Melancholy, in Latin

I am going very slowly at this biography of Bonhoeffer, by Erix Metaxas,  having set it aside for a week or so to do other things, but still very much enjoying it. I was interested last night to read a little section called Acedia and Tristitia.

Bonhoeffer decided to institute the practice of confessing to each other in his illegal seminary at Finkelwalde. With the fellow he chose for his confessor, Eberhard Bethge (who was later responsible for preserving Bonhoeffer’s writings), he shared what he called his ‘acedia or tristitia – a “sadness of the heart”’ (pg 273). Bonhoeffer apparently suffered from this, but rarely shared it, except among close friends. He later wrote to Bethge from Tegel prison “I wonder why it is that we find some days so much more oppressive than others, for no apparent reason. Is it growing pains – or spiritual trial? Once they’re over, the world looks quite a different place again”.

Acedia supposedly has spiritial overtones that make it related to but distinct from depression (according to that wiki). I looked up tristitia in my latin dictionary (because doesn’t everybody look up sad words in their Latin dictionary on a Friday night) and it says:

sadness, sorrow, melancholy (or an alternative is moroseness, severity)

Anyone who has read Bonhoeffer’s poetry will not be surprised that he felt this, but it does make him more accessible and I like to know that years before he was prison he talked of it, in latin. Next time someone asks me if I could have six people from anywhere in history to dinner, who would I choose, I am having Bonhoeffer for sure.