Acedia: Its Evolution from Deadly Sin to Psychiatric Syndrome.

lohannes Cassianus, more commonly known as John Cassian, wrote his treatise De Institutis Coenobiorumci de OctoPrincipalium Vitiorum Remediis Libri XII around the beginning of the fifth century A.D. This work is important because it introduced certain Eastern ideas into Western thought. Some of these ideas are of considerable psychiatric interest. Cassian first studied with St. Jerome in the East, and then during the ten years from 390 to 400 he toured the parts of Egypt that were inhabited by anchorites and cenobites. After this he spent many years studying in Constantinople under St. John Chrysostom and other Eastern scholars. In 415 he founded his own monastery at Marseilles. The first four volumes of his treatise comprise a detailed account of the organization of a monastery; the last eight discuss the principal sins and their cure. In Cassian's work the deadly sins number eight; this number was subsequently reduced to seven by Pope Gregory the Great. However, some Carolingian and later theologians continued to list eight, although others listed only seven. Neither the number nor the identity of the cardinal sins became fixed until many centuries after Cassian wrote (i). Cassian discussed the sins largely in relation to the behaviour of monks. He apparently derived many of his ideas from earlier comments on monastic life by Evagrius Ponticus, who in the fourth century had constructed a list of eight chief “¿ evil thoughts― that afflicted monks. Cassian introduced the eight deadly sins to the Latin West; these sins, in decreasing order of deadliness, were according to Cassian, (i) pride,