THE HUMILITY OF THE DESERT

Abba Anthony said, “I saw the snares the enemy spread over the world and I said groaning, ‘What can get me safely through such snares?’ Then I heard a voice saying, ‘Humility.' "—from The Sayings of Abba Anthony

Abba Anthony, who we call St Anthony the Great, lived in Egypt seventeen hundred years ago. When he was 34 years old, he heard the Gospel read at Mass: “Jesus said, If you would be perfect, go and sell what you have and give it to the poor. You will have treasure in Heaven: then, come and follow me.” He took the Lord Jesus’ words to heart, gave away everything he owned, and went into the Egyptian desert to follow his Master.

Abba Anthony lived in the desert, facing temptations, living a life of prayer and self-denial, never willing to compromise the demands of the Gospel made on him. His fame as an athlete of the Christian spirit, determined to follow his Lord regardless of the cost, drew many into the desert to follow his example and benefit from his teaching. His sayings were collected and his life was documented by an equally famous fellow-Egyptian, St Athanasius the Great, the Archbishop of Alexandria and hero of the Nicene Council. Anthony died in his 105th year, having followed the Lord Jesus in the desert for more than 71 years.

Yesterday I quoted Aristotle, giving his opinion of the virtue of humility.

“Humility is the virtue of slaves and the low-minded,” he wrote, “to whom it is most appropriate.” In saying this, Aristotle was giving voice to what most people of his day believed; this was the world in which Abba Anthony lived. When he insisted that the athlete of the Christian spirit must live in humility, must struggle with himself to acquire “the virtue of slaves and the low-minded,” he had no illusions this would be popularly received.

Anthony’s long years of spiritual wrestling with himself taught him humility was utterly necessary for the Christian determined to follow the Lord Christ. It wasn’t an optional virtue.

Abba Anthony’s quote at the top of the page reflects this. Seeing sin’s temptations everywhere, he cries, “How can anyone get through all this?” There comes a single word in reply: “Humility.”

Aristotle sees humility as the least of virtues, indeed, as a false one. Abba knows it to be the greatest. How do they come to such different conclusions?

The answer lies in their definition. What is humility? What does it look like? How does it show itself? What does it do?

Remember Dickens’ character Uriah Heep from David Copperfield? Heep embodies all that Aristotle despises about “humility”: a cringing figure, constantly wringing his hands, ever protesting his “…umbleness” to his superiors, all the while plotting their downfall.

Uriah is a creepy caricature, but the power of caricature is its similarity to truth. When we think of someone who’s humble, we often have in mind the person who says he's not as good as most other people, has no real talents or gifts to speak of, a person who presents himself as of no account. He may not be quite so obvious as Uriah but such a person is uncongenial, unlikeable and unpopular. We know he's faking. The person who says “I know I’m not really very handsome,” says it, not because he thinks he’s ugly, but because he wants you to tell him that he is handsome, very handsome indeed!

This doesn't have anything to do with humility.

Aristotle despises the cloying humility of the slave, because he understands it masks the slave’s true thoughts.

The humility of the desert, Christian humility, doesn’t hide, but reveals. It shows us who we really are.

My old confessor, Fr Homer Rogers, used to say the root word of humility, humus, is the Latin word for soil. A humble man, Father Rogers insisted, was “a man whose feet were on the ground.” He knew who he was and he knew who God was, and he didn’t have any illusions about which one was which.

This is the desert humility for which you and I must strive, struggle to achieve and fan to a burning fire within us. Only this fire, which only God can give, is able to burn hot enough within us to cauterize the wounds of our soul-destroying pride.

Take it from me, who knows how much he is in need of God’s consuming flame.