Big Books of 2026
Genres

Asceticism


Asceticism Books

Way of the Ascetics: The Ancient Tradition of Discipline and Inner Growth
The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity
The New Asceticism
The Philokalia, Volume 1: The Complete Text
Making of the Self, The: Ancient and Modern Asceticism
Asceticism of the Mind: Forms of Attention and Self-Transformation in Late Antique Monasticism
The Mystic Mind
Clothed in the Body: Asceticism, the Body and the Spiritual in the Late Antique Era (Studies in Philosophy and Theology in Late Antiquity)
Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India
The Sex Lives of Saints: An Erotics of Ancient Hagiography (Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion)
St. John of the Cross for Beginners: A Commentary on The Ascent of Mount Carmel and The Dark Night of the Soul
The Sentences of Sextus and the Origins of Christian Ascetiscism (Studien und Texte zu Antike Und Christentum / Studies and Texts in Antiquity and Christianity, 78)
Asceticism and Exegesis in Early Christianity: Reception and Use of New Testament Texts in Ancient Christian Ascetic Discourses (Novum Testamentum Et ... Testaments) (English and German Edition)
Conversation With Christ: The Teaching of St. Teresa of Avila About Personal Prayer
Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion
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Lists

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers by Benedicta WardThe Forgotten Desert Mothers by Laura SwanWalking the Bible by Bruce FeilerDesert Fathers and Mothers by Christine Valters PaintnerThe Lives of the Desert Fathers by Norman Russell
Desert Spirituality
49 books — 11 voters
The Jains by Paul DundasLife Force by Michael TobiasEastern Philosophy by Victoria S. HarrisonThe A to Z of Jainism by Kristi L. WileyJainism by Jeffery D. Long
Jainism
46 books — 7 voters

Quotes Tagged “Asceticism”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“ If there is no element of asceticism in our lives, if we give free rein to the desires of the flesh (taking care of course to keep within the limits of what seems permissible to the world), we shall find it hard to train for the service of Christ. When the flesh is satisfied it is hard to pray with cheerfulness or to devote oneself to a life of service which calls for much self-renunciation. ”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
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Thomas Merton
“ LXXIV One of the Fathers said: Just as it is impossible for a man to see his face in troubled water, so too the soul, unless it be cleansed of alien thoughts, cannot pray to God in contemplation. ”
― Thomas Merton
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Videos Tagged “Asceticism”

Exploring Christian Identity from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages: Neither Greek nor Roman
Exploring Christian Identity from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages: Neither Greek nor Roman