Apathy (Ἀπάθεια)

APATHY (Ἀπάθεια). - Etymologically it is equivalent to the "absence of passions" and to the imperturbability of the soul.

1. ORIENTAL ASCETICS

The term a. is used in a moral and ascetic sense by the Orientals to indicate one of the highest degrees of spirituality. Furthermore, it is classic to find various concepts of a. and various spiritual systems founded upon it in the ascetic-mystical authors of the East down to the appearance of Hesychasm. The term originally belongs to the Stoics, who, considering the passions (ἀπόθη) all morally evil, prescribed their elimination, which alone made it possible to imitate the divine life. In this sense some Greek Fathers, e.g. the Nazianzen (Ep. to Philagrius and Orat., XXVI: PG 37, 65-78; 35, 1239-44), went a little further, but before them some Alexandrians fell into manifest errors, with Clement at their head, who made a. the unreachable ideal of Christian gnosis (cf. Strom., VI-VII: PG 9, 207-558). The Oriental system of a. suffered the influence of the doctrine of Philo and of Plotinus. With the

With the development of monasticism, apathy entered a new phase and came to be presented as the result of continuous prayer and vigilant custody of the senses (cf. Hist. Lausiaca, passim, for example in the Prolegomena of Palladius: PG 34, 1005-1006), but it was still unable to free itself from a certain dangerous rigidity and impassibility — precisely a legacy of the Stoics — which made the exercise of virtue imprudent and scarcely humane (cf. ibid., chaps. VIII, LXXXV, CXXXVII, etc.). After Evagrius Ponticus, the author who perhaps exercised the greatest influence on the spiritual doctrine of the East, the concept and practice of apathy came to be more carefully defined. It is a state of happiness, reached through praxis (the exercise of virtue) and the victory over the passions; intimately joined to prayer as a prerequisite, not unmindful of mortification, because in this life the passions are never destroyed. From apathy, then, charity is born, which opens the door of contemplation. Among its various fruits, and as an indication of having attained it, Evagrius enumerates prayer without any distraction whatsoever, imperturbability even amid the phantasms of sleep, and the full freedom of the spirit. This wise doctrine (which St. John Climacus already placed at steps 29-30 of his Ladder, as the summit of perfection) then received the full weight and authority of St. Maximus the Confessor, with whom it was consolidated in Eastern asceticism.

Emanuele Candal

2. PASTORAL MEDICINE

From the medical and psychiatric point of view, apathy constitutes, at an extreme degree, a pathological symptom of various conditions ranging from cerebral anemia to cerebral tumors, from intoxications — whether endogenous (uremia) or exogenous (narcotics) — to advanced stages of dementia praecox. A state of apathy that can be defined, up to a certain point, as physiological is the one that manifests itself in advanced old age. In a mild degree, it can be an indication of a torpid and sluggish character. In pathological apathy, every affective feeling, every emotion and aspiration is suppressed. The patient remains indifferent to any news or spectacle concerning persons dear to him or even himself; even painful stimuli leave him indifferent, without provoking in him any reflex or any reaction.

ADALBERTO PABZINI