Ascetical Theology

ASCETICS, THEOLOGY. - Systematic doctrine concerning ascesis (v.).

The formula "t. a." seems to go back only to the 17th century (in the Franciscan C. Dobrosielski, Summarium asceticae et mysticae theologiae, Kraków 1655, and the Jesuit C. Schorrer, Theologia ascetica, Rome 1658) alongside the much more common and older one of "Mystical Theology." Later, once mysticism was limited to one sector of the spiritual life, the two were also treated separately (G. B. Scaramelli, v.). Today the designation Spiritual Theology is gaining ground, expressing their fundamental unity of object and purpose: spiritual perfection.

In its most common acceptation, a. is the part of spiritual theology that studies Christian perfection attained by the common means of grace. As a theological science of Christian perfection, a. studies the problems pertaining to its nature and its attainment.

I. NATURE

The proper object of theology is God in the supernatural order of being and of knowability.

Ascetics considers God as the first supernatural good attainable, the supreme good that supernaturally finalizes man's activity. In this field of moral action, the long "return" of the rational creature to God (St. Thomas, Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 2, proemium) involves two aspects: either to limit oneself to what is prescribed (the simply good and lawful) or to press on with free initiative toward the better and the perfect. The first moment circumscribes moral theology, the second ascetical-mystical theology. The latter receives from dogmatic theology the foundations of the supernatural life and from moral theology the bases of the moral life; above and beyond this, whatever concerns the development of the supernatural organism in man, the productive causes, the means, the obstacles, the various stages and vicissitudes in the actualization of virtue, constitutes the characteristic object of ascetical-mystical theology, which comes to be a point of confluence of dogmatics and morals, partaking of the speculative sublimity of the one and the practical interest of the other.

On the relations and boundaries between ascetics and mystics, opinions are very disparate, and there are many nuances among the representatives of the same current. There are even today those who under ascetics or mystics embrace the whole of spiritual doctrine (F. Murawski, S. Louismet). Generally, however, the two names correspond to distinct treatises: the passive element characterizes mystics. By passivity is meant the free action of God that influences the soul exclusively, while activity embraces the complex of the soul's immediate and direct efforts under the influence of grace. To ascetics is attributed the active element in the whole extension of the spiritual life, to mystics the passive, which predominates in the unitive life. In this conception the relations between ascetics and mystics are very close, the two elements passing almost as complements (F.-X. Mutz, F. Cayré).

The two elements can be considered more directly in relation to the intrinsic development of the spiritual life toward perfection. Some consider the passive element only in a charismatic and extraordinary sense, and therefore tend to consider ascetics and mystics as adequately and specifically distinct (A. Poulain, A. Farges, Crisogono di Gesù Sacramentato); others understand it as universally necessary for holiness, not precisely extraordinary, and intrinsically link mystics to ascetics, while recognizing that passivity belongs to the higher degrees (A. Saudreau, R. Garrigou-Lagrange, J. Schryvers). Others pay more attention to the moment in which passivity predominates: some extend ascetics up to the threshold of infused contemplation (A. Tanquerey), others more clearly reserve to it the purgative and illuminative ways (J. Zahn). For these, spiritual science is fundamentally one, as for those who propose middle solutions to the problem concerning the unity of the spiritual life (J. Heerinckx, J. de Guibert, Gabriele di s. Maria Maddalena).

One of the characteristic aspects of recent production is the discussion on the problem of the "unity of the spiritual life." The question is, namely, whether ascetics and mystics are two distinct ways to Christian perfection; in other words: whether mystics, with infused contemplation, is necessary for holiness. Alongside the extreme positions, middle solutions have also been proposed (cf. J. de Guibert, Theol. spir. asc. et myst., nn. 423-29; Gabriele di s. Maria Maddalena, Mistica Teresiana, p. 125 ff.). Theologians defend the various opinions independently of belonging to this or that school. The problem has so far found no satisfactory solution, because it is not perfectly delimited; the notions are often confused, nor is there agreement on terminology. It involves very delicate questions of theology and of supernatural psychology: operations of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, infused contemplation, affective cognition, questions not clearly defined by scholastic doctrine (F. V. Bainvel, Introduction à la 1re éd. des «Grâces d'Oraison» du r. p. Poulain, Paris 1923, pp. XXXII-XXXVI and XLVI-LXX).

The general lines of the matter treated by ascetics are:
1) Christian perfection, the goal to be reached, the fundamental theme, of which it reveals the nature, the integrating elements, the attainability, the causality in the whole spiritual life. 2) The forces capable of impelling us or repelling us, within and above man. In man it examines with the aids of psychology the various elements of human activity, their collaboration and their contrast (disposition, character, passions, relations between the senses and the spirit); with dogmatic criteria it analyzes the constitution of the supernatural organism and the dynamism that vivifies it (grace, infused virtues, gifts of the Holy Spirit). Outside man, the manifold divine causality and the nefarious diabolical intervention, relations between divine and human activity, discernment of spirits, spiritual direction. 3) Movement toward perfection: having delineated the way along which the supernatural organism evolves, it analyzes the manifold means and exercises by which spiritual progress is actualized: means of inherent perfective efficacy (Sacraments), means purifying and corrective of human deficiency, means elevating the spiritual faculties to union with God (mortification, prayer, examination of conscience, apostolate). It then follows the three successive traditional stages of the journey: the purgative way or that of beginners, the illuminative way or that of the proficient, the unitive way or that of the perfect, leaving to mystics in general "passivity," especially infused contemplation and certain special phenomena, such as ecstasy, revelations, visions. It distinguishes the different states of life: contemplative and active, virginal and conjugal, in order to indicate the most appropriate norms for each.

II. SOURCES

1. Common theological sources: the revelation of the supernatural life is contained in Sacred Scripture and in tradition. a) Sacred Scripture sets forth the entire framework of ascetics, both as regards truths and as regards principles of action, from the justification that renews inwardly, to the necessity of complete detachment, from the precept of love to union with God in Christ (v. ASCESI). b) Tradition has special importance, since the supernatural as lived becomes the subject matter of manifold observations and analyses, gathered through the centuries. c) The solemn ecclesiastical magisterium has dealt almost exclusively with dogmatic truths (cf. however J. Heerinckx, n. 56). In the ordinary magisterium, on the other hand, ascetical teaching abounds (a list of subjects in J. Heerinckx, n. 62). Very often the Church has intervened against the errors and extravagances of heretics, such as the Euchites, the Albigensians, the Quietists. Moreover she intervenes with many disciplinary laws of the Code; in the definitive approval of the laws of religious institutes, declared precisely to be a sure norm of moral perfection; in the canonization of saints, whose itinerary of heroic virtues she, as it were, retraces (cf. Heerinckx, n. 64 ff.).

2. Particular theological sources of ascetics are the works of ascetical writers, whether considered individually or grouped in the so-called "spiritual schools." Their authority derives from the competence they have in the matter, still more from their eminent spiritual life, when these are saints, at times from a particular approval of the Church — for example, in the case of St. Teresa — or from the unanimous approval of the centuries, as for the Imitation of Christ. Among them some, by their learning, holiness, experience of many souls, and by the solemn approval of the Church and of the faithful, are exceptional authorities: St. John of the Cross, St. Francis de Sales, St. Alphonsus de' Liguori (Heerinckx, n. 80 ff.; J. de Guibert, op. cit., nn. 21-28).

3. Experimental sources are required by the very nature of ascetics, an eminently practical science, whose object is the supernatural to be lived. They embrace: a) The psychology of the human subject: the supernatural penetrates and intimately quickens the natural spiritual life while respecting its fundamental laws. The functioning of the psychic organism illuminates very many ascetical problems, makes one understand the development of the passions and their relations with the moral life, the influence of sense impressions, the education of character, besides various morbid psychic states that outwardly simulate mystical phenomena. The great masters of ascetics have always cultivated psychological observation, and modern writers exploit the results of experimental psychology. b) General religious experience, by studying facts common to profoundly different religions, has no notable direct importance; but it can confirm general theses on the value of certain spiritual factors and, negatively, provide arguments to rebut the arbitrary assertions of non-Catholic critics who readily mistake accidental resemblances for substantial identities. c) The study of Catholic religious experience, by means of hagiography or biographies of persons of eminent piety, is of capital importance: given the conditions of truthfulness required by historical criticism, it shows us the ascetical or mystical life in action, in individuals differing in sex, temperament, condition, culture, time, and environment. By observing many supernatural facts, cataloguing them, comparing them, and setting them within the framework of revealed ascetical truths, one gives an experimental basis to the spiritual science. d) Personal experience (one's own and that of others) is of the greatest help, inasmuch as it facilitates the judgment on the supernatural, somewhat as taste and artistic initiation make one capable of judging works of art. Indeed it largely inspires the works of the great masters (St. John of the Cross, Living Flame of Love, proem).

III. METHOD

In the systematic treatment of asceticism the only effective method is at once deductive and experimental (A. Tanquerey, Compendio di teologia ascetica e mistica, Rome 1928, nos. 25-33; J. Heerinckx, nos. 158-68; R. Garrigou-Lagrange, Perfezione Cristiana e Contemplazione, Turin 1933, I, a. 1; J. de Guibert, op. cit., nos. 13-15). The eminently practical character of this science demands it.

The revealed principles of morality and the theological truths are independent of all personal experience (for example, the precept of charity, the necessity of actual grace), as are the ethical and psychological truths of universal value. The ascetical doctrinal synthesis has recourse to such truths and principles in establishing the canons for moral activity tending toward perfection. This deductive method brings out the truths of absolute value, from which the normal practical criterion will proceed. On the other hand, the supernatural life takes on such a variety of forms that it is not possible in individual cases to have recourse to universal principles. Only by means of careful observation of the various phenomena can one succeed in weighing each fact exactly and in tracing its origin and its scope: with this experimental and inductive method (which is improperly called descriptive), ascetical theology has at its disposal a positive basis. From the harmony of the one and the other method results the fruitfulness of ascetical study. The exclusivity of the first leads to an unreal and arbitrary schematism; the exclusivity of the second diminishes asceticism as a science and generates easy confusions between the accidental and the essential.

IV. HISTORY

1. Ancient era (1st-7th century). A. is found within the sphere of the remaining sacred teaching, contained in the multiform literary production that ranges from homilies to the epistolary genre, to biography, to monastic rules, to certain systematic treatises. Origen, Tertullian, and Cyprian (v.) deserve particular mention for their doctrine on prayer. Clement of Alexandria (v.) presents original elements, in whose ascetic ideal "apatheia," charity, and especially "gnosis" dominate. Monasticism, alongside works of a biographical nature (a typical document being the Life of Antony by St. Athanasius), and collections of sayings (Apophthegmata), produces true treatises. Three writers stand out: Evagrius Ponticus (PG 40), Nilus of Sinai (PG 79), and Mark the Hermit (PG 65). Of the rules, the most celebrated are the two Regulae of St. Basil (PG 31), the so-called Rule of St. Augustine (PL 33), and the Rule of St. Benedict.

Copious are the ascetic teachings in all the great Fathers of the Church, especially in Chrysostom and in Gre-

Gregory the Great (v.). St. Augustine, as in the other branches of theology, is a distinguished master: his greatest merit, perhaps, is having brought fully to light the essential importance of charity as the substance of perfection and the measure of its degrees; and analyzing the impotence of man, afflicted by sin, he outlines the broad purifying labor necessary to restore in man the image of God, insisting on the means of such renewal: prayer and cooperation with grace.

Original systematic works are those of Cassian and of St. John Climacus, who summarized respectively, for the West and for the East, monastic ascetic doctrine. They expand on the internal and external obstacles and on the means of perfection, up to the heights of contemplation and untroubled peace, the fruit of perfect charity. To pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, who concerns mysticism more directly, has been attributed the distinction of the three stages of the spiritual life. This era is closed by St. Maximus the Confessor (d. 662).

2. Medieval era (11th-15th century). The Middle Ages is pervaded by ascetic fervor. The great scholastics too take an interest in spiritual problems, and the so-called "spiritual schools" arise. These are born from powerful personalities, whose disciples, even against the backdrop of a common spirituality, give prominence to characteristic forms of life and the connected problems. The intense vitality gives rise to an extremely abundant literary production. To the description of ascetic-mystical experience is joined the theological framing of the relevant problems. The different schools present a variety of subject matter and tone: lyric writers alternate with treatise writers, practical and affective theologians with theoreticians and speculative thinkers.

a) The Benedictine School, which urges serene contemplation through liturgical prayer, retreat, work, and moderate austerity, and develops a tender love for the mysteries of Christ, is represented by St. Anselm and St. Bernard (PL 182-83), as well as by the great mystics Hildegard (d. 1179) and Gertrude the Great (d. 1301).

b) The School of Saint-Victor unites the speculative-affective spirit of St. Augustine with the Platonism of pseudo-Dionysius, aiming at the highest contemplation, and creates the method of a superior, contemplative meditation. The most distinguished masters are Hugh (d. 1141), De modo orandi, De vanitate mundi, De laude caritatis (PL 176), and Richard (d. 1173), De statu interioris hominis; Beniamin minor (or Liber de prereparatione animi ad contemplationem) (PL 196); Beniamin maior (or De gratia contemplationis) (PL 195).

c) The Dominican School unites contemplative and apostolic spirituality with a doctrinal physiognomy. The Aquinate illuminates practically all questions pertaining to spiritual theology, from the analysis of the passions to the gifts of the Holy Spirit and to contemplation (cf. F. Cayré, Patrologia e Storia della Teologia, II, Rome 1938, pp. 614-16). Important for her experience is St. Catherine of Siena (The Dialogue). To the school, though with its own Dionysian physiognomy, belongs the triad: Master Eckhart, J. Tauler, and H. Suso, who inculcate the most complete self-abnegation and the negative knowledge of God.

d) The Franciscan School is affective both in practice and in teaching; it is characterized by the cult of evangelical poverty and simplicity and by a passionate love for the humanity of Christ. These traits stand out admirably in St. Bonaventure (d. 1274), who fixes the features of the three stages of the spiritual life: purgative, illuminative, and unitive, in frameworks accepted by later masters (Itinerarium mentis in Deum, Incendium amoris). In the experimental field, Angela of Foligno (d. 1309) is to be remembered.

e) The School of "Modern Devotion" (v.), which arose in the middle of the 14th century, presents mystical ardor and a careful regulation of the interior life. Besides the lofty master John Ruysbroeck (d. 1381), who pursues above all complete renunciation with a view to intimate mystical union, Thomas à Kempis (d. 1471) belongs to it, and John Gerson (d. 1429) may be associated with it.

f) In the Carthusian School the ascetic intent predominates, with the affective method. Its principal representative is Denis the Carthusian (d. 1471), who summarizes the entire medieval ascetic-mystical spirituality.

3. Modern and contemporary era (16th-20th century). A. makes decisive progress: in method and in popularization with St. Ignatius, St. Francis de Sales, and St. Alphonsus; in mystical orientation with St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross; in the deepening of dogma with the Christological doctrine of the French school, with the practice of reparation and the cult of the Sacred Heart. The rich tradition of experiences and teaching is subjected to definitive evaluations and clarifications in the struggle against Quietists and Semi-Quietists. Thus is born the independent and organic treatment of the whole of spiritual theology. The boundaries between a. and mysticism are determined, new attention is devoted to the process of prayer and contemplation; whence arises the problem that impassions contemporaries: whether or not asceticism alone suffices for Christian perfection.

In the Benedictine School, García de Cisneros (d. 1510) treats for the first time of methodical prayer, preceded by Ludovico Barbo (d. 1443); Ludovico Blosio stands out above all. The Dominican School produces the treatises of Granada (d. 1588) and the speculative synthesis of Thomas of Vallgornera (d. 1665); the correct notion of the love of God is studied by A. Massoulié and by A. Piny. The Franciscan School is represented by St. Peter of Alcantara, Francis of Osuna, Alfonso of Madrid, and Cardinal Brancati of Lauria.

Three new schools rapidly establish themselves: a) The Ignatian School, with a markedly ascetic, active spirituality, won through methodical effort, and apostolic. Among the many disciples of St. Ignatius (d. 1556), who in the Spiritual Exercises gives particular prominence to the method of meditation, stand out Alfonso Rodriguez, L. Lallemand, P. Segneri, who was the first to rise against Molinos (Concordia tra la fatica e il riposo nell'orazione), and G. B. Scaramelli, who clearly separated a. from mysticism in Direttorio ascetico and Direttorio mistico.

b) The Carmelite School; a profound spirituality, decisively oriented toward mystical union, whose characteristic asceticism lies in total renunciation and spiritual nakedness through an austere life, silence, interior recollection, and prayer. Its foundress is St. Teresa of Jesus (d. 1582), together with St. John of the Cross (d. 1591). Their doctrine has found authoritative interpreters who from the 17th century taught spiritual theology in a systematic manner: John of Jesus Mary, Thomas of Jesus, Philip of the Trinity with the classic Summa theologiae mysticae, Balthasar of St. Catherine, and Joseph of the Holy Spirit with his Cursus theologiae mystico-scholasticae.

c) French school; "its spirituality derives from the domains of faith and especially from the dogma of the Incarnation; incorporated into Christ by Baptism and thus receiving the Holy Spirit who comes to dwell in our soul, we must, uniting ourselves to the Incarnate Word, glorify God who lives within us and imitate the interior virtues of Jesus, vigorously struggling against the adverse inclinations of the flesh or of the old man" (A. Tanquerey, op. cit., p. LIV). The founder of the school is Cardinal de Bérulle (d. 1629) with the Discours de l'Etat et des Grandeurs de Jésus; he is followed by: P. de Condren, J. J. Olier, St. John Eudes, St. Louis Grignion de Montfort. To this school may be linked St. Francis de Sales and Bossuet; among recent figures, Msgr. C. Gay.

St. Alphonsus Liguori (d. 1787) with his many treatises widely spread Christian piety among the people.

From the end of the 19th century there is a noted revival of spiritual studies, due to the general renewal of ecclesiastical science and to contact with the golden centuries of spirituality through historical studies.

No aspect of asceticism is neglected, but generally the dogmatic side is placed more in evidence. Historical and critical studies re-establish contact with the very rich and little-known Christian tradition, and prepare broader syntheses and the solution of new problems. A broader examination of the mystical tradition is still needed (v.).

Recently numerous "manuals" of spiritual theology have also appeared. Besides responding to the need for synthesis and culture, they serve the purpose of teaching, which is recommended and imposed by ecclesiastical authority (cf. Ordinationes of the Congregation of Seminaries, 1931).

Roberto di S. Teresa del B. Gesù