Grown Cold, He Wants to Rule Others

And when a man whom pride has mastered has fallen through these stages of descent, he shudders at the discipline of the coenobium. As if the company of the brothers hindered his perfection, and the sins of others got in the way of his progress in patience and humility, he longs to take up his home in a solitary cell. Or else he is eager to build a monastery and gather some others to teach and instruct, as if he would do good to many more people; and so from a bad disciple he makes himself a still worse master. For when through this pride of heart a man has fallen into this most dangerous and harmful coldness, he can be neither a real monk nor a man of the world. And what is worse, he promises himself that he will reach perfection by means of this wretched state and way of life of his. [a]