The Station of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector: “Know yourself”
This station revolves around a person’s knowledge of himself. Saint Isaac the Syrian says: “He who knows himself is greater than he who raises the dead”, and humility is precisely this knowledge. The Pharisee did not err when he said: “I fast twice a week, and I tithe all that I possess.” (Lk 18:12). Rather, he erred when he said: I am not like the rest of men, extortioners… nor like this tax collector.” (Lk 18:11). That is, when he made his own self the standard for knowing himself and measured himself by it”so he stood and prayed within himself.” (Lk 18:11). Pride is to place your neighbor on one pan of the scale and yourself on the other, and to measure your greatness by what your neighbor failed to achieve — in other words, to make your neighbor a step and rise at his expense. He was evaluating others, not himself, in order to display his greatness.
Whereas the tax collector made God the standard for himself”he would not even raise his eyes toward heaven.” (Lk 18:13). He came to know its value by measuring the stature of God, and he knew the gulf between himself and God Himself. This is humility: that you come to know the value and stature of your own self. The Scripture says: “My son, glorify yourself with meekness, and give it the honor it deserves.” (Sirach 10:31).
Some think that humility is, as we say in colloquial speech, (a person walking close to the wall, saying “O Lord, cover me”), and that the humble person is the dervish, the boorish, the one whose dinner the cat eats, or that a person denies his works, virtues, and talents. None of this is humility, nor is it from Christ, and our Jesus was not like this. The humble person is a man and a master. Christ was humble, but a man and a master; meek, but firm. Let us take the Teacher as our model. Christ did not deny His work, for He said, for example:”I always do what pleases Him.” (Jn 8:29). Nor did He deny what He had, saying:”For I am meek and lowly in heart” (Mt. 11:29) and He cried out:”Which of you convicts Me of sin?”(Jn 8:46), yet He knew Himself, making the Father His standard: “My Father is greater than I.” (Jn 14:28).
The first station is the station of self-knowledge”Know yourself”, and that I look at myself and measure it according to the stature of Jesus, and look at the other with the eye of Jesus in order to esteem him, not to climb onto his shoulder and make him a mat for my feet, and not to occupy myself with judging my neighbor — those far from God, the non-believers who do not worship God, the murderers, the corrupt, the adulterers, and so on. In this way we have crossed the first station. And in order to remain steadfast in it when we do good, we say what the Teacher Jesus taught us:”We are unprofitable servants, for we have only done what was our duty.”” (Lk 17:10). And when we look at ourselves, we cry out like the Apostle Paul: I am the first of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15)