Renunciation and Ascetic Identity in the Liber ad Renatum of Asterius Ansedunensis

This chapter explores the rhetoric of strict renunciation advanced by Asterius Ansedunensis in his Liber ad Renatum monachum in the context of late antique ascetic identities. Asterius employed the ascetic exegesis/translation of certain Scriptural terms and passages to advocate the holistic renunciation of interpersonal relations as a prerequisite for ascetic life. Starting from Genesis 2:18, Asterius maintained, in a peculiar twist on the creation and fall narratives in Genesis 2–4, that God created Adam to be an ascetic. Conversely, the premises of sin were sown when the first woman privileged her relationship with Adam over the commandments of God. Asterius thus extended the traditional ascetic exegesis of Genesis 4:1 (sexual renunciation) to include all interpersonal relations, since sinfulness flows from human relational conduct. Two conclusions emerge from this exposé: asceticism is the natural state of the human being; and the only legitimate way to retrieve the Adamic state is heremitism.