Asceticism

ASCETICISM. - A methodical effort to repress the lower tendencies of nature in order to progressively realize spiritual perfection.

I. NATURE

The term, unknown to the classical Italian language (it is missing, for example, in Tommaseo's great dictionary), which uses rather asceticism, is today admitted in philosophical-moral language, in the sense of prolonged and austere labor for the attainment of virtue.

«Ἀσκησις, from ἀσκέω (in the New Testament only in Acts 24:16), among the Greeks meant physical exercise, gymnastic and athletic training (Plato, Thucydides, Xenophon), then the intellectual and moral effort to attain wisdom and virtue (the same authors, Isocrates, Demosthenes, sophists, Cynics, Stoics), finally religious practice (already Isocrates, but principally Philo). In these last two acceptations, united and fused, the term becomes familiar to Christian spirituality, starting from Clement of Alexandria, who gives it a generic sense (life of fervent piety: ἀσκησις γνωστικὴ "life of the perfect Christian"), and from Origen, who adheres to the restricted sense (continence), more common among the Greek Fathers.

Christian a. is a practice of life deriving from faith in or adherence to Christ; it is the active exercise of methodical and progressive efforts directed to the acquisition of the virtues in the following and imitation of Christ. It implies a method or discipline in the complex and daily labor, almost an art of harsh training, and has as its end intimate perfection in conformity with the divine Model. This squares with the Christian moral conception, which supposes an aspect called "negative" (arduous struggle for liberation from sin and the overcoming of oneself) and a "positive" element (perfection). In the strict sense a. is limited to the negative aspect, as "spiritual combat" (v.), but Catholic authors understand usually "a." in a broader sense, and, while applying the term chiefly to the repressive practices directed to purification (and reparation), they further include in it the itinerary of ascent toward God. For the degrees of the ascetic life, v. PERFEZIONE CRISTIANA; VIE, TRE.

The specific characteristics of Christian a. may be reduced to four: 1) It derives, as from a first source, from God as the cause of grace, and refers to God as the ultimate perfective end of all human activity; this distinguishes it from every a. of a Stoic or Pelagian character or in any case tending to measure moral perfection by a human standard. 2) It is brought about through voluntary, personal, vital action, aimed at developing all that is best and noble in man; this distinguishes it from the a. of the ancient religions, of a superstitious, magical, external character. 3) It is imbued with Christ, whose sanctifying, efficient and exemplary influence models it intrinsically; this confers on it an unmistakable aspect, explains its incorruptible vitality, justifies the apparent paradox of the thirst for suffering. 4) It recognizes in the authority of the Catholic Church its primary and infallible directive norm.

A. is necessary for the moral life. Man perceives within himself a struggle between the senses and the spirit, especially in the force that drags the former outside of or against the direction of the latter. "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Mt. 26:41). This dualism, although connatural to man's original constitution, is in fact an imbalance caused by original sin (v.), which stripped the will of total mastery over the sensitive part. The opposition is then aggravated by actual sin and still more by the depraved habit or vice that derives from it. Hence true and lasting virtue, which is progressive supernatural moral rectitude, is not for man a spontaneous good, but is the fruit of reaction and conquest. St. Paul dramatically describes the war ever rekindling between the flesh and the spirit, the virulence of concupiscence (v.), the effort imposed on the Christian to re-establish the disturbed equilibrium, painfully stripping himself of whatever belongs to the "flesh of sin" and putting on the new man modeled on Christ (Rom. 7:14-24; 13:12-14; Col. 3:5-8). Hence the Christian must be ready for the fight like a soldier armed cap-a-pie (Eph. 6:10-18), like the athlete, accustomed to harsh exercises, who strikes the enemy (himself) until he draws blood (I Cor. 9:24-27) and is wholly intent on the finish line (Phil. 3:12-14).

The continuous effort of renunciation (v.) of self in order to attain likeness to God is indispensable to the moral life. Such is the explicit divine command. The practical side of revealed doctrine coincides with the obligation of moral purification brought about in a., which is not limited to the indispensable required for the morality of an action, but tends to develop the maximum of energy in order to reach the highest moral height (Mt. 5:48).

In the Old Testament, besides numerous prescriptions concerning abstinence from certain meats and parts of animals, ablutions and purifications (v. PURITÀ RITUALE), public fasts are imposed (Lev. 23:27-33; Num. 29:7-12) and fasts of private initiative are practiced, especially in public calamities (Judith, Esther). The penitential spirit was manifested by clothing oneself in sackcloth and haircloth, by sprinkling one's head with ashes; the Nazirite vow (v.) was held in honor, the extreme sobriety of the Rechabites (v.) was praised; the "schools of the prophets" also present an ascetic character in a common devout life. The practices of mortification aimed at greater interior purity, as attested by their relation to the holiness of God (Deut. 14:1; Joel 2:12-13) and by the appeals of the prophets (Is. 58:1-9).

Jesus imposes a. as the "narrow way" leading his follower, laden with his cross (Mt. 16:25), to the Heavenly Father, who freely regenerates us by communicating divine life to us, and with whom we must be in an incessant relation of dependence, but still more of filial piety (v.) in which supernatural charity (v.) predominates. The love for Jesus, an essentially assimilating force, then impels the Christian to reproduce in himself the suffering Christ. Finally, Christian a. imposes itself for its social value, for the beneficial influence that derives from it for the whole family of believers (v. CORPO MISTICO).

Characteristic of evangelical a. is self-denial (v.), in the cheerful acceptance of purifying suffering, preferring Christ to the dearest persons (Mt. 10:37; Lk. 9:23; 14:26), sacrificing oneself and one's own members and life itself for Him, amid the continuous persecutions that await his followers (Mt. 10:16 ff.; Mk. 8:35). Continuous vigilance is therefore necessary (Lk. 12:35 ff.), both for interior dangers (the flesh) and for exterior ones (the world).

Evangelical a. is, then, very demanding. It is conceived above all as interior religiosity, without which there is no true prayer nor fasting nor charity toward neighbor (Mt. 6:1-33). It has as its ideal norm the perfection of the Heavenly Father, to whom we conform by following his will (Mt. 5:48; 7:21), as its immediate norm Christ, to be reproduced by remaining united to him as the branches to the trunk (Mk. 8:34; Jn. 15:4-5); it has its reward in the beatitudes (v.).

II. MEANS

Christian asceticism is totalitarian and unitary. It works the purification of the whole man in order to raise him to supernatural likeness to God: the spirit is freed and at the same time elevated, the senses — sealed within the sensible — are rectified and subjected to the spirit. Hence one may speak of a twofold asceticism, exterior and interior, even within the inseparable connection by which they require and condition each other.

Asceticism considered from the external side, aiming on the one hand to curb and moderate the tendency toward the sensible, and on the other to make the body more docile to the spirit, adopts as its chief means mortification (v.), to which are connected modesty, fasting, abstinence from certain foods and drinks, vigils, and the various bodily macerations with instruments such as disciplines, small chains, and hairshirts. They contribute supremely to the purification of the heart and to the independence of the spirit: actual poverty (v.) and chastity (v. CONSIGLI EVANGELICI). Means directed to separation from the external world in order to favor recollection (v.) are solitude and silence, practiced in various forms and measures.

Christ does not condemn earthly goods as intrinsically perverse, but imposes total detachment, albeit by degrees, on whoever wishes to follow him (Lk. 14:33), and calls riches obstacles to the kingdom of heaven (Mt. 19:23-24;

Lk. 8:14). Therefore to the evangelizers of the Kingdom of God he prescribes a very austere manner of life (Mk. 6:8) and absolute poverty.

Asceticism, however, must always be predominantly interior, and it uses purifying and elevating means, which are centered in humility and prayer. Essentially Christian and supernatural is humility (v.), which replaces self-love (v.) with gradual self-denial up to abandonment (v.) in God and spiritual childhood (v.); it combats the innumerable vices swarming from pride (v.), especially the thirst for glory and dominion, while it enlightens the soul about its relations of dependence on God. From this follows obedience (v.) which, correcting the illusion of self-sufficiency, subjects the will to the will of God as to the supreme and exclusive norm.

Prayer, in particular as mental prayer and meditation (v.), is the essential breath of Christian asceticism. Besides having impetratory efficacy, it gathers the spirit, purifies the intellect from ignorance and enlightens it about the truths of the faith, preparing it to transcend the natural knowledge of God and initiating it into contemplation (v.), with the consequent impulse to detachment of the heart and to the energetic development of the will as a motive power. To meditation is connected the examination (v.) of conscience, the basis of the moral introspection necessary for regulating one's relations with God and determining the plan of battle against sin.

III. FORMS

The most characteristic forms of Christian asceticism over the centuries are: martyrdom, virginity or continence, and monasticism.

Martyrdom (v.) constitutes the heroic ideal of the 2nd and 3rd centuries: the martyr, a copy of the suffering Christ, appears as the perfect disciple. On the other hand, the whole of Christian life, in its struggle against the passions and for steadfastness in the faith, is regarded as an aspiration to martyrdom and almost as its equivalent.

Virginity (v.) in particular is almost equated with martyrdom. From the 2nd century onward, virgins and the continent are a subject for the apologists, and in the 3rd and 4th centuries a broad literature flourished on the merits and the practice of virginity, to which apostolic action was joined.

Monasticism (v.), whether in the anchoritic form in which it arose in the middle of the 3rd century, or in the cenobitic form into which it gradually evolved from the 4th century, channels the whole ascetic current codified by the experience of the saints and summarized in the Rules (v.) of religious institutes. All ascetic means are coordinated with a view to moral sanctification: from manual labor to solitude and mortifications, from liturgical and contemplative prayer to the harsh apostolic life. The common foundation is the evangelical counsels embraced through the three vows (obedience, chastity, poverty), and the common life in prayer and mortification.

To the mass of the faithful the Church inculcates the ascetic life, imposing abstinences, fasts, and prayers. But full ascetic education is accomplished individually, under the guidance of confessors and spiritual directors, through practices and methods adapted to each person's temperament, needs, and capacities.

IV. ANALOGIES

Comparisons have often been drawn and analogies proclaimed between Christian asceticism and the ascetic currents that developed within paganism. Leaving aside those ascetic movements foreign to any contact with Christianity (v. BUDDHISMO; INDUSMO; TEOSOFIA), let us take a rapid look at those which "independent" historical criticism has sometimes brought close to, or placed in relations of causality with, Christian asceticism.

In Greco-Roman paganism, externally ascetic practices are not unknown: penitential processions, fasts, abstinences, ablutions, some example of chastity (the Vestals), sexual restrictions in connection with worship. But the vital element of asceticism is missing: the effort toward an intimate moral perfection.

In the "mystery" religions one notices a mystical sentimentalism converging toward a certain union with the divinity; ascetic practices are therefore accentuated in them, above all in order to reach the degree of perfect "initiate"; ablutions, fasts and abstinences, and the temporary interdiction of sexual pleasures are common there. While not denying the religious sentiment, wrapped in symbols that are often crude, we note, beyond the naturalistic origin of these cults and the dubious morality of the "vision of the mysteries," the absence in these obscure practices of an adequate ascetic content. Union with the divinity is not conceived as an intimate participation in and transformation into it, but rather as a safe-conduct for advancing into the fearful regions of the afterlife; the ascetic trials or purifications are a mere condition so that initiation into sacred things may not displease the divinity.

The various philosophies with a moral and religious foundation offer something more elevated: from different presuppositions and by different paths they seek an interior perfection for man and arrive at a higher concept of the relations between him and the divinity.

Pythagoreanism, or rather Neopythagoreanism, which spread from the 1st century B.C., starts from the presupposition (common, like the theory of liberation and metempsychosis, to Orphism) of a constitutional dualism in man: Dionysian (good), Titanic (evil), and seeks the liberation of the good element through self-transcendence until the cycle of existences is closed. As means it advocates: philosophy, an effort toward the wisdom that liberates from error, moderating the passions and the sensitive part, which it subjects to reason; abstinence from various foods, resignation in the trials of life, examination of conscience and silence, rigidly imposed in the "novitiate" that precedes acceptance into the Pythagorean "community."

In Stoicism, the summit of man's perfection is to live according to the demands of nature, reasonably, rightly, freely. Stoic asceticism aims at personal independence; it consists above all in judging rightly the impressions produced by things in the soul, according to their relations to the moral reason, and in practicing imperturbable indifference (apatheia) toward all goods and evils extrinsic to the free man, according to the motto abstine et sustine (abstain and endure). Because of its pure ethical naturalism, because of the "apathy" that kills feeling and generates an antisocial individualism, Stoic asceticism is in its spirit opposed to the Christian, although many of its wise counsels concerning contempt for worldly goods, the repression of the passions, constancy in the face of pain and death, meditative reading, and solitude were welcomed by Christian writers.

A noble ideal animates the asceticism of Neoplatonism (Plotinus, Porphyry), which moves in the furrow of Platonic spiritualism and in conformity with its emanatist metaphysics. Its goal is union with God (the Being, the One) by means of ecstatic contemplation. It is an essentially simplifying effort: to rid oneself of the servitude of the sensible and to surpass the rational world in order to reach the summit of intelligible intuition; whence the indifference to or contempt for bodily pleasures. But, besides in its theological presuppositions, this asceticism is opposed to the Christian one because of the intellectualistic exclusivism that leads it to neglect the affective part, and because of its character of practical unrealism, ignorant of human frailty.

In general, in the ascetic conceptions of paganism there is missing the theology of love (v.) that descends from God to man in order to rise again from man to God.

To Jewish asceticism are linked the Therapeutae (v.) and the interesting movement of the Essenes (v.), with common life, community of goods, manual labor, prayer, prolonged fasts, study of the sacred books, celibacy, austere silence, solitude, obedience.

V. ASCETICAL DEVIATIONS

Over the course of the centuries these manifested themselves now by excess, now by defect.

In the first centuries, the Montanists (v.) constituted a rigorist movement that barely tolerated marriage and multiplied austere fasts. Gnostics and Manichaeans, professing the intrinsic wickedness of matter, rejected the legitimacy of marriage and imposed universal abstinence from meat and wine; especially well known are the Encratites (v.), or abstainers. The Council of Gangra (340-43) condemned the false asceticism of Eustathius (v.), and the Council of Ephesus (431) condemned the ascetical manual of the Messalians (v.). The Manichaeans (v.) formed conventicles that renounced the possession of earthly goods. In the Middle Ages the Manichaean pseudo-asceticism reappeared among the Albigensians. The Waldensians (v.) and the "Apostolic Brethren" demanded absolute poverty; the Flagellants (v.) preached bloody public flagellation.

As enemies of asceticism there are notable in the 4th century Helvidius, Jovinian, and Vigilantius, attacking virginity by preference. Closer to our own time, the Quietists (v.) sacrifice asceticism to pure passivity.

The Protestants of Luther (v.), because of the theory of the moral uselessness of good works, declared themselves at the outset strangers to, indeed contrary to, asceticism. But Calvin (v.) imposed on all an almost monastic asceticism. Gradually, then, asceticism made its way among all the Protestant "Churches," at least as a practical necessity (v. BUCHMANISM; METHODISM; WESLEY), down to attempts (from the 19th century) at religious life in common, but without vows or irrevocable commitments.

Roberto di Santa Teresa del B. Gesù