PRIDE. Pride is more easily recognized than defined and is more easily detected in others than in self. The concept embraces many synonyms that reflect attitudes as well as acts—such as arrogance, presumption, conceit, and esp. vanity and self-satisfaction. Pride is incessantly selfish, and a proud person thus loses any balance that might grow out of a recognition of his true position as over against God or over against the ability and worth of others. Since man’s true nature is understood primarily in his dependence and contingence Godward and finds further fulfillment and enrichment man-ward, it follows that pride is a self-isolating and independent attitude that cuts a man off from his necessary relationships and perverts his true humanity; thus pride is sin. Although pride usually is thought of as a character trait by which an individual is constantly contrasting himself to others to his own satisfaction, it is not really understood unless it is seen that its very scorn of all others allows for no comparison or competition; it is a perversity of nature that is profoundly indifferent to the opinions and favors as well as the virtues of others. In this cold and hateful indifference it is most deadly.

All satisfaction from pride is self-satisfaction, and it is endless: pride of evil, pride of goodness, pride of birth and position, even pride of humility. No moral suasion or guidance can break in because self-satisfaction always feels complete in itself.

Old Testament Heb. roots uniformly mean “to lift up,” “to be high.” New Testament words reflecting a wide range of synonyms and equivalents allow such trs. as “empty display” or “swagger” (ἀλαζονεία, G224), “glorying” or “boasting” (καύχημα, G3017), “haughtiness” or “arrogance” (ὐπερήφανος). As Thayer suggests (Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 25), the pride condemned in the Bible is “an insolent and empty assurance which trusts in its own power and resources and shamefully despises and violates divine laws and human laws.” When pride was approved, as for example in Paul (1 Cor 1:29-31; Gal 6:14; Phil 3:3, etc.), it rested on the sufficiency of Christ and not of Paul.

Augustine, Aquinas, and others make pride (as against selfishness, for example, or sensuality) the very essence of sin.

Bibliography J. A. Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (1889); A. Richardson, A Theological Word Book of the New Testament (1951), 176; J. A. Wharton, IDB, III, 876; R. Martin Pope, HERE, X, 275-278.