Asceticism

[See ASCETIC.] State or practice of ascetics. - Among the Greeks, the word A. was at first applied to those athletes and wrestlers who were accustomed, by rigid abstinence from all sensual and enervating indulgences, to harden their bodies for the personal competition in the public games; but it soon came to bear a deflected, or secondary meaning. Among the Stoics and Cynics, it became applied to that severe discipline to which those persons subjected themselves, by mastering their pa ions and appetites for the sake of that ideal virtue sought for by them all. It was afterward applied by the Christians to all who wrestled with Satan, with the world, and with the flesh, and thus endeavored to exalt themselves by a severe course of personal renunciation above this world, where they were strangers and sojourners. But the earliest ascetics we read of had an Eastern origin. The Brahmins, and other sects in Asia, carried this practice to a monstrous extent, even long before authentic history begins. The yogis and fakeers of the present time, the suicides in the sacred Ganges and under the wheels of the car of Juggernaut, are only a repetition, in a civilized age, of what was done by their remote ancestors long anterior to any authentic record we have of the country. The Buddhists, who for the most part dwell considerably to the E. of India, carried the principle of A. to an extreme height. They despised the world; lived a life of solitude and beggary; mortified the flesh, and abstained from all uncleanne . And so they do at the present day. In the early centuries of Christianity, the adherents of the comparatively new religion were more exemplary for purity of morals than for the practice of ascetic severities. But, before long, in Egypt and elsewhere, they endeavored to escape from the sinful world in which they lived, and by fasting and prayer sought for divine aid around the shores of Lake Marœtis, and in other parts of the Christian world. A. a umed a more intellectual shape among the Neo-Platonists of Egypt than it has ever done in any other part of the world. Its greatest names are Philo the Jew, the father of the system, Plot in us, Porphyry, Iamb lich us, and Proclus. Philo has left us a history of it in his De Vita Contem plativa. Even in the 2d century of the Christian era we find societies of men and women living together under vows of continence. The tendency to outward manifestation, and to inward and spiritual life, began to decline in Christian communities. This gave rise to the chief manifestation of A., namely, monasticism. - The e ence of A. is to hold self-denial and suffering to be meritorious in the sight of God, in and for itself, without regarding whether it promotes in any way the good of others, or the improvement of the individual's own character. Ascetic practices have been modified in recent times; neverthele , its spirit often shows itself as still alive, even in Protestant ism. In some religious orders of the Catholic Church, as the Carmelites, A. is actually practised in its greatest severity. - See GNOB TICS, . Asch, a town of Austria, in Bohemia, circ. of Elmbogen. Manf. Cottons, hosiery, woollens, . Pop. 8,178. Aschaffenburg, a city of Bavaria, circle of Lower Franc on i a, on the Main, 38 m. N. W. of Würburg, 23 m. E. S. E. of Frankfort-on-the-Main. It has a fine old Gothic church, containing the tombs of the former Electors of Mayence. Trade . Timber, wine, tobacco, and shipbuilding. Pop . (1895) 13,630. Aschersleben, a town of Germany, kingdom of Saxony, 14 m. E. S. E. of Quedlinburg. Manf . linens, woollens, and earthenware. Pop . (1895) 22,865.