The Holy Scriptures often portray the anger of God, and the grim results of his anger. But can we say that God truly becomes angry? St. Augustine, in his commentary on Psalm 2, provides an answer to this question:
" 'Why do the nations rage and the people consider vain things? The kings of the earth have stood forth and the princes have come together as one against The Lord and against his Christ.' The Psalmist asks 'why', as though to say: for nothing, for they did not accomplish what they wanted, that Christ might be destroyed. This is said of the persecutors of The Lord, who are remembered in The Acts of the Apostles (4, 26).
" 'Let us burst their bonds and cast off their yoke from us.' Whatever else may be understood here, still the most apt understanding is that this is spoken in the person of those who considered 'vain things'. 'Let us burst their bonds and cast off their yoke from us': let us take pains that he may not bind us, nor may the Christian religion be established upon us.
" 'He who dwells in heaven shall deride them and The Lord shall mock them. There is a repetition here, for in place of 'he who dwells in heaven' is set 'The Lord'; and in place of 'shall deride them' is set 'shall mock'. It is not necessary to understand any of these things in physical terms, as though God 'derides' with his cheeks, or 'mocks' with his nose. But the meaning to be understood is of the power which he gives to his holy ones, that they, perceiving what is to come -- that is, that name of Christ and his rule are to extend to all posterity and to reach all nations -- should understand that those men consider 'vain things'. This power, by which these things are foreknown, is the 'derision' and 'mocking' of God.
" 'Then shall he speak to them in his anger, and trouble them in his wrath.' The Psalmist plainly shows how The Lord speaks to them, and says: 'He shall trouble them.' That is, in 'his anger' and in 'his wrath'. It is not fitting for the 'anger' and 'wrath' of The Lord to be understood as a disturbance of the mind, but as the power by which he most justly judges those subject to his governance -- all the creatures of the world. We should consider and hold that which is written by Solomon: 'O Lord of power, you judge with tranquility, and you dispose us with great care (Wisdom 12, 18). The 'anger' of God is the movement which is made in the soul who knows the law of God when she sees the same law ignored by a sinner. Many souls are punished through this movement of just souls. Whatever can be understood rightly by the 'anger' of God, it is the obscuring of the mind which results for those who transgress the law of God."
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