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BUT in one matter vainglory is found to be a useful thing for
beginners. I mean by those who are still troubled by carnal sins, as for
instance, if, when they are troubled by the spirit of fornication, they
formed an idea of the dignity of the priesthood, or of reputation among all
men, by which they maybe thought saints and immaculate: and so with these
considerations they repell the unclean suggestions of lust, as deeming them
base and at least unworthy of their rank and reputation; and so by means of
a smaller evil they overcome a greater one. For it is better for a man to
be troubled by the sin of vainglory than for him to fall into the desire
for fornication, from which he either cannot recover at all or only with
great difficulty after he has fallen. And this thought is admirably
expressed by one of the prophets speaking in the person of God, and saying:
"For My name's sake I will remove My wrath afar off: and with My praise I
will bridle thee lest thou shouldest perish," i.e., while you are
enchained by the praises of vainglory, you cannot possibly rush on into the
depths of hell, or plunge irrevocably into the commission of deadly sins.
Nor need we wonder that this passion has the power of checking anyone from
rushing into the sin of fornication, since it has been again and again
proved by many examples that when once a man has been affected by its
poison and plague, it makes him utterly indefatigable, so that he scarcely
feels a fast of even two or three days. And we have often known some who
are living in this desert, confessing that when their home was in the
monasteries of Syria they could without difficulty go for five days without
food, while now they are so overcome with hunger even by the third hour,
that they can scarcely keep on their daily fast to the ninth hour. And on
this subject there is a very neat answer of Abbot Macarius to one who
asked him why he was troubled with hunger as early as the third hour in the
desert, when in the monastery he had often scorned food for a whole week,
without feeling hungry. "Because," said he, "here there is nobody to see
your fast, and feed and support you with his praise of you: but there you
grew fat on the notice of others and the food of vainglory." And of the way
in which, as we said, the sin of fornication is prevented by an attack of
vainglory, there is an excellent and significant figure in the book of
Kings, where, when the children of Israel had been taken captive by Necho,
King of Egypt, Nebuchadnezzar, King of Assyria, came up and brought them
back from the borders of Egypt to their own country, not indeed meaning to
restore them to their former liberty and their native land, but meaning to
carry them off to his own land and to transport them to a still more
distant country than the land of Egypt in which they had been prisoners.
And this illustration exactly applies to the case before us. For though
there is less harm in yielding to the sin of vainglory than to fornication,
yet it is more difficult to escape from the dominion of vainglory. For
somehow or other the prisoner who is carried off to a greater distance,
will have more difficulty in returning to his native land and the freedom
of his fathers, and the prophet's rebuke will be deservedly aimed at him:
"Wherefore art thou grown old in a strange country? since a man is
rightly said to have grown old in a strange country, if he has not broken
up the Found of his faults. Of pride there are two kinds: (I) carnal, and
spiritual, which is the worse. For it especially attacks those who are
seen to have made progress in some good qualities.
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