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ascetic priest excites the weak into an “orgy of feeling” turned against their own instincts thus maintaining a herd mentality.
Nietzsche is fascinated by the “will to power” including the “will to suffer” manifested in the ascetic ideal: the desire to transcend all terrible difficulties and mortifications. (In Latin America we still have ‘mortification festivals in honor of the Virgin Mary). To understand mortification and Nietzsche’s fascination with asceticism, we have to recall Saint Augustine, the most influential of the great church philosophers of the patristic period. Saint Augustine was a follower of Plato before he became a Christian. He’ll tell us of an ongoing debate between what makes a true or proper Christian including how can Christians earn salvation for their sinful natures.
One group, the Donatists, felt that only those who had suffered persecution for their faith and had not bended should be allowed to be true members of the church. A more general point of view was associated with the Pelagians (followers of Pelagius).15 Pelagius felt it was possible to actually merit salvation while Saint Augustine felt that there was nothing a human being could do to merit salvation. One of the main points that Saint Augustine raises is the notion that there is something within us that is inherently sinful, that cannot resist temptation and encourages us to act against the dictates of our
15 Pelagius (360?–420?), Romano-British monk and theologian who taught that each person possesses free will and, as a result, the possibility of salvation. Pelagius denied Saint Augustine's doctrines of predestination and original sin. Cleared of heresy by a synod in Jerusalem in 415, Pelagius was later condemned by the pope and the emperor.
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