Whether the Effect of Sorrow or Pain Is to Burden the Soul?
Objection 1: It would seem that it is not an effect of sorrow to
burden the soul. For the Apostle says (2 Cor. 7:11): "Behold this
self-same thing, that you were made sorrowful according to God, how
great carefulness it worketh in you: yea, defence, yea indignation,"
etc. Now carefulness and indignation imply that the soul is uplifted,
which is contrary to being depressed. Therefore depression is not an
effect of sorrow.
Obj. 2: Further, sorrow is contrary to pleasure. But the effect of
pleasure is expansion: the opposite of which is not depression but
contraction. Therefore depression should not be reckoned as an effect
of sorrow.
Obj. 3: Further, sorrow consumes those who are inflicted therewith,
as may be gathered from the words of the Apostle (2 Cor. 2:7): "Lest
perhaps such an one be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow." But that
which is depressed is not consumed; nay, it is weighed down by
something heavy, whereas that which is consumed enters within the
consumer. Therefore depression should not be reckoned an effect of
sorrow.
_On the contrary,_ Gregory of Nyssa [*Nemesius, De Nat. Hom. xix.]
and Damascene (De Fide Orth. ii, 14) speak of "depressing sorrow."
_I answer that,_ The effects of the soul's passions are sometimes
named metaphorically, from a likeness to sensible bodies: for the
reason that the movements of the animal appetite are like the
inclinations of the natural appetite. And in this way fervor is
ascribed to love, expansion to pleasure, and depression to sorrow.
For a man is said to be depressed, through being hindered in his own
movement by some weight. Now it is evident from what has been said
above (Q. 23, A. 4; Q. 25, A. 4; Q. 36, A. 1) that sorrow is caused
by a present evil: and this evil, from the very fact that it is
repugnant to the movement of the will, depresses the soul, inasmuch
as it hinders it from enjoying that which it wishes to enjoy. And if
the evil which is the cause of sorrow be not so strong as to deprive
one of the hope of avoiding it, although the soul be depressed in so
far as, for the present, it fails to grasp that which it craves for;
yet it retains the movement whereby to repulse that evil. If, on the
other hand, the strength of the evil be such as to exclude the hope
of evasion, then even the interior movement of the afflicted soul is
absolutely hindered, so that it cannot turn aside either this way or
that. Sometimes even the external movement of the body is paralyzed,
so that a man becomes completely stupefied.
Reply Obj. 1: That uplifting of the soul ensues from the sorrow which
is according to God, because it brings with it the hope of the
forgiveness of sin.
Reply Obj. 2: As far as the movement of the appetite is concerned,
contraction and depression amount to the same: because the soul,
through being depressed so as to be unable to attend freely to
outward things, withdraws to itself, closing itself up as it were.
Reply Obj. 3: Sorrow is said to consume man, when the force of the
afflicting evil is such as to shut out all hope of evasion: and thus
also it both depresses and consumes at the same time. For certain
things, taken metaphorically, imply one another, which taken
literally, appear to exclude one another.
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