The astute and malign serpent misses no opportunity to tempt us with his deceptions, even through virtues we have acquired. Opportunities to ruin us lie within them whenever we raise ourselves up and take pleasure in them and in ourselves. We then fall into the vice of pride and of vainglory.

To guard yourself from this danger, always fight by sitting quietly and assuredly in the field. Be truly and profoundly aware of the fact that

Remain firm and still within the boundaries of this truth, and never let yourself wander even the smallest bit away. It does not matter what thought or happenstance may befall you; be certain that they are all your enemies. Were you to fall into their hands, you would end up wounded or even dead.

To exercise yourself well in the above-mentioned field of true knowledge of your nothingness, use this rule. Whenever you think of yourself and your works, think of yourself always as regards those things which pertain to you, rather than those which pertain to God and his grace. Then, reconsider yourself according to that comparison.

• For example, consider the time before your existence. Observe that throughout that eternal abyss, you were absolutely nothing; you accomplished nothing; nor were you even able to do anything until you came into being.
• Now that you exist, you exist only through the goodness of God. Attributing to him that which pertains to him, which is the continual care in which he preserves you in every moment, what else are you, along with everything that is yours, if not, basically… nothing?
• In fact, there can be no doubt that you would instantly return to your prior nothingness, from which God’s omnipotent hand drew you out, were he to abandon you for the smallest moment.

It is perfectly clear that in this natural existence, comparing yourself to that which pertains to you, you have no reason to esteem yourself, nor to desire others’ esteem.

As regards the benefits due to grace and good works, what good and meritorious thing could your nature accomplish on its own without divine assistance? On the other hand, consider your numerous past errors along with those other evils that surely would have proceeded from you had God not restrained you with his merciful hand. You will find that your iniquities would add up to a nearly infinite number, through the multiplication not only of days and years but even of acts and wicked habits — since one vice calls forth another and draws it behind itself. You would surely have become another hellish Lucifer. For this reason, you must consider yourself worse each and every day; otherwise you could not remain always with your Lord, but would rob God of his goodness.

Take care you pass a just judgment on yourself; otherwise, it will do you no small damage. In the awareness of your wickedness you do better than anyone who through blindness reckons himself to be somebody, you lose much and, in the acts of your will, make yourself worse than he is if you try to gain a reputation among men, and seek to be treated as something that you know you are not.

If you desire that this awareness of your malice and vileness keep your enemies far from you and render you dear to God, act so that you not only disdain yourself as unworthy of every good and deserving of every ill, but prefer to be disdained by others, abhorring honors, enjoying their vituperations, and making yourself available to perform all those tasks that others disdain. To avoid abandoning this holy practice, you must not value the opinions of others except with the sole aim of humbling yourself for this exercise, rather than through a certain presumption of spirit and an unknown pride, through which you may employ an otherwise good pretext to hold the opinions of others in little or no regard.

It may happen at times that others love you and praise you as good, on account of some gift from God. Remain recollected within yourself, and do not for any reason move away from the truth and justice mentioned above. Turn first to God, saying to him with your heart, Lord, may I never rob you of your honor and of your graces. To you be praise and glory; to me, confusion. Turn then to him who praises you and speak interiorly in this fashion, Why do you consider me good, while God alone is good, as are his deeds? (see Mark 10.18) Acting in this way, and rendering to the Lord what is his, you will keep your enemies distant while disposing yourself to receive greater gifts and favors from God.

Should it happen that the memory of these good works places you in danger of falling into vanity, then marvel at them immediately, not as if they belonged to you, but as if they belonged to God. You could almost say to them in your spirit, I do not know how you have appeared and have begun to exist in my mind. I am not your origin; rather, the good God created you, nourished you, and preserved you. He alone therefore do I wish to recognize as the true and principal Father; him alone do I wish to thank, and to him will I render all praise. (see 2 Mac 7.22-30)

Then consider the following: all the works you have performed have borne only a slight resemblance to the light and grace given you to know and perform them. Moreover, they are highly imperfect and, unfortunately, far from that pure intention, from the due fervor and the diligence with which they should have been accompanied and performed. Thus, if you think on it carefully, you had rather take shame in them than vain pleasure. It is sadly true that those graces which we receive purely and perfectly from God become stained in their actualization by our imperfections.

In addition, compare your works with those of the saints and of God’s other servants. In light of this comparison you will see clearly that your better and greater works are of a much lower character, and of much scarcer value.

Afterwards, compare them with those that Christ performed for you in the mysteries of his life and of his ongoing cross. Even if you consider them not as the acts of a divine man, but solely in themselves, and the affection and purity of love in which he performed them, you will realize that all your works are for this reason effectively nothing.

In the end, if you raise your mind to the divinity and to the immense Majesty of your God and to the service you owe him, you will see clearly that your every work should inspire you not with vanity but with great fear. At every step in every deed, regardless of its sanctity, you must say to your Lord with all your heart, O Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. (see Luke 18.13)

I warn you further: be not eager to discover the gifts you have received from God. This always displeases your Lord, as he clearly declares with the following teaching. On one occasion, assuming the semblance of a child and a pure creature, he appeared to one of his devout daughters. With sincere simplicity, she invited him to recite the angelic salutation. He readily began, saying, “Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women,” and then he stopped. Why? He did not wish to praise himself with the words that followed. When the woman implored him to continue, he hid himself and left his servant in consolation, demonstrating that heavenly teaching by his own example.

Beloved daughter, you also should learn to humble yourself, remaining aware of that nothingness that you and all your works comprise. This is the foundation of all the other virtues. Before we existed, God created us from nothing. Now that we exist through him, he wants to found the entire spiritual edifice on this awareness of our nothingness. The deeper we build this foundation in God, the higher the structure will rise, and the divine architect will plant many firm stones to advance its construction according to the measure in which we dig the soil out from our miseries. Do not convince yourself, beloved daughter, that you can humble yourself enough. Rather, judge yourself thus: if there could ever be an infinite quantity in a created thing, your vileness would be infinite. We possess every good as long as we remain well rooted in this knowledge; when we lack it, we are little more than nothing, even if we were to perform the works of all the saints and if we occupied ourselves constantly with God.

O blessed awareness, that makes us happy on earth and glorious in heaven!

O light that, emerging from the shadows, makes souls bright and clear!

O joy unknown, that shines amid our filth!

O nothingness that, once known, makes us masters of all!

I will never tire of speaking of this to you. If you desire to praise God, accuse yourself and desire that others accuse you. Humble yourself with everyone and beneath everyone, if you wish to exalt him in you and yourself in him. Humble yourself again and again whenever you can; he will come find you and embrace you. The viler you are in your own sight, and the more pleasure you take in being humiliated by all and rejected as an abominable thing, the more he will gather you up and and draw you more tenderly to himself with love.

Your God, dishonored for your sake, made you with the goal of uniting you to himself. You must consider yourself unworthy of such a gift! Do not fail to thank him often, and to hold yourself obliged to anyone who gives you reason to do so, and also to those who have offended you, or even think that you bear offense unwillingly and with ill will. Even when you are offended, keep it hidden.

It may happen that the combination of our ignorance, our wicked inclination, and the demon’s astuteness should prevail in us so that, despite the aforementioned and unfortunately true considerations, self-exalting thoughts continually trouble us and attract our hearts’s attention. Even then we should humble ourselves all the more in our eyes, when we see that out of this trial we have made little headway in the way of the spirit and in the loyal awareness of ourselves. After all, we cannot free ourselves from these molestations whose roots lie in our vain pride.

In this way we manage to extract honey from poison, and health from wounds.

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“had God not restrained you with his merciful hand”: Scupoli is keen on the fact that we would commit more evils than we already do, did God’s hand not stay us constantly. See, for example, Chapter 26.

“the angelic salutation“: The “Hail Mary” prayer.

to praise himself: the next words of the Angelic Salutation are, “and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.”

to humble yourself: The Italian word abbassarti literally means “to lower yourself”, so I initially translated it that way, but it doesn’t sound quite right in this context. Whereas “to humble yourself” seems to fit better, even if that means the English-speaking reader misses the distinction Scupoli makes later when he switches to umiliarti, which also means “to humble yourself”.