A. K. Chidgzey

Asceticism comes from the Greek word askeo, which means to work or to exercise. Basically doing what you can to the best of your ability. And so asceticism is about training your self to attain a spiritual goal. It’s all about self-discipline and avoiding indulgence.

The idea became connected to morality and spirituality, that is training to attain wisdom or intellect or a mystical union with the divine.

This involves denying one’s lower desires – that which is bodily or sensual. By which I mean, having to do with the senses. It’s the denial of worldly goods and anything that feels good.

Plato – deny the physical self to free the soul.

Prevalent in traditions the stress the transitory nature of life.

Meditation is a very big part of this, stilling your mind to focus on that which is beyond the self.

Siddhartha Gautama attained nirvana beneath the Bodhi Tree, overcoming his desires and ego to become the Buddha, the Awakened One.

Some were prohibited from washing or personal grooming, some lived in seclusion.

In Christian tradition it was about imitating Christ. Jesus taught about fasting, a practice also found in Greek rituals and in Islam. Some Syrian monks fasted from sleep. He taught about the renunciation of worldly possessions, to deny the self and take up our cross.

Paul compared the Christian life to that of an athlete.

In the early years, martyrdom was romanticized and idealized.

Monasticism grew in the 3rd century, and orders developed. The Desert Fathers, Alexander the Akoimetos, Benedict of Nursia, Thomas a Kempis, Ignatius of Loyola, Theresa of Avila.

Some practiced self-flaggelation.

During the Protestant Reformation, Protestants generally rejected monasticism but not necessarily asceticism, at least not the concept of self-discipline and denying oneself of worldly pleasures.

Anabaptists sought perfectionism. There was a group of Lutherans known as Pietism, some Calvinists in England known as Puritans, and John Wesley’s holiness movement grew into methodism, because they were very methodical.  

Overall, there are various degrees of asceticism. Some extreme and some which is just about living a good life that reflects Christ. It is about:

The call of God and of God’s enabling grace

Forsaking sin and Following Christ

Surrender to God’s will in faith

Self-discipline is enormously important, and denying yourself something in the immediate to attain something greater in the long run, is a virtue. In fact, in Stoicism this self-discipline is one of the four central virtues.

I am a big fan of Stoic approaches to life and discipline, as well as the Buddhist notion of the Middle Way, which is basically finding a balance in life between extreme asceticism and over-indulgence.

I think the practices of quiet prayer and meditation – though not for seven straight weeks – practicing moderation and self-discipline, trying not to focus on the external but to cultivate the internal, and to follow Christ’s way, especially the divine imperative of loving others, are a good way to live.