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Most Christians today rarely question the notion that material wellbeing is a goal worth pursuing. Particularly to those of us in the affluent West it appears peculiar that people would voluntarily choose poverty as a way of life. Here at the end of the twentieth century we find the ancient practice of asceticism a strange phenomenon; to us it often looks as much like self-torture as self-discipline.

Who were these Christians who shunned the world’s comforts in order to pursue holiness? Did they not believe—as we do—that the Christian life can be pursued while still living a reasonably conventional life? Their answer was a definite “no,” and they found their reasons why in what they considered the mandate of Jesus in the New Testament.

The early Church took root within Judaism, which is not an ascetic religion. The Jews believed that creation was a good gift of God, given to man to enjoy. To deliberately deny oneself the pleasures that come from prosperity was to appear ungrateful. King Solomon was remembered as much for his wealth as for his wisdom, and Abraham and Job were archetypes of the wealthy man who is a friend of God.

Jesus was not an ascetic. His critics contrasted his lifestyle with John the Baptist’s, who lived on wilderness food and wore crude clothing. They accused Jesus, by contrast, of being a glutton and a “wine-bibber.” Not that he was such, but his behavior was conventional enough to contrast with John’s. Still, Jesus had harsh words for the rich who worshiped their possessions. He claimed it was “easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” On at least one occasion he told a rich man to sell all he had and give the money to the poor. Yet Jesus called people to a God-centered life of self-denial and self-control, not a thoroughgoing asceticism. However some later Christians believed this was what he taught.

Persecution of Christians began fairly early, as we see in the New Testament. Official persecutions carried out by Rome were sporadic, but they were widespread enough that many believers became martyrs. Early on, Christians developed a reverent tradition surrounding those who died for their faith. It was considered the greatest honor to give up one’s life and thus to die for, and with, Christ. Martyrdom was the ultimate sharing in the sufferings of the Savior.

Not everyone, of course, was called to martyrdom, but sufferings of other sorts were inevitable. Christians were regarded with suspicion, and as scorners of imperial religion they had no social prestige and little chance for social advancement. They were often sneered at by their pagan neighbors, so suffering for Christ was a common occurrence. In such a context there was little call for voluntarily taking new burdens on oneself.

With the conversion of the Roman emporer Constantine (ruled 312–337), the Church’s situation changed drastically. Martyrdom was no longer a threat, and Christianity gradually changed from a persecuted minority cult to a respectable religion with state toleration and favor (whether by offical proclamation is unknown and debated). When the masses started to pour into the Church in the fourth century, it became harder and harder to distinguish the Christians from everyone else. What had been a religion of the dispossessed became the religion of the many. Faith became “easy,” and sincerity became less common. For the zealous, the answer was to withdraw from a Church that had compromised with the worldly empire. This was how monasticism began.

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