{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050280.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050280.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050280.htm","text":"Chapter 33 [XXIX.]\u2014Not Every Sin is Pride. How Pride is the Commencement of Every Sin.\n\u201cBut how,\u201d asks he, \u201cshall we separate pride itself from sin?\u201d Now, why does he raise such a question, when it is manifest that even pride itself is a sin? \u201cTo sin,\u201d says he, \u201cis quite as much to be proud, as to be proud is to sin; for only ask what every sin is, and see whether you can find any sin without the designation of pride.\u201d Then he thus pursues this opinion, and endeavours to prove it thus: \u201cEvery sin,\u201d says he, \u201cif I mistake not, is a contempt of God, and every contempt of God is pride. For what is so proud as to despise God? All sin, then, is also pride, even as Scripture says, Pride is the beginning of all sin.\u201d 1210 Let him seek diligently, and he will find in the law that the sin of pride is quite distinguished from all other sins. For many sins are committed through pride; but yet not all things which are wrongly done are done proudly,\u2014at any rate, not by the ignorant, not by the infirm, and not, generally speaking, by the weeping and sorrowful. And indeed pride, although it be in itself a great sin, is of such sort in itself alone apart from others, that, as I have already remarked, it for the most part follows after and steals with more rapid foot, not so much upon sins as upon things which are actually well done. However, that which he has understood in another sense, is after all most truly said: \u201cPride is the commencement of all sin;\u201d because it was this which overthrew the devil, from whom arose the origin of sin; and afterwards, when his malice and envy pursued man, who was yet standing in his uprightness, it subverted him in the same way in which he himself fell. For the serpent, in fact, only sought for the door of pride whereby to enter when he said, \u201cYe shall be as gods.\u201d 1211 Truly then is it said, \u201cPride is the commencement of all sin;\u201d 1212 and, \u201cThe beginning of pride is when a man departeth from God.\u201d 1213","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise on Nat...","type":"page"}