On the Error of Those Who Consider Excessive Grief a Virtue

Those who consider a virtue the excessive grief that comes upon them after the commission of sin err in this, not understanding that it arises from pride and self-conceit, which are grounded in their trusting too much in themselves and in their own powers. For, thinking of themselves that they are something not small, they took on a great deal, hoping to manage it themselves. But now, seeing from the experience of their fall that there is no strength in them, they are amazed, as those who have encountered something unexpected; they are agitated and faint-hearted, for they see fallen and prostrate on the ground the very idol—that is, themselves—upon which they had placed all their expectations and hopes. But this does not happen to a humble person who hopes in God alone and expects nothing truly good from himself. Therefore, even when he falls into whatever transgression, although he feels its weight and grieves, he is not agitated nor shaken by perplexity, for he knows that this happened to him from his own powerlessness—an experience of which in a fall is for him no unexpected novelty.