Chapter Eighteen
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The ninth degree—Dishonest confession.
(The opposite of the fourth degree of humility, willing endurance of hardship as a matter of obedience.)
BUT although defenses of this kind are considered so wrong that they are called by the Prophet evil words (Ps. 141:4; 140:4, Vulg.), a false and perverse confession is much more dangerous than ever a brazen and stubborn defense. For there are some who, when they are reproved for rather conspicuous offences, and know that no excuse which they may offer will be accepted, have recourse to a more cunning form of defense—they reply by a deceitful confession. For there is, as it is written, one that humbleth himself wickedly and his interior is full of deceit. The countenance is downcast—the body is prostrate. They exact from themselves, if they are able to do so, some tears. They interrupt their speech by sighs and intersperse their words with groans. A man of this description not only offers no excuse for the offences with which he is charged, but himself even exaggerates his guilt. He does this that you, when you hear him make a further accusation against himself of some impossible or inconceivable crime, may be disposed to disbelieve even that of which you thought him guilty—and thus, from the fact that he makes a confession which you fully believe to be false, some doubt may be thrown on that which you held to be almost certain. And when these men make a statement the acceptance of which they do not desire, by their confession they excuse, and by their disclosures they conceal, their fault. Their confession sounds praiseworthy in the mouth, but wickedness is hidden in the heart; so that he who hears may think that the confession is made with more humility than accuracy, and may apply to them that Scriptural saying, The righteous man at the beginning of his speech is his own accuser. For in the sight of men they would rather be thought wanting in truthfulness than in humility—while in the sight of God they are lacking in both. But if their guilt is so clear that by no subterfuge can it be entirely concealed, they nevertheless adopt the tone, though not the spirit of repentance, and by this means remove the mark, though not the reality of their guilt, as they make up for ignoring an open offence by the credit of a public confession.
A fine sort of humility is this, in which pride seeks to array itself, that it may not lose caste! But this double-dealing is soon detected by the Abbot, unless he is to some extent imposed upon by this haughty humility, and thus induced to pass over the fault or postpone the penalty. The furnace trieth the potter’s vessels (Ecclus. 27:6), and distress reveals the real penitent. For the man who is truly penitent does not shrink from the trouble of repentance. Whatever is prescribed to him on account of the fault which he detests, he accepts with submissive and silent acquiescence. And if through this very obedience unexpected hardships arise, and he thereby sustains injuries that were not intended, he does not give up, so that he may show that he has his place in the fourth degree of humility. But he whose confession is unreal, when he is confronted with a slight rebuke, or trifling penalty, is unable either to feign humility or to conceal his dissimulation. He murmurs, gnashes his teeth and loses his temper, and it becomes clear that, so far from standing in the fourth degree of humility, he has fallen into the ninth degree of pride, which from the above description of it, may well be called sham confession. How great, think you, must be the proud man’s consternation when his deceit is detected, his pardon forfeited, and his fault not condoned? He is at last found out and condemned by all—and the general indignation is all the greater when men see how erroneous was their former judgment of him. It is then the duty of the Abbot to be less ready to pardon him, because the forgiveness of one would be an offence to all.