How Calm a Monk Should Be

So a monk who aims at perfection and wants to compete by the rules in his spiritual combat should be free from every sin of anger and wrath, and should listen to the charge the “chosen vessel” gives him: “Let all anger,” he says, “and wrath, and shouting, and slander be put away from you, with all malice.” When he says, “Let all anger be put away from you,” he makes no exception of any anger as necessary or useful for us. And if need be, he should treat an erring brother at once, but in such a way that, while he manages to apply a remedy to one suffering perhaps from a slight fever, he does not by his own wrath bring on himself the more dangerous disease of blindness. For whoever wants to heal another’s wound ought himself to be in good health and free from every touch of weakness, so that the gospel saying is not used against him: “Physician, heal yourself first.” Nor should he, seeing a speck in his brother’s eye, fail to see the beam in his own. For how will he see to take the speck out of his brother’s eye, who has the beam of anger in his own? [a]