The spirit of vanity is "a spirit of variety, changeable, subtle" and therefore very dangerous.

"Vanity," says St. John of the Ladder, "rejoices in all virtues. For example, I am vain when I fast; but when I permit fasting in order to conceal my abstinence from people, I again become vain, considering myself wise. I am overcome by vanity, dressed in good clothes; but even dressing in bad clothes, I am also vain. When I speak, I am overcome by vanity; I will be silent, and again I was defeated by it. No matter how you throw this three-horn, all one horn will stand up."

"Any person who loves to show himself is vain. The fast of the vain remains without reward, and his prayer is fruitless, for he does both for the praise of men."

"Vanity is... the waste of labor, the loss of sweat, the thief of the treasure of the soul... an ant on the threshing floor, which, although small, nevertheless plunders all labor and fruit."

"A vain man is an idolater... He thinks that he worships God; but in fact it pleases not God, but men."

A true Christian must first of all please God. His judgment and His commandments must always be kept in mind, not caring about what the world will say about him, but each time asking himself the only question: Is this pleasing in the eyes of God?

Another, no less dangerous vice that distracts man from God is covetousness. The Apostle Paul even says that the root of all evil is the love of money, to which, having given themselves, some have deviated from the faith and subjected themselves to many sorrows (1 Tim. VI, 10).

"A Christian who is attached to material things," writes St. Ephraim the Syrian, "is like a hawk flying with straps on his legs; wherever he sits, he will immediately become entangled. And he who is not tied to material things is the same as a traveler who is always ready for a journey."

This passion, which has reached the point of miserliness, is positively insatiable: no matter how much a person acquires, everything seems to him to be insufficient, and concern for earthly, material, and gain constantly distracts his thought from heaven and from God. Mammon is perhaps the lowest and coarsest idol before which people bow: it stands as a permanent wall between man and God, does not allow works of mercy and love for one's neighbor, eradicates from the soul all higher, noble feelings, making it coarse and inhuman. There seems to be no crime in the world that has not been committed for the sake of the passion for wealth.

About this idol the Lord directly says: "You cannot live for God and mammon" (Matt. VI, 24), and the terrible truth of these words was justified in one of His close disciples, Judas, who betrayed his Teacher for thirty pieces of silver.

In the biography of Blessed Andrew, the fool-for-Christ, who lived in the tenth century in Constantinople, there is the following story.

Coming once to the market, Saint Andrew met a certain monk, whom everyone praised for his virtuous life. True, he asceticized as befits monks, but he was inclined to the love of money. Many of the inhabitants of the city, confessing their sins to him, gave him gold to distribute to the poor. He did not give to anyone, but put everything in a bag and rejoiced to see how his wealth increased. And then Blessed Andrew saw with clairvoyant eyes that around the lover of money in the air was written in dark letters: "The root of all iniquity is the serpent of the love of money."

Looking back, the saint noticed two youths arguing with each other – one of them was black and had dark eyes. The other, God's angel, was white as the light of heaven.

Cherny said: