Our first parents fell into open disobedience because they were already secretly corrupted; for the evil act would never have been done if an evil will had not preceded it. And what is the origin of our evil will but pride? For “pride is the beginning of sin.”⁠a And what is pride but the craving for undue exaltation? And this is undue exaltation, when the soul abandons Him to whom it ought to cling as its end, and becomes a kind of end to itself. This happens when it becomes its own satisfaction. And it does so when it falls away from that unchangeable good which ought to satisfy it more than itself. This falling away is spontaneous; for if the will had remained steadfast 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 find satisfaction in itself, and so become cold and darkened; the woman would not have believed the serpent spoke the 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 cling 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” Matthew 7:18 could be brought forth only by “a corrupt tree.” 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 if it had not been made out of nothing. Consequently, that it is a nature is because it is made by God; but that it falls away from Him is because it is made out of nothing. But man did not so fall away as to become absolutely nothing; but when he turned toward himself, his being became less than it was when he clung 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 nothing, but to come close to it. And therefore the holy Scriptures call the proud by another name, “self-pleasers.” For it is good to have the heart lifted up, yet not to oneself, 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 what is written comes to pass: “You cast them down when they lifted up themselves.” For he does not say, “when they had been lifted up,” as if first they were exalted, and then afterward 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 and fashioned by love of self, the other by love of God. The devil, then, would not have ensnared man in the open and manifest sin of doing what God had forbidden, if man had not already begun to live for himself. It was this that made him listen with pleasure to the words, “You shall be like gods,” Genesis 3:5 which they would much more readily have accomplished by obediently clinging to their supreme and true end than by proudly living for themselves. For created gods are gods not by virtue of what is in themselves, but by participation in the true God. By craving to be more, man becomes less; and by aspiring to be self-sufficient, he fell away from Him who truly suffices him. Accordingly, this wicked desire which prompts man to please himself as if he were himself light, and which thus turns him away from that light by which, if he had followed it, he would himself have become light — this wicked desire, I say, already secretly existed in him, and the open sin was only its consequence. For what is written is true, “Pride goes before destruction, and before honor is humility;” Proverbs 18:12 that is to say, secret ruin precedes open ruin, while the former is not counted ruin. For who counts exaltation ruin, though no sooner is the Highest forsaken than a fall is begun? But who does not recognize it as ruin, when there occurs an evident and unmistakable transgression of the commandment? And consequently, God's prohibition concerned an act which, when committed, could not be defended on any pretense of doing what was righteous. And I venture to say that it is useful for the proud to fall into an open and indisputable transgression, and so displease themselves, just as, by pleasing themselves, they had already fallen. For Peter was in a healthier condition when he wept and was dissatisfied with himself, than when he boldly presumed and satisfied himself. And the sacred Psalmist affirms this when he says, “Fill their faces with shame, so that they may seek Your name, Lord;” that is, so that those who have pleased themselves in seeking their own glory may be pleased and satisfied with You in seeking Your glory.