The Rhetoric of Pastoral Power in the Patristic Period: The Case of Ascetic Renunciation and Consecrated Virginity

Patristic literature of asceticism more than instructions on the conduct of ascetic life, is a theological milestone in reconciling Earthly renunciation and traditional Roman values. Whether in texts which repudiate overly enthusiastic ascetics (like Augustine’s correction of Ecdicia) or as a manual for rigorous ascetic practice (as in Jerome’s various letters to different female ascetics), these texts maintain a paradox between the ascetic ideal that the patristic fathers celebrated as the ideal of Christian perfection and the good marriage which served as one of the bulwarks of Roman traditional morality. From this theological paradox, the Patristic fathers emerged as the figures of moral, religious, and political authority that reconciled Christianity with its new social conditions.

How then were the Patristic fathers able to establish their authority as arbiters of morality, doctrinal orthodoxy, and political influence? This question opened the conversation of the analysis of the techniques of governance that defined the character of Patristic authority. Michel Foucault’s lectures at the College de France from 1977 to 1978 introduced the concept of “pastoral power” to demonstrate a technology of governance which emerged in late Roman antiquity with the Patristic fathers and formed the basis of the modern state. However, the analysis of pastoral power in Foucault’s lectures is limited to the investigation of pastoral power as a “technique” of power in the use of the systems of knowledge in the governance of the totality of individuals (Foucault 2007). In this paper, I argue that the success of pastoral power during the Patristic period was due to its employment of popular rhetorical strategies that transformed the bishops and presbyters of late Roman antiquity into figures of moral continuity, connecting the Christian pastorate with the traditional Roman morality of the household of pre-Christian Rome.

To examine these rhetorical strategies, I employ Ernesto Laclau’s theory of rhetorical politics as the framework through which we could interpret the political and theological discourses of the 4th and 5th centuries as a linguistic struggle; it is a moral politics that utilized tropological strategies of analogy, paradox, and the use of exempla to elevate the moral authority of the pastorate in the guidance of ascetic practice and the defence of traditional Roman filial piety. The introduction of ascetic renunciation, as Kate Copper examined (Cooper 1996; Cooper 2014), disrupted the traditional morality centred on the Roman family, threatening social structures (such as the transfer of wealth and property) which have, for centuries, relied on it. Thus, while among Christian ascetics, various forms of ascetic practices revolved around varying degrees of strictness and rigour, the Patristic fathers allayed the fears of (both Christian and pagan) Roman citizens by providing them the theological tools for diverse paths of Christian perfection, reconciling traditional values with Christian piety (Cooper 2014, 18). This reconciliation concentrated all the technologies of the governance of social, political, and religious institutions to the Christian pastorate.

The success of pastoral power as a technique of moral, political, and spiritual leadership encompasses the authority to direct ascetic and spiritual practices and define domestic devotion. The addition of the analysis of rhetorical strategies as a cognate of pastoral power allows us to understand the conditions that created the necessity of pastoral power. In the case of late Roman antiquity, it was the conflict between competing moral and political visions of the institutionalized Church and the Imperial administration.

References

Foucault, Michel. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977-1978. Edited by Michel Senellart, François Ewald, and Alessandro Fontana. Translated by Graham Burchell. New York, NY: Picador, 2007.

Cooper, Kate. The Virgin and the Bride:Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.

Cooper, Kate. "Relationships, Resistance, and Religious Change in the Early Christian Household." in Religion and the Household, edited by John Doran, Charlotte Methuen, and Alexandra Walsham, pp. 5-22. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2014.