Galatians 5:26
Let us not be made desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.
Open Galatians 5:26 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Non efficiamur inanis gloriæ cupidi, invicem provocantes, invicem invidentes.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- μὴ γινώμεθα κενόδοξοι, ἀλλήλους προκαλούμενοι, ἀλλήλοις φθονοῦντες.
The Fathers on this verse
Clement of Alexandria The Stromata, or Miscellanies, Chapter VIII. The Sophistical Arts Useless
We must not, then, aspire to please the multitude. For we do not practice what will please them, but what we know is remote from their disposition. “Let us not be desirous of vainglory,” says the apostle, “provoking one another, envying one another.”
Tertullian On Patience, Of Revenge
There is, too, another chief spur of impatience, the lust of revenge, dealing with the business either of glory or else of malice. But “glory,” on the one hand, is everywhere “vain;” and malice, on the other, is always odious to the Lord; in this case indeed most of all, when, being provoked by a neighbour’s malice, it constitutes itself superior in following out revenge, and by paying wickedness doubles that which has once been done. Revenge, in the estimation of error, seems a solace of pain; in the estimation of truth, on the contrary, it is convicted of malignity. For what difference is there between provoker and provoked, except that the former is detected as prior in evil-doing, but the latter as posterior? Yet each stands impeached of hurting a man in the eye of the Lord, who both prohibits and condemns every wickedness. …
St Augustine Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Chapter VII
18. “Let your light,” says He, “so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” If He had merely said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works,” He would seem to have fixed an end in the praises of men, which hypocrites seek, and those who canvass for honours and covet glory of the emptiest kind. Against such parties it is said, “If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ;” and, by the prophet, “They who please men are put to shame, because God hath despised them;” and again, “God hath broken the bones of those who please men;” and again the apostle, “Let us not be desirous of vainglory;” and still another time, “But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.” Hence our Lord has not said merely, “that they may see your good wor …
St John Chrysostom The Commentary and Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Galatians and Ephesians, Galatians 5:1
Ver. 26 . “Let us not be vainglorious,” which is the cause of all evils, “provoking one another” to contentions and strife, “envying one another,” for from vainglory comes envy and from envy all these countless evils.
St John Cassian The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults, Chapter XII. Several testimonies against vainglory
And so the Apostle warns us: “Be not desirous of vainglory.” And the Lord, rebuking the Pharisees, says, “How can ye believe, who receive glory from one another, and seek not the glory which comes from God alone?” Of these too the blessed David speaks with a threat: “For God hath scattered the bones of them that please men.”