Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Pre-Modern Exhaustion: On Melancholia and Acedia

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Burnout, Fatigue, Exhaustion

Abstract

Adopting a cultural-historical perspective, Anna Katharina Schaffner argues that exhaustion is not at all a modern preoccupation, nor the specific bane of our age of techno-capitalism, as many critics argue, but that anxieties about exhaustion and its psychological, physical, and social effects have always been with us. She shows that theories of exhaustion and its corrosive effects can be found in many historical periods, including Greek antiquity and the Middle Ages. The symptoms of mental and physical exhaustion were considered to be among the core symptoms of melancholia, theorised in the broader framework of humoural theory by the physician Galen. An alternative model of exhaustion emerged in Late Antiquity and blossomed in the Middle Ages: the notion of sloth or acedia. Just like melancholia, acedia included various symptoms of mental and physical exhaustion among its core indicators, such as weariness, torpor, apathy, lethargy, sleepiness, irritability, cognitive impairment, and hopelessness. Yet unlike melancholia, which was treated and defined by physicians, sloth fell under the remit of theologians such as St Thomas Aquinas. It was understood not as an organic disease, but rather as a spiritual and moral failing.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 139.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 179.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 179.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. 1.

    See, for example, Jonathan Crary, 24/7: Capitalism and the End of Sleep (London and New York: Verso, 2013); Sighard Neckel and Greta Wagner (eds), Leistung und Erschöpfung. Burnout in der Wettbewerbsgesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2013); Patrick Kury, Der Überforderte Mensch. Eine Wissensgeschichte vom Stress zum Burnout (Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus, 2012); Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self: Diagnosing the History of Depression in the Contemporary Age, trans. David Homel et al. (Montreal and London: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010); Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Character (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998); and Hans Selye, Stress without Distress (London and Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1975).

  2. 2.

    See, for example, Leistung und Erschöpfung; Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self; and Crary, 24/7.

  3. 3.

    See George M. Beard, A Practical Treatise on Nervous Exhaustion (Neurasthenia): Its Symptoms, Nature, Sequences, Treatment (New York: W. Wood, 1880); and American Nervousness: Its Causes and Consequences. A Supplement to Nervous Exhaustion (Neurasthenia) (New York: G. P. Putnam Sons, 1881); Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Über Gesunde und Kranke Nerven, Fourth edition (Tübingen: Verlag der H. Laupp’schen Buchhandlung, 1898); and Wilhelm Erb, Über die wachsende Nervosität unserer Zeit (Heidelberg: J. Hörning, 1884).

  4. 4.

    For more general literature on Galen, see, for example, Christopher Gill, Naturalistic Psychology in Galen and Stoicism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Christopher Gill, Tim Whitmarsh, and John Wilkins (eds), Galen and the World of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); and R. J. Hankinson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Galen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

  5. 5.

    See Jennifer Radden’s introduction to her anthology The Nature of Melancholy: From Aristotle to Kristeva (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 3–51, for an overview of the historical transformations of the concept and the ways in which the condition was theorised from classical antiquity to the present day. See also Matthew Bell, Melancholia: The Western Malady (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014) and Clark Lawlor, From Melancholia to Prozac: A History of Depression (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

  6. 6.

    Galen, Selected Works, trans. P. N. Singer (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 339–41.

  7. 7.

    For an analysis of the symptoms of depression, see Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self: Diagnosing the History of Depression in the Contemporary Age. For a discussion of the parallels between ancient melancholia and modern depression, see also Stanley W. Jackson, Melancholia & Depression: From Hippocratic Times to Modern Times (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990).

  8. 8.

    Galen, On the Affected Parts, ed. and trans. Rudolph E. Siegel (London and New York: S. Karger, 1976), pp. 92–3.

  9. 9.

    Ibid., p. 93.

  10. 10.

    He also discusses this idea in his treatise On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato and in his late pamphlet The Faculties of the Soul Follow the Mixtures of the Body. See Piereluigi Donini, ‘Psychology’, in The Cambridge Companion to the Hellenistic World, ed. Glenn R. Bugh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 184–209 (p. 184).

  11. 11.

    Galen, Selected Works, p. 155.

  12. 12.

    In some texts he goes even further, suggesting that the soul is, in fact, identical to the organs in which it is seated, and, in particular, that the soul might be identical to the cerebral pneuma. See Donini, ‘Psychology’, p. 201.

  13. 13.

    See ibid., p. 196.

  14. 14.

    The following account of the history of acedia in the Middle Ages is indebted to two excellent studies on the subject: Siegfried Wenzel, The Sin of Sloth: Acedia in Medieval Thought and Literature (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1967) and Werner Post, Acedia – Das Laster der Trägheit. Zur Geschichte der siebten Todsünde (Freiburg and Vienna: Herder, 2011).

  15. 15.

    For more information on Evagrius Ponticus, see, for example, A. M. Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus: The Early Church Fathers (Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2006); and George Tsakiridis, Evagrius Ponticus and Cognitive Science: A Look at Moral Evil and the Thoughts (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2010).

  16. 16.

    Quoted in Wenzel, The Sin of Sloth, p. 5.

  17. 17.

    Ibid., p. 14.

  18. 18.

    See ibid., p. 5.

  19. 19.

    John Cassian, The Monastic Institutes, trans. Edgar C.S. Gibson, in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Henry Wace and Philip Schaff, 14 vols. (Oxford: James Parker and Company; New York: The Christian Literature Company, 1894), vol. XI, pp. 183–641 (p. 266).

  20. 20.

    Ibid., p. 267.

  21. 21.

    Ibid.

  22. 22.

    Ibid.

  23. 23.

    Ibid.

  24. 24.

    Ibid., pp. 267–8.

  25. 25.

    Ibid., p. 268.

  26. 26.

    Ibid., p. 269.

  27. 27.

    Ibid., p. 271. See Thessalonians 3:11.

  28. 28.

    Ibid, p. 271.

  29. 29.

    Ibid., p. 274.

  30. 30.

    See Wenzel, The Sin of Sloth, p. 22.

  31. 31.

    However, the current ‘Catechism of the Catholic Church’ still lists the sins in Latin as ‘superbia, avaritia, invidia, ira, luxuria, gula’ and as ‘pigritia seu acedia’ (laziness or acedia).

  32. 32.

    Hugh of Saint Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (De Sacramentis), trans. Roy J. Deferrari (Cambridge, MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1951), p. 375.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., p. 376.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., p 375.

  35. 35.

    Quoted in Wenzel, The Sin of Sloth, p. 34.

  36. 36.

    St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae: A Concise Translation, ed. Timothy McDermott (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1989), p. 365.

  37. 37.

    Ibid.

  38. 38.

    Ibid.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., p. 365.

  40. 40.

    Ibid., p. 269.

  41. 41.

    Ibid, p. 270.

  42. 42.

    Rowena Mason, ‘David Cameron Calls on Obese to Accept Help or Risk Losing Benefits’, The Guardian, 14 February 2015, online at: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/14/david-cameron-obese-addicts-accept-help-risk-losing-benefits (accessed February 2015).

  43. 43.

    Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski have recently demonstrated that almost all our individual and broader cultural activities are a response to death and designed to hold our mortal terror at bay. However, this impulse is, of course, particularly clearly discernible in attempts to combat ageing, illness, and to counteract the general depletion of our energies. See Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynsky, The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life (London: Allen Lane, 2015).

  44. 44.

    Frank Kermode, The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 94–5.

References

  • George M. Beard, A Practical Treatise on Nervous Exhaustion (Neurasthenia): Its Symptoms, Nature, Sequences, Treatment (New York: W. Wood, 1880).

    Google Scholar 

  • George M. Beard, American Nervousness: Its Causes and Consequences. A Supplement to Nervous Exhaustion (Neurasthenia) (New York: G. P. Putnam Sons, 1881).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Matthew Bell, Melancholia: The Western Malady (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • A. M. Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus: The Early Church Fathers (Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2006).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • John Cassian, The Monastic Institutes, trans. Edgar C.S. Gibson, in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Henry Wace and Philip Schaff, 14 vols (Oxford: James Parker and Company; New York: The Christian Literature Company, 1894), vol. XI, pp. 183–641.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jonathan Crary, 24/7: Capitalism and the End of Sleep (London and New York: Verso, 2013).

    Google Scholar 

  • Piereluigi Donini, ‘Psychology’, in The Cambridge Companion to the Hellenistic World, ed. D. Glenn and R. Bugh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 184–209.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self: Diagnosing the History of Depression in the Contemporary Age, trans. David Homel et al. (Montreal and London: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010).

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilhelm Erb, Über die wachsende Nervosität unserer Zeit (Heidelberg: J. Hörning, 1884).

    Google Scholar 

  • Galen, On the Affected Parts, ed. and trans. Rudolph E. Siegel (London and New York: S. Karger, 1976).

    Google Scholar 

  • Galen, Selected Works, trans. P. N. Singer (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).

    Google Scholar 

  • Christopher Gill, Tim Whitmarsh, and John Wilkins (eds.), Galen and the World of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

    Google Scholar 

  • Christopher Gill, Naturalistic Psychology in Galen and Stoicism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

    Google Scholar 

  • R. J. Hankinson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Galen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hugh of Saint Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (De Sacramentis), trans. Deferrari Roy J. (Cambridge, MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1951).

    Google Scholar 

  • Stanley W. Jackson, Melancholia & Depression: From Hippocratic Times to Modern Times (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990).

    Google Scholar 

  • Frank Kermode, The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968).

    Google Scholar 

  • Richard Von Krafft-Ebing, Über Gesunde und Kranke Nerven, Fourth edition (Tübingen: Verlag der H. Laupp’schen Buchhandlung, 1898).

    Google Scholar 

  • Patrick Kury, Der Überforderte Mensch. Eine Wissensgeschichte vom Stress zum Burnout (Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus, 2012).

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark Lawlor, From Melancholia to Prozac: A History of Depression (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

    Google Scholar 

  • Rowena Mason, ‘David Cameron Calls on Obese to Accept Help or Risk Losing Benefits’, The Guardian, 14 February 2015, online at: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/14/david-cameron-obese-addicts-accept-help-risk-losing-benefits (accessed 18 February 2015).

  • Sighard Neckel and Greta Wagner (eds), Leistung und Erschöpfung. Burnout in der Wettbewerbsgesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2013).

    Google Scholar 

  • Werner Post, Acedia – Das Laster der Trägheit. Zur Geschichte der siebten Todsünde (Freiburg and Vienna: Herder, 2011).

    Google Scholar 

  • Jennifer Radden, ‘Introduction’, in The Nature of Melancholy: From Aristotle to Kristeva, ed. Jennifer Radden (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 3–51.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hans Selye, Stress without Distress (London and Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1975).

    Google Scholar 

  • Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Character (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998).

    Google Scholar 

  • Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynsky, The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life (London: Allen Lane, 2015).

    Google Scholar 

  • St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae: A Concise Translation, ed. Timothy McDermott (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1989).

    Google Scholar 

  • George Tsakiridis, Evagrius Ponticus and Cognitive Science: A Look at Moral Evil and the Thoughts (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2010).

    Google Scholar 

  • Siegfried Wenzel, The Sin of Sloth: Acedia in Medieval Thought and Literature (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1967).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

    Anna Katharina Schaffner

Authors
  1. Anna Katharina Schaffner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anna Katharina Schaffner .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Sociology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Sighard Neckel

  2. School of European Culture and Languages, University of Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom

    Anna Katharina Schaffner

  3. Institute of Sociology, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany

    Greta Wagner

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Schaffner, A.K. (2017). Pre-Modern Exhaustion: On Melancholia and Acedia. In: Neckel, S., Schaffner, A., Wagner, G. (eds) Burnout, Fatigue, Exhaustion. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52887-8_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation