Caput XXXI. De ira
The Unbridled Fire of Anger
Anger, when left unchecked by reason, overthrows the mind's foresight and gives birth to a cascade of sins from quarrels to murder.
Anger is one of the eight principal vices, and if it is not governed by reason, it turns into fury, so that a person becomes powerless over their own spirit, doing things that are not fitting. For once this takes hold in the heart, it strips away all foresight for action. A person will not be able to seek the judgment of right guidance, or the strength of honorable contemplation, or the maturity of wise counsel — but instead seems to do everything headlong, rashly. From this — that is, from anger — sprout swelling of mind, quarrels and insults, shouting, indignation, presumption, blasphemies, the shedding of blood, murders, the desire for revenge, and the memory of wrongs.
Patience and the Memory of Christ's Sufferings
Anger is overcome by patience, rational understanding, the remembrance of Christ's unjust sufferings, and the Lord's Prayer's call to forgive.
These are overcome through patience and long-suffering, and through the rational understanding that God plants in human minds, and through remembering the wrongs and sufferings that Christ unjustly endured for us, and through the memory of the Lord's Prayer, where it is said to God: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Matt.✦ 6:12).
Read the original Latin
Ira una est de octo vitiis principalibus, quae si ratione non regitur, in furorem vertitur: ita ut homo sui animi impotens erit, faciens quae non convenit. Haec enim si cordi insidit, omnem eximit ab eo providentiam facti, nec judicium rectae directionis inquirere, nec honestae contemplationis virtutem, nec maturitatem consilii habere poterit, sed omnia per praecipitium quoddam facere videtur. De qua, id est ira, pullulat tumor mentis, rixae et contumeliae, clamor, indignatio, praesumptio, blasphemiae, sanguinis effusio, homicidia, ulciscendi cupiditas, injuriarum memoria. Quae vincitur per patientiam et longanimitatem, et per rationem intellectualem, quam Deus, inserit mentibus humanis, et per recordationem injuriarum et passionum, quas pro nobis injuste pertulit Christus; et per memoriam Orationis Dominicae, ubi Deo dicitur: Dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris (Matth. VI, 12).
Scripture echoes
- ↩Matt.6.12 — And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
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