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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

: "The Demon of Noonday"

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I am posting this thread here as a supplement to

http://online-literature.com/forums...57371#post57371

which mentions the book "Noonday Demon"

http://www.ocampr.org/asceticTradition.asp

(excerpts):

’Ακήδια: Akedia: Despondency

Our contemporary psychiatry and psychology are not so well acquainted
with the passion of despondency. Most contemporary mental health
professionals would diagnose a despondent person as having depression.
We even have trouble distinguishing the words “dejection” and
“despondency” from each other. But here the ancient fathers showed a
depth of perception that is rare among mental health professionals at the
present time.

I am following the convention of using the English term “despondency” to
render the Greek word akedia (’ακήδια). Akedia is a compound word. The
first part is the prefix a- (’α-), which means “not” and is used exactly like
the prefix “un-” in English. The second part is the abstract noun kedia
(κηδία), which itself is derived from the more concrete noun kedos
(κη̃δος). Kedos means “care for others,” especially the kind of care that
you show when someone dies. To have kedos for the dead means that
you care so much for the dead person that you wash the body, attend the
funeral, and see the remains of the person respectfully buried, even
though the person you loved is now dead and gone and will do nothing
more for you in this life. Kedia, therefore, is the action of showing kedos.
The noun kedia is used twice in the Septuagint, the ancient Greek
translation of the Old Testament. In both passages the word is used in
reference to funerals (II Maccabees 4:49 and 5:10 ). The word is not used
at all in the New Testament. A verb meaning “to bury the dead” is used in
an alternate text of one passage, referring to the body of Saint John the
Baptist (Mark 6:29 ), but not in the text of the New Testament that most of
us read. But even though the word itself is not used in this context, it was
displayed in the actions of some people when the Lord died. Saint Joseph
of Arimathea displayed kedia when he provided the tomb for the Lord.
The myrrh-bearing women displayed kedia when they went to that tomb,
the action that led them to be the first to know that the Lord had risen
from the dead.

So much for kedia. But our present concern is with akedia. Akedia means
not being like Joseph and the women at the tomb. Akedia means not
caring, not doing the things that would show that one cares. The word
akedia is also rare in the Bible. This term does not occur in the New
Testament. The term occurs in three passages in the Septuagint and the
verb form that is cognate to akedia occurs in six other passages. In only
one of these passages is the use of the word very illustrative of its
meaning. The superscription or title of Psalm 102 (numbered Psalm 101 in
the Septuagint) reads, “A prayer of one afflicted, when suffering from
akedia and pleading before the Lord.” The psalm goes on to describe the
state of one suffering from akedia with these words:

My days pass away like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace.

My heart is stricken and withered like grass; I am too wasted to eat my
bread.

Because of my loud groaning my bones cling to my skin.

I am like an owl of the wilderness, like a little owl of the waste places.

I lie awake; I am like a lonely bird on the housetop.

All day long my enemies taunt me; those who deride me use my name for
a curse.

For I eat ashes like bread, and mingle tears with my drink,

because of Your indignation and anger;

For You have lifted me up and thrown me aside.

My days are like an evening shadow; I wither away like grass.

(Psalm 102: 3-11, NRSV [Psalm 101:4-12, LXX])

Borrowing a phrase from the Greek translation of Psalm 91:6 (numbered
90:6 in the Septuagint), the ancients called this the “noonday demon.”
Evagrius describes it this way:

The demon of acedia—also called the noonday demon—is the one that
causes the most serious trouble of all. He presses his attack upon the
monk about the fourth hour [roughly 10 in the morning] and besieges the
soul until the eighth hour [about 2 in the afternoon]. First of all he makes
it seem that the sun barely moves, if at all, and that the day is fifty hours
long. Then he constrains the monk to look constantly out the windows, to
walk outside the cell, to gaze carefully at the sun to determine how far it
stands from the ninth hour [about 3 in the afternoon, the hour for supper,
the only substantial meal in the ancient monastic day], to look now this
way and now that to see if perhaps (one of the brethren appears from his
cell) [squared brackets in the original changed to parentheses; the
translator supplied an ellipsis]. Then too he instills in the heart of the
monk a hatred for the place, a hatred for his very life itself, a hatred for
manual labor. He leads him to reflect that charity has departed from
among the brethren, that there is no one to give encouragement. Should
there be someone at this period who happens to offend him in some way
or other, this too the demon uses to contribute further to his hatred. The
demon drives him along to desire other sites where he can more easily
procure life’s necessities more readily find work and make a real success
of himself. He goes on to suggest that, after all, it is not the place that is
the basis of pleasing the Lord. God is to be adored everywhere. He joins
to these reflections the memory of his dear ones and of his former way of
life. He depicts life stretching out for a long period of time, and brings
before the mind’s eye the toil of the ascetic struggle and, as the saying
has it, leaves no leaf unturned to induce the monk to forsake his cell and
drop out of the fight. No other demon follows close upon the heels of this
one (when he is defeated) but a state of deep peace and inexpressible joy
arise out of this struggle.

(Praktikos, 12; trans. 1981, pp. 18-19)

In akedia, in despondency, one gives up thinking that it is worth going on.
It is not just that things seem hopeless; they seem pointless. There’s no
use. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make any difference. It’s not worth it. A
despondent person says with contempt, “To hell with it.” A despondent
person says, “I don’t give a damn how it turns out.” Despondency is a
disorder of the incensive aspect of the soul; it is a disorder of the will. All
the fight goes out of us. We lose our passion. We are not committed
anymore. And consequently it sometimes lacks the typical features of
dejection and what we nowadays diagnose as depression. It may have
more contempt than sadness, more anger than grief. It may have
hyperactivity rather than slow and strained motions—but the hyperactivity
has nothing to do with what really matters or what we ought to be doing
at the time.

The Latin words that have been translated “sloth” clearly do imply that
sadness itself is somehow sinful. One of the Latin words for “sloth” is
acedia, which is simply a transliteration of a Greek word that I shall
shortly discuss more thoroughly. This word is the root of the English word
“accidie,” which is still used from time to time in theological ethics.
Another Latin word for “sloth” is tristitia, which simply means sadness. But
these terms are merely Latin. The Seven Deadly Sins constitute a
distinctly Western list. The precise form of the list of seven deadly sins
that is now common in the West was developed in the Middle Ages. It was
based on the thought of Saint Gregory the Great, who was the first pope
of Rome that used that name and held the seat of Saint Peter between
590 and 604. To get to the real meaning of the tradition, however, we
must go behind Gregory’s list to the sources that Gregory used. Gregory’s
principal source was Saint John Cassian, who lived in what is now France
and wrote in Latin in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries.

When Evagrius spoke of the passions, he was talking about things that
happen to a person, things that overcome the person. Sexual passion still
has that connotation in English; it takes over a person and rationality
leaves. The passion of Christ also has that connotation in English; the
suffering and death of the Lord were things that were done to Him, not
things that He did to Himself. When referring to the states of the soul,
therefore, the passions might more adequately be called compulsions or
addictions. The passions are habits of thought, feeling, and desiring over
which we have little or no control. The passions are limitations on our
freedom,

Gregory combined the passions called dejection and despondency into the
one sin of melancholy

Maximos the Confessor, who lived in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries and
was perhaps the greatest of the theologians of the Byzantine Empire, put
it this way:

The soul has three powers: the intelligence, the incensive power and
desire. With our intelligence we direct our search; with our desire we long
for that supernal goodness which is the object of our search; and with our
incensive power we fight to attain our object. With these powers those
who love God cleave to the divine principle of virtue and spiritual
knowledge. Searching with the first power, desiring with the second, and
fighting by means of the third, they receive incorruptible nourishment,
enriching the intellect with the spiritual knowledge of created things.

(Second Century of Various Texts, 25; in Philokalia vol. 2, trans. 1981, p.
193)

Before I go on with the discussion of the differences between the two
depressions, I must comment briefly on the passions that we are not
focusing on. I have summarized some basic information about all of the
deadly passions in Table 2. I must pass by both of the primary disorders
of the mind: hyperephania (‘υπερηφανία), kenodoxia (κενοδοξία), and, in
St. Gregory’s list, invidia. Hyperephania literally means something like
“shining out way too much.” There is an appropriate kind of “shining out,”
that is, an appropriate recognition of one’s abilities and talents and
achievement. But hyperephania is a distortion. It thinks that we are
ultimately self-sufficient, that we did it all by ourselves, that we do not
really need anything or anybody. This is the kind of pride that makes us
stubborn and judgmental and self-righteous. It gives rise to κenodoxia,
which means “empty glory.” Κenodoxia is a misdirection. It is empty
beauty, empty knowledge, empty character. It has to do with false power
over people. It encourages flattery from others. It does not size a person
up for what he or she really is and does not give God the credit He
deserves for giving us all that we have and all that we are. Invidia is the
Latin word for “envy.” It is a deprivation. It is vainglory turned around.
Vainglorious people build their self-respect around things they should not,
but envious people do not have much self-respect and despise people who
do.

Evagrius describes the passion of dejection this way:

[Dejection] tends to come up at times because of the deprivation of one’s
desires. On other occasions it accompanies anger. When it arises from the
deprivation of desires it takes place in the following manner. Certain
thoughts first drive the soul to the memory of home and parents, or else
to that of one’s former life. Now when these thoughts find that the soul
offers no resistance but rather follows after them and pours itself out in
pleasures that are still only mental in nature, they then seize her [the
soul] and drench her in sadness, with the result that these ideas she was
just indulging no longer remain. In fact they cannot be had in reality,
either, because of her present way of life. So the miserable soul is now
shriveled up in her humiliation to the degree that she poured herself out
upon these thoughts of hers.

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