Program / Course 2: The Solitary Christian in Depth / Lesson 1.3
What you will learn
- Explain why solitude is not a sign of higher spiritual rank in Scripture or in the main Christian traditions.
- Recognize the quiet forms that superiority takes in people who pray alone.
- Read the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector as a warning aimed at the serious and disciplined.
- Apply a few desert and Benedictine practices of humility to your own habits.
The big idea
Spending more time alone with God does not make a person better than those who worship with others, and it does not make a person worse. Scripture describes the church as a body in which no member can say to another that he is not needed. The desert writers, who knew solitude better than most, warned that those who withdraw are especially tempted to think themselves above others. Solitude is a way of living, not a rank. It should make a person gentler and more aware of personal faults, not more sure of being right.
Key terms
- Superiority
- The belief, spoken or unspoken, that one is better, wiser or closer to God than other people.
- Humility
- A true and sober view of oneself before God and others, without either boasting or false self-hatred.
- Pharisee
- A member of a Jewish group in the time of Jesus known for careful observance of the law. In the Gospels they are often examples of serious religion that has gone wrong.
- Vainglory
- A desire for praise or admiration, including praise for being religious. The desert writers counted it among the main temptations.
- Universal call to holiness
- The teaching, stated clearly in Catholic documents of the twentieth century, that every Christian, not only monks or clergy, is called to the fullness of Christian life.
- Judging
- In this lesson, passing a final verdict on another person’s heart or standing before God, which Jesus forbids (Matthew 7:1).
Background
A person who prays alone, reads at length and avoids crowds can feel a quiet pride without noticing. Others seem shallow, noisy or distracted. Church seems full of habit. The person alone seems to see more clearly. This feeling is common enough that the earliest Christian writers on solitude spent much of their effort fighting it. Anyone who takes up a solitary practice should expect it.
This lesson does not say solitary Christians are proud. It says that the temptation is real, that it hides well, and that Scripture and the long tradition offer sound ways to test for it. Lesson 5.1 returns to spiritual pride more fully. Here the aim is to set the right starting point for the whole course: solitude is a form of life, and it carries no rank.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: Hear what Scripture says about rank
Paul writes to the Corinthians that the church is one body with many members. “And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you” (1 Corinthians 12:21). The point is that no gift stands above another in a way that lets the holder look down. He adds, “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular” (1 Corinthians 12:27).
To the Romans he writes that no one should “think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly” (Romans 12:3). To the Philippians he writes, “in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves” (Philippians 2:3). A person who feels advanced because of a quiet life has left this path.
Step 2: Read the Pharisee and the tax collector
Jesus told a parable to “certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others” (Luke 18:9). A Pharisee stands in the temple and prays, “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are” (Luke 18:11). He fasts twice a week and gives tithes. Everything he says about himself may be true. A tax collector stands at a distance and prays for mercy. Jesus says the tax collector went home justified, because “every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke 18:14).
The parable is aimed at serious, disciplined people. A person who keeps a strict private rule of prayer fits the Pharisee’s description far more closely than a casual churchgoer does. The warning belongs most to those who practice most.
Step 3: Learn from the desert
Sayings gathered from the Egyptian desert, passed down in the collections known as the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, return again and again to this danger. One well-known story tells of a brother who had sinned. The elders gathered to judge him, and Abba Moses was asked to come. He arrived carrying a leaking basket of sand on his back. When asked why, he said that his own sins were running out behind him where he could not see them, and yet he had come to judge another. The assembly forgave the brother. The story is told in several forms, and its details vary, but its point is stable.
John Cassian, who passed on desert teaching to the Latin West, treats vainglory and pride as the last and most dangerous of the faults a solitary meets, because they feed on success in the other virtues (Institutes, Books 11 and 12).
Step 4: Look at how the traditions order the call
The Catholic Church teaches, in the Second Vatican Council’s constitution on the church (Lumen Gentium, chapter 5), that all the baptized are called to holiness, whatever their state. The Orthodox Church speaks of every Christian being called to deification, a sharing in the life of God, and does not treat the monk as the only one on the path. The Reformers, including Luther and Calvin, rejected the idea that monastic life was a higher class of Christian life, and taught that a farmer, a mother or a magistrate serves God in a calling of equal worth.
On this point the three traditions differ in their emphasis but agree in substance. Withdrawal for prayer can be a good and sometimes a hard path. It is not a promotion.
Step 5: Practice humility on purpose
Benedict’s Rule gives a long chapter to humility (chapter 7), which begins from the saying that everyone who exalts himself will be humbled. The desert elders gave smaller rules of thumb: keep your good deeds hidden, do not compare yourself with others, welcome correction without argument, and pray for the people you find hardest to like.
Add one practical habit: when you notice yourself thinking worse of other Christians because they are not doing what you do, write the thought down and pray for those people by name.
- Do I think less of Christians who attend church often than of those who do not?
- Do I tell people about my private practices in order to be admired?
- When someone disagrees with me, do I assume they have not thought about it?
- Can I name a person in a congregation whose faith is deeper than mine?
- How do I respond when someone corrects me, and how quickly?
- Would I be content if no one ever knew about my prayer and study?
Examples
Quiet contempt
A man spends an hour in silent prayer every morning and shares none of it. When a coworker speaks about her church’s food drive, he thinks of it as shallow activity. He never mentions the thought. It still shapes how he treats her. (A constructed example.)
Gentle solitude
A woman who prays alone for two hours each day tells nobody about it. When she hears of a friend’s difficulty, she calls her and listens. When her friend asks about her own spiritual life, she says it is hard, and that she often fails. (A constructed example.)
Comparison in the other direction
A churchgoer assumes that anyone who prays at home must be proud or lazy. He has never asked such a person how they live. He is making the same mistake the solitary person makes, in reverse. (A constructed example.)
Different perspectives
Catholic
Catholic teaching has a long tradition of consecrated life, including hermits, and honors it. It also teaches, in the documents of the Second Vatican Council, that all Christians are called to holiness, and that this call is not limited to those in religious life.
Orthodox
Orthodox tradition honors monks and hermits, and many monks serve as spiritual guides for lay people. But it also holds that the fullness of the faith is lived in the church’s worship, in which all take part, and the stories of desert saints often stress their humility and their sense of being sinners.
Protestant
The Reformers denied that monastic withdrawal was a more perfect state. Their writings insist that ordinary callings are holy. Protestants today vary, but most agree that no style of devotion gives rank before God.
Secular and scholarly observers
Psychologists describe a general human tendency to think of oneself as above average, and to rate one’s own group more favorably. Historians of religion also note that groups defined by being set apart often develop a sense of being special. These are observations about people, not judgments about any particular faith.
Why it matters
A solitary practice can be a real gift. It can also become a quiet way of feeling better than other people while saying nothing. If this course is to be of use, it must begin by closing that door. A reader who finishes the course convinced of being superior has learned the opposite of what the sources teach. A reader who finishes with a clearer sense of personal need, and a willingness to be corrected, has learned what they teach.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Humility means hating yourself.
Correction: Christian humility is truthfulness. It sees both gifts and faults without exaggerating either. Paul’s phrase is “think soberly” (Romans 12:3), neither inflated nor crushed.
Misunderstanding: Church members are superior because they are in a church.
Correction: Membership brings real gifts, but it does not guarantee humility. The Pharisee was in the temple. Comparison fails in every direction.
Misunderstanding: The desert fathers considered themselves better than ordinary Christians.
Correction: Their surviving sayings repeatedly speak of their own sinfulness and warn against judging others. Many of them lived near villages and gave counsel to lay people.
Misunderstanding: If I cannot feel pride, I am safe from it.
Correction: Spiritual writers across the traditions say pride is hardest to see in oneself and often shows up in the very effort to be humble. A trusted outside reader is needed.
Knowledge check
What does 1 Corinthians 12:21 say that bears on solitude and rank?
It says the eye cannot tell the hand it has no need of it. Every member of the body of Christ is needed, so no gift or way of life gives a person the right to look down on another. A solitary practice is one gift or path among others.
Why is the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector especially relevant to disciplined people?
The Pharisee is serious and disciplined, and what he says about himself is not false. His trouble is that he trusts in himself and despises others. Disciplined people are most tempted by this, so the parable is aimed at them more than at the careless.
What does the story of Abba Moses and the leaking basket teach?
It teaches that a person who sees his own sins clearly has no standing to judge another. Moses carried sand that ran out behind him to show that his sins were running behind where he could not see them.
On what point do the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions agree about rank?
They agree that no style of devotion, including solitude, makes a person higher before God. They state it differently: Catholics speak of a universal call to holiness, Orthodox of every Christian’s calling to share in God’s life, and Protestants of the equal worth of every calling.
Think it through
- Where have you felt, even briefly, that you saw more clearly than the people around you? What happened to that feeling later?
- Who in your life lives a very different kind of Christian life from yours, and what can you learn from them?
- What would you have to give up if you took the tax collector’s prayer as your own?
- How would a friend describe your attitude to churchgoers, and would they be right?
Independent assignment
A pride inventory
In your own notebook, write 300 to 500 words. List three occasions in the last month when you felt wiser or more serious than other Christians. For each, write what you thought, what the other person was actually doing, and what you may have missed. Then write a short prayer for each person. Finish with one concrete act of respect toward a Christian whose way of life differs from yours. Do not send this to anyone.
Further study
- Benedicta Ward, trans., The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection Find the sayings about judging others, including the story of Abba Moses, and copy one into your notebook.
- John Cassian, The Institutes Read the books on vainglory and pride (Books 11 and 12).
- Benedict of Nursia, The Rule of St. Benedict Read chapter 7 on humility.
- Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ Read Book 1 for short, plain warnings about thinking too well of oneself.
- Luke 18:9 The Pharisee and the tax collector.
- 1 Corinthians 12:21 The eye cannot say to the hand.
- Romans 12:3 Think soberly.
- Philippians 2:3 Esteem others better than yourselves.