The Two Kinds of Depression According to St. Paul

Abstract

One current classification of depression divides the syndrome into psychotic and non-psychotic varieties. It is interesting that a similar classification developed over a thousand years ago out of some words of St. Paul. In his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Ch. 7, v. 10, Paul wrote: “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of, but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” The word sorrow used in English translations of the Bible stood for the tristitia of Latin versions (Greek λνπη); connoting sadness, sorrow, despondency, depression. Paul's distinction between the two kinds of tristitia, the one “from God” and the other “of the world”, led mediaeval theologians to enlarge on differences between the two kinds of depression.