Ascetism: an endangered value? Mutations of ascetism in contemporary monasticism

Abstract

This article seeks to understand the shifts which are affecting monastic asceticism in modern society. Is monastic asceticism really changing and in which terms? Why has the place of the body in religious virtuosity changed? As religious virtuosity is based on ascetic practices, we cannot consider that monastic life nowadays has totally eschewed asceticism. So we have to understand the new sense given to this traditional religious practice. It seems that both asceticism and the place of the body in monastic life are changing. Rather than a decline of asceticism, it is more accurate to say that its meaning is being redefined and it becomes more intellectual than physical. At the same time, the body acquires a new position: from mortification to self-fulfilment, it becomes a new ally—and no longer an enemy—of monastic life. So, is asceticism an endangered value? Yes, in the sense that it is no longer a religious value, as was proved by monks who said they are not ascetics, or the nun who said that her community lives a ‘non-ascetic asceticism’. However this does not mean that it has disappeared. The practice of asceticism is necessary to religious virtuosity, but the way to practise it and to define it has been changing, and this is contingent on other evolutions of the religious system and of society. The new kind of asceticism which monks are living nowadays is mainly intellectual asceticism.

Full text

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ISABELLE JONVEAUX
Asceticism: an endangered value?
Mutations of ascetism in contemporary monasticism
At the conference, held in May, for the millennium of the Abbey of Solesmes
in France, I asked an old abbot of the congregation of Subiaco: ‘Are you
an ascetic?’ and he answered me: ‘No!’ as if it were a real mistake to consider
it. Yet it is usually taken for granted that monastic life means asceticism, and
Max Weber writes that monks are professional, virtuosi of asceticism:
As the exemplary religious individual, the monk was the rstprofession-
al,at least in those orders that practised rationalized asceticism, most of
all the Jesuit order. e monk lived in a methodical fashion, he scheduled
his time, practised continuous self-control, rejected all spontaneous en-
joyments and all personal obligations that did not serve the purposes of
his vocation. (Weber 1978: 1172–3, italics in the original.)
In Weber’s books, religious virtuosity is especially dened by asceticism. Early
monasticism was actually a real struggle against the body, as the stylites, or
desert monks, show us, but this is no longer a kind of monastic life we can
observe. So, in the face of these observations, some questions come to mind:
Is monastic asceticism really changing and in which terms? Why has the place
of the body in religious virtuosity changed? As religious virtuosity is based on
ascetic practices, we cannot consider that monastic life nowadays has totally
eschewed asceticism. So we have to understand the new sense given to this
traditional religious practice.
e research I am going to present here is only at its beginning and I ask
more questions that I give answers. In this article, I will seek to understand
the shis which are aecting monastic asceticism in modern society. Aer
having stated some facts which demonstrate the decline of asceticism, I will
make some assumptions about the reasons, religious and social, which can
explain it. Finally, I will discuss the apparent disaection with this practice,
compared to a new goal of self-fullment that monks want to aim for in mo-
nastic life.

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Asceticism: an endangered value?
The decline of monastic asceticism
To start with, we have to explain what asceticism exactly is. Here is a deni-
tion by Max Weber:
Salvation may be viewed as the distinctive gi of active ethicalbehav-
iour,performed in the awareness that god directs this behaviour, i.e., that
the actor is an instrument of god. We shall designate this type of attitude
toward salvation, which is characterized by a methodical procedure for
achieving religious salvation, as ‘ascetic’. . . . Religious virtuosity, in ad-
dition to subjecting the natural drives to a systematic patterning of life,
always leads to the control of relationship within communal life, the con-
ventional virtues which are inevitably unheroic and utilitarian, and leads
further to an altogether radical religious and ethical criticism. (Weber
1963: 164–5.)
For the rst ascetics, who were famous in society for their performances,
we could think that asceticism is their purpose. But this is not entirely true.
Asceticism is theoretically only a tool used in achieving the aim of a more
perfect religious life. It is meant to control the body in order to make it be
quiet, so as not to disturb the contemplation of God. Ernst Troeltsch says that
‘asceticism always remained simply one element among others; it never be-
came the logical expression of Christian morality’ (Troeltsch 1992: 104), and
he underlines that when it becomes a goal, it is suspect for the Church. All the
mortications of these rst ascetics aimed to combat sexual desire because
they thought they were able to overcome it. Some monks threw themselves
into cold water, or fasted over many days. But this struggle was not the aim:
they wanted to be closer to God and to go beyond original sin, as it will be in
paradise.
Its drastic physical changes, aer years of ascetic discipline, registered
with satisfying precision the essential, preliminary stages of the long return
of the human person, body and soul together, to an original, natural, uncor-
rupted state (Brown 1988: 223).
A monk wants to concentrate his being totally on God, but organic func-
tions escape from him, because human judgement has no place in this.
Monasticism wants, consequently, to regulate and control these functions,
giving a place for judgment and, in particular, religious judgment. According
to Max Weber, monastic asceticism

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ISABELLE JONVEAUX
has become a systematically formed method of rational living, its aim
being to overcome the status naturae, to release man from the power of
irrational impulses, and from dependency on the world and nature, to
subject him to the supremacy of the purposeful will and to subordinate
his actions to his own continual control and to the consideration of their
ethical consequences (Weber 2002: 81).
Asceticism does not forbid human functions, but rationalizes them. So, we
can say, as a denition, that asceticism is a religious rationalisation of organic
life.
It must be underlined, as I said before, that monks are theoretically profes-
sionals of asceticism. When I went into monasteries to pursue my inquiries I
had present in my mind this denition of the classical sociology. But I noted
that monks did not speak about asceticism if I did not take it up directly. It
was revealed that monks do not need this concept to dene their own life. In
addition, reading the commentary of the rule of Saint Benedict by the spe-
cialist Adalbert de Voguë, a French monk, I discovered a strange armation:
‘asceticism no longer makes sense in your life’ (Voguë 1977: 321). is amaz-
ing contradiction deserves therefore to be interrogated, to understand what is
going on with this traditional characteristic of monastic life.
According to de Voguë, this monastic life discipline is organized around
three main pillars, which are; food, sleep and sexuality. And before going
further in explaining the meaning of asceticism in modern monastic life, we
may note quantitative changes in these practices. e rule of Saint Benedict
denes the correct amount of food and drink which can be given to monks.
More precisely, Saint Benedict recommends to monks not to eat meat: ‘Except
the sick who are very weak, let all abstain entirely from eating the esh of
four-footed animals’ (Voguë 1997: Chapter 24). Nevertheless, many commu-
nities eat meat nowadays even during Lent, as I was able to observe in an
Italian community. Like other people in society, actual monks do three meals
a day, and sometimes an aernoon tea. In this sense, we can conclude that
food asceticism is weakening in regard to the recommendations of the rule.
e second observation concerns sleep. e early monks of the desert
prayed throughout the night in order to be ready at any time to welcome
Christ if he appeared. is is why monks of the Middle Ages awoke once or
twice during the night to pray. Christ says ‘pray in order to not enter into
temptation’ (Matt. 26:41); this is what monks want to do. e oce of the
night takes usually place, according to the Rule of Saint Benedict (see Voguë
1977), between 1 and 2 a.m. Although the rule has not been modied, it is

189
Asceticism: an endangered value?
very rare that the rst oce takes place before 5 or 6 a.m. in modern monas-
teries.
At least, concerning corporeal exercises, some instruments of mortica-
tion, such as discipline, cilice and so on, are no longer used in the majority
of monasteries. I say ‘in the majority’ because I visited a monastery where a
monk told me that they may use it if they want to, but it is exceptional today. If
monks wish to use these methods, they have to ask permission to do so from
the abbot, but these practices are no longer imposed on the whole community.
Monks in early Christianity lived without any comforts and maintained puru-
lent wounds in order to share the suerings of Christ on the cross. From the
h century onwards, when, with Constantine, Christianity loses its status
of persecuted religion, ‘the asceticism relieves the martyr’ (Kleinberg 2005:
152). It takes the form of what was called ‘a non-bloody martyr’ (Guy 1987:
15). So it was a form of martyrdom which was imposed by the individual on
his own body, any external pressure is put on him. But this is no longer true,
a modern monk does not impose wounds on his own body deliberately. is
kind of asceticism can be called an asceticism of imitation, because it aims to
imitate the Christ. It is a reproduction of his life and his suerings. e other
one consists of an exercise which aims to compel the body to focus only on
God’s contemplation, what is not natural.
A modern monk eats meat, sleeps until 5 a.m., consults the internet and
has heating in his cell: putting all this together, we can say that monastic as-
ceticism is declining from a quantitative point of view. If we refer to the rst
ascetics, the Fathers of the Desert were indeed professionals of asceticism.
Mortications were at the heart of their life. We can quote a great number of
histories, where, for example, monks lived on a column, refused all types of
food, or ogged themselves.
Beyond these ancient practices, asceticism is mostly a discipline aiming
at dening a perfect religious life. Asceticism nally concerns everything that
could come between the monk and God. e body and the spirit have to be
tamed by asceticism. In the early days of of ascetic practice, it was thought
that the spirit was directly inuenced by the body’s humours.
The reasons for mutations of asceticism
To face these quantitative shis, this research seeks to understand the main
causes of this evolution. We argue that this quantitative decline in asceticism
does not mean that monks are no longer virtuosi, and that they live the good

190
ISABELLE JONVEAUX
life. In order to understand what is really taking place in monastic life con-
cerning the body, we have to investigate three kinds of inuence which are
changing asceticism in monastic communities. e rst one takes place in
the monastic life in itself; other changes concerning the community inuence
the way asceticism is practised. e evolution of the religious system, just as
the general evolution of society, have furthermore, implications for asceticism
and its meaning in monastic life.
To start with, asceticism takes place in the monastic system and it can be
inuenced by other changes in monastic life arising from modernity. In the
secular society, gis are no longer sucient for the subsistence of monaster-
ies. In addition, in France monks have to pay social contributions to the state.
As a result, economic autonomy is no longer possible and monks have to
develop ecient activities which can supply them with money in order to live
and pay the social contributions. So monastic work is undergoing massive
changes, and transformations aecting monastic work also have an impact on
the way asceticism is practised. Work indeed is in the Rule of Saint Benedict;
the rst tool of asceticism by the implication of body that it supposes. It is
the only physical activity in monastic life and in tiring the body, it constitutes
an equilibrium with contemplation. e human body is not adapted to the
rigours of remaining in continuous contemplation and it needs this physical
equilibrium. Nowadays monastic work must be competitive on a global mar-
ket. For these reasons, monks use new technologies to increase their ecien-
cy. And because of computer work, which is sedentary, monks do not have
any physical activity and as a consequence, the ascetic dimension of work is
no longer corporeal. A French monk I interviewed said: ‘Computer work is a
work which is becoming more and more important in a monastery. But it is
a sedentary work, there is no physical eort. It does not have the equilibrium
value of manual work.’ Computer work is dissolving the physical equilibrium
given to work and in this way it can no longer have this hygienic role, as Max
Weber puts it. Consequently the use of information technology in religious
community is considered by monks as an abdication of asceticism in order to
address constraints of eciency and protability.
Material evolution in monastic life can explain why asceticism is chang-
ing. But more relevant are changes of the meaning given to asceticism. is
evolution is not peculiar to monastic ethics, but is a factor in the global re-
ligious system, which is undergoing massive changes. e Christian religion
was based on eschatological salvation and sin, forming a system described by
a process of asceticism–mortication–sin–eschatological salvation. Feeling
guilt was at the heart of the relationship between God and the human being.

191
Asceticism: an endangered value?
To work for salvation meant praying and repenting in order to expiate sins in
the service of a God who judged humanity. And this expiation was mainly a
physical act. In the same way as Jesus had suered on the cross, man had to
suer to show his gratitude and continue to expiate his sins.
e rst step which occurs in the redenition of this whole system is the
change from a severe God to a God who is love. In my doctoral dissertation
I compared the vocabulary used in medieval homilies of Saint Bernard and
current homilies from the French television mass. We can see here the results,
and the importance taken by the term ‘love’ and how the term ‘salvation’ is
collapsing. At the time of Saint Bernard, salvation was a common topic which
was oen tackled. By contrast, priests today do not speak about this topic in
their homilies. e believers have stopped being concerned with their salva-
tion, mostly because it is no longer mentioned to them.
If God, as father, loves humanity, he cannot wish that it suers because of
him: this God does not condemn his children and relegate them to Hell, but
forgives them everything. Yves Lambert notes that ‘the theme of Pope John
Paul II is not focused on salvation in the hereaer, which he almost never
speaks about, except for in terms of the resurrection, but on the construction
of a “civilisation of love” ’ (Lambert 2000: 19). In addition, Lambert noted
that the rate of confessions has been falling rapidly between 1952 and 1974 in
France: in 1952, 15 per cent of Catholic people said they went to confession
at least once a month, and only 1 per cent in 1974 (Lambert 1985: 259). is
indicator reveals the way God is represented in society. In this system, morti-
cation or penitence are no longer necessary since goods of salvation can be
obtained without suering. Monastic spirituality is not independent of the
global evolution of the religious system and only one nun in all my inquiries
spoke about work as penitence. In the Middle Ages noble families gave some
of their children to monasteries, so that they could work for the salvation of
all the family. Monks today entering into the religious life do not make their
Saint Bernard “Jour du Seigneur”
French television mass
Number of
homilies
Percentage
of homilies
Occurrences Number of
homilies
Percentage
of homilies
Occurrences
Love 19 34.50 54 45 81.80 202
Salvation 27 49 48 10 18.20 18
Total 55 55
The vocabulary used in medieval and current homilies.

192
ISABELLE JONVEAUX
choice in order to be sure to be saved. eir rst work is not to ensure their
salvation, but to live already with God.
Ascetic practices have to be resituated from the perspective of the evolu-
tion of a global society. Food asceticism, for instance, reects the status of diet
in society. At the time of writing of the monastic rules, scarcities and famines
were current. at is why, if monks wanted to live in poverty and chastity,
in order to testify that God is more important, they had to have a very strict
diet. Meat was a symbol of abundance and wealth, and to refuse it armed
the ethics of poverty. In addition, a link was thought to exist between food
and fornication, and this was particularly true for meat, which had the power
to cause excitation in the body. Food frugality was, according to Cassius, the
ground of all monastic asceticism, because diet is the means of overcoming
fornication and therefore is the origin of the causal chain (Foucault 1994:
297). e food limitation of monks thus takes root in this social background,
which is nowadays very dierent. e question of food became commonplace
in western society; the fear of seeing it drying up gave place to that of excess.
In this context, food asceticism will mean eating less than society—but not
less than the body needs—and especially eating healthy and simple food.
Concerning sleep asceticism, the same uctuation can be observed ac-
cording to social characteristics of this activity. Léo Moulin points out that in
the Middle Ages everybody got up very early, at dawn, so if monks wanted to
have an exemplary life, they had to awake at a moment when everybody else
still slept (Moulin 1978: 30). at is why the rst oce was at 1 a.m. Changes
in asceticism are contingent on the evolution of society, but we can observe
that monks always live a degree of comfort below that of society. us, we
cannot speak about asceticism without referring to society: the lifestyle of a
society establishes a sort of yardstick by which the degree of asceticism can be
measured. Moreover this ensures plausible practices, which they will not be if
they are relatively too hard.
It is relevant to notice that the change in ascetic practice in monastic life
has both material and rational reasons. So, if two of these three main pillars
of asceticism—food and sleep—are no longer considered to be a pertinent
means of perfection, maybe we have to search for them in another place.
What is the best way to achieve religious perfection nowadays?

193
Asceticism: an endangered value?
From asceticism to self-fullment
Young people in modern society do not enter monastic life to become ascetic.
ey do not decide to suppress their desires or self-aspirations, but to concen-
trate them on God, aiming at self-realization.
I may emphasize that we are witnessing a shi in emphasis in the per-
ceived meaning of asceticism. For the Fathers of the Desert, asceticism was
above all an exercise of suering: it aimed at wounding the monk in his esh;
blood owed from wounds that monks did to themselves for the glory of
God. is is no longer plausible in modern society, due to the new image of
God. As Peter Berger says, ‘the peculiar Christian theodicy of suering lost its
plausibility’ (Berger 1969: 125). More than a disappearance of asceticism, it
is voluntary corporeal suering which has le monastic life. But asceticism is
actually not necessarily a form of suering. A French monk of Landevennec
told me that asceticism does not necessarily mean penance, harshness. For
him, to live in community is an exercise which is not easy: this is an ascetic
practice which is not physical suering. In entering into religious life, monks
seek to reach self-fullment, which can be reached for them by the religious
vocation. When they say ‘yes’ to God, they do not agree to have a life of com-
punction, it represents for them the best way to realize themselves. Danièle
Hervieu-Léger underlines that ‘the world renunciation is perceived as an ac-
cess . . . to the self-fullment’ (1986: 11) by society, even it would not live it!
e second point is that such practices were considered in the Middle
Ages as incentives to God. In medieval spirituality the practice of the ‘fast is
a joining with famine, death, and hunger. It is a choosing of lack that induces
God to send plenty: rain, harvest, and life’ (Bynum 1987: 39). e modern
rationalisation of religion has suppressed incentives to God which man gen-
erated thanks to his hardships. Modern asceticism is no longer directly aimed
at obtaining salvation, it is not perceived as a gi to God to make him grant
salvation.
Asceticism is therefore not disappearing, but transforming into intellec-
tual practices and no longer corporeal suerings. is reveals a change in
emphasis concerning the body in the religious system. Although the early
Christian religion rehabilitated the body in comparison with the Ancient
phil osophies, the condemnation of the body increased gradually until the
Middle Ages when, according to Jacques Le Go and Nicolas Truong, the
‘body was despised, condemned, humiliated’ (Le Go & Truong 2003: 11).
e key point was virginity, which increased in value when sexuality lost its
dignity. Conversely, the body in monastic life nowadays is no longer denied,

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ISABELLE JONVEAUX
as the products of cosmetics and of activities of well-being prove very well.
I have not yet mentioned sexual asceticism in current monastic life. At rst
sight it seems to be the least changed aspect because sexual asceticism is still
very clearly observed. But with the same result, the sense given to this kind of
asceticism has actually changed. Not denying desires of the body, monks try
to express them in a religious way. e body is no longer hostile to religious
life, as well as the soul, it has its place in monastic life and particularly in
prayer, as a means to communicate with God. e weeks of ‘dance and prayer’
or ‘yoga’ proposed in monasteries prove how the body is acquiring a new
place in the religious sphere.
Self-fullment is increasing in monastic life, but it does not mean that
will replace asceticism. More precisely, the body in modern monastic life is
no longer an object of suering but of fulllment; it is no longer the way to
penitence but the way to prayer and to glorify God. As we said before, how-
ever, asceticism is necessary to religious life in order to achieve a self-mas-
tery for contemplation and to give meaning to all acts of religious life. us
asceticism, as an exercise, has not disappeared from monastic life; however
it is now not physical, but intellectualized. A nun armed that they high-
light more an inner asceticism than a corporal asceticism and a monk from
Solesmes said that asceticism for him consists, above all, in accepting what
we are—our human and biological condition with our limitations. According
to Otto Zöckler, a theorist of asceticism in religious history, two kinds of as-
ceticism can be discerned: a ‘negative method of abstention’ (Zöckler 1897:
6–8)—which concerns sex and food asceticism in particular—and a positive
method, which is essentially an intellectual asceticism, adopted in order to
focus the spirit on the contemplation of God. is second kind of asceticism
seems to be the most widespread today.
Conclusion
In conclusion I would say that this paper is only an introduction to an ongo-
ing research project and there is still a lot of work to do. But I am convinced,
with Giuseppe Giordan, that ‘the body is a privileged observation point for
following the changes that are taking place within the contemporary religious
eld’ (Giordan 2009: 227). According to classical sociology, asceticism de-
nes religious virtuosity, so it is one of the main dimensions of monastic life.
is is why it is very relevant to study these changing practices, which can
engage a redenition of religious virtuosity. Putting all these quantitative and

195
Asceticism: an endangered value?
qualitative shis together, it seems that both asceticism and the place of the
body in monastic life are changing. Rather than a decline of asceticism, it is
more accurate to say that its meaning is being redened and it becomes more
intellectual than physical. At the same time, the body acquires a new position:
from mortication to self-fullment, it becomes a new ally—and no longer an
enemy—of monastic life.
So, is asceticism an endangered value? Yes, in the sense that it is no longer
a religious value, as was proved by monks who said they are not ascetics, or the
nun who said that her community lives a ‘non-ascetic asceticism’. However
this does not mean that it has disappeared. e practice of asceticism is neces-
sary to religious virtuosity, but the way to practise it and to dene it has been
changing, and this is contingent on other evolutions of the religious system
and of society. e new kind of asceticism which monks are living nowadays
is mainly intellectual asceticism. e monastic body is the sublimated body
of the resuscitated Christ—it does not suer any longer but can express emo-
tions, such as love of God. is body communicates with God through prayer,
and blooms. At this point, whereas the ascetic body was only a tool to perfect
contemplation, this expressive body can become an aim. And nally, asceti-
cism in modern monastic life remains a way to conduct monastic life, but it is
no longer directly correlated with salvation.
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