On Anger and Enmity

-St. Basil the Great

It is utterly blameworthy for a Christian to be quick to revenge and in every way to strive to repay in kind those who have offended him. For how can one teach another not to render evil for evil when he himself does all he can to take vengeance and return injury for injury to the one who provoked him, instead of imitating the meekness of David who said: “If I have repaid those who repaid me evil, then may I fall empty away from my enemies” (Ps 7:5)?

Therefore, Christian, you must restrain the fierce and senseless movement of the spirit, holding before you the example of the blessed David, how he meekly endured the reproach of Shimei and gave no place for anger to arise, lifting his thought to God and saying: “The Lord told Shimei to curse David” (2 Sam 16:10). Though called a man of blood and a man of iniquity, David did not resist him but humbled himself, as though the reproach were justly spoken against him. All the more so, because any rebuke that plainly touches the one rebuked forces his conscience to be tormented, for it sets before him the shame of his sin; thus it greatly benefits one who is insensible of his transgressions by bringing him to awareness and true repentance. What bodily wound could cause such fierce pain to the flesh? How great a torment does a reproving word work in the soul when it touches a conscience oppressed by the shame of iniquity!

Bodily form does not belong to anyone so properly as peace and meekness belong to a God-loving soul. It is fitting, therefore, for such a soul to draw others to itself and to fill all who approach with the fragrance of virtuous character, to lead others to what is better rather than follow others in what is unseemly, to leave contentiousness to others, and if possible to root it out of their hearts as well, and to conquer insults with guilelessness. For to take revenge is the part of any angry man, but to overcome anger itself belongs only to the meek man and to those like him in virtue.

Oh, what a beautiful sight! How honourable and worthy of wonder—almost beyond human nature!—when a man greatly reviled, sometimes even struck on the cheek, enduring countless other things from those who by word and deed bring him to utter disgrace, not only does not stir himself to revenge but even prays gently and without anger for his offender, that both his former sin may be forgiven and that God may henceforth grant him fitting care! Yet we, among our many other evils, sin especially in this: we strive to return evil, and not merely in equal measure but far more; we grow angry not only when we suffer insult but even when we are not shown honour; we count as enemies those who give us less honour than we claim for ourselves.

Has someone insulted you in anger? Hold back the evil with silence. Let his fury, like a stream, find no entrance into your heart; be like cliffs that throw back whatever is hurled against them by contrary winds. Has he slandered you? Bless him. Has he struck you? Endure it. Has he despised and counted you as nothing? Consider yourself: from earth you were taken and to earth you will return. Has he called you dishonoured, despised, a man of no account? Call yourself earth and ashes—you are certainly no greater than our father Abraham, who called himself thus. Has someone called you unlearned and poor? Call yourself a worm and one who came from corruption, speaking the words of David. Add to this the virtue of Moses: when reproached by Aaron and Miriam, he did not complain to God but prayed for them. If someone calls you poor and speaks the truth, accept the truth; if he lies, what concern is it of yours? Do not grow weak when praised beyond the truth, nor rage when reproached if it does not touch you.

Do you not see how arrows pierce hard and solid objects but lose their force in soft and yielding things? Why then does the name “poor” disturb you? Remember your nature: naked you came into this life, naked you will depart. What is poorer than one who is naked? These words are not unbearable for you. Who was ever imprisoned for poverty? Poverty itself is not a reproach; what is reproachful is not bearing poverty with good courage.

What is more senseless than anger? If you remain without anger, you put the insulter to shame, showing forth your self-control by the very deed. Just as one who strikes an insensible object only torments himself (for he can neither avenge himself on his enemy nor satisfy his anger), so the reviler finds no relief for his passion in one who is unmoved by his revilings. But if you take revenge and rise up in turn against your accuser, how will you then claim that he provoked you first? And is that a worthy excuse? Does the fornicator who blames the harlot as the cause of his sin lessen his own condemnation? If reproach is an evil, avoid imitating it. The fact that another began it does not excuse you; on the contrary, in my judgment it justly increases indignation against you, because the angry man has no example of self-control, whereas you, seeing the ugliness of the angry man, did not turn away from becoming like him but grew indignant, resisted, and opposed him—thus your indignation serves as justification for the one who began it. For if anger is evil, why did you not flee from evil? If it is something worthy of pardon, why do you rage against the one who rages?

He who answers a fool according to his folly is thought in some way to be like him. Solomon says: “Answer not a fool according to his folly” (Prov 26:4). Whoever insults the image of the king is judged as a criminal against the king himself; in the same way, he who insults one created in the image of God is guilty of sin.

“With a wrathful man do not dwell” (Prov 24:21), says the wise man. It is an intolerable calamity to be chained to a dog and hear constant barking. Flee, therefore, from living with the wrathful, lest you too grow accustomed to his ways. Has he said something offensive? By that he stirs you also to fury. Just as the barking of one dog rouses another to bark in kind, so he awakens the anger that sleeps silently in you, and you bark at each other in turn. Then, standing face to face, you hurl dishonouring words like stones from a sling. He speaks something insulting to you, you repay with added measure, imitating what went before. He, receiving repayment for his insult, does not restrain his impulse but increases his anger, wishing to surpass you in abuse; you, hearing it, are again lifted up, and thus a rivalry in evil is born. In an evil contest the victor is the most wretched, for once passion has overcome reason and begins to act in the soul, it makes a man into a beast and no longer allows him to be human. What poison is in venomous creatures, wrath is in the angry. They bark like dogs, leap like scorpions, bite like serpents. The angry first forget themselves, then all their kin. In wrath the sword is sharpened; death is boldly inflicted on a man by the hand of his fellow. In rage brothers do not recognise each other, parents and children forget nature. Like torrents rushing down to low places and dragging along everything in their path, the violent and unrestrainable assaults of the angry fall equally upon all. Stung as by a goad by the memory of those who offended them, with fury blazing and leaping within, they do not cease until they have inflicted evil upon their offender.

When a man burns like a flame because of abundant combustible material, he presents a spectacle that neither word can describe nor deed portray. His hands are raised against his neighbour, his very feet boldly rush forward; finally, everything that falls into his hands becomes an instrument of his frenzy. And when on the other side he meets equal evil—an equal anger and madness—then, fighting one another, they both do and suffer what those who war under the power of one and the same demon endure.

It is well known that mutual insults and provocations at first are small and easily healed, but in time, increased by rivalry, they reach a point where they become very difficult to cure. As long as slanders arising from discord are not broken off, suspicions of greater evil continually multiply.

When, O Christian, you see an angry man gnashing his teeth, consider that this man is like a wild boar displaying inward fury by the grinding of his tusks. In evil contests the most unfortunate is the one who conquers, for he departs with the greater sin.

Direct your anger only against the serpent. For what justified Phinehas? Was it not righteous anger against those who went astray? Though he was always quiet and meek, when he saw the fornication of Zimri with the Midianite woman carried out openly and shamelessly—so that they did not even cover the shameful spectacle—he could not bear it but, rightly using anger at the proper moment, pierced both with a spear (Num 25:7–8). Likewise Elijah the Zealot, with reasonable and chaste anger, for the benefit of all Israel put to death the four hundred and fifty priests of shame and the four hundred prophets of the groves who ate at Jezebel’s table (1 Kgs 18:19, 40). In such cases anger often becomes a servant of good deeds. Indeed, everyone will look with greater pleasure upon a friend who is angry (for a just cause) than upon another who merely shows honour.

Let us, therefore, imitate these examples and sharpen our anger not against ourselves but only against the devil, when we desire to become worthy of the kingdom of heaven, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom, together with his beginningless Father and the all-holy and life-giving Spirit, belong glory and power, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.