Book VI. On the Spirit of Fornication. We Have Thought Best to Omit Altogether the Translation of This Book · Book XI. Of the Spirit of Vainglory
Chapter V
Page 490 of 1,144
A comparison which shows the nature of vainglory.
Our elders admirably describe the nature of this malady as like that of an onion, and of those bulbs which when stripped of one covering you find to be sheathed in another; and as often as you strip them, you find them still protected.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Volume 11, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (1890–1900). Public domain. Text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.