! Ascetic Theology Before Asceticism. Jewish Narratives

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Journal of the American Academy of Religiondoi:10.1093/jaarel/lfl001 The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the American Academy ofReligion. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]

Ascetic Theology BeforeAsceticism? Jewish Narrativesand the Decentering of the SelfLawrence M. Wills

The study of early Christian asceticism, which formerly focused strictlyon ascetic practices, has been transformed in recent years. In addition toascetic practices, scholars analyze the discourse of asceticism, whichemphasizes the decentering of the self, the problematizing of the personsability to govern the body and be considered righteous before God.Although this approach has pushed back the origins of ascetic discoursesin Christianity, the decentering of the self can be observed in Qumrantexts. In the present article this ascetic discourse of the decentered self is

traced in other pre-Christian Jewish texts and in an unexpectedcontextnovelistic texts. This approach allows for an exploration of lit-erary, ritual, and ascetic aspects of the texts, and some consideration isgiven to the social context of these important developments.

IT IS HARDLY SURPRISING that scholars of early Christianity havefocused so strongly on asceticism. Renunciation of the bodys desires forfood, sex, warmth, or sleep dominated much of the churchs religious lifefrom the third century on. As Goehring (1997) describes these spiritual

practices,

Lawrence M. Wills, Talbot Professor of Biblical Studies, Episcopal Divinity School, 99 Brattle Street,Cambridge, MA 02138.

I first presented some of the ideas found here at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting,23 November 1998, and in a lecture at Brown University, 12 February 2000; I would thank those whoresponded in both venues. I am also very much in debt to Andrew McGowan, Carol Newsom, JoanBranham, David Frankfurter, Laura Nasrallah, Allen Kerkeslager, Richard Valantasis, David Brakke,and J. Albert Harrill, as well as two anonymous readers ofJAAR, for responses and pre-publication

drafts of their work at various stages in the development of this paper.

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Monks extended their fasts to the entire week, mixed ashes with theirfood, slept standing up, burned fingers rather than give in to sexualdesire, subjected their bodies to harsh physical discomfort and pain as

acts of contrition. One hears of those who wore hair shirts or chains,who lived naked, who wandered, begged, and ate grass. (129)

Scholars of asceticism have understandably focused upon developedascetic practices such as these from the third century and after, with lessattention to the asceticism to be found in Jewish, Greek, Roman, or evenfirst- or second-century Christianity. But this is partly because scholarshave often employed a narrow definition of asceticism and sought torestrict it to those practices that are indicative of an entire lifestyle set

apart: fasting as a continuous discipline of spiritual transformation or thecelibacy that is intended to last throughout life, especially when lived sep-arate from society in a convent, monastery, or in the desert.

A number of recent developments, however, have re-defined asceti-cism, pushed the discussion of this phenomenon earlier in Christian his-tory, and allowed for the investigation of asceticism in Roman, Greek,and Jewish contexts. First, Michel Foucault (1997) dramatically altered thelandscape by describing Christian ascetic acts as a means of discipliningor even remaking the self. The focus shifted from external ascetic practices

to technologies of the self, or decentering the self, what ElizabethCastelli calls transformative work on the self (2004: 235, n. 27). Inmodern and postmodern thought, decentering of the self arises whenthe human being becomes aware that views of reality that place the selfat the center of the plane of consciousness are socially constructed.Foucault succeeded in showing that a similar decentering occurred on amoral plane in early Christian asceticism: the self on its own is not capa-ble of self-mastery and meeting the requirements of a moral life. To makea simple distinction, Greek self-mastery (enkrateia) presumed a self that

was fully capable of ordering and controlling itself, a self-centeredview. The decentered self, on the contrary, is acutely aware, by a sort offracturing of the psyche, that the self stands condemned and unworthy,in need of a more radical redemption.

A further turn in the investigation of western asceticism was initiatedby Geoffrey Galt Harpham (1987, 1992). In his analysis, asceticism is notjust a radical deprivation practiced by a few outside the bounds of soci-ety; it should be viewed as a wider cultural phenomenon that is present inall cultures. Where there is culture, says Harpham, there is asceticism

(1987: xi). Developing Max Webers idea (1992) of an inner-worldlyasceticism (or better, a this-worldly asceticism), Harpham argues thatall sorts of acts of renunciation can be seen as ascetic if they involve

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Wills: Ascetic Theology Before Asceticism? 3 of 24

silencing the demands of the body and questioning or even condemningthe self as it stands, that is, decentering the self as an adequate controllingfaculty of morality. Far from moving outside of culture, asceticism

defines the boundaries of culture and is also part of the ideology of every-day life. As a result, Harpham does not marginalize asceticism as strange,aberrant, or pathological, but points out the purposeful action of asceti-cism, and emphasizes that asceticism is correlated to the problematizing,unsettling, or decentering of the old self and the construction of a newself in its place. And it can be supremely rational: one is trading comfortnow for a spiritual goal in the future. Foucault (1986; 1997) andHarpham have thus enabled scholars to think about a broader array ofascetic practices. Following upon the work of Foucault and Harpham,

Castelli (1991: 358; 2004: 707) and Richard Valantasis (1995a,b) tookup this broader definition, describing asceticism as the creation of a newsubjectivity. And whereas Castelli argued that the roots of Christianasceticism should be investigated in the second and third centuries C.E.,over a century before Foucault wanted to begin the discussion,1 here wewill find that the analysis should be pushed back two centuries beforethat, and in a Jewish rather than a Christian context.

One can see why scholars of Jewish, Greek, and Roman history hadnot previously emphasized asceticism. The extent of ascetic practices in

these cultural worlds paled in comparison to the high period of Christianasceticism. The ascetic practices found in the Hebrew Bible, for exam-ple, are few. There is at most an occasional, ad hoc, or preparatoryasceticism. Fasting and sexual abstinence are not regularly practicedbut are only engaged in as preparation to come before God. In factasceticism, and in particular continuous fasting and celibacy, is oftendeclared to be a form of spirituality alien to Judaism; if it occurred atall, it was an aberration. Ephraim Urbach (1975: 1214) argued thatasceticism presupposes a Platonic, dualistic conception of mind and

body, with the goal of transcending the body. The rabbis, by contrast,focus on impurity and the sanctification of everyday life, with noattempt to overcome the confining bonds of the body (Cohen 1989;Moore 1958: 2.26366; Urbach 1975: 4478). The rabbinic doctrine ofthe resurrection of the body (on which see Stroumsa 2005) may have

1 Castelli (2004: 71, 77), Elizabeth Clark (1999: 1827). Lefkowitz (1985) suggests that Foucaultrelied too heavily on philosophical texts and not on other windows into popular belief and practice.

True enough, but the question of the place of the earlier Jewish texts in this process remainsparamount. See also Wyschogrod (1995: 989), Cameron (1986), and the suggestive butundeveloped comments of Stroumsa (2005: 183): Foucault sought the Christian techniques of theself in Greek philosophy but ignored the Jewish background.

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served to keep body and soul together in everyday Jewish practice.Although an article by Steven Fraade (1986) opened the door to a seriesof investigations on the occasional examples of rabbinic celibacy, to be

fair to Urbach, these discussions have uncovered only a few passages andeven fewer celibate rabbis (Biale 1992b; Boyarin 1993: 67, 345, 467,1346; Diamond 2004; Satlow 1995: 31520).

Urbachs conclusions about Platonic dualism might lead one toassume that asceticism resulted from a Hellenistic influence on earlyChristianity. But in the Greek tradition as well there was little of interestin the way of continuous ascetic discipline, only occasional fasting andcelibacy, especially for priests and priestesses, as preparation for ritualsacrifices. This is the same sort of preparatory asceticism encountered in

the Hebrew Bible: athletes in training for the Olympic games, whosepreparation included a thirty-day period of vegetarian diet andabstention from sex, and the fast of the women who participated inthe Thesmophoria festival of Demeter. Only a few groups in the Greekand Roman worlds, such as the Orpheus cult, the Pythagoreans, theeunuch priests of Artemis, and the Vestal Virgins practiced ascetic disci-pline to any extent. When practiced too fervently, asceticism was viewedwith suspicion (Elizabeth Clark 1999: 1427, esp. 19; McGowan 1999:6981, 25767; Parker 1983: 281307; Stowers, 1995: 330). Platos dual-

ism of mind and body certainly laid the groundwork for ascetic theol-ogy, but we cannot say that Christian asceticism simply resulted from aHellenic-Platonic intervention in a Jewish sect.

Something else happened. Around the turn of the common era, inGreek, Roman, and Jewish culture, there can be seen an increase in thenumber of new groups who exhibit ascetic practices. Pythagoreanismfinds a rebirth in Neopythagorean strictures on diet and sacrifice, mys-tery religions involved preparatory fasts and abstinences, and theCynics advocated a lifestyle of cultural resistance that has been called a

rejection of the symbolic centre of society (McGowan 1999: 737;Vaage 1992). Among Jews as well in this period, certain groups adopteddeveloped ascetic practices. The Essenes at Qumran and the Therapeu-tae/Therapeutrides in Egypt were separatist Jewish communities thatpracticed various forms of asceticism, and Josephus even volunteers,with no hint of the exotic, that for three years he had been a disciple toa hermit named Bannus (Life 11). Other instances of Jewish asceticpractices have been catalogued by scholars (Hoenig 1957; Horsley 1979;Lowy 1958). Even where we lack direct references to these practices we

note that Christian polemical statements are illuminating: Matthew,Luke, Didache, and Tertullian are all involved in debates on Jewish fast-ing practices, and in the process give us important information about

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them.2 Furthermore, we should not forget that the negative statementsconcerning fasting found at Sir 34:31 or in the Talmud (b. Ta`an. 11a, b.Bat. 60b) also indicate that other Jews were engaged in these acts. Refer-

ences to Jewish ascetic practices in the Greco-Roman period thus remainmurky but intriguing.

THE DECENTERING OF THE SELF IN JEWISH TEXTS

The newer developments in the study of asceticism have now beenapplied to pre-rabbinic Judaism. Carol Newsom has pointed out that theHodayot or thanksgiving psalms from Qumran also begin to reflect adecentered self. Knowledge of the mysteries of God is constantly

asserted, but by a speaker who is also aware of his own depravity (1992:1517; see also 2005: 21926):

I am a creature of clay, and a thing kneaded with water,a foundation of shame and a well of impurity,a furnace of iniquity, an edifice of sin,a spirit of error, perverted, without understanding,and terrified by your judgments of righteousness. (1QH 9:2122; see also1QH 5:2021)

The Hodayot reflect the theology of the core Qumran texts: sectarian sep-aration, the awareness of human depravity, and the double predestina-tion of the saved members and the damned outsiders. Newsom refers tothis extreme confession of depravity as the masochistic sublime (2005:220). However, the decentered self is not simply a more extreme aware-ness of depravity. There is in addition a split between I as subject andme as object: the speaking voice judges itself, even recoils in horrorfrom itself. The decentered self is characterized by an out-of-self experi-ence, in which the self views and condemns itself. One might say that thepercipient self is viewing itself from Gods perspective and only in thisway can be saved. Newsom rightly emphasizes the distinction betweenthe decentered self of the Qumran hymns and the centered self of thepenitential psalms of the Hebrew Bible.3 The biblical Psalms reflect a

2 Mt 6:1618, Lk 18:12, Didache 8.1, Tertullian, On Fasting16. Latin authors of the period note theimportance of Jewish fasts, but the references also reflect much misinformation: Tacitus, Histories5.4, Suetonius,Augustus 76.3.

3 Ricoeur (1967) in general internalizes a Christian perspective and assumes a level of confessionand guilt in the Hebrew Bible, even though at pages 2379 he seems to recognize a distinction. Atany rate, his notion of confession and guilt (78, 1023, 1067, 128, 14650, 2359) is a descriptionof a decentered self.

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centered self that acknowledges sin without emphasizing depravity, whilethe extreme focus on depravity at Qumran serves to unsettle the self. Thedecentered self is distinguished from mere self-consciousness or even the

penitence of the biblical psalms. It is not the body or even sin that is theproblem, but the self realizes that the self must be remade.

This focus on the decentered self allows us to turn from evidence forJewish practices to discussions of Jewish literary depictions in narrativesof self-abnegation and self-criticism. The ideals of self-abnegation andtransformation that are typical of asceticism can also be found in Jewishnovelistic literature. In fact, the literary presentation of Jewish identitycombined ritualand asceticthemes, a three-point convergence that hasbeen overlooked by scholars of literature, ritual studies, and asceticism

when these areas were studied separately.Between about 200 B.C.E. and 100 C.E., a number of Jewish narra-

tives appeared which were probably read as fictitious entertainments(Wills, 1995, 2002). In this category are the Septuagint version of Danielor Greek Daniel (with its additions of Susanna, Bel and the Dragon,and Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Jews), Tobit, the Septu-agint version of Esther or Greek Esther (with its additions of, amongother things, Mordecais and Esthers prayers), Judith, and The Marriageand Conversion of Aseneth (or Joseph and Aseneth). Although they may

have arisen out of oral narrative traditions, they are characterized in theirtextual forms by narrative techniques adapted to a written medium. Theyare like the Greek novels in many ways, but in fact the early ones pre-datethe Greek novels by over a century. Although we will never know thescope of the audience of these texts, the number of different novels, aswell as the variant versions of each, coupled with the fact that there wasnever any institutional reason to produce them, all suggest that thesetexts were popular literature. Fragments of novelistic texts found atQumran were in fact copied in smaller scrolls than the others, what one

scholar refers to as the paperbacks of antiquity (ditions de poche delantiquit; Milik 1992: 3635).

In their desire to entertain, these works utilize a host of techniquestypical of novels cross-culturally; most important for our investigation,the interior life of characters is explored, especially through the additionsof prayers and hymns (see Williams 1993: 434 on the discovery of inte-rior life in Plato). Some are short, such as Susannas reflection at hermoment of decision, or long, as in the additions found at crucial pointsin Greek Daniel or Greek Esther. And just as the Greek and Roman art

and literature of this period was learning how to express emotion (Fowler1989), the Jewish novels depict the pathos of Susannas situation orAseneths weeping. Unlike the Greek novels, however, which focus on the

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young marriageable couple (Konstan 1994), the Jewish novels feature acentral female protagonist who becomes the psychological subject in astruggle over Jewish identity. The gendered aspect is important: although

there are strong male figures, for instance, Daniel or Mordecai, thewoman becomes the subject who experiences the emotional issues of thedrama; in fact, in many cases she pushes the male character completelyoffstage. The dramatic focus on the heroine increases over the evolutionof the genre, as each succeeding female protagonist assumes a greatershare of the narrative.

In several of these novels we find a strikingly similar scene, thewomans scene of repentance, prayer, and symbolic rebirth. At a turningpoint near the middle of the narrative, but before the climax, the heroine

commences a process of self-abasement and cleansing. In Greek Esther,Judith, andAseneth, the female protagonist enters into a penitential pro-cess, condemns her beauty, takes off her rich garments, puts on theapparel of mourning, prays, and only afterwards re-beautifies herself toreenter the world. These central scenes, through literarymeans, take on aritualized aspect and suggest an ascetic renunciation of the bodytheconvergence of three types of discourse. Consider Greek Esth 14:12;15:12, 5:

Esther the queen turned to the Lord for refuge, gripped by the fear ofimpending death. She stripped herself of her rich garments and robedherself in clothes of mourning and tribulation, daubing her head withashes and dung in place of her expensive perfumes. She debased herself,covering her entire body, which she had earlier adorned with suchdelight, with her fallen tresses. Then she called upon the Lord God ofIsrael. . . .

[Here there is a prayer of praise of the mighty acts of God; penitenceand petition]

On the third day she ceased praying, and taking off the clothes inwhich she had worshipped, she put on once again her beautiful attire.Thus clothed in splendor, she called upon the all-seeing God and savior.Blushing and in the full bloom of her beauty, her face seemed bright andcheerful, as though she were basking in her loves affection.

Here we will focus on Greek Esther (although almost identical scenescan be found in Jdt 9:1, 10:14 andAseneth 10:911, 1417; 14:1415). Inthe older Hebrew Bible version of Esther it is Mordecai alone who rendshis clothes and puts on sackcloth and ashes (4:1); he does not debase

himself as Esther here is said to do, but only engages in the same occa-sional asceticism that is found in the Hebrew Bible. In Greek Esther,however, the heroines beauty, long emphasized, and only made more

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spectacular through the use of the worlds most expensive cosmetics,must be stripped away. Simply taking off her beautiful robes and jewelryand putting on garments of mourning will not do; she must undergo a

profound psychological experience of self-abnegation. These scenes aredepictions of grief, based on the ritualized gestures of mourning: rendingones clothes or wearing sackcloth and befouling ones head with ashes.In the Jewish novel, however, what is new is the combination of the deathand rebirth of the mourning event with a change of identity, the creationof a new self.

The rending transformative work on the self (Castellis term) thatEsther engages in is expanded further in the other novels. InAseneth, theheroine wallows in ashes and her tears for days, repenting of her idolatry.

The scene is not simply about repentance, nor simply about preparednessand heroism. The sin of the woman is not contingent and removable butrequires a deconstruction of the old self and the reconstruction of a new.It is not the occasional asceticism of the Hebrew Bible that is beingdescribed, but a process of personal transformation. The transformationdepicted seems to tap a growing Jewish concern about sexuality and thesin inherent in the body. The debasing of the heroines beautiful gar-ments, her perfume, her head, her body, and her hairin other words,every part of her that the reader would likely associate with her sexuality

is similar to what would later be applied to women in Christian asceticpractices. As Gillian Clark (2004) notes (38), for the Christian womanascetic, the first step was not to look desirable. . . . It was their dress andhairstyle and makeup which proclaimed wealth and status, demandedattention, and thereby stimulated desire. Edith Wyschogrod has pointedout that in the later Christian biographies of the saints, asceticism is nar-rativized (1990: 613); here the Jewish narratives are being asceticized.The similarity is not coincidental; as she says, [t]here is for everypsycho-social practice (for example, asceticism) an episteme, a cluster of

ideas often invisible, that is both the conceptual backdrop and theenabling mechanism for the emergence of ascetic life in situ (1995: 16).

While these scenes begin in mourning rituals, they end with re-robingrituals. Dressing in new garments has obvious significance as a symbolof transformation, and there are many parallels from the ancientworld. But even these models are ad hocascetic practices for particularrituals; it is the combination of mourning models and re-robing ritualsthat in the Jewish novels signals something more in terms of the re-creation of a self. The transformation from mourning to beauty is also

depicted as a rite of passage as analyzed by Arnold Van Gennep (1960)and Victor Turner (1967), in which there are three distinct stages toimportant rituals marking a change in life: separation from society, a

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liminal period in which social markers are erased or reversed, and re-incorporation or aggregation back into society. Each part is marked byclear outward indicators of role or status. The woman begins in the

clothing of wealth and position, takes off these clothes, debases or marksherself with the signs of mourning which eliminate the indicators ofsocial and gender roles, and even the indicators of culture versus nature(separation), and begins to pray (liminal period); she then bathes and re-clothes herself in new garments like the old, but even more splendid (re-incorporation). The scene depicts a woman consumed with her own sinwho remakes herself in the course of the ritualnot loses her sins, as inthe penitential psalms, but remakes herself.

Even in the liminal state of prayer, gender differences are prominent.

Although Esther and Mordecai are both given important new prayerscenes in Greek Esther, only Esther prays during a liminal state, and herprayer is quite different from Mordecais. The tribulations of the heroineare explored more fully, as an expression of the audiences sense of vul-nerability. Where Mordecais prayer begins in broad, universal theologi-cal assertions, Esthers prayer contains a more personal appeal to God:Help me, I who am all alone, and have no helper but you, for my life isin mortal danger (Greek Esth 14:34). In Esthers prayer, but not inMordecais, the particular history of the Jews sins is also given: But now

we have sinned before you, and you have handed us over into the handsof our enemies, because we glorified their gods. Her state of debasementis penance for past sins. Her prayer has contained a plea for Gods help indelivering the Jews from their oppressors, but it ends on a note of herown vulnerability: Save me from my fear! Her prayer is a sort of revela-tion in reverse, from human to divine; what is revealed or confessedupward is the true abject self. Mordecai intones the rulership of God, whileEsther humbles herself, so that the reader can experience a pious self-abnegation and penitence through her. The reader sees a hero in Mordecai,

but a penitent in Esther. The penitential theology that had been developingfor three centuriesEzra 9, Neh 9, and Dan 9has here been concen-trated on the individual praying soul, who can now, in the narrative, findtransformation. Perhaps it was the combination of Platonic dualism andthe penitential theology of Ezra 9 and Neh which made ascetic discoursepossible. At any rate, the centuries-long gap between the penitential texts inthe Bible and later penitential practices is partially filled in.

Of course, important differences can still be discerned among thethree texts as well. Unlike Esther and Aseneth, Judith is one of the least

vulnerable woman in world literature. She skillfully manipulates Holo-fernes, gets him drunk, and beheads himsymbolically castrating himto save her people. Furthermore, Judith never confesses her own sin, only

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that of the nation. Indeed, one may wonder whether this text is describ-ing a decenteringof the protagonists self at all, yet in other ways there aremore elements here of proto-asceticpractices. Judith lived in a state of rit-

ual mourning for her dead husband far longer than was required, andafter her mission, Judith proceeds to another form of purposeful actionnew to Judaism: at the conclusion of the novel, after freeing her hand-maiden, she apparently lives out her days in seclusion on her estate, as ifshe has taken on the life of a cloistered nun. Although it is not clear, shemay return to her sequestered tent of mourning of chapter 8. This narra-tive suggests a certain enactment of ascetic discipline, but without a rend-ing questioning of the protagonists goodness. A structure that is clearlyorganized around the narrative theme of the decentering of the self is

interpreted here in a more confident way. We shall find that correspond-ing to texts that depict a stricken, decentered self are others which depicta confident self that performs ascetic acts. The former is perhaps a psy-chological correlative of the latter.

Scholars of asceticism, literature, and ritual have in general missedthis nexus where all three areas converge.4 Some scholars of ritual notethat a ritual performance can be read like a text; here, a text is read like aritual performance. 5 This can be pressed further: what if the entire novelof Greek Esther or Judith orAseneth was considered a ritual of reading or

oral performance? There may or may not have been a correspondingascetic action, but the reading experience itself may have been a sort ofascetic actionironically, even if the performance were accompanied bydrinking and festivity. The womans prayer scene would be the importantcore ritual, but it is only the core of a much larger ritual experience.Catherine Bell tries to erase the usual distinction between ritual as actionand speech as thought. In her view ritual is a thought process, andthought is a form of action. The actions of the ascetic may in fact seem onthe surface to be divorced from ritual, but the apparently individualistic

and socially disconnected actions of the ascetic may express a ritual

4 But see Payne (1996: 74). He perhaps comes close when he investigates the Buddhist and analyticpsychology concepts of self and transformation in a Japanese Buddhist initiation ritual; however,even he does not tie the ritual and transformational process explicitly to asceticism, but only to ritualpractice.

5 Ritual read as a text: Marcus and Fischer (1986: 61), Ricoeur (1971). Text read as a ritual: Grimes(1993: 134). Eliade (1963: 202) had also pointed out half a century ago that fairytales tell the story ofa kind of initiation. On meditative reading, see Griffiths (1999: 406). Bell (1992: 94117, 209),

Comaroff (1985: 68) note that in a ritual the body is remade, but they do not tie this to the asceticremaking of the self. In addition, Bell argues that ritual is the switch point between external socialissues and internal thoughts and feelings of the individual. Can this dynamic also occur when theritual is contained within a reading experience?

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language of opposition to typical social actions, a language of oppositionand deviance that is ritually repeated by other ascetics, as Valantasis(1995a,b) has argued. Clearly, work in the study of asceticism, literature,

and ritual is converging around some of the same issues.

DECENTERING OF THE SELF IN TESTAMENTOF JOSEPH AND TESTAMENT OF JOB

The decentering of the self as a narrative theme can be found in otherJewish texts as well. Although Testament of Joseph (one of the Testamentsof the Twelve Patriarchs) and the Testament of Job are not technically

speaking novels, they have a narrative component and are becomingnovelistic (Wills, 1995: 16270, 1813). The testament of a dying patri-arch was a common genre in the Greco-Roman period, often dominatedby ethical issues and hortatory rhetoric. Developments can sometimes bedetected in the testaments that combine a novelistic story-telling tech-nique with a psychologists analysis of the complexities of the self(Bickerman 1988: 210). It is in this psychological discourse that we findfurther evidence of the decentering of the self.

The Testament of Joseph falls into two separate halves, probably writ-

ten by different authors (Wills, 1995: 16270). In the first half, Joseph is astraightforward hero of virtue, exhibiting restraint and strength of char-acter in the face of any temptation. Joseph here has a centered self thatasserts control over his body. The second half, however, has a moreclaustrophobic tone: Joseph is sold by his brothers and passively movedabout, all the while mysteriously refusing to tell anyone, even when theopportunity arises, that he is not really a slave but a free man. The storyillustrates the virtues ofmakrothumia and hypomone, long-suffering andpatient endurance, in the love and self-abnegation Joseph has for his

brothers. His love is so great that, enduring any indignities that maycome, he is determined to remain silent and not divulge that his brothershad kidnapped him and sold him to the Ishmaelites. Everyone in the nar-rative recognizes that Joseph cannot be a slavea motif found also in theGreek novelseven as he insists upon it all the more to protect hisbrothers:

My inner being was dissolved and my heart melted, and I wanted toweep very much, but I restrained myself so as not to bring disgrace onmy brothers. So I said to the Ishmaelites, I am a slave. (T. Jos. 15:34)

Josephs protective silence goes beyond the sort of self-sacrifice thatwould normally be admirable, and his protection extends beyond his

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family to undeserving, even reprehensible people who are introducedinto the story. In each of the episodes Joseph maintains his moral identityby lying more and more fervently to protect those who are betraying him.

He concludes his testament, So you see, my children, how many things Iendured in order not to bring my brothers into disgrace, while the storydescribes a protagonist mired in passivity and self-abnegation. Further-more, Joseph willingly takes on a slave identity, an experience that isoften forced upon the beautiful young protagonists in the Greek novels.Joseph willingly enters into a state of humiliation for others.

The Testament of Job likewise reflects a development of the testamentform in a novelistic direction. As in the Testament of Joseph, the virtuestreated are makrothumia and hypomone, long suffering and patient

endurance, and as in the Testament of Joseph, we find an extreme degreeof self-abnegation. The text breathes the ethos of a new kind of purpose-ful action: Job denies the bodys desires and sublimates them to a highergoal. As in the biblical version, when Satan first attacks Jobs flocks, takeshis possessions, destroys his house, and kills his children, Job refuses tocondemn God for his misfortune. But in the biblical version, when Satancomes a second time and attacks Jobs own body, Job suddenly turns andcharges God with injustice, initiating the plaint that takes up the body ofthe work. In the Testament of Job, however, the protagonist never turns

on God; he remains steadfast and uncomplaining, no matter whathappens to him and his wife. This would not be unusual in a Jewishtestamentcompare the first half of the Testament of Joseph (the part notanalyzed above)but the Testament of Job explores a new means ofunsettling the traditional self. The lesions and worms that afflict Jobsbody force him to leave his city and live on the dung-heap outside oftown, and this perch becomes his place of residence for forty-eight years.Job discovers a new ascetic discipline:

My flesh was full of worms, and if a worm fell off, I would pick it up andreturn it to the same place saying, Remain there in the spot where youwere placed until you are instructed by the one who commands you.(T. Job. 20:89)

This hero of virtue proves his determination to endure by not evad-ing his sufferings. There is no emphasis on sin and depravity in Testa-ment of Job, but the self as is is inadequate and must be transformedthrough ascetic discipline. Never does he waver, and he receives a higher

reward of insight into heavenly realities, which he passes on to his threedaughters. The main theme of this work, in fact, is that the knowledge ofthe heavenly realities is a special awareness that he attains after his patient

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endurance is proven. This is a level of reality that his friends are not capa-ble of seeing, and we can perhaps consider this two-level discourse asquintessentially ascetic: there is a level of actionthe worldly plainand

a level of rewardthe heavenly plainand his transformative work onthe self is the means from the former to the latter.

The result is a text very different from the Book of Job in the HebrewBible. The biblical Jobs complaint is not with his self, but with God,who does not conform to Jobs self; the Testament of Job sacrifices theself to enter into Gods eternal realm. While the biblical Job wants to re-center the self, to re-establish the self in the world, and make God con-form to that, Testament of Job affirms a decentered self. Job here wantsto engage in the discipline of privation that will allow him to perceive

reality from two separate perspectives: from the earthlythe perspec-tive of his friends, where there is no immortalityand the heavenly,where his sufferings are a test that will result in eternal life at the righthand of God. The distinction here between the centered self in biblicalJob and the decentered self in Testament of Job is thus analogous to thatbetween the two halves of Testament of Joseph, and as Newsom (1992)demonstrated, that between the biblical psalms of lament and the Qumranpsalms.

Although we have examined together five texts, we must note a dis-

tinction among them. Three texts present a stricken selfGreek Esther,Aseneth, the second half of Testament of Josephwhile two present aconfident self that nevertheless engages in ascetic practicesJudith andTestament of Job (and compare the first half of Testament of Joseph).Confident here is not the same as centered. What we notice aboutthe confident techniques in Judith and Testament of Job is that they areextraordinary measures, enacted apart from society. Both the strickenand the confident texts narrate a mode of asceticism that is different fromcentered discipline, one in terms of psychological debasement, the other

in terms of a confident remaking of the self in ascetic practices. One mayask whether the latter engages the decenteredself at all, but it seems clearthat the development of ascetic theology required both the stricken andthe confident modes. As noted above, the former is perhaps a psycholog-ical correlative of the practices of the latter. But it is also important tonote that both modes are described here in a narrative context. They areboth idealized projections that are rendered in a fictitious situation. Nei-ther mode is presented as a real description of actual practices. What theymean for Jewish practices of the period is impossible to say with cer-

tainty, although the comparison of Greek Esther with, for example,Philos description of the Therapeutae/Therapeutrides warrants furtherconsideration.

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COMPLICATIONS IN THE PRESENT DISCUSSION

There are three questions concerning this theory of an early develop-

ment of a Jewish decentered self that must now be addressed. The firstconcerns the dates of the texts. Although Greek Esther and Judith canboth be dated with confidence to about 100 B.C.E. (Wills, 1999: 10769;2002: 29),Aseneth, Testament of Joseph, and Testament of Job cannot bedated to a pre-Christian period with certainty and may conceivably beChristian and not Jewish (Kerkeslager 2004; Kraemer 1998). Thus,although the starting points of our series are fairly definite, the midpointsare not. But ifAseneth, Testament of Joseph, and Testament of Job aredated later and considered Christian, it cannot be argued on the basis of

the proto-ascetic mindset. That phenomenon is attested already by 100B.C.E.The second question has to do with the nature of the explorations of

akrasia, or weakness of will, in Greek and Roman philosophy. Do thesediscussions amount to an awareness of a decentered self in Greek philos-ophy well before the Jewish texts discussed above? If so, that would notalter our analysis of the Jewish texts, but it would indicate that the dis-course of the decentered self may have had a different point of origin.Greek and Roman philosophy returned time and again to the problem of

how it was possible that a wise person could know the good and yet lapse,even occasionally, into bad actions. Socrates stated the paradox simply:no one willingly does wrong (oudeis hekon hamartanei; Protagoras 345de). That is, knowledge is the basis of moral choice; the one who knowsthe good will choose it. Despite occasional reflections (e.g. Republic439e440b), Plato does not seriously entertain the cry of the akratic,while Aristotle presses the question of akrasia more seriously (Nicoma-chean Ethics 1145a52a).Akrasia is often defined simply as the defeat ofreason by appetite, but Aristotle lingered over the possible causes ofakra-

sia and succeeded in making it the philosophicallyinterestingcategory: itsuggests an anatomy of the soul as a complex of potentially warring ele-ments (Broadie 1994: 229, 241; Sorabji 2000: 30332; Williams 1993:435). Unlike Socrates and Plato, who emphasize that wrong actionsmust result from an involuntary ignorance of the Good, Aristotle subdi-vided the kinds of ignorance and distinguished an involuntary ignorancewhich could be considered a culpable ignorance (Rorty 1980: 2678,279). An akolastos or fundamentally intemperate person is bad but notweak; he or she has the wrong ends in view. An akratic, however, has the

right ends in view but may at times act impulsively, or perhaps be mis-taken in the minor premise of a moral syllogism (the major premisebeing the general principle or ends). In regard to aspects of habit and

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training, the akratic person has voluntarily allowed him or herself to beplaced in a position where there is a danger of being distracted in regardto pleasures and be led to wrong action. Aristotle thus modifies Socrates

paradox and Platos interpretation in two subtle but significant ways. ForAristotle, on the one hand, the passions that can distract or confuse aperson are understood as forces outside oneself, but on the other hand,because there are voluntary choices that place one at risk, the culpabilitycan lie within the person.

It is possible to see in Aristotles subdivisions in the causes ofakrasiaand his accounting for culpability a kind of decentering of the self: Theakratic is precisely the sort of person who is conflicted because his moraldevelopment is uneven (Rorty 1980: 283). But the wavering of the

akratic from the path of virtueunlike that of the akolastosis onlyslight for Aristotle. The decentered selfs obsession with its own depravitywould for Aristotle be an inexplicable breakdown or neurosis. Thedecentered self may in fact be an akratic by Aristotles definition, but itperceives a depravity in the self that is not merelyakrasia but somethingworse. A decentered self is suspended between the philosophers akraticself and the akolastos, but not fitting either category. For Aristotle as well,then, there is a protracted fascination with akrasia, but no sympatheticexamination of what for him would appear to be a philosophically unin-

teresting category, the decentered self.The Stoics went beyond Aristotle, devoting even more attention to

prohairesis, reasoned choice, and the hegemonikon, controlling reason, asthe focuses of the moral decision process. The development is so dra-matic that Gretchen Reydams-Schils (2005) argues that it is the Stoicswho are responsible for the discovery of an isolatable self (1526; seealso Engberg-Pedersen 1990: 122, 1516; but contrast Taylor 1994: 12742; Gill 1996: 118, 45569; Irwin 1992; Williams 1993: 2146). The Sto-ics developed a clearer concept of self because of the need to assert, not a

transcendent soul, but a grounded and embedded controlling reason.Whereas Socrates would arrive at truth through dialogue, for the Stoicsthe conversation was with oneself. The Stoic would even withdraw andexamine himself: I examine my entire day, and review my deeds andwords. I hide nothing from myself, I omit nothing. For why should Irecoil from any of my mistakes? (Seneca, De ira 3.36.3). By this processof self-examination the Stoic re-centers, re-aligns. Despite the interiordialogue, the self here is never allowed to waver out of center.

It is clear that a general view prevailed in Greek and Roman philoso-

phy that moral choice is a process of rational deliberation, sometimesdisturbed by error, ignorance, emotion, or compulsion. The fundamen-tal centeredness of the self in Greek philosophy can be attributed to the

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fact that most philosophers assumed that reason could lead the philoso-pher to a correct balance and a moral life (Dihle 1982: 37, 69). The phi-losophers viewed akrasia from the centered philosophers point of view,

the decentered self views akrasia from the point of view of the akratic.The decentered self does not represent a crisis of heteronomy, but the tri-umph of heteronomy. The decentered self takes distress as an acute andaccurate state of awareness, perhaps even a discipline. One mustacknowledge, through self-abnegation, the degenerate state of ones soul.This is why one text can voice the cry of the stricken self, and another canconfidently describe ascetic techniques: the depiction of crisis in one textpresents the psychological correlative or praeparatio for the practices ofthe other. Regarding Greek and Roman philosophers, then, it can be con-

cluded that they did not engage in a meaningful exploration of a decen-tered self (at least, not until the later Stoics, after our period of concern).

A third question concerns the precise nature of Jewish asceticism asreflected in rabbinic texts. Eliezer Diamond and Michael Satlow agreewith Fraade (1986) that rabbinic asceticism was more common thanonce believed. Diamond introduces a distinction between essential ascet-icism and instrumental asceticism (2004: 517). The former is an avoid-ance on principle as an end in itself; the latter is avoidance as a consciousmeans to a spiritual goal. One wonders whether this distinction can

always be maintained, but there is likely at least a quantitative distinctionbetween rabbinic ascetic practicesunderstood as more instrumentaland Christian practicesunderstood as more essential. Furthermore,this distinction between instrumental and essential asceticism allowsDiamond to compare rabbinic instrumental asceticism to the non-Christian environment as well. The daily discipline and practices of Stoicapatheia or freedom from emotion is an instrumental asceticism verysimilar to that of the rabbis, and Diamond notes as well that rabbis underRoman rule in the land of Palestine favored ascetic practices while

Babylonian rabbis did not. Each group was similar in this regard to thepractices of their environment. These findings are mirrored by Satlow,who argues that This rabbinic anthropology owes more to Greek andRoman concepts than it does to anything within the Jewish tradition(1995: 1720, 31520; 2003: 210; see also Biale 1992a,b). The discipline ofthe study of the law, talmud torah, was analogous to the daily disciplineof Stoic philosophers. Satlow recognizes the dual essential and instru-mental nature of rabbinic discipline, but like Diamond would note thedifference between this and high Christian asceticism.

As in the question of Greek and Roman philosophy, so here as wellthe ambiguities actually sharpen my original thesis. Rabbinic asceticismis indeed like Stoic discipline, and they are both centered. It is not simply

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a quantitative measure of how much privation? but a difference in per-spective on the redeemability and improvability of the person, and aquestion of whether redemption can come by volition or by the grace of

God. The rabbis addressed this explicitly and reconciled the two theolog-ical options, volition or grace, with a doctrine of the good and evilyetzersor inclinations that God had placed in human beings. God had balancedthese opposing tendencies in such a way that the person had responsibil-ity for controlling the evilyetzer(b. Qid. 30b, m. Ber. 9:5). But this theo-logical postulate of Gods leveling of the scales was explicitly described asa guarantee that, from the human point of view, God provides an oppor-tunity for centered volition. Just as Greek and Roman philosophers didnot really entertain the cry of the decentered self, neither did the rabbis:

Philosophy was a bodily praxis; the immoral or licentious sage was asmuch an oxymoron for these Greek and Roman philosophers as it wasfor the rabbis (Satlow 2003: 224). Other segments of Jewish society dif-fered, of course; the Qumran community and the novelistic textsaffirmed a decentered self.6

SOCIAL CONTEXT OF JEWISH DISCOURSEOF THE DECENTERED SELF

It would help at this point to be able to say something about the socialcontext of pre-rabbinic Jewish asceticism, and indeed there are some sug-gestive possibilities for further investigation. Stowers (1995) describesthree groups in the ancient Mediterranean who did not sacrifice: Neopy-thagoreans, Cynics, and Christians. All were characterized by asceticpractices that were more marked than that of most other groups. Fur-thermore, Jean-Pierre Vernant (1991) suggests that, because sacrifice inthe ancient Mediterranean was a form of mediation with the divine, theelimination of sacrifice made way for a process of unmediated commun-

ion in the form of the worship of savior gods and asceticism (296). Thesame countervailing relation with sacrifice obtains in Judaism; Satlow(2003) notes that rabbinic asceticism is sometimes considered a compen-sation for the temple sacrifice that was now no longer possible (b. Ber.17a), and Diamond points out that the mishmarotand ma`amadotfastswere intended to correspond to the sacrifices in the temple. The Qumransect and the Therapeutae/Therapeutrides also conducted their rites as acompensation for being away from the temple. There is, then, a strong

6 Satlow (2003: 223) notes similarities and differences between the rabbinic view and the Dead SeaScrolls; see also Fraade (1993).

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negative correlation between sacrifice and public ascetic practices, andascetic practices as a form of unmediated communion with God.

There is also another possibility concerning the social context of the

Jewish decentered self. Although Dihle (1982: 534, 601, 189) andReydams-Schils argue convincingly that the Stoics and Middle Platonistsintroduced a sense of self and of will in the form ofprohairesis, Dihle alsoadds (715, 89) that it seems pale in relation to that inherited from thebiblical tradition. The Hebrew Bible praises the following of Gods com-mandments apart from any rational deliberation of the good. The humanwill mirrors Gods will; as God commands absolutely, humans respondabsolutely. Did the Jewish decentered self arise from the meeting of Godsabsolute demand and Greek considerations of rational self-perfectionism,

much as we noted above the combination of penitential theology andPlatonic dualism? The Jewish decentered self could then be seen as aform of colonial alienation, a conscious or unconscious rejection of thepopularized views of Stoic and Middle Platonic enkrateia. The decenteredself in the Jewish texts recognizes that God makes a dramatic and externaldemand that no one, not even a Stoic, could control. The Jewish decen-tered self was the mirror image of Stoic discipline.

Nativist protest may at first seem very distant from the wretched stateof the decentered self, but in the womans transformation scene in Greek

Esther and Judith (less so inAseneth) the content of the prayer at the cen-ter of the scene is the recital of the mighty acts of God in Israelite history.Esthers story represents, in Esther Menns words (2005: 834), a funda-mental conflict between two competing kingdoms (God as king versusthe gentile king). This suggests a political aspectspecifically a colonialresistancein Esthers transformation of self. Schwartz (1998: 378)argues that the reason that Hellenization could proceed so successfullywas that publicchanges were imposed on native peoples while a privateindigenous consciousness was allowed to remain. Like other contempo-

rary Jewish literature (apocalypses, histories), the novelistic literaturereflects a Jewish response to this process.7 Although Erich Gruen (1998,2002) sees Jewish responses to Hellenism as more positive and self-assured,we should note that, first, Jewish texts likely reflect a variety of attitudes,but second, the decentered self may ironically be a very assertiveresponse. The redactor of Greek Esther would have the Jewish readers

7 It is also possible that another indigenous ascetic response may be reflected in what appear to be

very early quasi-monastic practices at the Serapeion at Memphis in Egypt in the second centuryB.C.E., on which see Lewis (1986: 6987). The colonial situation in Egypt, similar to that in Judea,evidently gave rise during the second century B.C.E. to a similar array of apocalypses, indigenousrebellions, exportable savior deities (Isis), and proto-ascetic practices.

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know thatprohairesis (or its popular understanding) would not provide ameans of becoming righteous before God and that a stricken consciencein the face of Gods absolute demand is the appropriate response.

In regard to the Jewish texts analyzed above, asceticism should beviewed not just as a practice of a small elite who vacate society but as anideal whose implications can be contemplated by desert practitioners andcomfortable urban Jews alike. The decentered self can be detected in sec-tarian works from the desert community at Qumran and in the eliteworld of urban Jews reflected in the novels. In the latter case, asceticismmay exist in a purely idealized, fictional context. If narrative asceticismarose in Jewish literature at approximately the same time that intentionalascetic communities such as the Essenes and Therapeutae/Therapeu-

trides were being organized, this opens up the possibility of theorizingabout the relation between the exploration of the decentered self in theprojected and fictional worlds of art and literature and the real-worldpractices that were taken up to sculpt a new self in the desert.

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