Anger Turned Against Ourselves

So we are commanded to “be angry” in a wholesome way, but with ourselves and with the evil thoughts that arise, and “not to sin,” that is, by bringing them to a bad end. The next verse, in fact, explains this meaning more clearly: “What you say in your hearts, be sorry for it on your beds.” That is: whatever you think in your hearts when sudden, agitated impulses rush in on you, correct and amend it with wholesome sorrow, lying as it were on a bed of rest, and by the moderating influence of counsel removing all the noise and disturbance of wrath. [a]

Then the blessed apostle, when he used the testimony of this verse and said, “Be angry, and do not sin,” added, “Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, and do not give place to the devil.” If it is dangerous for the sun of righteousness to go down on our wrath, and if when we are angry we immediately give place to the devil in our hearts, how is it that just before he charges us to be angry, saying, “Be angry, and do not sin”? Does he not plainly mean this: be angry with your faults and your tempers, so that, if you go along with them, Christ, the sun of righteousness, may not begin to go down on your darkened minds because of your anger, and you may not, when he departs, give the devil a place in your hearts?