Praise

John Climacus describes vanity as an ant on the threshing floor: it is small, but it carries off all the labour. It waits for virtue to pile up, and then scatters it. Vanity and pride, he says, are like a child and a grown man, like wheat and bread. Vanity is the beginning, and pride the end.

The most cunning thing about it is that it feeds on every good deed. I am vain when I fast, and when I break the fast so that no one will see, I am vain again, because I think myself wise. I am vain in fine clothes, and in rags. When I speak, and when I am silent.

However you throw a caltrop on the ground, one point always stays turned upwards.

Today vanity is easy to recognise. You do good when someone is watching, and half-heartedly when no one is. Praise makes your whole day, and criticism spoils it. You talk about successes, awards and acquaintances. You behave differently in front of important people than in front of those who can give you nothing. And you worry about how you look online, what others will think of your house, your car, your children.

John gives a practice you can begin at once. Every week do at least one good deed no one will know about, not even those closest to you. When you are praised, remember your faults, say a short “thank you” and do not carry on the subject. When you hear that someone said something bad about you in your absence, praise him yourself. Do not seek a position for the sake of the position: it is hard, John says, to drive a dog away from the butcher’s counter. And do not take pride in natural gifts, talent, taste, a quick mind, because what you received without effort is no reason for pride.

For the moments when the desire for glory takes hold, John gives three remedies in order. First remember your seriousness before God. If that does not help, remember death. And if not even that, at least fear the shame that follows vanity, because whoever exalts himself is humbled already here.

There are three traps. Vanity in modesty: even when you try not to be vain, you can be vain about it. Do not despair, just carry on. The double life: one thing outwardly, another in your thoughts, one before guests, another before those beneath you. And the flatterer: watch out for people who praise you all the time. John calls them destroyers of virtue.

The sign that you have climbed: praise and criticism move you equally little. John says the beginning of freedom from vanity is silence and gladly accepting insults, and the end is to bear calmly before people even what humiliates you.

The question remains: what happens when vanity grows up?

N. Ž.