ascetes

The two true elements of Christian morality, namely, the turning away from the sinful world, and the aggressive living and working in and for the same, fell apart into two different channels, which respectively served, for the sum total of moral merit, as complements to each other; the superabundant merit of the sanctity of the ascetes fell to the good of the little-meriting world-Christians.

Christian Ethics. Volume I.���History of Ethics. 1819-1870 1873

The development of monasticism introduced a dualism into Christian morality, in that it proposed for the ascetes a morality essentially different from that of the rest of the Christian world, the latter being based upon the divine command, and the former upon pretended divine counsels; with this error were more or less affected Lactantius, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Jerome, and Augustine.

Christian Ethics. Volume I.���History of Ethics. 1819-1870 1873

We read and pray the monastic hours daily, even though we are not ascetes.

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