This was yesterday's reading from Wright's Readings for the Daily Office from the Early Church. Something about his reference to unbridled anger as a sign of evil arising from within seemed to speak to the way many are dealing with the issues of the day (I dimly remember a passage in Fox's Pagans and Christians where he spoke of anger as the besetting fault of the late empire). Why is it that, of all of the passions, anger is the easiest one for us to bless?

If evil is not something which has no principle from which it springs, as is the case of the uncreated Being, and if it is not something that God has made, where does it come from? For no wise person will deny the existence of evil in this world. We are all familiar with the evil of death. But from what we have said it is evident that evil is not a living substance. It is a perversion of mind and spirit, swerving away from the way of true virtue, which frequently overtakes the unwary.

We see also that the greater danger does not come from outside us. It comes from our very selves. The enemy is within us. Within us is the progenitor of our error: within us, I say, dwells our adversary. Hence, we must examine our aims, explore the habits of our minds, be watchful over our thoughts and over the desires of our heart.

You yourself are the cause of your wickedness. You yourself are the commander of your shameful acts, and the instigator of your crimes. Why blame another agent as an excuse for your own faults? Oh! that you would not incite yourself, that you would not rush heedlessly on, that you would not entangle yourself in immoderate endeavors, or in indignation and passionate desires, for these hold you captive as in nets.

Most certainly it belongs to us, and we are able to moderate our endeavors, to restrain our anger, to curb our desires. But we can also yield to wantonness, foster evil passions, inflame our anger, or give in to fits of anger instead of humbly lowering ourselves and lovingly practicing gentleness.

Hence, why should we accuse nature? There are impediments in nature; there is old age and infirmity. But both have also advantages: old age brings more friendly manners, gives more useful counsels, inspires more readiness to accept death, and helps curb evil passions more easily. The weakness of the body too has as counterpart the sobriety of mind. Hence the Apostle says, “When I am powerless, it is then I am strong.” Accordingly he gloried in his infirmities, and no in his powers. And there came to hi the luminous, salutary answer that “in weakness power is made perfect.”

Let us therefore not seek for causes outside ourselves nor blame others for them. Let us acknowledge our guilt. For we must willingly attribute to ourselves, not to others, whatever evil we can avoid doing when we so choose.

From the treatise On the Six Days of Creation by Ambrose, Bishop of Milan