This sin divides and spreads into so many parts that one can scarcely
reckon them. But seven principal divisions there are, which are as seven
boughs, which go out, and are born of a wicked root.
The first bough, then, of pride is untruth; the second, contempt; the
third, overweening, which we call presumption; the fourth,
over-boldness, which we call ambition; the fifth, vainglory; the sixth,
hypocrisy; the seventh, wicked dread. To these seven divisions belong
all the sins that are born of pride. But each of these seven boughs has
many small twigs.
The first bough of pride, which is untruth, divides itself into three
little boughs, whereof the first is bad, the second worse, the third
worst of all. The one is crime, the second madness, the third apostasy.
Crime generally is in every sin, for no sin is without crime, and so
begin all sins by crime. But the crime that we speak of here specially,
which comes of pride, is a kind of untruth, is a vice, that is called in
book-lore ingratitude; that is, forgetfulness of God and of His gifts,
that one thanks Him not as one should do, nor yields Him thanks for His
gifts that He hath given us.
Forsooth, he is indeed a villain and untrue towards his Lord, who hath
done him all good, and he does not thank Him, but forgets, and yields
Him evil for good, and villainy for courtesy. The same villainy doth man
to God when he bethinks him not of the gifts that God hath given him,
and gives him always, and thanks Him not, but rather often opposes Him
in that which he uses wickedly and against God’s will.
That is very great villainy, as it appears to me, that he (should)
receive great goodness and not deign to say great thanks. And yet it is
greater when one forsakes Him, or when one forgets Him. But the same is
too great, when each day he receives the goodnesses, and each day yields
evil for good.
He then that thinks well, and often considers the gifts which God hath
given him, and gives always, and that he has no good thing which God has
not given him, neither gifts of nature, as fairness and health and
strength of body, and sleight and natural wit as regards the soul; nor
gifts of chance, as riches, honour, and nobility; nor gifts of grace, as
are virtues and good works, well should he thank God for all His good
things; for one goodness demands another.
The second untruth that comes of pride is madness. One holds a man mad
who is out of his wits, in whom reason is gone astray. Then the same
grows right foolish and gone astray and well called mad, that wittingly
and boldly the goods, that are not his but his Lord’s goods—whereof it
behoves him strictly to yield reckoning and account, to wit, the goods
of such great price and the temporal goods that he hath in custody, the
virtues of the body, and the thoughts, and the consents, and the wills
of the souls—wastes and spends in follies and in excesses before the
eyes of his Lord, and provides not for his reckoning and knows well that
it behoves him to reckon, and knows not when, neither the day nor the
hour. Such folly is well called witlessness. Of such vices the great
proud men are full, that use wickedly the great goods that God has lent
them.
The third untruth that comes of pride is apostasy. He is indeed an
apostate that puts the land that he holds of his Lord into the hand of
the enemy, and does him homage. Such sin makes him who sins mortal, for
then, as much as in him lies, he does homage to the devil, and becomes
his thrall, and yields him all that he holds of God, both body and soul
and other good things, which he places at the service of the devil. And
although he be by his saying a Christian, he denies by deed and shows
that he is not. But especially in three ways, is a man called an
apostate and false Christian, either because he believes not what he
should, as does the Bulgar, and the heretic, and the apostate, who deny
their belief; or because he sins against the belief that he believes, as
do the perjured and the liars of the belief; or believes more than he
should, as do the diviners and the witches and the sorceresses, who work
by the devil’s power. And all those that in such things believe and put
their trust, sin deadly. For all such things are against the belief, and
therefore holy Church forbids them. These are the kinds of untruth,
which is the first bough of pride.