An Instruction for the Wednesday of the First Week of Great Lent: On the Harm of Hypocrisy

“If you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces” (Mt. 6:16).

Beloved brethren! Our Lord Jesus Christ, having commanded us before we enter upon the struggle of fasting to forgive our neighbors their transgressions, has commanded that fasting itself be carefully guarded from hypocrisy. As a worm, born within a fruit, destroys the entire inside of the fruit while leaving only its skin, so hypocrisy destroys the entire essence of virtue. Hypocrisy is born from vainglory (Mt. 6:1–2, 5, 16). Vainglory is the vain desire and seeking of temporal human praise. Vainglory arises from deep ignorance of God or deep forgetfulness of God, from forgetfulness of eternity and heavenly glory, and therefore in its blindness it insatiably strives to acquire earthly, temporal glory. This glory appears to it, as does earthly life, as an eternal, inalienable possession. Vainglory, seeking not virtue itself but only praise for virtue, cares and labors solely to present the mask of virtue before human eyes. And the hypocrite stands before humanity clothed in the garment of double deception: on the surface virtue is seen, which in reality he does not possess at all; in his soul self-satisfaction and pompousness are seen, because he is above all deceived and beguiled in himself. He sickly enjoys the vainglory that destroys him, sickly enjoys deceiving his neighbors, sickly and wretchedly enjoys his successful hypocrisy. At the same time he becomes estranged from God: before God “every arrogant heart is an abomination” (Prov. 16:5).

Destructive are vainglory and the hypocrisy it produces from the very beginning: they deprive a man of all heavenly reward, leaving him in its stead the vain human praise he has desired and chosen. Such a judgment upon vainglorious hypocrites has been pronounced by the Lord. Instructing His disciples in the performance of good deeds in secret, the Lord commands: “Beware of practicing your righteousness before people to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, so that they may be praised by people… When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others… When you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show their fasting to others; truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Mt. 6:1–2, 5, 16–18).

Terrible are vainglory and hypocrisy in their development and maturity, when they take possession of a man, when they become the rule of his activity, his character. By them is formed the Pharisee, striving with desperate and blind determination to commit all lawlessness and evils; by them is formed the Pharisee, needing the mask of virtue only so that he might more freely and successfully wallow in evildoing. The darkened and hardened Pharisees committed the most terrible crime among human crimes: they committed deicide. And if there could exist any crime more cruel—they would not have shuddered before it: they would have attempted it.

Such is the sorrowful picture of moral desolation, of moral disasters, accomplished by vainglory and hypocrisy in fallen human nature. Our Redeemer, our Lord Jesus Christ, having given us the most effective remedies against all our illnesses, both bodily and spiritual, commands us to heal the soul-destroying passion of vainglory at its root, at its beginning, at vainglory itself. Vainglory hungers and thirsts for human glory. The Lord commands that it be mortified by deprivation of what belongs to it. He commands that the food and drink of vainglory—human praise—be taken away; He commands that all good deeds be carefully hidden from human eyes; He commands that all good deeds, even love of neighbor itself, be entirely offered as a sacrifice to God alone. And the Old Testament, imparting holy truth to mystical Israel through the imagery of prefigurations, establishes: “You shall season every offering of yours with salt; you shall not omit the salt of the covenant of your God from your offerings; with all your offerings you shall offer salt” (Lev. 2:13). Salt in every offering, in every sacrifice of the Israelite to God—the thought and aim of pleasing God in every good work of the Christian.

The holy Fathers, teachers of the Church, in the light of Christ, in the light of the Holy Spirit, having gazed into the depths of the human heart and perceived therein the manner of action of different passions, call vainglory a passion of manifold forms, the most subtle, the most incomprehensible. All other passions disturb a man’s peace, are immediately exposed by conscience; the passion of vainglory, on the contrary, flatters the fallen son of Adam, brings him what seems to be pleasure, appears to him as spiritual consolation in reward for the good work accomplished. All other passions directly violate their opposite virtues: thus gluttony violates temperance, anger—meekness, avarice—generosity. Vainglory, apparently, violates no virtue; it, in a thief-like manner, depriving a man of remembrance of God, of God’s unspeakable greatness, of His unspeakable holiness, before which even “the heavens are not pure” (Job 15:15), draws the fallen man to look upon himself with approval and satisfaction, to admire himself. “I am not like other people”, it says! (Lk. 18:11) In its blindness, out of satisfaction with itself, the vainglorious man thanks God, forgetting that thanksgiving to God by fallen humanity can only be offered from the vision of one’s own multitude of transgressions and weaknesses, a vision united with the vision of the Creator’s unspeakable beneficences toward His creation, toward a perishing creation. Vainglory rejoices when it sees that a man is enriched with virtues: it hopes to turn every virtue into sin, hopes to make every virtue the cause and occasion of a man’s condemnation at Christ’s judgment. It dares to prophesy! It boldly strives to work miracles and resolves to tempt the Lord! Devoid of the spiritual gift, it seeks to present itself as possessing the gift, or at least to inspire suspicion in people of it as of something supernatural; it seeks by this deception to console itself disastrously. It is present with the ascetic at his fast, at his prayer, at his almsgiving, at his vigils, at his prostrations, striving to snatch away the sacrifice offered to God and, defiling it with human-pleasing, make it unprofitable. It pursues the servant of Christ in the solitude of his cell, in his enclosure; unable to bring the ascetic soul-destroying praise from outside observers, it brings him praise in his thoughts, draws and depicts seductively in his imagination human glory. Often it acts without thought or fantasy; but it is recognized solely by the absence from the heart of blessed compunction, blessed remembrance and contrition for transgressions. “If you do not have heartfelt weeping,” said a certain great Father, “you have vainglory.”

Let us resist with determination and self-denial the soul-destroying and flattering passion of vainglory! Let us resist it by establishing our weak heart, which by itself is easily shaken as if by winds from the influence and action of various passions, on the rock of Christ’s commandments. Rejecting and continually rejecting vainglory, we shall be safe from the other passion, from the terrible passion of hypocrisy. Let us perform our good works and struggles according to the Saviour’s instruction—in secret. Participating in church services, let us be careful not to display at them any special bursts of our piety which would distinctly set us apart from our brethren. “Pay attention,” said the holy John of the Ladder, “that while you are among your brethren, you do not appear in anything more righteous than they. Acting otherwise, you will cause two evils: you will wound your brethren by your pretended zeal, and you will certainly give yourself cause for pride. Be zealous in your spirit, not displaying it by bodily movement, by appearance, by word, or by falling prostrate.” If, in solitary seclusion, in solitary prayer, in edifying reading and reflection, the vainglorious thought, penetrating through the closed door, penetrating to our very mind, to our very heart, presents to us for our seduction human glory, adorned like a harlot, let us quickly raise our thought to heaven before God. When the human mind is illumined by the spiritual contemplation of Divine glory and greatness, and descends from there to contemplate itself: then it no longer sees human greatness. It sees its poverty, sinfulness, weakness, fall; it sees the sentence of death pronounced on all; it sees the corruption and stench of all in the gradual, inescapable fulfillment of this sentence. It acquires a proper understanding of man, free from vainglorious delusion, and cries out together with Job: Master, Lord! “My ear had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5, 6). True humility comes from knowledge of God. Amen.

Venerable Cassian the Roman. On the Eight Passionate Thoughts; St John of the Ladder, Homily 22, On Vainglory.

The Great Barsanuphius, citing Xanfopuloi, Chapter 25, The Philokalia, Part 2.

The Ladder, Homily 4.