Meekness is not weakness
We commonly confuse meekness with spinelessness. But in the Gospel, this word referred to a trained war horse – enormous strength reined in.
The most peaceful person in all the Bible once raised two stone tablets above his head and smashed them against the ground with force. This was Moses, the very one of whom the Book of Numbers says directly: "the man was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth" (Num. 12:3). The meekest of men, yet capable, in righteous anger, of shattering the tablets inscribed by the finger of God, confronting Pharaoh, and keeping a rebellious people under control for forty years.
We look at all this, and it seems contradictory. In our language, the word “meek” has long been fused with the image of those whom people contemptuously call pushovers – someone who keeps quiet out of fear of the reaction. Yet here, the meaning is altogether different.
Strength taken under rein
In the Greek text of the New Testament, meekness is πραος (praos). In antiquity, this was not what they called a quiet person in the corner, but a broken-in horse: an animal in which all its wild power remained, but now it walks under saddle and obeys the slightest movement of the reins. The strength hasn't gone anywhere. It's simply been taken under rein.
The meek person is one who has strength in abundance, but consciously restrains his hand from a crushing blow. The sword remains in its sheath. But it lies there by the will of its master, and the hand is capable of drawing it at any second.
Saint John Chrysostom said that meekness is a sign of great strength, and to be meek, one needs to have a noble, courageous and very lofty soul. Behind the quietness of the meek hides a restrained storm.
The meek does not remain silent from fear
Here we encounter a misconception that causes many people to stumble. The modern world despises meekness because it confuses it with the weakness of the downtrodden. We are told: if you don't strike back, you'll be crushed; if you remain silent, you're a coward.
But there is a vast gulf between a victim and a meek person. A victim remains silent out of helplessness: inside are fear and resentment driven underground, accumulating like water behind a poorly built dam until, sooner or later, it bursts forth—on their children, on some rude stranger in a queue, or on themselves. A meek person, by contrast, restrains his hand even though he has both the strength and the full right to strike. That is the very essence of this virtue.
John Chrysostom taught that a meek person is one who can endure insults directed at himself, yet defends those who are unjustly wronged and rises up forcefully against their oppressors. But the one who looks on indifferently at another's suffering is, in the saint's words, “careless, sluggish, and no better than a dead man”—and there is not a trace of meekness in that.
Do you see the difference? Meekness stands guard over one's own ego and restrains resentment when the offense is personal. Yet it rises to its full height when the weak are being struck. Moses bore personal insults without retaliation, even when they came from his own brother and sister. Yet when the sacred was desecrated, he unleashed his righteous fury.
Why evil gets stuck in a quiet person
Now for the main point: what actually happens when evil strikes a meek person?
Abba Dorotheus, in his discourse On Resentment, says that another person's wrongdoing is like a small live coal. As long as it remains a single ember, it is easy to extinguish: you endure the offense, and the ember goes out without leaving a trace. But the moment you begin to fan it ("Why did he say that to me?" "I'll give him a piece of my mind!"), you start feeding the ember with kindling, then firewood, and before long an entire blaze of anger is raging.
We tend to imagine that evil is conquered by mustering the forces of good and crushing the forces of evil. But in the spiritual life, that is not how victory is won. The devil is indifferent to the banner under which we hate. His only concern is that the chain never breaks, that every blow be answered with another blow, every injury with another injury, endlessly repeating itself.
When we take revenge, we, without noticing it ourselves, hire ourselves as free carriers of another's malice.
But the meek breaks this chain. Evil enters him and finds nothing to push off from to fly further. St. John Climacus describes it this way: meekness is a rock rising above the sea of irritation, against which all incoming waves shatter, while the rock itself remains unmoved. Strike such a rock as much as you like – your hands will grow tired, but it will remain unharmed.
Guard dog or witness?
And here we come to a sensitive point. Today, in church circles, it has become fashionable to urge people to “grow fangs”: the times are hard, holy things are under threat, and one must learn to snap back. The logic is understandable, especially when there is slander all around and rudeness that invades every comment section under every news story. It feels as though we are being required to hate loudly and without pause: if you stay silent, you are a traitor.
And this compulsory anger burns a person to ashes. We notice it in ourselves too: by evening there is only rage left inside, and it becomes impossible to tell whether you are defending the faith or have simply grown used to snapping at everyone in sight.
But Christ doesn't need guard dogs at the fence. He needs witnesses of truth. And a witness and a guard dog differ at least in that a dog bites, while a witness speaks the truth – and is often beaten for this truth.
We are not able to stop the madness around us: it is not for us to cancel out the world’s malice with a single gesture. But each person has their own threshold of endurance. And when evil crosses that threshold—through a rude message, an insult, or filth poured directly on you—we can ensure that it goes no further. That it dies here, within us, without receiving a single drop of retaliatory poison. It is important to know how to maintain a kind of quarantine in one’s soul against the virus of evil in the midst of a sweeping epidemic.
“Learn from Me, for I am meek and humble in heart” (Matthew 11:29), the Lord taught. This is almost the only time in all the Gospels when He directly calls us to learn a specific quality from Him – not miracles, not authority over the crowds, but meekness.
And perhaps the main question He asks us with these words is this: do we have the strength – precisely strength, not weakness – to restrain our hand when we are struck? Can we become that rock against which another’s wave of hatred shatters, or will we pick up the first ember from the ground and begin fanning it ourselves into a fire that we will no longer be able to extinguish?
