4/20/2024 0 Comments Amma syncletica quote meaningsLeads me to disengage from my actual life, either through sluggishness or through worthless activity Makes me resent or despair of my life’s goods, both its joys and its responsibilities Starts with a restless ingratitude toward the good things in my life The Parson in the Canterbury Tales says, “Envy and ire make bitterness in heart, which bitterness is mother of acedia, and takes from the love of all goodness.” In the sweet air that’s gladdened by the sun,Ĭarrying within the dark smoke of sloth (from Inferno Canto VII)Īcedia differs from healthy sorrow in that, as Aquinas wrote, sorrow in “good about which charity rejoices” – that it grieves over things that should occasion gratitude or love. Dante had his “ accidiosi” define themselves thus: Thomas Aquinas called it “sorrow in the Divine good about which charity rejoices” (Summa II.II Q. In Evagrius’s description, the monk under acedia hates his duties, daydreams of different responsibilities, and despises his community. Then he compels the monk to look constantly toward the windows, to jump out of the cell, to watch the sun to see how far it is from the ninth hour, to look this way and that … And further he instills in him a dislike for the place and for his state of life itself, for manual labor, and also the idea that love has disappeared from among the brothers and there is no one to console him.Īcedia begins with an inward discontentment: a deep dissatisfaction with life. makes it appear that the sun moves slowly or not at all, and that the day seems to be fifty hours long. The fourth-century Desert Father Evagrius, the first person we know of to define the sin, wrote: Acedia is an inner restlessness and discontentment with conditions that should occasion gratitude or love. But the original term, acedia (pronounced uh-SEE-dee-a, from ἀκηδία, “lack of care”) is both more insidious and more dangerous. The sin translated as sloth suggests outward laziness, like a toddler supine in an un-cleaned room or a man forming a slow chemical bond with his couch. Ancient Christian spiritual writings offer us both means to discern this sin in ourselves and suggestions on how to fight it.Īcedia in the Desert Fathers, Aquinas, Dante, and Chaucer The subject of this article is a fruit of Christian reflection on a form of sin called acedia that, even though we don’t have an exact English translation for it, is as much of a modern problem as an ancient one. The study of historic Christianity can yield not only theological and liturgical treasures, but also insight into faithful life in Christ.
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