A Consequence of Pride: Blasphemous Thoughts

[C.laypersona]

In the ascetical treatise The Ladder of Divine Ascent, also known as The Ladder of Paradise, Saint John of Sinai (c.579, Syria – 649, Egypt), also known as Saint John the Scholastic or Saint John of the Ladder, wrote:

“Some like to distinguish vainglory from pride and to give it a special place and chapter. And so they say that there are eight capital and deadly sins. But [Saint] Gregory the Theologian [c.325/30–389, Bishop of Nazianzus] and other teachers have given out that there are seven; and I am strongly inclined to agree with them. For who that has conquered vainglory has pride within him? The only difference between them is such as there is between a child and a man, between wheat and bread; for the one is the beginning and the other the end.” (Step 22, 1)

“The beginning of pride is the consummation of vainglory; the middle is the humiliation of our neighbour, the shameless parade of our labours, complacency in the heart, hatred of exposure; and the end is denial of God’s help, the extolling of one’s own exertions, fiendish character.” (Step 23, 2)

“In the hearts of the proud, blasphemous words will find birth, but in the souls of the humble, heavenly contemplations.” (Step 23, 33)

“We have heard that from a troublesome root and mother comes a most troublesome offspring; that is to say, unspeakable blasphemy is born from foul pride.” (Step 23, 38 – or Step 24, 1 in another translation)

"No one in the face of [involuntary] blasphemous thoughts need think that the guilt lies within him, for the Lord is the Knower of hearts and He is aware that such words and thoughts do not come from us but from our foes [the demons].
“Drunkenness is a cause of stumbling, and pride is a cause of unseemly thoughts. As far as his stumbling is concerned the drunkard is not to blame, but he will certainly be [or has already been] punished for his drunkenness.” (Step 23, 41-42 – or Step 24, 4-5)

“We ought to stop judging and condemning our neighbour, and then blasphemous thoughts will not alarm us; for the former is the occasion and root of the latter.” (Step 23, 49 – or Step 24, 12)

(The excerpts or citations are from the translation done by Eastern-Orthodox Archimandrite Lazarus Moore; Harper & Brothers, 1959.)

 

[C.laypersona]

And in the ascetical and mystical treatise Dark Night of the Soul, which is the continuation to Ascent of Mount Carmel (they are the two volumes of one single treatise), Saint John of the Cross (1542–91, Spain), Doctor of the Church, wrote:

“(T)he night [or aridity] and purgation of sense in the soul. . . . is wont to be accompanied by formidable trials and temptations of sense, which last for a long time, albeit longer in some than in others. For to some the angel of Satan presents himself — namely, the spirit of fornication — that he may buffet their senses with abominable and violent temptations, and trouble their spirits with vile considerations and representations which are most visible to the imagination, which things at times are a greater affliction to them than death.

“At other times in this night there is added to these things the spirit of blasphemy, which roams abroad, setting in the path of all the conceptions and thoughts of the soul intolerable blasphemies. These it sometimes suggests to the imagination with such violence that the soul almost utters them, which is a grave torment to it.

“At other times another abominable spirit, which Isaiah (19, 14) calls spiritus vertiginis, ‘the spirit of giddiness’, is allowed to mistreat them, not in order that they may fall, but that it may try them. This spirit darkens their senses in such a way that it fills them with numerous scruples and perplexities, so confusing that, as they judge, they can never, by any means, be satisfied concerning them, neither can they find any help for their judgment in counsel or thought. This is one of the severest goads and horrors of this night [of sense], very closely akin to that which passes in the night of the spirit.

“As a rule these storms and trials are sent by God in this night . . . inasmuch as it is these which most effectively purge sense of all favours and consolations to which it was affected, with natural weakness, and by which the soul is truly humiliated [or humbled] in preparation for the exaltation which it is to [eventually] experience.”

(Book I, Chapter XIV, paragraphs 1-4)

(More on the topic of involuntary blasphemous thoughts can be found in Chapter IV, paragraphs 2-4. An extensive explanation of what the saint means by ‘dark night’ can be found in Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book I.)

(The excerpts are from the translation done by Edgar Allison Peers, Professor in Hispanic Studies; Image Books, third edition, 1959.)

 

[C.laypersona]

Saint John of the Cross also wrote in Dark Night of the Soul:

“With regard to this third sign [of the night of sense (which is the inability to meditate or reflect in the imaginative sphere of sense)], it is to be understood that this embarrassment and dissatisfaction of the faculties proceed not from indisposition, for, . . . for those who walk not in the way of contemplation act very differently. For this night of aridities is not usually continuous in their senses. At times they have these aridities; at others they have them not. At times they cannot meditate; at others they can. For God sets them in this night only to prove them and to humble them, and to reform their desires, so that they go not nurturing in themselves a sinful gluttony in spiritual things. He sets them not there in order to lead them in the way of the spirit, which is this contemplation; for not all those who walk of set purpose in the way of the spirit are brought by God to contemplation, nor even the half of them — why, He best knows.” (Book I, Chapter IX, paragraph 9; emphases added)

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The Ladder of Divine Ascent by Saint John of Sinai | Prudence True .com
http://www.prudencetrue.com/images/TheLadderofDivineAscent.pdf

Ascent of Mount Carmel and Dark Night of the Soul by Saint John of the Cross | Christian Classics Ethereal Library
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/john_cross/ascent.toc.html
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/john_cross/dark_night.toc.html