In Proverbs we read the explicit declaration: 'Wrath destroyeth even the prudent,'! and the Apostle admonishes us as follows: 'Let all anger and indignation and clamour be put away from you with all malice.' The Lord, likewise, says that whoever gives way lightly to anger against his brother is in danger of the judgment. Now, when we have had experience with the vice of anger, not as arising within ourselves, but attacking us from without, like a sudden tempest, then, especially, do we perceive the excellence of the divine precept. If we have ever yielded before such anger, as if giving passage to a strongly flowing stream, and have studied calmly the shameful paroxysms which commonly afflict persons who are in the grip of this passion, we have also recognized in actual fact the validity of the saying: 'A wrathful man is not seemly.' Indeed, this vice, when it has once succeeded in banishing reason, itself usurps the dominion over the soul. It makes a man wholly bestial and, in fact, it does not even allow him to be a man, since he no longer has the aid of his reason. The effect of anger upon persons aroused by this passion is like that of the poison in animals who carry venom. They become rabid, like mad dogs; they dart about, like scorpions; they bite, like serpents. The Scripture also recognizes the truth of this and applies the names of wild animals to those who are under the power of any vice; for, by their wickedness, they acquire an affinity with them. Isaias calls them dumb dogs, serpents, a generation of vipers, etc.
Certainly, they who are bent upon mutual destruction and upon doing harm to their fellow men, would be appropriately numbered with wild and poisonous beasts who by nature bear an implacable enmity toward mankind. Anger causes tongues to become unbridled, and speech, unguarded. Physical violence, acts of contumely, reviling, accusations, blows, and other bad effects too numerous to recount are born of anger and indignation. By indignation, also, the sword is sharpened; a human hand dares to take a human life. For this cause, brothers have lost sight of their brotherhood; parents and children have forgotten their natural bond. Angry men become strangers first to themselves, then to all their friends as well. Like mountain torrents which converge their streams in the valleys and sweep along with them everything in their path, the violent and uncontrolled onset of an angry man carries all before it. The wrathful have no respect for old age, nor for a virtuous life, nor ties of kinship, nor favors received in the past, nor for anything else worthy of honor.
Anger is a kind of temporary madness. Its victims often plunge headlong into open peril, so careless of themselves are they in their eagerness for revenge. Stung on all sides, as by a gad-fly, by the recollection of the authors of their wrongs, their wrath struggling and bounding within them, they do not rest until they have inflicted some hurt upon their tormenter, or, perhaps, as sometimes happens, until they themselves receive an injury. For, very often, objects which are broken through violent usage, in as much as they are shattered against resisting bodies, suffer greater injury than they inflict.
Who could adequately describe the evil-how vehement natures, fired with indignation for some trivial cause, shout and rage and leap upon their prey more ruthlessly than a venomous beast? Nor do they leave off until the flame has spent itself and the wrath within them has burst like a bubble in working great and even irremediable harm. Neither the point of the sword, nor fire, nor any means of inspiring fear is able to restrain the spirit frenzied with wrath, any more than such threats subdue persons possessed by the Devil (from whom angry men differ not at all, either in appearance or state of soul). In those who are thirsting for revenge, the blood boils around the heart as if it were seething and bubbling over a high fire. Bursting forth to the surface, his passion reveals the angry man under a different aspect from his habitual one that is well known to all. It is as if a theatrical mask altered his appearance. His friends do not discern in his eyes their characteristic and wonted expression. His glance is wild and presently darts fire. He gnashes his teeth like a charging boar. His face is livid and suffused with blood, his body swells, his veins burst, his breathing is labored because of the tempest raging within. His voice is hoarse and strained, his utterance thick, his words without logic, sequence, order, or meaning. When his anger has, by aggravation, reached the point of uncontrollable fury, like a flame abundantly fed, then, indeed, is the spectacle indescribable and unbearable to witness. His hands are lifted even against his kinsmen. No part of the body is safe. His feet trample ruthlessly upon the most vital organs and every object in sight becomes a weapon for his fury. And if such persons find arrayed against them an adversary who threatens them equally-that is, with another fit of anger and a like frenzy-they close with them, and both sides inflict and suffer as many injuries as the henchmen of so fierce a demon deserve. The combatants then carry off mutilated members as prizes for their wrath; not infrequently, even death results. It had begun with one of the pair unjustly laying violent hands upon the other. The latter then returns the blow and refuses to give way. Their bodies get well pummeled but anger deadens the pain. They have not time to become aware of their injuries, since their whole attention is taken up with wreaking vengeance.
Do not, therefore, endeavor to cure one evil with another and do not try to outdo one another in inflicting 'harm. The victor in unrighteous combats is the more unhappy, for he bears away the greater share of guilt. Do not, then, return evil for evil and do not increase your debt of wickedness by paying it. If someone in a fit of anger has treated you despitefully, bear the wrong in silence. But you, contrariwise, receive into your own heart your adversary's gust of wrath and then you imitate the winds which return by a counter-blast whatever is flung against the direction in which they are blowing. Let not your enemy be your teacher and model. Do not imitate what you hate. Do not become a mirror, as it were, for an angry man by reflecting his image. His face is flushed. Why has not yours turned red? His eyes are suffused with blood. Do you mean to say that yours keep their placid expression?
His voice is hoarse. Surely, yours is not gentle! An echo in the desert is not so perfectly returned to the speaker as insults are turned back upon the reviler. Nay, the sound of an echo comes back the same, but the insult is answered with increase.
Now, what sort of taunts are they which revilers utter back and forth? One calls the other a common fellow of ignoble stock. He, in turn, calls the first a slave of slaves. One says, 'pauper'; the other answers, 'vagabond.' One cries, 'fool'; the other shouts, 'madman'; until, like arrows, their armory of insults is exhausted. Then, when they have used up their stock of verbal abuse, they proceed to fighting it out with blows. Thus, anger stirs up strife, strife begets railing, railing leads to blows, blows to wounds, and from wounds, often enough, death results. Let us, however, check the evil at its source, by making use of every device for expelling anger from our souls. By so doing, we could exterminate most of our vices along with this one, which serves as their root and source. Has someone insulted you? Bless him. Has he struck you? Suffer it. Has he despised you and set you at naught?
Reflect that you are made of earth and that you will return to the earth. Whoever arms himself beforehand with these considerations will find that every insult falls short of the truth.
Thus will you make it impossible for your enemy to avenge himself, since you show yourself impervious to his taunts.
Further, you will secure for yourself the great crown of patience by making the insane fury of another the occasion for practicing your own philosophy. If you listen to me, therefore, you also will add force to the insults cast at you. If he calls you common, ignoble, a nobody, then call yourself earth and ashes. You are not more worthy of honor than our father, Abraham, and he used to refer to himself in this way. If your enemy says you are an ignoramus, a beggar, a worthless fellow, call yourself in the words of David, 'a worm, born of a dunghill. To these responses, add also Moses' noble conduct. When he was reviled by Aaron and Mary, he did not make accusations against them to God, but prayed for them. Of whose disciples would you rather be-the saints, the friends of God, or men filled with the spirit of iniquity?
Whenever the temptation to revile another assails you, consider that you are being put to the test: whether you will practice patience and go over to God's side or give way to anger and run off to His Adversary. Give your reason the opportunity of choosing the best part. For, either you will confer a kind of favor upon your enemy by giving him an example of mildness, or, by your disdaining to bandy insults with him, you will exact a crueler vengeance. What could be more painful to a hostile man than to see an enemy showing contempt for his insults? Retain your self-possession; be invulnerable to affronts. Let your enemy bark at you to no avail and let his rage burst upon himself. A man who strikes a person who has no feeling takes vengeance upon himself (for he did not succeed in exacting it from his enemy and he found no outlet for his wrath). In the same way, a person who showers abuse upon one who is insensible to his taunts finds himelf powerless to relieve his feelings, and, as I have said, he quite tears himself asunder. Moreover, what are the epithets that are applied to each of you under such circumstances? He is called an abusive fellow; you, a magnanimous one. He is dubbed irritable and rude; you, long-suffering and mild. He will suffer remorse for his words; you will never regret practicing virtue.
Saint Basil from Homily
Against Those Who Are Prone to Anger
SAINT BASIL ASCETICAL WORKS Translated by SISTER M. MONICA WAGNER, C. S. C.
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