The Destructive Nature of Vainglory

…when it reaches the top it dries up the root, but vainglory grows up alongside the virtues and does not depart until it cuts out their power. A cluster of grapes dragged along the ground rots easily, and virtue is destroyed when propped upon vainglory. A vainglorious monk is an unpaid worker; he endured the toil but did not receive the wage. A pierced money-bag does not keep what was thrown in, and vainglory destroys the wages of virtues. The self-control of a vainglorious man is the smoke of a furnace, and both will be dissolved into the air. Wind obliterates a man’s track, and the almsgiving of a vainglorious man is obliterated. The cast of a stone does not reach heaven, and the prayer of a man-pleaser will not ascend to God.

Chapter 16. Vainglory is a submerged rock; if you are wrecked upon it, you have lost your cargo. A wise man hides a treasure, and a sensible monk hides the labors of virtue. Vainglory counsels praying in the streets, but he who fights it prays in his inner chamber. A foolish man publishes his wealth, and stirs many to plot against him. But you hide your own, for you are on a road among robbers, until you reach the city of peace and use your own securely. The virtue of a vainglorious man is a shattered sacrificial victim, and it shall not be offered upon God’s altar.

Acedia loosens the sinew of the soul, but vainglory strings the mind that has fallen away from God; it made the weak man strong and the old man stronger than the young — only if many witnesses of what happens are present; then fasting is light, and wakefulness, and prayer, for the praise of the many stirs up eagerness. Do not sell your labors for human glories, nor betray the coming glory for praise. For human glory lodges in dust, and its fame is extinguished upon the earth, but the glory of virtue remains forever.

Chapter 17. On pride. Pride is the swelling of a soul, full of pus;