Who or what is responsible for Dimmesdale's failing health in The Scarlet Letter?

The failing
health that greatly
affects Reverendis described to have begun around the same time that 's

ignonimity began. This, of course, is because the guilt and shame that ate away at his
ego were
causing his entire esteem to disappear. As a result, he is a
weakened, almost broken man.is
aware of this almost securely, going as far as
suggesting to Dimmesdale that his illnesses are
caused by otherwordly causes,
mainly set in the heart. Chillingworth wants to probe Dimmesdale,
and hints
at sin as the potential cause of his maladies.

A
bodily disease, which we look upon as whole and entire within
itself, may, after all, be but a
symptom of some ailment in the spiritual
part. Your pardon, once again, good Sir, if my speech
give the shadow of
offence. You, Sir, of all men whom I have known, are he whose body is the

closest conjoined, and imbued, and identified, so to speak, with the spirit whereof it
is the
instrument.

We know, as
readers, that Dimmesdale himself
is responsible for his own failing health. A
man once seen by his fellow villagers as a
"young divine", his Oxford
education, his good looks, slovenly demeanor and soothing
manners made him
into a pillar of the community; a man of superstar qualities who epitomized
the
very essence of decency, glamour, and fascination. Dimmesdale's main flaw
of character is his
insistence in living up to the image that the people have
made of him. He wants to be the young
divine. He enjoys being looked up as an
elder, even being so young. He imbibes the pleasure of
feeling loved and
admired; perhaps those very factors were pivotal in the development of his

relationship with Hester.

Now, however, the romance is gone. Hester
became
pregnant, which automatically makes it obvious that he is none of the
things that he has come to
believe himself to be. His lack of courage to face
up to what he did makes him a coward. His
inability to come in Hester's
defense as fiercely as he should makes him a weak man. The fact
that he
allows Hester to suffer the shame of his sin on her own makes him selfish. The lack
of
interest in being true to the promises that he makes Hester makes him
pretentious. The fact that
he continues to adhere to the "character" of "the
young divine" of the
village, makes him look even more preposterous to the
witnessing eyes. All of those flaws of
character are eating away his ego. It
is his ego, and nothing but that, which keeps Dimmesdale
ill to the point of
near death. He does have problems of the heart and the soul.However, he also

has the biggest of all problems which is the unwillingness to let go of the lie that he
has
created for Hester, for himself, and for everybody else who ever believed
in
him. 

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