Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

Meekness

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Meekness is an attribute of human nature and behavior. It has been defined several ways: righteous, humble, teachable, and patient under suffering, long suffering willing to follow gospel teachings; an attribute of a true disciple.

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Meekness has been contrasted with humility as referring to behaviour towards others, where humbleness refers to an attitude towards oneself - meekness meaning restraining one's own power, so as to allow room for others.

Christianity

  • The Israelite Apostle Paul gave an example of meek behavior when writing to Timothy: "The servant of the Lord must be gentle, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose." (2 Tim. 2:24–25)
  • Sir Thomas Browne explained: "Meekness takes injuries like pills, not chewing, but swallowing them down." This indicates that meekness allows a person to overlook or forgive perceived insults or offenses.
  • The meek feature in the Beatitudes, and were linked thereby to the classical virtue of magnanimity by Aquinas.

    • The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints/Mormonism

  • A meek behavior is presented as being opposite to "the natural man" (i.e. one who acts strictly according to desires of the body): 'Put off the natural man and become meek.' (Book of Mormon, Mosiah 3:19), and in 3 Nephi 12:5 when Jesus Christ appears to the people of ancient america after his Ascension to Heaven and teaches them the beatitudes.

    • Criticism

  • Beethoven rejected meekness and equality in favor of cultural elitism: “Power is the moral principle of those who excel others”.
  • Nietzsche rejected Christian meekness as part of a parasitic revolt by the low against the lofty, the manly, and the high.

    • Other traditions

  • Buddhism, like Christianity, strongly valued meekness - the Buddha himself (in an earlier life) featuring as the 'Preacher of Meekness' who patiently had his limbs lopped off without complaining by a jealous king.
  • Taoism valorized the qualities of submission and non-contention.
  • Book of Numbers chapter 12 verse 3: Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.

    • Animal analogues

  • The classical Greek word used to translate meekness was that for a horse that had been tamed and bridled.
  • The buffalo was to the Buddhists a lesson in meekness.

    • Literary examples

  • Meekness is used to characterise the nature of Tess in Tess of the D'Urbervilles.
  • The Heroine of Possession: A Romance judges the hero as "a gentle and unthreatening being. Meek, she thought drowsily, turning out the light. Meek."

    • References

    Meekness Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA


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