Seven Deadlies--Pride

"In reality there is, perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history. For even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility."

Anyone who has ever read his autobiography, an all-American classic, can't help feel stunned to discover the man who penned the passage above is none other than our paunchy first ambassador to France, a most memorable member of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, a randy gentleman who, by his own confession, loved the ladies, not all of whom were, well, ladies. 

That's right--it's none other than Ben Franklin writing about pride, if you can believe it--the man who virtually birthed the rags-to-riches saga, the man who came to Philly with nothing but a couple of hard rolls, and left this earth among this world's most esteemed. A man who wanted so badly to tell his own story that he created a genre and let everyone know. Ben Franklin on pride is something akin to Donald J. Trump on same--unlikely, impossible, even unimaginable. But there it is.

But there's this. That deft turn of phrase at the end is as much joke as it proverb, probably more. Even in confession, he loves to be cute.

The image up top is Pieter Bruegel's moralistic nightmare depiction of the very first of the Seven Deadlies, the sin of Pride. I'd like to be able to guide you through the mess, interpreting Bruegel's score of memorable images, but I'm not 16th century Flemish. Besides, here as elsewhere in his work, Bruegel sees and offers outlandish, even distasteful visions meant to leave you gasping. Maybe sometimes it's better you don't know.

Some need no interpretation at all. At the bottom center is a Bruegel monster perusing the beauty of his own underside as he sees it in a standup mirror reflecting what no one but he would like to see. There's a peacock, the animal icon of the sin of pride--that gorgeous tail on a bird only God could love. Beside the bird is Pride's central figure--all of Bruegel's Seven Deadlies have a central figure or embodiment. In the case of Pride, she's dressed for a ball of some type, dressed fashionably at least. Like the beast loving his buttocks, she's obsessed with her looks. There are mirrors in this phantasmagorical Pride, lots of them, as well there should be. The haughty are singularly obsessed.

And let me hazard a guess about the naked woman just to the left of Dame Pride, a woman surrounded by others. There has to be an Eve here somewhere. Bruegel could not have forgotten her or left her behind. No one knows his own religious associations, but the operating mythology of the world in which he lived are all Western and Christian. He knew Eve as well as he knew evil.

But to sit here and giggle at Pride seems its own kind of perversion, its own sin, its own selfishness. "Isn't this all just so cute?" 

My mother would have to discover a Bible verse here to use the word, but I'm tempted to pull out of mothballs an old Dutch word that stayed in usage in the Schaap house even when the old language had been left behind two generations earlier. That word, as some know, is spotten, to make fun or sport of what should be sacred, to sing "Old Hundredth" with a clothespin on your nose.

Pride is heart of all sin. It is putting yourself first, wanting the knowledge only God can have or wield. Pride is the beginning of all sin and misdirection. Pride is what C. S. Lewis called "the anti-God." 

And we all have it. Those who don't are only kidding themselves.

Which means I'm here somewhere. This cartoon nightmare of Bruegel's is a gas, isn't it? They all are. So much fun. 

But somewhere in this horror I am too. Somewhere among the monsters, I have a place. Somewhere amid the misshapen, I am, ugly as sin. Here we are--Ben Franklin and me--hard as it is to admit--here we are, all of us, in dire need of forgiveness. 

Amazing grace.
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I started a little series on the Bruegel Seven Deadlies several years ago because I've always loved his startling work. I found the others lately, going through all the old posts, and I remembered that I'd done six but never finished. The only one I missed was the most deadly of all--Pride. Here it is. Now I've got them all.