ON THE ASCETICISM OF THE EYE

During this period of Great Lent, the question of fasting with the eyes arose during our weekly Pilgrimage Society spiritual evenings. In initiating a discussion on the subject, my mind was drawn to a working paper by philosopher Ivan Illich, "Guarding the Eye in the Age of Show."¹

Illich examines the changes in the concept of the gaze and convincingly argues that even the concept of what we do with the eyes has changed in often dramatic ways over the past few centuries. Consequently, when we use such terms, familiar to  Orthodox Christians, as "guarding the eyes," "fasting with the eyes" and "the asceticism of the eyes," we must realize that the concepts which originally traveled with these expressions have changed. In some cases, whole concepts and understandings of various aspects of vision, seeing,  gazing, looking, have vanished altogether. Indeed, more than 100 words dealing with the quality and meaning of seeing have vanished from our vocabulary over the past four centuries! This makes the task of the asceticism of the eye more difficult to grasp and to practice. The task is even more complicated by the carelessness in rendering translations of Orthodox prayers and terminology, a problem we will discuss later.