04 — The Passions

The term the whole repository leans on and none of it defines. A pathos (πάθος, Slavonic страсть) is not an emotion, not an act, and not simply a sin: it is a settled movement of the soul contrary to nature, a disposition formed by repeated consent. This section defines the term and its boundaries, then works through the catalogue — the eight, their bodily and mental division, the later Greek additions, and the passions the tradition names as chief.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

Two hundred collections in this repository use the phrase “the passions” as though its meaning were obvious. It is not, and the commonest modern reading of it — the passions as strong emotions, and asceticism as their suppression — inverts what the Fathers teach. The powers from which the passions arise are created good; what is disordered is their object and their measure; and the aim of the ascetic life is that desire and the incensive power should function more, not less, but toward God.

What a Passion Is fixes the definition: St. Maximus’ formula that a passion is a movement of the soul contrary to nature; the distinction between a passion and an emotion, between a passion and an act of sin, and between the passions properly so called and the blameless passions — hunger, thirst, weariness, fear of death — which are natural, innocent, and were assumed by Christ. It also treats philautia, self-love, which St. Maximus names as the mother of all the rest.

The Catalogue and the Chief Passions works through the list: the eight, each with its Greek and Slavonic and with a note on what it does not mean; the division into bodily and mental passions; the later Greek heads that the eight do not cover — rancour, envy, judging others, insensibility; and the reduction of the field to a few root passions in Maximus and Climacus.

File Contents
What a Passion Is Pathos defined; the etymology of “undergoing”; passion, emotion, and act distinguished; the blameless passions and the Incarnation; philautia as the mother of the passions; why the passions are parasitic on created good
The Catalogue and the Chief Passions The eight expounded one by one; akedia in detail; bodily and mental passions; the later additions and the Ladder’s own sequence; the root passions

See Also