The Meek and the Quick-Tempered

Admonition 17. The meek and the quick-tempered are to be admonished differently. For sometimes the meek, when they are in authority, suffer from the numbness of sloth, which is a disposition akin to meekness and placed, as it were, right beside it. And very often, from the slackness of too much gentleness, they soften the force of strictness more than they should. But the quick-tempered, on the other hand, swept into frenzy of mind by the impulse of anger, break up the calm of quiet, and so throw into confusion the life of those placed under them. For when rage drives them headlong, they do not know what they do in their anger, and they do not know what they suffer from themselves in their anger. But sometimes, what is more serious, they think the goad of their anger is zeal for righteousness. And when vice is believed to be virtue, guilt piles up without fear. [a]

Often, then, the meek grow numb in the laziness of inaction; often the quick-tempered are deceived by zeal for uprightness. So to the virtue of the former a vice is joined without their knowing it, while to the latter their vice looks like a fervent virtue. The former, therefore, are to be admonished to flee what lies close beside them, the latter to watch what lies within them; the former to discern what they do not have, the latter what they have. Let the meek embrace concern; let the quick-tempered banish agitation. The meek are to be admonished to make an effort to have the zeal of righteousness as well. The quick-tempered are to be admonished to add meekness to the zeal they think they have. For this is why the Holy Spirit has been shown to us in a dove and in fire: because all whom he fills, he makes to show themselves both meek with the simplicity of the dove and burning with the fire of zeal.

So no one is full of the Holy Spirit who either, in the calm of meekness, forsakes the fervor of zeal, or else, in the heat of zeal, loses the virtue of meekness. Perhaps we will show this better if we bring forward the authority of Paul. To two of his disciples, who were endowed with a like love, he nevertheless supplies different aids for preaching. For in admonishing Timothy he says, “Reprove, entreat, rebuke, with all patience and teaching.” Titus too he admonishes, saying, “Speak these things, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority.” Why does he deal out his teaching with such great skill that, in presenting it, he commends authority to the one and patience to the other, unless he saw that Titus was of a meeker spirit and Timothy of a somewhat more fervent one? The former he inflames with the earnestness of zeal; the latter he moderates with the gentleness of patience. To the one he adds what is lacking; from the other he takes away what is overabundant. The one he tries to urge on with a spur, the other to hold back with a bridle. For the great gardener who has taken the church into his charge waters some shoots so that they may grow, but prunes others when he sees that they grow too much. Otherwise the first, by not growing, would bear no fruit, or the others, by growing too much, would lose the fruit they put forth. [c]

But the anger that creeps in under the cover of zeal is very different from the anger that throws the agitated heart into confusion without any pretext of righteousness. For the former is stretched beyond due measure in a matter where it ought to be, but the latter is always kindled in a matter where it ought not to be. It should be known, indeed, that the quick-tempered differ from the impatient in this: the impatient do not bear with what others bring on them, but the quick-tempered themselves bring on what others must bear with. For the quick-tempered often pursue those who avoid them, stir up occasions for strife, and delight in the toil of quarreling. Yet we correct such people better if, in the midst of the stir of their anger, we avoid them. For while they are agitated, they do not understand what we say to them; but when they have come back to themselves, they receive words of exhortation all the more freely, the more they blush at having been borne with so calmly. But to a mind drunk with fury, every right thing that is said seems wrong. That is why Abigail did well to keep silent to Nabal about his fault while he was drunk, and did equally well to tell him of it once he had slept off his wine. For he could perceive the evil he had done precisely because he had not heard of it while drunk.

But when the quick-tempered attack others so that they cannot be avoided altogether, they should be struck, not with open rebuke, but sparingly, with a certain respectful caution. We will show this better if we bring forward what Abner did. For when Asahel attacked him with the violence of thoughtless haste, it is written, “Abner spoke to Asahel, saying, ‘Turn aside from following me, or I will be forced to strike you to the ground.’ But he scorned to listen, and refused to turn aside. So Abner struck him in the groin with the butt end of his spear, and ran him through, and he died.” Of whom did Asahel present a figure but of those whom fury seizes violently and carries headlong? Such people, in that same attack of fury, are to be avoided cautiously, in proportion as they are madly hurried on. That is why Abner too, whose name in our language means “lantern of the father,” fled. For when the tongue of teachers, which points to the light of God above, sees anyone’s mind carried along over the cliffs of rage, and holds back from hurling darts of words back at the angry person, it is as though it were unwilling to strike one who is pursuing it. [f]

But when the quick-tempered will not calm themselves by any consideration, and, like Asahel, do not stop pursuing and raging, those who try to restrain these furious people must by no means rise up in fury themselves, but must show all possible calm. And yet they should skillfully bring something to bear by which they may prick the heart of the furious person with a side thrust. That is why Abner, when he made a stand against his pursuer, pierced him, not with a straight blow, but with the butt end of his spear. For to strike with the point is to oppose with the onset of open rebuke; but to strike the pursuer with the butt end of the spear is to touch the furious person calmly with certain hits, and, as it were, to overcome him by sparing him. Asahel, moreover, fell at once, because agitated minds, when they feel themselves spared and yet are touched inwardly by answers given in calm, fall at once from the height to which they had raised themselves. Those, then, who fall back from the onset of their heat under the stroke of gentleness die, as it were, without steel.