Pride and Humility

Pride is the disordered love of one’s own excellence: the soul claims for itself what it has received, prefers itself to God, and sets itself above his truth. Humility is the contrary virtue: it holds man in his truth as a creature, who has received everything and stands before God as what he is. The Latin word rendered “humility”, humilitas, comes from humus, the earth: the humble keep their feet on the ground from which they were drawn. Scripture sets the two face to face in a sentence it repeats: “God resists the proud, and gives his grace to the humble.” James 4:6. The whole biblical teaching on pride is held in this verse: God stands against the one and gives himself to the other, and the way runs from the first fall to the Christ humble of heart, sovereignly exalted.

The first fall

Pride opens the history of sin. The serpent dangles before man a greatness seized instead of a greatness received: “On the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God.” Genesis 3:5. Man was already in the image of God, and called to resemble him by grace; pride makes him grasp as a due what he was to receive as a gift. At Babel, the assembled men repeat the same gesture: “Let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top is in the sky, and let us make ourselves a monument.” Genesis 11:4. The tower rises toward heaven to make a name there, and God scatters the builders. The sage gives the root of this movement: “Pride begins when man separates himself from the Lord, and when the heart turns away from the One who made it.” Sirach 10:12. Pride is a separation before it is a swelling: the heart leaves its source, then takes itself for it.

God resists the proud

Scripture states the inner law of pride: it leads to ruin the one it inhabits. “Pride precedes ruin, and haughtiness precedes the fall.” Proverbs 16:18. Nebuchadnezzar experiences it in his flesh: at the height of his glory, surveying the Babylon he claims for himself, he is brought down to graze grass like the beasts, and it is the man restored who confesses: “I praise, exalt and glorify the king of heaven, whose works are all true and whose ways are just, and who can humble those who walk in pride.” Daniel 4:34. And Mary sings this same justice of God as a constant work of his arm: “He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart; he has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up the little ones.” Luke 1:51-52. God resists the proud because pride is a lie: it ascribes to man what belongs to God, and God, who is truth, cannot let it stand.

Humility, the truth before God

Humility accords with what man is: a creature who has received everything. It is the rightness of the gaze on oneself before God, and this is why the sage binds it to wisdom: “If pride comes, ignominy will come too; but wisdom is with the humble.” Proverbs 11:2. It grows with greatness itself: “Humble yourself the more, the greater you are, and you will find grace before the Lord.” Sirach 3:18. The psalmist gives its most peaceful image: “My heart has not been puffed up with pride, and my eyes have not been haughty. I do not seek great things, nor what is too high for me. I hold my soul in calm and silence: like a weaned child on its mother’s breast, so is my soul within me.” Psalm 131:1-2. Humility is this rest: the soul holds its place, and that place is against the heart of God.

Christ gentle and humble of heart

Humility has a face. He who is God took the way opposite to Adam’s pride: “Though he was in the condition of God, he did not grasp at his equality with God; but he emptied himself, taking the condition of a slave, becoming like men; he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, and to death on a cross.” Philippians 2:6-8. Adam, a creature, wanted to seize the rank of God; the Son, God, took the rank of the slave. On the eve of his Passion, he places this lowering into the hands of his disciples as a rule: he rises from table, girds the cloth and washes the feet of his own, the servant’s gesture. “If then I, the Lord and the Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you the example, that as I have done for you, you also may do.” John 13:14-15. And of all his inner life, it is this trait he himself gives to imitate: “Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart.” Matthew 11:29.

Whoever exalts himself will be humbled

Christ set this law of the Kingdom in a sentence he repeats at each encounter with pride: “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Luke 14:11. The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector shows it in act: the Pharisee standing lists his merits, the tax collector at a distance beats his breast, and it is the tax collector who goes down justified to his house. The reversal reaches even greatness in the Kingdom: “Whoever makes himself humble like this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:4. The child receives everything without being able to claim anything: he is the measure of greatness, because the Kingdom is received.

Spiritual pride

The most dangerous pride feeds on the gifts of God. It appropriates the graces received and makes of them a merit, and the Apostle disarms it with a question: “What do you have that you have not received? And if you have received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” 1 Corinthians 4:7. This pride blinds itself to its own state: the Church of Laodicea thinks itself filled, and Christ uncovers its misery: “You say: I am rich, I have acquired great wealth, I need nothing; and you do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked.” Revelation 3:17. The spiritual wealth one thinks oneself to own makes one poor, because it closes the hand that should have stayed open. The guard against this pride is a vigilance of each day: “Let him who thinks he stands take care lest he fall.” 1 Corinthians 10:12.

Grace given to the humble

To the humble, God gives himself. The Most High himself names his twofold dwelling: “I dwell in a high and holy place, and at the same time with the contrite and humble of spirit, to give life to the spirit of the humble.” Isaiah 57:15. Heaven and the humble heart are the two places where God dwells. Mary is the living proof: “He has looked upon the lowliness of his servant; behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed.” Luke 1:48. The most humble became the most exalted of creatures, and she at once refers to God all that she is: “The Mighty One has done great things for me; holy is his name.” Luke 1:49. The Apostle draws from it the rule of all Christian life: “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you at the appointed time.” 1 Peter 5:6. Christ walked this way first: lowered to the cross, “therefore God has sovereignly exalted him, and given him the name that is above every name.” Philippians 2:9. Humility is the way of all exaltation, because it is the way that God himself took.