Alliez J, Huber J P
Ann Med Psychol (Paris). 1987 May;145(5):393-408.
Acedia is a term of the classical greek vocabulary that a christian author of the IVth century, Evagre the Pontic, uses in a special sense, to describe a mental state characterized among other things, by disgust and dejection, and which, according to him, falls into what became the first list of deadly sins. The word was conveyed to us by another monk of the egyptian deserts, Jean Cassien, with a change of meaning which made it very difficult to distinguish from sadness: his audience being very different from his predecessor's, as he wrote for Latins, little inclined to anachoretic life but among which developed the first great coenobitic institutions of the Occident. One century later, Pope Gregory the great removes acedia from the list of deadly sins, either because he does not distinguish it from sadness (and laziness) or because he considers it a morbid state and, as such, depending on medical care. The word has nevertheless survived until Thomas Aquinas and later, and its study provides valuable data on the mental states prefiguring our modern depressions.
“怠惰”是古典希腊语词汇，公元4世纪的基督教作家、本都的埃瓦格里乌斯以一种特殊意义使用该词，用来描述一种精神状态，其特征包括厌恶和沮丧等，据他所说，这种状态后来被列入了最初的七宗罪清单。这个词由埃及沙漠的另一位僧侣约翰·卡西安传给我们，其含义有所变化，这使得它很难与悲伤区分开来：他的受众与他的前辈大不相同，因为他是为拉丁人写作，这些人不太倾向于隐居生活，但西方最早的大型隐修院制度却在他们当中发展起来。一个世纪后，教皇格列高利一世将“怠惰”从七宗罪清单中删除，要么是因为他没有将其与悲伤（和懒惰）区分开来，要么是因为他认为这是一种病态，因此需要医疗护理。然而，这个词一直流传到托马斯·阿奎那时代及以后，对它的研究为预示着我们现代抑郁症的精神状态提供了有价值的数据。
