Growing in the battle against acedia means learning not to give in to that dull sadness which, quietly, dismantles a spiritual life from within: disgust for prayer, boredom with duty, the feeling of “what’s the point?”, the urge to drop everything and go elsewhere. The first monks gave it a now-famous name — the “noonday demon” — and made it the most formidable enemy of the interior struggle, because it does not attack head-on like anger or lust, but wears down the soul little by little, at the hour when fervor fades.
Acedia is not a minor evil. Evagrius Ponticus places it among the eight evil thoughts; the Latin tradition made it one of the seven capital sins, usually called “sloth” — but only if we do not reduce it to mere laziness[1]. Saint Thomas Aquinas defines it with a precision that unmasks its true nature: a “sadness regarding spiritual good”, that is, a discouragement before God Himself, felt as a good too arduous, too demanding, no longer worth the effort[2]. This is why the Catechism lists it among the great temptations of the life of prayer: “a form of depression due to lax asceticism, decreased vigilance, and negligence of heart”[3].
This article is devoted to the practical path: how to grow in this battle, how to recognize acedia in its two faces — sluggishness and restlessness — how not to confuse it with what it is not, and by what means the saints have overcome it. For the vigilance of heart whose slackening gives rise to it, see How to grow in spiritual vigilance; for the hope that answers the “what’s the point?”, How to grow in hope; for the perseverance that endures over time, How to grow in perseverance.
Why Fight Against Acedia?
The “Noonday Demon”: The Heaviest of All Battles
In the fourth century, in the deserts of Egypt, the monks observed that a particular temptation always assailed them at the same hour: not at night, like fear or lust, but in broad daylight, at noon, when the heat is oppressive, the day seems endless, and the morning’s fervor has faded. They identified it with the “plague that strikes at noon” from Psalm 90, which the Vulgate calls the daemonium meridianum — the noonday demon[4]. Evagrius Ponticus (c. 345–399), who first drew up the list of the eight thoughts of spiritual combat, gives this now-classic portrait:
“The demon of acedia, also called the ‘noonday demon,’ is the heaviest of all; it attacks the monk around the fourth hour and besieges his soul until the eighth hour.” — Evagrius Ponticus, Praktikos, ch. 12[5]
“The heaviest of all”: the expression reveals the gravity of the struggle. Acedia does not dazzle, does not seduce, does not flatter any burning passion; it crushes. It is “heavy” because it attacks not just one point, but the very spring of spiritual life: the taste for the good, the joy of loving God, the impulse toward heaven. When this spring slackens, everything else follows — prayer becomes a chore, effort seems pointless, the future closes in. This is why the Fathers saw in it, more than a mere fault, a true siege of the soul.
What Acedia Dismantles: Joy, Fervor, Perseverance
The value of a battle is measured by what is lost if it is lost. Now, acedia does not take away this or that virtue: it attacks the affective root of the entire Christian life, the joy of belonging to God. Saint Thomas says it plainly: acedia is “a certain sadness that brings a man down to the point that he no longer wants to do anything”[6], and it stands directly opposed to the joy that springs from charity[7]. Without this joy, fidelity becomes a dead weight: perhaps the gestures remain, but the heart is no longer in it.
The real issue is perseverance itself. Many souls do not fall by a great fault, but by this slow crumbling: one morning prayer is skipped, then two; effort slackens — “what’s the point?”; things are postponed, minimized, and one day we realize we have let everything go without ever deciding to. Acedia is the art of making us abandon the fight without a battle. To combat it, then, is not to cultivate just one more virtue among others: it is to defend the hearth from which all the others draw their warmth. For the vigilance that guards this hearth, see How to grow in spiritual vigilance.
A Capital Sin, Not a Harmless Weakness
Our language has weakened the word: to call a capital sin “sloth” is almost to make it sound sympathetic. But tradition is serious. Acedia figures among the seven capital sins — not because it is the worst of faults, but because it is “capital” in the strict sense: a head (caput) from which many other sins arise[8]. Saint Thomas, following Saint Gregory the Great, lists its offspring: from acedia are born “malice, rancor, pusillanimity, despair, torpor with regard to the commandments, and the wandering of the mind around forbidden things”[9]. Spiritual discouragement is never alone: it gives birth to bitterness, cowardice, flight, and dissipation.
There is something even more serious. For Saint Thomas, fully consented acedia can become a mortal sin, because it attacks charity at its very root by making one hate or flee from the divine good itself[10]. Not every discouragement is a mortal sin—the first movement, the weariness felt but resisted, is not—but acedia becomes mortal when the will consents to this disgust and deliberately deserts the good. That is why it must not be taken lightly: it must be fought.
Understanding What Acedia Is
Akedia: the absence of care, disgust for the good
The Greek word akedia (ἀκηδία) immediately sheds light on the matter. It is composed of the privative prefix a- and kēdos, meaning care, the concern one has for someone or something. Acedia is, literally, the absence of care: the state of one who no longer takes care—of his soul, his duty, his relationship with God. In Homer, the adjective of the same root, akēdēs, describes the dead left without funeral rites: in Canto XXIV of the Iliad (vv. 553–554), Priam pleads with Achilles while Hector’s body lies “without care” beneath the tents[11]; akedia more broadly names every negligence, every lack of care. Transposed to the spiritual battle, it denotes the soul that abandons its interior life, like a field left uncultivated.
The Greek Psalter gives the exact diagnosis: “My soul has grown drowsy with weariness [akedia]” (Ps 118:28, according to the Septuagint)[12]. The image is apt: not a deep sleep, but a half-sleep of the soul, a drowsiness of the heart that is neither death nor life, and which imperceptibly slides toward the worse. Acedia is not rest; it is torpor.
The sixth of the eight thoughts, the “sloth” of the seven deadly sins
Evagrius Ponticus was the first to organize the interior struggle around eight generic thoughts (logismoi): gluttony, lust, avarice, sadness, anger, acedia, vainglory, and pride[13]. Acedia holds a unique place: it is the latest to appear, the one that assails the monk already advanced, when the fervor of beginnings wears thin. In the following century, John Cassian (c. 360–435) transmitted this schema to the West in his Cenobitic Institutions, devoting the entire Book X to “the spirit of acedia”[14].
Later, Saint Gregory the Great (540–604) reduced the eight thoughts to the seven deadly sins by merging acedia into tristitia, sadness[15]. This is the origin of our Latin list, where the sixth vice is called “sloth” (in Latin pigritia or acedia). But this shift in vocabulary has a downside: by translating acedia as “sloth”, a deep spiritual evil was gradually reduced to mere physical laziness. To recover the fight against acedia, we must first restore its true name.
Tristitia de spirituali bono: the definition of Saint Thomas
The most precise definition is that of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who devotes all of question 35 of the Secunda Secundae to acedia. He defines it, following Saint John Damascene, as an “overwhelming sadness”, and then specifies its object:
“Acedia is a sadness in regard to spiritual good as a divine good. […] It implies a certain disgust for action.” — Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 35, a. 1-2[16]
Everything is contained in these words. Acedia is not sadness before some ordinary misfortune; it is sadness before the divine good itself, felt no longer as an attraction but as a burden. Spiritual good is arduous—it demands effort, renunciation, perseverance—and the soul afflicted by acedia, instead of desiring this good despite its cost, takes disgust precisely in its difficulty. It does not hate God directly; it turns away from Him because He is demanding. In this, acedia is “against nature” for a Christian: it makes the sovereign Good an object of sadness. Thus, it stands in direct opposition to the joy that should spring from charity, and to the “rest” of the soul in God symbolized by the commandment of the Sabbath[17].
The portrait of the acedious monk: Cassian and Climacus
The Fathers described acedia with clinical precision. John Cassian, in Book X of his Institutions, paints the portrait of the monk assailed by the noonday demon: seized by a disgust for the place where he lives, he constantly watches the sun as if it were slow to set, sighs that no brother comes to visit, convinces himself he would be more useful elsewhere, and ends in drowsiness or by fleeing his cell. Cassian sees this as the particular evil of the solitary, and prescribes a radical remedy: manual labor, against the idleness that opens the door, relying on the words of Saint Paul: “If anyone will not work, neither let him eat” (2 Th 3:10)[18].
Saint John Climacus (6th–7th century), at the thirteenth step of The Ladder of Divine Ascent, gives an unforgettable definition:
“Acedia is slackness of mind, languor of soul, disgust for the exercises of religious life […]. Are we engaged in the holy exercise of prayer? It brings to mind a thousand different things […].” — Saint John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, step 13[19]
Climacus adds a piercing observation: under the guise of hospitality and urgent charity—visiting the sick, giving alms, in the very name of the Lord’s word “I was sick, and you visited Me” (Mt 25:36)—acedia draws the monk out of his prayer for seemingly excellent reasons[20]. This is its master trick: it never says “stop praying”, but “you’ll pray better later; for now, take care of this urgent matter.” Disgust for the good always disguises itself as practical wisdom.
The two faces: slackness and activism
The most widespread error is to think that acedia is recognized only by laziness. That is one of its faces, the most visible: weariness, procrastination, minimalism—“less prayer, less effort.” But it has a second, more subtle and more modern face: restlessness. Fleeing the encounter with God, the soul afflicted by acedia throws itself into feverish activity, makes itself indispensable, multiplies tasks, “wanders” from one thing to another—this is evagatio mentis, the wandering of the mind that Saint Thomas lists among the daughters of acedia[21].
Dom Jean-Charles Nault, a Benedictine who has devoted the most comprehensive study of recent decades to this vice, emphasizes it strongly: acedia is not laziness and can on the contrary manifest itself through frantic activism[22]. Bodily restlessness, the need to move, to change, to “channel surf,” an excessive concern for comfort, disgust for one's duty of state: these are all symptoms Nault identifies, making acedia, according to the subtitle of his book, the “dark evil of our time.”[23] The modern person who cannot sit still, who flees silence, who no longer knows how to persevere in a commitment, is often an acedious soul without realizing it. For more on the silence that this agitation flees, see How to grow in interior silence.
Do Not Mistake the Enemy: Three Crucial Distinctions
We can only fight well what we have first clearly identified. Now, acedia resembles three realities that are not themselves acedia, and which would be wrongly treated as faults. Confusing these four is to risk either making a sick person feel guilty, or calling a true laxity a mere “trial.” Here are the distinctions to keep in mind.
Acedia is not bodily laziness
Physical fatigue, the need for rest, a naturally slow temperament—these are not acedia. One can be a hard worker and a perfect acedious soul; one can be slow by nature and yet burning with love for God. Acedia is not measured by the amount of activity, but by its object: it is a sadness before the spiritual good. The bodily lazy person flees effort; the acedious soul flees God—sometimes by taking refuge precisely in effort. That is why the remedy is never simply to “do more,” but to reorient the heart toward what it has come to disdain.
Acedia is not depression (an illness)
This is the most important and delicate distinction for our time. The Catechism uses the word “depression” to describe acedia[24], but it means a spiritual and moral “depression,” not clinical depression in the psychiatric sense. The latter is a disease: it has biological, hormonal, psychological causes; it requires medical care, not confession; and it is in no way a sin. A depressed person is not guilty of their sadness, and telling them to “make a spiritual effort” would be both cruel and a mistake in discernment.
Acedia, on the other hand, involves an element of consent of the will: a “I no longer want to” that gives in to disgust. The two can coexist and intertwine—a depression can be an occasion for acedia, and acedia can wear down the body to the point of depression—but they are not the same. Rule of prudence: in the face of lasting and disabling sadness, never presume sin; seek care first, and discern with a guide. Spiritual direction is precious here—see How to grow in abandonment to God.
Acedia is not dryness (a purifying trial)
A third confusion, frequent among fervent souls: mistaking dryness in prayer for acedia. Yet the Catechism carefully distinguishes them. Dryness—aridity, the absence of sensible consolation in prayer—is often a trial willed by God to purify faith:
“Dryness is part of prayer, where the heart is weaned, without taste for thoughts, memories, and feelings, even spiritual ones. It is the moment of pure faith that remains faithfully with Jesus in agony and in the tomb.” — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2731[25]
The difference is crucial. In dryness, the soul wants to pray, perseveres without consolation, remains faithful in the darkness: this is growth, not a fault. In acedia, the soul no longer wants to, uses aridity as a pretext to give up, and slips into laxity. The same sensible state—prayer without savor—can thus hide either a grace of purification or the beginnings of acedia: everything depends on the response of the will. Hence the importance of not judging your prayer by your feelings. For persevering faithfully through aridity, see How to grow in prayer.
The following table summarizes the four realities not to be confused:
| Nature | Responsibility | Right Response | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bodily laziness | Flight from physical effort | Slight, according to temperament | Discipline, rule of life |
| Depression (illness) | Psychological/biological disorder | None — not a sin | Medical care, gentleness, prayer |
| Dryness (trial) | Aridity willed by God | None — it is a grace | Persevere in naked faith |
| Acedia (vice) | Sadness/disgust for the divine good | Engaged as soon as there is consent | The combat described below |
How to read the table: only the last line calls for ascetical combat. The two middle lines, on the contrary, require gentleness and patience—confusing them with acedia would harm innocent souls. Discernment always precedes combat.
Concrete Means to Grow in the Battle
Once the enemy has been identified, how do we resist it? The Fathers, who fought it hand to hand, did not propose grand theories but precise means accessible to all. These can be gathered around a few key principles.
Stay: Do Not Flee the Place or the Commitment
The first remedy, most contrary to instinct, is not to move. Acedia urges us to flee: to change place, task, state, or community, convinced that things will be better elsewhere. Evagrius saw that this is precisely the trap, and he opposes flight with stability:
“One must not abandon the cell at the hour of temptation, forging seemingly reasonable pretexts; on the contrary, one must remain seated inside, be patient […]. For fleeing and avoiding such struggles teaches the mind to be clumsy, cowardly, and prone to flight.” — Evagrius Ponticus, Praktikos, ch. 28[26]
The wisdom of the desert summed this up in a famous saying passed down by Evagrius and Cassian: “If you are hungry, eat; if you are thirsty, drink; if you are sleepy, sleep—but above all, do not leave your cell.” For the one who remains sees the storm pass; the one who flees carries it with him. Transposed outside the cloister, this principle applies to every commitment: one does not abandon one’s duty of state, marriage, vocation, or rule of prayer at the “noonday hour” under the pretext of weariness. One holds one’s post and waits for the light to return. For more on this tenacity, see How to grow in perseverance.
Keep the Rule and Schedule: Fidelity Against Mood
Acedia is the enemy of perseverance and the friend of mood: it would have us pray only “when we feel like it.” The remedy is to remove the spiritual life from the whims of feeling by anchoring it in a rule: a schedule of prayer, specific commitments, appointments kept because it is the time, not because we feel like it. Fidelity to small, concrete commitments—morning mental prayer, evening examen, Mass on a certain day—is a bulwark, for it does not depend on one’s state of mind. The fervent prays when it is time; the acedic soul waits for a fervor that never comes. Regularity protects freedom.
Manual Work and the Duty of State
Against idleness, which feeds wandering thoughts, Cassian prescribed manual labor[27]. The principle remains: a heart occupied with its duty gives less ground to the noonday demon. Not through activism—since agitation is the other face of acedia—but through the humble and peaceful fulfillment of the duty of state: doing, at the appointed time, what one has to do, without taking refuge in escapist activities or scattering oneself. Work, accepted as part of the daily cross, anchors the soul in reality and keeps it from spinning its wheels.
Refutation and Short Prayer (Antirrhesis)
When the acedic thought presents itself—“What’s the use?”, “Go elsewhere”, “You’ll pray better later”—one must not argue with it: it is, as Climacus says, “irrational” and will always find “good reasons”[28]. The remedy of the Fathers is antirrhesis (antirrhèsis, refutation): immediately opposing the thought with a word from Scripture, as Christ did in the desert, or with a short invocation of the name of Jesus. Evagrius even composed an entire collection of biblical verses to hurl against each evil thought. Short, repeated prayer occupies the heart and leaves no time for the thought to settle in. This is the very weapon of vigilance—see How to grow in spiritual vigilance.
The Memory of the Last Things
Acedia narrows the horizon to a heavy present: it makes us forget heaven and death. The remedy is to reopen the horizon. The memory of death (memoria mortis) and the thought of the last things restore to the present its weight of eternity and sweep away the “what’s the use?” Climacus notes that meditation on death drives away acedia, and that the bitter tears shed over one’s sins deliver from it[29]. Remembering that this gray day prepares an eternity of joy, that nothing done for God is ever lost, is often enough to lift a discouraged heart. For the hope that sustains this outlook, see How to grow in hope.
Tears, Compunction, and Admitting One’s Weakness
Among the remedies that tradition identifies—and that Dom Nault takes up in his study—the first is to weep—not to feel sorry for oneself, but to acknowledge before God one’s need for a Savior[30]. The tears of compunction, far from worsening sadness, transform it: they move us from “sorrow according to the world, which produces death” to “sorrow lived according to God, which produces a repentance that leads to salvation” of which St. Paul speaks[31]. Humbly admitting one’s weariness, instead of hiding it or sinking into it, disarms acedia; for it thrives in shameful silence and dies under a confident confession.
Hope and Patience Against “What’s the Use?”
At the heart of acedia is a miniature despair: the feeling that effort is pointless, that nothing will change, that it’s not worth it. The answer to this lie is the virtue of hope, which holds firm that the promised good is worth every effort and that God gives the strength to attain it. St. Paul makes it a commandment:
“Let us not grow weary of doing good, for, when the time comes, we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.” — Letter to the Galatians 6:9[32]
And the Letter to the Hebrews applies the prophet’s exhortation to the downcast: “So then, strengthen the listless hands and the weak knees” (Heb 12:12)[33]. Patience here is the sister of hope: it accepts that fervor may not return immediately, that the battle lasts, and holds firm in the meantime without demanding immediate results. For this enduring courage, see How to grow in fortitude and How to grow in patience.
Gratitude and Willed Joy
Finally, since acedia is a sadness, its positive remedy is joy—not a feeling we wait for, but an act we choose. Choosing to give thanks, to name the gifts received, to bless, is an act of the will that gradually dispels gloom. Deliberate thanksgiving lifts the soul from contemplating its boredom and turns it toward the goodness of God. This is the whole program of How to grow in gratitude: gratitude is to acedia what light is to mist.
The table below summarizes the remedies and the specific evil each one targets:
| Remedy | What it combats | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Staying, not fleeing | Instability, desire to escape | Evagrius, Praktikos 28 |
| Keeping the rule, the schedule | Dependence on mood, minimalism | Monastic tradition |
| Work, duty of state | Idleness, wandering | Cassian, Institutes X |
| Antirrhesis, short prayer | Dialogue with the thought | Evagrius, Climacus |
| Memory of the last things | Narrowing of the horizon | Climacus, Step 13 |
| Tears, humble confession | Shameful sadness, withdrawal | Nault; 2 Cor 7:10 |
| Hope, patience | “What’s the use?”, despair | Gal 6:9; Heb 12:12 |
| Gratitude, willed joy | Gloom, disgust | Spiritual tradition |
Reading the chart: none of these remedies is spectacular, and none works alone. We begin with the most urgent—remaining, keeping the hour of prayer—and add the others. The battle against acedia is won through small acts of fidelity, never by a dramatic gesture.
The Fruits of Victory over Acedia
Spiritual Joy Restored
The first fruit is the return of joy, but a joy deeper than the sensible fervor of the beginnings: the joy of one who has held firm through the night and whom God consoles beyond measure. Evagrius promises this fruit to those who do not abandon the fight:
“At this thought, no other follows immediately; after the battle, a state of peace and an ineffable joy seize the soul.” — Evagrius Ponticus, Praktikos, ch. 12[34]
“An ineffable joy”: this is the reward of perseverance. Conquered acedia does not leave the soul where it was; it brings it to a purer joy, freed from sensible supports, no longer dependent on mood or circumstances. This is the very joy to which the whole Christian life aspires.
Perseverance and Stability of Heart
The second fruit is stability. The one who has learned not to flee at the noonday hour acquires a new foundation: he no longer abandons his post at the first sign of disgust, no longer changes his mind according to his moods, but keeps his commitments over time. This constancy is the exact opposite of the instability of acedia. It forms solid souls, those who can be relied upon, capable of enduring in a vocation, a marriage, a mission, a fidelity—because they have learned, once, to remain. For more on this fidelity that endures to the end, see How to grow in perseverance.
Magnanimity: Daring Great Things for God
Acedia shrinks the soul—its daughter is pusillanimity, the smallness of heart that no longer dares anything[35]. Its defeat, on the contrary, frees magnanimity, the “greatness of soul” that once again aspires to great things for God and is no longer content with the minimum. The soul that has overcome discouragement regains the boldness of hope: it undertakes, it gives, it spends itself, because it once again believes that the good is worth the effort. The joy of charity regained is expressed in generosity.
Acedia Surpassed in the Divine Will
The spirituality of the Divine Will, transmitted to the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta (1865–1947), offers the highest horizon for this battle. For the ultimate root of acedia is to live by oneself, according to one’s own strength: as long as the soul relies on its own fervor, it becomes exhausted, and exhaustion opens the door to disgust. The secret, then, is not only to fight better, but to change the source—to cease acting by one’s own will and to act in the Divine Will, which never tires.
In the teaching of the Book of Heaven, the soul that surrenders its will to the Divine Will enters into the continual rest and feast of God: it no longer bears alone the weight of fidelity, but lets the Divine Will love, pray, and work within it, with a love that knows neither fatigue nor boredom. Jesus says this to Luisa Piccarreta in precise terms:
“Thus, the one who lives in our Will can be called our continual Feast, the outlet of our Love.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, vol. 36, April 25, 1938[36]
Here, the act of doing good ceases to be a chore wrested from weariness and becomes a participation in the blessed activity of God Himself—the One whose love is eternally new. The “what’s the use?” of acedia finds its definitive answer here: every act done in the Divine Will has infinite value, nothing is lost, and the joy of God becomes its present reward. To grow in this battle, in this light, is not only to resist sadness: it is to let the very joy of God take the place of disgust, until the heart no longer tires of loving Him.
Mary, the Desert Fathers, and the Saints Against Acedia
One does not overcome a vice by making it an abstract ideal, but by contemplating those who have conquered it. The Virgin Mary, “who kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk 2:19), is the soul never wearied of doing good: no gloom, no “what’s the use” ever touched her Magnificat, that song of joy which is the very opposite of acedia. Tradition calls her the “Cause of our joy”, and invoking her under this title is already a remedy against the noonday demon.
After her, it was the Desert Fathers who made the fight against acedia a true science: Evagrius, who named and dissected it; Cassian, who transmitted it to the West; Climacus, who climbed its rungs; and, among the Apophthegmata, the word of Anthony the Great comparing the monk lingering outside his cell to a fish out of water, which dies: thus the monk, outside his cell, loses the guard within—hence the call to return swiftly to the cell (Apophthegmata, Anthony 10)[37]. Later, Saint Thomas Aquinas gave its definitive theological analysis, and our own era, in which Dom Nault recognizes “the dark evil of our time”, is rediscovering the burning relevance of this battle[38]. All say the same thing: holiness is not a matter of fleeting enthusiasm, but of enduring fidelity when enthusiasm fades.
A Concrete Path, Day by Day
The battle against acedia is not won by a grand resolution, but by repeated fidelity to a few simple actions, especially when fervor wanes. The means we have studied can be summed up in a daily program.
| Time | Act of Combat | What It Targets |
|---|---|---|
| Upon waking | Entrust your day to God, set the time for prayer | Remove prayer from the sway of mood |
| At the hour of prayer | Pray because it is time, not out of feeling | Fidelity over sentiment |
| When “what’s the use” arises | Refute it immediately, without discussion, with a short invocation | Antirrhesis |
| When tempted to flee | Stay: do not change place or task on impulse | Stability (Evagrius) |
| In the midday slump | Peacefully fulfill your duty of state | Against idleness and restlessness |
| Often | Give thanks, name a gift received | Willed joy, against gloom |
| When the heart is downcast | Recall heaven and the brevity of life | The memory of the last things |
| Each evening | Review your day without discouragement, humbly admit your weariness | Compunction, confident confession |
How to read the table: we do not aim at acedia “in general,” but at the concrete movement of the day—this prayer we are tempted to skip, this duty we want to flee, this “what’s the use” that comes at noon. By holding fast today, we learn to hold fast always.
The essential thing is summed up in one word: stay. Stay at your post, stay in prayer, stay faithful when the feeling is gone—for acedia only yields before the soul that does not yield. “Blessed is the man who endures trial” (Jas 1:12)[39]: the ineffable joy promised by Evagrius is at the end of this patience, and it does not disappoint those who persevere.
To Go Further
- How to grow in spiritual vigilance — the watchfulness of heart whose slackening gives rise to acedia (CCC § 2733), and antirrhesis as its weapon.
- How to grow in hope — the virtue that answers “what’s the use?” and holds that the promised good is worth every effort.
- How to grow in perseverance — the stability that does not abandon its post at the noonday hour.
- How to grow in prayer — distinguishing purifying dryness from acedia, and persevering in prayer without consolation.
- How to grow in fortitude — the magnanimity that heals pusillanimity, daughter of acedia.
- How to grow in gratitude — deliberate thanksgiving, a positive remedy for gloom.
- How to grow in patience — holding firm over time without demanding the immediate return of fervor.
- How to grow in abandonment to God — the trust that disarms anxiety and discouragement.
Notes and References
Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1866: “Vices can be classified according to the virtues they oppose, or also be linked to the capital sins which Christian experience has distinguished following St. John Cassian and St. Gregory the Great (mor. 31, 45: PL 76, 621A). They are called ‘capital’ because they engender other sins, other vices. They are pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth or acedia.” The Catechism thus explicitly names the capital vice as “sloth or acedia”, and gives the very definition of “capital”: a head from which other sins spring. Wording checked word for word against the official French text (vatican.va, archive FRA0013) in this session, and rechecked on October 4, 2026 against the same official text: conforming.
1 8Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 35, a. 1 and a. 2: acedia (acedia) is "quaedam tristitia aggravans" ("an overwhelming sadness," according to St. John Damascene); its proper object is "the divine good": "acedia est tristitia de bono spirituali inquantum est bonum divinum" ("acedia is a sadness regarding the spiritual good insofar as it is a divine good"). Article 2 specifies that it "implies a certain disgust for action" (taedium operandi). Leonine edition; French translation by Revue des Jeunes, Cerf — French wording checked against the library copy in this session; Latin rechecked on October 4, 2026 against the Leonine edition (Corpus Thomisticum: "tristitia de bono spirituali inquantum est bonum divinum", "taedium operandi"): conforming.
2 16Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2733: “Another temptation, to which presumption opens the door, is acedia. The spiritual Fathers understand by this a form of depression due to slackening of asceticism, a decline in vigilance, negligence of heart. ‘The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak’ (Mt 26:41). The higher the fall, the more painful the hurt. Discouragement, painful, is the reverse of presumption. Whoever is humble is not surprised by his misery; it leads him to greater trust, to hold firm in constancy.” § 2733 concludes the section “The humble vigilance of the heart” (§§ 2729-2733) devoted to the temptations of prayer. Wording checked word for word against the official French text (vatican.va, archive FRA0013) in this session, and rechecked on October 4, 2026 against the same official text: conforming.
3 24Psalm 90 (91), 5-6, official liturgical translation (AELF): “You shall not fear the terrors of the night, nor the arrow that flies in broad daylight, nor the pestilence that stalks in the dark, nor the scourge that strikes at noon.” The Latin Vulgate reads: “…ab incursu, et daemonio meridiano” (“…from the attack and the noonday demon”), translating the Septuagint (daimoniou mesēmbrinou, δαιμονίου μεσημβρινοῦ). Latin and Greek wording verified in this session (Clementine Vulgate; Septuagint). It is this daemonium meridianum that the monastic tradition, since Evagrius, identifies with the spirit of acedia that assails the monk at the hour of noon. AELF rechecked on October 4, 2026 on aelf.org and the Latin “ab incursu, et daemonio meridiano” rechecked against the Vulgate: conforming.
4Evagrius Ponticus, Praktikos or The Monk, ch. 12, ed. and trans. A. and C. Guillaumont, Paris, Cerf, 1971, Sources Chrétiennes no. 170 (Greek text) – 171 (translation): "The demon of acedia, also called the 'noonday demon,' is the most oppressive of all; he attacks the monk around the fourth hour [10 a.m.] and besieges his soul until the eighth hour [2 p.m.]. He makes the sun seem slow to move or motionless, and the day seem fifty hours long." Evagrius then describes the symptoms: repeated glances at the window, disgust for the place and state of life, desire to flee elsewhere, drowsiness. The bracketed hours explain the ancient hours, counted from sunrise (about 6 a.m.): the fourth hour is about 10 a.m., the eighth about 2 p.m. Greek: "Ὁ τῆς ἀκηδίας δαίμων, ὃς καὶ μεσημβρινὸς καλεῖται, πάντων τῶν δαιμόνων ἐστὶ βαρύτατος· καὶ ἐφίσταται μὲν τῷ μοναχῷ περὶ ὥραν τετάρτην, κυκλοῖ δὲ τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ μέχρις ὥρας ὀγδόης"; English trans.: "the most burdensome of all the demons… at about the fourth hour (10 am)… until about the eighth hour (2 pm)" (L. Dysinger). French wording checked word for word against the Greek in this session; Greek rechecked on October 4, 2026 on a second independent source (Dysinger, evagriusponticus.net): conforming; collation against the printed SC 171 still to be done (absent from the library).
5Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 35, a. 1, Leonine ed.: "acedia, secundum Damascenum, est quaedam tristitia aggravans, quae scilicet ita deprimit animum hominis ut nihil ei agere libeat" — acedia is a sadness that "lays low the spirit of man to the point that nothing pleases him to do" (Fr. trans.: "an overwhelming sadness […] a depression such that he no longer wants to do anything"). The "torpor" (numbness) is, in Thomas's analysis, the proper effect of this sadness on action. Latin checked against the Corpus Thomisticum in this session, and rechecked on October 4, 2026 against the Leonine edition: conforming.
6Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 35, a. 1-3: acedia is opposed to the joy of charity (gaudium caritatis) and to the rest of the mind in God; Thomas links it to the transgression of the Sabbath precept understood spiritually: "praecipitur quies mentis in Deo" ("rest of the mind in God is there prescribed," IIa-IIae, q. 35, a. 3, ad 1; Latin verified word for word against the Leonine edition, Corpus Thomisticum, on October 4, 2026). Acedia is thus the affective opposite of Christian joy, and not simply a laziness in action.
7 17Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 35, a. 4, ad 2-3: acedia is a capital vice, and Saint Thomas takes from Saint Gregory the Great (Moralia in Job, XXXI, 45) the list of its "daughters": "malitia, rancor, pusillanimitas, desperatio, torpor circa praecepta, vagatio mentis circa illicita" — malice, rancor, pusillanimity, despair, torpor with regard to the commandments and the roaming of the mind around forbidden things. List checked against the library copy (Revue des Jeunes trans.) in this session, and Latin rechecked on October 4, 2026 against the Leonine edition (Corpus Thomisticum: "malitia, rancor, pusillanimitas, desperatio, torpor circa praecepta, vagatio mentis circa illicita"): conforming; this last daughter explains why acedia manifests itself as much by agitation as by softness. — Note: Saint Thomas nowhere makes acedia a "daughter of envy": the daughters of envy, listed in the next question (q. 36, a. 4: hatred, detraction, joy at another's misfortune, etc.), are of another order.
9 21 35Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 35, a. 3: acedia is by its nature a mortal sin (secundum se est peccatum mortale) insofar as it is "a flight from the divine good" to which reason consents; but it remains venial as long as it does not reach the full consent of reason. The first movement of weariness, when fought, is therefore not a mortal sin; acedia becomes so when the will deliberately deserts the divine good. Latin rechecked on October 4, 2026 against the Leonine edition (Corpus Thomisticum, q. 35, a. 3: "secundum suum genus acedia est peccatum mortale"): conforming.
10Homer, Iliad, XXIV, 553–554 (Priam’s supplication to Achilles): “μή πω μ᾽ ἐς θρόνον ἵζε διοτρεφὲς ὄφρά κεν Ἕκτωρ / κεῖται ἐνὶ κλισίῃσιν ἀκηδής” (“do not make me sit…: Hector lies without care [akēdēs] beneath the tents”; literal trans.). Verse 554 bears the adjective ἀκηδής — passive: “deprived of care,” said of the unburied dead; active: “negligent” — a meaning consistent with the dictionaries (LSJ, Bailly). Greek text checked (Monro-Allen ed., via Perseus) in this session, and rechecked on October 4, 2026 on Perseus (v. 554: “κεῖται ἐνὶ κλισίῃσιν ἀκηδής”): conforming.
11Psalm 118 (119), 28. The AELF renders this verse: “Sorrow wrings tears from me: raise me up according to your word.” (wording verified on aelf.org and in the library’s AELF Bible, converging, in this session). The Vulgate reads the verse in the sense of drowsiness from disgust: “Dormitavit anima mea prae taedio” — “My soul has grown drowsy with weariness (taedium / akedia)” — and the Septuagint: “ἐνύσταξεν ἡ ψυχή μου ἀπὸ ἀκηδίας· βεβαίωσόν με ἐν τοῖς λόγοις σου” (“my soul has grown drowsy through akedia”; Rahlfs text verified in this session). The Fathers saw in this an exact description of the torpor of acedia: not a true sleep, but a half-sleep of the soul. AELF rechecked on October 4, 2026 on aelf.org, Vulgate “Dormitavit anima mea prae taedio” and Septuagint “ἐνύσταξεν ἡ ψυχή μου ἀπὸ ἀκηδίας” rechecked: conforming.
12Evagrius Ponticus (c. 345-399), Praktikos (or The Monk), ch. 6-14, ed. A. and C. Guillaumont, Sources Chrétiennes no. 170-171, Cerf, 1971. Evagrius links all the logismoi (thoughts) to eight generic thoughts: gluttony, fornication (lust), avarice, sadness, anger, acedia, vainglory, pride. It is from this list, transmitted by Cassian, that the seven capital sins of the Latin tradition will derive.
13John Cassian (c. 360-435), Cenobitic Institutions, Book X "De spiritu acediae" ("On the spirit of acedia"), ed. J.-C. Guy, Sources Chrétiennes no. 109, Cerf. Cassian describes the monk assailed by acedia "around the sixth hour" (noon): disgust for the place and the cell, contempt for the brethren, conviction that he would be more useful elsewhere, drowsiness, and desire to flee. He assigns as the principal remedy the work of the hands against idleness, citing the example and words of Saint Paul: "If anyone is unwilling to work, neither should he eat" (2 Th 3:10), and the practice of the Fathers of Egypt who never allowed a monk to be idle. Anchoring verified in this session against the text (NPNF, newadvent, Book X): ch. 1, "Our sixth combat… about the sixth hour… the midday demon spoken of in the ninetieth Psalm"; ch. 2, the portrait (disgust for the place and the cell, glances at the sun "as if it was too slow in setting", complaint that no brother comes, distant monasteries praised); ch. 12–14, manual labor and 2 Th 3:10 ("If a man will not work, neither let him eat"). French summary checked against this basis; points verified a second time on October 4, 2026 on NPNF/newadvent (Book X, ch. 1: "sixth combat," "sixth hour," "midday demon spoken of in the ninetieth Psalm"; manual labor and "if a man will not work neither should he eat," 2 Th 3:10): conforming. The "sixth hour" detail is further relayed by St. Thomas himself quoting Cassian (IIa-IIae, q. 35, a. 1, obj. 2 and a. 3), a passage checked against the library copy. Collation of the French wording against the printed SC 109 still to be done (absent from the library).
14 18 27Saint Gregory the Great (540-604), Moralia in Job, XXXI, 45. Gregory reduces the eight thoughts of Evagrius/Cassian to seven principal sins by grounding acedia in tristitia (sorrow) and adding envy; it is his list that establishes the Latin tradition of the seven capital sins. The Moralia is also the source of the doctrine of the “daughters” of each vice, taken up by Saint Thomas (see note [^thomas-35-4]).
15Saint John Climacus (c. 579-649), The Ladder of Divine Ascent, step 13 "On despondency or acedia": "acedia is a slackening of the mind, a languor of the soul, a disgust for the exercises of religious life, a certain aversion for the holy profession one has embraced […]"; "Are we engaged in the holy exercise of prayer? It brings to mind a thousand different things, which it makes us view as very important and very necessary […]". Classic French translation (Arnauld d'Andilly, 1688 trans.). Wording and paragraph numbering checked word for word against the library copy (file from livres-mystiques.com, Thirteenth Step "On Despondency or Acedia") in this session, and rechecked on October 4, 2026 on the same copy ("0649 - Saint Jean Climaque - L Échelle sainte.txt" file, §§ 2 and 6 conforming); collation against a critical edition / Sources Chrétiennes still to be done.
19Saint John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, step 13 (Arnauld d'Andilly trans.): acedia "inspires a strong inclination for the duties of hospitality" and keeps repeating to solitaries, "to deceive them, this word of the Lord: 'I was sick, and you visited Me' (Mt 25:36)". It therefore does not fight prayer head-on, but causes us to defer it in the name of a false urgency—hence the necessity not to "argue" with the thought but to refute it at once. Wording checked word for word against the library copy (§ 5) in this session, and rechecked on October 4, 2026 on the same copy (conforming); collation against a critical edition / Sources Chrétiennes still to be done.
20 28Dom Jean-Charles Nault OSB (monk of Saint-Wandrille, abbot since 2009 — details verified on October 4, 2026 on the abbey’s official website, st-wandrille.com/en/the-abbey which presents him as the 82nd abbot, and st-wandrille.com/en/our-community), Le démon de midi. L’acédie, mal obscur de notre temps, Dijon, L’Échelle de Jacob, 2013. The work extends to a wide audience his doctoral thesis in theology, defended at the John Paul II Institute of the Lateran University and published under the title La saveur de Dieu. L’acédie dans le dynamisme de l’agir (Cerf, 2006), awarded the Henri de Lubac Prize. Birth, defense, and prize years, for lack of a verifiable source in this session, have been removed pending collation against a biographical notice or catalogue. Nault shows there that acedia is not laziness and can on the contrary manifest itself through frenetic activism: instability, agitation, the need to move and to change are as sure symptoms as softness.
22Dom Jean-Charles Nault OSB, The Noonday Devil: Acedia, the Unnamed Evil of Our Times: the very subtitle of the work highlights the relevance of this vice. Nault links acedia to the “midlife crisis”, to disgust for one's duty of state, to spiritual minimalism, and to the chronic instability of contemporary man, who flees silence and no longer knows how to persevere in commitment.
23 38Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2731: “Another difficulty, especially for those who sincerely want to pray, is dryness. It is part of prayer, where the heart is weaned, without taste for thoughts, memories, and feelings, even spiritual ones. It is the moment of pure faith that stands faithfully with Jesus in agony and in the tomb. ‘Unless a grain of wheat dies, it bears much fruit’ (Jn 12:24).” The Catechism thus distinguishes dryness—a purifying trial of faith—from acedia, which is a culpable slackening. Wording checked word for word against the official French text (vatican.va, archive FRA0013) in this session, and rechecked on October 4, 2026 against the same official text: conforming.
25Evagrius Ponticus, Praktikos, ch. 28, ed. Guillaumont, SC 171, Cerf: "One must not leave the cell at the hour of temptation, inventing seemingly reasonable pretexts; rather, one must remain seated inside, be patient, and nobly welcome all assailants [...]. To flee and avoid such struggles teaches the mind to be clumsy, cowardly, and a deserter." The sovereign remedy for acedia is stability: do not flee. Greek: "Οὐ δεῖ κατὰ τὸν καιρὸν τῶν πειρασμῶν καταλιμπάνειν τὴν κέλλαν… Τὸ γὰρ φεύγειν τοὺς τοιούτους ἀγῶνας καὶ περιΐστασθαι ἄτεχνον τὸν νοῦν καὶ δειλὸν καὶ δραπέτην διδάσκει"; English trans.: "We must not abandon our cell in time of temptation… Fleeing from such conflicts teaches the nous to be incompetent, fearful and fugitive" (L. Dysinger). French wording checked word for word against the Greek in this session; substance rechecked on October 4, 2026 on a second independent source (Dysinger quoted: "We must not abandon our cell in time of temptation… incompetent, fearful and fugitive"): conforming; collation against the printed SC 171 still to be done (absent from the library). The desert saying "remain in your cell" (cf. Apophthegmata, Abba Moses to Arsenius: "Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything") sums up this doctrine.
26Saint John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, step 13 (Arnauld d'Andilly trans.): "Whoever weeps bitterly over his sins is not a slave to this deadly passion"; Climacus names those who load acedia with chains and reduce it to captivity: "fervent psalmody, continual occupation, and meditation on death," adding that "its mortal enemies are prayer and the lively and certain hope of goods to come." The step concludes: "He who, by victory over sloth, has ascended this thirteenth step, will excel in every kind of virtue." Wording checked word for word against the library copy (§§ 15–16) in this session, and rechecked on October 4, 2026 on the same copy (conforming, final sentence included); collation against a critical edition / Sources Chrétiennes still to be done.
29The traditional remedies taken up by Dom Jean-Charles Nault OSB in Le démon de midi (Evagrius, Cassian, Thomas): (1) to weep — to recognize one's need for a Savior; (2) a balanced rule of life between work, prayer, solitude, and community life; (3) the antirrhetic method — relying on Scripture as Christ did before the tempter; (4) remembrance of death, which puts present difficulties into perspective; (5) perseverance, the most important: remaining in one's cell at the hour of temptation.
30Second Letter to the Corinthians 7:10, official liturgical translation (AELF): “For sorrow lived according to God produces a repentance that leads to salvation, with no regret, whereas sorrow according to the world produces death.” (wording collated word for word against aelf.org and the library’s AELF Bible, converging, in this session). Saint Paul distinguishes between two kinds of sorrow: the one that, turned toward God, becomes compunction and conversion (the saving tears), and the one that, turned inward, leads to despair — it is this second kind that acedia worsens, and which the tears of compunction transform into the first. Wording rechecked on October 4, 2026 on aelf.org: conforming.
31Letter to the Galatians 6:9, official liturgical translation (AELF): “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for, when the time comes, we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.” (wording collated word for word against aelf.org and the library’s AELF Bible, converging, in this session). A major Pauline text against acedia: it names the evil exactly (“growing weary of doing good”) and its remedy (“not losing heart”), with the promise of the harvest as a source of hope. Wording rechecked on October 4, 2026 on aelf.org: conforming.
32Letter to the Hebrews 12:12, official liturgical translation (AELF): “So then, strengthen your limp hands and your weak knees.” (wording collated word for word against aelf.org and the library’s AELF Bible, converging, in this session). The author applies to discouraged Christians the exhortation of Isaiah 35:3: the dejection of acedia is depicted by “limp hands” and “weak knees”, and the remedy is an act of the will that “strengthens”. Wording rechecked on October 4, 2026 on aelf.org: conforming.
33Evagrius Ponticus, Praktikos, ch. 12 (continued), ed. Guillaumont, SC 171, Cerf: Evagrius notes that acedia, unlike the other thoughts, is not immediately followed by any other, but that "after the battle, a state of peace and an ineffable joy" succeed in the soul that has stood firm. The reward for perseverance against the noonday demon is thus a joy greater than the sensible fervor he had stolen. Greek: "Τούτῳ τῷ δαίμονι ἄλλος μὲν εὐθὺς δαίμων οὐχ ἕπεται· εἰρηνική δέ τις κατάστασις καὶ χαρὰ ἀνεκλάλητος μετὰ τὸν ἀγῶνα τὴν ψυχὴν διαδέχεται"; English trans.: "after the struggle the soul receives in turn a peaceful state and unspeakable joy" (L. Dysinger). French wording checked word for word against the Greek in this session; Greek rechecked on October 4, 2026 on a second independent source (Dysinger, evagriusponticus.net): conforming; collation against the printed SC 171 still to be done (absent from the library).
34L. Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volume 36, dictation 36-4 of April 25, 1938: “Thus, she who lives in our Will can be called our continual Feast, the outlet of our Love.” There, Jesus explains to Luisa Piccarreta that the soul who lives in the Divine Fiat abandons her own self, uses the divine works to love without ceasing, and herself becomes God’s “continual Feast” — the root of acedia, which is to live and love by one’s own limited strength, is here overcome. Dictation and wording checked in this session against the working copy of volume 36 (Lumen Luminis, private use) kept in the library: the heading "36-4 — 25 avril 1938" and the quoted sentence appear there verbatim (with the copy’s dashes). Rechecked on October 4, 2026 on the same copy (Tome 36.pdf, dictation entitled « Le signe que la Divine Volonté règne dans l’âme… », § 2: “our continual Feast” / “the outlet of our Love”): conforming. As no official critical edition is available to date (the Dicastery requests its establishment, letter of December 2024), collation against the official edition remains to be done when it appears.
36Apophthegmata Patrum, alphabetical series, Anthony 10 (PG 65, 77): the monk lingering outside his cell is there compared to a fish out of water, which dies — “Just as fish die if they stay too long out of water, so the monks who loiter outside their cells or pass their time with men of the world lose the intensity of hesychia… So like a fish going towards the sea, we must hurry to reach our cell” (English trans. B. Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Cistercian, 1975, p. 3); Greek: “Δεῖ οὖν, ὥσπερ τὸν ἰχθὺν εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν, οὕτως καὶ ἡμᾶς εἰς τὸ κελλίον ἐπείγεσθαι, μήποτε βραδύνοντες ἔξω ἐπιλαθώμεθα τῆς ἔνδον φυλακῆς”. Passage summarized, not quoted literally; substance checked (Greek and Ward trans.) in this session, and rechecked on October 4, 2026 on concurring sources (Ward, p. 3: “Just as fish die if they stay too long out of water…”): conforming.
37Letter of Saint James 1:12, official liturgical translation (AELF): “Blessed is the man who endures trial with perseverance, for, once his worth has been proven, he will receive the crown of life promised to those who love God.” (wording collated word for word against aelf.org and the library’s AELF Bible, converging, in this session). The beatitude of perseverance crowns the battle against acedia: the “ineffable joy” promised by Evagrius is the gift given to those who have held firm in trial. Wording rechecked on October 4, 2026 on aelf.org: conforming.
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