Gentle Jesus meek and mild? St John Chrysostom on tough love

I gave a little background yesterday on the great doctor of the Church St John Chrysostom and his commentaries on the psalms. 

Today I want to give a little taster of his commentary, using as an example his discussion of an issue that is important for us today, namely the nature of meekness, drawing from his introduction to Psalm 131 (132), 'O Lord remember David, and all his meekness'.

The sanatisation of Our Lord

One of the biggest problems in modern Catholicism is the highly selective, highly sanitised picture often presented of Our Lord and his teaching: the faux-version that emphasizes that Jesus associated with sinners but omits to mention his insistence that they sin no more; a version that emphasizes turning the other cheek and praying for enemies, but forgets about his driving the money-lenders from the Temple and taking the pharisees and others to task for hypocrisy; the version that altogether omits some of the 'hard sayings' on doctrine Our Lord taught, such as the nature of the Eucharist, the prohibition on divorce, and much more. 

It leads to a version of Christianity where true catholics are berated for the crime of promoting orthodoxy; where those who campaign against liturgical abuses are denounced as 'temple police'; and where most bishops and priests prefer to stay silent rather than cause 'discomfort' by teaching the truth. 

In his commentary on Psalm 131, St John Chrysostom looks precisely at this issue.

Psalm 131, verse 1

The first line of Psalm 131 in the Vulgate is Meménto, Dómine, David, et omnis mansuetúdinis ejus', or Remember Lord, David and all his meekness.

There is an obvious connection here between the claimed meekness for David, the third beatitude (Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth), and God's promise to David that his descendants would rule Israel forever.

It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that the Hebrew Masoretic Text version of this verse (not followed by the neo-Vulgate in this particular case), in what may be a classic piece of anti-Christian text manipulation by the early post-Temple Jewish community, substitutes a word meaning 'hardships' for meekness in this verse

But what does meekness actually mean in this context?

King David, after all, is hardly the popular image of a meek and mild, pacifistic personality: he learnt his slingshot skills as a shepherd defending his flock against lions and other wild beasts, and from his famous encounter with Goliath and throughout his turbulent reign, he was above all, a warrior.

Paris Psalter

Meekness does not mean inaction, quite the contrary!

In order to tackle the question, St John points us to another 'type' of Christ, namely Moses, in order to understand that meekness, or gentleness, does not imply weakness, failure to speak up, or pacifism:

"While in other places they ask to be saved only on the basis of remembrance of the ancestors, here by contrast they cite the reason for the good things - moderation, humility, gentleness, for which Moses too was particularly remarkable. "He was the gen­tlest of all the men on the earth," Scripture says, remember.   But some of the heretics criticize his way of life and what is said of him, asking, "What do you mean? Was that the gentlest of men who struck down the Egyptian and slew him? Who filled the Jews with internecine blood and wars? Who ordered kith and kin to commit murder? Who sundered the earth with a prayer, and drew down thunderbolts from on high, drowning some and incinerat­ing others?"

 

St John's key point is that failure to speak up or take corrective act in the face of sin is not a sign of meekness and humility, but is in fact a vice:

"Ignoring the wronged, not grieving on behalf of the wronged or fuming over the abused is a mark not of virtue but of vice - not of gentleness, to be sure, but of torpor.  And so this very thing demonstrates his gentleness, and the fact that he was so ardent as to spring into action in cases where he saw others being wronged, unable to contain his irritation in de­fence of the righteous..."

In fact, St John argues, the mark of meekness is that Moses - and thus David, foreshadowing Our Lord - was more concerned about the spiritual welfare of the many than about his own fate; and did not consider sparing the rod in the case of the guilty the right course when it could cost the souls of others:

"Should he have ignored the trampling un­derfoot of the priesthood, the overturning of God's laws and the dissolution of all their content - I mean the dignity of the priest­hood, the opening of the sanctuary to all and, out of indifference for the priests, exposing the sacred precincts to the invasion of anyone inclined and letting everything go to the dogs? These things most of all, however, would not have been marks of gentleness but of inhumanity and cruelty, to ignore such an increase in evil and by sparing two hundred to destroy so many tens of thousands. I mean, tell me, when he bade kith and kin to be slain, what should he have done, with God enraged, impiety on the increase, and no one available who could save them from this rage? Should he have let a blow fall from heaven on all the tribes, the race be abandoned to utter ruin, and with that punishment ignore as well the incur­able sin committed? Or with retribution and death of a few mem­bers expunge the sin, avert the rage and render God propitious to those who had committed such awful sins? If you examine the righteous man's behavior in this way, you will acknowledge from this in particular his being most gentle."

Moses and Korah, c15th

Accepting personal suffering with patience

What actually constitutes meekness, St John concludes, is acting for the good, and accepting attacks on ourselves with grace and forbearance:

"If first we distinguish and define what on earth is gentleness and what harshness. I mean, striking is not a mark of harshness pure and simple, nor sparing a mark of gentleness; rather, that person is gentle who is able to bear faults against himself...And so this very thing demonstrates his gentleness, and the fact that he was so ardent as to spring into action in cases where he saw others being wronged, unable to contain his irritation in de­fence of the righteous. At any rate, when he personally was abused, he neither took vengeance nor demanded retribution, but without fail continued faithful to his sound values. Had he been harsh or irascible, on the contrary, he who showed such feeling and ardor for the sake of others would not have been strong enough to ac­cept his own fate, but in that situation would have been much more enraged."

Note: All extracts quoted above are from St John Chrysostom, Commentary on the Psalms, Translated with an Introduction by Robert Charles Hill, Volume Two, Holy Cross Orthodox Press: Brookline, MA; 1998, pp 202-4.