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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.
Objection 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.
Objection 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 (Question 23, Article 4; Question 25, Article 4;
Question 36, Article 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 to Objection 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 to Objection 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 to Objection 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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