Sirach 10:1-18

The beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord;
the heart has withdrawn from its Maker.
For the beginning of pride is sin,
and the one who clings to it pours out abominations.
Pride was not created for human beings,
or violent anger for those born of women.(Sirach 10:12-13,18)

The orignal Greek translated above as pride is ὑπερηφανίας or huperephania.

Like the Eskimo have many words for snow, the Greeks have many words for pride.

This particular kind of pride is to appear, to show, to light up, to make visible, there is the suggestion of uncovering.

In the gospel of Mark, Jesus is quoted as saying, "But what comes out of a person, that is what defiles. From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder,adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile."

In this New American Bible translation huperephania is translated as arrogance.

Last night I was reading Martin Heidegger's Being and Time. With close attention to the Greek, Heidegger argues:

"Phenomenon, the showing-itself-in-itself, signifies a distinctive way in which something can be encountered. Appearance, on the other hand, means a reference-relationship which is in an entity itself, and which is such that what does the referring (or announcing) can fulfil its possible function only if it shows itself in itself and is thus a phenomenon."

Huperephania is the appearance of light, but not light itself. Our pride suggests our relationship with and points toward or refers to the more fundamental phenomenon: "Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father."