The Archbishop of York, Dr David Hope, caused a flurry of soul-searching yesterday when he announced that he is renouncing his office as the country’s second most senior clergyman to return to his vocation as a parish priest.

Pomp and ceremony are being put aside for smells and bells on a smaller scale. And with the job go the perks: the flocks, the frocks, the bling. In bidding farewell to the politics, Dr Hope puts behind him a chauffeur-driven mission and a palace and nine- acre retreat on the banks of the River Ouse. As the priest of St Margaret’s, Ilkley, his income will drop to an £18,000 vicar’s stipend from the £51,000 he was entitled to as archbishop. He will still qualify to sit in the House of Lords as one of the Lords Spiritual. But this is likely to be the final vestige of worldly renown in a life that will take on the rhythms of parochial existence: birth, marriage, death, the annual suggestive calendar.

Christianity’s commitment to humility is long established, in theory at least. Even the swaggering heroes of the Old Testament were likely to find themselves marked out for illustrious futures at the same time as being warned not to get too big for their sandals. Job was rather full of himself, until the Almighty cut him down to size to repent in sackcloth and ashes; while Moses was such a modest sort of chap that he required his pushier brother Aaron to act as spin-doctor.

All too often the world’s religions have required sudden self-abasement on the part of those upon whom fortune has smiled. Francis of Assisi was a rich-kid troubadour and man about town when God decided to transform him into the Poverello, or “Poor Little Man”. Buddha lead a still more charmed existence before he found his calling. A prince with doting parents, a sycophantic court, and 40,000 female attendants, he gave it all up for a life of wandering and contemplation.

Even among the most spectacularly secular reaches of today’s society, a rash of so-called downshifting (though some call it “downsizing”) coincided with the new millennium. Barbra Streisand kicked off the trend by announcing her ambition to “simplify” her life, complicating it still further by setting up an eBay-style auction site. Sir Elton John followed suit, discovering a fleet of classic cars while sorting out his garage.

But humility has taken a back seat as the psychobabble of self-worth has taken over, and the notion of service dropped in favour of the slavish pursuit of celebrity. Of course, we must be wary of mock humility of the Uriah Heep mode. But Dr Hope, in his thoroughly modern choice of less power and prestige, has provided inspiration for those driven to despair by ambition.