St. Basil the Great:
If your anger has never been aroused against the evil one, you shall never be able to hate him as he deserves.
For to me it seems as necessary to hate evil as much as we must love Justice; and for this anger is especially useful. As a sheepdog obeys its shepherd, so must feeling be subject to reason: quiet and submissive to its master, and obedient to his voice; fierce to The voice or the face that is strange, at once docile and submissive to the voice of a friend.
This cooperation between the irascible part of the soul and it's understanding part is a perfect and fitting thing. For such a spirit will have no part with treachery, it will not yield to a false friend; it will bark like a dog at false pleasure; attacking it fiercely as though it werea wolf.
This then is the service of anger to those who know how to master it.
If your anger has never been aroused against the evil one, you shall never be able to hate him as he deserves.
For to me it seems as necessary to hate evil as much as we must love Justice; and for this anger is especially useful. As a sheepdog obeys its shepherd, so must feeling be subject to reason: quiet and submissive to its master, and obedient to his voice; fierce to The voice or the face that is strange, at once docile and submissive to the voice of a friend.
This cooperation between the irascible part of the soul and it's understanding part is a perfect and fitting thing. For such a spirit will have no part with treachery, it will not yield to a false friend; it will bark like a dog at false pleasure; attacking it fiercely as though it werea wolf.
This then is the service of anger to those who know how to master it.