This is akin to sadness, and is more especially experienced by solitaries and a more troublesome and frequent foe to those dwelling in the desert, disturbing the monk chiefly about the sixth hour, like some fever coming on at a fixed time and bringing to the sick soul the most burning heats of its accessions at its usual and appointed hours. Finally, some of the elders declare that this is the 'noonday demon' which is named in the ninetieth Psalm. When it has besieged the wretched mind, it begets a horror of the place, a loathing of the cell, and a disdain and contempt for the brethren also, whether they dwell with him or at a distance, as being negligent and less spiritual. It makes him sluggish and inert for every work that is within the enclosure of his dwelling:
it does not let him remain in the cell, nor devote effort to reading. He groans repeatedly that he is making no progress though dwelling there so long a time, and complains and sighs that he has no spiritual fruit so long as he is bound to that fellowship, and laments that he is empty and void of all spiritual gain, remaining idle in that place, seeing that, though he could govern others and be of profit to many, he has edified no one, nor won anyone by his instruction and teaching. He magnifies distant monasteries far away, and describes those places as more useful for progress and more suited to salvation; he depicts too the fellowship of the brethren there as pleasant and full of spiritual converse:
on the contrary, everything that is at hand is harsh; and not only is there no edification among the brethren who dwell in the place, but even the very sustenance of the body cannot be procured without great toil. Finally, that he cannot be saved by remaining in that place unless he leaves his cell—with which, if he should tarry any longer in it, he must perish—and thereupon removes himself as quickly as possible. Then it stirs up such weariness of body and craving for food at the fifth and sixth hour that he seems to himself worn out and exhausted as if by a long journey and most grievous labor, or as though he had put off the refreshment of food by a fast of two or three days.
Then, moreover, he anxiously looks about in every direction, and sighs that none of the brethren is coming to him, and he goes out and in more frequently, and gazes again and again at the sun as though it were setting too slowly; and thus, with a certain irrational confusion of mind, he is filled as with a foul darkness, and is rendered idle and empty for every spiritual act, so that he supposes no other remedy for so great an assault can be found than the visit of some brother or the solace of sleep alone. Then this same malady suggests that honorable and necessary greetings ought to be paid to the brethren, and visits to the sick, whether near at hand or set at a distance:
it also dictates certain pious and religious duties: that such and such kinsmen, male or female, ought to be sought out, and that one ought to hasten more often to greet them; that to visit frequently that religious woman devoted to God, especially one destitute of all support from her kindred, is a great work of piety, and that if she has any need—she who is neglected and despised by her own kinsfolk—it is a most holy thing to see to it; and that effort ought rather to be spent on these works of piety than on sitting fruitlessly and without any profit in the cell.
And so the unhappy soul, assailed by such devices of the enemy, is worn down by the spirit of acedia as by a most powerful battering-ram, until it learns either to sink into sleep, or, driven from the confines of its cell, grows accustomed to seek the consolation of this assault by a visit to some brother—a remedy which it now employs for the present, only to be all the more sharply weakened a little later.
For the adversary will assail all the more frequently and fiercely one whom he perceives will, when battle is joined, straightway turn his back to him at close quarters, and whom he sees hoping for his safety not from victory nor from conflict but from flight; until, gradually drawn forth from his cell, he begins to forget the purpose of his profession, which is none other than the beholding and contemplation of that divine and surpassing purity above all things, which can be attained nowhere save in silence and in continual perseverance in the cell and in meditation; and thus, becoming a runaway from his warfare and a deserter, a soldier of Christ, he entangles himself in worldly business, in no wise pleasing to Him to whom he had pledged himself.
All the mischiefs of this malady the blessed David elegantly expressed in a single little verse, saying: 'My soul slumbered from weariness'—that is, from acedia. Very fittingly he said not that the body but the soul had slumbered. For truly the soul slumbers from all contemplation of the virtues and from the perception of spiritual senses when it has been wounded by the dart of this disturbance. Therefore let the true athlete of Christ, who desires to strive lawfully in the contest of perfection, hasten to thrust this disease also from the hidden places of his soul; and let him contend against this most wicked spirit of acedia on both sides, so that he may neither fall struck down by the dart of sleep, nor, expelled from the cloister of the monastery, depart as a runaway, even under the pretext of some pious color.
For whomsoever it has begun to overcome in any respect, it will either suffer him to remain in his cell as one indolent and given over to it, without any spiritual profit, or, having driven him thence, will thenceforth render him unstable and wandering, and will make him slothful for every work, and cause him continually to go around the cells of the brethren and the monasteries, and to concern himself with nothing else than where and under what pretext he may be able to prepare an 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 found sometime the companionship of some man or woman lukewarm and torpid to an equal degree, he becomes involved in their affairs and needs, and thus is gradually rendered ensnared in harmful occupations, so that, bound as by the coils of a serpent, he can never thereafter disentangle himself unto the perfection of his former profession. This disease, which is born of the spirit of acedia, the blessed Apostle, as a true and spiritual physician, hastens to forestall with the salutary medicines of his precepts, whether already then perceiving it creeping in, or foreseeing by the revelation of the Holy Spirit that it would arise.
For, writing to the Thessalonians, and first, like some most skilled and perfect physician, fomenting the infirmity of his patients with the gentle and soothing treatment of his word, and beginning from love and commending them in that respect, so that until the deadly wound, softened by a milder remedy and its swelling indignation laid aside, might the more easily endure the harsher medicaments, he thus speaks: 'But concerning brotherly love we have no need to write to you; for you yourselves are taught of God to love one another; for indeed you do this toward all the brethren in all Macedonia.' He first applied the gentle fomentations of praise, and made their ears calm and ready for the cure of the salutary word. Again he adds: 'But we beseech you, brethren, that you abound more.'
Still he soothes them with the gentle mildness of his words, lest perhaps he find them not yet fit for the reception of the perfect cure. What is it that you ask, O Apostle, wherein they should abound more? Namely in love, of which he had said above: 'But concerning brotherly love we have no need to write to you.' And what need is there that you say to them: 'But we beseech you that you abound more,' who do not even need anything to be written to them on this matter?—especially when you also add the reason why they have no need of this very thing, saying: 'For you yourselves are taught of God to love one another,' and add moreover a third and greater point, that they are not only taught of God, but also fulfill in deed what they are taught.
'For indeed you do this,' he says, not toward one or two, but toward all the brethren; nor toward your fellow-citizens or acquaintances only, but throughout all Macedonia. Tell us then at last: what is it that you send before with such great effort? Again he adds: 'But we beseech you, brethren, that you abound more,' and scarcely at length does he break out into that which he had long been working toward: 'and that you strive to be quiet.' He stated the first cause; then he adds a second: 'and that you do your own business'; a third also: 'and work with your own hands, as we commanded you'; a fourth: 'and that you may walk honestly toward those who are without'; a fifth: 'and that you may desire nothing of any man's.'
Behold, that hesitation which he was deferring to produce with such lengthy preambles—what is it recognized as bringing to birth in his breast? 'And that you strive to be quiet'—that is, dwelling in your cells, and not, made restless by divers rumors, which are wont to be generated from the wishes or idle talk of the idle, inflicting disquiet upon others as well. 'And that you do your own business'—not, out of your curiosity, wishing to inquire into the doings of the world and, exploring the ways of divers people, to spend your effort not upon your own correction or the pursuit of virtues, but upon detractions of the brethren. 'And work with your own hands, as we commanded you.' The reason why those things which he had above admonished them not to do would come about—that is, that they should not be restless or busy themselves with others'—
—that they should busy themselves with others' affairs, or walk dishonorably toward those who are without, or desire something of another's—he now sets forth, saying: 'And work with your own hands, as we commanded you.' For he plainly declared that idleness is the cause that those things which he above reproved should come to pass. For no one can either be restless or busy himself with others' affairs, unless he who refuses to keep steadily at the work of his own hands. He also set forth a fourth malady which is born to a man from this very idleness, namely that they should not walk dishonorably, saying: 'And that you may walk honestly toward those who are without.'
He can never walk honorably even among those who are men of the world, who is by no means content to cling to the cloister of his cell and the work of his own hands; but he must needs, while he seeks the necessaries of livelihood, also give himself to flattery, to pursue the latest rumors, to seek out occasions of matters and gossip, whereby he may prepare for himself an entrance and opportunity by which he may be able to penetrate the houses of divers people. 'And that you may desire nothing of any man's.' He cannot but gape after the gifts and presents of others, who delights not in preparing by pious and quiet labor of his own the substance of his daily food. You see how many causes, so grievous and base, are engendered by a single stain of vice.
Finally, these very same persons whom in the first epistle he had cherished with a soft caress of words, in the second—as those who had not advanced under the milder remedies—he undertakes to heal with certain harsher and caustic medicaments, and now sends before no soothing fomentations of gentle words, not that tender and soft voice as there: 'But we beseech you, brethren,' but: 'We charge you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother that walks inordinately.' There he beseeches, here he charges; in the former is the affection of one entreating, in the latter the severity of one adjuring and threatening. 'We charge you, brethren': because, when we first entreated, you disdained to listen, at least now obey us when we charge.
And this very charge he makes terrible not by a bare word, but with an adjuration of the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, lest perhaps, as though uttered by a merely human voice, they might again despise it and not deem it greatly to be observed; and straightway, like a most skilled physician, to putrid members to which he could not bring a remedy by a mild medicament, he attempts to heal them by the incision of the spiritual knife: 'that you withdraw yourselves,' he says, 'from every brother that walks inordinately and not according to the tradition which they received from us.' And so from those who are unwilling to give themselves to work he bids men withdraw, and, as it were, to cut off members corrupted with the putrefaction of idleness, lest the disease of sloth, like a deadly contagion, should with creeping corruption defile even the sound parts of the members.
And being about to speak of those who are unwilling to work with their own hands and to eat their bread with silence—from whom also he commanded that men should withdraw—note with what reproaches he brands them from the very outset. First he calls them disorderly and as not walking according to his tradition, in other words contumacious, as those who are unwilling to walk according to his institution, and marks them as being dishonorable, that is, as not observing the fitting and honorable opportunity of going forth, of visitation, of speech, of season. For every disorderly person must needs be subject to all these vices. 'And not according to the tradition which they received from us':
and in this he in a manner marks them as rebels and despisers, who disdain to hold the tradition which they received from him, and are unwilling to imitate that which they remember their master not only to have taught by word, but also know him to have accomplished in deed. 'For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us.' He heaps up an immense pile of reproof, when he asserts that they do not observe that which both clings to their memory and which they had learned to imitate not only by his word instructing them, but had also received by the example of his works provoking them. 'Because we were not restless among you.' When he wishes to prove that he was not restless among them by the exercise of work, he abundantly marks those who are unwilling to work as being always restless through the vice of idleness.
'Neither did we eat any man's bread for nought.' Through each single word of rebuke the teacher of the nations, the herald of the gospel, augments it: he says that he did not eat any man's bread for nought—he who knew that the Lord had commanded that those who preach the gospel should live of the gospel, and again: 'The laborer is worthy of his food.' Since assuredly he who preached the gospel, exercising so lofty and spiritual a work, took his food not for nought, presuming it by the authority of the Lord's command—what shall we do, to whom not only is no preaching of the word committed, but not even any charge is entrusted save the care of our own soul alone?
With what confidence shall we dare with idle hands to eat bread for nought, which the chosen vessel, constrained by evangelical solicitude and preaching, did not presume to eat without the work of his hands, but, he says, 'in labor and toil, working night and day, that we might not be burdensome to any of you'?
He still heaps up additions to his chastisement; for he did not simply say 'We did not eat bread for nought from any of you' and stop there (for he might have seemed to have been sustained by his own idle expense and hoarded money, or by the contribution or gifts of others—though not of these people); but 'in labor,' he says, 'and toil, working night and day,' that is, sustained especially by our own work; 'and this,' he says, 'we did not do of our own will, nor for pleasure, as rest and bodily exercise might invite, but as the necessity and want of sustenance compelled us to do not without vast bodily fatigue.'
For not only throughout the whole space of the day, but even of the night—which seems granted for the body's rest—I ceaselessly plied this work of the hands out of anxiety for food. Yet he testifies that he alone did not so conduct himself among them, lest perhaps this pattern should seem neither great nor general if it were handed down by his example only, but he asserts that all also who were with him, appointed to the ministry of the gospel—that is, Silvanus and Timothy, who write these same things with him—labored in like work. In that too which he says, 'that we might not be burdensome to any of you,' he strikes them with great shame.
For if he who preached the gospel, commending it by signs and mighty works, in order not to burden anyone, did not dare to eat bread for nought, how must those not reckon themselves to be a burden, who daily presume upon him while idle and unoccupied? 'Not as though we had not power, but that we might make ourselves a pattern unto you to imitate us.' He discloses the reason why he laid so much labor upon himself: 'that,' he says, 'we might make ourselves a pattern for you to imitate us,' so that, if perhaps you should consign to forgetfulness the doctrine of words frequently poured into your ears, you might at least retain in memory the examples of conduct handed down to us under the sure witness of your eyes.
No gentle reproof of them is his in this too, when he says that he exacted this labor and fatigue of body day and night for no other reason than the sake of example, and yet that they nonetheless are unwilling to be instructed—they for whose sake he, having no necessity, laid so much fatigue upon himself. 'And indeed,' he says, 'though we had power, and the resources and substance of you all lay open to us, and I knew that I had been permitted by our Lord to use them, yet I did not use this power, lest what was done well and lawfully by me should furnish to others an example of harmful idleness.'
'And therefore, while preaching the gospel, I chose rather to be sustained by my own hands and labor, that to you also, if you were willing to tread the path of virtue, I might open the way of perfection and by my toil furnish a pattern of conduct.' But lest perhaps, working silently and wishing to instruct them by examples, he should seem not at all to have instructed them by the admonitions of precepts also, he adds: 'For even when we were with you, this we charged you, that if any will not work, neither let him eat.'
He still exaggerates the sloth of those who, knowing him as a good master, disdain out of the grace of doctrine and the plea of instruction to imitate him who worked with his own hands; and he magnifies his own diligence and caution, saying that he not only handed this down to them by example while present, but also constantly preached it by words: namely that, if any will not work, neither let him eat. He no longer employs toward them the counsel of a teacher or physician, but with the strictness of a judicial pronouncement he inveighs against them, and, resuming his apostolic power, as though from a tribunal he pronounces sentence against the despisers:
by that power, namely, which, writing with a threat to the Corinthians, he asserted had been given him by the Lord, when he forewarned them, set in fault, to hasten to correct themselves before his coming, thus commanding: 'I beseech you that I may not, when present, be bold with that confidence wherewith I am counted bold against some'; and again: 'For if I should wish to glory somewhat concerning the power which the Lord gave me for edification and not for your destruction, I should not be ashamed.' By that power, I say, he pronounces:
'If any will not work, neither let him eat'—not condemning them by the carnal sword, but by the authority of the Holy Spirit interdicting to them the substance of this life, so that if perhaps, thinking little of the punishment of future death, they should still wish out of love of idleness to remain contumacious, at least, constrained by natural necessity and by the fear of present ruin, they might be compelled to receive the salutary precepts. After so great a rigor, therefore, of evangelical strictness, he now sets forth the reason why he prefaced all these things: 'For we hear that certain among you walk restlessly, working not at all, but being busybodies.' Nowhere is he content to pronounce those who are unwilling to be given to work as corrupted by one malady only.
For in the former epistle he calls them disorderly and as not walking according to the tradition which they received from him, and defines them also to be restless and to eat bread for nought. Again here: 'We hear,' he says, 'that certain among you walk restlessly.' And he immediately subjoins the second languor, which is the root of this restlessness: 'working,' he says, 'not at all'; a third malady also, which springs from that one like a little branch: 'but being busybodies.'
And so he now hastens to apply a fitting cure to the tinder of such great vices, and, having laid aside that apostolic power which he had employed a little before, he returns again to the tenderness of a loving father or a merciful physician, and, as to sons and his own charges, applies with wholesome counsel the remedies of health, saying: 'Now those who are such we charge and beseech in the Lord Jesus, that with silence they work and eat their own bread.' The causes of such great ulcers, which emerge from the root of idleness, he cured with a single salutary precept of work, like the most skilled of physicians, knowing that the other maladies too, sprouting from the same sod, would forthwith be extinguished once the origin of the principal disease was removed.
Nevertheless, like a most perspicacious and provident physician who desires not only to heal the wounds of the sick, but also to commend fitting precepts likewise to the healthy, whereby their perpetual soundness may be preserved, he says: 'But you, do not be weary in well-doing.' You who follow us, that is, our ways, fulfilling by imitation of work the examples handed down to you, and by no means following their sloth and inertia—'do not be weary in well-doing,' that is, impart likewise your kindness toward them, if perhaps they should neglect to observe the things which we have said.
Just as he rebuked those who were weak, lest, dissolved in idleness, they should give themselves over to restlessness and curiosity, so he forewarns these who are sound, that they should not cut off from themselves the kindness which by the Lord's precept we are bidden to show to good and bad alike, even if perchance certain perverse men should be unwilling to be converted to sound doctrine; but that they should not cease to do them good and to cherish them, as much by words of consolation and correction as by the customary benefits and kindness. Yet again, lest by this gentleness certain ones, being emboldened, should scorn to obey his precepts, he intermingles apostolic severity: 'But if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed.'
And warning them, for reverence of himself and for the common good, what ought to be observed and with what caution they should keep the apostolic commands, he straightway adds the gentleness of a most indulgent father, and likewise teaches them what affection they ought to retain toward the aforesaid, as toward his own sons, out of brotherly charity: 'And do not esteem him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.' To judicial severity he joined fatherly tenderness, and tempered the sentence pronounced with apostolic rigor by a merciful mildness. For he both commands that he be noted who has scorned to obey his precepts, and that no one keep company with him; and yet he commanded that these things be done not out of the fault of hatred, but with a view to brotherly love and to their amendment.
'Do not,' he says, 'keep company with him, that he may be ashamed'—so that he who has not been amended by my gentle precepts may at least, being confounded by the public separation from you all, begin at some time to be recalled to the path of salvation. In the Epistle to the Ephesians also he thus commanded concerning this very work of labor, saying: 'He that stole, let him now steal no more; but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have something to give to those who suffer need.' In the Acts of the Apostles too we find that he not only taught these same things, but also fulfilled them in deed. For when he had come to Corinth, he did not suffer himself to lodge elsewhere save with Aquila and Priscilla, because they were craftsmen of the same trade which he himself was accustomed to practice.
For thus you have it: 'After these things Paul departed from Athens and came to Corinth; and finding a certain Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, and Priscilla his wife, he came to them, because he was of the same trade; and he abode with them and worked—for they were tentmakers by trade.' Then, proceeding to Miletus and sending thence to Ephesus, and calling to himself the elders of the church of the Ephesians and giving them precepts as to how they ought to govern the church of God in his absence, he says: 'Silver and gold I have coveted from no man: you yourselves know that for the things which were needful to me and to those who are with me, these hands have ministered.'
'In all things I have shown you that, thus laboring, we ought to support the weak, and to remember the word of the Lord Jesus, that he himself said: It is more blessed to give than to receive.' He left us a weighty example of his manner of life, since he testifies that he labored not only for what would provide for the need of his own body alone, but also for what might suffice for the uses of those who were with him—namely, those who, being daily occupied in necessary ministrations, could by no means likewise procure their sustenance for themselves with their own hands. And just as he said to the Thessalonians that he had labored, so as to give them a pattern for imitating him, so here also he brought in something of the sort, saying:
'In all things I have shown you that, thus laboring, we ought to support the weak'—that is, whether weak in mind or in body—meaning that we should hasten to refresh them rather by our own labor and by the sustenance won by the sweat of our toil, and not from a heap of abundance or from money laid up, nor indeed from another's bounty and substance. And this very thing he says is the Lord's command: 'For he himself,' he says, 'said'—that is, the Lord Jesus—'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' This is the more blessed generosity of the giver than the want of the receiver—a generosity which is not paid out of money kept back through unbelief or distrust, nor out of the hidden treasures of avarice, but which is brought forth from the fruit of one's own labor and from godly sweat.
And therefore it is more blessed to give than to receive, because, although he who gives shares the poverty of him who receives, nonetheless by his own labor he hastens with godly solicitude to procure not only sufficiency for his own need, but also something to give to the needy—being adorned with a twofold grace: that he both possesses the perfect nakedness of Christ by the casting away of all his goods, and displays the munificence of a rich man by his own labor and affection; here indeed honoring God from his own righteous labors, and offering to him a firstfruit from the fruits of his righteousness.
But that other man, dissolved in the torpor of idleness and in sloth, proves himself unworthy even of the food of bread by the apostle's sentence, presuming to be idle against his interdict—not without the guilt of sin and of contumacy. We knew a brother, whose name too we would disclose, if any further edification for him could come of it.