Just as presumption dissipates the soul through imaginings that distract her

so humility collects the soul through the stillness of the thoughts | and concentrates her within herself. | As the soul is unknown and invisible to corporeal eyes | so a humble man remains unknown amid men. | As the soul abiding within the body is hidden from the sight and association with all men | so the truly humble man not only does not wish to be seen or known by men | (for which reason he is secluded and distant from all men) | but more, his will is — if possible — to plunge himself away from himself into himself. | He wishes to enter and dwell in stillness | to forsake his former conceptions completely | together with his senses | and to become as something that does not exist in creation | that has not come into being in this world | that is utterly unknown even to his soul and his senses. | And so long as such a man is hidden | locked away and withdrawn from the world | he remains wholly with his Lord. | Homily 71, p. 496