The Silence That Provokes

But what kind of thing is this? Sometimes we imagine that we are patient because, when provoked, we scorn to answer. Yet by sullen silence, or by scornful movements and gestures, we so mock our angry brothers that our silent looks provoke them to anger more than angry reproaches would have done. Meanwhile we think we are in no way guilty before God, because nothing has fallen from our lips that could brand us or condemn us in the judgment of men. As if in the sight of God it were only words, and not chiefly the will, that are called to account! As if only the actual deed of sin, and not also the wish and the purpose, were counted as wrong! Or as if at the judgment each one will be asked only what he did, and not also what he intended to do! For it is not only the kind of anger stirred up that is bad, but also the purpose of the man who provokes it. And so the true scrutiny of our Judge will ask not how the quarrel was stirred up but by whose fault it arose. For it is the purpose of the sin that must be taken into account, not the way in which the fault is committed. [a]

For what does it matter whether a man kills his brother with a sword by his own hand or drives him to death by some fraud, when it is clear that he is killed by his schemes and his crime? As if it were enough not to have pushed a blind man down with one’s own hand, when the one who scorned to save him, though it was in his power, when he had fallen and was about to tumble into the ditch, is equally guilty! Or as if only the man who had seized someone with his hand were guilty, and not also the one who had prepared and set the trap for him, or who would not set him free when he could have done so! So it is no good to hold one’s tongue if we impose silence on ourselves for this reason: that by our silence we may do what an outburst on our part would have done, putting on certain gestures by which the man we ought to have cured is made still angrier, while we are praised for it all, to his loss and harm. As if a man were not all the more guilty for this very reason, that he tried to win glory for himself out of his brother’s fall!

For such a silence will be equally bad for both. While it increases the resentment in the other’s heart, it also keeps it from being removed from one’s own. And against such people the prophet’s curse is rightly directed: “Woe to him who gives his friend drink, and offers him gall, and makes him drunk, so that he may look on his nakedness. He is filled with shame instead of glory.” And this too, which another says of such people: “For every brother will utterly supplant, and every friend will walk deceitfully. And a man will mock his brother, and they will not speak the truth; for they have bent their tongue like a bow for lies and not for truth.” But often a pretended patience provokes anger more sharply than words, and a spiteful silence goes beyond the most dreadful insults in words. The wounds of enemies are more easily borne than the deceitful flattery of mockers, of which the prophet well says: “Their words are smoother than oil, and yet they are darts.” And elsewhere: “The words of the crafty are soft, but they strike within the belly.” To which this, too, may fittingly be applied: “With his mouth he speaks peace to his friend, but in secret he lays snares for him.” Yet by this it is rather the deceiver who is deceived, for “if a man prepares a net before his friend, it surrounds his own feet,” and, “If a man digs a pit for his neighbor, he will fall into it himself.”

Lastly, when a great crowd had come with swords and clubs to take the Lord, none of the murderers of the Author of our life stood out as more cruel than the one who went ahead of them all with a counterfeit show of respect and greeting, and offered a kiss of pretended love. To him the Lord said: “Judas, do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” That is, the bitterness of your persecution and hatred has taken as its cloak this sign that expresses the sweetness of true love. He brings out the force of this grief more openly and more strongly through the prophet, saying: “For if my enemy had cursed me, I would have borne it; and if he who hated me had spoken great things against me, I would have hidden myself from him. But it was you, a man of one mind with me, my guide and my familiar friend, who took sweet food together with me; in the house of God we walked in agreement.”