Asceticism, a definitive characteristic of which is renunciation of the world and all earthly pleasures, springs from various roots. Sometimes it grows out of a dualistic world philosophy, which, holding matter to be an evil creation and “the corruptible body a load upon the soul,” teaches the meritoriousness of the suppression, in the interest of the spirit, of all bodily impulses and appetites. Sometimes it arises from inequitable and oppressive conditions of society, which have made life for the enslaved and impoverished masses so joyless and wretched as to create an inappeasable yearning for deliverance from its intolerable burdens. Again, it springs from a world philosophy, which, because of its vivid vision of another world of eternal realities, undervalues and reduces to nothingness this earthly life and all its relationships. Still again, it may spring from the soil of a morally decadent civilization, for, unless the sources of spiritual life have been wholly destroyed, from a debasing sensuality and dissoluteness that rob life of worth and dignity there is ever sure to come a reaction--a reaction expressing itself in an extreme emphasis laid upon the worth and meritoriousness of world renunciation. [Sidenote: Fostering causes of Christian asceticism: (_a_) certain Christian teachings] Now in the case of Christianity there was, in the early Christian centuries, an unusual concurrence of causes and conditions conducive to the growth of asceticism. First, there were virile germs of asceticism in the teachings of the new religion. It taught that the things of the spirit are the only abiding realities. It caused this earthly life to shrink into insignificance and to disappear as it opened to the eyes of faith the infinite perspectives of another world. The Master said: “He that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.... Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.” And to the young man who asked him what he should do to inherit eternal life, he replied, “Sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.” He seemed to set the relationships of the spiritual life above the most intimate of earthly relationships when he declared, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” He taught the worthlessness of earthly riches compared with the treasures of the spirit, and declared that the rich should hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.