The Evil Of Pride

Nullum est igitur vitium aliud quod ita omnes virtutes exhauriat, cunctaque justitia et sanctitate hominem spoliet ac denudet, ut superbiae malum tamquam generalis quidam ac pestifer morbus, non unum membrum partemve ejus debilitare contentus, sed solidum corpus lethali corrumpit exitio, et in virtutum jam fastigio collecatos gravissima ruina dejicere ac trucidare conatur. Omne namque vitium suis est terminis et fine contentum; et licet contristet alias quoque virtutes, contra unam tamen principaliter tendit, eamque specialiter opprimit et impugnat. Et ut hoc ipsum quod diximus clarius possit intelligi, gastrimargia, id est, appetitus ventris, seu concupiscentia gulae, temperantiae rigorem corrumpit; castitatem libido conteminat; ira patientiam vastat; ut nonnumquam uni quis deditus vitio aliis virtutibus non penitus destituatur, sed illa tantum virtute truncata, quae e diverso aemulo sibi vitio repugnante succumbit, reliquas possit vel ex parte retinere: haec vero cum infelicem possederit mentem, ut quidam saevissimus tyrannus, sublissima capta arce virtutum, universam funditus civitatem diruit atque subvertit. Excelsa quondam sanctitatis moenia vitiorum solo coaequans atque permiscens, nullam deinceps imaginem libertatis animae sibi subditae superesse concedit. Quandoque ceperit ditiorem, tanto graviore servitutis jugo subditam universis virtutum facultatibus crudelissima depraedatione nudabit. Sanctus Ioannes Cassianus, De Coenobiorum Institutis, Lib XII, Caput III, De Spiritu Superbiae Source: Migne PL 49.424a-426a

There is, therefore, no other vice which is so destructive of all virtues, and robs and strips a man of all righteousness and holiness, as the evil of pride, which like some pestilential disease attacks the whole man, and, not content to make infirm one part or one limb only, it corrupts the entire body with its deadly ruin, and those now lifted up to the height of the virtues it tries to cast down into the most grievous ruin. For every other vice is happy within its own bounds and limits, and though it troubles other virtues also, yet it is principally directed against one alone, and specifically attacks and fights against that. And that this which we have said be more clearly understood: gluttony, the appetites of the belly and the pleasures of taste, destroys the rigor of temperance; lust defiles purity; anger lays waste to patience; so that sometimes a man who has surrendered to one of the vices is not utterly destitute of the other virtues, but deprived of that one virtue which succumbs to the oppossing and rival vice, he can in part retain what remains, but pride, when it takes possession of some unhappy soul, like some most savage tyrant, when the lofty citadel of the virtues is seized, demolishes and overturns the whole city to its foundations. Levelling the once high walls of sanctity with the vices and confusing them together, it thereafter permits no image of freedom to survive in the subject soul. And as it was richer, so the yoke of servitude will be heavier, by which, with the most cruel depredations, it will strip the one subdued of all its powers of virtue. Saint John Cassian, The Institutes of the Coenobia, Book 12, Chap 3, On The Spirit of Pride