Subversive Virtue: Asceticism and Authority in the Second Century Pagan World.

by James A. Francis Pennyslvania State University Press, $32.50, 222 pp.

Ascetism (Greek: askesis) meant, in the anient world, the self-denial demanded of those who wre in athletic training. it took on the added sense of a philosophy of life which prized moderation, withdrawal from the competitive world, a dietary regime, frugality in style of life, and a spirit of detachment. Toward what end? For some, like the Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius, it was a mean toward a rational life. For others, like some devotees of Cynic philosophy, it was a vehicle for both social criticism and a "deconstruction" of the prevailing mores of a society.

James Francis points out, in a very well-written and closely argue work, that the second-century Roman Empire was the highpoint of the pagan ascetical movement. A close look at that movement tells us a good deal about a number of very interesting issues: why the Christians were persecuted; about the underpinnings of the anti-Christian polemics coming from a writer like Celsus at the end of the second century; and as a matrix for understanding the phenomenon of monasticism which is basically a late third-century movement flowering in the fourth. A final reason why the subject is interesting, even if our author only touches on it in passing, has to do with the claims of certain biblical scholars that there is a parallel to be found between the life of Jesus and that of some of the wandering Cynic philosophers.

Francis devotes separate chapters to a close reading of the works of Marcus Aurelius, Lucian, Apollonius of Tyana, and Celsus. He argues that there was a two-tiered polemic going on in these works. One was the conviction that a certain sensible askesis led to a balanced and rational life which led to an appreciation of traditional moral norms and social stability. It was from that position that some polemicized against, for instance, the Christians who were seen as irrational, undermining Roman pietas, and disturbers of the social order. Francis does not hesitate to say that this view, expressed by Marcus Aurelius, not only contributed to the severe persecutions of the third century but was a philosophical worldview that lent itself to a totalitarian view of politics.

By contrast, the wandering Cynics, with their show of alleged miraculous powers, their disdain for conventional living, and their propensity to stir up people against social norms, were deviants worthy of the most strenuous condemnation. Lucian's Death of Peregrinus, for example, sketched the "character type" of such a charlatan (Peregrinus is linked to the Christian movement) in order to mount a vicious polemic against them. Celsus in his True Doctrine (which we know only through citations from his third-century antagonist, Origen), in fact, vilified Jesus for being just that kind of rabble-rouser.

In his concluding chapter, Francis notes that the rise of Christian monasticism in the fourth century can be seen as an institutionalization of the anarchic impulses brought forth from a following of the Gospels' "hard sayings." Meanwhile, conservative Christians wanted to harmonize the "hard sayings" by spiritualizing them.

In dialogue with, and commenting upon, the works of such noted scholars as Robin Lane Fox, Peter Brown, Patricia Cox, Elizabeth Clark, and others, Francis has written an illuminating work. He throws light on asceticism, the development of the monastic charism, and one matrix out of which Christianity was given shape. I liked this book very much.