In Waiting for God, Simone Weil draws a distinction between suffering and affliction. In Weil’s terms, suffering involves physical pain, but affliction involves the anguish of the soul. Weil contrasts the deaths of the martyrs with the death of Christ to show the distinction between suffering and affliction: “Those who are persecuted for their faith and are aware of the fact are not afflicted, although they have to suffer. They only fall into a state of affliction if suffering or fear fills the soul to the point of making it forget the cause of the persecution. The martyrs who entered the
...more
