The Demon of Noonday

I was waiting in a Doctor's office yesterday, and there was a bookshelf full of medical-related stuff. . .most of it diet and/or self-help type material. I'm pretty skeptical of that sort of pulp fiction, but one title in particular got my notice. It was titled, The Noonday Demon. Even without the subtitle, "An Atlas of Depression", I knew what the subject matter was. . .despondency. Here's what Abba Evagrius, an early Desert Father (4th Century) had to say about it:

The demon of despondency, which is also called the noonday demon (Psalms 90:6), is more grievous than all others. It attacks a monk in about the fourth hour (about ten in the morning) and whirls the soul round and round till about the eighth hour (two o'clock in the afternoon). It begins by making a man notice dejectedly how slowly the sun moves, or does not move at all, and that the day seems to have become fifty hours long. Then it urges the man to look frequently out of the window or even to go out of his cell to look at the sun and see how long it is till the ninth hour, at the same time making him glance hither and thither to see if some of the brethren are about. Then it arouses in him vexation against the place and his mode of life itself and his work, adding that there is no more love among the brethren and no one to comfort him. If in these days someone has offended him, the demon reminds him of it to increase his vexation. Then it provokes in him a longing for other places, where it would be easier to find the wherewithal to satisfy his needs by adopting some craft which is less strenuous and more profitable. He adds that to please God does not depend on the place; God can be worshipped everywhere. He connects with this thought memories of relatives and former well-being; and prophesies here a long life with the hardships of asceticism, and uses every wile to make the monk end by leaving his cell and taking flight from his career. This demon is followed by another, but not at once. However if a monk fights and conquers, this struggle is followed by a peaceful state, and the soul becomes filled with ineffable joy.

-- from E. Kadloubovsky and G. E. H. Palmer, trans., "Early Fathers From the Philokalia," (London: Faber & Faber, 1981)

I'm not a monk. . .but I know exactly what Abba Evagrius is talking about. I'm sure most of us do. What is interesting to me is that Abba Evagrius connects depression with losing the battle to stay put. Hmmm. . .I get the feeling I've been fighting the shadow of this demon rather than the imp itself. Tricky little devil.