Theme

Witnesses on anger

Anger is not shut out of prayer: these witnesses carried it before God rather than against him.

A few words

I am the voice of Christ in the desert of this island.

Antonio de Montesinos (v. 1475-v. 1540) — Advent sermon of 1511, reported by Bartolomé de Las Casas, History of the Indies, book III, ch. 4 (translated from the Spanish by the Manna team)

I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.

Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) — Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Appendix, 1845

The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.

Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) — Southern Horrors, 1892

Hear, my son, the instruction of your father, and do not forsake the teaching of your mother. Make it your habit to speak all your words gently, to every person and at every time; by this you will be kept from anger, which is an evil trait and makes men sin.

Nahmanide (1194-1270) — Iggeret ha-Ramban (Ramban's Letter to his Son), opening, trans. from the Hebrew by the Manna team

During which time I was awakened and brought to see myself poor, wretched and undone, and without the mercy of God must be lost.

Richard Allen (1760-1831) — The Life Experience and Gospel Labors of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen (1833)

The time has come for the sowing of earthly seed, of corn and of other things. We see men going forth to work from the end to the beginning of the night, taking all care that they may sow what is best and most productive, that the needs of the body may be supplied. And shall we, the husbandmen of spiritual seed, sleep our time away, and neglect to sow what we should?

Théodore Stoudite (759-826) — Parva Catechesis, Discourse XXVII, in Alice Gardner, Theodore of Studium, His Life and Times, London, Edward Arnold, 1905, p. 91; English by Alice Gardner (d. 1927)

All 7 witnesses on anger