The idea underlying religious asceticism has no doubt been derived from several different sources. It should first be noticed that certain ascetic practices have originally been performed for another purpose, and only afterwards come to be regarded as means of propitiating or pleasing the deity through the suffering involved in them. This, as we have seen, is the case with certain fasts, and also with sexual asceticism.[88] When an act is supposed to be connected with supernatural danger, the evil (real or imaginary) resulting from it is readily interpreted as a sign of divine anger and the act itself is regarded as being forbidden by a god. If then the abstinence from it implies suffering, as is in some degree the case with fasting and sexual continence, the conclusion is drawn that the god delights in such suffering. The same inference is, moreover, made from the fact that such abstinences are enjoined in connection with religious worship, though the primary motive for this injunction was fear of pollution. Beating or scourging, again, was in certain cases originally a mode of purification, intended to wipe off and drive away a dangerous contagion either personified as demoniacal or otherwise of a magical character. And although the pain inflicted on the person beaten was at first not the object of the act but only incidental to it, it became subsequently the chief purpose of the ceremony, which was now regarded as a mortification well pleasing to the god.[89] This change of ideas seems likewise to be due both to the tendency of the supernatural contagion to develop into a divine punishment in case it is not removed by the painful rite, and also to the circumstance that purification is held to be a necessary accompaniment of acts of religious worship. The Egyptian sacrifice described by Herodotus was combined with purificatory fasting as well as beating.[90] Among the Jews, before the commencement of the fast of atonement, whilst a few very religious persons undergo the penance of flagellation, “some purify themselves by ablutions.”[91] And that the original object of the scourging mentioned in the Yasts was to purify the worshipper is suggested by the fact that he on the same occasion had to wash his body three days and three nights.[92] But it should also be remembered that religious exaltation, when it has reached its highest stage, may express itself in self-laceration;[93] and the deity is naturally supposed to be pleased with the outward expression of such an emotion in his devotees.
[88] See infra, [p. 420 sq.]
[89] Frazer, Golden Bough, iii. 217 sq.
[90] Herodotus, ii. 40.
[91] Allen, op. cit. p. 407.
[92] Yasts, x. 122.
[93] See Hirn, Origins of Art, p. 64.
An ascetic practice may also be the survival of an earlier sacrifice. We have seen that this is frequently the case with fasting and almsgiving, and the same may hold true of other forms of asceticism.[94] The essence of the act then no longer lies in the benefit which the god derives from it, but in the self-denial or self-mortification which it costs the worshipper. In the sacred books of India “austerity” is mentioned as a means of expiation side by side with sacrifice, fasting, and giving gifts.[95]
[94] Cf. Tertullian, De resurrectione carnis, 8 (Migne, op. cit. ii. 806).
[95] Gautama, xix. 11. Vasishtha, xx. 47; xxii. 8. Baudháyana, iii. 10. 9.