I once met a theologian who was extremely pious, but who had the habit of speaking to the secular people around him in a very blunt manner. His method penetrated so deeply that it shook them very severely. He told me once: “During a gathering, I said such-and-such a thing to a lady.” But the way that he said it, crushed her. “Look”, I said to him, “you may be tossing golden crowns studded with diamonds to other people, but the way that you throw them can smash heads. And not only the sensitive ones, but the sound ones also.”
— Saint Paisios of Mount Athos
Speaking of niceness (cough cough), a certain right-wing Christian website recently ran an article called “Preach the Gospel Always, Use Insults if Necessary.” I don’t want to name the site, because it doesn’t matter. Sufficeth to say it’s is popular with conservative Catholics, and the post currently the #1 most-read.
The author points out that insults are sometimes useful for snapping people out of their sinful slumber. He uses the example of Saint Monica, who, as a girl, had taken to sneaking wine from her parents’ cellar. Blessed Augustine discusses this episode in his Confessions, a passage which the author of the article quotes (I’m blending translations):
Did you not out of another woman’s soul evoke a hard and bitter insult, as a surgeon’s knife from your secret store, and with one thrust remove all that putrefaction? For the maidservant who used to accompany her to the cellar, falling out, as it happens, with her little mistress, when she was alone with her, cast in her teeth this vice, with very bitter insult, calling her a boozer. Stung by this taunt, she reflected on her own foul addiction, at once condemned it, and stopped the habit. Just as flattering friends corrupt, so quarrelsome enemies often bring us correction.
All true! But now read the next paragraph. Augustine clearly condemns the maidservant. He uses this as an example of how God can use even our sins to achieve His ends:
Yet you render not unto them what you do by them, but what was proposed by them. For she, being angry, desired to irritate her young mistress, not to cure her; and did it in secret, either because the time and place of the dispute found them thus, or perhaps lest she herself should be exposed to danger for disclosing it so late. But you, Lord, Governor of heavenly and earthly things, who convertest to your purposes the deepest torrents, and disposest the turbulent current of the ages, healest one soul by the unsoundness of another; lest any man, when he remarks this, should attribute it unto his own power if another, whom he wishes to be reformed, is so through a word of his.
Think of how Christ used Caiaphas’s malice and Pilate’s cowardice to achieve His plan for our salvation. They’re not the heroes of this story, yet their evil propels the Hero to His moment of triumph. It’s a beautiful example of both Divine Providence and poetic justice.
Really, even if he didn’t read the passage in context, the author should have known that a “quarrlesome enemy” is never the hero in a Christian fable. Not when Christ commands us to love our enemies, and Saint Paul tells us that “a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all” (2 Tim. 2:24).
To be clear, I agree that insults are sometimes useful for snapping people out of their sinful slumber. There’s a story about Saint Paisios the Athonite confronting a pornographer who visited his Mount Athos to “debunk” this wonderworking monk:
When they [the pornographer and his companions] arrived, the elder received them in his yard, saying, “Sit down and let me serve you something.” The elder served the other two gentlemen first, and then stood in front of the first man and turned the plate upside down, letting the sweet fall in the mud.
”I dropped it,” he said, “but that doesn’t matter. Pick it up and eat it anyway.”
The fellow was insulted: “How do you expect me to eat it when its filthy?”
The elder sternly replied, “And why do you give people filth to eat?”
Stunned, embarrassed, and in some fear, the man got up and left, but he went back again the next day and spoke with the elder. He told me he felt then as though the ground were shifting under his feet. The conversation was brief.
”What am I supposed to do?” he asked.
The elder responded, “First of all, shut down your business, then come back and talk to me again.”He returned to Thessaloniki, closed the business, and began to look for new work. After about a month he went to speak with Father Paisios, who told him to go to confession and taught him to put his life in order spiritually.
This is a great example of how giving offense is actually a salutary thing to do.
The author of the pro-insults article doesn’t talk about this incident, obviously. Nor does he bring up the obvious passages in Scripture. For instance, I remember when a certain Jesuit agitator declared, “Calling people animals is sinful.” The Twitters were quick to point out that Jesus called the Pharisees as a brood of vipers and referred to the Canaanites as dogs. So, why can’t we?
Truth be told, I’m not a huge fan of this particular Jesuit. And he definitely overstated his case. Still, I think it’s good to remind ourselves periodically of the first rule of Scriptural exegesis: You are not Jesus. Whenever you read a story about Jesus’s life, you should not identify with Jesus. You should identify with the sinner whom He is healing/converting/forgiving/upbraiding/flagellating/etc.
Again, I’m nots saying that Elder Paisios did anything wrong. I’m not deying that, in God’s hands, a cruel word (like the maidservants’) may be used break a heart of stone (like Saint Monica’s). The point, rather, is this: Only rarely does insulting someone lead to their conversion or repentance, and only the holiest of men are capable of discerning such occasions. Jesus can do it. Paisios can do it. But if you or I try to insult someone into holiness, we’re probably going to have the opposite effect.
By the way, this isn’t only a problem for “the Right.”
Whenever a traditional Christian defends some point of traditional Christian morality, you’ll hear one of our lefty friends cry, “I thought Jesus ate with prostitutes and tax collectors!” Once again, the proper response is: Do you identify with Jesus in that parable?
This is where liberal Christianity become—sironically; hilariously—elitist. Sorry, folks, but God’s not saying you must condescend to eat with sinners. No: you are the sinner. He condescends to eat with you.
As for us recovering sinners (i.e., Christians) Saint Paul gives us a different rule: “But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person” (1 Cor. 5:11). Why? Because, not being Jesus, you can’t trust yourself not to fall into their vice.
Of course, rules are meant to be broken.
Early in the seventh century, there lived a monk named Vitalis. He was born in Gaza but he spent most of his life in the monastery of Seridus in Alexandria.
Every day, Vitalis worked as a common laborer. Every night, he would visit the home of a prostitute and pay her his earnings. “I beg you,” he would say, “take this money and do not sin with anyone tonight.” He would then spend the night at her home, praying and reading the Psalms while she slept. He only asked that they not reveal the purpose of his visit.
As you might expect, Vitalis was judged constantly—by townspeople, by priests, even by his fellow monks. But for the sake of holy humility, Vitalis continued to do his good works in secret. Only after his death did the Gazan sex-worker community begin speaking of the monk’s charity, chastity, and humility.
Saint Vitalis of Gaza is a beautiful soul who lived a beautiful life. Remember, though: he’s a saint. If an ordinary Christian man (me, for example) spent every night with a different prostitute, his story wouldn’t have such a happy ending.
If you’ll allow me to make a gross generalization, it seems to me that the Western mind is addicted to gross generalizations. It can only deal in absolutes, especially where morality is concerned. We say, “Either it’s okay to insult people for their own good, or it’s not. And Jesus insulted people for their own good. Therefore, so can I.” Or, “Either it’s okay to hang out with grave and unrepentant sinners, or it’s not. And Jesus was friends with grave, unrepentant sinners. Therefore, I can be, too.”
To be clear, these aren’t just bad answers. They’re bad answers to bad questions. The whole premise is faulty.
When in doubt, just remember: You are not Jesus. You’re probably not Paisios of Mount Athos or Vitalis of Gaza, either. Of course, we should strive to be like them. Of course. We should fast, pray, and give alms until we become so virtuous, peaceful, and charitable that we can exercise holy prudence in following or applying the moral law, for the sake of leading others to Christ (see: oikonomia). Absolutely. No arguments here.
But I’m not there yet. And statistically speaking, you’re probably not either. No offense, dear reader! It’s just that living saints are few and far between these days, and they probably wouldn’t waste their time reading my Subtack.
This also speaks to another disease in the Western mind: the disease of activism.
Whether we realize it or not, we all believe that God needs us to do His will—to achieve His plan for salvation. Of course, the particular role we play is something we devise ourselves (“under the guidance of the Holy Spirit,” we may add piously).
It’s true that God, in His vast and ineffable kindness, not only forgives our sins, but allows us to help Him bring our fellow sinners into His mercy. Still, there are two things to bear in mind, as far as this goes.
Number one: Our first and most important duty is to care for our own souls. Remember what Saint Theophan the Recluse said when asked if the heterodox would be saved. “Why do you worry about them?” he asked in return. “They have a Savior, who desires the salvation of every human being. He will take care of them. You and I should not be burdened with such a concern. Study yourself and your sins.”
Number two: The first step to helping God is to become a saint. To put it another way, only a saint can be of any help to God… at least knowingly. Why? I think Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, of blessed memory, put it beautifully:
You remember how you were taught to write when you were small. Your mother put a pencil in your hand, took your hand and hers and began to move it period since you did not know at all what she meant to do, you left your hand completely free in hers. This is what I mean by the power of God being manifest in weakness. You could think of that also in the terms of a sail. A sail can catch the wind and be used to maneuver a boat only because it is so frail. If instead of a sail you put a solid board, it would not work; it is the weakness of the sale that makes it sensitive to the wind. The same is true of the gauntlet and the surgical glove. How strong is the gauntlet, how frail is the glove, yet in intelligent hands it can work miracles because it is so frail.
How do we become frail? By abstaining from quarrels. By being gentle to all. By refusing even to sit at table with the sexually immoral, or drunkards, or revilers (i.e., those who speak in an insulting manner). Only by following the law perfectly can we learn to break it well.
Glad you opened with that quote from St. Paisios. It's been a go to for me ever since I came across if a couple of years ago. I go to it because it gets at an important distinction, a distinction I'd learned elsewhere and which it reinforced.
I don't know I'd ever relayed this story to you, Michael, but in the course of obtaining my bachelor's degree in physics, I learned one of the most valuable life lessons that, until that time, I'd never given any thought to, however obvious it sounds when stating it.
I was about halfway through the degree, studying for my final exam in my "Methods of Theoretical Physics" course (it was just a math course). On the study guide, there was an equation I simply couldn't solve. I'd tried for days. I eventually went to my professor and showed him where I was getting stuck. He told me that my final step was mathematically true, but wasn't helpful as it led me down a wrong path. He showed me a different mathematical statement that was just as true but led me down a different, helpful path. After that, I could see the remaining steps to do and the problem resolved itself.
Ever since then, it has stuck with me that there is a world of different between the merely true and the actually helpful. Whatever is actually helpful will be true in some way, but whatever is true is not necessarily helpful depending on the context. And that distinction, between true and helpful, is what that quote by St. Paisios is getting at.
And that's why I've so enjoyed these past couple of posts, because you're hammering home that difference. There are times when not being nice is the most helpful thing we can do, but most often, the opposite is the case. And most of us, most of the time, aren't able to discern when which would be most helpful so it's always better to err on the side of mercy.
At the end of the day we must ask ourselves why we're so focused on denigrating niceness. I genuinely think it's because this ridiculous culture war has only served to make us angry and we're trying to give ourselves moral permission, as Christians, to give in to the desire to hate the people on the other side.
"We have to proceed when trying to [spiritually] help others like a person crossing a ford: if we find a good passage, or a path or hope that some benefit will follow, we press on; but if the ford is choppy, and people will be scandalized by the good works in question, we always have to rein in, looking for the season or the hour that will be more appropriate for speaking" (St. Ignatius Loyola, Letter to Teresa Rejadell, 1536).
"[I]t is not necessary for salvation to confess one's faith at all times and in all places, but in certain places and at certain times, when, namely, by omitting to do so, we would deprive God of due honor, or our neighbor of a service that we ought to render him ... [And] [t]here is nothing commendable in making a public confession of one's faith, if it causes a disturbance among unbelievers without any profit either to the faith or to the faithful" (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, 3, 2, resp. & ad. 3).