Asceticism

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ASCETICISM

There is a morbid fascination in any survey of the ascetic practices of humankind. Fasting, the virgin priestess, and the mutilation of the body are common features of ancient religions. In monastic Christianity the austere ideals of celibacy, obedience, and poverty have been both practiced and admired. Even today there are many who observe Lent and those for whom fasting and penance are seldom out of season. The most accomplished ascetics have been the wanderers (sunnyasins ) of ancient India and the anchorites of fourth-century Egypt. One sunnyasin held his arms above his head with fists clenched until the muscles in his arms atrophied and the nails grew through his palms. It is said that the anchorite St. Simeon Stylites tied a rope tightly around himself until it ate into his body and his flesh became infested with worms. As the worms fell from his body he replaced them in his putrefied flesh, saying, "Eat what God has given you."

Behind such ascetic practices usually lies the philosophical theory of "asceticism," a theory that demands and justifies this unnatural way of life. Although the term ascetic was originally applied to any sort of moral discipline, it has since acquired a narrower and more negative meaning. Asceticism may now be defined as the theory that one ought on principle to deny one's desires. Asceticism may be partial or complete. Partial asceticism is the theory that one ought to deny one's "lower desires," which are usually identified as sensuous, bodily, or worldly and are contrasted with more virtuous or spiritual desires. Complete asceticism is the theory that one ought to deny all desires without exception. Asceticism may also be moderate or extreme. Moderate asceticism is the theory that one ought to repress one's desires as far as is compatible with the necessities of this life. Extreme asceticism is the theory that one ought to annihilate one's desires totally.

History

The belief that austerities (tapas ) burn away sin was a product of the non-Aryan tradition of ancient India. This belief persisted, and austerities were recommended by the yogis and the Jains. All orthodox systems of Indian philosophy agreed that the goal of life is liberation (moksa ) from this world of suffering, and most maintained that the renunciation of worldly desires is necessary for liberation. Although the Buddha tried and rejected austerities, his principle that the cause of suffering is craving led later Buddhists to advocate renunciation and even to practice austerities. The Jains held that liberation is possible only when one has annihilated all passion, because passion attracts karma, believed by this sect to be a subtle form of matter that holds the soul in bondage.

Asceticism seems to have entered Western philosophy from the mystery religions that influenced Pythagoreanism about the end of the sixth century BCE. Although Greek ethics was predominantly naturalistic, Plato sometimes argued that one ought to repress the bodily desires in order to free the soul in its search for knowledge. Some Cynics renounced worldly desires in order to pursue virtue in independence. The early Stoics defined emotion as irrational desire and held up the ideal of the apathetic man in whom all emotions had been annihilated. Plotinus emphasized the ascetic side of Plato's philosophy and claimed that matter is the source of all evil.

This undercurrent of asceticism rose to the surface in medieval philosophy with its emphasis on religious otherworldliness. The foundations of this asceticism were laid by such theologians as St. Athanasius, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Ambrose, and even St. Augustine. They believed that the desires of the flesh should be repressed in order to achieve moral virtue and the contemplation of God. Their view molded the monastic institutions that were established in the fourth century. Virtually unchallenged, this asceticism remained a potent influence on religious life until the Renaissance.

Of modern philosophers, only Arthur Schopenhauer has been an important advocate of asceticism; he would have one completely annihilate the will to live in all its manifestations. Jeremy Bentham and Friedrich Nietzsche have each criticized asceticism from very different standpoints.

Arguments for Asceticism

The arguments for asceticism fall into three main classes. First, there are those that attempt a direct justification of self-denial. Although some of these arguments might justify a complete asceticism, they have traditionally been used to support only a partial asceticism. (1) We know by some authority that one ought to deny one's lower desires. One authority is the Bible, in which we find both express ascetic commandments and examples like those of the Virgin Mary and the celibate Christ. (2) The sacrament of penance requires the denial of worldly desires. Although one is cleansed of original sin by baptism, subsequent sins must be expiated by penance; the best way to make penance more than a formal ritual is to express repentance in a life of self-denial. (3) By undergoing the suffering of self-denial, one is taking up the cross of Christ. Since Jesus came into this world as a model for all men, all men ought to share in his redemptive suffering. (4) People ought to deny their lower desires to prove their virtue, for the ascetic life is a test of devotion to God, and those who pass the test will win a heavenly reward. (5) The suffering of self-denial is required by our guilt. Since every person has sinned, the retributive theory of punishment requires that every person suffer. By inflicting pain upon oneself, one balances the scales of justice and lifts the guilt from one's soul. (6) Self-denial is valuable because it develops certain character traits such as persistence and self-discipline, which are essential to living well.

The second class of arguments attempts to justify denial indirectly through a criticism of the lower desires. Since these criticisms are aimed only at certain desires, they can support only a partial asceticism. (1) The lower desires cost too much to satisfy. Gratification must be purchased with great effort, and perhaps these desires are insatiable, so that no expenditure of effort will gratify them. (2) The lower desires are misguided, for their objects are really evils or, at best, indifferent things. In either case, no genuine value is realized by fulfilling one's desires. (3) Although the objects of the lower desires are good, they are much less good than higher values like virtue, knowledge, or heaven. Since an individual's time and energy are limited, one ought not to allow these lower desires to distract from the pursuit of what really matters. (4) The lower desires are intrinsically evil. Since they turn people away from God and his commands toward earthly objects, they are infected with the sin of pride. (5) Although not sinful in themselves, the lower desires do motivate one to sinful actions. Thus greed may tempt a person to steal, and lust can lead to adultery. (6) These lower desires interfere with the pursuit of knowledge, which is essential for the good life. They interfere either by causing an agitation that destroys one's power of reasoning or by fixing one's attention on sensory objects that distract from the transcendent reality.

The third class of arguments also attempts to justify asceticism indirectly through a criticism of desire per se. Since these arguments are aimed at all desires, they support a complete asceticism. (1) Schopenhauer argued that desire, by its very nature, can yield nothing but suffering. Desire springs from a lack and consists in a dissatisfaction. When it meets with hindrances, it produces nothing but frustration, because it cannot attain its object; when it does attain its object, it produces nothing but boredom, because desire ceases with fulfillment and leaves one with an undesired object. Since desire necessarily involves dissatisfaction, frustration, and boredom, the only escape is by the annihilation of all desire. (2) The Buddhists and the Jains maintain that one ought to annihilate desire in order to achieve liberation from this world of pain. A person must destroy all desire because desire is the cause of rebirth into this world. For the Buddhist, desire causes rebirth because, being selfish, it causes selfish actions; these, by the moral law of karma, cause rebirth in painful forms. For the Jain, desire magnetizes the soul so that it attracts karmic matter which, by the physical laws of mechanics, weighs down the soul and causes it to be reborn into this lower world of pain.

Arguments against Asceticism

It is much harder to classify the traditional arguments against asceticism. Many of them attack some presupposition of the doctrine. (1) Many, but not all, forms of asceticism require a dualism of mind and body. The various philosophical difficulties with metaphysical dualism therefore tend to undercut asceticism. (2) Ascetic practices are often recommended as a means of freeing the soul from the body so that it can contemplate the truth. Actually these practices make knowledge in all its forms impossible because self-denial produces frustration, uneasiness, and pain, which make clear thinking difficult, and self-mutilation destroys the bodily health that is the physiological basis of thought. (3) Asceticism usually assumes that desires are like little animals inside the self that grow when they are fed and wither when they are starved. Freudian psychology, however, reveals that one does not destroy a desire by suppressing it but that the desire continues to exist and to exert itself in new and usually devious ways. Hence ascetic practices may not be an effective means of annihilating or even of controlling desire. (4) Ascetic practices are often thought to be a means to, and even a guarantee of, moral goodness, but in fact they are no protection against vice. The ascetic may become complacent in his confidence in his ascetic practices; he may become proud of his ascetic achievements; and he may even despise others who are less accomplished in asceticism. (5) The religious arguments for asceticism frequently assume that God requires one to renounce available goods and even to inflict harm upon himself, but this is inconsistent with the benevolence of God. (6) There is also a religious argument against the view that bodily desires or worldly objects are essentially evil. Both this world and human nature must be good, because they are creatures of a Creator who is perfectly good.

Another group of arguments is pragmatic in nature. (1) As Bentham pointed out, asceticism cannot be consistently practiced because it runs counter to the basic motives in human nature. Since the function of morality is to guide conduct, asceticism is incapable of becoming a genuine moral standard. (2) To the limited extent that asceticism can be put into practice, its effects are harmful. It obviously increases the amount of suffering in the world. If Freudian psychology is correct, its attempt to suppress natural desires will result in various neuroses. Finally, it stultifies vitality, produces emotional excesses, and fosters the weakling at the expense of the strong man.

Then there are those arguments that attempt to refute asceticism by showing that it has unacceptable implications. (1) Asceticism condemns worldly concerns and natural impulses. This implies that one ought to abandon all social ties and mortify all family affection, which would be immoral. (2) If it is good for one to suffer, it should be better for everyone to suffer. This implies that a person has a duty to inflict pain on others, but not even the hardened ascetic will accept this. (3) If pleasure is really bad, it would seem that pain must be good. This implies the absurd conclusion that the best of all possible worlds would be the one with the least pleasure and the most pain.

Finally, there is Nietzsche's ad hominem argument. Those who are incapable of living well disguise their impotence and fear by inverting morality in order to excuse their own moral sickness and to restrain the strong men who appear dangerous. Although the ascetic priest condemns the will to power, he uses ascetic ideals as a means of maintaining his own power over the sick herd. Thus an analysis of the psychological origin of asceticism reveals that it is far from a worthy ideal.

Asceticism is the doctrine that one ought to deny his desires. In practice, denial means refraining from the fulfillment of desires and sometimes mortifying the desire by inflicting upon oneself the very opposite of what is desired. This involves abstinence from genuine goods, the frustration of unfulfilled desires, and even self-inflicted pain. Unless one is prepared to accept the view that abstinence, frustration, and pain are intrinsically good, the ascetic life can hardly be defended as an end in itself.

If ascetic practices are to be recommended, they must be a necessary evil, a means to something better. One might regard the ascetic life as a means to liberation from this world of suffering. It would be unrealistic to deny that we all suffer from time to time and that there are those for whom life is mostly suffering. It would be equally unrealistic, however, to deny that for most of us the evils we experience are more than balanced by the genuine values we enjoy. Granted the existence of evil, the obvious expedient is to improve our world rather than to make it even worse by adding the sufferings involved in ascetic practices. If escape were desirable, there is no guarantee that the ascetic life would actually lead to freedom.

One might advocate the ascetic life as a means of pleasing God and winning the eternal bliss of heaven. Asceticism seems most plausible within a religious context. But are its theological presuppositions themselves plausible? Is there really an immortal soul to be rewarded or a God to do the rewarding? Even the believer may reject asceticism on religious grounds. A benevolent deity would hardly have created us with natural desires and then commanded us to deny these very desires and to suffer the consequent evils of frustration and pain.

The ascetic life might be urged as a means to that knowledge which in turn brings the good life. Ascetic practices are supposed to help by freeing the soul from the body. Still, no empiricist would admit that the body, which is the source of all experience, is a hindrance to knowledge, and even a rationalist like Plato concedes that experience reminds reason of the truth. Unless reason is thought of as a disembodied spirit—in which case it is hard to see how the body hinders reason in the first place—it would seem that ascetic practices make one less, rather than more, capable of the clear and sustained reasoning that is required for attaining knowledge.

Finally, the ascetic life might be advanced as a means to virtue. It must be admitted that some desires sometimes cause one to act wickedly, but these same desires also cause one to act virtuously. The sexual desire that can lead to adultery more often leads to conjugal fidelity. Hence there is a double error in regarding sexual desire as evil. It does not always, or even usually, express itself in sinful action; and if adultery is a sin, that is because it does violence to the institution of marriage, which is itself an expression of sex. As this example shows, natural desires are in themselves morally neutral, and to deny desire is to forbid the virtuous act as well as the sin. Instead of being a means to virtue, self-denial is actually a vice. Virtue requires at least prudence and benevolence, but the ascetic is imprudent in abstaining from available goods and in even inflicting harm upon himself. By concentrating on the cultivation of his own soul through suffering, the ascetic tends to become callous toward the suffering of others and to ignore his obligation to work for their welfare.

The ascetic life is not good in itself, nor is it a means to liberation, divine reward, knowledge, or virtue. It does not follow that one must accept the advice of Callicles to attempt gratification of every desire without regard for temperance or justice. Self-discipline is a genuine virtue, but it denies desire only when this is necessary to achieve an inclusive and harmonious satisfaction. Asceticism goes beyond this point to advocate an unnecessary and pointless denial. The logical conclusion is that asceticism should be rejected.

Bibliography

Ambrose, St. "On Virgins." In Ambrose, translated by Boniface Ramsey. Early Church Fathers. New York: Routledge, 1997.

Ambrose, St. "Letter 59 [63]." In Letters, translated by Mary M. Beyenka. The Fathers of the Church, vol. 26. New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1954. Both the treatise and the letter provide a justification of asceticism on primarily scriptural grounds.

Athanasius, St. "Life of Antony." In Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus, translated by Robert C. Gregg. Classics of Western Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1980. The biography of a model ascetic.

Augustine, St. The City of God Against the Pagans, edited and translated by Robert W. Dyson. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. An attack on the life of the flesh.

Bentham, Jeremy. "Of Principles Adverse to That of Utility." In An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, edited by J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart. London: Athlone Press, 1970.

Blanshard, Brand. Reason and Goodness. New York: Macmillan, 1961. A brief, incisive criticism.

Buddhaghosa. "Chapter 17." In The Path of Purity: Being a Translation of Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga. 3 vols. (1923, 1929, 1931), translated by Pe Maung Tin. Reprint (3 vols. in 1). London: Pali Texts Society, 1975. A brief statement of the view that liberation requires annihilation of desire.

Davids, T. W. Rhys, and C. A. F. Rhys David. "Udumbarikā-Sīhanāda Suttanta." In Dialogues of the Buddha, Part 3. Sacred Books of the Buddhists, vol. 4, edited by T. W. Rhys Davids. 1921. Reprint. London: Pali Text Society, 1977. Criticism of austerities.

Diogenes Laërtius. "Diogenes" and "Zeno." In Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Vol. 2, Books 6–10. Loeb Classical Library. 1925. Limited but helpful information.

Gregory of Nyssa, St. "On Virginity." In Ascetical Works, translated by Virginia W. Callaban. The Fathers of the Church, vol. 58. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1967. A defense of the ascetic life as means to virtue.

Lecky, William E.H. History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne, Vol. 2, 107–148, 164–194. London: Longmans, Green, 1869. A critical history of the rise of Christian asceticism.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals: A Polemic, translated by Douglas Smith. Oxford World's Classics (1996). Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Nietzsche's most sustained criticism of ascetic ideals.

Pantañjali. "Chapter II: Practices." In The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali, translated by Alfred Scheepers. Amsterdam: Olive Press, 2005. Especially Sutras 32 and 43, which give injunctions to practice austerities.

Plato. Phaedo, translated by David Gallop. Oxford World's Classics (1993). Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. An important argument for freeing the soul from the body.

Plotinus. The Enneads, translated by Stephen Mackenna, abridged by John Dillon (1917–1930, 1956). Reprint. New York: Penguin Books, 1991. An influential condemnation of matter.

Reid, J. S. "Asceticism [Roman]." In Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, edited by James Hastings. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1913. An informative survey.

Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Representation. 2nd ed. 2 vols. Translated by E. F. J. Payne. New York: Dover, 1966. A wordy but interesting argument for the annihilation of the will.

Umasvati. That Which Is: Tattvārtha Sūtra, translated by Nathmal Tatia. The Sacred Literature Series, edited by Kerry Brown and Sima Sharma. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1994. The basic document of the Jains.

other works of interest

Brown, Peter. The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. Magisterial survey of early Christian sexual renunciation.

Brown, Peter. "The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity." Journal of Roman Studies 61 (1971):80–101. Explores the role and social function of the ascetic individual within society.

Clark, Elizabeth. Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. Incisive study of early Christian asceticizing hermeneutic of scripture.

Dunn, Marilyn. The Emergence of Monasticism: From the Desert Fathers to the Early Middle Ages. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000. Useful survey of monastic development and transmission from fourth century Egypt to seventh century Europe.

Elm, Susanna. Virgins of God: The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. On the role of women in the development of ascetic traditions and institutions.

Flood, Gavin. The Ascetic Self: Subjectivity, Memory and Tradition. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Comparative study of asceticism and identity formation across time and religious traditions.

Francis, James. Subversive Virtue: Asceticism and Authority in the Second-Century Pagan World. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995. Analysis of the cultural perceptions of asceticism as "deviant" during the period from 121 CE to 217.

Harpham, Gregory Galt. The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1987. Important theoretical consideration of the implications of asceticism on language, text, and meaning

North, Helen. Sophrosyne: Self-Knowledge and Self-Restraint in Greek Literature. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1966. Follows the conceptual development of "self-control" from the Greek archaic period into the Patristic centuries.

Silbur, Ilana F. Virtuosity, Charisma and the Social Order: a Comparative Sociological Study of Monasticism in Theravada Buddhism and Medieval Christianity. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Both a corrective and extension of Weber's pioneering work on religious [ascetic] virtuosi.

Theodoret of Cyhrrus, St. History of the Monks of Syria, translated by Richard M. Price. Cistercian Studies Series, no. 88. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 1985. Contemporary history of the peculiar ascetic behaviors of the early anchorites of Northern Syria.

Valantasis, Richard. "Constructions of Power in Asceticism." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 63 (1995): 775–821. On the reconstitution of subjectivity, social dynamics, and symbolic meaning through performative behaviors.

Wimbush, Vincent L., and Richard Valantasis, eds. Asceticism (1998). Reprint. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Very useful reference tool spanning periods, traditions, and religions.

Carl Wellman (1967)

Bibliography updated by Brent A. Smith (2005)

Encyclopedia of Philosophy