Health and the Virtue of Temperance: Ascetic Practice in the Life of St. Porphyrios
Saturday, October 14, 2023
10:30 AM – 11:45 AM ET
Location: Bristol (Third Floor)
Both medicine and the virtue of temperance seem to be oriented toward the goal of health, despite the fact that in every case illness and death triumph in the end. Is there a way of orienting our lives such that the inevitability of illness and death can be incorporated into the aims of medicine and virtue? St. Porphyrios (1906-1991), a Greek monk and priest, said near the end of his life, “I thank God for my many illnesses . . .I am in great pain, but my illness is something very beautiful. I feel it as the love of Christ.” This paper examines St. Porphyrios’ ascetic practice, especially as it pertains to considerations of health and medicine. Health concerns played an important role throughout St. Porphyrios’ life. As a young monk, he fell ill and was forced to leave Mt. Athos because the fasting requirements there were too strict to allow him to recover. He worked in a hospital for many years, and late in life he refused treatment for cancer. This paper uses this examination of St Porphyrios’ life to argue that the ascetic practices of Eastern Christianity provide a conception of the virtue of temperance that incorporates a paradoxical goal of life through death. The paper concludes by raising the question of how Christian medical practice might incorporate asceticism and whether the art of medicine can be understood to be in service of this paradoxical end.