HOW ONE SHALL DIVIDE THE SEVEN BOUGHS OF PRIDE.
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.