Asceticism in Medieval Armenia: Texts, Practices, Purpose

Harvard FAS

Asceticism is a feature common to many religious traditions and refers to strenuous bodily practices or disciplines that are meant to facilitate self-mastery and confer the ability to live in accordance with an ideal of perfection. Like an athlete performing drills in order to excel in competition or a musician in training who practices scales and studies musical notation in order to be able to perform a sonata, so the ascetic engages in rigorous training of body, mind, and spirit, in order…