Pride: The Virtues of Vainglory?

We began our Lenten series with Pride on, fittingly enough, Ash Wednesday.

This is a follow up blog post.

The Desert Fathers Evagrius and John Cassian argue that the sin of vainglory is separate from pride. For them, it is an 8th deadly sin. This is an intriguing distinction, one which the later Latin tradition in the west rejects or at least omits. Since we in the west are more heirs to that Latin tradition than to the Desert East, we canonized 7 deadly sins and not 8...so vainglory gets subsumed under pride--and often falls out of the picture entirely.

What is vainglory and how does it relate to pride?

One way to grasp the difference is this:

Vainglory is doing things for the approval of others. Perhaps to appear virtuous in their eyes. Or perhaps to appear to them to be great, accomplished, well-liked and accepted.

Is it boastful? Not necessarily. It can be. Whether outwardly boastful or not, it is always accompanied by an inner state of seeking affirmation or support from others.

Also, a vainglorious person might not necessarily be aware of how much s/he is seeking the approval of others. In fact, we might not be aware at all! It can lurk hidden behind a lot of what we do...until something forces awareness upon us.

In short, vainglory wants others to think well of you.

By contrast, pride thinks well of itself regardless.

So pride is not looking outward toward others for approval--and crucially, not even to God! It is the sense that you are A-OK just on your own. That you yourself have 'got this.' That your virtue, your greatness, your accomplishments are yours all on your own.

Pride is insidious self-sufficiency.

Vainglory is insidious other dependency.

So there is the crucial difference.

Now, for Evagrius and Cassian, vainglory often precedes pride, and might in time develop into pride. If you eventually feel yourself tied down by the weight of others' approval (or disapproval), you can break free, as it were, into full-blown pride! So they believe vainglory is 'less deadly,' because in a way, pride is 'aggrevated vainglory'--or vainglory taken to a higher, more sinful degree. Pride is a direct affront to God because it entirely neglects dependence upon Him. In fact, it takes credit for what is due to Him alone!

Vainglory says:“Let others see my virtue.”

Pride says:“I am virtuous in myself.”

Of course, vainglory is still a problem. And I think it might be more common and less easily perceived in Christians than pride is. Its hiddenness can make it especially insidious.

You see, we have decided to commit our lives to Jesus because of His saving work for us. So we are not necessarily prideful about our salvation. But how often in Christian community are we fixated on keeping up appearances? Of appearing spiritual or virtuous in others' eyes--rather than actually being virtuous?! Yes, Christian community is supposed to support and sustain us in our walk with Christ, our growth in grace and virtue...but what if it becomes a crutch and the motive for our growth--and not Christ Himself?

In a painfully insightful passage, John Cassian argues that vainglory can often be very useful to us as the hidden motive for personal growth. Get a load of this:

...vainglory is found to be a useful thing for beginners. I mean by those who are still troubled by carnal sins, as for instance, if, when they are troubled by the spirit of fornication, they formed an idea of the dignity of the priesthood, or of reputation among all men, by which they may be thought saints and immaculate: and so with these considerations they repel the unclean suggestions of lust, as deeming them base and at least unworthy of their rank and reputation; and so by means of a smaller evil they overcome a greater one.

See how vainglory serves as a motive for 'holiness'? Lust is sinful, yes...but where do we draw the motivation and energy to wrest free from its ugly grip? Sometimes, yes, we inwardly appeal to the disgust that we or others might feel, or the hit to our reputation if we are found out. It is motivation by appeals to shame or honor...not to Christ's righteousness, available to us through His grace alone.

Or here is another way vainglory manifests itself. Have you ever felt it was easier to follow Christ in some area of your life when you lived with Christ-like people...but then you go out on your own and all of the sudden it is so much harder? This is the summer camp or church retreat syndrome: waking early or staying up late praying, reading your Bible or singing praises to God...only to crash and burn when you get home? John Cassian describes so painfully well the hidden vainglory behind it all:

And we have often known some who are living in this desert, confessing that when their home was in the monasteries of Syria they could without difficulty go for five days without food, while now they are so overcome with hunger even by the third hour, that they can scarcely keep on their daily fast to the ninth hour. And on this subject there is a very neat answer of Abbot Macarius²⁵⁴ to one who asked him why he was troubled with hunger as early as the third hour in the desert, when in the monastery he had often scorned food for a whole week, without feeling hungry. "Because," said he, "here there is nobody to see your fast, and feed and support you with his praise of you: but there you grew fat on the notice of others and the food of vainglory."

Yikes! Thanks a lot, John! Thanks a lot Abbot Macarius! And here I thought I was just being attacked by the devil when I got back from my 'Rocky Mountain high' spiritual experience. Nope! If the devil was at work there, it was only to reveal the hidden root of vainglory behind it all.

Nevertheless, Cassian suggests that for 'beginners' vainglory might, in fact, a virtue! Or at least, a more virtuous way that falling into one of the 'more deadly' sins like lust or anger--or, especially, pride. If you think you can just gin up the courage and discipline to lick your bad, unvirtuous habits, that's pride. Vainglory at least is looking for and receiving outward supports.

So what you need to do is: find the proper outward support for your life of faith.

Vainglory can point us to our deeper need for Jesus. Especially for the Father's approval. For His word to us: This is my beloved child, in whom I am well-pleased. And we are His child for nothing we in and of ourselves have done--except to surrender to Jesus. He delights in us just because you are His child through His Son Jesus.

So with our Father's delighting gaze upon us, our life of faith is, as Jesus puts it in John 15, one of simply abiding in Him. Just stay put, dear child. Don't go looking for anything else anywhere else than in Him. Our restless desires often go looking for fulfillment in all the wrong places. But by resting in the Father's delight, and in the presence of Jesus, we can know and grow in the Father's heart and in the heart of Jesus, through the indwelling Holy spirit. Then, gradually, bit by bit, as we die more to our own desires, His desires become our own.

Know this: We already have the Father's approval through the righteousness of Jesus. And when we fail to abide in Him--as we inevitably do--Jesus is our own only way back. Though Jesus Christ, we are no longer condemned by the Father, even though we do need to repent whenever we sin and receive the reassurance of His forgiveness and welcome back to be free from the weight of guilt and shame.

But notice how this way of putting it works: it keeps our gaze firmly fixed upon Him--not upon others (vainglory), and certainly not upon ourselves alone (pride).

Let's not lean on the false virtue of vainglory.

Or on the wickedness of pride.

But upon Jesus Christ alone.