1. Let us now see by what marks pride may be detected; so that, just as it became clear in the foregoing that no sin can be committed without it, so here its signs may shine forth, by which it may be shown to be guarded against. I pass over those whom their very bearing and gait reveal as proud, whose stiff neck, grim face, fierce eyes, and terrifying speech proclaim naked pride aloud; who, possessed by the lust to dominate, violently subject to themselves whomever they can, confound human laws and divine, swell up with honors, plunder all things on every side, rejoice in their own crimes, and, corrupted by the disease of pride, do not even understand themselves. These, then, I pass by, in whom pride reigns so openly that it neither deigns to hide itself nor is able to.
I point out as deserving lament only those, and I declare their examples to be shunned, whom—now converted and making some little progress—pride secretly takes captive, whom it casts headlong into the depths of evils by its deceitful domination, and, lest they ever be able to emerge from them, it tramples them unceasingly. This very pride makes a place for the devil in the hearts of such men; it familiarly opens the breast to him as he comes; it receives him as he enters; it establishes for the captives the law of perishing in their way of life; it disarms of every virtue those whom it has once invaded; whatever has remained in them that could resist the vices, lest perchance it grow strong against itself, it destroys. 2.
Hence it comes that those whom the festering blight of a proud mind has corrupted do not observe the commands of their elders but pass judgment on them; rebuked for their negligences, they rebel insolently or murmur; they dispute over the higher place, and shamelessly aspire to be preferred even to their betters; they mockingly harass the simplicity of their spiritual brothers, they brazenly boast their own opinions, they disdain the services rendered to them, they obstinately demand those refused, they set birth above character, they look down in their pride upon their juniors, they do not believe that anyone can be compared to themselves, they scorn to be equaled with their elders, they set themselves above them by mere swelling of mind; they preserve neither reverence in obedience, nor restraint in speech, nor discipline in conduct;
they have obstinacy in their intention, hardness in their heart, vainglory in their talk; in humility deceitful, in hatred persistent, impatient of subjection, pursuers of power, hateful to all good men; slothful toward good work, slow to fellowship, hard to give service, ready to speak of what they do not know, prepared to trip others up, inhuman toward all things by which brotherly society subsists; rash in daring, clamorous in speaking, fastidious in listening, presumptuous in teaching, unrestrained in unseemly cackling laughter, burdensome to friends, hostile to the peaceable, ungrateful for benefits, puffed up by services, and overbearing to subordinates. 3.
These are the marks of rampant pride, by which God is offended, and withdraws, and forsakes proud hearts. By these evils the devil, being fed, exults; he is invited to come; he enters proud minds in order to hold them; he raises them up in order to dash them down; he cherishes them in order to destroy them—he who insatiably leaps for joy over the very captivity of the lost; that he may by right possess his captives, whom he has subjected to himself by the forces of pride, and may carry out through them all those evils that have been set forth above. Deservedly, therefore, by the just judgment of God, such men are abandoned, condemned to a hidden punishment; since they yield not by violent compulsion but willingly to the rule of deceiving pride, which assuredly they could, if they wished, resist by the choice of free will;
being set free and fortified by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, even such men, if, being divinely stirred to receive salvation, they conceive a hope of repentance, and do not despair and despise themselves in their sins, will be able to be healed by the medicine of fruitful satisfaction; and, condemning by the assumption of well-founded humility the pride that had cast them out swollen against their God, they will be able to be loosed from the bonds of eternal damnation. How this can come about we have already said above, when we were treating of pride itself—whence it proceeded, whither it arrived, and what it did. For it proceeded from the devil, came first to man, and in him corrupted the whole human race—as in a root the fruit—by the vitiation of a nature sinning of its own accord.