Humility

Use in the book

The prayer for forgiveness of everything God knows about the speaker is praised as full of humility: it does not offer a self-curated list of faults. The following analogy places humanity before God as a child before people, pairing humility with modesty without identifying them. Vanity becomes a “half-humility” when considered as the desire to make oneself agreeable. The fractional term keeps both recognition and reservation in the judgment.

Places to read

1. II, p. 763, entry 1, ¶2Forgiveness is requested beyond the speaker’s own self-description.
2. II, p. 763, entry 1, ¶3Humility before God is compared with childhood modesty.
3. II, p. 868, entry 5, ¶1Vanity has a partial other-directed humility.

Translation in this edition

The English translation preserves the extent of “all that you know of me,” the child/adult analogy and all three half-compounds in the vanity passage. The damaged beginning of modestie receives a bracketed contextual English rendering, not a claim that the French letters have been recovered.

Use in the book

In the counsel on friendship, humility belongs with cheerfulness, charity, and devotion among the qualities that make a person delightful to others. It is neither social insignificance nor cultivated misery. In penitence, descent into humility opens upon a new torrent of joy, because mercy transforms acknowledged failure into restored relationship. The soul does not have to deny its gifts to confess its sins; rather, it learns to distinguish the greatness of what was bestowed from its own misuse of it.

Places to read

1. I.80Humility is included among the virtues fitting a soul for spiritual companionship.
2. III.48The abasement of penitence becomes the occasion of renewed joy in mercy.

In this edition

The “abysses of humility” are a devotional figure for repentance. They should not be paraphrased as a belief that the created person has no value or no capacity for joy.

Use in the book

Lamennais supplies an admired conjunction of immense power and humility: he writes for the world’s good rather than its glory. Guérin, by contrast, can find vanity revived by a small literary compliment or secretly pleased by hazardous intellectual flights. A painfully low estimate of oneself therefore does not exclude the appetite for distinction.

The distinction becomes especially sharp in the attempt at abnegation recorded in June 1834. Guérin mocks his own pretensions and attacks the superb self through inward sarcasm. The scorpion image makes this process violent, so the passage should not be offered as a serene model of achieved humility. Elsewhere a better alternative appears in love: a strong soul willingly kneels to serve the weaker, stripping itself of love’s own pride. Humility here enlarges care instead of merely reducing self-estimation.

His imagined hidden mission similarly teaches reverence for every creature. Not knowing the measure of one’s usefulness can become an ethical restraint on judgment. The notebook’s richest humility is therefore relational and practical, even while its self-accusatory habits repeatedly threaten to collapse it into abasement.

Places to read

1. 6 March 1833 · ¶1The admired writer’s humility is compatible with great inward force and public service.
2. 26 March 1833 · ¶1A delayed compliment revives amour-propre over a small literary achievement.
3. 20 April 1834 · ¶1Compassionate love requires a strength willing to kneel in service and relinquish pride.
4. 10 June 1834 · ¶1Sarcastic self-abnegation turns into an image of self-injury rather than calm humility.
5. 9 September 1834 · ¶1Secret self-love applauds the very flights that leave the speaker exhausted and uncertain.

Translation in this edition

The English renders amour-propre as “vanity” in 26 March 1833 · ¶1 and “self-love” in 9 September 1834 · ¶1. Both answer local effects of self-regard; neither should be confused with the journal’s distinct language of charitable love.

Use in the book

The injunction follows the Emmaus explanation of failed recognition. Familiarity and low outward esteem have not disclosed the thing's treasure of wisdom. Lowering one's proud judgment is therefore appropriate to learning, although recognition still depends on divine goodness and mercy.

Khunrath also names himself the least among the few who receive the gift at p. 31. The phrase is part of his self-presentation and should be read beside the force of his certainty and invective, not taken as a summary of a uniformly modest style.

The contrary case appears at pp. 168–1692: even learned and sometimes experienced men are called haughty spirits when they begrudge gifts to others. Their fault is not lack of every accomplishment, but making their own standing the measure of what others can receive.

Places to read

1. 1599 p. 31The author styles himself the least among the few receiving recognition
2. 1599 p. 45 · margin2The observer is commanded to put aside haughtiness before Magnesia
3. 1599 p. 168Haughty learned spirits introduce an accusation of envy
4. 1599 p. 169Their resentment is directed at gifts bestowed on other diligent people

Translation in this edition

Do not merge ethical humility with humiliatio of the material Saviour. The related English vocabulary covers different subjects and arguments.