St Jerome, Patron of Internet Trolls

“I was tempted by the devil,” she said.

“Milly, please be sensible.”

“Saints have been tempted by the devil.”

“You are not a saint.”

“Exactly. That’s why I fell.” – Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana.

The internet comment box is a place of great spiritual danger. Anger, resentment, detraction, calumny, pride, hatred, and the like, are all temptations which emerge when writing a reply to a blog post, facebook comment, tweet or a news story. We might begin with noble intentions, but those intentions hide a multitude of motivations. Vaingloriously we go in, seeking to make a name for ourselves, seeking to correct all we believe to be in error, thinking we alone have the answer for all people in all occasions. If they don’t heed us, if they don’t listen to us, we will do all we can to make ourselves heard. And then we find ourselves caught in a trap, where our high thinking of ourselves, our pride, causes us to engage others unjustly. We brag about our own greatness, of how smart we think we are, or how much we think we know, while ignoring – or excusing  — the sinful nature of our response. After all, if someone were to receive our wrath, they deserve it: the fault is all theirs, not ours. If they were smart and wise, they would readily have recognized the veracity of our claims and bowed down to our genius. Because they refused to heed what we had to say, they deserve to be shoved into the corner and tortured by our outrage. Whatever good we might have intended, whatever good we use to excuse ourselves, is no excuse for our behavior – if we lack love, we have nothing.

This is a fault which so many of us fall into from time to time. Even the best, most holy, can fall into this temptation, so it is no surprise that those of us, like myself, who are not so saintly, find themselves constantly failing to ward off temptation and end up engaging, again and again, bitter internet fights with someone who we do not even know in person. We must acknowledge this is wrong. We must do what we can to avoid temptation, but if and when we fall, we should also not despair. We should realize it for one of our many weaknesses, pray about it, go to confession as needed, and then let it go and let God’s grace do its work in and with us.  Also, we should pray for those we abuse, for even if our thoughts or ideas were in the right, our lack of charity was in the wrong, and that is what matters.

Of course, as with all sin, the more we give into sin, the more we try to justify it for the good which we see in and through our actions. All sin is based in misappropriation of some good which hides the real good which we should have engaged. The more we find ourselves fighting others on the internet, thinking ourselves to be in the right, to be honorable and good, just because we are debating someone who we believe are in grave error, the more we end up justifying any and all improper comments and actions, so that we ourselves slowly devolve in our response, until, at last, we become (for all intents and purposes), the dreaded internet troll.  It is likely, at least at first, we will not see what we have become – and when we finally do, we will once again have to face ourselves, see ourselves in the light of Christ, and hopefully admonish ourselves in confession and humbly seek to do better. But often this is not what happens. We believe, because the other person is so wrong, even our trolling is in the right. We think we are engaging a crusade against the darkness, and in such a battle, trolling is permissible – indeed, needed, for victory.  If we were only to step back, we would see that we no longer provide anything substantial and instead, bring in the bitterness of our heart, seeking to disrupt the very lives of those we dislike. We want to overwhelm them with our presence, never allowing them to do or say anything without us coming in and interrupting their lives, reminding them we are there, watching them, making sure that they do what we like of them or else face the full fury of our displeasure, and all those we bring with us into the fight, once again.

Indeed, when we end up looking at them in this light, we interpret them, not for who and what they are in actuality but in who and what we have made of them in and through the hermeneutic lens established in our bitterness. We see them as sinners worth of condemnation, never realizing that what we are responding to is no longer a person, but a delusion we have created for ourselves which we put in their place. We need to remove the log from our eye, lest we find the judgment we make ends up being inflicted upon ourselves, because we are judging what is found in ourselves and not the other.

Now, once again, it is a thing of hope to remember that even the best of us the saints, can be prone to this misbehavior. We, who are not saints, should not be shocked that we fall for it as well.  This should not mean we can ignore it when we fall, but rather, we must keep this in mind so we do not despair. There is hope – the saints who have become saints show us the hope which is there. We, who daily struggle with the ways of the fallen flesh, concupiscence, must accept with all humility that we are indeed sinners who need grace for our salvation. We can’t save ourselves. We are on the path to salvation and on that path, we will stumble along, but Jesus will be there to pick us back up and help us back on our way.

While the phenomenon of internet trolling, or its likeness, is present wherever we turn on the internet, we must realize it is not unique to the internet itself. Wherever there is a bitter conflict, the possibility of finding troll-like behavior is there. Again, even the saints were not immune to it. Perhaps there is no better example of this than in the writings of St. Jerome, who, when he found himself bitterly opposing someone, let out witty streams of disdain.  Thus, when he wrote about St. Ambrose in his work, On Illustrious Men, he knew he could not leave out a word on Ambrose, but in doing so, he showed how much he despised the saintly bishop of Milan:

Ambrose a bishop of Milan, at the present time is still writing. I withhold my judgment of him, because he is still alive, fearing either to praise or blame lest in the one event, I should be blamed for adulation, and in the other for speaking the truth.[1]

If St. Jerome said what he really thought of St. Ambrose, he believed he would be criticized for “speaking the truth.” In reality, therefore, he was telling us that the truth of St. Ambrose is that he was worthy of blame—and Jerome, in a not-so veiled form, indicated this fact in his comment. Oh, how often is that the case on the internet? How often do we our words through such self-justification? Of course, St. Jerome knew how popular Ambrose was, and though he consistently criticized what he read from Ambrose as childish or worse, he knew he could not make an all-out attack on the bishop and be accepted by others, like St. Augustine, who had strong ties to Ambrose. This is why he had to keep his cool in his criticism of St. Ambrose. But when it was an outright heretic, which he knew all his friends and associates would agree was a heretic, he held nothing back. We can see this in and how we wrote about Helvidius:

I was requested by certain of the brethren not long ago to reply to a pamphlet written by one Helvidius. I have deferred doing so, not because it is a difficult matter to maintain the truth and refute an ignorant boor who has scarce known the first glimmer of learning, but because I was afraid my reply might make him appear worth defeating.[2]

Then, in another work, he declares another heretic, Jovinian, to be so pathetic as to be incomprehensible in what he wrote (is this not a common charge on the internet when we face someone who we do not like?):

Very few days have elapsed since the holy brethren of Rome sent to me the treatises of a certain Jovinian with the request that I would reply to the follies contained in them, and would crush with evangelical and apostolic vigour the Epicurus of Christianity. I read but could not in the least comprehend them. I began therefore to give them closer attention, and to thoroughly sift not only words and sentences, but almost every single syllable; for I wished first to ascertain his meaning, and then to approve, or refute what he had said. But the style is so barbarous, and the language so vile and such a heap of blunders, that I could neither understand what he was talking about, nor by what arguments he was trying to prove his points. At one moment he is all bombast, at another he grovels: from time to time he lifts himself up, and then like a wounded snake finds his own effort too much for him.[3]

And in his letters, he decries how some would put a deacon, a waiter on tables, as an equal authority to a bishop, employing the kind of witticism which is common at the beginning of internet fights:

We read in Isaiah the words, “the fool will speak folly,” and I am told that some one has been mad enough to put deacons before presbyters, that is, before bishops. For when the apostle clearly teaches that presbyters are the same as bishops, must not a mere server of tables and of widows be insane to set himself up arrogantly over men through whose prayers the body and blood of Christ are produced?[4]

Even to friends, he admitted, he would find excuses to enter into debates, as he explained to poor Rufinus:

I have often myself feigned a controversy to practise declamation.[5]

Sadly, though he admitted this to Rufinus, he did not foresee how such feigned controversy could lead into a real one. But this is exactly what happened between Jerome and Rufinus, and in the end, Jerome would end up contesting his former friend with as much dirty and vehemence as was possible. And why? Because Jerome wanted to save face with new friends and associates of his (similar, once again, to what happens on the internet with the cliques which are formed: people are expected to honor and defend those in their cliques, even those they end up fighting are former friends of theirs). In their youth, St. Jerome and Rufinus had both been interested and influenced by the writings of Origen, but when the anti-Origenist controversy commenced, Rufinus was one of the first casualties, where Jerome had to prove himself of overturning any and all Origenistic influence on himself.

And Jerome, in defense of himself, said what many an internet warrior would say – it is better to fight than to have a false peace between people who find themselves opposing each other on the matter of some major concern:

It is a smaller sin to follow evil which you think is good, than not to venture to defend what you know for certain is good. If we cannot endure threats, injustice, poverty, how shall we overcome the flames of Babylon? Let us not lose by hollow peace what we have preserved by war. I should be sorry to allow my fears to teach me faithlessness, when Christ has put the true faith in the power of my choice. [6]

These examples from Jerome should not be used to justify similar behavior, but rather to show us that what we face today on the internet is not really new. Even the saints had to fight the same fights against the vices which we face today. St Jerome’s life, outside of his vices, was holy enough that his life of penance and charity, where it existed, was able to be shaped by grace and lead to his salvation. He is an example of hope for us – and so, though we should avoid the traps he fell into, we can look up to him and see if and when we fall, we do not have to despair. He can be our patron here – indeed, if we were to establish a patron saint for internet trolls, no one would be better suited than he. He fought the same fight we fight today, and he understood the temptations and now, in heaven, he understands even better the way to overcome them. He who has been forgiven much for these sins has much to offer us in wisdom and grace as we seek to fight against them in ourselves. May we, therefore, look to St. Jerome whenever we find ourselves writing bitter comments on the internet ask his aid, that he can offer the wisdom he gained to us so that we can be lead away from temptation and engage the higher path of charity.

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[1] St. Jerome, “Lives of the Illustrious Men” in NPNF2(3): 383.

[2] St. Jerome, “The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary” in NPF2(6): 335.

[3] St. Jerome, “Against Jovinianus” in NPNF2(6):346.

[4] St. Jerome, “Letter CXLVI”” in NPNF2(6):288. To Evangelus.

[5] St. Jerome, “Letter LXXXI” in NPNF2(6):170. Jerome to Rufinus, while still friends but becoming distant with Rufinus.

[6] St. Jerome, “Against the Pelagians” in NPNF2(6):449.

 

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