pomps and vanities of this wicked world, the

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pomps and vanities of this wicked world, the ostentatious display as a type of worldly temptation; after the answer in the Catechism. Pomps here meant originally the public shows and spectacles associated with or sanctioned by pagan worship, then, more vaguely, any ‘shows’ held to be under the patronage of the devil, and finally (from the 17th century) tacitly transferred to those of ‘the world’ and associated with its ‘vanities’.