The term sloth, an old word linked to ascetic-spiritual life, can be understood in our modern language as a decease of the soul, whose most evident manifestation is a suffered melancholic depression, a loss of the object of love and the part of self that was invested in it. The Catechism of the Catholic Church writes about it, "With this term (sloth) the Fathers of spiritual life mean a form of depression caused by a relaxing of ascetic practice, a lack of vigilance, a want of watchfulness of the heart" (CCC 2733). In the awareness that the initial fervour needs to be tried by the most austere melting-pot, namely the time, the fundamental teaching of the monastic-ascetic tradition is that of resisting, persevering and going ahead.

How to diagnose a sloth syndrome? Which therapy can be used to uproot it or to cure the slothful? Strangely, an anchorite of the IV century A.C., a Coenobite or hermit, in the light of his experience would be able to answer more precisely than we who, though far from that form of life, are (unconsciously?) not only licked, but always more consumed by it. We often ignore the robust therapy they suggested, in order to look ironically and sceptically at cures that move, in those who suggest and propose them authoritatively, from the awareness that sloth, unluckily, is not just a monastic vice of the past.

On one side, we are victims of forgetting what sloth is in the spiritual theology taught and learned up to a recent past, on the other side we are victims of a formation, which has not made us capable of facing it and resisting to it. Yet, though neglected, sloth and its rich syndrome appear very clearly, if they are caught in their deep analogy or affinity with the psychological uneasiness of melancholic, narcissistic and depressive uneasiness.

It is difficult to give a simple and complete translation of the Greek term akïdía, taken into the Latin acedia, and the English sloth. It seems easier to describe and define it. Evagrio idefines it this way, "The demon of sloth… inspires the monk with a deep aversion for the place in which he lives, as well as for his kind of life and the manual work; moreover he suggests him that charity among the brothers has vanished and that there is nobody to console him." 4 The aversion for his present reality becomes aversion also for all who surround him and are unable to fill him. Isn’t this a psychological situation frequently experienced also today, from which bitterness caused by a bad humour flows, difficult to be purified, which changes into an arrogant and ridiculous judgement of our destiny, our brothers and the entire world?

The term akïdía belongs neither to the Christian-ascetic lexicon nor to the monastic dictionary. It was known by pagan authors, for whom it evoked negligence, indifference, lack of interest for something. This word is not found in the New Testament, while it is present in the Old, where this term and its derived one non akïdiázein recur nine times with the generic meaning of discouragement, anxiety, anguish and annoyance. Probably, an Old Testament proverb calls back efficaciously an interesting shade, without using our term, "For the poor every day is evil, for the joyous heart it is always festival time" (Pr 15, 15).

It is not the matter of accusing the quality of the days before the feeling of anguish that often oppresses us; it is the matter of considering the quality of our heart, changing whatever sad is in it, so that the quality of the day may also appear different. The terms laziness and boredom express only part of the complex reality they indicate: weariness, indolence, torpor, disgust, dejection, loss of tension of the soul, discouragement, aversion.

Sloth causes a vague and general dissatisfaction, which is manifested in a subtle feeling of anguish, annoyance, nourishing in us the easy desire of something else and some other place which finally draw us away from the present situation. When we are afflicted by this passion –to be understood as a spiritual sickness- we are disgusted by an interior anxiety: we find everything meaningless and insipid, we want nothing of nothing. Thus, sloth makes a person unstable in soul and body. According to Evagrio it is a "mixed" and "complex" phenomenon: "the demons fight against us through the thoughts, sometimes exciting the desire, at times with bursts of anger, or anger and desire together, from where a complex thought is born. This happens only at the moment of sloth, while the others appear at intervals, alternating one another. Nothing follows the thought of sloth for the day, first because it is persistent; secondly because it contains almost all the others in itself" .5

Actually, the slothful is extremely irritated by everything at his disposal and struggles with the desire of having what is not available. His faculties become inconstant; hi spirit is unable to be fixed, passing from an object to the other. Above all when he is alone, he cannot bear to stay where he is: passion pushes him to go out, to go somewhere else, to seek contacts with others at any cost. The aid contacts are often objectively not indispensable, but induced by passion. He feels their need and finds good pretexts to justify them. Thus, he establishes and keeps futile relations, nurtured with empty talks, revealing vain curiosity.

Sloth is a mixture of frustration and aggressiveness; it is horrified by what it has and dreams of what is missing. From here flows, first in Evagrio and then in Gregory the Great (540-604), 6 the inspirer of the ascetic tradition which will permeate the western world, a strict relation between sloth and sadness, "Sloth is a company of sadness and vice versa"; "Sadness is the school companion of sloth" .7

The state caused by sloth is not a simple passing crisis, but a radical and chronic pathology of the heart, a state of soul leading to disorientation. All these states linked to sloth are accompanied by disquietude or anxiety, which, besides being disgusting, is a fundamental character of this passion.

The demon of sloth attacks mainly those who devote themselves to spiritual life: he tries to pull them away from the ways of the Spirit and from the activities proper of this life. In particular it tries to attack the regularity and constancy of the ascetic discipline, by leading to break the silence and stability that favour it. John Climaco (ca. 579-654) presents sloth as "a paralysis of the soul, a weakening of the mind and negligence of ascetic practices". 8 Under the influence of this passion, the spiritual reality –according to John Cassiano (ca. 360-433)- is made "inactive and inert before the work to be executed…totally deprived of every spiritual profit, apathetic before every activity of the spirit", indifferent before all the work of God.

According to the patristic tradition, sloth constitutes a relaxation of the soul and of the spirit; it generates an interior emptiness and leads to a generalised negligence. Together with sadness it can lead to desperation. John Climaco notes down that "sloth is for the monk a death surrounding him from everywhere". 10 Before the amplitude of these effects, the Fathers agree to consider it as the heaviest and most oppressing of all passions. Let us not think that this passion is extraneous to the consecrated persons, to those who live in a tension towards "a new heaven and a new earth".

We have seen that sloth has the peculiarity of involving all the faculties of the souls and to set all the passions into motion. This means, consequently, the death of all virtues. Differently from the other passions, sloth cannot be healed or substituted by a specifically opposite virtue.

Therefore, a multiform-therapy becomes necessary, apt to contrast this pernicious spirit at all fronts. The therapy supposes that the sickness has been exposed and has been diagnosed as such. This is because this passion has the characteristic of not being motivated, therefore of being often unaware and incomprehensible. If we succeed to recognise it for what it is, we can obtain peace.

I think too much of the how and the why, too much of myself! The cause of sloth is within the person, it does not come from its external condition; similarly the principle of its healing is to be sought in the relation with oneself, rather than in the relation with others. The old ascetic lexicon stigmatised the too much thinking only of oneself, using the term philautia or self-love, easily associated with the most known narcissism. The self-exalting excesses are, often, the premises of depressive discouragements, so that what at first appeared an existence full of sense, excretes a bitter and deluding humour of pseudo-existence.

The suggested therapy is a frequent, methodical and daily re-conduction of one’s "I" to the unique, true and eternal desire: the desire of true knowledge, which tends only to God and fills us with happiness. Hatred and sadness will remain until this desire reaches its winning-post. This is the only practicable way to be healed of an unbalanced, excessively rigid and not calibre self-listening. Evagrio wisely warns us, "Woe to philautia, that hates everything".

Is it all? What boredom! This is a deluded and mortified exclamation, propaedeutical to the apathy of the soul, to interior relaxation and disquietude, which can be clothed also with subtle arguments. The suggested therapy is that of taking a serious care of our will. More than good will, we need to nurture the will with bounty, a will made good again in faith, therefore guided by the eyes of faith, by faithful eyes turned to God, to self and others, to the end of desiring and willing according to God.

The interior word or the slothful thought… Sloth persuades us that "charity among brothers has vanished and that there is nobody who can comfort us". 12 This is a frequent and plausible situation, since all of us are vulnerable in the affective field. In concrete, the remedies to control and defeat this "obscure evil" need vigilance and will discernment. The remedy par excellence is the Eucharist as an exercise of thanksgiving, followed by the invocation of the Holy Name of Jesus, prayer, assiduity to the Holy Scripture.

Do not run away! This is, in synthesis, the imperative to welcome and defeat at par weapons the complex syndrome of sloth. The "do not run away" is expressed in the text we refer to by a verb or a noun, which in the New testament distinguishes the systematic attitude of Jesus. It is the capacity of resisting under the pressure of a burden, of not giving in, of persevering in the started work, not as an obtuse resignation, but as a conscious waiting for God, a sure nourishment of the theological hope.

We can conclude with Evagrio, the acute unmasking of sloth and congruous therapeutic, "Sloth can be cured by perseverance, by accomplishing everything with attention and with the fear of God. Fix a measure in every work and do not desist until you have accomplished it. Pray wisely and fervently, and the spirit of sloth will flee away from you" 13

Antonio Zani
Studio Teologico "Paolo VI" - Seminario di Brescia
Via Domenico Bollani, 20 – 25123 Brescia