In the world of business, the term imposter syndrome is used to describe the sense, felt by many a successful person, of secretly being a phony. It’s the idea that everyone else in the room deserves to be there, but you’ve been let in by accident. As the psychiatrist Carole Lieberman explains, it can involve an “all-encompassing fear of being found out to not have what it takes.” Or, as the headline in the satirical Onion puts it, “Report: Today the Day They Find Out You’re a Fraud.”
There is a specifically Christian version of this fear. Call it hypocrite syndrome. It’s the fear not only of being an imposter or a fraud but also a hypocrite. It’s not just that everyone else deserves to be at Mass and not me but that I’m a hypocrite for even trying to fit in. After all, the New Testament is filled with condemnations of hypocrisy, particularly that of the Pharisees. As Jesus warned his disciples:
Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known. Whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed upon the housetops (Luke 12:1-3).
Is there anyone for whom those words aren’t a sobering warning? Unfortunately, we often misunderstand hypocrisy in a way that can be perilous for us spiritually.
The first way we misunderstand hypocrisy is seeing it simply as a gap between what is professed and what is practiced. There’s an element of truth in this understanding of hypocrisy; after all, Jesus says that “the scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice” (Matt. 23:1-2).
But the point here is not that the Pharisees were falling short of their ideals but that they preached one set of principles for others and practiced another themselves. It’s the double standard that made them hypocrites, not simply their fallen sinfulness. After all, to borrow Oscar Wilde’s oft-misused quotation, “Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”
It’s easy to feel like a hypocrite for telling your teenage kids not to do the same things that you used to do, for instance. And Christ’s teaching is that “you, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). All of us who proclaim the Christian message, then, preach a gospel that we practice only imperfectly. King David was hardly unique in numbering his iniquities as “more than the hairs of my head” (Ps. 40:12).
If we mistake this gap between Christian perfection and our sinful lives as proof of hypocrisy, it’s easy to give up striving for perfection. True hypocrisy comes from the Greek hypokrites, which refers to an actor. It’s someone posing as pious for the crowds, not someone trying (and sometimes failing) in their piety.
The second way we misunderstand hypocrisy is an experiential one, the feeling of trying to be someone that we aren’t. If you’ve ever made a serious moral amendment in your life, chances are that you can recall the feeling of faking it. But here again, a miscalibration in our understanding of hypocrisy (and in our love of “authenticity”) can make us settle for the lowest common denominator version of ourselves, which isn’t what we’re called to by Christ.
Distinguishing real hypocrisy
Fortunately, St. Thomas Aquinas has practical advice for distinguishing real hypocrisy—and prescribing a cure for it. Aquinas used Christ’s warning to “beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matt. 7:15) to caution against hypocrisy, since “hypocrisy is the hiding place of false prophets.” (All Aquinas quotes herein are taken from a collatio (Latin, “conference”; a reflection, really, that he gave after a Mass he offered in 1271; found online at isidore.co/aquinas/Serm14Attendite.htm).
But in doing so, he makes a point that is easy to miss: the problem isn’t that they are in “sheep’s clothing” but that they are ravenous wolves. As he puts it, “Christ’s sheep should not have a hatred for their own clothing, even if wolves do cover themselves with it.”
After all, Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd and says that “my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:11, 27). And St. Paul talks about our need to clothe ourselves in Christ, saying that “as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27) and calling us to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (Rom. 13:14).
We should be in sheep’s clothing if we are the flock of Christ. Aquinas says, “Christ’s sheep are clothed in a fourfold way, namely with the clothing of worship, of justice, of penitence, and of innocence.”
Two important dimensions
There are two important dimensions to this insight. First, when we see hypocritical Christians not practicing what they preach, we should follow Christ’s admonition to follow their ovine teaching rather than their lupine behavior. Second, when we find that gap between practice and preaching in our own lives, we know which part to amend. We should see it not as an excuse to throw off our sheep’s clothing but as an opportunity to allow God to make us more the sheep we want to be.
St. Augustine makes a similar point in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus warns us not to give alms “as the hypocrites do” (Matt. 6:1-4), or to pray (vv. 5-6) or to fast (vv. 15-17) as they do. But he doesn’t tell us not to do those things.
In fact, he gives explicit instructions for what to do “when you give alms,” “when you pray,” and “when you fast.” The problem, in other words, is not with the outward actions of the hypocrites. It’s rather that hypocrites are clothed in Christ only externally.
Aquinas points to the Vulgate translation of Proverbs 31:21, which says that the virtuous woman does not fear the snow, for “her entire household is clothed with double garments.” Aquinas uses this imagery of double-layered clothing as a model for the Christian life: it’s not enough to be clothed with Christ exteriorly; we must let him clothe our inside as well.
The difference between holy people and hypocrites isn’t that one group wears sheep’s clothing and the other doesn’t. It’s that one group are inwardly sheep while the other “inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matt. 7:15).
So, how can we tell the two groups apart? Go back to Christ’s words warning against false prophets: “you will know them by their fruits,” since “every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit” (v. 16). How should we understand Jesus here? After all, we’ve just established that a hypocrite and a true follower of Christ might perform the same external actions, such as praying, fasting, and almsgiving. So how can we distinguish the two; and in particular, how can we tell whether or not we are hypocritical? Aquinas suggests a fourfold test.
The four fruits
The heart
The first is the fruit “of the heart,” meaning love of God and neighbor. St. Paul writes that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23). This biblical list makes for a helpful spiritual checklist.
Do I find myself growing in these? Or has my heart grown cold? In a particular way, Aquinas warns that “if anyone wishes to be honored and he displays humility outwardly,” this is a sign that our fruits aren’t matching our sheep’s clothing.
The mouth
The second is the fruit “of the mouth.” Pay careful attention to what you say, “since good men always say something good and speak about good.” For in-stance, how often am I opening my mouth in praise of God? The epistle to the Hebrews encourages us to “continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name” (Heb. 13:15).
On the other hand, do my words betray a spirit of jealous or judgmentalism or impurity? Proverbs warns that “death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits” (Prov. 18:21). So, the fruit of our mouth can either condemn or exonerate us. This is consistent with the special emphasis that Jesus places upon how our words reveal our authenticity or hypocrisy. Remember his warning that “whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed upon the housetops” (Luke 12:3).
St. James likewise compares the tongue to a rudder that guides the ship of the body, as well as to a small flame that can set an entire forest ablaze (James 3:4-5). Which way am I pointing my rudder?
Good actions
Third, there’s the fruit “of good actions.” Here again, Aquinas is not speaking against Christians who try and fail. He is instead warning against those who use the talk of Christianity for selfish ends such as “temporal gain and empty glory.” In other words, how do you conduct yourself in the details of life?
Aquinas gives the example of how one chooses to dress, fully aware that a hypocrite can draw our eyes with either “an attractive garment” or a particularly filthy one (to show everyone how humble he is). But the question should be the same in either case: do I dress to win the praise of others? And, of course, this principle extends to other areas, as well: do I make a show of an intentionally flashy (or an intentionally junky) car? Do I make sure to let everyone know how much, or how little, I make?
Patience and fortitude
The final fruit is that of “patience and fortitude,” for it is in times of tribulation that it becomes clearer who are the true sheep of Christ. When Christianity is popular, being seen as a devout Christian can be an attractive proposition for any number of reasons apart from authentic holiness. But when instead Christianity comes at a cost, those still drawn to Christianity are more likely to be sincere in their devotion.
In contrast, Aquinas warns that “hypocrites make a display of their meekness, but when they have the opportunity of persecuting, then they do their utmost to persecute.” After all, a person concerned more with seeming holy than being holy is happy to be seen as meek and humble but is unlikely to willingly undergo persecution by (for instance) openly affirming a truth that is politically or socially inconvenient.
Indeed, if Aquinas is right, we shouldn’t be surprised to see hypocritical Christians in such circumstances turning on their co-religionists to ingratiate themselves with the secular culture. In contrast, the Christian who bears hardships patiently for the sake of Christ shows himself to be a true sheep and no hypocrite.
What now?
If you take Aquinas’s fourfold test as an opportunity for a serious examination of conscience, there are (broadly speaking) two possible outcomes. The first is that you realize that you’re not a hypocrite. The prophet Micah reminds us that God “has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Mic. 6:8).
Maybe you’ve got sins in your past that you’re ashamed of, perhaps sins you even continue to struggle with, but you’re still someone who does justice, loves kindness, and walks humbly with God. In that case, be grateful to God to be freed of at least that sin, and let God use your own failings to keep you humble and merciful to others. This is a good guard against judging others, even of hypocrisy.
The devil in C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters aims to get Christians to never consider the obvious: “If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention?” (HarperOne edition [2001], 8).
Alternatively, perhaps the fourfold test revealed to you that you are a hypocrite, or at least more of a hypocrite than you would like to be. What then?
It’s helpful to understand why we are drawn to hypocrisy. Which are the unconverted parts of our hearts, and what holds us back from giving them fully to Jesus Christ? Chances are good that we are either trying to achieve holiness on our own apart from Christ and/or trying to pursue holiness with one foot in the world, be that in the form of impurity or a love of worldly honor and glory or any number of other ways.
We would do well to take to heart Jesus’ words: “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). If we want to bear better fruit, we need to abide more deeply in Christ rather than try to bear the fruit simply by our own halfhearted efforts.
To that end, in his second letter to Timothy, St. Paul provides a roadmap for purification:
If anyone purifies himself from what is ignoble, then he will be a vessel for noble use, consecrated and useful to the master of the house, ready for any good work. So shun youthful passions and aim at righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call upon the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with stupid, senseless controversies; you know that they breed quarrels (2 Tim. 2:21-23).
Imperfection is not hypocrisy
In the digital age, teeming as it is with impurity and stupid quarrels, we would do well to follow Paul’s roadmap. Fortunately, we may have already begun to do so. The Catechism of the Catholic Church juxtaposes hypocrisy with the virtue of truthfulness (CCC 2468). The hypocrite is a hypokrites, an actor. He’s playing the role of the saint without being a saint, and lying to everyone—including both God and himself.
We see this in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee goes into the temple and “prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get’” (Luke 18:11-12). The depth of the Pharisee’s self-deception is that even his ostentatious prayer is really just another form of self-flattery, a dramatic way of speaking with himself rather than with his Maker.
Telling the truth, even the truth that one struggles with hypocrisy, is the first step in being freed of the deception. It enables us to then “call upon the Lord,” who can lead us into righteousness, faith, love, and peace.
Hypocrisy is a serious sin, but it’s not the same as being an imperfect follower of Jesus Christ. Proverbs tells us that “a righteous man falls seven times and rises again; but the wicked are overthrown by calamity” (Prov. 24:16). Falling and rising again is thus not the mark of the hypocrite but of the righteous man. The wicked stay down.
For too long, we’ve allowed our fear of seeming (or being) hypocritical to hold us back from saying hard truths about the moral law, offering fraternal correction when needed, or even continuing in the arduous process of sanctification. We would do better to embrace the virtue of truthfulness, to acknowledge our weaknesses and our sinfulness, to confess ours sins to Christ, and to ask him for the grace that we may wear sheep’s clothing inside and out.