How Good and Holy Men Can with Truth Hold Themselves to Be the Least of All and Say that They Are the Greatest Sinners in the World

IT will be no curious speculation, but a very profitable instruction, to explain how good and holy men could with truth hold themselves for the least and last of all and say they were the greatest sinners in the world—seeing that we say we ought to make it our endeavor to attain to that point of view. Some saints do not care to give any answer to this question, but are content with thinking so in their hearts. St. Dorotheus tells how the Abbot Zosimus was one day discoursing on humility, and said so of himself. There happened to be there a sophist, or philosopher, who asked him: “How can you say that you are a sinner, since you know that you keep God’s commandments?” The holy abbot answered him: “I know that what I say is true, and so I feel it to be; do not ask me.” But St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and other saints answer this question, and give different answers. That of St. Augustine and of St. Thomas is that, when a man keeps before his eyes the defects that he knows in himself and considers in his neighbor the secret gifts that he has, or may have, of God, anyone may say of himself with truth that he is a viler and greater sinner than all, because I know my defects alone, and I do not know the secret gifts which the other man has of God. ‘Oh, but I see that he commits so many sins which I do not commit.” ‘And how do you know what God has worked in his heart just at this last moment?” In a moment, secretly and suddenly, he may have received some gift and favor of God whereby he has made a great start forward, as happened to that Pharisee and that publican of the Gospel, who entered into the Temple to pray. Verily I say unto you, says Christ our Redeemer (Luke xviii. 14), that the publican, who was held to be a bad man, came out from there justified; and the Pharisee, who took himself for a good man, came out condemned. That ought to be enough to make us take warning never to dare to prefer ourselves, or compare ourselves with anybody, but to remain alone in the last place, which is the safe place.

To him who is truly humble at heart it is an easy thing to hold himself the least of all. The truly humble man considers in others the virtue and good that they have, and in himself his own defects, and is so continually taken up with the knowledge and correction of these as never to raise his eyes to look at other people’s faults, thinking that he has enough to do with bewailing his own woes; and so he takes his neighbors all for good people, and himself alone for evil. And the holier a man is, the easier is this for him to do, because, as he grows in other virtues, he grows likewise in humility and self-knowledge, for all these things go together. And the more light and knowledge he has of the goodness and majesty of God, the deeper knowledge he has of his own misery and nothingness, since abyss cries to abyss (Psalm xli. 8). The abyss of knowledge of the goodness and greatness of God reveals the abyss and depth of our misery, and shows to the eye the endless specks and motes of our imperfections. If we hold ourselves of any account, it is because we have but slight knowledge of God and little light from heaven. The rays of the Sun of Justice have not entered by the gates of our soul; and so not only do we not see the specks, which are our minute faults and imperfections, but we are so shortsighted, or rather we are so blind, that even grave faults escape our eyes.

Add to this that God so loves humility, and is so pleased with a man making little of himself and keeping to that, that in dealing with His great servants, on whom He bestows many favors and benefits, He is wont often so much to disguise His gifts and to impart them so hiddenly and so secretly that the recipient himself does not understand, and thinks that he is receiving nothing. St. Jerome says: “All the beauty of that tabernacle (Exod. xxxvi. 19) was covered with sackcloth and skins of beasts.” So God is wont to cover and hide away the beauty of virtues and of His gifts and benefits; and this He does by divers temptations, and at times by certain faults and imperfections which He permits, that so His gifts may be the better preserved, like live coals covered over with ashes. St. John Climacus says that, as the devil endeavors to put before us our virtues and good works, to make us proud, since he wishes evil to us, so God our Lord, wishing our greater good, is wont to give special light to His servants to know their faults and imperfections, and to throw a veil over and disguise His gifts so that the recipient himself does not recognize them. This is the common doctrine of the saints. St. Bernard says: “To preserve humility in His servants, the Divine Goodness often arranges things in such a way that, the farther a man advances, the less does he think that he is advancing; and when he has reached the highest degree of virtue, God allows to remain in him some imperfection in point of the first degree, so that he thinks that he has not reached even that.” St. Gregory observes the same in many places.

On this account some make a very good comparison touching humility, and say that it stands to the other virtues as the sun to the other stars; in this way, that, as when the sun appears, the other stars disappear and cover up, so where there is humility in the soul, the other virtues are occulted, and the humble man fancies that he has no virtue. St. Gregory says: “While their virtues are manifest to all the world, they alone do not see them.” Holy Writ relates of Moses that, after having come forth from speaking with God, he carried a great brightness on his face, and the children of Israel saw it, but he did not (Exod. xxxiv. 29) ; so the humble man does not see in himself any virtue; all that he sees are his faults and imperfections, and he believes that what he knows is only the lesser part of his shortcomings, and that there are many more that he does not know. Hereby it is easy for him to take himself for the least of all, and for the greatest sinner of all people in the world.

To tell the whole truth, as there are many and diverse ways by which God leads His elect, though He leads many by the way that we have said, throwing a veil over His gifts so that the recipients themselves may not see them, nor think that they have them; yet to others He manifests them, and makes them know them, that they may set store by them and be grateful for them. And so said the Apostle St. Paul: We have received, not the spirit of this world, but the spirit of God, that we may know the gifts that we have received at his hand (I Cor. ii. 12). And the most holy Queen of Angels knew very well and recognized the great gifts and favors that she enjoyed and had received of God. My soul doth magnify the Lord, for he that is almighty hath done great things in me (Luke i. 49). And this is not only not contrary to humility and perfection, but goes with such a high and exalted humility that on that account the saints call it the humility of great and perfect men.

But there is here a great danger and delusion to which the saints call attention; it is that some people think they have more gifts of God than they have. Under such illusion lay that wretched man to whom God sent a message in the Apocalypse (iii. 17): Thou sayest, I am rich and want for nothing; and thou knowest not that thou art miserable and poor and blind and naked. Under the same lay that Pharisee in the Gospel (Luke xviii. 11), who gave thanks to God that he was not as other men, taking himself for a better man than he was and setting himself above others. And sometimes this pride enters into us so stealthily and secretly that almost unconsciously we are full of ourselves and self-esteem. A great remedy for this is to keep our eyes always open to other people’s virtues and closed to our own, and so to live always in a holy fear, whereby the gifts of God are more securely guarded.

But after all, as our Lord is not tied to this, and leads His own by divers ways, He is sometimes pleased to do this favor to His servants, that they do know the gifts which they have received at His hand. And then there seems to be a greater difficulty in the question proposed, how these holy and spiritual men, who know and see in themselves great gifts which they have received from God, can really rate themselves below all and say that they are the greatest sinners in the world. When our Lord conducts a man by that other way of throwing a veil over His gifts, and not letting him see in himself any virtue, but all faults and imperfections, there is no such great difficulty; but how can it be so in others? It may very well be so notwithstanding; be you as humble as St. Francis, and you will understand how. When his companion asked him how he could in truth think and say this of himself, the seraphic father answered: “Truly I understand and believe that, if God had done to a highwayman, or to the greatest of all sinners, the mercies and favors that He has done to me, he would be a much better man than I am, and more grateful than I. And on the other hand I understand and believe that, if God withdrew His hand from me and did not hold me up, I should commit greater sins than all the rest of mankind and be the worst of them all. And therefore,” he went on to say, “I am the greatest sinner and the most ungrateful of all men.” This is a very good answer, a very profound humility, and a marvelous doctrine. This knowledge and consideration is what made the saints bury themselves beneath the earth, and prostrate themselves at the feet of all, and take themselves sincerely for the greatest sinners in the world; because they had well planted and rooted in their hearts the root of humility, which is the knowledge of one’s own weakness and misery and the knowing how to penetrate and ponder well what they were and had of themselves. This made them believe that, if God withdrew His hand and did not continually hold them up, they would be the greatest sinners in the world, and so they held themselves to be such. And the gifts and benefits that they had received from God they regarded, not as a thing of their own, but as another’s property lent to them. So this consciousness of what God had done for them was no obstacle to throw them off the line, because they remained whole and entire in their humility and selfabasement, holding themselves for the least of all; rather it aided them thereto, since they thought that they had not profited of God’s gifts as they should have done. Thus whichever way we turn our eyes, now fixing them on what we have of our own, now raising them to what we have received from God, we shall find abundant occasion to humble ourselves and hold ourselves for the least of all.

St. Gregory ponders to this purpose those words that David said to Saul when he might have murdered him in the cave that he had gone into, but spared him and let him go: Whom dost thou pursue, O King of Israel? Whom dost thou pursue? Thou pursuest a dead dog, and one poor flea (I Kings xxiv. 15). Yet David was already anointed king, and knew from the Prophet Samuel, who anointed him, that God purposed to take away the kingdom from Saul and give it to him; nevertheless he humbled himself, and disparaged himself before Saul, knowing well that God had preferred him to him, and that he was the better man of the two; that hence we may learn to hold ourselves inferior to others, about whom we do not know in what rank they stand before God.