HUMILITY. - A moral virtue that restrains the soul, so that it does not strive with immoderate impulse toward what is above itself (Sum. Theol., 2ᵃ-2ᵃᵉ, q. 161, a. 1); or more broadly: that virtue which curbs the disordered desire for one's own greatness and inclines man to the love of his own reality, known in the light of a sincere truth.
I. NATURE OF HUMILITY
The true nature of humility must be sought in its function of moderating pride, which is a deviation of two legitimate tendencies placed by God in human nature: self-esteem and the desire for the esteem of others. The first is the basis of personal dignity; the second is one of the bases of sociability. These two inclinations, although in a certain sense providential, are subject to easy deviations. Humility has the office of opposing these deviations and maintaining order in self-esteem and in the desire for the esteem of others. It is therefore truth and justice, justice being understood here in a broad sense, insofar as it designates the virtuous disposition that assures to each thing the place it deserves. The pagans knew of humility only modesty, and to the extent that they knew it they practiced it very imperfectly. St. Thomas, on the other hand, shows that humility is not opposed even to a virtue that would seem to be its antipode, magnanimity (v.).
These are different aspects of one and the same reality, which are reached from different positions and tend to set in motion different energies. And it is proper to humility to have a knowledge of the lack of proportion between reality and the vain desires for great things that exceed the possibilities of the individual. On the practical plane, the cognition of one's own deficiency forms the directive rule of the will, and in this humility essentially consists (ibid., q. 161, a. 2 and 6). Still according to St. Thomas, humility must be annexed as a potential part to the virtue of temperance, which has as its object the moderation and repression of the impetuosity of the passions. Now since humility is nothing other than a bridle of the human spirit in its continual anxious pursuit of proud striving, it falls within this more general virtue.
II. HUMILITY, REVELATION, INCARNATION
The virtue of Christian humility is illumined with new light after Revelation has disclosed more deeply the contact of humility with God, with man's free will, and with Jesus Christ, Redeemer and Savior of man through the most heroic exercise of humility. Bearing in mind that every sin has as its common element rebellion against the law of God, one understands how humility pervades the whole moral aspect of man in his life of return to God, and how the nothingness of the creature before God, offended by sin, is clothed with a sense of profound confusion.
This aspect of humility, which is the most mysterious and the most difficult for the human heart, is understood in the contemplation of the mystery of Christ, which the Apostle St. Paul reveals as a mystery of humility. The famous christological text of the Letter to the Philippians (2:6-11) says that "Christ, subsisting in the nature of God, did not deem it something to be clung to as a jealous prize to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the nature of a slave, becoming like men, acknowledged as a man in all his outward appearance; he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even unto death on a cross. Therefore God has exalted him...". It is for this precise aspect that humility has its own proper light in the mystery of the Incarnation and Redemption.
III. HUMILITY IN HOLY SCRIPTURE AND IN THE VARIOUS SCHOOLS OF SPIRITUALITY
The constant appeal to humility in the New Testament demonstrates its excellence and its necessity. Jesus' teaching bears particularly on humility, which forbids exalting oneself above others and makes relations with one's neighbor easy and loving (Mt. 22:2-12; Lk. 14:7-11). Humility attracts the benevolent gaze of the Lord (Lk. 18:9-14) and makes one avoid ostentation in the fulfillment of the duties of prayer, penance and almsgiving (Mt. 6:3-18). St. Paul recommends humility to his faithful with particular insistence (Phil. 2:3-11; Eph. 4:2; Rom. 12:16; Gal. 6:3, 5). St. Peter says to the faithful, "Clothe yourselves with humility, because God resists the proud and gives his Grace to the humble; humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God" (Pt. 5:5-6). See also the teaching of St. James in his letter (4:5-8).
Guided by Revelation, the Fathers of the Church, the masters of the spiritual life, and the theologians, after the theological virtues, make their moral teaching converge on humility. St. Augustine returns to God through the mystery of humility unveiled by Sacred Scripture (Confessions, VII, chaps. 9, 20, 21, etc.). Eastern and Western monastic asceticism sees humility as the authentic measure of spiritual progress.
Fundamental in Cassian is book IV, chap. 39 of the Institutions (PL 49, 198-199), taken up and completed by St. Benedict in chap. 7 of his Rule.
However, in order to understand exactly the monastic method of humility, it must be borne in mind that St. Benedict, together with the whole ascetic tradition, considers this virtue "as a summary of the spiritual life... so that it comes to include in its development all the others. He does not consider humility as a special virtue connected with temperance, but as the attitude of the soul before God, in which are gathered the various sentiments that must animate us as creatures and as adopted sons" (C. Marmion, op. cit. in bibl., pp. 214-15).
This conception pervades the whole medieval ascetic teaching on the virtue of humility: thus St. Bernard in the De gradibus humilitatis: PL 182, 941-72, and St. Anselm (In lib. De similitudinibus, c. 99, n. 108: PL 159). Finally there is the acceptance of the Benedictine enumeration in the Sum. Theol., 2a-2ae, q. 161, a. 6. The synthesis of the whole medieval spiritual mentality is found in the book of the Imitation of Christ, which so well already foreshadows modern spirituality; it opens with the appeal to humility (book I, c. 2, 15, 16, 17); and it returns to it in all the books as to its preferred theme (book II, c. 2, 9, 12; III, c. 3, 4, 7, 8, 13, 14, etc.; IV, c. 15, 18).
For Franciscan spirituality it is enough to recall the canticle of perfect joy of St. Francis (Fioretti, chap. 8).
Later St. Ignatius, at the end of the second week of the exercises (ed. J. Roothan, Turin-Rome 1928, p. 144 ff.) suggests three degrees of humility: 1) the first is a degree essential for salvation: it is the one that subjects the soul to the law of God, when it obliges under pain of mortal sin; 2) the second degree, more perfect, creates in the soul a complete indifference of will and affection between riches and poverty, honors and contempt, long life or short life, provided that God be equally glorified. For no reason in the world to commit a single venial sin; 3) the third degree demands still more: in order to imitate Jesus, to prefer as He did poverty to riches, contempt to honors, and the desire to be held as a useless and foolish man for love of Jesus, who willed first to pass as such rather than to be held as a wise and prudent man in the eyes of the world. The teaching of the French school of the 17th century is set forth by Olier in the introduction to the Catéchisme chrétien: three are the degrees of humility that befit souls in progress: 1) complacency in one's own nothingness and one's own worthlessness; 2) loving to be known as worthless; 3) desire to be treated as worthless. In this annihilation of himself the soul is sure of finding God.
• UNAM SANCTAM • - Text of the Bull - Vatican Secret Archive, Reg. Vat., n. 50, cabinet VII-IX, fol. 387v.