There is an expression that was used by the Romans, “to give it the sponge,” which meant “to erase.” In those times, a kind of damp sponge was used to erase low-quality ink written on papyri.
It is said that the great Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, or simply Augustus, who is considered the first Roman emperor (even though he never called himself emperor) for being the one who transformed a shattered republic into what became the Roman Empire, once used this phrase.
Augustus was writing a tragedy in which the protagonist was Ajax. Ajax was a Greek character who ended up taking his own life. According to the account, Ajax threw himself onto his own sword to kill himself.
According to the story, Augustus realized that his literary work was not worthwhile because it did not have the necessary level to be considered an artistic work. So, instead of using his power and the favor of all those around him to have them say it was a work worthy of being known, he decided to end it without finishing it.
Someone who knew that the emperor had immersed himself in such an undertaking one day asked the emperor how it was going, to which he responded comically, saying: “It has been thrown onto the sponge,” alluding to Ajax who threw himself onto his sword and to the phrase “to give it the sponge.”
It is a response that is surprising coming from the emperor, but it helps us to understand the attitude we should have toward things that are beyond us, and also toward our weaknesses and deficiencies. The best way to acquire this attitude is to grow in the virtue of humility.
Saint Thomas Aquinas says, commenting on the twelve degrees of humility that Saint Benedict points out in his Monastic Rule, that the seventh degree of humility makes us recognize our own defects and limits, that is, it makes us recognize that we are not capable of things that are beyond us. Humility, although “it is chiefly concerned with the appetite, insofar as man restrains the impulse of his mind so that he does not seek great things inordinately,” also “has its rule in knowledge, which consists in this, that no one overestimate himself” (S.Th. II-II, 161, 6).
Precisely for this reason, humility is opposed, as Saint Bernard says, to the twelve degrees of pride, among which is presumption, which makes us believe that we are capable of things that are beyond us. Pride is the disordered appetite for one’s own excellence that makes us boast of what we are not at all or at least of what we are not to the degree in which we attribute such excellence to ourselves.
To acquire this most important virtue, which is indispensable for growing in holiness, we must practice these three things: first, we must recognize God’s action through His grace in us, having the same attitude that Saint Paul had: By the grace of God I am what I am (1 Cor 15:10), and never glory in the good we do as if we were the principal cause of it. Second, it is important always to distrust oneself, because he who trusts in his own strength does not trust in God. On the other hand, he who distrusts himself trusts in God, like Saint Paul who, trusting in God, said: I can do all things in Him who strengthens me (Phil 4:13). Finally, to abhor pride, one must know how to endure the humiliations that God sends us to prevent us from falling into pride. Speaking of himself Saint Paul says: To keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh (2 Cor 12:7).
