Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/739

Rh and passions, which is of the nature of matter, and there fore in itself evil. True happiness nay, true life for man consists in contemplation of God, absorption into the divine unity and essence ; and this ecstatic vision can only be attained by the cultivation of the spirit, and the morti fication of the body. The desires and passions must be subdued, rooted up, and the means recommended are sulitude, poverty, celibacy, fasting, and penance. We find, accordingly, that in all nations, those who seek divine illumination prepare themselves by these means. In this respect the Hindoo fakirs, jogis, dervishes, and gymnoso- phists, and the numerous sect of the Buddhists, are at one with the Hebrew prophets, Nazarites, and Chasidim, and with the priests of the Grecian mysteries. In most of the Greek schools of thought, however, asceticism had less a mystical and religious than a moral and practical bearing. Even the solitude and abstinence practised by the Pytha goreans were connected partly with their theory of metem psychosis, but mainly with their ethical training. Socrates, who called temperance, or self-restraint, the chief of virtues, had in view only the higher ethical life of the human spirit ; and the Cynics and Stoics, who carried out his doctrine to an extreme, endeavoured to stifle the natural desires, and violate the natural relations of life, in order to realise their ideal of a wise and self-sufficing man of virtue. In Plato, however, appears very prominently the idea of matter as in itself evil and hostile to the divine; and among the neo-Platonic and neo-Pythagorean schools of Alexandria, who draw mainly from him, the doctrine and practice of a mystical and religious asceticism were essentially involved in their philosophical systems. About the same time similar principles had taken root among the Jews, and appeared in Palestine among the Essenes (by some sup posed to be an offshoot from the Cbasidim), in Egypt among the Therapeutse, Into the heart of this circle of ideas Christianity entered ; it incorporated many of them, and lent additional strength to the principle of asceticism in its higher signification. The deep sense of the nothing ness of temporal phenomena when compared with spiritual realities, the conviction that in this world believers are but pilgrims, exposed to many temptations through the weak ness of the flesh, in which is the origin of sin, and the many expressions which seemed to imply that riches and the ties of marriage were real hindrances in tbe Christian life, contributed to strengthen the already powerful ten dency towai ds ascetic practices. Accordingly, in the early church celibacy and poverty, with occasional fasting and penance, were commonly recommended as means for the attainment of true virtue and communion with God, and such practices soon began to be looked upon as having a special merit in themselves. The natural consequence was that certain enthusiasts such as Paul of Thebes, Anthony, and Simeon Stylites vied with each other in their fana tical asceticism, withdrawing to the desert, and spending their lives in self-mortification. The persecutions of the church, which drove the Christians together, and the intro duction of cenobitism by Pachomius in the 4th century, gave rise to monasticism, in which, for the first time, asceticism was reduced to an organised system. But the constant reforms required to preserve the purity of the monastic life, and the continuous protests against the whole practice, which began in the llth century with such men as Peter of Bruis and Henry of Lausanne, and cul minated in the Reformation, demonstrated the weakness of the foundation on which the system had been built. Asceticism, meanwhile, was not confined to the church, but had spread through the heretical and religious sects which sprang up alongside of it. The Ebionites and Gnostics inculcated the subjection of the body to the spirit ; the new religion of Mani advocated the absolute withdrawal of all desires from the world ; and among the followers of Ma homet, one sect, the Persian Sufis, specially distinguished themselves by their practice of abstinence and solitary meditation. Even in modern times, although ascetic practices have been modified, traces of the idea on which they rest are not wanting. The principles of the Quaker Society, of the Methodists, of the Communist bodies iu America, e.g., the Shakers, and other enthusiasts, are modifications, more or less prououncod, of the ascetic way of thinking.  ASCH, a of, in the circle of, at the foot of the , with a population of upwards of 9000, carrying on extensive of , , and other s, as well as of , , and. The district of Asch, with an area of 42 square miles, was originally an immediate dependency of the, but has been since 1331 a of the , and since 1770 incorporated with the. It is now held by the Zedtwitz family.  ASCHAFFENBURG, a town in the government of Lower Franconia, in the kingdom of Bavaria, at the con fluence of the Aschaffa with the Maine, near the foot of the Spessart-Wald. Its chief buildings are the Johannis- burg, built (1005-14) by Archbishop Sweikard of Kron- berg, which contains a library, with a number of incunabula, a collection of engravings and paintings ; the Stiftkirche, or cathedral, founded in 980 by Otto of Bavaria, in which are preserved various monuments by the Vischers, and a sarcophagus, with the relics of St Margaret (1540) ; the Capuchin hospital ; a theatre, which was formerly the house of the Teutonic order ; and several mansions of the German nobility. The town, which has been remarkable for its educational establishments since the 10th century, has a gymnasium, lyceum, seminarium, and other schools. The grave of Clemens Brcntauo (d. 1842) and his brother Christian (d. 1851) is in the churchyard near the Wenne- bach gate ; and Wilhelm Heinse (d. 1803) is buried in the town. Cloth and stained paper are the chief manufac tures ; and the trade is principally in wood. The 10th and 23d Roman legions had their station at AschafFenburg, and on the ruins of their castrum the Frankish mayors of the palace built a castle. Bonifacius erected a chapel to St Martin, and founded a Benedictine monastery. The stone bridge over the Maine was built by Archbishop &quot;Villigis in 989. Adalbert increased the importance of the town in various ways about 1122. In 1292 a synod was held there, and in 1474 an imperial diet, preliminary to that of Vienna, in which the famous concordats were decided, which have therefore been .sometimes called the Aschaffenburg con cordats. The town suffered greatly during the Thirty Years War, being alternately held by the various belligerents. In 1842-9, King Louis built himself a country house to the west of the town, called the Pompeiamim, from being an imitation of the house of Castor and Pollux at Pompeii. In 18G6 the Prussians inflicted a severe defeat on the Austrians in the neighbourhood. Population, 9212.

The principality of Aschaffenburg, deriving its name from the city, comprehended an area of 336 geographical square miles. It formed part of the electorate of Mentz, and in 1803 was made over to the archchanccllor, Arch bishop Charles of Dalberg. In 180G it was annexed to the grandduchy of Frankfort; and in 1814 was transferred to Bavaria, in virtue of a treaty concluded 19th June between that power and Austria. Conjointly with Lower Franconia, it now forms a circle of the kingdom of Bavaria.  ASCHAM,, a very distinguished scholar and writer, was born at Kirby Wiske, a village in Yorkshire, near Northallerton, about the year 1515. John Ascham, his father, was house-steward in the family of Scroop, and by his wife Margaret was connected with several respect- 