EGOISMO

EGOTISM

From *ego*, "I," it derives. It is the false and exaggerated love of oneself, which leads to a veritable idolatry of the self, erected as the sole measure for relations with all other persons and things, and the sole end of all one’s efforts. It may also be said that it is a practical system according to which the end of every human action is nothing other than the individual interest of the agent, more or less concealed. Hence it is not a special vice, but rather an imbalance in the general order willed by God, a latent element—at least initially—in every sin (Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 77, a. 4), inasmuch as it is turned away from God and directed toward creatures (the created self); a corrosive of charity, both as a specific virtue and as the informing principle of all other virtues.

According to the order of love, God must be loved first and to the highest degree, since in Him is the essence and perfection of the good; then follows the love of oneself, inasmuch as the Lord has made it the measure of love for one’s neighbor, while preserving between self and neighbor the order of values: our eternal salvation first, then that of our neighbor; the good of our body first, then the bodily health of our neighbor; our goods first, then those of others.

Thus, on the one hand, man cannot and must not consider his being—with all its natural tendencies, aptitudes, duties, and energies—except within the sphere of the love of God, and in dependence upon Him. On the other hand, he cannot fail to attend to a second limit, a consequence of right consideration for the persons and rights of others, who, like him, are images of God and called to follow the Savior. Excessive complacency in oneself, or the incessant exalting of one’s own ego, instead creates disorder in the sphere of love and, with the mirage of exclusive and temporal self-happiness, places the ego in the foreground, imprisoned in the shadows of its own personality, with the consequent dethronement of God from the place that is His due as the end of all things, and with the sacrifice of the persons with whom one has relations, considered solely as instruments to be used. For this very reason, it is absurd to say that asceticism fosters the ego; there is nothing selfish in the pursuit of one’s sanctification, which cannot exist without the pursuit of God and charity toward one’s neighbor. The ego, rather, implies not merely a misplacement of values, but a complete inversion.

This egocentrism, if carried to excess, may even be a source of psychic illness, though more often it is an effect rather than a cause of such abnormality. Characteristic, for example, is egoism above all in hysteria. The hysteric is consumed by a morbid ego, by which everything is referred back to himself, to his own advantage, to his own honor, by the most strange and refined means. But even outside these morbid states, in the present condition of man—consequent upon original sin—egotism constitutes a serious danger for every Christian, inasmuch as it is so insidious and subtle as to insinuate itself even into the holiest works; it is a danger ever lurking, inasmuch as it is immanent in us. Hence the need for the Christian to watch continually over himself and to forestall the danger through self-denial (cf. Mt 16:24; Lk 17:33; Jn 12:25). Moreover, among the evils that characterize the world before Christ—and which, beyond the words of the Apostle, characterize the age that must precede the end of time—egotism holds first place, both individual and social (2 Thess 3:2).

The ethics of the ancient world had, in substance, been a great egotism, which conceived the problem of practical life in the form of a relationship between man and other men as an element to be taken into account only insofar as it might give rise to good or evil: nothing more. All realities surrounding the ego appeared as means for one’s own satisfaction. The highest virtues of the Greeks were all virtues of the mastery of one’s passions, for the sake of one’s own individual equilibrium. And Platonic-Aristotelian justice was an objective system of relationships, whereby to each was due what was fitting, to be respected not only for the common good but also for one’s own advantage. The gods themselves were venerated not out of sincere devotion, but as the supreme instrument of individual interest. Only in the light of Christ’s redemptive plan—which has restored the creative plan of God—has the true reality of the position of the ego among God and neighbor been revealed to us: the first as the end of individual perfection, the second as the touchstone of the love of God Himself.

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"EGREGIE DOCTOR PAULE MORES INSTRUE"

An antiphon from the Vespers of the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul (25 January), composed from the fourth stanza of the hymn *Aurea luce et decore roseo*, attributed to Elpidius, and revised under Urban VIII.
There is no mention of the feast that is celebrated, but it might be said to be a fine paraphrase of certain ideas contained in the Pauline epistles (1 Cor 12:12-13; 2 Cor 12:2), such as Paul’s rapture to the third heaven, the sublimity of the beatific vision, the difference between the present vision of heavenly things and that in the hereafter, and the importance of charity—all expressed in elevated form.

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