Monk Seraphim Zisis | September 6, 2026
Self-controlled
anger was given to human nature by God as a weapon against the evil within us
and around us
Preface: The … Buddhization of
Christianity!
Our age is characterized by an effort
to bring religions closer together, initially on a practical level: joint
prayers, shared festivals and parades, joint environmental initiatives and
actions in support of various rights, and other similar activities;
corresponding tendencies, however, have already appeared on the purely
theological—or theoretical, if you will—level as well. [1]
It does not take much thought to
realize that such an effort, certainly no coincidence, serves the endeavor,
attested in the sources, to create a common, simplified religious denominator,
so as to bring about the emergence of the Universal Religion proclaimed as
“good news” by the New Age of the Antichrist! In this, Buddhism in particular
holds a prominent place.
For New Agers, whose views are
expressed above all by Alice Bailey (1880–1949), Christ (as they understand
him) is the bearer of “love,” and Buddha, as the forerunner of Christ, is the
bearer of “light” and “wisdom”. [2]
In Buddhist ethics, anger is
regarded as fundamentally and invariably evil, as a spiritual defilement (klesha).
By contrast, tranquility, evenness of temper, or equanimity (Upekkhā) is
one of the four highest virtues, one of the Buddhists’ “Four Immeasurables” (Brahmavihārās).
This Buddhist tranquility is a calm and balanced observation of the world and a
peaceful neutrality toward it, without attachment or aversion.
The fact that New Agers “see,”
and also promote—on the subject at hand—some kind of harmonization between
Christianity and Buddhism has an immediate consequence: they retain from
Christianity only what concerns “peace,” “love,” and “meekness,” and reject
what our Orthodox Church, the only true Christianity, equally teaches
concerning theological Truth, zeal for the will of God, and anger “according to
God” (in accordance with God): “Be angry, and do not sin” (Psalm 4:5).
Ecumenists in general are either
conscious workers (agents) of this New Age Buddhization of spiritual life or
its unwitting celebrants and applauders. It is therefore understandable that
they downplay or even brazenly pass over in silence every reminder from Holy
Scripture, the Holy Councils, or the Holy Fathers concerning the defense of the
Truth (even unto death [3]), divine zeal, or the separation of believers from
unbelievers! They remember that Christ taught that “God is love,” but persist
in forgetting that, according to His teaching, He Himself “has come [i.e.,
came] to bear witness to the truth,” that apart from Christ “there is salvation
in no one else,” and that there should be no “common share,” no close
fellowship, “between a believer and an unbeliever.” [4]
As a partial antidote to the
attempt to spiritually “mutate” Orthodox Christians into such theologically and
spiritually “spineless” and “lobotomized” believers, we thought it good to
recall the patristic teaching on anger through the teaching of the great
God-seeing and neptic saint, Diadochos, Bishop of Photiki. Saint Diadochos was
active in the fifth century in Photiki in Epirus (present-day Paramythia), and
his works are included in the precious and marvelous Philokalia of the
holy Kollyvades, Makarios Notaras and Nicodemos the Hagiorite.
1. Saint Diadochos
of Photiki’s position on anger
“Anger, more than the other
passions, tends to disturb the soul and cause it confusion. Sometimes, however,
it also benefits the soul to the greatest degree. When we use it without
agitation against those who act impiously or who sin in any way through licentious
acts, so that they may either be saved or be put to shame, we bring about an
increase of meekness in the soul. For we certainly further the purpose of God’s
righteousness and goodness, and we also often turn the soul’s tendency toward
‘effeminacy’ into manly courage by becoming intensely angry against sin. Nor
should we doubt that, when we fall into deep despondency and are spiritually
stirred against the demon of corruption [of acedia], [5] we acquire a
disposition that overcomes death’s boasting. To teach us this, the Lord twice
uttered a rebuke in spirit against Hades and troubled Himself—although He does
whatever He wills without agitation, by His will alone [6]—and only then
returned Lazarus’s soul to his body. Thus I think that self-controlled anger
was given to our [human] nature by our Creator, God, chiefly as a weapon. If
Eve had used this [anger] against the serpent, she would not have been led
astray by that impassioned pleasure [of eating the fruit]. Consequently, it
seems to me that one who uses anger with self-control and is moved by zeal for
piety will certainly be found more approved in the scales of [future]
recompense than one who is never moved to anger because of the sluggishness of
his mind. For the latter appears to have left the charioteer [i.e., the driver
of a chariot] of the human mind untrained, whereas the former appears always to
contend upon the horses of virtue—amid the ranks of the demons—vigorously
training the four-horse chariot of self-restraint in the fear of God. We find
this ‘chariot of Israel’ mentioned in Scripture at the ascent [into heaven] of
the wondrous [Prophet] Elijah, for God appears to have spoken first to the
Jews, in various ways, about the four virtues. This is precisely why this great
disciple of wisdom [Elijah] was taken up bodily ‘in a chariot of fire,’ this
self-controlled man using—as I think—his own virtues as horses, in the [Holy]
Spirit who caught him up in a fiery breeze.” [7]
Let us distinguish and expand
somewhat upon the points made in the dense text above, which constitutes the
sixty-second (LXII) of Saint Diadochos’s one hundred so-called Gnostic Chapters
(the appendix also contains other similar passages from his Chapters):
(a) Anger is most often used in a
manner harmful to our soul, becoming a sinful passion.
(b) Anger can also be beneficial
to the greatest degree when used without agitation against those who act
impiously or sin gravely.
(c) The praiseworthy purpose of
anger in such cases is either (i) to stop the commission of sin or (ii) to
hinder—by exposing sin to disgrace—its proliferation through bad example; this
purpose accords with God’s goodness and righteousness.
(d) When used in this way, anger
also helps prevent the “feminization” of the angry person’s soul, that is, its
turn toward laxity (inertia) and cowardice; instead, it “makes it manly,”
“makes it masculine” (makes it vigorous and courageous).
(e) Such a beneficial use of
anger enables the virtuous person to transcend even the constraint, the
tyranny, that spiritual death boastfully imposes upon human nature, as, for
example, through the “demonic corruption” of acedia. [8]
(f) The forceful and exemplary
rebuke of Hades by the God-man Christ on the occasion of the raising of Lazarus
confirms the praiseworthy use of anger described above.
(g) Consequently, self-controlled
and well-ordered anger is a weapon given to us by God. If our foremother Eve
had used it in Paradise against the tempting serpent-devil, the ancestral fall
(of Adam and Eve) and the consequent fall of the entire human race (all
humanity) from Paradise would not have occurred.
(h) Accordingly, one who uses
anger with self-control for the sake of piety (the Orthodox Faith) will be
found more approved [9] at the future Judgment than the “spineless,”
“spiritless” person whose soul is slow to act against sin.
(i) According to the symbolism of
the chariot with the “four horses” of the virtues (courage, self-control,
prudence, and justice), one who becomes angry appropriately is, symbolically,
the charioteer (the driver of a horse-drawn chariot) who has trained these four
fundamental virtues properly and harmoniously. By contrast, one who is slow to
exercise praiseworthy, self-controlled anger leaves his charioteer—the
coordinator of the “four horses,” the four cardinal virtues—untrained.
(j) This “chariot of the
virtues,” guided with self-control by the diligent and self-controlled driver,
the virtuous Christian “charioteer,” is symbolized by the “chariot of Israel”
mentioned in Holy Scripture, [10] which, set ablaze by the fire of the Holy
Spirit, raised to the heavens the wondrous, wise, and self-controlled Prophet
Elijah.
2. Related
patristic positions: anger against evil is natural
In what the saint, Diadochos,
wise in sacred things, writes above, we discern for the umpteenth time (“again
and again”) the complete agreement between the teaching of the neptic,
Philokalic Holy Fathers (those who chiefly taught the soul’s “watchfulness,”
its spiritual vigilance, and whose works were included in the Philokalia)
and that of the great dogmatic theologians and teachers of the Church; and
this, even though the latter also struggled extensively against heresies to
preserve Orthodox dogma.
Someone with a superficial
knowledge and understanding of patristic texts would expect a neptic text—such
as the one above—to be entirely opposed to the use of anger by any Christian,
any “watchful” (vigilant) Christian; yet it vindicates and establishes a
foundation for the healthy use of anger against impiety and sin.
In agreement with the above, the
great theologian Saint John of Damascus (among many other Fathers) writes the
following about the proper use of anger, since it was given to us by God
together with the other powers of the soul: “These [anger, desire, sensation,
appetite] are also passions that are constituent elements of the nature of
living beings; for without them life cannot exist. They were given by the
Creator to serve humanity: desire [was given to us as desire] for God and His
will; anger [was given to us as anger] against the devil and sin, and to direct
desire toward manly courage [and not toward ‘effeminate’ laxity].” [11]
He writes the same elsewhere
against the Manichaeans, who accused human nature of being inherently evil;
consequently, for the Manichaeans, both man and the powers of the
soul—including anger—were created evil and are evil by nature. John of
Damascus, the theologian of Saint Sabbas’s monastery—and of the whole
world—refutes this Manichaean error as follows:
“Evil is the misuse of our
natural powers. If we use the powers God has bestowed upon our soul for the
purpose for which we received them, that is, according to the law of Him who
gave them, this is good. But if we use them for a purpose other than that for
which we received them, contrary to the law of Him who gave them, this is evil.
Neither the powers themselves nor their use is evil, but rather the wrong
manner of using them, contrary to the law of God who gave them […] Hatred and
anger are good if directed against whatever hinders the soul’s salvation and
its closeness to God through obedience to Him, and draws it away from God—that
is, if directed against the devil and his servants. For [Holy Scripture] says,
‘Did I not hate those who hate You, and waste away against Your enemies? I
hated them with perfect hatred; they became my enemies’ [Psalm 138:21–22]. The
holy Martyrs, too, were justly angry with the tyrants. And if I become angry
with my own thought [my thoughts] because it seeks to separate me from God,
this is good. If someone deprives me of salvation, it is good for me to become
angry with him and hate him; but if he causes me sorrow according to a worldly
way of thinking, yet benefits me by depriving me of material [goods], I will
love him and will not hate him […] Consequently, evil is nothing other than
using our natural powers [author’s note: which include anger] contrary to
nature and the law [of God]; this is not the substance [of things], but a
practice of our own.” [12]
Therefore, the faithful Christian
must also harbor an uncompromising hatred of heresy itself, following the
example of the Holy Fathers. Concerning Venerable Euthymios the Great, the
elder of Saint Sabbas the Sanctified, the biographer of both, the distinguished
monk Cyril of Scythopolis (sixth century), relates: “The blessed Sabbas and
many other elders marveled at the fervent zeal of Euthymios the Great for the
dogmas of the Church, although his life was marked by great meekness and
humility, and affirmed that he abhorred every heresy opposed to the correct
teaching of the Faith, but especially hated these six heresies with perfect
hatred: he detested the abomination of the Manichaeans and those who held views
like Origen’s […]. He likewise abhorred Arius’s division [of the Holy Trinity]
and Sabellius’s conflation [of the Trinity], and detested their diametrically
opposed wickedness but equally grave impiety […]. Moreover, concerning the
mystery of Christ, he equally rejected Nestorius’s division [of the Person of
Christ] and the confusion [of Christ’s two Natures] by Eutyches [the
Monophysite leader].” [13]
Such was also the anger that the
Holy Fathers employed against heresies, possessing the entirety of “the science
of pastoral care.” Our Holy Church praises them in Her hymnography because they
lawfully stirred up most righteous anger and, with it and the spiritual “sling”
of the Holy Spirit, cast out of the Church the “wolves,” those formidable
spreaders of evil, the unrepentant heretics: “Having gathered all the science
of pastoral care and now most justly stirred up most righteous anger, they
drove away the fierce and pestilential wolves with the sling of the Spirit,
casting them out of the fullness of the Church.” [14]
What we have briefly set forth
above may also prove dangerous for those who study it superficially; therefore,
we are reminded once again that anger, as the soul’s weapon against evil, can
easily become dangerous even to its “wielder”—the person who intends to use it
against impiety and brazen evil but identifies sinners and the impious with
these things. Anger must not be focused against our fellow human beings, nor
linger in the believer’s soul and disturb it with passion. After all,
physicians too hate diseases while saving—through cauterization and other
painful procedures—the patients whom they love. The balance is delicate, and a
good physician is distinguished, among other things, by the correct “doses” of
medicines (see also, if you wish, the references below).
Characteristic, however, is the
position, firmly grounded in Tradition, of the distinguished theologian and
Romios, Fr. John Romanides: “Accordingly, the perfect [Christian] desires not
for himself but for God and his neighbor; and he becomes angry or wrathful not
over wrongs committed against himself, but over injustice against his neighbor.
Therefore, the love of the God-man Christ and of those who have attained
deification, which does not seek its own, [15] has no relation to the
tranquility of the Stoics and the happiness of the Platonists, or to the
hedonism or eudaimonism of older and newer systems and movements. Nor does it
have any relation to the sentimental altruism of philosophical ethics. For the reasons
given above, Christ and the saints, on this side of the grave and beyond it,
are distinguished by zeal, by ardent but not sentimental love, and by fervent
compassion for their brethren struggling on earth, alongside whom they struggle
unceasingly and in whose struggle for salvation and against the demons they
effectively participate […].” [16]
May the God-man, our Lord, always
preserve us from the sin that so easily besets us and from the various schemes
of deception in these last times in which we live …
ENDNOTES
1. See the following characteristic text by the utterly
misguided ideological instigator of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew’s various
theological betrayals, Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pergamon. Zizioulas
writes: “It remains to be seen whether, with the existing forms of monotheism,
an interreligious dialogue can be conducted that will lead us beyond tolerance
to a sincere, shared search for truth […]. The accelerating movement toward
globalization and the awareness of ecological danger will suffice to bring to
the surface before long the deepest problems, which are at the same time shared
and universal to humanity […]. On this basis, profound, sincere interreligious
dialogue will not merely be possible; it will already have become a reality”
(ZIZIOULAS, JOHN [Metropolitan of Pergamon], “Truth, Tolerance, and Monotheism:
Is Interreligious Dialogue Possible?”, Theologia 84, 2 [April–June
2013], pp. 8 ff.). The article was first published in “Vima Ideon,” a
supplement of the newspaper To Vima, on 6 July 2007. The incredible
theological wretchedness of the entire article above tempted me to quote more
extensive examples of the author’s diabolical departure from the Faith of the
Church; out of consideration for the readers’ time and effort, I refrained. I
owe it to them, however, to do so in another context in the future.
2. Bailey’s writings continually promote the supposed
“complementarity” of the work of Buddha (a work of “enlightenment and the
imparting of wisdom”) and the (“loving”) work of Christ (as New Agers
understand “Christ”; they certainly do not identify Christ with Jesus, nor are
they guided by the sacred Christological dogma of Chalcedon). On this subject,
see the following characteristic examples among Bailey’s many similar
statements:
ALICE A. BAILEY, The Reapperance of the Christ,
Lucis Publishing Company, New York & Lucis Press Ltd., London 1962 (4th
printing), p. 111: “Standing as the focal point of the inner Triangle—of
the Buddha, of the Spirit of Peace and of the Avatar of Synthesis—the
consequent outpouring potency of the Christ will be so great that the
distinction between love and hate, between aggression and freedom, and between
greed and sharing will be made lucidly clear to the eyes and minds of all men
and, therefore, the distinction between good and evil will be made equally
clear.”
Ibid. p. 134: “When the work of the Buddha (or of the
embodied wisdom principle) is consummated in the aspiring disciple and his
integrated personality, then the full expression of the work of the Christ (the
embodied principle of love) can also be consummated then both of these
potencies—Light and Love—will find radiant expression in the transfigured
disciple.”
Ibid. pp. 131-133: “Christ is the great dispeller of world
glamour when He comes, and in this work the Buddha has previously prepared the
way. The possibility of such a dispelling and dissipation is therefore
definitely centred in the two Avatars, the Buddha and the Christ. One of the
essential things at this time is to bring home to humanity and to the nations
of the world the nature of the work undertaken by the Buddha and the Christ,
and to re-emphasise the truths projected by Them into the arena of world
thought. The work of the Lord of Light and of the Lord of Love must be
presented anew to a needy world. In this connection, it might be said that some
nations need to grasp the teaching of the Buddha which He enunciated in the
Four Noble Truths; they must be brought to the realisation that the cause of
all sorrow and woe is the misuse of desire—desire for that which is material
and transitory. The United Nations need to learn to apply the Law of Love as
enunciated in the life of Christ and to express the vitality of the truth that ‘no
man liveth unto himself’ (Rom. XIV.7) and no nation either; the goal of all
human effort is loving understanding, prompted by a programme of love and right
human relations for all mankind.”
“If the lives of these two great Teachers can be comprehended and Their
teachings be wrought out in the lives of men anew today, in the world of human
affairs, in the realm of human thinking and in the arena of political and
economic intercourse, the present world order (which is so largely disorder)
can be so modified and changed that a new world order and a new race of men can
gradually come into being. World glamour will be dissipated and world illusion
be dispelled.”
“Within the world of glamour—the world of the astral plane and of the
emotions—appeared, centuries ago, a point of light; the Lord of Light, the
Buddha, undertook to focus in Himself the illumination which would eventually
make possible the dissipation of glamour. Within the world of illusion, the
world of the mental plane, appeared the Christ, the Lord of Love Himself. He
undertook to dispel illusion by drawing to Himself (by the attractive potency
of love) the hearts of all men, and stated this determination in the words, ‘I,
if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me.’ (John XII.32.) The combined work
of these two great Sons of God, concentrated through the world disciples and
through Their initiates must and will inevitably shatter illusion and dispel
glamour—the one by the intuitive recognition of reality by minds attuned to it,
and the other by the pouring in of the light of the reason. The Buddha made the
first planetary effort to dissipate world glamour; the Christ made the first
planetary effort towards the dispelling of illusion. Their work must now be
intelligently carried forward by a humanity wise enough to recognise its duty
[…] Disillusioned and deglamoured (if I may use such a term) humanity awaits
the coming revelation. This revelation will be brought by the combined efforts
of the Buddha and the Christ.”
3. See Wisdom of Sirach 4:28: “Strive for the truth unto
death, and the Lord God will fight for you.” Compare also the positions of the
Fathers in our article: MONK SERAPHIM, “The Martyrdom of Orthodox Christians at
the Hands of Heretics Is Equal or Even Superior to That of the Ancient
Persecutions” (21 October 2025), https://katanixi.gr/to-martyrio-orthodoxon-apo-airetikoys-iso-i-kai-anotero-apo-ekeino-ton-archaion-diogmon/
4. 1 John 4:8, 16; John 18:37; Acts 4:12; and 2 Corinthians
6:15, respectively.
5. The late Elder Theokletos of Dionysiou, who prepared the
separate edition of Saint Diadochos’s One Hundred Gnostic Chapters (see
below), interprets the “demon of corruption” as the demon of acedia. Having
trusted since our youth in the precise theology of this sacred and
ever-memorable Athonite theologian, Elder Theokletos—a theology grounded in
holy practice and contemplation—we translate accordingly.
6. Compare Psalm 134:6: “Whatever the Lord willed, He did in
heaven and on earth.” Also, the troparion from the Sunday resurrectional canon
in the first tone (Ode Eight), in the Octoechos (the Parakletike):
“He Who doeth all things by His will, Who also transformeth them, turning the
shadow of death into eternal life.”
7. SAINT DIADOCHOS OF PHOTIKI, “One Hundred Ascetic and
Gnostic Chapters,” 62, in The One Hundred Gnostic Chapters, text,
translation, and commentary by Monk Theokletos of Dionysiou, Mount
Athos–Thessaloniki 1977, pp. 133–134: “Anger, more than the other passions,
tends to disturb and confuse the soul; sometimes, however, it also benefits it
greatly. For when we use it without agitation against those who act impiously
or licentiously in any way, so that they may either be saved or be put to
shame, we bring about an increase of meekness in the soul; for we certainly
cooperate with the purpose of God’s righteousness and goodness, and we also
often transform the soul’s effeminacy into manly courage by becoming intensely
angry against sin. Nor should we doubt that, when we are deeply despondent and
spiritually rebuke the demon of corruption itself, we rise above death’s
boasting. To teach us this, the Lord twice rebuked Hades in spirit and troubled
Himself—although He does whatever He wills without agitation, by His will
alone—and thus restored Lazarus’s soul to his body. It therefore seems to me
that self-controlled anger was given to our nature by God, who created us,
chiefly as a weapon. If Eve had used it against the serpent, she would not have
been driven by that impassioned pleasure. Thus it seems to me that one who uses
anger with self-control out of zeal for piety will certainly be found more
approved in the scales of recompense than one who is never moved to anger
because of the sluggishness of his mind; for the latter appears to have left
the charioteer of the human mind untrained, while the former is always borne
into battle upon the horses of virtue, amid the ranks of the demons, vigorously
training the four-horse chariot of self-restraint in the fear of God. We find
this called the ‘chariot of Israel’ in Scripture at the ascent of the wondrous
Elijah, since God appears to have spoken first to the Jews, in various ways,
about the four virtues. This is precisely why this great disciple of wisdom was
taken up in a chariot of fire, this self-controlled man using—as it seems to
me—his own virtues as horses, in the Spirit who caught him up in a fiery
breeze.”
For the same text, see also the Philokalia of Saints
Nicodemos the Hagiorite and Makarios Notaras: Ascetic Discourse Divided into
One Hundred Practical Chapters on Spiritual Knowledge and Discernment, in
Philokalia of the Holy Neptic Fathers, vol. I, Astir, Athens 1988, pp. 252
ff.
The Latin translation of Saint Diadochos’s One Hundred
Gnostic Chapters is in Abbé Migne’s Patrologia Latina (PG) 65,
1167–1212.
8. See note 5 above.
9. Compare James 1:12: “Blessed is the man who endures
temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life,
which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”
10. 4 Kingdoms [2 Kings] 2:1–12.
11. SAINT JOHN OF DAMASCUS, “On the Two Wills and Energies in
Christ and the Other Natural Properties,” 18, PG 95, 148B (EPE 5,
44): “These passions are also constituent elements of the substance of living
beings; for without them life cannot exist. They were given to man by the
Creator to serve him: desire, for God and His will; anger, against the devil
and sin, and to give courage to desire.”
12. SAINT JOHN OF DAMASCUS, “Dialogue against the
Manichaeans,” 14, PG 94, 1517C, 1520B–C (EPE 5, 152–154): “Evil,
then, is the misuse of our natural powers. For if we use the powers bestowed
upon the soul by God for the purpose for which we received them, that is,
according to the law of Him who gave them, this is good. But if we use them for
a purpose other than that for which we received them, contrary to the law of
Him who gave them, this is evil; and neither the powers themselves nor their
use is evil, but rather the wrong manner of using them, contrary to the law of
God who gave them […] Hatred and anger are good if directed against those who
hinder the soul’s salvation and its union with God through obedience to Him,
and draw it away from God—that is, against the devil and his servants. For he
says: ‘Did I not hate those who hate You, O Lord, and waste away against Your
enemies? I hated them with perfect hatred; they became my enemies.’ The holy
martyrs, too, were angry with the tyrants, and their anger was just. And if I
become angry with my own thought because it separates me from God, this is
good. If someone deprives me of salvation, it is good to become angry with him
and hate him; but if he causes me worldly sorrow and brings me benefit by
depriving me of material things, I will love him rather than hate him […] Thus
evil is nothing other than using our natural powers contrary to nature and the
law; it is not a substance, but a practice of our own.”
8. See note 5 above.
9. Compare James 1:12: “Blessed is the man who endures
temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life,
which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”
10. 4 Kingdoms [2 Kings] 2:1–12.
11. SAINT JOHN OF DAMASCUS, “On the Two Wills and Energies in
Christ and the Other Natural Properties,” 18, PG 95, 148B (EPE 5,
44): “These passions are also constituent elements of the substance of living
beings; for without them life cannot exist. They were given to man by the
Creator to serve him: desire, for God and His will; anger, against the devil
and sin, and to give courage to desire.”
12. SAINT JOHN OF DAMASCUS, “Dialogue against the
Manichaeans,” 14, PG 94, 1517C, 1520B–C (EPE 5, 152–154): “Evil,
then, is the misuse of our natural powers. For if we use the powers bestowed
upon the soul by God for the purpose for which we received them, that is,
according to the law of Him who gave them, this is good. But if we use them for
a purpose other than that for which we received them, contrary to the law of
Him who gave them, this is evil; and neither the powers themselves nor their
use is evil, but rather the wrong manner of using them, contrary to the law of
God who gave them […] Hatred and anger are good if directed against those who
hinder the soul’s salvation and its union with God through obedience to Him,
and draw it away from God—that is, against the devil and his servants. For he
says: ‘Did I not hate those who hate You, O Lord, and waste away against Your
enemies? I hated them with perfect hatred; they became my enemies.’ The holy
martyrs, too, were angry with the tyrants, and their anger was just. And if I
become angry with my own thought because it separates me from God, this is
good. If someone deprives me of salvation, it is good to become angry with him
and hate him; but if he causes me worldly sorrow and brings me benefit by
depriving me of material things, I will love him rather than hate him […] Thus
evil is nothing other than using our natural powers contrary to nature and the
law; it is not a substance, but a practice of our own.”
14. From the final (eighth) troparion of the Praises,
the “Pasapnoarion,” at Matins for the Sunday of the Holy Fathers, that is, the
Sunday before Pentecost.
15. Compare 1 Corinthians 13:5: “[Love] … does not seek its
own.”
16. Protopresbyter JOHN ROMANIDES, Dogmatic and Symbolic
Theology of the Orthodox Catholic Church, vol. I, P. Pournaras,
Thessaloniki 2009 (4th edition), pp. 148 ff.
Greek source:
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