Sloth

ACCIDIA. – (From Greek ἀκῆδία = unconcern, α priv. and κῆδομα). Commonly, the term a. denotes that vice whereby one neglects to do good; hence a. is properly “weariness or tedium of doing good” and “negligence regarding the things of God and of the soul.” It is therefore opposed to zeal and especially to spiritual alacrity, although it also denotes an inert indifference and denial of every ideal, for which reason it is commonly also called laziness.

For spiritual writers, a. means “the discouragement of a soul that believes itself incapable of overcoming certain difficulties,” and is therefore a cause of sadness and despondency for II. Theologians consider it under two aspects: as a passion and as a vice or sin. a) As a passion, it is a manifestation of sadness and despondency in the face of the effort that must be sustained in any kind of activity. This passion does not constitute merely an individual evil tendency, but is common to all and each, as an inclination toward rest and inertia that attempts to dissuade man from taking the trouble to practise this or that virtue. Nevertheless, even as a passion, a. almost always bears an individual character; hence we see it manifest itself in innumerable degrees. b) As fault or sin, it is not merely a passion having its seat in the sensitive appetite, but also an effect of the will itself, which, however, is ordinarily likewise supported by some sensitive passion. In this sense St. Thomas (Sum. Theol. 2°-3°c, q. 35, a. 1) defines a. as: a sorrow over spiritual good, insofar as this is divine good; that is to say, a sadness arising in us because we must put into practice what concerns the service of God. Thus a. comes to be one of the seven capital vices (the seventh), opposed to charity toward God.

This vice may be considered: 1° in general, with respect to the practice of every virtue; and it is a slackening of spirit, a weariness, a torpor that leads to negligence in the exercise of the individual virtues, each of which necessarily entails some exertion; 2° in particular, with respect to spiritual goods; and then it is a weariness of divine friendship and grace. Under the first

(propr. B. Degrabart)
ACCIDIA — Accidia in a fourteenth-century Genoese miniature.
Berlin, Ball-Graepe Collection.

In the first aspect it may be either a mortal or a venial sin, according to whether by it the precept of an action that is gravely or lightly obligatory is violated; in the second aspect, if voluntary, it is always a mortal sin, because it is gravely opposed to charity toward God.

BIBL. A. J. Stapf, Theologia Moralis, II, Innsbruck 1846,
p. 233; J. Laumonier, La Thérapeutique des péchés capitaux, Pa-
ris 1922; D. M. Prummer, Manuale Theologie Moralis, I, Rome
1935, no. 433 ff. Igino Tarocchi