From the Archives: Banishing the Noonday Devil

How to avoid instability, distraction, discouragement, depression and swirling thoughts

Friends and readers, I’m on holiday this week, so I’ve taken the liberty of scheduling what I consider to be some interesting posts from the past. This one was written in November 2023. It’s about acedia, which is a problem many face but which is also almost complete unrecognised. Thanks for reading and please do subscribe if you don’t already!

According to Jean-Charles Nault, O.S.B, the desert fathers of the early centuries of the church said that there are five principal manifestations of “the demon of acedia” . Even if the word “acedia” is unfamiliar, the concepts might not be:

A certain interior instability - “The demon of acedia suggests to you ideas of leaving, the need to change your place and your way of life” (Evagrius of Pontus).

That is, to not persevere in the state of life to which God has called you. To give up. ‘As the remedy for it, (Evagrius) prescribes perseverance, which very often consists of remaining physically in one’s cell, whatever the cost’ (Jean-Charles Nault, O.S.B, The Noonday Devil: Acedia, The Unnamed Evil of Our Times, p.32).

I find this to be a very powerful observation. Acedia manifests itself in thoughts of leaving, in thoughts of running away, in thoughts of imagining a life for oneself that is better than the one that one currently finds oneself in.

That certainly sounds familiar to me. When things start to become difficult. When challenges arise. It is the easiest thing in the world to begin to think: “It would be easier somewhere else”.

This is one of the important things to notice about acedia: it is subtle. The thoughts appear imperceptibly and they are frequently not unreasonable. Yet, in this case, they produce all sorts of other vices: dissatisfaction, ungratefulness, distraction with one’s God-given task, and many other things.

Aversion to manual work - Not so relevant to non-monastics and to those whose work is not manual labour. But we could say that acedia manifests itself in a certain type of laziness and unwillingness to get stuck in. It is an aversion to repetitive tasks that one might consider monotonous: “hatred of industriousness” (Evagrius of Pontus).

Evagrius contrasts this laziness with another vice, namely “activism”. Whereas laziness is about not keeping pace (as it were), activism is about rushing ahead and trying to make things happen in an inappropriately forced way. In both ways, one is fleeing the present moment which one is called to by God.

Neglect in observing the rule - Again, for monastics. But for ordinary people, this can simply be a neglect in observing the disciplines of the spiritual life. To not be bothered and even to have an aversion or disgust for prayer.

If the demon of acedia does not inspire this disgust, he can also suggest extreme approaches to prayer that will cause the individual to lost heart and to give up the practice completely: ‘To do more than one can…is to lack discernment’ (Barsanuphe et Jean de Gaza, Correspondence).

This is salutary also because it is something that I frequently experience: an inexplicable desire to do anything but to sit still and pray. To be fair, this is mostly the case for me in the evening when I am tired and a thousand things have happened during the day and I just to want to get my “work” over with so that I can relax. But it can happen at other points too.

It is also the case that striking a balance between being too uncommitted and too extreme in one’s devotions can be challenging. I find this especially true during Lent and am frequently beset by worrying thoughts: Am I doing too little? Am I doing too much? And so on.

An exaggerated concern for one’s health - This is one I don’t identify with much but it appears to be a kind hypochondrial concern with one’s health that leads one to withdraw from spiritual activities such as prayer and fasting because one isn’t well enough and really needs to rest.

General discouragement - The demon of acedia will attempt everything to get the monk to leave his cell and to ‘“flee the stadium”, in other words (to) abandon the place of spiritual battle’ (Nault, p.36). This is also very true to life, then as now.

I could try and pray or recite a Psalm or to read some Scripture, but I would really rather listen to a podcast about football or have a lie down for a bit. I would like, in other words, to check out because I am not really up for the fight right now.

It seems to me that a central aspect of all of this is to do with the life of the mind: the thoughts that swirl around in our heads. These thoughts are sometimes confusing, sometimes distracting, sometimes discouraging, sometimes bringing us anxiety, sometimes bringing us pain. To defeat acedia, we must take hold of what happens first in our minds.

There are five remedies for acedia and they are as follows:

Tears - To weep over one’s sinfulness and to acknowledge one’s need to be saved by God: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matt. 5:4).

‘(Saint) Antony says, “I want to be saved, but my thoughts do not let me go.” In reality, in saying that he wants to be saved, he has already, somewhere, conquered the demon of acedia!’ (Nault, p.38).

This relates to the idea that, once one has identified acedia for what it is, one is often already on course to defeating it. This is an encouraging thought.

Prayer and work - The alternation between prayer and work is the monastic answer for the banishing of acedia and the consistent lifting of the mind to God during the day. Here is one of the sayings of the Desert Fathers:

Once when Antony was sitting in the desert, he fell into boredom and acedia. He said to God, “Lord, I want to be made whole and my thoughts do not let me. What am I to do about this trouble, how shall I be cured? After a while, he got up and went outside. He saw someone like himself sitting down and working, then standing up to pray; then sitting down again to make a plait of palm leave, and standing up again to pray. It was angel of the Lord sent to correct Antony and make him vigilant. He heard the voice of the angel saying, “Do this and you will be cured.” When he heard it he was very glad and recovered his confidence. He did what the angel had done, and found the salvation that he was seeking.

Also from Evagrius Pontus again:

The demon of acedia lies in wait for laziness and is “full of desires,” as scripture says (Proverbs 13:4)…

Perseverance is the cure for acedia, along with the execution of all tasks with great attention (and the fear of God). Set a measure for yourself in every work and do not let up until you have completed it.

This latest advice is something I have found very helpful. I spend far too much time being distracted. The proliferation of social media and emails really creates a living hell for us. It fragments our attention and kills our spiritual lives and our ability to focus on tasks properly.

I find that I need to start the fight first thing in the morning: no social media, no internet, no emails, nothing at all like that. Phone remaining on airplane mode so no notifications or calls. The distracting thoughts come immediately but they must be banished by the use of the Jesus Prayer or the recitation of a Psalm. Morning prayers must be concentrated upon and, if distracting thoughts come (which they always do), they must be gently placed to one side and attention must be reapplied. When time for work comes, I have been trying to write down exactly what I intend to do, to work out what it would mean to complete that task, and to pray for God’s blessing as I do it. This might sound extreme but if I don't do something like this I often get massively distracted and lost in a wasteland of confusion.

The antirrhêtic method, or contradiction - This is essentially the contradiction of wicked thoughts or temptations with a reply from Scripture. The prototype for this exchange is, of course, Christ’s battle with Satan in the wilderness. “Antirrhêtic” is simply what it sounds like: anti-rhetoric. That is, rhetoric from Scripture that contradicts the lies and suggestions of the Devil. This can be as simple as reciting Psalm 70:1, ‘O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me’.

Meditation on death - This might sound morbid but it is really to remind ourselves that our life has a linear progression towards God and eternal life. As we meditate upon our end - that is, our telos - we recognise more clearly the meaning of our existence and our actions are given a new perspective in the light of that orientation: this is why it is worth praying and reading Scripture and working and so on…because my life is going somewhere certain and definite.

Perseverance - The most important of all.

Finally, the essential remedy is perseverance, in Greek hypomonē, which is a very active thing. It is an appeal, an increase of fidelity. When you are in a tunnel and you see nothing at all, it is advisable to remain near the handrail; otherwise, without noticing it, you will wander off and get turned around. The handrail is fidelity to one’s rule of life. Perseverance sometimes consists of remaining without doing anything, or else, on the contrary, doing everything that one did not think one had come to do. But ultimately, little matters. What does matter is to endure. As another saying puts it: “If you are hungry, eat; if you want to sleep, sleep; but do not leave your cell!”

Nault, p.43

In our context, we might say, to pray and read when one plans to and, even if one does feel extremely distracted and unwilling, to persevere until the task is complete. Like a loyal dog with his master, sometimes presence is all that we can offer to God.

The good news in all of this is that, if one does indeed persevere, one will eventually get through acedia and will come to the other side feeling happy and joyful and closer to the Lord: ‘Resist the devil, and he will flee from you’ (James 4:7). But the wilderness in which the spiritual battle takes place is not necessarily the nicest environment.

Final thoughts on acedia (for now!) - The demon of acedia is subtle. It is not the demon’s strategy to suggest commandment-shattering behaviour that he knows will very likely not be successful. It is rather to subtly shift the course of the individual such that he loses his focus upon spiritually beneficial matters and instead veers off into all sorts of other things.

Now, it doesn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to consider where things might go from there. The demon obviously wants to lead the individual down the path towards more and more serious sin. The internet in particular is a tool that the devil can use all the way down in this regard: at first it is just meaningless distraction on social media or news sites, but from there it can progress to darker and darker places.

This is something I need to tell myself over and over again: “Scrolling” is not neutral. It is the first step upon the path to hell.

For me, the key words here are “prayer and work” and “perseverance”. The key anti-words are “distraction” and “laziness”. What are your key words and anti-words?