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ASCETICISM
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ASCETICISM , the theory and practice of bodily See also:abstinence and self-See also:mortification, generally religious. The word is derived from the Gr. verb b.QKEw, " I practise," whence the noun &vicriocs and the See also:adjective iurx rLKOS; and it embodies a See also:metaphor taken from the See also:ancient See also:wrestling-See also:place or See also:palaestra, where victory rewarded those who had best trained their bodies. Not a few other technical terms of See also:Greek philosophic asceticism, used in the first instance by See also:Cynics and Neo-pythagoreans, and then continued among the Greek See also:Jews and Christians, were metaphors taken from athletic contests—but only metaphors, for all asceticism, worthy of the name, has a moral purport, and is based on the eternal contrast of the proposition, " This is right," with the proposition, " That is pleasant." The ascetic See also:instinct is probably as old as humanity, yet we must not forget that See also:early religious practices are See also:apt to be deficient in lofty spiritual meaning, many things being esteemed See also:holy that are from a See also:modern point of view trifling and even obscene. We may therefore expect in See also:primitive asceticism to find many abstentions and much self-See also:torture apparently valueless for the training of717 See also:character and discipline of the feelings, which are the essence of any healthy asceticism. Nevertheless these non-moral taboos or restraints may have played a See also:part in See also:building up in us that See also:faculty of preferring the larger See also:good to the impulse of the moment which is the See also:note of real See also:civilization. See also:Aristotle in his See also:Ethics defines, as the See also:barbarian's ideal of See also:life, " the living as one likes." Yet nothing is less true; for the See also:savage, more than the civilized See also:man, is tied down at every step with superstitious scruples and restrictions barely traceable in higher civilizations except as primitive survivals. It is not that savages are devoid of the ascetic instinct. It is on the contrary over-See also:developed in them, but See also:ill-informed and working in ways unessential or even morally harmful. It is the note of every See also:great religious reformer, See also:Moses, See also:Buddha, See also:Paul, Mani, See also:Mahomet, St See also:Francis, See also:Luther, to enlighten and See also:direct it to higher aims, substituting a true See also:personal holiness for a See also:ritual purity or See also:taboo, which at the best was viewed as a See also:kind of See also:physical See also:condition and contagion, inherent as well in things and animals as in man. It is useful, therefore, in a See also:summary See also:sketch of asceticism, to begin with the facts as they can be observed among less advanced races, or as See also:mere survivals among See also:people who have reached the level of genuine moral reflection; and from this basis to proceed to a See also:consideration of self-denial consciously pursued as a-method of ethical perfection. The latter is as a See also:rule less cruel and rigorous than primitive forms of asceticism. Under this See also:head fall the following:—Fasting, or abstention from certain meats and drinks; denial of sexual instinct; subjection of the See also:body to physical discomforts, such as nakedness, vigils, sleeping on the See also:bare ground, 'See also:tattooing, deformation of See also:skull, See also:teeth, feet, &c., vows of silence to be observed throughout life or during See also:pilgrim-ages, avoidance of See also:baths, of See also:hair-cutting and of clean raiment, living in a ,See also:cave; actual self-infliction of See also:pain, by scourging, See also:branding, cutting with knives, wearing of hair shirts, See also:fire-walking, See also:burial alive, See also:hanging up of oneself by hooks plunged into the skin, suspension of weights by such hooks to the tenderer parts of the body, self-See also:mutilation and numerous other, often ingenious, modes of torture. Such customs repose on various superstitions; for example, the self-mutilation of the Galli or priests of See also:Cybele was probably a magical ceremony intended to fertilize the See also:soil and stimulate the crops. Others of the practices enumerated, probably the greater part of them, See also:spring from demonological beliefs. See also:Fasting (q.v.) is used in primitive asceticism for a variety of reasons, among which the following deserve See also:notice. Certain animals and vegetables are taboo, i.e. too holy, or—what among Semites and others was the same thing—too defiling and unclean, to be eaten. Thus in See also:Leviticus xi. the Jews are forbidden to eat animals other than cloven-footed ruminants; thus the See also:camel, coney, See also:hare and See also:swine were forbidden; so also any See also:water organisms that had not fins and scales, and a large choice of birds, including See also:swan, See also:pelican, See also:stork, See also:heron and See also:hoopoe. All winged creeping things that have four feet were equally abominable. Lastly, the See also:weasel, See also:mouse and most lizards were taboo. All or nearly all of these were at one See also:time totem animals among one or another of the Semitic tribes, and were not eaten because primitive men will not eat animals between which and themselves and their gods they believe a See also:peculiar tie of kinship to exist. Men do not eat an See also:animal for which they have a reverential dread, or if they eat it at all, it is only in a sacramental feast and in See also:order to absorb into themselves its life and holy properties. Such abstinences as the above, though based on taboo, that is, on a reluctance to eat the totem or sacred animal, are yet ascetic in so far as they involve much self-denial. No flesh is more wholesome or succulent than See also:beef, yet the Egyptians and Phoenicians, says See also:Porphyry (de Abst. ii. 11), would rather eat human flesh than that of the cow, and so would two See also:hundred and fifty millions of modern See also:Hindus. The privation involved in abstention from the flesh of the swine, a taboo hardly less wide-spread, is obvious. Similar prohibitions are See also:common in See also:Africa, where fetish priests are often reduced to a See also:diet of herbs and roots. That such See also:dietary restrictions were merely ceremonial and superstitious, and not X18 intended to prevent the See also:consumption of meats which would revolt modern tastes, is certain from the fact that the Levitical See also:law freely allowed the eating of locusts, grasshoppers, crickets and cockroaches, while forbidding the consumption of rabbits, See also:hares, storks, swine, &c. The Pythagoreans were forbidden to eat beans. Another widespread See also:reason for avoiding flesh diet altogether was the fear of absorbing the irrational soul of the animal, which especially resided in the See also:blood. Hence the rule not to eat meats strangled, except in sacramental meals when the See also:god inherent in the animal was partaken of. It is equally a soul or spirit in See also:wine which inspires the intoxicated; the old See also:Egyptian See also:kings avoided wine at table and in libations, because it was the blood of rebels who had fought with the gods, and out of whose rotting bodies See also:grew the vines; to drink the blood was to imbibe the soul of these rebels, and the frenzy of See also:intoxication which followed was held to be See also:possession by their See also:spirits. The See also:medieval Jews also held that there is a cardiac demon in wine which takes possession of drunken men; and the See also:Mahommedan See also:prohibition of wine-drinking is based on a similar superstition. The avoidance of wine, therefore, by See also:Rechabites, Nazirites, Arab dervishes and Pythagoreans, and also of See also:leaven in See also:bread, is parallel to and explicable in the same way as abstention from flesh. Porphyry (de Abst. i. 19) acquaints us with another wide-spread See also:scruple against flesh diet. It was this, that the souls of men transmigrated into animals, so that if you See also:ate these, you might consume your own kind, cannibal-See also:wise. Contemporary See also:meat-eaters set themselves to combat this See also:prejudice, and argued that it was a pious See also:duty to kill animals and so See also:release the human souls imprisoned. In the same See also:tract Porphyry relates (ii. 48) how wizards acquired the mantic See also:powers of certain birds, such as ravens and See also:hawks, by swallowing their See also:hearts. The soul of the See also:bird, he explains, enters them with its flesh, and endows them with See also:power of See also:divination. The See also:lover of See also:wisdom, who is See also:priest of the universal God, rather than See also:risk the taking into him-self of inferior souls and polluting demons, will abstain from eating animals. Such is Porphyry's See also:argument.
The same fear of imbibing the irrational soul of animals, and
thereby reinforcing the See also:lower appetites and instincts of the
human being, inspired the See also:vegetarianism of See also:Apollonius of Tyana
and of the Jewish See also:Therapeutae, who in their sacred meals were
careful to have a table See also:free from blood-containing meats; and
the fear of absorbing the animal's psychic qualities equally
motived the Jewish and early See also:Christian rule against eating
things strangled. It was an early belief, which See also:long survived
among the Manichaean sects, that See also:fish, being See also:born in and of the
See also:waters, and without any sexual connexion on the part of other
fishes are free from the taint which pollutes all animals quae
copulatione generantur. Fish, therefore, unlike flesh, could be
safely eaten. Here we have the origin of the See also:Catholic rule of
fasting, seldom understood by those who observe it. The same
scruple against flesh-eating is conveyed in the beautiful confes-
See also:sion, in the Cretans of See also:Euripides, of one who had been initiated
in the mysteries of See also:Orpheus and became a " Bacchos." The last
lines of this, as rendered by Dr See also: The prohibition of taking life, which they took over from the Farther See also:East, in itself entailed fasting from flesh. A fully initiated Manichaean would not even .cut his own See also:salad, but employed a See also:catechumen to commit on his behalf this act of See also:murder, for which he subsequently shrived him.
We come to a third widespread reason for fasting, common among savages. Famished persons are liable to morbid excite-ment, and fall into imaginative ecstasies, in the course of which they see visions and spectres, converse with gods and angels, and are the recipients of supernatural revelations. Accordingly See also: The Indian See also:yogi fasts till he See also:sees See also:face to face all the gods of his See also:Pantheon; the Indian magician fasts twelve days before producing See also:rain or working any cure. The See also:Bogomils fasted till they saw the Trinity face to face. From the first, fasting was practised in the See also: At first sight these See also:rites seem intended to See also:call down the pity of heaven on man, but as See also:Robertson See also: 
Once they are grasped the craving for existence is rooted out, that which leads to renewed existence is destroyed, and there is no more birth. The Buddha believed he had a way of Truth, which if an elect See also:disciple possessed he might say of himself, " See also:Hell is destroyed for me, and rebirth as an animal, or a ghost, or in any place of woe. I am converted, I am no longer liable to be reborn in a See also:state of suffering, and am assured of final salvation." Suffering, said the See also:sage in his great See also:sermon at See also:Benares, is inseparable from birth and old See also:age. Sickness is suffering, so is See also:death, so is See also:union with the unloved, and separation from the loved; not to obtain what one desires is suffering; the entire fivefold clinging to the earthly is suffering. Its origin is the thirst for being which leads from birth to birth, together with lust and See also:desire, which find gratification here and there; the thirst for pleasures, for being, for power. This thirst must be extinguished by See also:complete annihilation of desire, by letting it go, expelling it, separating oneself from it, giving it no See also:room. This extinction is achieved in eight ways, namely rectitude of faith, resolve, speech, See also:action, living, effort, thought, self-concentration. In this See also:gospel we must be done with the See also:outer world, participation in which is not the self, yet means for the self birth and death, appetites, longings, emotions, See also:change and suffering, See also:pleasure and pain. He that has put off all lust and desire, all See also:hope and fear, all will to exist as a sinful, because a sentient, being, has won to the heaven of extinction or See also:Nirvana. He may still tread the earth, but he is a See also:saint or See also:Brahman, is in heaven, has quitted the transient and enjoys eternity. Such was the Buddha's gospel, as his most ancient scriptures enunciate it. Nirvana is constantly defined in them as supreme happiness. It is not even clear how far, if we interpret it strictly, this See also:philosophy leaves any self to be happy. However this be, its See also:practical expression is the life of the See also: Everywhere in See also:India and See also:Ceylon they hollowed out cells and churches in the cliffs and rocks, which are the wonder of the European tourist. But long before the See also:advent of See also:Buddhism, the See also:hermit, or wandering See also:beggar, was a See also:familiar figure in India. No formal initiation was imposed on the would-be ascetic, See also:save (in the See also:case of See also:young men) the duty to live at first in his teacher's See also:house. One who had thus fulfilled the duties of the student order must " go forth remaining chaste," says the Apastamba, ii. q. 8. He shall then " live without a fire, without a house, without pleasures, without See also:protection; remaining silent and uttering speech only 719 on the occasion of the daily recitation of the Veda; begging so much See also:food only in the village as will sustain his life, he shall wander about, neither caring for this world nor for heaven. He shall only See also:wear clothes thrown away by others. Some declare that he shall even go naked. Abandoning truth and falsehood, pleasure and pain, the Vedas, this world and the next, he shall seek the Universal Soul, in knowledge of which standeth eternal salvation." Such a life was specially recommended for one who has lived the life of a householder, and, having begotten sons according to the sacred law and offered sacrifices, desires in his old age to `abandon worldly See also:objects and direct his mind to final liberation. He leaves his wife, if she will not accompany him, and goes forth into the See also:forest, committing her and his house to his sons. He must indeed take with him the sacred fire and implements for domestic See also:sacrifice, but until death overtakes him he must wander silent, alone, possessing no See also:hearth nor dwelling, begging his food in the villages, See also:firm of purpose, with a potsherd for an See also:alms bowl, the roots of trees for a dwelling, and clad in coarse worn-out garments. " Let him not desire to See also:die, let him not desire to live; let him wait for his appointed time, as a servant See also:waits for the See also:payment of his See also:wages. Let him drink water purified by straining with a See also:cloth, let him utter speech purified by truth, let him keep his See also:heart pure. Let him patiently See also:bear hard words, let him not insult anybody, let him not become any one's enemy for the See also:sake of this perishable body. . . . Let him reflect on the transmigrations of men, caused by their sinful deeds, on their falling into hell, and on their torments in the world of See also:Yama. . . . A twice-born man who becomes an ascetic thus shakes off See also:sin here below and reaches the highest Brahman " (See also:Laws of Manu, by G. Biihler, vi. 85). This old-world wisdom of the Hindus, a thousand years before our era, is worthily to be paralleled from the See also:Manichaeism of about the See also:year 400. See also:Augustine has preserved (contra Faustum, v. i) the See also:portraiture of a Manichaean elect as See also:drawn by himself: " I have given up See also:father and See also:mother, wife, See also:children and all else that the gospel bids us, and do you ask if I accept the gospel? Are you then still ignorant of what the word gospel means? It is nothing else than the See also:preaching and See also:precept of See also:Christ. I have See also:cast away See also:gold and See also:silver, and have ceased to carry even See also:copper in my See also:belt, being content with my daily bread, nor caring for the morrow, nor anxious how my belly shall be filled or my body clothed ; and do you ask me if I accept the gospel ? You behold in me those beatitudes of Christ which make up the gospel, and you ask me if I accept it. You behold me See also:gentle, a peacemaker, pure of heart, a mourner, hungering, thirsting, bearing persecutions and hatreds for righteousness' sake, and do you doubt whether I accept the gospel. . All that was mine I have given up, father, mother, wife, children, gold, silver, eating, drinking, delights, pleasures. Deem this a sufficient See also:answer to your question and deem yourself on the way to be blessed, if you have not been scandalized in me." The Greek Cynics (see CYNICS) played a great part in the See also:history of Asceticism, and they were so much the precursors of the Christian hermits that descriptions of them in profane literature have been mistaken for pictures of early See also:monasticism. In striving to imitate the rugged strength and See also:independence of their See also:master See also:Socrates, they went to such extremes as rather to See also:caricature him. They affected to live like beggars, bearing See also:staff and wallet, owning nothing, renouncing pleasures, riches, honours. For older thinkers like See also:Plato and Aristotle the perfect life was that of the See also:citizen and householder; but the Cynics were individualists, citizens of the world without See also:loyalty or respect for the ancient See also:city state, the decay of which was coincident with their rise. Their zeal for renunciation often extended not to pleasures, See also:marriage and property alone, but to cleanliness, knowledge and good See also:manners as well, and in this respect also they were the forerunners of later monks. See also:Philo (20 B.C.—A.D. 40) has See also:left us many pictures of the life which to his mind impersonated the highest wisdom, and they are all inspired by the more respectable sort of cynicism, which had taken deep See also:root among Greek Jews of the day. One such picture merits See also:citation from his tract On Change of Names (vol. i. 583, ed. Mangey) : " All this See also:company of the good and wise have of their own free will divested themselves of too copious See also:wealth; See also:nay, have spurned the things dear to the flesh. For of 720 good See also:habit and lusty are athletes, since they have fortified against the soul the body which should be its servant; but the disciples of wisdom are See also:pale and wasted, and in a manner reduced to skeletons, because they have sacrificed the whole of their bodily strength to the faculties of the soul." His own favourite ascetics, the Therapeutae, whose See also:chief centre was in See also:Egypt, had renounced property and all its temptations, and fled, irrevocably abandoning See also:brothers, children, wives, parents, throngs of kinsmen, intimacy of See also:friends, the fatherlands where they were born and bred (see TEERAPEUTAE). Here we have the ideal of early Christian renunciation at See also:work, but apart from the influence of Jesus. In the pages of See also:Epictetus the same ideal is constantly held up to us. In the Christian Church there was from the earliest age a leaning to excessive asceticism, and it needed a severe struggle on the part of Paul, and of the Catholic teachers who followed him, to secure for the baptized the right to be married, to own property, to engage in See also:war and See also:commerce, or to assume public See also:office. One and all of the permanent institutions of society were condemned by the early enthusiasts, especially by those who looked forward to a speedy advent of the See also:millennium, as See also:alien to the See also:kingdom of God and as impediments to the life of See also:grace. Marriage and property had already been eschewed in the Jewish Essene and Therapeutic sects, and in See also:Christianity the name of Encratite was given to those who repudiated marriage and the use of wine. They did not See also:form a See also:sect, but represented an impulse See also:felt everywhere. In early and popular apocryphal histories the apostles are represented as insisting that their converts should either not See also:contract wedlock or should dissolve the tie if already formed. This is the See also:plot of the Acts of See also:Thecla, a See also:story which probably goes back to the first See also:century. Repudiation of the tie by fervent See also:women, betrothed or already wives, occasioned much domestic See also:friction and popular persecution. In the Syriac churches, even as See also:late as the 4th century, the married state seems to have been regarded as incompatible with the perfection of the initiated. Renunciation of the state of wedlock was anyhow imposed on the faithful during the lengthy, often lifelong, terms of See also:penance imposed upon them for sins committed; and later, when monkery took the place, in a church become worldly, partly of the primitive See also:baptism and partly of that rigorous penance which was the rebaptism and medicine of the lapsed, See also:celibacy and virginity were held essential thereto, no less than renunciation of property and See also:money-making. Together with the rage for virginity went the institution of virgines subintroductae, or of spiritual wives; for it was often assumed that the grace of baptism restored the See also:original purity of life led by See also:Adam and See also:Eve in common before the Fall. Such rigours are encouraged in the Shepherd of Hernias, a See also:book which emanated from See also:Rome and up to the 4th century was read in church. They were common in the See also:African churches, where they led to abuses which taxed the See also:energy even of a See also:Cyprian. They were still rife in See also:Antioch in 26o. We detect them in the See also:Celtic church of St See also:Patrick, and, as late as the 7th century, among the Celtic elders of the north of See also:France. In the Syriac church as late as 340, such relations prevailed between the " Sons and daughters of the Resurrection." It continued among the Albigenses and other dissident sects of the See also:middle ages, among whom it served a See also:double purpose; for their elders were thus not only able to prove their own chastity, but to elude the inquisitors, who were less inclined to suspect a man of the catharism which regarded marriage as the " greater See also:adultery " (maius adulterium) if they found him cohabiting (in See also:appearance at least) with a woman. There was hardly an early See also:council, great or small, that did not condemn this See also:custom, as well as the other one, still more painful to think of, of self-emasculation. In the Catholic church, however, common sense prevailed, and those who desired to follow the Encratite ideal repaired to the monasteries. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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