On Humility – How Man Comes to Self-Contempt
Source: Google Books
Man ought to consider himself so vile in his own eyes, to look upon himself as so abject, that in his own estimation he would judge his company burdensome to all, worthy of the contempt of all. In this way he would make true progress in humility, and he would more easily bear the faults of those among whom he lives.
When I exercised justice, people would say to me: “What! You have no discomfort in remaining with such people? We do not understand how you can endure them.” And I replied: “I do not understand, for my part, how these people endure me and do not drive me away like the devil.”
It is thus with all those among whom we have to live; we ought to consider ourselves unworthy of their company and of their conversations, because of our baseness and our misery. Self-love is the source of all vices and all evils; it is the gnawing worm of all virtues. But self-hatred, on the contrary, is the principle and foundation of these same virtues; it is the ruin of all vices. Man should therefore not only hate himself, but also desire to be hated by all.
Now here is how one comes to hate oneself: one must examine oneself at all times with care, and apply oneself to knowing oneself well. In this way one will see and know oneself to be wicked; one will judge oneself worthy of hatred, and will hate oneself as wicked. Then, as this knowledge of oneself leads to the knowledge of truth, one will begin to love the truth not only in oneself, but in others. This love will make us desire that others judge us according to the truth, as we judge ourselves; and since we will then judge ourselves, according to the truth, worthy of hatred, we will wish to be hated by all. We will be unable to bear not being condemned by everyone, because to act otherwise would be to commit an offense against the truth, which we love.
By this means one mortifies the desire for praise by which one was possessed; one extinguishes every other disordered and vicious desire; one overthrows pride, anger, envy, and all other vices; one acquires self-contempt, every virtue, and every good. By this means you feel prudence, fortitude, temperance, justice, all the virtues, take root within you, and above all the threefold patience that leads us to the rest of the soul.
The first patience is that which makes one endure adversity without murmuring.
The second belongs to the gift of fortitude, and makes one endure adversity with good heart.
The third is the beatitude expressed in these words: Blessed are the peacemakers. It makes one endure everything with joy.
Here now is the order to be observed in hatred: one must hate the habit of vices, and love that which constitutes our nature; then keep between these two things a measure such that, in order to preserve nature, one does not fall into vice, and in order to exterminate vice, one does not destroy nature.