Aquinas on the Vice of Sloth: Three Interpretive Issues

1 I argue this point in considerably greater detail in “The Vice of Sloth: Some Historical Reflections on Laziness, Effort, and Resistance to the Demands of Love,” in Virtues and Their Vices, ed. Craig Boyd and Kevin Timpe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). An earlier version was published by The Other Journal 10 (November 2007) and can be found online at http://theotherjournal.com/2007/11/15/. 43 The Thomist 75 (2011): 43-64 AQUINAS ON THE VICE OF SLOTH: THREE INTERPRETIVE ISSUES REBECCA KONYNDYK DEYOUNG Calvin College Grand Rapids, Michigan D EFINING THE CAPITAL VICE of sloth (acedia) is a difficult business in Thomas Aquinas and in the Christian tradition of thought from which he draws his account. In this article, I will raise three problems for interpreting Aquinas’s account of sloth. They are all related, as are the resolutions to them I will offer. The three problems can be framed as questions: How, on Aquinas’s account, can sloth consistently be categorized as, first, a capital vice and, second, a spiritual vice? These two questions lead to a third, namely, how is the condition of sloth possible, given Aquinas’s moral psychology and the nature of the will? The resolution of these interpretive issues can help do two things. It can help explain the apparent inconsistency between traditional (ancient and medieval) and contemporary conceptions of this vice, and—if Aquinas’s account is right—it can help us diagnose contemporary moral and spiritual maladies that may either go unnoticed or be confused with distinctively modern “virtues” like diligence and industriousness.1 I. THE FIRST INTERPRETIVE ISSUE: SLOTH AS A CAPITAL VICE REBECCA KONYNDYK DEYOUNG 44 2 As consistent as the tradition itself, that is: Gregory combines sloth and sorrow under the name tristitia, while Evagrius of Pontus (Praktikos) and John Cassian (Institutes, Conference 5) regard acedia and tristitia as distinct vices. Aquinas combines sorrow and sloth under the name acedia, but defines sloth as a type of sorrow. 3 Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob 31.45.87-88 (PL 76:0620C-0621D) (trans. John Henry Parker [London: J. G. F. and J. Rivington, 1844]). Gregory continues by correlating each capital vice with its characteristic offspring (based on lists found already in Cassian’s Conference 5): “But these several sins have each their army against us. For from vain glory there arise disobedience, boasting, hypocrisy, contentions, obstinacies, discords, and the presumptions of novelties. From envy there spring hatred, whispering, detraction, exultation at the misfortunes of a neighbour, and affliction at his prosperity. From anger are produced strifes, swelling of mind, insults, clamour, indignation, blasphemies. From melancholy there arise malice, rancour, cowardice, despair, slothfulness in fulfilling the commands, and a wandering of the mind on unlawful objects. From avarice there spring treachery, fraud, deceit, perjury, restlessness, violence, and hardnesses of heart against compassion. From gluttony are propagated foolish mirth, scurrility, uncleanness, babbling, dulness of sense in understanding. From lust are generated blindness of mind, inconsiderateness, inconstancy, precipitation, selflove , hatred of God, affection for this present world, but dread or despair of that which is to come” (ibid.). Aquinas’s account of the vice of sloth is generally consistent with the tradition before him on this subject—both in naming it a capital vice and in diagnosing it as a spiritual vice.2 Gregory the Great, with his usual rhetorical flourish, describes the capital vices as commanders of a great army of vices, under the ultimate direction of their general, pride. For the tempting vices, which fight against us in invisible contest in behalf of the pride which reigns over them, some of them go first, like captains, others follow, after the manner of an army. . . . For when pride, the queen of sins, has fully possessed a conquered heart, she surrenders it immediately to seven principal sins, as if to some of her generals, to lay it waste. And an army in truth follows these generals, because, doubtless, there spring up from them importunate hosts of sins. Which we set forth the better, if we specially bring forward in enumeration, as we are able, the leaders themselves and their army. For pride is the root of all evil, of...