze of your parishioner into his soul

and its infirmities — its sinful passions, dispositions, and not to deeds alone.

While adducing reasons for the struggle with the passions of anger and malice, we

touched on pride and vainglory, which are closely linked with them. However, this

enemy of God and our salvation will not be crushed unless the warrior of Christ, having

come to his spiritual father with repentance, is given a weapon aimed precisely at this

enemy. With our contemporaries, educated and half-educated and, of late, even with the

uneducated, the sin of pride does not appear as a fall, a stumbling, but it is their constant

state. Consequently they do not consider it to be a sin. But what are “noble self-love,” “a

feeling of one’s own worth,” “honor” — if not this pride which is repugnant to God.

People call these feelings “noble pride,” “lawful pride,” but there is only one sort of pride

— demonic. The Elder Makary of the Optina Hermitage explained this to a landlord, who

was bewailing to him that his son had married a serf girl, and thus offended the “noble

pride” of the whole family. I have written and spoken much against this spiritual

blindness which, alas, has even made its way into textbooks of moral theology and

adduces an uncomprehending reference to the words of St. Paul, who said that it would

be better for him to die than that any man should make his glorying void (1 Cor. 9:15).

But anyone who has taken the trouble to read this statement will see that the glory is here

understood to be from God, and that in the future life.

Of course, it is not only our contemporaries who suffer from pride: only the saints

are free of it, but those of Adam’s descendents who have not crucified their passions bear

this burden in themselves and have to struggle with it until they are freed from its weight.

But the disaster of our contemporaries is that they do not consider it to be a sin, although

it is cursed by God — just as those deeply sunk in a life of dissolution do not consider

either lust or adultery to be sins. On the contrary, if a young person is distinguished by a

forgiving nature and does not seek revenge on those who offend him, he not infrequently

has reproaches and mockery hurled at him even by his own parents, being called a

worthless person who does not even defend his own honor. Probably our own

contemporaries would treat Christ the Savior with the same contempt, as well as the

Apostles and Martyrs who unmurmuringly endured beatings and every kind of

humiliation.

A spiritual father must at least try to ensure that the penitent recognizes as sinful

every word and act instigated by this feeling. There are two different kinds of pride —

vainglory and inner or spiritual pride. The first passion seeks after human praise and fame

but the second, a subtler and more dangerous feeling, makes people so full of confidence

about their own virtues that they do not even wish to seek human praise, but are satisfied

by the pleasure of contemplating their own imagined virtues. Of this type are Byronismxv

as well as Mephistophelesxvi and the demons beloved by European writers.

Vainglory is the more amusing feeling, in that people laugh at it, and so it is

easier, if not to overcome it, then at least to understand that it is shameful and start

struggling with it. But how? The penitent should be reminded of Christ’s words in the

Sermon on the Mount, when He said that the struggles of a vainglorious man are not

pleasing to God (Mt., Ch. 6); and also of the condemnation of the Pharisees (in the

twenty-third chapter of St. Matthew). This is the way in which thoughtless people who do

not notice the sinfulness of their motives should be brought to their senses. But we must

also be very careful about something of which, alas, we take no care at all, and this

applies not just to spiritual fathers but to all members of the clergy. We must be very

careful that we ourselves do not motivate people with vainglory, especially those giving

money to the Church. Indeed, we cannot but admit that a good half of the most abundant

offerings on which churches, schools, orphanages and hospitals are built, are made at the

instigation of vainglory, stirred up in rich people by the clergy, not infrequently even

those in bishop’s orders. Vainglory which has been humbled or is struggling with

humility in the soul of a Christian, deserves incomparably greater condolence or heartfelt

sympathy. Frequently people who are reverent and humble-hearted will confess to you

that they are haunted by thoughts of vainglory when making donations, serving the sick,

or even when showing a good, loving attitude towards them, and finally, when they sing

or read well in church and people praise them for it; when they preach sermons, study

diligently at school, and so on, and so on. Often good monks, noticing such thoughts in

themselves, ask their elder’s or spiritual father’s permission to stop their useful service on

the kliros (i.e. singing and reading) or in the altar; and lay people — to stop their social

and philanthropic activities.

This, of course, was one of the principal motives that hermits had in refusing to be

made bishops and even fleeing from people when they became famous among them. For

this same reason even now several educated archimandrites refuse to become bishops,

and monks refuse to be ordained to the priesthood. What, then, should a spiritual father

say when a Christian puts forward such ideas? Exactly the same answer as the famous

elders of Optina, Makary and Amvrossy, gave to such a question. One should not refuse

an obedience which is useful to the Church, in accordance with God’s commandments

and to which you are called by your superiors and by the gifts that God has given you. Do

a useful job, and as for the thoughts of vainglory which force their way into your heart,

reproach yourself and oppose them — but not by abandoning the job. Carry on with the

useful work, but not with the sinful thought, even when the work demands one thing and

the thought demands the opposite, which will unfailingly happen soon and frequently.

Not only the Lord, but also people who observe life intelligently can always see who is

genuinely working for the sake of what has to be done and who is working out of

vainglory: which teacher is loving towards his pupils, trying to inspire them to labour and

struggles, and which is trying to obtain glory for himself or, as they say, “popularity”:

which writer is writing for the triumph of right and in order to teach people what is good,

and which is writing to please the crowd, for his own vainglory and “for filthy luchre’s

sake” (Titus 1:11). And so teach people to test their consciences after every special feat

and even after every obligatory labour; for example, was the motive of vainglory present

during prayer, and to what extent? Then offer repentance for this sin, but do not abandon

the work. If he does this, a Christian will soon see that he often has to choose between the

demands of his work (and duty) and the demands of vainglory, that he must constantly

choose the first and suppress the second. Besides this, as he becomes strengthened in

struggling for the good, a Christian is gradually freed from self-love in general and,

consequently, from all kinds of vainglory.

What should be said to people who are proud in the strict sense of the word, who

think so highly of themselves that they do not even seek praise from people? “What are

you proud of: your mind, beauty, noble birth, talents? But surely all this is not from

yourself, but from the Creator, and the Creator can take all this away from you, as He has

taken away everything from the “great” people in the present revolution. But what is

most terrible of all, He can take away even your mind. Remember Nebuchadnezzar’s

punishmentxvii and humble yourself before God, before the fate of Napoleon and Wilhelm

overtakes you. And let every Christian who excels above others in something keep a

watch on himself and struggle with every kind of self-exultation, remembering his sins

and passions and the humble dispositions of the Holy Apostles and others who pleased

God. It is useful to mention an account like this from the Spiritual Meadow (or another

patristic book). “I saw,” recounts an elder, “in a monastery a brother who was still young,

but renowned for his struggles and for his gentleness. Before my eyes he was offended

and even insulted, but he calmly kept silent throughout and even the expression of his

face did not change in the slightest. ‘Brother, who taught you to be so gentle?’ I asked,

moved to compunction.

‘Are they really worth my anger?’ he answered. ‘These are not people, they are

just beautiful dogs, and they are not worthy of my being upset by them’. Then my joy

(continues the elder) changed into deep grief for this perishing brother, and I went away

from him in horror, praying for him and for myself.”

It is also necessary to fight against pride by acts which are opposed to it. It is

especially important in this case to force oneself, as we have said, to ask forgiveness of

those we have offended, and also to bear punishments at school unmurmuringly.