Asceticism for Society—Integrating Body, Soul and Society. In Searching of the ‘Real Self’ that Actually Is ‘Clothed with Christ’

Abstract

The greatest challenge which is facing Christian civilization and culture today is the following: The atrophy of spiritual senses. So, we can ask ourselves, What are the most effective steps that we can take to overcome this challenge The answer lies in the early Christian ascetics (patterns from antiquity can be a response to modernity). In this chapter I explore how Christian asceticism can be made relevant to a modern culture in which the idea of “ascetic holy man” has lost much of its power. Regarding the model of holy man, many scholars continue to assume that a distinction must be made between an ascetic and a monk, as every monk is an ascetic, but not every ascetic is a monk. Peter Hatlie says that “Although spiritual authority and “the holy” remain fertile topics for discussion among early Christian and late antique scholars, it receives considerably less attention from Byzantinists working in the generations to follow” (Hatlie in Portraits of Spiritual Authority. Religious Power in Early Christianity, Byzantium and the Christian Orient. Brill, Leiden, 1999, p. 195). In the context of the perceived disintegration of the secular world, monks showed how ascetic renunciation of the world could provide a new style of civic leadership. Susan Ashbrook Harvey manages to capture the relationship between ascetism and society in this way: “During the fourth century monasticism flowered across the Christian realm, and with it a critical role for the ascetic – the holy man or woman – to play in society. By their discipline and their conscious imitation of biblical models, especially from the Gospels, the ascetics enacted the image of Christ. To the public this was more than imitation: in the image of Christ, the holy one could do what Christ had done. The ascetics could intercede for divine mercy, and they could be instruments of divine grace in this world; they were a channel between humanity and God that worked in both directions. The ascetic was the point at which the human and the holy met. Often seen as an attempt to leave the worldly for the spiritual, asceticism in fact carried heavy responsibilities in relation to the larger Christian society” (Ashbrook Harvey in Asceticism and Society in Crisis: John of Ephesus and The Lives of the Eastern Saints. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1990, pp. 20–21). In the desert St. Anthony the Great redefined the ascetic as one who fights with the Adversary face-to-face, in the desolate and un-Christianized wilderness. Antony made “the desert a city”, sanctifying a place where God had not been present. And he did more: he brought that strength back into Christian society. By the sixth century, the ascetic’s role in society had both expanded and become an orderly part of how society functioned. “We should seek holiness, not clothing, food and drink”, says St. Neilos the Ascetic, because “possessions arouse feelings of jealousy against their owners, cut off their owners from men better than themselves, divide families, and make friends hate one another […]. Why do we abandon hope in God and rely on the strength of our own arm, ascribing the gifts of God’s providence to the work of our hands? Job considered that his greatest sin was to raise his hand to his mouth and kiss it (Job 31:27)” (St. Neilos 14, in Philokalia 1, 1979, p. 208). Now when bodily concerns predominate, “everything in man is asleep: the intellect, the soul and the senses” (St. Neilos 16, in Philokalia 1, 1979, p. 210), and this indicates the state of one whose reason is closely absorbed in physical things. John the Baptist lived in the wilderness and the population of entire towns came out to him; the miraculous life of this humble desert-dweller is acclaimed until this day, and his memory is greatly revered by all. For “the renown of holiness is eternal, and its intrinsic virtues proclaim its value” (St. Neilos 20–21, in Philokalia 1, 1979, p. 214). But false teachers are blind to such examples, and arrogantly tell men what to do. For in their foolishness they have extinguished the light of contemplation. So their contemplative understanding is immediately destroyed.