Basil of Caesarea

The cedar is at times praised by Scripture as a stable tree, free from decay, fragrant, and adequate for supplying shelter, but at times it is attacked as unfruitful and hard to bend, so that it offers a representation of impiety.… The Lord is said to break those vainly puffed up and magnifying themselves in the things of this world that are considered exalting, wealth, glory, power, beauty of body, influence or strength.… Just as the cedars, which are lofty in themselves, because they are produced on a high mountain become more conspicuous through the added height of the mountain, so also those leaning on the perishable things of the world are cedars indeed through their false glory and vanity of mind; and they are called cedars of Libanus because they are glorying in the elevation that belongs to another and are raised up to their false glory by the earth and earthly circumstance, as if by the summit of Libanus.