Our Own Vanity

“But as I reflect on these things, the thought of our own unhappiness and our own weakness comes to me. For which of us, if one contemptible fellow has humbly greeted him, or one woman has praised him with foolish and flattering words, is not at once lifted up with pride and puffed up with vanity? The result is that even if a man has no awareness of holiness in himself, yet because the flattery, or it may be the mistake, of fools calls him a holy man, he will actually think himself most holy! And then, if gifts are often sent to him, he will claim that he is honored in this way by the generosity of God, since everything he needs is given to him while he sleeps and rests. And further, if some signs of any kind of power come to him, even in a small degree, he will think himself nothing less than an angel. And even if he is not set apart from others either by his deeds or by his virtue, but has simply been made a cleric, he at once widens the fringes of his clothes, delights in being greeted, is puffed up by the visits people pay him, and goes gadding about everywhere himself. Indeed, the man who used to travel on foot, or at most ride on the back of a donkey, must now ride proudly on foaming horses. Once content to live in a small and humble cell, he now builds a lofty paneled ceiling; he constructs many rooms; he cuts and carves doors; he paints wardrobes; he rejects the coarser kind of clothing and demands soft garments. And he gives orders like these to dear widows and friendly virgins: that the one group weave him an embroidered cloak, and the other a flowing robe. But let us leave all these things for that blessed man Jerome to describe more sharply, and let us return to the subject more directly in view.” [a]

At this our Gallic friend said: “Well, I really do not know what you have left for Jerome to say! You have taken in all our habits in so short a space that I think these few words of yours, if they are taken in good part and patiently considered, will do those people a great deal of good, so that in future they will not need to be kept in line by the books of Jerome. But go on instead with what you had begun, and bring forward an example, as you said you would, against false righteousness. For to tell you the truth, there is no more destructive evil we are subject to, within the wide borders of Gaul, than this.” Postumianus replied: “I will do so, and I will not keep you waiting any longer.