asceticism

asceticism, (from Greek askeō: “to exercise,” or “to train”), the practice of the denial of physical or psychological desires in order to attain a spiritual ideal or goal. Hardly any religion has been without at least traces or some features of asceticism.

The origins of asceticism.

The origins of asceticism lie in man’s attempts to achieve various ultimate goals or ideals: development of the “whole” person, human creativity, ideas, the “self,” or skills demanding technical proficiency. Athletic askēsis (“training”), involving the ideal of bodily fitness and excellence, was developed to ensure the highest possible degree of physical fitness in an athlete. Among the ancient Greeks, athletes preparing for physical contests (e.g., the Olympic Games) disciplined their bodies by abstaining from various normal pleasures and by enduring difficult physical tests. In order to achieve a high proficiency in the skills of warfare, warriors also adopted various ascetical practices. The ancient Israelites, for example, abstained from sexual intercourse before going into battle.

As values other than those concerned with physical proficiency were developed, the concept expressed by askēsis and its cognates was applied to other ideals—e.g., mental facility, moral vitality, and spiritual ability. The ideal of training for a physical goal was converted to that of attaining wisdom or mental prowess by developing and training intellectual faculties. Among the Greeks such training of the intellect led to the pedagogical system of the Sophists—itinerant teachers, writers, and lecturers of the 5th and 4th centuries bc who instructed in return for fees. Another change in the concept of askēsis occurred in ancient Greece when the notion of such training was applied to the realm of ethics in the ideal of the sage who is able to act freely to choose or refuse a desired object or an act of physical pleasure. This kind of askēsis, involving training the will against a life of sensual pleasure, was exemplified by the Stoics (ancient Greek philosophers who advocated the control of the emotions by reason).

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Christianity: The tendency toward asceticism

The view that one ought to deny one’s lower desires—understood as sensuous, or bodily—in contrast with one’s spiritual desires and virtuous aspirations, became a central principle in ethical thought. Plato believed that it is necessary to suppress bodily desires so that the soul can be free to search for knowledge. This view was also propounded by Plotinus, a Greek philosopher of the 3rd century ad and one of the founders of Neoplatonism, a philosophy concerned with hierarchical levels of reality. The Stoics, among whom asceticism was primarily a discipline to achieve control over the promptings of the emotions, upheld the dignity of human nature and the wise man’s necessary imperturbability, which they believed would become possible through the suppression of the affective, or appetitive, part of man.

In a similar manner, the value of asceticism in strengthening an individual’s will and his deeper spiritual powers has been a part of many religions and philosophies throughout history. The 19th-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, for example, advocated a type of asceticism that annihilates the will to live; his fellow countryman and earlier contemporary, the philosopher Immanuel Kant, held to a moral asceticism for the cultivation of virtue according to the maxims of the Stoics. Many factors were operative in the rise and cultivation of religious asceticism: the fear of hostile influences from the demons; the view that one must be in a state of ritual purity as a necessary condition for entering into communion with the supernatural; the desire to invite the attention of divine or sacred beings to the self-denial being practiced by their suppliants; the idea of earning pity, compassion, and salvation by merit because of self-inflicted acts of ascetical practices; the sense of guilt and sin that prompts the need for atonement; the view that asceticism is a means to gain access to supernatural powers; and the power of dualistic concepts that have been at the source of efforts to free the spiritual part of man from the defilement of the body and physically oriented living.

Among the higher religions (e.g., Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity), still other factors became significant in the rise and cultivation of asceticism. These include the realization of the transitory nature of earthly life, which prompts a desire to anchor one’s hope in otherworldliness, and the reaction against secularization that is often coupled with a belief that spirituality can best be preserved by simplifying one’s mode of life.

Forms of religious asceticism.

In all strictly ascetic movements, celibacy (q.v.) has been regarded as the first commandment. Virgins and celibates emerged among the earliest Christian communities and came to occupy a prominent status. Among the earliest Mesopotamian Christian communities, only the celibates were accepted as full members of the church, and in some religions only celibates have been permitted to be priests (e.g., Aztec religion and Roman Catholicism). Abdication of worldly goods is another fundamental principle. In monastic communities there has been a strong trend toward this ideal. In Christian monasticism this ideal was enacted in its most radical form by Alexander Akoimetos, a founder of monasteries in Mesopotamia (died c. 430). Centuries before the activities of the medieval Western Christian monk St. Francis of Assisi, Alexander betrothed himself to poverty, and through his disciples he expanded his influence in Eastern Christian monasteries. These monks lived from the alms they begged but did not allow the gifts to accumulate and create a housekeeping problem, as occurred among some Western monastic orders, such as the Franciscans. In the East, wandering Hindu ascetics and Buddhist monks also live according to regulations that prescribe a denial of worldly goods.

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Abstinence and fasting are by far the most common of all ascetic practices. Among the primitive peoples, it originated, in part, because of a belief that taking food is dangerous, for demonic forces may enter the body while one is eating. Further, some foods regarded as especially dangerous were to be avoided. Fasting connected with religious festivals has very ancient roots. In ancient Greek religion, rejection of meat appeared particularly among the Orphics, a mystical, vegetarian cult; in the cult of Dionysus, the orgiastic god of wine; and among the Pythagoreans, a mystical, numerological cult. Among a number of churches the most important period of fasting in the liturgical year is the 40 days before Easter (Lent), and among Muslims the most important period of fasting is the month of Ramaḍān. The ordinary fasting cycles, however, did not satisfy the needs of ascetics, who therefore created their own traditions. Among Jewish-Christian circles and Gnostic movements, various regulations regarding the use of vegetarian food were established, and Manichaean monks won general admiration for the intensity of their fasting achievements. Christian authors write of their ruthless and unrelenting fasting, and, between their own monks and the Manichaeans, only the Syrian ascetical virtuosos could offer competition in the practice of asceticism. Everything that could reduce sleep and make the resultant short period of rest as troublesome as possible was tried by Syrian ascetics. In their monasteries Syrian monks tied ropes around their abdomens and were then hung in an awkward position, and some were tied to standing posts.

Personal hygiene also fell under condemnation among ascetics. In the dust of the deserts—where many ascetics made their abodes—and in the blaze of the Oriental sunshine, the abdication of washing was equated with a form of asceticism that was painful to the body. With respect to the prohibition against washing, the Persian prophet Mani seems to have been influenced by those ascetic figures who had been seen since ancient times in India, walking around with their long hair hanging in wild abandonment and dressed in filthy rags, never cutting their fingernails and allowing dirt and dust to accumulate on their bodies. Another ascetic practice, the reduction of movement, was especially popular among the Syrian monks, who were fond of complete seclusion in a cell. The practice of restriction in regard to contact with human beings culminated in solitary confinement in wildernesses, cliffs, frontier areas of the desert, and mountains. In general, any settled dwelling place has been unacceptable to the ascetic mentality, as noted in ascetical movements in many religions.

Psychological forms of asceticism have also been developed. A technique of pain-causing introspection was used by Buddhist ascetics in connection with their practices for meditation. The Syrian Christian theologian St. Ephraem Syrus counselled the monks that meditation on guilt, sin, death, and punishment—i.e., the pre-enactment of the moment before the Eternal Judge—must be carried out with such ardour that the inner life becomes a burning lava that produces an upheaval of the soul and torment of the heart. Syrian monks striving for higher goals created a psychological atmosphere in which continued fear and dread, methodically cultivated, were expected to produce continual tears. Nothing less than extreme self-mortification satisfied the ascetic virtuosos.

Pain-producing asceticism has appeared in many forms. A popular custom was to undergo certain physically exhausting or painful exercises. The phenomena of cold and heat provided opportunities for such experiences. The Hindu fakirs (ascetics) of India provide most remarkable examples of those seeking painful forms of asceticism. In the earliest examples of such radical forms of self-mortification that appeared in India, the ascetic stared at the sun until he went blind or held up his arms above the head until they withered. Syrian Christian monasticism was also inventive in regard to forms of self-torture. A highly regarded custom involved the use of iron devices, such as girdles or chains, placed around the loins, neck, hands, and feet and often hidden under garments. Pain-producing forms of asceticism include self-laceration, particularly castration, and flagellation (whipping), which emerged as a mass movement in Italy and Germany during the Middle Ages and is still practiced in parts of Mexico and the southwestern United States.

Variations of asceticism in world religions. In the primitive religions, asceticism in the form of seclusion, physical discipline, and the quality and quantity of food prescribed has played an important role in connection with the puberty rites and rituals of admission to the tribal community. Isolation for shorter or longer periods of time and other acts of asceticism have been imposed on medicine men, since severe self-discipline is regarded as the chief way leading to the control of occult powers. Isolation was and is practiced by young men about to achieve the status of manhood in the Blackfoot and other Indian tribes of the northwestern United States. In connection with important occasions, such as funerals and war, taboos (negative restrictive injunctions) involving abstinence from certain food and cohabitation were imposed. For the priests and chiefs these were much stricter. In Hellenistic culture (c. 300 bc–c. ad 300), asceticism in the form of fasting and refraining from sexual intercourse was practiced by communities of a religiomystical character, including the Orphics and Pythagoreans. A new impetus and fresh approach to ascetic practices (including emasculation) came with the expansion of the Oriental mystery religions (such as the cult of the Great Mother) in the Mediterranean area.

In India, in the late Vedic period (c. 1500 bc–c. 200 bc), the ascetic use of tapas (“heat,” or austerity) became associated with meditation and yoga, inspired by the idea that tapas kills sin. These practices were embedded in the Brahmanic (ritualistic Hindu) religion in the Upaniṣads (philosophical treatises), and this view of tapas gained in importance among the Yogas and the Jainas, adherents of a religion of austerity that broke away from Brahmanic Hinduism. According to Jainism, liberation becomes possible only when all passions have been exterminated. Under the influences of such ascetic views and practices in India, Siddhārtha Gautama himself underwent the experiences of bodily self-mortification in order to obtain spiritual benefits; but since his expectations were not fulfilled, he abandoned them. But his basic tenet, which held that suffering lies in causal relation with desires, promoted asceticism in Buddhism. The portrait of the Buddhist monk as depicted in the Vinaya (a collection of monastic regulations) is of one who avoids extreme asceticism in his self-discipline. The kind of monasticism that developed in Hinduism during the medieval period also was moderate. Asceticism generally has no significant place in the indigenous religions of China (Confucianism and Taoism). Only the priests in Confucianism practiced discipline and abstinence from certain foods during certain periods, and some movements within Taoism observed similar marginally ascetic practices.

Judaism, because of its view that God created the world and that the world (including man) is good, is nonascetic in character and includes only certain ascetic features, such as fasting for strengthening the efficacy of prayer and for gaining merit. Though some saw a proof of the holiness of life in some ascetic practices, a fully developed ascetical system of life has remained foreign to Jewish thought, and ascetic trends could, therefore, appear only on the periphery of Judaism. Such undercurrents rose to surface among the Essenes, a monastic sect associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls, who represented a kind of religious order practicing celibacy, poverty, and obedience. The archaeological discovery (1940s) of their community at Qumrān (near the Dead Sea in an area that was a part of Jordan) has thrown new light on such movements in Judaism.

In Zoroastrianism (founded by the Persian prophet Zoroaster, 7th century bc), there is officially no place for asceticism. In the Avesta, the sacred scriptures of Zoroastrianism, fasting and mortification are forbidden, but ascetics were not entirely absent even in Persia.

In Christianity all of the types of asceticism have found realization. In the Gospels asceticism is never mentioned, but the theme of following the historical Christ gave asceticism a point of departure. An ascetic view of the Christian life is found in the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians in his use of the image of the spiritual athlete who must constantly discipline and train himself in order to win the race. Abstinence, fasts, and vigils in general characterized the lives of the early Christians, but some ramifications of developing Christianity became radically ascetic. Some of these movements, such as the Encratites (an early ascetic sect), a primitive form of Syrian Christianity, and the followers of Marcion, played important roles in the history of early Christianity. During the first centuries ascetics stayed in their communities, assumed their role in the life of the church, and centred their views of asceticism on martyrdom and celibacy. Toward the end of the 3rd century, monasticism originated in Mesopotamia and Egypt and secured its permanent form in cenobitism (communal monasticism). After the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire (after ad 313), monasticism was given a new impetus and spread all over the Western world. In Roman Catholicism new orders were founded on a large scale. Though asceticism was rejected by the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, certain forms of asceticism did emerge in Calvinism, Puritanism, Pietism, early Methodism, and the Oxford Movement (an Anglican movement of the 19th century espousing earlier ecclesiastical ideals). Related to asceticism is the Protestant work ethic, which consists of a radical requirement of accomplishment symbolized in achievement in one’s profession and, at the same time, demanding strict renunciation of the enjoyment of material gains acquired legitimately.

The adherents of Islām in its beginnings knew only fasting, which was obligatory in the month of Ramaḍān. Monasticism is rejected in the Qurʾān (the Islāmic sacred scripture). Yet ascetic forces among Christians in Syria and Mesopotamia, vigorous and conspicuous, were able to exercise their influence and were assimilated by Islām in the ascetic movement known as zuhd (self-denial) and later in that of Ṣūfism, a mystical movement that arose in the 8th century and incorporated ascetic ideals and methods.