The demon of accedia–also called the noonday demon–is the one that causes the most serious trouble of all. He presses his attack upon the monk about the fourth hour and besieges the soul until the eighth hour. First of all he makes it seem that the sun barely moves, if at all, and that the day is fifty hours long. … Then, too, he instills in the heart of the monk a hatred for the place, a hatred for his very life itself, a hatred for manual labor…. He depicts the monk’s life stretching out for a long period of time, and brings before the mind’s eye the toil of the ascetic struggle and, as the saying has it, leaves no leaf unturned to induce the monk to forsake his cell and drop out of the fight. No other demon follows close upon the heels of this one (when he is defeated), but only a state of deep peace and inexpressible joy arises out of this struggle ( i.e., apatheia).
Evagrius Ponticus
