Only rarely do all the features essential to the virtuoso syndrome coalesce with enough strength to form a lasting and influential structure. In this chapter, I try to sum up the ideological and institutional conditions that have facilitated this unusual process of coalescence and institutionalization in the two settings examined here. Following the multidimensional approach defined earlier (see Chapter 2), the stress will be on the combined impact, in each setting, of religious-ideological premises, patterns of monastic institutionalization within and in relation to a specific macrosocietal context, and patterns of virtuoso radicalism.

The ideological premises

Religious virtuosity in the sense developed in the previous chapter can be expected to develop only on the basis of cultural orientations that encourage belief in the perfectability of man and allow for the possibility of voluntary and individual choice in committing oneself to the search for perfection. Moreover, it would seem especially apt to thrive and develop into a wider virtuoso–society complex when some of the commonly acknowledged, central cultural premises are fundamentally incompatible with the worldly concerns of ordinary life, thus demanding a level of commitment that cannot typically be expected from all. Although all ideals may be somewhat incompatible with day-to-day life, the incompatibility is undoubtedly made especially acute in the case of out- or other-worldly salvational orientations.