Program / Course 20: Spiritual Theology / Lesson 5.2
What you will learn
- Define asceticism and explain the purposes the tradition gives for it.
- Describe the theological basis in the goodness of the body and the hope of resurrection.
- Identify the dangers of asceticism: pride, dualism, harm to health and spiritual abuse.
- Explain the Reformation critique and how the other traditions respond.
The big idea
Asceticism, from the Greek word for training, is the disciplined self-denial that Christians have used to grow in freedom and love. The tradition says its purpose is to loosen the hold of disordered desire, make room for God and serve others, and it bases the practice on the goodness of the body and the hope of resurrection. The same tradition names serious dangers: pride, contempt for the body, damage to health, and the abuse of authority in the name of discipline. Any use of the practice must be tested against these warnings, which come from within the tradition itself.
Key terms
- Asceticism
- A way of life that includes regular self-denial, such as fasting, vigil, simplicity and celibacy, for spiritual training.
- Mortification
- In older Catholic and Protestant writing, putting to death sinful desires (Romans 8:13). It does not mean harming the body.
- Dualism
- The view that matter and body are evil or inferior and spirit alone is good. The church rejected this as contrary to creation and the Incarnation.
- Encratism
- An early movement that condemned marriage, meat and wine as evil. The church’s councils and writers opposed it.
- Scrupulosity
- A condition of excessive anxiety about sin and moral failure, which can be harmed by strict spiritual practices.
- Spiritual abuse
- The misuse of religious authority to control, shame or harm another person.
- Evangelical counsels
- In Catholic teaching, poverty, chastity and obedience, taken as vows by religious. They are understood as ways of following Christ more closely, not as commands for all.
Background
Paul uses the language of athletic training to describe the Christian life: everyone who competes exercises self-control in all things, and he disciplines his body and brings it into subjection (1 Corinthians 9:25-27). He also writes that bodily exercise profits little but godliness is profitable for all things (1 Timothy 4:8), and warns against rules about what not to touch or taste that have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed worship but are of no value against indulgence (Colossians 2:20-23). Both strands are in the tradition.
In the early centuries, ascetic movements grew in the church, from the celibate virgins and widows in cities to the monks of the desert. Some groups went to excess. Encratites in the second century and Eustathius’s followers in the fourth condemned marriage and meat. A local council at Gangra in the fourth century anathematized such teachings, saying that those who despise marriage, or who think that people who eat meat cannot be saved, are in error. The church affirmed from early on that creation is good (Genesis 1:31) and that marriage is honorable (Hebrews 13:4).
This lesson sets the purposes beside the dangers. It builds on the previous lesson on fasting and looks ahead to the lessons on discernment and spiritual direction. It is not a counsel to practice severity, and it notes where medical and pastoral help is needed.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: What asceticism is for
The tradition gives several purposes. The first is freedom: a person who cannot say no to appetites is ruled by them, and training allows a person to choose well. The second is attention: simplicity of life removes distractions and makes room for prayer. The third is repentance and solidarity: self-denial expresses sorrow for sin and unites a person with those who go without. The fourth is love. Basil’s rules and the Rule of Benedict insist that asceticism serves the common life and care for others.
Cassian’s teaching holds that fasting and vigil are tools to reach purity of heart, not goals in themselves. If a person is harsher with themselves and harsher with others, the tools have been misused.
Step 2: The goodness of the body
Christian asceticism rests on a positive view of the body. God made the material world and called it good. The Word became flesh. The church confesses the resurrection of the body. Eastern writers speak of the body as sharing in prayer and being transfigured. Western writers, including Augustine and Aquinas, defended the goodness of creation against dualists.
On this view, the body is not the enemy. What is trained is the disordered will, and the body’s appetites are brought into order so that the whole person can love God and neighbor.
Step 3: The dangers
The first danger is pride. A person who fasts or prays more than others may think themselves better. Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18) warns against this. The second is a hidden dualism, in which the body is despised. The third is physical and mental harm. Simeon the Stylite, a fifth-century Syrian monk who lived for decades on a pillar, drew crowds and admiration, and some contemporaries questioned whether his way was wise. The Sayings tell of monks who destroyed their health and of elders who told them to eat.
A fourth danger is the misuse of authority. Where a leader demands obedience and punishes weakness, ascetic language can cover control and abuse. This has occurred in monasteries, in new movements and in modern churches. The tradition’s response is that obedience must be to a guide who is accountable, and that no guide may command what is contrary to Scripture, conscience or the care of a person’s health.
Step 4: The Reformation critique
Luther, a former monk, concluded that monastic vows rested on a mistaken idea that people could earn merit. Calvin criticized the rules and ceremonies of monastic life as superstition and as burdens on conscience. The Reformers pointed to Colossians 2 and insisted that Christian freedom and the gospel were being obscured. They held that ordinary life, marriage and work are a calling from God (the doctrine of vocation, covered later in the course).
At the same time, Protestant writers kept a place for discipline. Calvin and the Puritans wrote of self-denial, and Wesley kept fasting and rigorous habits. Their question was whether discipline served love and faith or competed with them.
Step 5: How the traditions respond
Catholic teaching holds that the way of perfection requires renunciation, and that the evangelical counsels are a gift, while insisting that the discipline of mortification means dying to sin and not harming the body. Orthodox teachers speak of the royal way, the middle path between laxity and excess, and tell students not to go beyond their guide’s measure. Many Protestants share the aim of discipline within ordinary life, with caution about vows and merit. All three traditions now add that the helping professions should be consulted when practices touch on eating, anxiety or compulsion.
- What do I want to be free from, and do I have a plan that serves that freedom and not only my pride?
- How do I decide whether a discipline is helping or harming me?
- How do I respond to the claim that the body is good?
- Who in my life could say no to me if I took a practice too far?
- Where have I seen religious authority used to control rather than to serve?
- What does it mean to die to sin and live to God without hating myself?
Examples
The middle way
Picture an elder who asks a young monk how he fasts. The monk describes a rigid rule. The elder tells him to keep to the middle path, eating when the body needs food and fasting with thanks, as the desert teaching on discretion advises. (A constructed example in the spirit of the Sayings.)
A harmful routine
A college student begins a religious fast that grows into restricting food most of the week and praising herself for her control. Friends notice she is weak and secretive. A chaplain tells her that this has become something other than prayer and helps her to see a doctor. (A constructed example.)
A leader’s demands
A group leader tells members that doubts are signs of pride, demands strict fasts and punishes those who leave. A former member later says that she thought of this as discipline, but that it was control. The tradition’s tests of fruit, accountability and respect for conscience are the way to tell. (A constructed example.)
Different perspectives
Catholic
The Catechism teaches that the way of perfection passes through the cross and requires renunciation and spiritual combat, and calls mortification a way to freedom. The Church honors a long tradition of religious life, and also condemns heresies that despise the body or marriage. Church authorities have in recent decades acknowledged abuses of authority in religious communities.
Orthodox
Orthodox teaching values ascetic effort as the work of the whole person to cooperate with grace, and sets it in the life of the church and under a guide. The Fathers insist on moderation and warn against self-chosen severity. Orthodox writers reject the idea that the body is evil, citing the Incarnation and the resurrection.
Protestant
The Reformers rejected ascetic practices as a way to merit and criticized monastic vows. They taught that ordinary callings are holy and that discipline is to serve faith and love. Many Protestants today rediscover forms of discipline, with attention to their danger when they become works of self-righteousness.
Scholarly view
Historians of religion note that extreme asceticism appears in many cultures, and that early Christian ascetics were shaped by both Jewish and Greek traditions. Scholars debate how far some early ascetic practice reflected dualistic ideas, and how much it expressed a protest against social conditions. They also stress that ascetic movements sometimes gave women unusual freedom and sometimes restricted them.
Why it matters
The tradition of asceticism is neither to be dismissed as hatred of the body nor to be copied uncritically. Seeing both its purposes and its documented harms helps a student evaluate practices fairly, protects against abuse and builds the habit of asking whether a discipline serves love.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Christian asceticism despises the body.
Correction: The tradition’s best teachers insist on the goodness of creation, the Incarnation and the resurrection of the body, and reject groups that taught otherwise.
Misunderstanding: The Reformers rejected all discipline.
Correction: They rejected discipline as a way of earning merit and vows that bound conscience. They kept self-denial, fasting and watchfulness as part of the Christian life.
Misunderstanding: Suffering is always spiritually good.
Correction: The tradition distinguishes chosen, measured discipline from needless harm. Neither Scripture nor the Fathers command a person to injure their health.
Misunderstanding: Obedience means doing whatever a spiritual leader says.
Correction: Teachers insist that a guide must be accountable and cannot demand what contradicts Scripture, conscience or health. Obedience that serves abuse is not what the tradition describes.
Knowledge check
What does askesis mean, and what is it for?
It is the Greek word for training. In Christian use it names disciplined self-denial aimed at freedom from disordered desire, attention to God, repentance and love. The tradition insists it is a means and not a goal, and that it should leave a person kinder and not harsher.
What is the theological basis for treating the body as good?
Creation is called good in Genesis 1, the Word became flesh in the Incarnation, and the church confesses the resurrection of the body. These teachings led the church to condemn dualist groups that despised marriage, food or the body, as the Council of Gangra did.
Name three dangers of asceticism.
Pride, in which a person thinks themselves better for their discipline, dualism, in which the body is despised, and harm to health or the abuse of authority in the name of obedience. Every tradition names these and says the remedy is humility, moderation, accountability and care.
What was the Reformers’ main objection?
They held that monastic vows and ascetic works were often treated as ways of earning merit and that rules bound conscience, against the freedom of the gospel (Colossians 2). They affirmed ordinary life as a calling, though they kept self-denial and fasting as aids to faith.
Think it through
- What is the difference between disciplining yourself and punishing yourself?
- How do you recognize spiritual abuse, and what protections would you want?
- What would a discipline look like if it were entirely for the sake of love?
Independent assignment
A test for a discipline
In your notebook, write 350 to 500 words. Using this lesson, draft a short list of questions you could use to test any ascetic or devotional practice (for example: does it make me kinder, does it harm my health, is someone able to correct me). Then apply the questions to one practice you know of, your own or another’s, without naming private persons. If any practice involves food, anxiety or compulsion, mention seeking professional help as part of the test. Do not share this with anyone.
Further study
- John Cassian, The Conferences Read Conference 2 on discretion, which warns against excess.
- Benedicta Ward, trans., The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection Look for sayings about moderation and about elders who told monks to eat.
- Benedict of Nursia, The Rule of St. Benedict Notice Benedict’s concern in chapters 39 to 41 for moderation in food and drink.
- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion Read the chapters on monastic vows and Christian freedom.
- 1 Corinthians 9:25 Everyone who competes exercises self-control.
- 1 Timothy 4:8 Bodily exercise profits little.
- Colossians 2:23 Self-imposed worship of no value against indulgence.
- Hebrews 13:4 Marriage is honorable.