The full title of Professor Oman's work is "The Mystics, Ascetics, and
Saints of India. A Study of Sadhuism, with an account of the Yogis,
Sanyasis, Bairagis, and other strange Hindu Sectaries" (London, 1903).
The subject of asceticism in Judaism has of late years been more
sympathetically treated than used to be the case. The Jewish theologians of
a former generation were concerned to attack the excesses to which an
ascetic course of life may lead. This attack remains as firmly justified as
ever. But to deny a place to asceticism in the Jewish scheme, is at once to
pronounce the latter defective and do violence to fact.
Speaking of the association of fasting with repentance, Dr. Schechter says:
"It is in conformity with this sentiment, for which there is abundant
authority both in the Scriptures and in the Talmud, that ascetic practices
tending both as a sacrifice and as a castigation of the flesh, making
relapse impossible, become a regular feature of the penitential course in
the medieval Rabbinic literature" ("Some Aspects of Rabbinic Theology,"
1909, PP. 339-340).
Moreover, the fuller appreciation of the idea of saintliness, and the
higher esteem of the mystical elements in Judaism--ideas scarcely to be
divorced from asceticism--have helped to confirm the newer attitude. Here,
too, Dr. Schechter has done a real service to theology. The Second Series
of his "Studies in Judaism" contains much on this subject. What he has
written should enable future exponents of Judaism to form a more balanced
judgment on the whole matter.
Fortunately, the newer view is not confined to any one school of Jewish
thought. The reader will find, in two addresses contained in Mr. C.G.
Montefiore's "Truth in Religion" (1906), an able attempt to weigh the value
and the danger of an ascetic view of life. It was, indeed, time that the
Jewish attitude towards so powerful a force should be reconsidered.