In the classics it is used commonly in a bad and degrading sense, of meanness of condition, lowness of rank, and cringing abjectness and baseness of character. Still, even in classical Greek , this is not its universal usage. It is occasionally employed in a way which foreshadows its higher sense. At best , however, the classical conception is only modesty, absence of assumption. This virtue is based upon a correct estimate of our actual littleness, and is linked with a sense of sinfulness .
True greatness is holiness .
We are little because sinful . Compare Luke xviii. And thus the grace of humility belongs to the highest angel before the throne , being as he is a creature, yea, even to the Lord of Glory himself. The Christian virtue regards man not only with reference to God , but to his fellow-man. It is noteworthy that neither the Septuagint, the Apocrypha , nor the New Testament recognize the ignoble classical sense of the word.