Malice

Malice is a settled disposition of ill will toward another person — the wish to see them harmed, or the readiness to treat them as an enemy — which Scripture consistently treats as a condition of the heart to be abandoned rather than a passing feeling. Where English versions read "malice," they are usually rendering the Greek word kakia, a broad term for evil or badness that can also be translated "wickedness" or "depravity"; it characteristically appears in New Testament vice lists beside anger, wrath, slander and envy (Colossians 3:8; Titus 3:3). The English word is narrower than the Greek, so the sense in any given verse has to be judged from its context.

The scriptural prohibition of malice is rooted in the command of Leviticus 19:18: "You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people; but you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). The Hebrew verb behind "bear a grudge" carries the sense of keeping or guarding something, that is, of harboring a grievance rather than releasing it. The New Testament letters repeatedly place malice at the root of the retaliation they forbid: "Don't seek revenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to God's wrath" (Romans 12:19); "See that no one returns evil for evil to anyone" (1 Thessalonians 5:15); "not rendering evil for evil or insult for insult; but instead blessing" (1 Peter 3:9). Malice is named among the things the converted life strips off — "anger, wrath, malice, slander, and shameful speaking" (Colossians 3:8), "all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness" (James 1:21) — and it describes the life left behind: "living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another" (Titus 3:3). It belongs to the "deeds of the flesh" that Paul warns will not inherit God's Kingdom (Galatians 5:19–21). The letters of John make hatred of a brother the decisive test: whoever "doesn't love his brother" is not of God (1 John 3:10), and one who "hates his brother" while claiming to love God is "a liar" (1 John 4:20). In the Gospel of John, Jesus traces such murderous and deceitful intent to its source, calling the devil "a murderer from the beginning" and "the father of lies" (John 8:44).

Several connected ideas run through these texts rather than one technical definition: an inward grudge that outlives the offense (Leviticus 19:18), a settled hostility expressed in speech and slander (Colossians 3:8), envy and hatred of others (Titus 3:3), and the refusal to bless where one has been wronged (1 Peter 3:9). Malice in this sense is distinguishable from anger, which the same passages also treat seriously but as something to be put away rather than a settled policy of the will.

Christian traditions have described the term rather differently. Catholic moral theology has long treated malice as a vice closely linked to anger and has distinguished sins committed from deliberate malice — a clear-eyed choice of evil — from sins committed through weakness or ignorance, a distinction with consequences for how culpability is assessed. Eastern Christian ascetical writing tends to treat malice as a passion or disease of the soul to be healed through prayer, fasting and forgiveness rather than primarily as a legal offense. Traditions in the Anabaptist and peace-church stream read the commands not to return evil for evil (Romans 12:19; 1 Thessalonians 5:15; 1 Peter 3:9) as a binding discipline of the community, while many other Protestant bodies emphasize instead the inward renewal of the heart and treat the vice lists as evidence of the unregenerate life from which grace delivers. Readers also differ over whether the warning of Galatians 5:21 concerns final inheritance in a strict sense or the visible character of genuine faith — a disagreement about assurance rather than about what malice is.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.