Empty Glory Attacks the Spiritual Side Too

Like the rest of a monk’s faults, this one attacks him on his fleshly side; but it attacks him on his spiritual side as well, slipping into his mind with craft and cunning. So those who cannot be deceived by the vices of the flesh are wounded all the more grievously through their spiritual progress. And it is all the worse to fight against because it is harder to guard against. For the attack of all the other vices is more open and straightforward. With each of them, when the one who stirs them up is met by a determined refusal, he goes away weaker for it, and the adversary who has been beaten attacks his victim with less force the next time. But when this disease has attacked the mind through pride of the flesh and has been driven back by the shield of a reply, it again changes its former guise and character, like some many-shaped evil, and under the appearance of the virtues tries to strike down and destroy its conqueror. [a]