De Virtutibus

And still more does he seek to check and eradicate haughtiness, choosing to collect together the causes on account of which he enjoins men to erect in their souls an undying recollection of God; "For God," says Moses, "gives strength to get power," [*]( Deuteronomy viii. 18. ) speaking in this very instructively; for the man who has been accurately and thoroughly taught that he has received an endowment of great strength and vigour from God, will take into consideration the weakness which belonged to him before he received this great gift, and will consequently repel all haughty, and arrogant, and overbearing thoughts, and will give thanks to him who has been the cause of this change for the better. And arrogance is inconsistent with a grateful soul, as on the contrary ingratitude is nearly akin to haughtiness.

Are your affairs prosperous and flourishing? then, receiving and increasing that strength of body which perhaps you did not expect, get power; and what is meant by this expression must be accurately investigated by those who do not very clearly see what is implied in it. Many persons endeavour to bring upon others, what is exactly contrary to the benefits which they have themselves received; for either, having themselves become rich, they prepare poverty for others, or having arrived at a high degree of honour and reputation, they become to others the causes of dishonour and infamy:

but it is right rather that the wise and prudent man should, to the best of his power, endeavour to bring his neighbours also into the same condition; and that the temperate man should seek to make others temperate, the brave man to make others courageous, the righteous man to make others just, and in short every good man ought to try to make everyone else good; for these qualities are, as it seems, powers, which the virtuous man will cling to as his own; but infirmity and weakness, on the contrary, are inconsistent with a virtuous character. [*]( Deuteronomy viii. 18. )

And in another place also the lawgiver gives this precept, which is most becoming and suitable to a rational nature, that men should imitate God to the best of their power, omitting nothing which can possibly contribute to such a similarity as the case admits of. Since then you have received strength from a being who is more powerful than you, give others a share of that strength, distributing among them the benefits which you have received yourself, in order that you may imitate God by bestowing gifts like his;

for all the gifts of the supreme Ruler are of common advantage to all men; and he gives them to some individuals, not in order that they when they have received them may hide them out of sight, or employ them to the injury of others, but in order that they may bring them into the common stock, and invite all those whom they can find to use and enjoy them with them.

We say therefore, that the men possessed of great riches, and of high renown, and of great strength of body, and of great learning, ought to endeavour to make everyone with whom they meet, rich, and strong, and learned, and in short good, and that they ought not to prefer envy and jealousy to virtue, so as to oppose those who might otherwise attain to prosperity;

and the law has very beautifully brought those who are inflated by arrogance, and are altogether possessed by incurable pride, not before the tribunal of men, but before the judgment seat of God, to which alone it has assigned the office of judging them; for it says, "Whosoever attempts to do anything in a haughty arrogant manner, makes God Angry." [*]( Numbers xv. 30.)