The Institutes 9.1–10.17

In the fifth contest we must beat back the goads of devouring dejection. If, through its various attacks and uncertain and changing occurrences, it has the power to take hold of our soul, it separates us at every moment from all gaze of divine contemplation, and, casting the mind itself down from every state of purity, it utterly weakens and depresses it. It does not let it fulfil its prayers with the usual eagerness of heart, nor allow it to apply itself to the remedies of sacred reading. It does not let it be calm and gentle towards the brothers, and makes it impatient and harsh towards all the duties of work or religion; and when all wholesome counsel has been lost and the steadiness of the heart overthrown, it makes the mind as if mad and drunk, and breaks and overwhelms it with penal despair.

Therefore, if we wish to sweat through the contests of the spiritual struggle lawfully, this disease too must be cured by us with no less foresight. For "as the moth harms a garment and the worm wood, so dejection harms the heart of a man": the divine Spirit has expressed clearly and aptly enough the force of this harmful and deadly vice.

For a garment touched by the eating of moths can no longer have any value or honourable use, and likewise wood eaten out by worms will deserve to be assigned, not to the adornment even of a modest building, but to burning in the fire. So, then, the soul which is devoured by the most voracious bites of dejection will be useless either for that priestly garment which, according to the prophecy of holy David, is said to receive the ointment of the Holy Spirit coming down from heaven, first on Aaron's beard and then on its own hem, according to that saying, "Like the ointment on the head, which ran down on the beard of Aaron, which ran down on the hem of his garment"; nor can it belong to the building and adornment of that spiritual temple whose foundations Paul, the wise architect, laid, saying, "You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you." The bride in the Song of Songs describes what its timbers are like, saying: "Our beams are cypress, the rafters of our houses cedar." And therefore such kinds of wood are chosen for the temple of God as are both of good fragrance and incorruptible, and can be subject neither to the decay of age nor to the eating of worms.

Sometimes it usually follows from the vice of a preceding anger, or arises from a desire, or from some gain not obtained, when someone sees that he has fallen short of a hope of these things he had conceived in his mind. But sometimes, even when there are no causes by which we might be provoked to fall into this ruin, at the instigation of the subtle enemy we are suddenly depressed by such grief that we cannot even receive the arrival of those dear and close to us with our usual friendliness; whatever they say in suitable conversation is judged by us importunate and superfluous, and no pleasant answer is given them by us, since the gall of bitterness occupies all the recesses of our heart.

From this it is most clearly proved that the goads of our agitations are not always roused by the fault of others, but rather by our own, since we have stored up within ourselves the causes of offence and the seeds of the vices, which, when the rain of temptations has watered our mind, at once burst out into shoots and fruits.

For no one, provoked by another's fault, is compelled to sin unless he has stored-up material for sins in his own heart. Nor should anyone be believed to have been suddenly deceived when, having seen a woman's beauty, he has fallen into the abyss of shameful desire; rather, hidden diseases lurking deep within were then brought out to the surface on the occasion of the sight.

And therefore God, the creator of all, knowing above all the cure of his handiwork, and because the roots and causes of offences lie not in others but in ourselves, did not command that the company of the brothers be abandoned, nor that those whom we have hurt, or by whom we think we have been offended, be avoided; but he orders that they be soothed, knowing that perfection of heart is gained not so much by separation from men as by the virtue of patience. When patience is firmly possessed, just as it can keep us peaceable even with those who hate peace, so, if it has not been acquired, it makes us continually at odds even with those who are perfect and better than we. For occasions of agitation, for which we hasten to leave those with whom we are joined, cannot be lacking in human society; and therefore we do not escape the causes of dejection for which we separate from our former companions, but only change them.

So we must see to it that we hasten rather to amend our own vices and correct our characters. If these have been amended, we shall very easily get on, I will not say with men, but even with wild animals and beasts, according to what is said in the book of blessed Job: "For the wild beasts will be at peace with you." For we shall not fear stumbling blocks coming from outside, nor will any scandals be able to be brought on us from without, if their roots have not been received and implanted within ourselves. "For there is much peace for those who love your name, and there is no scandal for them."

There is also another, more detestable kind of dejection, which brings, not correction of life or amendment of vices, but a most deadly despair to the soul of one who has sinned. It did not make Cain repent after killing his brother, nor Judas hasten to the remedies of satisfaction after his crime, but drew him by his despair to hang himself with a noose.

Therefore dejection is to be judged useful to us in one case only: when we conceive it, kindled either by penitence for sins, or by desire for perfection, or by contemplation of future blessedness. Of this the blessed apostle too says: "The sadness that is according to God produces a repentance leading to lasting salvation; but the sadness of the world produces death."

But that sadness which produces repentance leading to lasting salvation is obedient, friendly, humble, gentle, pleasant, and patient, since it comes down from the love of God; and it stretches itself tirelessly towards all pain of body and contrition of spirit out of desire for perfection; and in a way glad and vigorous with the hope of its own progress, it keeps all the sweetness of friendliness and long-suffering, having in itself all the fruits of the Holy Spirit which the same apostle lists: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, kindness, faith, meekness, continence." But the other is most harsh, impatient, hard, full of rancour, fruitless grief, and penal despair; it breaks and calls back the one it has embraced from diligence and from wholesome sorrow, since it is irrational; and it not only cuts off the efficacy of prayers, but also makes void all the spiritual fruits we have mentioned, which the other knows how to bestow.

Therefore, apart from that which is taken up either for saving penitence, or for zeal for perfection, or for desire of the things to come, all dejection, as being of the world and bringing death, must be rejected equally, and driven entirely out of our hearts like the spirit of sexual immorality, or of love of money, or of anger.

We shall be able to drive this most deadly passion out of ourselves by keeping our mind continually occupied with spiritual meditation and lifting it up by future hope and the contemplation of the promised blessedness. For in this way we shall be able to overcome all kinds of dejection — whether those that come from a preceding anger, or those that come to us from the loss of gain or damage inflicted, or arise from injury done to us, or proceed from an irrational confusion of mind, or bring deadly despair on us — when, always glad and immovable through the sight of eternal and future things, we are neither cast down by present misfortunes nor lifted up by prosperity, regarding both as perishable and soon passing.

Our sixth contest is with what the Greeks call akēdia, which we can call weariness or anxiety of heart. It is akin to dejection, and is more familiar to solitaries, a more hostile and frequent enemy to those living in the desert, troubling the monk especially around the sixth hour, like a fever coming on at a fixed time and bringing the burning heat of its attacks on the sick soul at its usual and appointed hours. Finally, some of the elders declare that this is the noonday demon named in the ninetieth psalm.

When it has besieged the wretched mind, it produces a loathing of the place, disgust with the cell, and scorn and contempt for the brothers who live with him or at a distance, as negligent and less spiritual. It also makes him slothful and inactive for all the work within the enclosure of his dwelling. It does not allow him to stay in his cell or to give his attention to reading. He groans often that he makes no progress while staying so long in the same place, and complains and sighs that he will have no spiritual fruit as long as he is joined to that company; he grieves that he is empty and void of all spiritual gain in the place, since, though he could guide others and benefit very many, he has built up no one nor won anyone by his instruction and teaching. He praises distant monasteries far away, describes those places as more useful for progress and better suited to salvation, and pictures the company of the brothers there as delightful and full of spiritual conversation; on the other hand, everything at hand is harsh, and not only is there no edification in the brothers who live in the place, but even food for the body cannot be obtained without enormous labour. Finally, he thinks he cannot be saved if he stays in that place, unless he leaves the cell — in which he will have to perish if he stays in it any longer — and takes himself away from there as quickly as possible. Then, at the fifth or sixth hour, it rouses such bodily weariness and hunger for food that he seems to himself worn out and tired as if by a long journey and very heavy labour, or as if he had put off eating for a fast of two or three days. Then, besides, he looks anxiously here and there and sighs that none of the brothers is coming to him; he goes out of his cell and in again more often, and keeps looking at the sun as if it were hastening too slowly to its setting. And so, by a kind of irrational confusion of mind, he is filled as with a foul darkness and becomes idle and empty of all spiritual activity, so that he thinks no remedy for so great an attack can be found in anything but the visit of some brother or the comfort of sleep alone. Next, the same disease suggests honourable and necessary greetings to be paid to the brothers, and visits to the sick, whether near or farther away. It also dictates certain pious and religious duties: that these or those relatives ought to be sought out and one should hurry more often to greet them; that it is a great work of piety to visit frequently that religious woman devoted to God, especially destitute of all help from her relatives, and that it is a most holy thing to provide whatever she needs, neglected and despised as she is by her own relatives; and that one's efforts of piety ought rather to be spent on these things than on sitting fruitlessly and without any progress in the cell.

So the unhappy soul is driven on, assailed by such devices of the enemies, until, worn out by the spirit of acedia as by a most powerful battering ram, it either learns to fall asleep, or, shaken out of the enclosure of its cell, grows accustomed to seek comfort in this attack by visiting a brother, to be weakened more sharply a little later by this remedy it uses for the present. For the adversary will attack more often and more cruelly one whom he knows, when battle is joined, will at once turn his back to him, and whom he sees hoping for safety not from victory or conflict but from flight; until, drawn out of his cell little by little, he begins to forget the work of his profession, which is nothing other than the vision and contemplation of that divine purity which excels all things, and which can be gained nowhere else than in silence, continual perseverance in the cell, and meditation. And so the soldier of Christ, having become a runaway and deserter from his service, entangles himself in worldly business, and will by no means please him to whom he enlisted himself.

Blessed David elegantly expressed all the harms of this sickness in one little verse, saying: "My soul has slumbered from weariness," that is, from acedia. Quite aptly he said, not that the body, but that the soul had slumbered. For truly the soul that has been wounded by the dart of this disturbance slumbers, away from all contemplation of the virtues and all insight of the spiritual senses.

So the true athlete of Christ who wishes to contend lawfully in the contest of perfection should hasten to drive this disease too out of the hiding places of his soul, and fight against this most wicked spirit of acedia on both sides, so that he neither falls, thrown by the dart of sleep, nor departs as a runaway, driven out of the enclosure of the monastery, however pious the pretext.

For whomever it begins to overcome in any part, it will either allow to remain in his cell as an idle man who has surrendered to it, without any progress of the spirit, or, having shaken him out of it, it will make him unstable and a wanderer from then on, and, slothful for all work, it will make him go round the cells of the brothers and the monasteries continually, and seek nothing else but where, or on what pretext, he can arrange the occasion for his next meal. For the mind of an idle man knows how to think of nothing else than food and the belly, until, having at some time found the company of some man or woman sluggish with the same lukewarmness, he becomes involved in their affairs and needs, and so is gradually entangled in harmful occupations, so that, bound as if by the coils of a serpent, he can never again free himself to return to the perfection of his former profession.

The blessed apostle, as a true and spiritual physician, either already seeing this disease that springs from the spirit of acedia creeping in, or foreseeing by the revelation of the Holy Spirit that it would arise, hastens to forestall it with the saving remedies of his precepts. For writing to the Thessalonians, first, like a most skilful and perfect physician, soothing the weakness of his patients with a gentle and mild cure of words, and beginning with love and praising them in that respect, until the deadly wound, softened by the milder remedy and with its angry swelling gone down, might more easily bear harsher medicines, he says: "But concerning brotherly love we have no need to write to you; for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; and indeed you do it towards all the brothers in all Macedonia." He first applied the mild dressings of praise and made their ears calm and ready for the cure of the saving word. Again he adds: "But we beseech you, brothers, to abound more." He still soothes them with the gentle mildness of his words, lest perhaps he find them not yet fit to receive the perfect cure. What is it, apostle, that you ask them to abound more in? In love, of course, of which he had said above, "But concerning brotherly love we have no need to write to you." And why need you say to them, "But we beseech you to abound more," when they have no need even for anything to be written to them on this matter? Especially since you also give the reason why they do not need it, saying, "For you yourselves are taught by God to love one another," and you add a third and greater point, that they are not only taught by God but also fulfil in deed what they are taught. "For indeed you do it," he says, not to one or two, but "to all the brothers," and not only to your own fellow citizens or acquaintances, but "in all Macedonia." Tell us, then, at last, why do you put all this first so elaborately? Again he adds, "But we beseech you, brothers, to abound more," and at last he barely breaks out into what he had long been preparing: "and that you make it your aim to be quiet." He gives the first point, then adds the second: "and to do your own business"; the third too: "and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you"; the fourth: "and that you walk honourably towards those outside"; the fifth: "and that you desire nothing of anyone's." See, that hesitation, which he put off bringing out with so many preambles — what is it known to have been bringing to birth in his breast? "And that you make it your aim to be quiet": that is, staying in your cells and not, made restless by various rumours which are usually born of the wishes or tales of the idle, bringing restlessness on others too. "And to do your own business": not wishing out of your curiosity to inquire into the affairs of the world, and, prying into the conduct of various people, to spend your effort not on your own correction or the pursuit of the virtues but on slandering the brothers. "And to work with your own hands, as we commanded you": he now added the reason why the things he had warned them above not to do were being done — that is, being restless, minding others' business, walking dishonourably towards those outside, or desiring what belongs to another — saying, "and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you." For he clearly expressed that idleness was the cause of the things he rebuked above. For no one can be restless or mind others' business except one who is not content to apply himself to the work of his hands. He also brought in the fourth disease, which is born of this same idleness, namely, that they should not walk dishonourably, saying, "and that you walk honourably towards those outside." One who is by no means content to keep to the enclosure of his cell and the work of his hands can never walk honourably even among those who are men of the world; he must necessarily behave dishonourably while he seeks the necessities of life, give himself to flattery, chase after the latest rumours, and seek occasions for business and gossip by which he may prepare for himself an entrance and a means of getting into various people's houses. "And that you desire nothing of anyone's": one who does not delight in providing the means of daily food by the devout and quiet labour of his own work cannot help gaping after the gifts and presents of others. You see how many causes, so grave and so shameful, are born of the stain of one vice. Finally, see how in the second letter he sets about healing these same people, whom in the first letter he had soothed with the soft caress of words, as men who had not profited by the milder remedies, with harsher and burning medicines; and he no longer puts first any dressings of mild words, nor that tender and caressing voice, as there, "But we beseech you, brothers," but: "We command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother walking disorderly." There he asks, here he commands; in the one is the feeling of one who coaxes, in the other the severity of one who adjures and threatens. "We command you, brothers": since you despised hearing us when we first asked, at least now obey when we command. And he makes this command terrible, not with a bare word, but with the invocation of the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, lest perhaps they should again despise it as simple and uttered in a human voice, and not think it much to be observed. And at once, like a most skilful physician, he tries to heal by the incision of the spiritual knife the putrid members to which he could not bring a remedy with gentle medicine, saying: "that you withdraw yourselves from every brother walking disorderly and not according to the tradition which they received from us." So he orders that they withdraw from those who will not give themselves to work, and cut them off like members corrupted by the rot of idleness, lest the disease of inertia, like a deadly contagion, corrupt even the healthy parts of the members as the corruption spreads. And being about to speak of those who will not work with their own hands and eat their bread in silence, from whom he also commanded that they withdraw, notice with what reproaches he brands them from the beginning. First he calls them disorderly and not walking according to his tradition; in other words, he marks them as contumacious, since they would not walk according to his instruction, and as dishonourable, that is, not keeping a fitting and honourable measure in going out, in visiting, in speech, or in timing. For every disorderly person must be subject to all these vices. "And not according to the tradition which they received from us": in this too he brands them as in a way rebels and despisers, who scorn to keep the tradition they received from him and will not imitate what they remember their master not only taught by word but also know he carried out in deed. "For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us." He heaps up an enormous mass of reproach when he asserts that they are not observing what both clings to their memory and what they learned to imitate, not only by his instruction in word, but also by the encouragement of the example of his works.

"For we were not restless among you." When he wishes to prove that he was not restless among them through the practice of work, he abundantly marks those who will not work as always restless through the vice of idleness. "Nor did we eat anyone's bread for nothing." With each word the teacher of the Gentiles heightens the rebuke. The preacher of the gospel says that he did not eat anyone's bread for nothing, though he knew that the Lord had commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should live by the gospel, and again, "The workman is worthy of his food." When he who preached the gospel, performing so sublime and spiritual a work, would certainly not have taken his food for nothing if he took it by the authority of the Lord's command, what shall we do, to whom not only has no preaching of the word been entrusted, but no care at all has been committed except that of our own soul? With what confidence shall we dare to eat bread for nothing with idle hands, when the vessel of election, bound by the care and preaching of the gospel, does not presume to eat it without the work of his hands, but says, "with labour and toil, working night and day, so as not to burden any of you"? He still heaps up additions to his reproof. For he did not simply say, "We did not eat anyone's bread for nothing," and stop there — for he might have seemed to have been supported by his own private expense and hidden money, or by the contribution or gifts of others, though not of these — but he says, "with labour and toil, working night and day," that is, supported especially by our own work; "and we did this," he says, "not by our own choice nor for pleasure, as rest and bodily exercise might invite, but as the necessity and want of food compelled us to do, not without great weariness of body. For not only through the whole length of the day, but also of the night, which seems granted for the body's rest, I pressed on unceasingly with this manual work out of concern for food."

Yet he does not testify that he alone lived among them in this way, lest perhaps this pattern should seem neither great nor general if it were handed down by his example only; he asserts that all who were appointed with him to the ministry of the gospel, that is, Silvanus and Timothy, who write these same things with him, laboured with similar work. In saying "so as not to burden any of you" he also strikes great shame into them. For if he who preached the gospel and commended it by signs and miracles does not dare to eat bread for nothing, so as not to burden anyone, how can those not think they are a burden who take it every day while idle and unoccupied?

"Not because we did not have the right, but to make ourselves a pattern for you to imitate us." He reveals the reason why he imposed so much labour on himself: "to make ourselves a pattern for you to imitate us," so that, if perhaps you should forget the teaching of words often pressed on your ears, you might at least keep in memory the examples of conduct handed on to you before your very eyes. There is no light rebuke of them in this too, when he says that he exacted this labour and weariness of body day and night for no other reason than as an example, and yet they are unwilling to be instructed, for whose sake he himself, having no need, imposed so much weariness on himself. "And indeed," he says, "though we had the right, and the means and property of all of you were open to us, and I knew I had permission from our Lord to use them, yet I did not use this right, lest what was done by me well and lawfully should give others an example of harmful idleness. And therefore, while preaching the gospel, I preferred to be supported by my own hands and work, to open the way of perfection to you too who wish to walk the road of virtue, and to provide a pattern of conduct by my labour."

But lest he should seem, working in silence and wishing to teach them by example, not to have instructed them also by the admonitions of precepts, he adds: "For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: if anyone will not work, neither let him eat." He heightens still further the sloth of those who, knowing that he, as a good master, worked with his own hands for the sake of teaching and instruction, scorn to imitate him; and he heightens his own diligence and care, saying that when present he not only handed this on to them by example but also preached it continually in words: that if anyone will not work, neither should he eat.

He no longer uses the counsel of a teacher or physician towards them, but attacks them with the strictness of a judicial sentence, and, taking up again his apostolic authority, pronounces sentence on the despisers as from a tribunal: that authority, namely, which, writing to the Corinthians with a threat, he asserted had been given him by the Lord, when he warned them, who were in sin, to hasten to correct themselves before his coming, instructing them thus: "I beg you that when I am present I may not be compelled to be bold against some with that authority which has been given me among you"; and again: "For even if I should boast somewhat of the authority which the Lord gave me for your edification and not for your destruction, I shall not be ashamed." With that authority, I say, he pronounces, "If anyone will not work, neither let him eat," not condemning them with a fleshly sword, but by the authority of the Holy Spirit forbidding them the means of this life, so that, if perhaps, giving no thought to the punishment of future death, they still wish to remain contumacious out of love of idleness, they may at least be forced to accept the saving precepts, constrained by natural necessity and fear of present death.

So after so great a rigour of gospel strictness he now explains the reason why he put all this first: "For we hear that some among you are walking restlessly, doing no work, but being busybodies." He is nowhere content to declare that those who will not give themselves to work are corrupted by only one disease. For in the earlier letter he calls them disorderly and not walking according to the tradition they received from him; he also defines them as restless and eating bread for nothing. Again here he says, "We hear that some among you are walking restlessly," and at once he adds the second sickness, which is the root of this restlessness: "doing no work"; and the third disease too, which springs from it like a little branch: "but being busybodies."

So he now hastens to bring a fitting remedy for the tinder of so many vices; and laying aside the apostolic authority he had used a little before, he returns again to the heart of a loving father or a merciful physician, and, as to his children and patients, he brings the remedies of health with wholesome counsel, saying: "Now those who are such we command and beseech in the Lord Jesus, that working in silence they eat their own bread." The causes of so many ulcers, which spring from the root of idleness, he cured with the one saving precept of work, like the most skilful of physicians, knowing that the other bad sicknesses sprouting from the same stock would at once be extinguished once the origin of the principal disease had been removed.

Nevertheless, like a most perceptive and provident physician, he desires not only to heal the wounds of the sick, but likewise commends to the healthy fitting precepts by which their health may be kept for ever, saying: "But you, do not grow weary in doing good." You who follow us, that is, our ways, and fulfil by imitating our work the examples handed on to you, and by no means follow their sloth and inertia, "do not grow weary in doing good," that is, show your kindness to them likewise, even if they have neglected to observe what we have said. Just as he rebuked the weak, lest, dissolved by idleness, they should give themselves to restlessness and curiosity, so he warns the healthy that, if some perverse people will not be converted to sound teaching, they should not cut off from them the kindness which by the Lord's command we are ordered to show to good and bad, but should not cease to do them good and to cherish them both with words of consolation and reproof and with the usual benefits and kindness.

Yet again, lest perhaps some, encouraged by this mildness, should scorn to obey his precepts, he mixes in apostolic severity: "And if anyone does not obey our word by this letter, note that man and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed." And warning them what ought to be observed out of reverence for him and for the common good, and with what care they should keep the apostolic commands, he at once adds the mildness of a most indulgent father, and likewise teaches them, as his children, what feeling they ought to keep towards those just mentioned out of brotherly love: "And do not regard him as an enemy, but rebuke him as a brother." He mixed a father's tenderness with a judge's severity, and tempered with merciful gentleness the sentence pronounced with apostolic rigour. For he orders that one who has scorned to obey his precepts be noted, and not be kept company with; and yet he commands that this be done, not from the vice of hatred, but with a view to brotherly love and their amendment. "Do not keep company with him," he says, "that he may be ashamed" — so that he who has not been corrected by my mild precepts may at least, put to shame by public separation from all of you, begin at some time to be called back to the path of salvation.

In the letter to the Ephesians too he gave a command about this same work, saying: "Let him who stole steal no more, but rather let him labour, working with his hands what is good, so that he may have something to give to those in need." In the Acts of the Apostles too we likewise find that he not only taught these same things but also carried them out in deed. For when he had come to Corinth, he would not stay anywhere except with Aquila and Priscilla, because they were workers in the same trade he was accustomed to practise. For so you have it: "After this Paul left Athens and came to Corinth; and finding a certain Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, and Priscilla his wife, he went to them because he was of the same trade, and he stayed with them and worked; for he was a tentmaker by trade."