Self-Willed Pride is a Tyranny
10 April 2017
In Ode 8 of Mattins for Great Monday, we read: ‘Let your authority over other people be different from that of the Gentiles: their self-willed pride is not the order that I have appointed, but a tyranny. Therefore, let him who would be first among you be the last of all’. Ode 9 states: Do not think proud thoughts, but be content with what is humble’.
This Gospel exhortation is repeated in the Aposticha: ‘Do not be like the Gentiles… Let him who is the first among you be the servant of all, the ruler be the ruled, and the first be last.
