Anger
ANGER
A violent emotion of a painful nature, sometimes arising spontaneously upon just occasion, but usually characterized in the Bible as a great sin, Mat 5:22 Zep 4:31 Col 3:8 . Even when just, our anger should be mitigated by a due consideration of the circumstances of the offence and the state of mind of the offender; of the folly and ill-results of this passion; of the claims of the gospel, and of our own need of forgiveness from others, but especially from God, Mat 6:15 . Anger is in Scripture frequently attributed to God, Mat 7:11 28:20; not that he is liable to those violent emotions which this passion produces, but figuratively speaking, that is, after the manner of men; and because he punishes the wicked with severity of a superior provoked to anger.
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
Anger
1. Human anger.-Except by the stoical mind which finds no place for strong emotion in a moral scheme, anger has been recognized as a quality which, under certain conditions and within certain limits, may not only be permissible but commendable. Its ready abuse has, however, led to its being commonly placed among the evils of human nature. The teaching of the early Christian Church recognizes both aspects. Condemnation of the abuse of anger is not wanting in the apostolic writings. Among the manifest works of the flesh are enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths (), factions (Gal 5:20). St. Paul fears lest he shall find these evils in the Church when he comes to Corinth (2Co 12:20). One of the marks of the greatest of Christian virtues is that it does not blaze forth in passionate anger ( [1Co 13:5]). In Christian circles, all bitterness and wrath and anger must be put away (Eph 4:13; cf. Col 3:8). The holy hands lifted up in prayer must be unstained with anger and strife (1Ti 2:8). The bishop must be blameless, as Gods steward, not self-willed, not soon angry (Tit 1:7). St. James bids his readers be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God (Jam 1:19-20). Be not prone to anger, says the Didache (iii. 2), for anger leadeth to murder: nor a zealot, nor contentious, nor quick-tempered, for murder also is the outcome of those.
On the other hand, Christian morality recognizes a righteous anger. The section of the Sermon on the Mount which teaches that whosoever is angry with his brother is in danger of the judgment (Mat 5:21 f.) is primarily aimed at something other than passion-it is an emphatic condemnation of the spirit which despises and seeks to injure a brother. The violation of the law of brotherly love, manifest in the anger of Mat 5:22, might, indeed, provoke a legitimate wrath, e.g. in the series of woes, terrible in intensity of language, pronounced by Jesus against the scribes and Pharisees (Mat 23:13 ff.). We should hesitate to acknowledge a man as morally and spiritually great who could remain unmoved in the presence of the worlds wrongs. The early preachers would have been poor souls had they been able to hide their indignation at the murderers of Jesus (Act 3:13-14; Act 5:30; Act 7:51 f.). Could Peter well have been calm with Ananias and Sapphira (Act 5:1), and later, with the commercially-minded, religious adventurer, Simon Magus (Act 8:20 f.)? A certain principle of discrimination seems, however, to have been observed. Anger at personal insult or persecution was discouraged. Anger provoked by personal injury may have a protective value in a lower stage of the worlds life, but the attitude of Christian ethics to this type is governed by the law of non-resistance laid down by the Sermon on the Mount. Man must return good for evil, show kindness to his enemy, leave retribution to God (Rom 12:19-20). St. Paul claims that, when reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we bear it patiently; when slandered, we try to conciliate (1Co 4:12), thus following the example of Jesus (1Pe 2:23). One is tempted to regard the apology which followed the momentary outburst of St. Pauls passion against the high priest (Act 23:3) as an expression of the Apostles principles of non-resistance rather than as an acknowledgment of priestly rights. But there is an altogether different attitude when that which is to be defended is a righteous principle, a weaker brother, or the faith or ethical standard of the Church. Elymas, the sorcerer, seeking to hinder a work of grace, provokes a vigorous anger (Act 13:10-11). On behalf of the purity of faith St. Paul resists St. Peter to the face (Gal 2:11). The Epistle to the Galatians is a piece of passionate writing, and a note of indignation runs through, the later chapters of 2 Cor. (cf. 1Co 1:14; 1Co 5:5, etc.). The man who does not love the Lord Jesus, or the one who preaches a false gospel, let him be accursed- (1Co 16:22). The indignation () of the Corinthian Church against the guilty person in the case of immorality, to which St. Paul has drawn attention, is commended by him (2Co 7:11). Similarly, the Church at Ephesus is congratulated on its hatred of the Nicolaitans (Rev 2:6). St. Paul burns if another is made to stumble (2Co 11:29). In these instances, anger seems to have been regarded as compatible with, and indeed expressive of, Christian character. The obvious danger of mistaken zeal for a cause or creed must, however, be kept in mind. The case of St. Pauls early life provides an illustration (Gal 1:13, Php 3:6). There may be a zeal for God, not according to knowledge (Rom 10:2).
But even legitimate anger may readily pass into a sin. Passions beyond the control of the rational self can hardly be justified, whatever the cause. Self-control is a cardinal Christian virtue. Hence the apostolic caution of Eph 4:26, Be ye angry and sin not, i.e. if angry, as one may rightly be, do not allow the passion to become an evil by its excess. The wrath against which the warning is given seems indicated by the following clause-let not the sun go down on your (a noun which differs from in denoting, not the disposition of anger, or anger in a lasting mood, but exasperation, sudden violent anger [Salmond]). There is no reference to deliberate indignation on a matter of principle, such as the resentment which, the author of Ecce Homo claims, was felt by Jesus towards the Pharisees to the end of His life.
2. Divine anger.-Most minds must have felt the objection expressed by Origen, Augustine, and the Neo-Platonist theologians generally, that we cannot treat the Supreme as a magnified man and attribute to Him such perturbation of mind as is suggested to us by the term anger. But we may allow-and must do so unless we are prepared to deny personality in God-that the quality, which we find expressed under human conditions as the righteous anger of a good man, must exist in God, although in a form which we cannot adequately conceive, owing to our inability to realize absolute conditions. We may be helped to some extent by recognizing that behind the human agitations of personality in love, pity, indignation, etc., there are certain principles and attitudes which no more depend for their quality on the element of agitation than the existence of steam depends upon the appearance of white vapour which we ordinarily associate with it. This underlying quality we may attribute to the Deity, in whom life and personality, here expressed only in finite and conditioned forms, have their perfect and unconditioned being (Lotze).
The objection that anger, unlike love, is unworthy of the highest moral personality (Marcion) may be met by the answer that Divine love and anger are not two opposing principles, but expressions of the one attitude towards contrary sets of human circumstances. The Divine anger is actually involved in the Divine love (Tertullian, Martensen, etc.). The one Lord whose name is Truth and Love is, because of this, a consuming flame to Wrong (Heb 10:31; Heb 12:29).
The idea of the Divine anger-this attitude of Deity towards certain courses of human life-is a justifiable inference from the intuitions of conscience, but another and an unsound argument played a part in the historical formation of the doctrine. In the early stages of religious thought the conception of the wrath of God would naturally come to mens minds from contemplation of the ills of human life. The chieftain punished those with whom he was angry, either by direct action or by withholding his protection. Did not, then, physical calamities, pestilences, reverses of fortune, defeat in battle, indicate the displeasure of Deity (Joshua 7, 2Sa 21:1; 2 Samuel 24, etc.)? Such misfortune, when no ethical cause could be recognized, would encourage the doctrine of unwitting and non-ethical offences (e.g. the violation of tabu) and of non-ethical propitiation. The ills of life-especially death-suggested later a world lying under a curse, due to Adams sin. Against the popular doctrine that misfortune indicated Divine displeasure, the Book of Job is a protest. Human suffering has educative values, and does not necessarily indicate the disapproval of God (Heb 12:5 f.).
Yet even in early times the idea of the Divine anger did not rest wholly on the facts of human suffering. Men realized that the world, as they found it, was not in harmony with their conceptions of the Highest, and thus in times of prosperity, which, according to this theory, would indicate Gods contentment with His people, prophets such as Amos argued for coming doom. From the consciousness of the holiness of God it was inferred that there must be Divine displeasure.
The turning away of the Divine anger.-Two attitudes in regard to this problem appear among the Hebrews, even as early as the 8th cent. b.c. The prophets of that period do not recognize the need of any means of reconciliation with God after estrangement by sin other than repentance (Hos 14:2, Amo 5:22-24, Isa 1:13; Isa 1:17, Mic 6:6-8). On the other hand, while repentance was always insisted upon by Israels religious teachers, there was a tendency to assert the need of supplementary means in order to bring about the reconciliation of God and man. The conception may have originated in the practice of offering a propitiatory gift or legal compensation to an outraged person (Gen 20:16; Gen 32:13; cf. 1Sa 26:19, 2Sa 24:18 f.), or in the primitive view of sin as having a material existence of its own which called for an appropriate ritual treatment beyond the mental change of repentance, or in the customs of Levitical sin-offerings, which, although originally made in view of ceremonial faults, for which ethical repentance was strictly impossible, must have come to suggest that, in addition to repentance, a sacrificial operation was needful even in cases of moral transgression.
From the period of the Exile, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and especially the sufferings of the righteous, were regarded as substitutes for material sacrifices (see article Atonement in Jewish Encyclopedia ). Isa 53 is the earliest expression of a conception [viz. the atoning value of the sufferings of pious men] which attained wide development in later times and constantly meets us in the teaching of the Jewish synagogues (O. Whitehouse). One of the seven brothers, during the persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes, prays that in me and my brothers, the wrath of the Almighty may be appeased (2Ma 7:38). 4Ma 6:29 gives a prayer, Let my blood serve for purification, and as an equivalent for their life () take my own (cf. 4Ma 1:11; 4Ma 9:24; 4Ma 17:20-22; 4Ma 18:4). These passages supply an interesting link between the old Leviticism and the NT doctrine of the sacrificial death of Jesus.
The doctrine of propitiation receives no support from the teaching of Jesus as given in the Synoptics. Repentance and new life are the conditions of the restoration of the Divine favour. Jesus does not appear to have ever taught that reconciliation depended upon His own death as a propitiation (see Dict. of Christ and the Gospels , article Sacrifice), although He did teach that the spiritual ministration involved suffering and sacrifice, so that the death of Jesus might be figuratively regarded as a ransom for many (Mar 10:35-45). Moreover, the teaching of Jesus is not favourable to the view that legal right claims a compensation beyond repentance, before the Father will forgive. The moral of the parables of the Prodigal and the Labourers (cf. Luk 23:43) is that forensic conceptions are altogether inappropriate in the religions sphere. Harmony with God is a matter of altitude, not of purchase or compensation.
The teaching of the Acts of the Apostles agrees with that of the Synoptics. There is no hint in the early preaching of the Church, as recorded in this work, of a propitiatory value in the death of Jesus. Jesus is, indeed, described as a Saviour, but in the sense that He gives repentance to Israel and remission of sins (Act 5:31), i.e. He is able to bring about a change in the hearts of men, and, in accordance with prophetic teaching, pardon follows repentance (cf. the description of the preaching of the Baptist, as that of repentance unto remission of sins, Mar 1:4).
But, with the exception of the authors of the Synoptics, the Acts, and the Epistle of James, the writers of the NT are strongly influenced by the propitiatory theory of the death of Jesus. The passage of the Suffering Servant (Isa 53:4 f., Isa 53:10 f.) suggested a doctrine which seemed to throw light upon the ignominious death of Jesus upon the Cross. The stumbling-block to the Jewish mind became the Christians boast. How the sacrifice was regarded as operating is not clear-the analogy of Levitical blood sacrifices was evidently sometimes in the mind of the writers (Rom 3:25, 1Pe 1:19, Joh 1:29, etc.). St. Paul also holds the idea that the death of Jesus is a sign of His human submission to the elemental world-powers of darkness, who, since Adam, have held the world under their grievous rule (Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) , article Elements; also Wrede, Paul, Eng. translation , 1907, p. 95). But, being more than man, He rises from the dead. The Resurrection is a sign that Death-one of the elemental principalities and powers, and representative of the rest-has no longer dominion over Him (Rom 6:9), or over those in faith union with Him. But these world-powers of darkness, whose dues the death of Jesus was conceived as satisfying, are but a thinly disguised form of Gods retribution for Adams sin. Ultimately the propitiation is still made to God, although the emphasis is drawn from the wrath of God to the love which inspired the propitiatory action (cf. Joh 3:16, Rom 3:25; Rom 5:8, etc.). From this point, St. Paul follows the anti-legal teaching of Jesus in asserting that justification-right relations with God-depends on the new attitude of faith, not on works; but legalism with St. Paul must be satisfied by the prior transaction of Jesus on the Cross.
The difficulty in the doctrine of propitiation does not lie in the fact that no ultimate distinction can be made between the Power to whom propitiation is offered and the God of love who offers it. Independently of the interests of this particular doctrine, we must accept the paradox that the same God who works under the limitation of law ordains the law which limits Him. But we cannot accept the interpretation of the death of Jesus as an exalted Levitical blood sacrifice, or as a transaction with the world-powers of darkness, nor can we be satisfied with a presentation of an angry God, who needs compensation or some mollifying gift before He will turn away the fierceness of His wrath. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart He will not despise (Psa 51:17). It would seem more satisfactory to follow the suggestions of the Synoptics and the Acts, and find the reconciling work of Jesus, as directed not towards God, but towards men, bringing about in them a repentance which makes possible their harmonious relations with the Father.
The death of Jesus may be regarded partly as a vicarious sacrifice of the order recognized in the Synoptic-suffering and self-denial for the sake of the Kingdom of God, for conscience, and mens uplifting. The justification of this law of sacrifice (Ever by losses the right must gain, Every good have its birth of pain [Whittier, The Preacher]) is that it makes possible the expression of moral qualities. In order that love may have significance, it must pay a price-must be written upon a hard resisting world, as labour and self-denial. This demand of law is obviously not indicative of Divine displeasure or opposition.
The death of Jesus may also be regarded as part of the penalty of human sin. If men had not been selfish, hypocritical, apathetic to goodness and justice, there would not have been the tragedy on Calvary. In virtue of race solidarity, the sins of an evil and adulterous generation fell upon Him. This dark law-that the innocent must suffer the results of transgression along with the guilty-has an educative value in demonstrating the evil and disastrous nature of sin, which is doubly terrible since the suffering which it creates falls upon the just as well as upon the unjust, sometimes even more upon the former than upon the latter. The penalty of sin indicates the Divine displeasure towards sin, but not necessarily towards those who pay the penalty, for obviously God cannot be conceived as being angry with innocent sufferers, involved in the results of others sins. Neither must we regard God as angry with a repentant sinner because he continues to reap what he has sown. The forgiveness of sin is distinct from the cancelling of its results, which, in accordance with educative moral law, must run their course.
Ones trust in the forgiveness of God rests upon the sense of the divinity of human forgiveness-By all that He requires of me, I know what God Himself most be (Whittier, Revelation). If we must judge the anger of God from the righteous indignation of a good man, we cannot think of His cherishing any vindictiveness, or needing any propitiation to induce Him to forgive, when the sinner seeks His face. Nor can a view of reconciliation held by the most sternly ethical of the OT prophets, and by the purest soul of the NT, be considered as weakening the sense of sin, and minimizing the grace of pardon.
The Day of Wrath.-From the time of Amos, OT prophetism had conceived a darker side to Israels still more ancient conception of the Day of the Lord. It would be a time when human wrongdoing, much of which was apparently overlooked in this age, would receive its sure reward, although genuine repentance would apparently avert the coming anger (Joel 2, Amo 5:4 ff., Jer 18:8). That great and notable Day (Act 2:20), with its darker aspects, entered largely into NT thought (Mat 3:7; Mat 7:22, Luk 10:12, 2Th 1:8 f., etc.). It is to this coming Dies Irae that the actual term wrath of God ( ) is almost uniformly applied by NT writers. Some of the Divine indignation may be manifested in the present operation of moral law-the penalties experienced by the ungodly heathen seem to be part of the Divine wrath which is being revealed () from heaven (Rom 1:18 f.); and, according to Rom 13:4, the temporal ruler punishing evil-doers is a minister of God, an avenger for (Divine) wrath, i.e. a human instrument carrying out in this age the Divine retribution. But the emphasis is upon the wrath to come. In the present age, moral law only imperfectly operates. The sinner is treasuring up for himself wrath in the day of wrath (Rom 2:5), when upon every soul that worketh evil shall be wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish (Rom 2:9; cf. Rev 11:18; Rev 6:16-17, where the Divine anger is spoken of as the wrath of the Lamb). Repentance before the Day of Wrath will save one from the coming doom (Act 2:21; Act 2:38; Act 2:40, Eph 2:3), and the provision of these days of grace modifies the conception of the Divine sternness (Rom 9:22). The Law, in making transgression possible, worketh wrath (Rom 4:15), but Christ, by His reconciliation of man and God, delivers the believer from the wrath to come (1Th 1:10; 1Th 5:9). The NT significance of is illustrated in Rom 5:9, where St. Paul argues from the fact of present reconciliation with God that the saints will be delivered from the wrath of God. Even where the Divine anger is described as having already had its manifestation, the reference may really be eschatological (Ritschl). The aorist of 1Th 2:16 ( ) seems to indicate that, in the Apostles judgment, some historical manifestation or Gods wrath upon the Jews has already taken place, but St. Paul may regard such an indication of the Divine anger as the preliminary movements of the Day of Wrath. The clouds were already gathering for that consummation which the Apostle was expecting in his own lifetime (1Th 4:15).
Literature.-A. Ritschl, de Ira Dei, Bonn, 1859, Justification and Atonement, Eng. translation , Edinburgh, 1900; R. W. Dale, The Atonement7, London, 1878; D. W. Simon, Redemption of Man 1:2, do. 1906; O. Lodge, Man and the Universe, do. 1908. chs. 7 and 8; P. Gardner, Exploratio Evangelica, do. 1899, chs. 29, 31. For human anger: J. Butlers Sermons, 8 and 9; J. R. Seeley, Ecce Homo, 1866, pp. 21-23; Tolstoi, Essays and Letters, ch. 12.
H. Bulcock.
Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church
ANGER
A violent passion of the mind, arising from the receipt, or supposed receipt, of any injury, with a present purpose of revenge. All anger is by no means sinful; it was designed by the Author of our nature for self-defense; nor is it altogether a selfish passion, since it is excited by injuries offered to others as well as ourselves, and sometimes prompts us to reclaim offenders from sin and danger, Eph 4:26; but it becomes sinful when conceived upon trivial occasions or inadequate provocations; when it breaks forth into outrageous actions; vents itself in reviling language, or is concealed in our thoughts to the degree of hatred. To suppress this passion the following reflections of arch-deacon Paley, may not be unsuitable: “We should consider the possibility of mistaking the motives from which the conduct that offends us proceeded; how often our offences have been the effect of inadvertency, when they were construed into indications of malice; the inducement which prompted our adversary to act as he did, and how powerfully the same inducement has, at one time or other, operated upon ourselves; that he is suffering, perhaps, under a contrition, which he is ashamed or wants opportunity to confess; and how ungenerous it is to triumph by coldness or insult over a spirit already humbled in secret; that the returns of kindness are sweet, and that there is neither honor, nor virtue, nor use, in resisting them; for some persons think themselves bound to cherish and keep alive their indignation, when they find it dying away of itself.
We may remember that others have their passions, their prejudices, their favorite aims, their fears, their caution, their interests , their sudden impulses, their varieties of apprehension, as well as we: we may recollect what hath sometimes passed in our own minds when we have got on the wrong side of a quarrel, and imagine the same to be passing in our adversary’s mind now: when we became sensible of our misbehavior, what palliations we perceived in it, and expected others to perceive; how we were affected by the kindness, and felt the superiority of a generous reception, and ready forgiveness; how persecution revived our spirits with our enmity, and seemed to justify the conduct in ourselves, which we before blamed. Add to this the indecency of extravagant anger; how it renders us while it lasts, the scorn and sport of all about us, of which it leaves us, when it ceases, sensible and ashamed; the inconveniences and irretrievable misconduct into which our irascibility has sometimes betrayed us; the friendships it has lost us; the distresses and embarrassments in which we have been involved by it; and the repentance which, on one account or other, it always costs us.
But the reflection calculated above all others to allay that haughtiness of temper which is ever finding out provocations, and which renders anger so impetuous, is, that which the Gospel proposes; namely, that we ourselves are, or shortly shall be, suppliants for mercy and pardon at the judgment seat of God. Imagine our secret sins all disclosed and brought to light; imagine us thus humbled and exposed; trembling under the hand of God; casting ourselves on his compassion; crying out for mercy; imagine such a creature to talk of satisfaction and revenge; refusing to be entreated, disdaining to forgive; extreme to mark and to resent what is done amiss; imagine, I say, this, and you can hardly feign to yourself an instance of more impious and unnatural arrogance.” Paley’s Mor. Phil. ch.7. vol 1:; Fawcett’s excellent Treatise on Anger;
Seed’s Posth. Ser. ser.11.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
anger
(Latin: ango, distress)
A strongly exciting emotion aroused by an evil that is present but not acquiesced in. Though commonly a self-regarding emotion, it may be aroused in behalf of others. Anger is not purely painful as it includes the agreeable consciousness of energetic reaction against evil, and is not of itself morally evil, but may be at times a high moral force in the form of virtuous indignation, called “just” anger. It needs restraint as it can easily become inordinate and lead to a purpose of revenge or pass into hatred and it is then a vice.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Anger
The desire of vengeance. Its ethical rating depends upon the quality of the vengeance and the quantity of the passion. When these are in conformity with the prescriptions of balanced reason, anger is not a sin. It is rather a praiseworthy thing and justifiable with a proper zeal. It becomes sinful when it is sought to wreak vengeance upon one who has not deserved it, or to a greater extent than it has been deserved, or in conflict with the dispositions of law, or from an improper motive. The sin is then in a general sense mortal as being opposed to justice and charity. It may, however, be venial because the punishment aimed at is but a trifling one or because of lack of full deliberation. Likewise, anger is sinful when there is an undue vehemence in the passion itself, whether inwardly or outwardly. Ordinarily it is then accounted a venial sin unless the excess be so great as to go counter seriously to the love of God or of one’s neighbour.
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JOSEPH F. DELANY Transcribed by Paul T. Crowley
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume ICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Anger
(usually , aph, ), the emotion of instant displeasure, which arises from the feeling of injury done, or the discovery of injury intended, or, in many cases, from the discovery of the omission of good offices to which we supposed ourselves entitled; or, it is simply the emotion of displeasure itself, independent of its cause or its consequences. Like most other emotions, it is accompanied by effects on the body, and in this case they are of a very marked kind. The arterial blood-vessels are highly excited; the pulse, during the paroxysm, is strong and hard, the face becomes red and swollen, the brow wrinkled, the eyes protrude, the whole body is put into commotion. The secretion of bile is excessive, and it seems to assume a morbid consistency. In cases of violent passion, and especially in nervous persons, this excitement of the organs soon passes to the other extreme of depression; generally, this does not take place till the anger has subsided, when there follows a period of general relaxation. The original tendency to anger differs much in individuals according to temperament; but frequent giving way to it begets a habit, and increases the natural tendency. From the nature of anger, it is easy to see that it must be often at least prejudicial to health. It frequently gives rise to bile, fever, inflammation of the liver, heart, or brain, or even to mania. These effects follow immediately a fit of the passion; other evil effects come on, after a time, as the consequence of repeated paroxysms, such as paralysis, jaundice, consumption, and nervous fever. The milk of a mother or nurse in a fit of passion will cause convulsions in the child that sucks; it has been known even to occasion instant death, like a strong poison. The controlling of anger is a part of moral discipline. In a rudimentary state of society, its active exercise would seem to be a necessity; by imposing some restraint on the selfish aggressions of one individual upon another, it renders the beginnings of social co-operation and intercourse possible. This is its use, or, as it is sometimes called, its final cause. But the more social intercourse comes to be regulated by customs and laws, the less need is there for the vindictive expression of anger. It seems an error, however, to suppose that the emotion ever will beor that it ought to be extirpated. Laws themselves lose their efficacy when they have not this feeling for a background; and it remains as a last resource for man, when society as it does every now and then resolves itself into its elements. Even in the most artificial and refined states of society, those minor moralities on which half the happiness of social intercourse depends, are imposed upon the selfish, in great measure, by that latent fund of anger which every man is known to carry about with him. Chambers, Encyclopxdia, s.v.
Anger is not evil per se. The mind is formed to be angry as well as to love. Both are original susceptiIilities of our nature. If anger were in itself sinful, how could God himself be angry? How could He, who was separate from sin and sinners, have looked round upon men with anger? An essentially immoral character cannot attach to it if it be the mere emotion of displeasure on the infliction of any evil upon us. Anger may be sinful, when it arises too soon, without reflection, when the injury which awakens it is only apparent, and was designed to do good. The disposition which becomes speedily angry we call passionate. When it is disproportionate to the offense; when it is transferred from the guilty to the innocent; when it is too long protracted; it then becomes revengeful (Eph 4:26; Mat 5:22; Col 3:8). When anger, hatred, wrath, are ascribed to God, they denote his holy and just displeasure with sin and sinners. In him they are principles arising out of his holy and just nature, and are, therefore, steady and uniform, and more terrible than if mere emotions or passions. See Paley, Mor. Fhil. ch. 7, vol. 1; Secker, Sermons, serm. 28; Fawcett, Essay on Anger; Seed, Posth. Serm. 11; Buck, Dict. s.v.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Anger
the emotion of instant displeasure on account of something evil that presents itself to our view. In itself it is an original susceptibility of our nature, just as love is, and is not necessarily sinful. It may, however, become sinful when causeless, or excessive, or protracted (Matt. 5:22; Eph. 4:26; Col. 3:8). As ascribed to God, it merely denotes his displeasure with sin and with sinners (Ps. 7:11).
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
ANGER
Sudden outbursts of temper are one fruit of sinful human nature. The Bible therefore repeatedly pictures the evils of such behaviour and warns Gods people to avoid it (Gen 49:6-7; Psa 37:8; Gal 5:19-20; Eph 4:31-32; Col 3:8). Uncontrolled anger can have far-reaching consequences, producing violence and even murder (Mat 5:21-22; Luk 4:28-29; Act 7:54; Act 7:57-58; Act 21:27-36). It is important that a person in a position of responsibility in the church not be quick tempered (Tit 1:7).
Yet there may be cases where it is right to be angry. Those who are faithful to God should be angry at all forms of sin, whether that sin be rebellion against God or wrongdoing against other people (Exo 16:20; Exo 32:19; 2Sa 12:5; Neh 5:6-7; Mat 18:32-34). But because human nature is affected by sin, people find it difficult to be angry and at the same time not go beyond the limits that God allows (Psa 4:4; Psa 106:32-33; Eph 4:26).
Certainly it is wrong for people to be so angry that they try to take personal revenge. Gods people must be forgiving, and leave God to deal with those who do them wrong (Lev 19:18; Rom 12:19-21; see HATRED; REVENGE). If, in resisting wrongdoing, they are guilty of bad temper, they should not try to excuse their behaviour by claiming they are carrying out Gods righteous purposes (Jam 1:19-20). Gods anger is always pure, always just, always righteous (Exo 34:6-7; Rom 2:4-6; see WRATH).
Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary
Anger
ANGER.Anger is the instinctive resentment or reaction of the soul against anything which it regards as wrong or injurious. It is part of its equipment for self-preservation, and the promptitude and energy with which it comes into play are a fair measure of the souls power to protect itself from the evil which is in the world. If there is not an instant and indignant repulsion of evil, it creeps into the apathetic soul, and soon makes it not only its victim but its instrument. The childs anger with the fire which burns him is in a sense irrational; but one true meaning and purpose of anger in the moral world is illustrated by it. It is the vehement repulsion of that which hurts, and there is no spiritual, as there is no natural, life without it.
An instinct, however, when we come into the world of freedom and responsibility, always needs education; and the radical character of the education required by the instinct of anger is apparent from the fact that the first thought of almost all men is that anger is a vice. Taking human nature as it is, and looking at the actual manifestations of anger, this is only too true. There is, as a rule, something vicious in them. They are self-regarding in a selfish way. Men are angry, as Aristotle puts it (Ethics, iv. 5, 7), on wrong grounds, or with the wrong people, or in a wrong way, or for too long a time. Their anger is natural, not spiritual; selfish, not guided by consideration of principle; the indulgence of a temper, not the staking of ones being for a cause. In the NT itself there are far more warnings against anger than indications of its true place and function. Yet when we read the Gospels with the idea of anger in our minds, we can easily see that justice is done to it both as a virtue and a vice. There is a certain arbitrariness in trying to systematize the teaching of Jesus on this or on any other subject, but most of the matter can be introduced if we examine (1) the occasions on which Jesus Himself is represented as being angry; (2) those in which He expresses His judgment on moral questions with a vehemence which is undoubtedly inspired by indignation; and (3) those in which He gives express teaching about anger.
1. Occasions on which Jesus Himself is represented as being angry.(a) The most explicit is Mar 3:5 He looked round on them with anger ( ), being grieved () over the hardening of their heart. The objects of Christs anger here are the people in the synagogue, who maintained an obstinate and prejudiced silence when He asked them, Is it lawful on the Sabbath day to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill? What roused His anger was partly their inhumanity, which eared nothing for the disablement of the man with the withered hand, but even more, perhaps, the misrepresentation of God of which they were guilty, when in His honour (as they would have it) they justified inhumanity on the Sabbath day. To be inhuman themselves was bad enough, but to impute the same inhumanity to the Heavenly Father was far worse, and the indignation of Jesus was visible as He looked round on them. He passionately resented their temper, and repelled it from Him with vehemence, as injurious at once to God and to man. Yet His indignation was expressed in one indignant glance (, aorist), while it was accompanied by a deep pain, which did not pass away (, present), over the hardening of their heart. This combination, in which resentment of wrong is accompanied with a grief which makes the offenders case ones own, and seeks to win him by reaching the inner witness to God in his soul before insensibility has gone too far, is characteristic of Jesus, and is the test whether anger is Christian.
(b) The next occasion on which we see our Lord display an emotion akin to anger is found in Mar 10:13 ff. He was moved with indignation ( Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 ) when the disciples forbade the children to be brought to Him. The other instances in which the same word is used (Mar 10:41; Mar 14:4, Mat 21:15, Luk 13:14) show that a natural feeling of being hurt or annoyed is what the word specifically means. The disciples should have known Him better than to do what they did: they wronged Him in forbidding the approach of the children. Hence doctrines and practices which refuse to children, and to the intellectually and morally immature in general, their place and interest in the kingdom of God, are proper subjects of resentment. In one aspect of it, the kingdom of God is a protest against nature, and to enter into it we must be born again; but in another, there is a real analogy between them; the order of nature is constituted with a view to the order of grace; man is made in Gods image and for God, and it is his true nature to welcome God; if the children are suffered, and not forbidden, they will go to Jesus. They wrong God who deny this, and therefore the denial is to be resented.
(c) There is a striking passage in Luke (Luk 14:25 ff.), where, although anger is not mentioned, it is impossible not to feel that Jesus is speaking with a profound and even passionate resentment. Great multitudes followed with him, and he turned, and said to them, If any man cometh to me, and hateth not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Jesus was on His way to die; and it moved Him as an indignity, which He was entitled to resent, that on the very path to the cross He should be attended by a shallow throng who did not have it in them to do the slightest violence to themselves for the sake of the kingdom of God. The whole passage, in which the moral demands of discipleship are set at the highest, vibrates with indignation. To follow Christ is a great enterprise, like building a tower, or going to war; it requires the painful sacrifice of the tenderest natural affections, the renunciation of the most valued possessions; and when it is affected by people who have no moral salt in themwho could not win it from themselves to give up anything for God and His causethe resentment of Jesus rises into scorn (Luk 14:34 f.). With all His love for men, there was a kind of man whom He did not shrink from describing as good for nothing.
(d) The last passage is that in which Jesus cleanses the Temple: Mar 11:15 and parallels. What stirred His indignation here was in part the profanity to which sacred places and their proper associations had lost all sacredness; in part, the covetousness which on the pretext of accommodating the pilgrims had turned the house of prayer into a den of thieves; in part, again, the inhumanity which, by instituting a market so noisy in the Court of the Gentiles, must have made worship for these less privileged seekers after God difficult, if not impossible. The text quoted in Joh 2:17 (Psa 69:9), as remembered by the disciples in connexion with this eventthe zeal of thy house shall eat me upsums up as well as anything could do the one characteristic which is never wanting in the anger of Jesus, and which alone renders anger just. It is jealousy for Godthe identification of oneself with His cause and interest on earth, especially as it is represented in human beings, and resentment of everything which does it wrong.* [Note: In Mat 21:31 Wellhausen adopts the reading instead of . This makes the Jews deride Jesus, instead of seriously answering Him; and Wellhausen, taking it so, finds in the words which followThe publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before younot an explanation of the parable, but a Zornesausbruch, an outburst of wrath, which could hardly be cleared of petulance (Das Evangelium Matthaei, 106 f.). O. Holtzmanns idea that Jesus cursed the fig-tree in a momentary fit of temper is only worth mentioning as a warning (see his Leben Jesu, p. 324).]
2. The occasions on which Jesus expresses His judgment on moral questions with a vehemence which is undoubtedly inspired by indignation.Every moral judgment, of course, contains feeling it is not merely the expression of assent or dissent but of consent or resentment. We are all within the moral world, not outside of it; we cannot be spectators merely, but in every thought we are actors as well; to deny this is to deny that then is a moral world at all. Hence all dissent is condemnation, and all condemnation, if real, is resentment; but there are circumstances in which tin condemnation is so emphatic that the resentment becomes vivid and contagions, and it is illustrations of this that we wish to find in the life of Jesus.
(a) The most conspicuous is perhaps that which we find in the passage on (Mat 18:6 f.). Jesus has taken a little child to rebuke the ambitious strife of the Twelve; but these little ones who believe in me are not children, but the disciples generally (cf. Mat 10:42). To make one of them stumble () is to perplex him, to put him out about Christ, to create misunderstanding and estrangement, such as we hear of for a time in the case of the Baptist (Mat 11:2 ff.) and the Nazarenes (Mat 13:57), and so to make his discipleship void. In a more general sense it means to mislead, or to be the cause that another falls into sin which his better conscience condemns. If we are to judge from His language, nothing ever moved Jesus to such passionate indignation as this. The sin of sins was that of leading others into sin, especially the little onesthe weak, the untaught, the easily perplexed and easily misledwhose hearts were otherwise naturally right with Him. Every word in Jesus sentence is laden with indignation: Better for him that a great millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. This anger of Jesus is exactly what is meant in the OT by the jealousy of God, i.e. His love pledged to His own, and resenting with all the intensity of the Divine nature any wrong inflicted on them (cf. Zec 8:2 f.). Though anger is often sinful, the absence of anger may be due to the absence of love: and the man who can see the little ones being made to stumble and who takes it quite coolly is very far from the kingdom of God.
(b) It is possibly an instance of this same indignation that we find in Mat 16:23. Peter tempts Jesus to decline the crossin other words, tries to make Him stumble at the will of the Father; and the indignant vehemence with which he is repelledGet thee behind me, Satanshows how real the temptation was, and how a prompt and decisive resentment is the natural security in such trials. We have a right and a duty to be angry with the tempter.
(c) In the answer of Jesus to the Sadducees in Mar 12:24 ff. we have another light on what moved Him to indignation. In the scornful with which the discussion closes, resuming the of Mar 12:24, Jesus resentment shines out. The question at issue, that of mans immortality was a great and solemn question. It involved the whole character of Godwhat He was, and what in His power, His goodness, and His faithfulness He could and would do for the souls He had made in His own image. The Sadducees had tried to degrade it and make it ridiculous, and the indignation of Jesus is unmistakable. It is an example which justifies indignation with those who by unworthy controversial methods profane or render ridiculous subjects in which the dearest concernments of humanity are involved.
(d) To these passages may be added Jesus denunciation of the Pharisees in Mat 23:13 ff. The long series of woes is not merely a revelation of things which in the mind of Jesus are illegitimate, it is a revelation of the passionate resentment which these things evoke in Him. They are the things with which God is angry every day, and it is a sin in men if they can look at them without indignation. To keep people ignorant of religious truth, neither living by it ourselves, nor letting them do so (Mat 23:13); to make piety or the pretence of it a cloak for avarice (Mat 23:14, only introduced here from || Mark); to raise recruits for our own faction on the pretext of enlisting men for the kingdom of God (Mat 23:15); to debauch the simple conscience by casuistical sophistries (Mat 23:16-22); to destroy the sense of proportion in morals by making morality a matter of law in which all things stand on the same level (Mat 23:23 f.); to put appearance above reality, and reduce life to a play, at once tragedy and farce (Mat 23:25-28); to revive the spirit and renew the sins of the past, while we affect a pious horror of them, crucifying the living prophets while we build monuments to the martyred (Mat 23:29 ff.): these are the things which made a storm of anger sweep over the soul of Jesus, and burst in this tremendous denunciation of His enemies. Yet it is entirely in keeping with the combination of ideas in Mar 3:5 ( ) when the Evangelist attaches to this our Lords lament over Jerusalem (Mat 23:37 ff., cf. Luk 13:34 f.). His anger does not extinguish His compassion, and if the city could be moved to repentance He would still gather her children together as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings.
Putting the whole of the passages together, and generalizing from them, we may infer that the two things in human conduct which moved Jesus most quickly and deeply to anger, were (1) inhumanity, wrong done to the needs or rights of men; and (2) misrepresentation of God by professedly religious people, and especially by religious teachers. He stood in the world for the rights and interests, or, we may say, for the truth of God and of human nature; and His whole being reacted immediately and vehemently against all that did wrong to either.
3. Something may further be learned from the passages in which Jesus gives express teaching about anger.(a) The chief of these is Mat 5:21-27. Here our Lord interprets the sixth commandment for the citizens of the kingdom of God. It is not only the act of murder which is condemned, but the first movement of the passions which leads in that direction. He who murders shall be liable to the judgment? I tell you, every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to the judgment. The reading (without cause, temere) is no doubt erroneous here; but the introduction of it is rather a rhetorical than an exegetical blunder. As Tholuck observed, to bring in the idea that there is such a thing as lawful anger would only weaken the condemnation passed here upon such anger as men are familiar with in themselves and others; but after what has been said under (1) and (2), it does not need to be proved that there is a place for anger in the Christian in the world in which we live. What Jesus condemns here is not any kind of anger, but anger with a brother, which forgets that he is a brother, and that we have a brothers duty to him; the anger which leads straight to contemptuous and insulting words (the and of Mat 5:22), and ends in irreconcilable bitterness (Mat 5:25 f.). Anger like this on the part of one Christian toward another is sin, and sin so deadly that no words could exaggerate the urgency of escape from it. No religions duty, not even the most sacred, can take precedence of the duty of reconciliation. If a man should be offering his gift at the altarif he should actually be seated at the communion table with the communion cup in his hand, let him put it down, and go first, and get out of these angry relations with his brother, and then come and have fellowship with God (Mat 5:23 f.). How can an angry man, with the temper of a quarrel in him, have communion with the God of peace? It is possible to raise casuistical questions in all such situations as are here supposed, but as these questions present themselves only to the spectators, not to the responsible actors, it is not worth while to raise them. The one duty insisted on here, as in the partly parallel passage in Mat 18:15-18, is the duty of placability. The person who has suffered the wrongthat is, who is in the right, who is entitled to be angryis for that very reason to take the initiative in reconciliation, and to bear the expense of it. That is how God deals with us, who have offended Him, and that is how we are to deal with those who offend us. There is to be no anger in the sense of a selfish resentment into which the bad passions of unregenerate human nature can pour themselves; and the lawful anger of the soul, whose wrong is a wrong done to the kingdom of God, will pass away at once when he who has done the wrong is brought to repentance. The penitence and the resentment are the guilty and the innocent index of the reality of the wrong; and each is as inevitable as the other if the Christian life is to be morally sincere.
(b) It is natural to take account here of the passage on retaliation and non-resistance in Mat 5:38 ff. Anger seems to be unconditionally precluded by such a saying as, Whosoever smiteth thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. It is difficult to believe that any one was ever struck on the face unjustly (as is assumed in the connexion) without resenting it, and just as difficult to believe that it would be for the good of humanity or of the kingdom of God that it should he so. But Jesus, who came to abolish one literalism, did not come to institute another. His words are never to be read as statutes, but as appeals to conscience. What He teaches in this place is that there is no limit to be laid down beforehand beyond which love is no longer to regulate the conduct of His disciples. No provocation can be so insulting, no demand can be so unjust, so irrational, so exasperating, as that His disciples shall be entitled to cast love overboard, and meet the world with weapons like its own. Love must to all extremities be the supreme and determining principle in their conduct, the same love, with the same interests in view, as that of their Father in heaven (Mat 5:45); but no more in them than in Him does it exclude all manifestation of anger. What it does exclude is the selfish anger which is an alternative to love, not the Divine resentment which is a mode of love, and expresses its sense of the reality of wrong. If this died out of the world, society would swiftly rot to extinction; but the gospel, in the sense of the words, the example, and the spirit of Jesus, is so far from proscribing this that it is the greatest of all powers for keeping it alive. For those who have learned that where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty, the literal interpretation of words like Mat 5:39-42 is a combination of pedantry and fanaticism which no genius will ever make anything else than absurd.
Echoes of the teaching of Jesus on anger are probably to be traced at various points in the teaching of the Apostles. e.g. in Romans 12, a chapter which often recalls the Sermon on the Mount, Rom 12:18-21 are entirely in the key of Mat 5:38 ff. The wrath of Rom 12:19, to which Christians are to leave room, is the wrath of God which will be revealed at the last day. God has reserved for Himself ( , ) the vindication of the wronged, and they are not to forestall Him or take His work out of His hands; in the day of wrath, when His righteous judgment is revealed, all wrongs will be rectified; meanwhile, as Christ teaches, love is to rule all our conduct, and we must overcome evil with good. It is perhaps with a vague recollection of Mat 5:23 f. that men are directed in 1Ti 2:8 to pray : an angry man cannot pray. Accordingly a bishop must not be , given to anger, or of an uncontrollable temper (Tit 1:7). Exhortations like those in Eph 4:31, Col 3:8, Jam 1:19, show that anger was known to the Church mainly in forms which the Christian conscience condemned. Jam 1:19 is particularly interesting, because it reminds us of the danger (in anger) of enlisting self in the service of God, calling on the old man to do what can be done only by the new: The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. But though it is difficult, it need not be impossible that the wrath which a man feels, and under the impulse of which he expresses himself, should be, not the wrath of man, but a Divine resentment of evil. The words of Mat 18:6 or Mat 23:13 ff. fell from human lips, but they are the expression and the instrument of the jealousy of God. To be angry without sin is difficult for men, but it is a difficult duty (Eph 4:26).
Apart from anything yet alluded to is the use of the verb to describe some kind of emotion in Jesus (Mar 1:43, Mat 9:30, Joh 11:33; Joh 11:38). Ordinarily the word conveys the idea of indignation which cannot be repressed; but this, though found elsewhere in the Gospels (e.g. Mar 14:5), is not obviously appropriate in the passages quoted. In the first two it may be due to our Lords consciousness of the fact that the persons on whom He had conferred a great blessing were immediately going to disregard His command to keep silent about it; the sense of this put something severe and peremptory into His tones. In the last two it has been explained as expressing Jesus sense of the indignity of death; He resented, as something not properly belonging to the Divine idea of the world, such experiences as He was confronted with on the way to the grave of Lazarus. But this is precarious, and on the whole there is little stress to be laid on any inference we can draw from the use of in the Gospels.
Literature.Butler, Sermons, viii., ix.; Law, Serious Call, ch. xxi.; Seeley, Ecce Homo, chs. xxi.xxiii.; Dale, Atonement7 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , p. 338 ff.; Expos. Times, iv. [1893], pp. 256 ff., 492 ff.; Expositor, 1st ser. i. [1875], 133 ff.
James Denney.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Anger
ANGER.In OT anger represents about a dozen Heb. roots, which occur as nouns, vbs. (once angered is used transitively, Psa 106:32), and adjs. By far the most frequent words are anaph (lit. to snort) and its deriv. noun aph, which is used of the anger both of men (Gen 27:45; Gen 30:2, Exo 11:8; Exo 32:19; etc.) and God (Exo 4:14; Exo 32:22, Psa 6:1; Psa 7:6 etc.). In NT anger is of much less frequent occurrence, and represents only 2 roots: (1) the noun org (wh., however, is usually tr. [Note: translate or translation.] wrath), the vb. orgizomai, the adj. orglos (only in Tit 1:7), and the trans. vb. parorgiz (Rom 10:19, the only case of a trans, use of anger in NT); (2) the vb. chola (lit. to be full of bile, fr. chol, bile), used only in Joh 7:23 to express the bitter anger of the Jews against Jesus. With regard to the distinction between org and the synon. thumos, it is to be noted that while org is very often tr. [Note: translate or translation.] wrath, thumos is never tr. [Note: translate or translation.] anger, and when the two words occur together, thumos in each case is wrath (Rom 2:8, Eph 4:31, Col 3:8) and org anger (Eph 4:31, Col 3:8) or indignation (Rom 2:8). Thumos is the more violent word, denoting anger as a strong passion or emotion, while org points rather to a settled moral indignation. Thus org is used of the sorrowful anger of Jesus (Mar 3:5); thumos of the rage of His enemies (Luk 4:28; cf. Act 19:28). And, outside of the Apocalypse, thumos is applied almost exclusively to the wrath of men (the only exception being Rom 2:8), while org in the great majority of cases (Mat 3:7, Joh 3:36, Rom 1:18 etc.) denotes the righteous indignation of God.
J. C. Lambert.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Anger
anger: In the Old Testament, the translation of several Hebrew words, especially of , ‘aph (lit. nostril, countenance), which is used some 45 times of human, 177 times of Divine, anger (OHL). The word occurs rarely in the New Testament (Mar 3:5; Eph 4:31; Col 3:8; Rev 14:10), its place being taken by the word wrath (see WRATH). As a translation of words denoting God’s anger, the English word is unfortunate so far as it may seem to imply selfish, malicious or vindictive personal feeling. The anger of God is the response of His holiness to outbreaking sin. Particularly when it culminates in action is it rightly called Has wrath. The Old Testament doctrine of God’s anger is contained in many passages in the Pentateuch, Psalms and the Prophets. In Proverbs men are dissuaded from anger (Pro 15:1; Pro 27:4), and the slow to anger is commended (Pro 15:18; Pro 16:32; Pro 19:11). Christians axe enjoined to put away the feeling of self-regarding, vindictive anger (Eph 4:31; Col 3:8), and to cherish no desire of personal revenge (Eph 4:26).
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Anger
General references
Gen 4:6; Gen 49:7; 2Ch 28:9; Job 5:2; Job 19:29; Psa 37:8; Psa 55:3; Psa 76:10; Pro 6:34; Pro 12:16; Pro 14:17; Pro 14:29; Pro 15:1; Pro 15:18; Pro 16:14; Pro 16:29; Pro 16:32; Pro 17:14; Pro 19:11-12; Pro 19:19; Pro 21:24; Pro 22:24-25; Pro 25:28; Pro 27:3-4; Pro 29:8-9; Pro 29:22; Pro 30:33; Ecc 7:9; Hos 7:16; Amo 1:11; Jon 4:4; Mat 5:22; 2Co 12:20; Gal 5:19-21; Eph 4:26; Eph 4:31; Col 3:8; 1Ti 2:8; Tit 1:7; Jas 1:19-20 Hatred; Jealousy; Malice; Speaking, Evil; Strife; Kindness; Meekness; Patience
Instances of:
– Cain slaying Abel
Gen 4:5-8
– Simeon and Levi, on account of the humbling of their sister, Dinah
Gen 49:5-7
– Pharaoh, toward Moses
Exo 10:11; Exo 10:28
– Moses, toward Pharaoh
Exo 11:8; Num 20:10-11
– Balaam, toward his ass
Num 22:27; Num 22:29
– Balak, toward Balaam
Num 24:10-11
– Ephraimites, toward Gideon, for not soliciting their aid against the Midianites
Jdg 8:1
– Jonathan, on account of Saul’s persecution of David
1Sa 20:34; 2Ch 25:10
– Saul, toward Jonathan, on account of his sympathy with David
1Sa 20:30-34
– Ahab, because Naboth would not sell his vineyard
1Ki 21:4
– Naaman, because Elisha directed him to wash in the Jordan
2Ki 5:12
– Asa, because the prophet reproved him
2Ch 16:10
– Uzziah, toward Azariah, the priest, because of his reproof of
2Ch 26:19
– Ahasuerus, toward Vashti, for refusing to amuse his courtiers
Est 1:12; Est 7:7
– Haman, because Mordecai did not salute him
Est 3:5
– Elihu, because Job had beaten his friends in argument
Job 32:3
– Moab
Isa 16:6
– Nebuchadnezzar, on account of the insubordination of the three Hebrews, who refused to worship his idol
Dan 3:13; Dan 3:19
– Jonah, because the gourd withered
Jon 4:1-2; Jon 4:4; Jon 4:9
– Herod, toward the wise men who deceived him
Mat 2:16
– People of Nazareth, toward Jesus
Luk 4:28
– Paul, toward Ananias
Act 23:3
– Jews, against Stephen
Act 7:54-58
Of God
Exo 22:24; Exo 33:5; Num 11:1; Num 11:10; Num 11:33; Num 12:9; Num 14:11; Num 16:20-21; Num 16:45; Num 25:3-4; Num 25:11; Num 32:10-11; Num 32:13; Deu 6:14-15; Deu 9:13-14; Exo 32:10; Deu 9:18-20; Deu 32:21-22; Jos 7:1; Jos 7:26; Jos 23:16; Jdg 2:12; Jdg 3:8; Jdg 10:7; 1Sa 28:18; 2Sa 6:7; 2Sa 22:8-9; 1Ki 11:9; 1Ki 16:2-13; 2Ki 13:3; 2Ki 17:18; 2Ki 22:13; 2Ki 23:26; Psa 7:11; Psa 69:24; Psa 74:1; Psa 76:7; Psa 78:21; Psa 78:38; Psa 78:49-50; Psa 85:3; Psa 90:11; Psa 103:8-9; Psa 106:23; Psa 106:29; Psa 106:32; Psa 110:5; Isa 5:25; Isa 9:17; Isa 9:19; Isa 9:21; Isa 12:1; Isa 13:9; Isa 13:13; Isa 30:27; Isa 42:25; Isa 48:9; Isa 57:16-17; Isa 63:3-6; Isa 66:15; Jer 3:12; Jer 4:4; Jer 4:8; Jer 4:26; Jer 7:20; Jer 10:10; Jer 17:4; Jer 21:5-6; Jer 23:20; Jer 30:24; Jer 25:15-17; Jer 25:37-38; Jer 32:37; Jer 33:5; Jer 36:7; Jer 42:18; Jer 44:6; Jer 51:45; Lam 2:1; Lam 2:3; Lam 2:6; Lam 4:11; Eze 5:13; Eze 5:15; Eze 25:14-17; Dan 9:16; Hos 11:9; Hos 13:11; Hos 14:4; Nah 1:2-3; Nah 1:6; Mat 22:7; Mat 22:13; Rom 1:18; Rom 2:5; Eph 5:6; Col 3:6; Heb 3:11; Heb 4:3; Rev 6:16-17; Rev 14:10-11; Rev 15:1; Rev 15:7; Rev 16:19; Rev 19:15
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Anger
thymos (G2372) Anger, Indignation, Wrath
orge (G3709) Revenge
parorgismos (G3950) Vengeance
Thymos and orge occur together several times in the New Testament (Rom 2:8; Eph 4:31; Col 3:8; Rev 19:15), in the Septuagint (Ps. 77:49; Dan 3:13; Mic 5:15), and in secular writings. These words may be juxtaposed, or one may depend on the other. Although orge thymou does not occur in the New Testament, it is frequently found in the Old Testament (2Ch 29:10; Isa 30:27; Lam 1:12; Hos 11:9). On one occasion in the Septuagint, all three words occur together (Jer 21:5).
After considerable development, thymos and orge came to refer to the passion of anger, the strongest of all passions, impulses, and desires. Although the grammarians and philologers spent some time distinguishing these words, there are a number of passages where they cannot be distinguished. The grammarians and philologers only assumed that the words were not used indifferently on every occasion and concluded that thymos refers to turbulent commotion, the boiling agitation of the feelings. Basil the Great called thymos “an inebriation of the soul” that will either subside and disappear or else settle down into orge, which is more of an abiding and settled habit of mind (“an enduring anger”) that is focused on revenge. Thus Plato joined echthra (G2189) with orge, and Plutarch joined dysmeneia with orge.
This more passionate but temporary character of thymos may explain Xenophon’s remark that thymos in a horse is what orge is in a man. The Stoics, who were often involved in definitions and distinctions, defined thymos as “beginning anger.” In his wonderful comparison of old age and youth, Aristotle characterized the angers of old men in this manner: “Their passions [thymoi] are keen but weak”like fire in straw, quickly blazing up and as quickly extinguished. In his discussion of the two words, Origen arrived at the same conclusion: “Thymos differs from orge in that thymos is anger [orge] rising in vapor and burning up, while orge is a yearning for revenge.” Jerome said: “Thymos is incipient anger and displeasure fermenting in the mind; orge however, when thymos has subsided, is that which longs for revenge and desires to injure the one thought to have caused harm.” This agrees with the Stoic definition of orge:”a desire for revenge on the person who seems to have caused injury wrongfully.” So Gregory Nazianzene said, “Thymos is the sudden boiling of the mind,/ orge is enduring thymos.”Where the words occur together, Theodoret noted: “Through thymos is revealed suddenness, and through orge continuation.” Josephus described the Essenes as “stewards of orge and controllers of thymos.” Dion Cassius noted that one of Tiberius’s characteristic traits was that “he became violent [orgizeto] at what barely aroused his anger [ethymouto].”
Menis and kotos are, respectively, “anger of long standing” and “anger of very long standing,” and do not occur in the New Testament.
Parorgismos is not found in classical Greek but occurs several times in the Septuagint (as in 1Ki 15:30; 2Ki 19:3). It is not synonymous with orge, though we have translated it as “wrath.” But parorgismos cannot properly be translated by “wrath,” because the parorgismos is absolutely forbiddenthe sun shall not go down upon itbut under certain conditions orge may be righteous. Scripture does not absolutely condemn anger, as did the Stoics, but teaches metriopaiheia, a moderation, not apatheia, an absolute suppression, of the passions. Nor does Scripture take a loveless view of other men’s sins, such as is reflected in the words, “Do not trouble yourself. Does someone sin? He sins against himself.” Aristotle was in agreement with all the deeper ethical writers of antiquity when he affirmed that anger guided by reason is a proper affection, just as Scripture not only permits but on certain occasions demands anger. And this view is held by the great teachers of the church. As Gregory of Nyssa wrote: “Anger [thymos] is a good beast whenever it is under the yoke of reason.” And Augustine stated: “Our training does not inquire whether a dutiful mind is angry but why it is angry.” Furthermore, Scripture refers to the “wrath of God” (Mat 3:7; Rom 12:19; and often). God would not love good unless he hated evil; the two are inseparable. Either God must do both or neither. And there is also a wrath of the merciful Son of Man (Mar 3:5) and a wrath that righteous men not merely may but (as they are righteous) must feel. There can be no surer and sadder token of an utterly prostrate moral condition than not being able to be angry with sinand with sinners. Fuller said: “Anger is one of the sinews of the soul; he that wants it hath a maimed mind, and with Jacob sinew-shrunk in the hollow of his thigh, must needs halt. Nor is it good to converse with such as cannot be angry.” “The affections,” as another English divine has said, “are not, like poisonous plants, to be eradicated; but as wild, to be cultivated.” Thus in Eph 4:26 Paul is not condescending to human infirmity and saying (as many understand him): “Your anger shall not be imputed to you as a sin if you put it away before nightfall.” Instead he was saying, “Be angry, yet in this anger of yours allow no sinful element to mingle; there is that which may cleave even to a righteous angerthe parorgismos, the irritation, the exasperation, the embittermentwhich must be dismissed at once in order that, being defecated of this impurer element which mingled with it, that only may remain which has a right to remain.”
Fuente: Synonyms of the New Testament
Anger
a resentful emotion of the mind, arising upon the receipt, or supposed receipt, of an affront or injury; and also simple feeling of strong displacency at that which is in itself evil, or base, or injurious to others. In the latter sense it is not only innocent but commendable. Strong displeasure against evil doers, provided it be free from hatred and malice, and interferes not with a just placableness, is also blameless, Eph 4:26. When it is vindictive against the person of our neighbour, or against the innocent creatures of God, it is wicked, Mat 5:22. When anger, hatred, wrath, and fury, are ascribed to God, they denote no tumultuous passion, but merely his holy and just displeasure with sin and sinners and the evidence of it in his terrible threatenings, or righteous judgments, Psa 6:1; Psa 7:11. We must, however, take care that we refine not too much. These are Scriptural terms, and are often used of God; and though they express not a tumultuous, much less an unjust, passion, there is something in God which answers to them. In him they are principles arising out of his holy and just nature; and for this reason they are more steady and uniform, and more terrible, than if they were emotions, or as we say, passions. Nor can we rightly regard the seventy of the judgments which God has so often executed upon sin without standing in awe of him, as a consuming fire to the ungodly.