"Our first parents fell into open disobedience because already they were secretly corrupted; for the evil act had never been done had not an evil will preceded it. And what is the origin of our evil will but pride? For "pride is the beginning of sin." And what is pride but the craving for undue exaltation? And this undue exaltation, when the souls abandons Him to whom it ought to cleave as its end, and becomes a kind of end itself. This falling away is spontaneous; for if the will had remained stedfast in the love of that higher and changeless good by which it was illumined to intelligence and kindled into love, it would not have turned away to satisfaction in itself, and so become frigid and benighted; the woman would not have believed the serpent spoke truth, nor would the man have preferred the request of his wife to the command of God, nor have supposed that it was a venial transgression to cleave to the partner of his life even in a partnership of sin. The wicked deed, then - that is to say, the transgression of eating the forbidden fruit - was committed by persons who were already wicked.”
“That "evil fruit" could be brought forth only by "a corrupt tree" (Matthew 7:18). But that the tree was evil was not the result of nature; for certainly it could become so only by the vice of the will, and vice is contrary to nature. Now, nature could not have been depraved by vice had it not been made out of nothing. Consequently, that it is a nature, this is because it is made by God; but that it falls away from Him, this is because it is made out of nothing. But man did not so fall away as to become absolutely nothing; but being turned towards himself, his being became more contracted than it was when he clave to Him who supremely is. Accordingly, to exist in himself, that is, to be his own satisfaction after abandoning God, is not quite to become a nonentity, but to approximate that.”
"And therefore the holy Scriptures designate the proud by another name, "Self-pleasers." For it is good to have the heart lifted up, yet not to one's self, for this is proud, but to the Lord, for this is obedient, and can be the act only of the humble. There is, therefore, something in humility which, strangely enough, exalts the heart, and something in pride which debases it. This seems, indeed, to be contradictory, that loftiness should debase and lowliness exalt. But pious humility enables us to submit to what is above us; and nothing is more exalted above us than God; and therefore, humility, by making us subject to God, exalts us. But pride, being a defect of nature, by the very act of refusing subjection and revolting from Him who is supreme, falls to a low condition; and then comes to pass what is written: "Thou castedst them down when they lifted up themselves." (Psalms 73:8). For he does not say, "when they had been lifted up," as if they were first exalted, and then afterwards cast down; but "when they lifted up themselves" even then they were cast down - that is to say, the very lifting up was already a fall.”
“And therefore it is that humility is specially recommended to the city of God as it sojourns in this world, and is specially exhibited in the city of God, and in the person of Christ its King; while the contrary vice of pride, according to the testimony of the sacred writings, specially rules his adversary the devil. And certainly this is the great difference which distinguishes the two cities of which we speak, the one being the society of godly men, the other of the ungodly, each associated with the angels that adhere to their party, and the one guided by and fashioned by love of self, the other by love of God."
*The City of God by Saint Augustine Translated by Marcus Dods, D.D. with an introduction by Thomas Merton, pages Book one pages 460, 461
1993 Modern Library Edition
Introduction copyright 1950,1978 by Random House, Inc.
ISBN 0-679-60087-6
