CHAPTER XIV Mental purity and activity hindered by nothing so much as by inordinate anger
CHAPTER XIV
Mental purity and activity hindered by nothing so much as by inordinate anger
251. Nothing so bedims the transparency of the mind, and the perspicacity of the understanding, as wrath when it is inordinate and impetuous.
252. ‘For this,’ says one, ‘destroys even the prudent.’ For the eye of the soul being darkened as in some conflict by night, is incapable of discerning friends from foes, and the unworthy from the honourable, but handles them all in turn in the same manner, and if some harm must be suffered, anything is readily endured for the sake of performing what the soul takes pleasure in.
253. The fire of anger is a sort of pleasure, and governs the soul more sternly than pleasure, by utterly turning upside down its healthy condition. It easily hurries a man into caprice, and untimely enmities, and unreasonable hatred; and it constantly causes the commission of offences rashly and idly, and forces the doing and saying of many other similar things, because the soul is swept along by the greatviolence of passion, and has nothing whereon to fix its strength, and resist the impulse.
254. [BASIL] I shall suffer you to dissimulate no further; for who knows not, (said he) how far removed you are from this infirmity?
255. [CHRYSOSTOM.] Why then, my good friend, said I, do you wish to bring me nearer the fire, and to rouse up the wild beast which is quiet? Do you not know, that I have done this by no virtue of my own, but through love of retirement? He that is thus constituted, is able to escape the conflagration which follows, while he remains devoted to himself, or associates merely with one or two friends, but not when he falls into such an abyss of cares.
256. For then he drags not only himself, but many others with him to the brink of ruin, and renders them more indifferent to all concern for propriety. For it generally happens, that the majority of those who are governed, regard the manners of their rulers as a sort of model image, and make themselves like them. How then can he appease their passions, who is swollen with anger himself? Who among the multitude would straightway desire to be moderate, if he saw his ruler angry?
257. For it is utterly impossible for the failings of priests to be hidden; but the very least become immediately manifest.
258. An athlete, so long as he remains at home, and contends with nobody, may conceal it even though he is very weak; but when he strips for the conflict, he is easily found out. And some men who live a private and inactive life, have their seclusion as a veil over their faults; but when they come into the arena, they are forced to strip off solitude as a garment, and to show their naked souls to all men by means of their outward movements.
259. As therefore, their right deeds have profited many by provoking them to equal zeal; so have their shortcomings made men more indifferent to the practice of virtue, and rendered them sluggish in their endeavours after what is excellent. Wherefore the beauty of his soul ought to shine forth in every direction, that it may at once both gladden and enlighten the souls of the beholders.
260. For the faults of ordinary men, which are as though committed in the dark, ruin only those who perpetrate them; but the vices of a man who is conspicuous and known to many, inflict a common injury upon all, making those more remiss who have relaxed in their strivings after good, and rendering capricious those who wish to give heed to themselves.
261. And apart from these things, the faults of the obscure, even if they come into notice, are punished with no remarkable punishment; but those who are seated upon this pinnacle of honour, are, in the first place, manifest to all men, and in the next place, if they fail in the smallest matters, that which is small seems great to others; for all men estimate an offence, not by the measure of the action, but by the dignity of him who sins.
262. The priest must be fortified as though by adamantine armour, and must watch on every side with constant zeal and perpetual vigilance in respect to his life, lest any one should find some naked and unguarded spot and inflict a fatal wound. For all who stand around are prepared to smite and cast him down,—not merely his enemies and foes, but many even of those who profess to be his friends.
263. The souls which ought to be selected therefore, are such as God’s grace once manifested the bodies of his saints to be in the Babylonian furnace. Faggot, and pitch, and tow, are not the fuel of this fire, but things more dreadful far than they; because it is not a material fire which threatens them, but the all-devouring flame of calumny surrounds them, rising on every side, assailing them and putting their life to a severer test than the fire then did the bodies of those young men. When therefore it finds the slightest trace of stubble, it rapidly seizes upon it, and consumes the vitiated part, and utterly scorches and blackens with smoke all the rest of the edifice, even though it should be brighter than the sunbeams.
264. So long as the life of a priest is well ordered in every way, it is invulnerable to plots; but if he overlook ever so little, as easily happens, since he is but a man, and is crossing the devious ocean of this life, he derives no advantage from the rest of his good deeds, by their enabling him to escape the mouths of accusers, for that little fault overshadows all besides. All men will judge the priest, not as one arrayed in flesh, nor as one inheriting human nature, but as an angel, and one delivered from remaining infirmity.
265. And just as all men fear and flatter a tyrant so long as he is in power, because they cannot depose him; but when they see things going contrary, lay aside their hypocritical honour, and those who shortly before were his friends, suddenly become his foes and enemies, and searching out all his weak points, attack him and get rid of his government; so is it with a priest: when they who a little before, and while he was in power, honoured and served him, find some little failing, they speedily make ready to depose him, not as a tyrant only, but something even worse than this.
266. As the former fears those who are the guardians of his body, so the latter most dreads those who are near him and minister with him. For no others desire his office so much as these, and know his affairs so well; and since they are near him, if anything occurs they are aware of it before others; and they are able to command belief when they slander, and by magnifying trifles, they can take him captive whom they have maligned. The apostolic saying is reversed; “If one member suffers, all the rest rejoice; and if one member is honoured, all the members suffer:” indeed a man has so much piety as to be able to withstand everything.
267. Are you then for sending me into such a war? and do you think my soul equal to so varied and multiform a conflict? Whence and from whom have you learnt this? For if God has so decided, show me the oracle, and I obey. But if you cannot, but arrive at the decision by human opinion, free yourself at length from the deceit in which you have been involved. For, as to what concerns me, it is but just that I should rather be persuaded by myself than by others; inasmuch as “no man knoweth the things of a man but the spirit of a man which is in him.”
268. I fancy you are now persuaded by what I say, even if you were not before, that I should render both myself and those who appointed me ridiculous, if, after receiving this office, I returned again, greatly injured, to the course of life which I now pursue.
269. For not merely calumny, but something much more violent than calumny—the longing after this office, is wont to arm many against him that holds it.
270. And as covetous children bear with impatience the old age of their parents, so also some of these, when they see the priestly office held by any one for a long time,—since it is not proper to destroy him,—are eager to remove him from his post, all coveting to be appointed instead of him, and each expecting that the appointment will be conveyed to himself.