The Apostle’s Words on Acedia

The blessed apostle, like a true and spiritual physician, either saw this disease, which springs from the spirit of acedia, already creeping in, or foresaw through the revelation of the Holy Spirit that it would arise among monks, and he is quick to head it off with the healing medicine of his instructions. Writing to the Thessalonians, he begins like a skillful and excellent physician by applying the soothing and gentle remedy of his words to the weakness of his patients. He starts with love and praises them on that point, so that this deadly wound, treated first with a milder remedy, might lose its angry festering and more easily bear severer treatment. He says: “But concerning brotherly love you have no need for me to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. And indeed you do this toward all the brothers in the whole of Macedonia.” He began with the soothing application of praise, and so made their ears submissive and ready for the remedy of his healing words. Then he goes on: “But we ask you, brothers, to abound more.” Up to this point he soothes them with kind and gentle words, for fear that he might find them not yet prepared to receive their full cure. [a]

Why is it, apostle, that you ask them to abound more in love, when you said just before, “But concerning brotherly love we have no need to write to you”? And why must you say to them, “But we ask you to abound more,” when they did not need to be written to at all on this matter? Especially since you add the reason why they do not need it, saying, “For you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.” And you add a third point, still more important: not only have they been taught by God, but they also carry out in deed what they are taught. “For you do this,” he says, not to one or two, but “to all the brothers”; and not only to your own fellow citizens and friends, but “in the whole of Macedonia.” Tell us, then, please, why you begin with this so carefully.

Again he goes on, “But we ask you, brothers, to abound more.” And at last, with difficulty, he breaks out with what he had been driving at all along: “and that you make it your aim to be quiet.” That is the first point. Then he adds a second, “and to mind your own business”; and a third as well, “and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you”; a fourth, “and to walk honorably toward those outside”; and a fifth, “and to covet no one’s goods.” Now we can see through that hesitation, which made him put off, with these preludes, saying what his mind was full of. “And that you make it your aim to be quiet”: that is, that you stay in your cells and are not unsettled by rumors, which generally spring from the wishes and gossip of idle people, and so unsettle others in turn. “And to mind your own business”: that is, you should not want to pry curiously into the doings of the world, or to examine the lives of others and spend your strength not on bettering yourselves and pursuing virtue, but on running down your brothers. “And to work with your own hands, as we commanded you.” To guard against what he had warned them above not to do, namely that they should not be restless and anxious about other people’s affairs, nor walk dishonorably toward those outside, nor covet another’s goods, he now adds, “and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you.” For he has clearly shown that idleness was the reason the things he blamed above were done. No one can be restless or anxious about other people’s affairs except someone who is not content to apply himself to the work of his own hands. He adds a fourth evil, which also springs from this idleness, when he says they should not walk dishonorably: “And that you walk honorably toward those outside.” No one can possibly walk honorably, even among the people of this world, who is not content to cling to the seclusion of his cell and the work of his own hands. He is sure to behave dishonorably while he looks for the food he needs: to take pains to flatter, to chase after news and gossip, and to look for chances to chatter and tell stories, by which he can get a footing and gain entrance into other people’s houses. “And that you covet no one’s goods.” Whoever does not care to earn enough for his daily food by the dutiful and peaceful labor of his hands is sure to look with envious eyes on another’s gifts and good things. You see what conditions, and how serious and shameful ones, spring from the disease of idleness alone.

Then, in his second letter, he tries to heal with harsher and sterner remedies the very people he had treated in his first letter with the gentle application of his words, since they had not benefited from milder treatment. He no longer applies the treatment of gentle words, no mild and kindly phrases like “But we ask you, brothers,” but says, “We solemnly charge you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from every brother who walks in a disorderly way.” There he asks; here he solemnly charges. There is the kindness of one who persuades; here the sternness of one who protests and threatens. “We solemnly charge you, brothers”: because when we first asked you, you scorned to listen, now at least obey our threats. And he makes this charge terrible not by his bare word but by calling down the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, for fear that they might scorn it again as a merely human word and think it of little importance. And at once, like a skilled physician dealing with festering limbs to which he could not apply the remedy of mild treatment, he tries to cure them by cutting with a spiritual knife, saying, “that you keep away from every brother who walks in a disorderly way and not according to the tradition you received from us.” So he tells them to keep away from those who will not make time for work, and to cut them off like limbs tainted with the festering sores of idleness, so that the disease of idleness, like some deadly contagion, might not infect even the healthy parts of their limbs as the infection gradually spread.

And when he is about to speak of those who will not work with their own hands and eat their bread in quietness, from whom he urges them to keep away, hear with what reproaches he brands them from the start. First he calls them “disorderly,” and “not walking according to the tradition.” In other words, he marks them as obstinate, since they will not walk according to his rule; and as dishonorable, that is, not keeping to the right and proper times for going out, visiting and talking. For a disorderly person is sure to be subject to all these faults. “And not according to the tradition they received from us.” In this he marks them as in some way rebellious and contemptuous, people who scorned to keep the tradition they had received from him and would not follow what they not only remembered their master had taught in word, but also knew he had carried out in deed. “For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us.” He heaps up an enormous pile of blame when he declares that they did not keep what was still in their memory, which they had not only learned by spoken instruction but also received through the spur of his example in working.