Daniel Opperwall: Chained to Grievance, Rotten to the Roots: Evagrius and John Cassian on Sadness

Both Evagrius and John Cassian emphasize sadness (λύπη in Evagrius, tristitia in Cassian) among their eight principle forms of vice. Yet, little scholarship is available exploring its role in their thought. This is unfortunate; sadness is an essential plank of their monastic psychology, as well as a challenging term to define in their writings. In this paper, I explore the definition of sadness shared by Evagrius and Cassian, then pay special attention to the differences between them in its use.For both Evagrius and Cassian, sadness serves as a broad, flexible, and even contradictory category with no direct English equivalent. Each author describes experiences resembling melancholy, depression, annoyance, grief, irritability, disappointment, tranquility, and even joy under the heading. Cassian follows Evagrius closely in his definition of sadness, and in identifying three root causes thereof (frustrated desire, personal grievance, and unexplained sadness). Perhaps most notably, sadness is both a vice and a potential virtue for both writers, a problem that they each wrangle with at some length.Evagrius and Cassian, however, diverge somewhat in how they discuss the effects of sadness. Evagrius most often presents sadness on the metaphor of chains, casting it as an experience that binds the monk to unrealized desires. Cassian, in a subtle but important gloss, compares sadness especially to rotting wood, focusing on its effect on relationships and its communal ramifications. Observing this move on Cassian’s part raises important questions about developments in the emotional culture, spiritual psychology, and aretology of early monastic literature.