Verse 2. Wrath killeth the foolish man, and envy slayeth the little one. 78. Eliphaz says true things, but not truly against Job. How great is the guilt of wrath, how many its evils. This statement would indeed be true, had it not been leveled against the patience of so great a man. But let us weigh what is said, although it is repelled by the virtue of the very hearer, that we may show how right is what is uttered, if only it be not unjustly deserved against blessed Job — since it is written: But thou, O Lord, judgest with tranquility (Wisd. 12:18) — we must know most earnestly that as often as we restrain the turbulent motions of the soul under the virtue of meekness, we strive to return to the likeness of our Creator.
For when wrath strikes through the tranquility of the mind, it disturbs it, in a manner torn and rent, so that it is not in agreement with itself and loses the force of the inward likeness. Let us weigh, therefore, how great is the guilt of wrath, through which, while meekness is lost, the likeness of the supernal image is marred. Through wrath wisdom is lost, so that it is not at all known what is to be done or in what order, as it is written: Anger resteth in the bosom of a fool (Eccles. 7:10); because it doubtless withdraws the light of understanding when, by agitating, it confounds the mind. Through wrath life is lost, even though wisdom seem to be held, as it is written: Anger destroyeth even the prudent (Prov. 15:1, acc. to LXX);
because, namely, a confounded soul in no way accomplishes anything, even if it can prudently understand something. Through wrath justice is forsaken, as it is written: The wrath of man worketh not the justice of God (James 1:20); because, while the disturbed mind exasperates the judgment of its own reason, it thinks whatever fury suggests to be right. Through wrath the grace of social life is lost, as it is written: Be not a friend to an angry man, lest thou learn his ways, and take a stumbling-block to thy soul (Prov. 22:24, 25). And again: Who can dwell with a man whose spirit is quick to anger? (Prov. 18:14.) For he who does not temper himself by human reason must needs live alone like a beast.
Through wrath concord is broken, as it is written: An angry man stirreth up strifes, and a wrathful man diggeth up sins (Prov. 15:18). The wrathful man indeed digs up sins, because even the wicked, whom he incautiously provokes to discord, he makes worse. Through wrath the light of truth is lost, as it is written: Let not the sun go down upon your wrath (Eph. 4:26); because when wrath strikes the darkness of confusion into the mind, God hides from it the ray of His own knowledge. Through wrath the splendor of the Holy Spirit is shut out; whereas, on the contrary, according to the old translation it is written: Upon whom doth my Spirit rest, but upon the humble and the quiet, and him that trembleth at my words? (Isa. 66:2).
For when He had said "humble," He straightway added "quiet." If, therefore, wrath withdraws the quiet of the mind, it closes its dwelling to the Holy Spirit; and the soul, emptied by His departure, is soon led into open madness, and is scattered from the inmost foundation of its thoughts even to the surface. 79. The image of an angry man depicted in the best colors. For the heart, kindled by the goads of its wrath, throbs; the body trembles; the tongue stumbles; the face takes fire; the eyes are exasperated, and acquaintances are by no means recognized. With the mouth indeed it forms a cry, but the understanding knows not what it speaks. In what, then, is such a man far removed from those seized by frenzy, who is not conscious of his own action?
Whence it often comes to pass that wrath leaps forth even to the hands, and the farther reason recedes, the more boldly it rises up; and the soul cannot restrain itself, because it has become the property of another power; and fury exercises the members outwardly in blows to the very degree that within it holds captive the mind, the mistress of those members. Sometimes, however, it does not put forth the hands, but turns the tongue into a javelin of cursing. For it demands a brother's destruction by prayers, and desires God to accomplish that which the perverse man himself either fears or is ashamed to do. And so it comes about that by will and voice he commits murder, even when his hands refrain from harming his neighbor. Sometimes wrath, with the soul disturbed, imposes silence as though by judgment;
and in that it does not express itself outwardly through the tongue, it burns the worse within, so that each angry person withdraws his conversation from his neighbor, and by saying nothing declares how estranged he is. And sometimes this severity of silence is carried on through the dispensation of discipline, provided that in the inmost parts the form of discretion be carefully maintained. But sometimes the harshly kindled soul is restrained from its accustomed speech, and by the passing of time is utterly separated from love of the neighbor, and sharper goads come to the mind, and causes too arise which exasperate more grievously; and in the eye of the angry man the mote is turned into a beam, while wrath is changed into hatred.
Very often wrath, shut up within the mind through silence, seethes more vehemently and, though silent, forms clamorous voices; it casts before itself words by which it may be exasperated, and, as though placed at the examining of a cause, it answers back the more harshly, being the more exasperated; which Solomon briefly intimates, saying: The expectation of the wicked is fury (Prov. 11:23). And so it comes about that the disturbed soul feels a greater uproar of its own silence, and is the more grievously consumed by it from the flame of enclosed wrath. Whence a certain wise man before us has well said: The thoughts of an angry man are the brood of vipers; they devour their own mother, the mind. 80. The four degrees by which we are affected toward wrath. — Now it must be known that wrath kindles some more quickly and abandons them more easily.
But some it moves slowly indeed, yet holds longer. For some, like kindled reeds, while they crackle with their voices, give forth as it were certain sounds of their own kindling; they make a flame quickly indeed, but straightway grow cold into ashes. Others, however, not unlike heavier and harder logs, are slow to take fire, yet once kindled are with more difficulty extinguished, and because they are more slowly roused to harshness, they keep the fire of their fury the longer. Others again — which is more wicked — both take up the flames of wrath more quickly and lay them down more slowly. But some there are who both take these up slowly and let them go quickly.
In these four modes, indeed, the reader clearly recognizes that toward the good of tranquility the last approaches more nearly than the first, and in evil the third surpasses the second. But what does it profit that we say how wrath holds the mind, if we do not also express in what manner it ought to be checked? 81. Two ways of checking wrath. For by two ways, once broken, wrath grows unaccustomed to possessing the soul. The first indeed is that the anxious mind, before it begins to do anything whatever, should set before itself all the affronts it can suffer, so that, considering the reproaches of its Redeemer, it may prepare itself against adversities. These, indeed, as they come, it receives the more bravely, the more cautiously it has armed itself from foreknowledge.
For he who is caught unprovided by adversity is found as it were sleeping by an enemy; and the foe kills him the more quickly, because he pierces one who does not resist. But he who beforehand marks by anxiety the evils that threaten awaits the enemy's assaults as one watching in ambush; and thence he girds himself powerfully for victory, from that very quarter where he was thought likely to be caught unawares. Skillfully, therefore, before the beginnings of its action, the soul ought to meditate upon all adversities; so that, always thinking on these, always armed against them with the breastplate of patience, it may both providently overcome whatever comes, and reckon as gain whatever does not come.
The second mode of preserving meekness is that, when we look upon others' excesses, we should think upon our own faults, whereby we have transgressed against others. For our own infirmity, once considered, excuses to us the evils of others. For he patiently endures an injury inflicted who piously remembers that perhaps he still has something in which he himself ought to be endured. And as fire is quenched by water, so, when the fury of the soul rises, each one's own fault is recalled to his mind, because he is ashamed not to spare sins who recollects that he himself has often sinned in what must be spared, whether by God or by his neighbor. 82. One kind of wrath springs from impatience, another from zeal. The first blinds the eye; the other so disturbs it that it disposes it to see more clearly.
But amid these things it must be skillfully known that one wrath is that which impatience excites, another that which zeal forms. The former is begotten of vice, the latter of virtue. For if no wrath sprang from virtue, Phinehas would not have appeased by the sword the onrush of divine chastisement. Because Eli did not have this wrath, he implacably stirred up against himself the motion of supernal vengeance. For in the very degree that he grew lukewarm against the vices of his subjects, in that same degree the strictness of the eternal Ruler blazed out against him. Of this it is said through the Psalmist: Be ye angry, and sin not (Ps. 4:5). Which indeed they do not rightly understand who would have us be angry only at ourselves, and not also at our offending neighbors.
For if we are commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves, it remains that we should be angry at their errors as at our own vices. Of this it is said through Solomon: Anger is better than laughter, because by the sadness of the countenance the mind of the offender is corrected (Eccles. 7:4). Of this again the Psalmist says: Mine eye is troubled because of wrath (Ps. 6:8). For wrath through vice blinds the eye of the mind, but wrath through zeal troubles it; because in that it is shaken by an emulation of what is right, that contemplation which cannot be received except with a tranquil heart is dissipated. For the very zeal of rectitude, because it agitates the mind with disquiet, straightway darkens its keen sight, so that in commotion it does not see the higher things which, when tranquil, it beheld before.
But from that very source whence for a time it is dazzled so as not to see, it is more subtly led back to higher things. For the very emulation of what is right, after a little while, opens up eternal things more amply in tranquility, which meanwhile through commotion it shuts; and from that whence the mind is troubled so as not to see, from that same it profits so as to grow clearer for seeing more truly: just as, when a salve is put into an ailing eye, the light is wholly denied it; but from that very thing it afterwards truly recovers the light a little later, whence for a time it salutarily loses it.
But contemplation is never joined to commotion, nor does the disturbed mind prevail to behold that toward which even the tranquil mind scarcely avails to gaze; because neither is the sun's ray discerned when agitated clouds veil the face of heaven, nor does a troubled fountain give back the image of him who looks into it, which the tranquil one properly shows; because to the very degree that its water throbs, in that degree it darkens within itself the appearance of the likeness. 83. Care must be taken lest wrath, though arising from zeal, dominate the mind. But when the soul is moved through zeal, care must be taken above all lest this same wrath, which is assumed as an instrument of virtue, dominate the mind, nor go before as a mistress, but, like a handmaid ready for service, never depart from the rear of reason.
For then it is raised more robustly against vices, when it serves in subjection to reason. For however much wrath may spring from zeal for rectitude, if, being immoderate, it overcomes the mind, it straightway scorns to serve reason; and it spreads itself out the more shamelessly, the more it thinks the vice of impatience to be virtue. Whence it is necessary that he who is moved by zeal for rectitude should before all things attend to this, lest wrath pass beyond the dominion of the mind; but, considering the time and manner in the punishment of sin, let him more subtly restrain by deliberation the rising disturbance of the soul, repress animosity, and dispose the fervid motions under equity;
so that he may become a juster avenger of another's fault in the same degree in which he first stood forth as a conqueror of his own, in order that he may so correct the faults of offenders that first he himself who corrects may grow through patience, and, by transcending his own fervor, may judge it, lest, immoderately roused by the very zeal for rectitude, he stray far from rectitude. But because, as we have said, even the praiseworthy emulation of good troubles the eye of the mind, it is rightly said now: Wrath killeth the foolish man. As if it were plainly said: Wrath through zeal troubles the wise; but wrath through vice slaughters the foolish, because the former is restrained under reason, while the latter irrationally dominates the vanquished mind. But it is well subjoined: