ACC ~ James 3 v8

CAPABLE OF WOUNDING. CHRYSOSTOM: The tongue is a piercing sword. But let us not wound others with it; rather let us cut off our own gangrene. CATENA.

TAMING THE TONGUE HARDER THAN TAMING THE BEAST. AUGUSTINE: I do not believe that this passage can bear the interpretation which Pelagius wants to put on it. He says that this is stated as a reproach, as if one were to say: “Is no one therefore able to control his tongue?” As if it were easier to tame the tongue than to tame wild beasts. But I do not believe that this is the meaning. If James had wanted to say that, he would have done so, but instead he was determined to show what a great evil a man’s tongue can be, so great that it cannot be tamed by anyone, even though that is not true of wild beasts. He said this not in order that we should tolerate this evil but in order that we should ask for divine grace to tame our tongue. ON NATURE AND GRACE 15 (16).

THE SHARPNESS OF THE SWORD. HESYCHIUS: Just as a sword, if it is sharpened, is more easily able to kill, so the tongue, which has great difficulty in keeping itself quiet and cannot easily be controlled, becomes more insolent if it learns from bad people how to deceive, how to slander and how to incriminate. CATENA.

Jas