Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh. Transaction
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