The Anatomy of Melancholy

Their sleep, if they get any, is disturbed by terrifying dreams and fears. Peter slept peacefully in chains because he knew God protected him. Cicero likewise argues for Roscius of Ameria’s innocence—that he did not kill his father—because he slept so peacefully.

Those martyrs in the early Church were cheerful and joyful in the midst of persecution. But it is very different with these people: tossed endlessly on a sea without rest or respite, they can think of nothing pleasant. Their conscience will not let them be at peace. In perpetual fear and anxiety, if they have not yet been arrested, they constantly fear that they will be, and are ready to give themselves away. Like Cain, they think everyone will kill them:

And roar from grief of heart, Psalm 38:8, as David did, and as Job did, 20.3.21.22, and so on: Why is light given to someone in misery, and life to those with heavy hearts, who long for death and, if it does not come, search for it more than for treasure, and rejoice when they can find the grave? They are generally weary of life, with trembling hearts, sorrowful minds and little or no rest.

Terror and trembling everywhere, fear on every side and terror all around.

Fears, terrors and alarms in every place, at every time and season. Many stubbornly reject food and drink, looking for a knot in a bulrush and imagining guilt where none exists, as Weyer writes in On Witches, book 3, chapter 7. Many of them refuse food and drink and cannot rest, continually magnifying and imagining serious offences where there are none.

God’s fierce wrath burns within their souls, and despite their continual prayers and appeals to Christ Jesus, they find no release or relief, only intolerable torment and unbearable anguish of conscience. Unable to endure it, they often murmur against God, rave, blaspheme, become atheists and seek to harm themselves. Deuteronomy 28:65–66: In the morning they wish for evening, and in the evening for morning, because of what their eyes see and the fear in their hearts.

Marin Mersenne, in his commentary on Genesis, mentions a despairing friend whom he went with others to visit and encourage to patience. When they urged him to trust in God, he burst into blasphemous, atheistic speeches, too dreadful to relate: Who is this God, he said, that I should serve him? What good will it do if I pray? If he is present, why does he not help? Why does he not free me, worn out by imprisonment, hunger and squalor? What have I done? And so on. Away from me with such a God!

Another acquaintance of his broke out into similar atheistic blasphemies: after his wife’s death he raved and cursed, heedless of what he said or did. For the most part, so it is with them all. Many, at their worst, think they hear cries and see visions, converse with devils, and are tormented, possessed and already in hellfire, damned and utterly forsaken by God. They feel no mercy or grace and have no hope of salvation. Their sentence of condemnation, they believe, has already been passed and cannot be revoked; the devil will certainly have them.