Chapter IX.
How dejection and accidie generally arise without any
external provocation, as in the case of other faults.
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Dejection
and accidie generally
arise without any external provocation, like those others of which we
have been speaking: for we are well aware that they often harass
solitaries, and those who have settled themselves in the desert without
any intercourse with
other men, and
this in the most distressing way. And the truth of this any one who has
lived in the desert and made trial of the conflicts of the inner man,
can easily prove by experience.
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Such is the
heading which Gazet gives. Petschenig edits “De ira atque
tristitia, quod inter accedentia vitia plerumque [non]
inveniantur;” where “non” is his own insertion, and
as he frankly tells us, the heading does not suit the chapter.