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Our first parents fell into open disobedience because already they were
secretly corrupted; for the evil act had never been done had not an
evil will preceded it. And what is the origin of our evil will but
pride? For "pride is the beginning of sin." And what is pride but
the craving for undue exaltation? And this is undue exaltation, when
the soul abandons Him to whom it ought to cleave as its end, and
becomes a kind of end to itself. This happens when it becomes its own
satisfaction. And it does so when it falls away from that unchangeable
good which ought to satisfy it more than itself. This falling away is
spontaneous; for if the will had remained steadfast in the love of that
higher and changeless good by which it was illumined to intelligence and
kindled into love, it would not have turned away to find satisfaction
in itself, and so become frigid and benighted; the woman would not
have believed the serpent spoke the truth, nor would the man have
preferred the request of his wife to the command of God, nor have
supposed that it was a venial trangression to cleave to the partner of
his life even in a partnership of sin. The wicked deed, then, that
is to say, the trangression of eating the forbidden fruit, was
committed by persons who were already wicked. That "evil fruit"
could be brought forth only by "a corrupt tree." But that the tree
was evil was not the result of nature; for certainly it could become so
only by the vice of the will, and vice is contrary to nature. Now,
nature could not have been depraved by vice had it not been made out of
nothing. Consequently, that it is a nature, this is because it is
made by God; but that it falls away from Him, this is because it is
made out of nothing. But man did not so fall away as to become
absolutely nothing; but being turned towards himself, his being became
more contracted than it was when he clave to Him who supremely is.
Accordingly, to exist in himself, that is, to be his own
satisfaction after abandoning God, is not quite to become a
nonentity, but to approximate to that. And therefore the holy
Scriptures designate the proud by another name, "self-pleasers."
For it is good to have the heart lifted up, yet not to one's self,
for this is proud, but to the Lord, for this is obedient, and can be
the act only of the humble. There is, therefore, something in
humility which, strangely enough, exalts the heart, and something in
pride which debases it. This seems, indeed, to be contradictory,
that loftiness should debase and lowliness exalt. But pious humility
enables us to submit to what is above us; and nothing is more exalted
above us than God; and therefore humility, by making us subject to
God, exalts us. But pride, being a defect of nature, by the very
act of refusing subjection and revolting from Him who is supreme,
falls to a low condition; and then comes to pass what is written:
"Thou castedst them down when they lifted up themselves." For he
does not say, "when they had been lifted up," as if first they were
exalted, and then afterwards cast down; but "when they lifted up
themselves" even then they were cast down, that is to say, the very
lifting up was already a fall. And therefore it is that humility is
specially recommended to the city of God as it sojourns in this world,
and is specially exhibited in the city of God, and in the person of
Christ its King; while the contrary vice of pride, according to the
testimony of the sacred writings, specially rules his adversary the
devil. And certainly this is the great difference which distinguishes
the two cities of which we speak, the one being the society of the
godly men, the other of the ungodly, each associated with the angels
that adhere to their party, and the one guided and fashioned by love of
self, the other by love of God.
The devil, then, would not have ensnared man in the open and manifest
sin of doing what God had forbidden, had man not already begun to live
for himself. It was this that made him listen with pleasure to the
words, "Ye shall be as gods," which they would much more readily
have accomplished by obediently adhering to their supreme and true end
than by proudly living to themselves. For created gods are gods not by
virtue of what is in themselves, but by a participation of the true
God. By craving to be more, man becomes less; and by aspiring to be
self-sufficing, he fell away from Him who truly suffices him.
Accordingly, this wicked desire which prompts man to please himself as
if he were himself light, and which thus turns him away from that light
by which, had he followed it, he would himself have become light,
this wicked desire, I say, already secretly existed in him, and the
open sin was but its consequence. For that is true which is written,
"Pride goeth before destruction, and before honor is humility;"
that is to say, secret ruin precedes open ruin, while the former is
not counted ruin. For who counts exaltation ruin, though no sooner is
the Highest forsaken than a fall is begun? But who does not recognize
it as ruin, when there occurs an evident and indubitable transgression
of the commandment? And consequently, God's prohibition had
reference to such an act as, when committed, could not be defended on
any pretense of doing what was righteous. And I make hold to say that
it is useful for the proud to fall into an open and indisputable
transgression, and so displease themselves, as already, by pleasing
themselves, they had fallen. For Peter was in a healthier condition
when he wept and was dissatisfied with himself, than when he boldly
presumed and satisfied himself. And this is averred by the sacred
Psalmist when he says, "Fill their faces with shame, that they may
seek Thy name, O Lord;" that is, that they who have pleased
themselves in seeking their own glory may be pleased and satisfied with
Thee in seeking Thy glory.
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