Psalms 6:7

"My eye is disordered by anger" [Psalm 6:7]: is it by his own, or God's anger, in which he makes petition that he might not be reproved, or chastened? But if anger in that place intimate the day of judgment, how can it be understood now? Is it a beginning of it, that men here suffer pains and torments, and above all the loss of the understanding of the truth; as I have already quoted that which is said, "God gave them over to a reprobate mind"? [Romans 1:28] For such is the blindness of the mind. Whosoever is given over thereunto, is shut out from the interior light of God: but not wholly as yet, while he is in this life. For there is "outer darkness," [Matthew 25:30] which is understood to belong rather to the day of judgment; that he should rather be wholly without God, whosoever while there is time refuses correction. Now to be wholly without God, what else is it, but to be in extreme blindness? If indeed God "dwell in inaccessible light," [1 Timothy 6:16] whereinto they enter, to whom it is said, "Enter into the joy of your Lord." It is then the beginning of this anger, which in this life every sinner suffers. In fear therefore of the day of judgment, he is in trial and grief; lest he be brought to that, the disastrous commencement of which he experiences now. And therefore he did not say, my eye is extinguished, but, "my eye is disordered by anger." But if he mean that his eye is disordered by his own anger, there is no wonder either in this. For hence perhaps it is said, "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath;" [Ephesians 4:26] because the mind, which, from her own disorder, is not permitted to see God, supposes that the inner sun, that is, the wisdom of God, suffers as it were a setting in her.

Listen to the psalmist tell how anger clouds the eye of the heart: "My eyes are dimmed," he says, "with sorrow."

Our life is a struggle, and our existence beset with countless foes who prove to be stronger when we fall into sin. Hence we should do everything to escape their clutches and never come to terms with them; this, after all, is the surest path to insecurity. Paul touches on the horde of those enemies in saying, "Our wrestling is not with flesh and blood but with the powers and the authorities and the cosmic rulers of darkness of this age." Since, then, the horde of enemies is of this kind, we must constantly be on the alert and avoid the assault of sin.

For there are many things which are allowed and legitimate, and yet we are to some extent defiled in the doing of them; as often we attack faults with anger, and disturb the tranquillity of our own mind. And, though what is done is right, yet it is not to be approved that the mind is therein disturbed. For instance, he had been angry against the vices of transgressors who said, "Mine eye is disturbed because of anger." For, since the mind cannot, unless it be tranquil, lift itself up to the light of contemplation, he grieved that his eye was disturbed in anger, because, though assailing evil doings from above, he still could not help being confused and disturbed from contemplation of the highest things. And therefore his anger against vice is laudable, and yet it troubles him, because he felt that he had incurred some guilt in being disturbed.

Next, when he says "My eye is troubled," he sets forth the failure of reason. For sorrow is the cause of anger; and therefore one who is sorrowful easily grows angry. But anger always disturbs the eye of reason. And those who are disturbed foresee …