Righteous anger

[M. Markewich]

I've been struggling recently in being "slow to anger". I am really confused when I approach the Bible. I see Jesus, who, while being sacrificed and saying not a word except "Father, forgive them," I also see Jesus making a whip, flipping tables and calling the Pharisees a "brood of vipers" and "hypocrites". We are also told in the Bible to "be angry, but sin not". So how do we properly discipline ourselves to only have anger at the right time? I am confused because it seems like the Scriptures are giving mixed messages, although I know the real problem lies in my understanding.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

I've been struggling recently in being "slow to anger". I am really confused when I approach the Bible. I see Jesus, who, while being sacrificed and saying not a word except "Father, forgive them," I also see Jesus making a whip, flipping tables and calling the Pharisees a "brood of vipers" and "hypocrites". We are also told in the Bible to "be angry, but sin not". So how do we properly discipline ourselves to only have anger at the right time? I am confused because it seems like the Scriptures are giving mixed messages, although I know the real problem lies in my understanding.

We have to be careful not to confuse God's anger with the anger we humans most often have. Most human anger is provoked by the most selfish of passions even though it appears as righteousness to us. This anger also has a sort of mute quality to it since it is not the result of conscious or godly consideration of what lies before us but is rather the result of an unconsidered reaction to something a bit like when you touch a hot stove but accompanied with a cry of rage against the stove.

Christ in clearing the Temple however is not reacting at all. Rather He is consciously acting with righteous zeal (ie energy) against what is an outrage against the holiness of God.

The saints through their own struggle against the passions also attain a meaure of this righteous anger. Until then even when reacting against something truly wrong we drag in all sorts of selfish motives- everything from trying to get our own way to loving to be noticed. I don't think righteous anger could ever be something we attain by our own efforts- it will just come naturally or not in its own time as we grow in Christ.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Olga]

Another good example of genuine righteous anger is the incident at the First Ecumenical Council, where St Nicholas of Myra was so affronted by the heretical preachings at the council of Arius of Alexandria, that he lashed out physically at him ("boxed his ears", as one source has it). Nicholas, not surprisingly, was stripped of his omophorion i.e. his episcopal authority for this violent act. However, both Nicholas and his fellow bishops saw dreams or visions where Christ and the Mother of God appeared, with the Mother of God holding Nicholas's omophorion in her outstretched hands. This was interpreted as a sign that Nicholas was correct in his anger in defending the true faith of the correct understamding of the Holy Trinity, and he was duly reinstated as bishop. Arius, of course, was denounced as a heretic by the council. The Arian view may "have had the numbers" in terms of bishops and laity who subscribed to it, but the true doctrine won the day.

Countless icons of the saint show Christ and the Mother of God in medallions on the left and right of the saint, Christ blessing him, and the Virgin presenting him with his omophorion. He is also the only priest- or bishop-saint I have come across who can be depicted holding an open Gospel book in his left hand (which opens to the Gospel reading of the Sermon on the Mount). This great honour is surely in recognition of his crucial and staunch defence of the true faith.

[M. Markewich]

Thank you, Father Raphael and Olga, for your thoughts. They definitely help answer my question. Please pray for me as I try to apply it.

[Alex Michael Rusanen]

I've been struggling recently in being "slow to anger". I am really confused when I approach the Bible. I see Jesus, who, while being sacrificed and saying not a word except "Father, forgive them," I also see Jesus making a whip, flipping tables and calling the Pharisees a "brood of vipers" and "hypocrites". We are also told in the Bible to "be angry, but sin not". So how do we properly discipline ourselves to only have anger at the right time? I am confused because it seems like the Scriptures are giving mixed messages, although I know the real problem lies in my understanding.

Personally I would not call the action of Christ 'anger' but 'Holy Zeal'. He was zealous of the purity of his Fathers House and Temple.
In the same way, I assume, we must be zealous against passions that inflict our bodily temples. We must hate sin and be angerad against inflictions to drop all the altars of the demons, to vanguish the toughts that endeavour to make the Temple of the Spirit into a market place of wordly, human profit!