some kind of feat, struggle, but complete indifference to what they can say about him

people to think, it was so important for him, so necessary to contemplate

Savior. And he saw Him. Of all the crowd, Christ noticed only Zacchaeus,

for he, by his striving towards Him, has conquered in himself all fear of

people, every false shame, endured ridicule, mockery, — just to see

Christ. And Christ called him and stayed in his house.

Vanity, as St. John of the Ladder says, is impudence before

God and cowardice before people. Vanity is such an arrangement when

in which we do not take into account what God may think of our actions, words,

about our life, about our personality, and are addressed only to how they speak about us

people. A vain person lives in fear of human judgment, and this deprives

his fear of God. This condition is not only dangerous, but very terrible,

Because one more step — and vanity will be followed by pride.

Pride is a conscious attitude towards oneself as the last one

judge, as one over whom there is neither divine nor human judgment, and this

The condition, fortunately, is very rare among us. But the vanity of all of us in one way or another

in another measure he holds in captivity. The Fathers said that vanity is the last

an enemy who can be defeated by podvig, holiness, when in the end no one else

judgment, except for God's, has no meaning for us. Not in the sense that we

we despise human opinion, because man, our neighbor, often judges

as God judges us: He sees in us evil, unrighteousness, our weakness and ours