Ascension Day, or Holy Thursday, a festival of the church held in commemoration of the ascension of our Lord, forty days after Easter, and ten before Whitsuntide. Augustine (Ep. 54,) supposed it to be among the festivals instituted by the apostles them- selves, but it was not observed in the church until the third century. It is also noticed in the Apostolical Constitutions, It is especially observed in the Roman < hurch, and also, though with less form, in tl>e Church of England. It is one of the six days in the year for \\ hich the < 'hurch of England appoints special psalms. — Bingham, Orig. Eccl. bk. xx. cap. (I, § 5; Procter, On th Common Prayer-book, ip. 288.
Ascension ok Isaiah. See Isaiah.
Ascent (some form of tlhv, alah' , to go up, as elsewhere often rendered), 2 Sain, xv, 30; 1 Kings, x, 5 ; 2 ( hron. ix, 4. See Akrabbim ; Causeway.'
Asceterinm (aoKnrhpiov), the place of retreat of in later times, often applied to monasteries. — Suicer, Thesaurus, s. v.
Asceticism, Ascetics. The name cmk>)->)c (from aoKiw, to exercise') is borrowed from profane writer-, by whom it is generally employed to describe the athletes, or Hi' 11 trained to the profession of gladi- ators or prize-fighters. In the early Christian church the name ua> given to sueli as inured themselves to greater degrees of fasting ami abstinence than other men, in order to subdue or mortify their passions. See
Exercise. The Christian ascetics were divided into ubstinetUts, or those who abstained from wine, meat,
and agreeable food, and cont'nentes, or those who, ab- staining from matrimony also, were considered to at- tain to a higher degree of sanctity. Many laymen as well as ecclesiastics were ascetics in the first cvnturies of our era, without retiring on that account from the business and bustle of life. Some of them wore the pill 'rum philosophicum, or the philosophic mantle, and were therefore called Christian philosophers, and form- ed thus the transition link to the life of hermits and monks. Romanist writers pretend that the ascetics were originally the same with monks : the monastic life, however, was not known till the fourth centurv (Pagi, Crit. in Bar. A.D. 62, N. 4). The difference between ascetics and monks may be thus stated : 1. The monks were such as retired from the business and conversation of the world to some desert or mountain ; but the ascetics were of an active life, living in cities as other men, and only differing from them in the ar- dor of their devotional acts and habits. 2. The monks were only laymen ; the ascetics were of any order. 3. The monks were bound by certain laws and disci- plinary regulations ; but the ancient ascetics had no such laws. The habits and exercises of the ascetics may nevertheless be regarded as the introduction of monasticism. The root of asceticism in the early Christian ehurch is to be found in a Gnostic leaven, remaining from the early struggle of the church with Gnosticism (q. v.). The open Gnosticism was crush- ed ; but its more seductive principle was imbibed, to a large extent, even by the best of the church fathers, and remained to plague Christianity for hundreds of years in the forms of asceticism, celibacy, monasti- cism, and the various superstitions of the same class in the Pomish Church. That principle makes the "con- ditions of animal life, and the common alliances of men in the social system, the antithesis of the Divine perfections, and so to be escaped from, and decried by all who pant after the highest excellence." See Taylor, Ancient Christianity, vol. i, where this subject is treated at length and with great mastery of both history and philosophy. See Abstinence; Fast- ing; Monks.
As soon as the inward and spiritual life of the Chris- tians declined, the tendency to rely on external acts and forms increased ; and if the previous bloody per- secutions had driven individuals from human society into the deserts, the growing secularization of the church, after Christianity became the state religion, had the same effect to a still greater degree. All this paved the way for monasticism (q. v.) ; and the church thought herself compelled by the overwhelming tide of opinion within and without to recognise this form of asceticism, and to take it under her protection and care. From the African Church a gloomy and super- stitious spirit spread over the Western Church, intensi- fying the ascetic tendencies. ' There were not wanting healthier minds — as Vigilantius (q. v.) and others — to raise their voices against fasting, monkery, and the outward works of asceticism generally ; but such pro- tests were vain, and became ever rarer. From the 11th century, the Cathari, Waldenses, and other sects assailed the external asceticism of the church ; the classic Petrarch fought on the same side ; and so did Wickliffe, Hubs, and Jerome of Prague, in their strug- gles at reformation. After a preliminary skirmish by Erasmus, the struggle was decided in the Reformation of the 10th centurv. The fundamental principle of that movement, that salvation is secured by justifica- tion through faith, and not through dead works, struck at the root of monkery and mortification in general. But the victory has not been so complete as is often assumed. The ascetic spirit often shows itself still alive under various disguises even in Protestantism. See Shakers. The great error of asceticism is to hold self-denial and suffering to be meritorious in the sight of (bid, in and for itself. Its germinant princi- ple, in all ages of the church, has been, as stated