Here is
what the Pharisee says: “God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are.” He
is not, in fact, thanking God for this, acknowledging that it is God’s doing
that he is not as other men. No; the words: “God, I thank Thee … ” are nothing
more than an exclamation, a flattering approach to God so that God will listen
to his boast. For, from all that he says, he is not thanking God for anything;
on the contrary, he is blaspheming against God by blaspheming against the rest of
God’s creation.
He is thanking God for nothing; everything that he says about
himself is expressed as his own doing, achieved without God’s help. He will not
say that he is not an extortioner, an unjust man, an adulterer or a
tax-collector because God has preserved him from this by His power and His
mercy. In no way; but only because he is what he is in his own assessment: a
man of such exceptional type and worth that he has no peer in the whole
world.Book St Nikolai Homilies
From “Sunday of the Pharisee and the Publican:
The
Gospel on True and False Prayer,” Homilies Volume 1
CONVERSATION