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The Roman Catholic Church has often held mortification of the flesh (literally, "putting the flesh to death"), as a worthy spiritual discipline. The practice is rooted in the Bible: in the asceticism of the Old and New Testament saints, and in its theology, such as the remark by Saint Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, where he states: "If you live a life of nature, you are marked out for ...
The Apostle Paul, who authored Romans, expected believers to "put to death" the deeds of the flesh. [11] The word for 'flesh' in Koine Greek , the language in which the New Testament was originally written, is sarx ( σάρξ ), [ 15 ] a word denoting the fallen or sinful elements, parts, and proclivities of humanity.
It means the 'putting to death' of sin in a believer's life. (Colossians 3:5) Reformed theologian J.I. Packer describes it in the following way: "The Christian is committed to a lifelong fight against the world, the flesh and the devil. Mortification is his assault on the second."
During the Black Death, it was thought of as a way to combat the plague by cleansing one's sins. The Flagellants were condemned by the Catholic Church as a cult in 1349 by Pope Clement VI. [11]: 144 Self-flagellation rituals were also practiced in 16th-century Japan.
The practice peaked during the Black Death. Spontaneously Flagellant groups arose across Northern and Central Europe in 1349, including in England. [12] Initially the Catholic Church tolerated the Flagellants and individual monks, friars and priests joined in the early movements. By the 14th century, the Church was less tolerant and the rapid ...
In the Catholic Church, the flesh has a twofold relation with the bodyless spirit. On one hand, the Holy Spirit God has made the Incarnation of the Son of God into the holy womb of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, so as to say that that Holy Spirit God has naturally generated the flesh of Christ in His earthly mortal body.
By the 11th century, the use of the discipline for Christians who sought to practice the mortification of the flesh became ubiquitous throughout Christendom. [11] In the Roman Catholic Church, the discipline is used by some austere Catholic religious orders. [12]
The belief that civil authority – often the State's authority (originally that of the King of France) – over the Catholic Church is comparable to that of the Pope Practice and ideology condemned by Pope Pius VI 's Auctorem fidei , Pope Pius IX 's Syllabus of Errors , Pope Leo XIII 's encyclical Immortale Dei , and the First Vatican Council