Deborah Casewell: The Joy of the Saints: Habit and Practice in early Christian Asceticism

As Christian asceticism has involved self-renunciation and decreation, it has been characterised as privative, negative, and self-destructive. Yet the writings of Christian ascetics are replete with accounts of joy, in their actions and their emphasis on union with God. Within early Christian asceticism the goal and aim of the discipline is joy in union with God through renunciation of the self, in contrast to the Graeco-Roman tradition of askesis, the training that an athlete would undergo. Thus because of the goal oriented character of asceticism, it is eudaimonic, but the crown of the ascetic life would be joy, rather than the goal of an athletic achievement or happiness, as delineated by Aristotle.In order to fully explore the vision of joy that the Desert Fathers and Mothers seek, the paper aims to explore the particular habit and practices found in the early Christian desert ascetic tradition. How, for these Desert Fathers and Mothers, does the pursuit of both union with God and apatheia play out practically? What do the links between habit, practice, and desire in the desert ascetics reveal about their own account of the training they were called to, and the joy that they sought?