Ascetic Moods in Greek and Latin Literature

Abstract

Abstract It has been said that there is no word in French for "home" and none in British English for the American "home town." Similarly, there is no word in Greek for "asceticism," even though the word itself is derived from the Greek. The explanation is the same in all three cases: that the concept is in each case peculiar to the culture in which the word belongs. In our case, "asceticism" is a concept peculiar to the Christian culture of late antiquity. Since its history and development in this and other less closely related cultures will be the business of other contributors to this conference, I shall hope only to give some indication of how that use of the word derived from its earlier use in classical Greek literature.