Early Christian Asceticism

1. Ascetics in the Bible: Nazirites, John the Baptist.

2. Ascetics in early Judaism: the Qumran community

3. Solitary and communal monasticism: Antony and Pachomius.

Duccio, The Temptation of Christ

(1308-11).

Nazirites in the OT• Consecrated to God and made the following vows:

– Abstained from wine– Did not cut their hair– Avoided contact with the dead body

“The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the Israelites and say to them: When either men or women make a special vow, the vow of a nazirite, to separate themselves to the LORD, 3 they shall separate themselves from wine and strong drink;.. 5 All the days of their nazirite vow no razor shall come upon the head; until the time is completed for which they separate themselves to the LORD, they shall be holy; they shall let the locks of the head grow long. 6 All the days that they separate themselves to the LORD they shall not go near a corpse. 7 Even if their father or mother, brother or sister, should die, they may not defile themselves; because their consecration to God is upon the head. 8 All their days as nazirites they are holy to the LORD. (Laws of ritual purification follow). Numbers 6: 1ff.

Essene settlement in Qumran (second c. BC-first c. AD)

• Lived in an isolated community founded by the “Teacher of Righteousness”

• Rejected Temple worship• Massacred by Romans in 68 AD.

Dead Sea Scroll Jar from Qumran

John the Baptist

“Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.”

Mk 1: 6.

NT call to perfection

• Matthew 19:21: If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." (cf. Evagrius, Praktikos 97)

• 1 Corinthians 7:1-2, 7: ‘It is well for a man not to touch a woman, but because of cases of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. . . This I say by way of concession, not of command. I wish that all were as I myself am.’

Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity

• “Therefore, having the hope of eternal life, we despise the things of this life, even to the pleasures of the soul, each of us reckoning his wife whom he has married according to the laws laid down by us, and that only for the purpose of having children. For as the husbandman throwing the seed into the ground awaits the harvest, not sowing more upon it, so to us the procreation of children is the measure of our indulgence in appetite. Nay, you would find many among us, both men and women, growing old unmarried, in hope of living in closer communion with God. But if the remaining in virginity and in the state of an eunuch brings nearer to God, while the indulgence of carnal thought and desire leads away from Him, in those cases in which we shun the thoughts, much more do we reject the deeds.”– Athenagoras, A Plea for the Christians, XXXIII.

Antony the Great (251?-356)

• founder of solitary monasticism

• his call

• Athanasius’ Life of St. Antony became a model

Leaving everything behind…

St Antony & St Paul the Hermit

Matthias Grünewald. St Anthony Visiting St Paul the Hermit in the Desert. 1512-1516. Oil on panel. Musée d'Unterlinden, Colmar, France.

Life was not peaceful all the time...

Demonic hordes attack St Antony

Reasons for the rise of monasticism

1. Call to personal holiness.2. Renewal movement within the church.3. Smart way to avoid taxes.

Eusebius on Two Ways of Life:

• Two ways of life were thus given by the law of Christ to His Church. The one is above nature, and beyond common human living; it admits not marriage, child-bearing, property nor the possession of wealth, but wholly and permanently separate from the common customary life of mankind, it devotes itself to the service of God alone in its wealth of heavenly love!.. And the other more humble, more human, permits men to join in pure nuptials and to produce children, to undertake government, to give orders to soldiers fighting for right; it allows them to have minds for farming, for trade, and the other more secular interests as well as for religion: and it is for them that times of retreat and instruction, and days for hearing sacred things are set apart. And a kind of secondary grade of piety is attributed to them, giving just such help as such lives require, so that all men, whether Greeks or barbarians, have their part in the coming of salvation, and profit by the teaching of the Gospel.– Eusebius, Proof of the Gospel, i. 8.

St Antony’s monastery. Founded in 356.

St. Pachomius (290-346)

• Founded a monastery at Tabenninsi in Egypt about 320 AD

• Wrote the first monastic rule

• At death presided over 9 monasteries for men and 2 for women

Pachomius & David of Thessalonica (right)

Main features of Pachomius’s monastery

• Enclosing wall

• Gate-house

• Guest-house

• Assembly Hall (church or synaxis)

• Refectory with Kitchen

• Hospital

• Several houses with cells for monks

Monastery of Anba Hatre in Egypt (established at the end of the 4th c.)

Anba Hatre. Plan of the monastery.

Main Church (11th c.; remains)

A Cell with Stone Beds

Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai.

Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai