Seven Deadly Sins: Wrath
1.
Anger: From the Old Norse angr, 'sorrow', 'distress', and angra, 'to
grieve'; akin to Old English enge, 'narrow', and the Germanic angst
and angust, 'anxiety'; the Latin angor, 'strangling', 'tight', 'anguished',
and angere, 'to distress', 'to strangle'; the Greek agkhein, 'to squeeze',
'to embrace', 'to strangle'; and the Sanskrit amhas, 'anxiety'. There
is one reference, in Mark 3:5, to orges, irritation', (on the part
of Jesus) in the four Gospels. There are two other references to anger
in the Epistles.
2.
To express yourself in an aggressive manner.
Anger, or wrath, is a feeling of hostility, impatience, or rage that
is often expressed in an aggressive manner. We often feel anger when
we feel an injustice has been done against us, or when there seems
to be no solution to a problem.
Of anger, medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas said, "A passion
of the sensitive appetite is good in so far as it is regulated by
reason, whereas it is evil if it set the order of reason aside."
Often, anger is aimed at the wrong person or thing, which is why,
along with envy and pride, it was categorized by Dante as a sin of
misdirected love.
The story of Jesus and his righteousness in tossing the money-changers
from the temple is often cited in discussions of anger. There is no
doubt that Jesus was angry, but his anger was justified because the
money-changers were defiling God's house. However, we are warned not
to justify our anger with God's name lest we make him in our image
rather than the other way around.
As with the sin of gluttony (in the sense of overindulgence in drink),
anger becomes a sin when it causes us to lose our sense of reason,
which is a gift from God. This fits well with the modern concept of
anger as a loss of self-control, and a reaction to feelings of powerlessness.