Late antique asceticism in the perspective of social anthropology: the methodological turn of Peter Brown
Annotation
The article is devoted to the analysis of the methodological turn in the study of Late
Antique asceticism undertaken by Peter Brown, which overcame the limitations of the 19th
and early 20th-century approaches that isolated the ascetic subject from its social context.
The article consistently examines Brown’s critique of Edward Gibbon’s influential “two-tiered
model” of religion and analyzes his key concept of the “social body”, according to which the
ascetic’s body becomes an arena for the symbolization and resolution of cultural and political
conflicts. Through this lens, asceticism is interpreted as a “ritual of dissociation”, allowing
the holy man to become a “stranger par excellence” and perform the vital social functions of
a patron and mediator (a “hinge-man”) amidst the crisis of traditional institutions. The holy
man’s status was reinforced by the demonstration of power through the categories of potentia
(power manifested in miracles and exorcism), praesentia (physical presence at the relics), and
parrhesia (the right of direct intercession before God). It is shown how the spread of asceticism
led to fundamental social transformations: the formation of the church as a “group of artificial
kinship”, the emergence of new social roles for women, and a change in the status of the poor.
In conclusion, the article argues that Brown’s approach allows for a departure from the view
of asceticism as a manifestation of decline or pathology, presenting it instead as an active
and creative social force that, through techniques for the construction of the individual and
a rethinking of the social ethos, undermined and replaced the institutions upon which Late
Roman society was based.
Keywords
Late Antiquity, Peter Brown, asceticism, holy man, social anthropology, cult
of the saints, the body and society, Michel Foucault, technologies of the self
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