from Rudolph Bultmann "Jesus and the Word" ( Fontana, Collins: London: 1934)

p. 76 Jesus desires no asceticism ... The ideal of virginity indeed entered Christianity early; we find it already in the churches of Paul. But it is entirely foreign to Jesus; he required only purity and the sanctity of marriage. ...There is no word from him which declares the sexual life, the physical as such, to be evil, or which ascribes to the state of virginity an especial sanctity. ...Moreover, fasting as an ascetic exercise was not required by Jesus. ... He was reproached as a glutton and drinker, in contrast to John the Baptist, who was an ascetic. (Matt 11:19). ... Jesus, then, in no sense desires asceticism, and this is highly characteristic of his whole attitude and shows how he regards the position of man before God. The demand for asceticism really rests on the assumption that man through his behaviour can attain a certain ideal or saintly quality which remains with him as a possession. The emphasis shifts accordingly from the behaviour, the action, to that which is achieved thereby.

p. 77 ...the assumptions of religious dualism, that the material world, the body, the senses, are evil, and that man must rise himself out of this lower nature to the divine nature. Since Deity neither eats nor drinks, neither sleeps nor begets, man must as far as possible renounce all these things in order to attain divine holiness. In a heightened emotional life, in visions and ecstasies, as they are induced or furthered by such abstinence, the ascetic believes he already finds traces of this divine nature in himself. This kind of asceticism may be called the asceticism of sanctification. Jesus is far removed from ... asceticism. ... In the concrete situation, that is, in this world, in this nature, man stands before God; there is no need of escaping beyond the present or outside of nature. Nowhere does Jesus say that nature is evil, that therefore one ought not to have this or ought not to do that.

p. 78. And all asceticism of sanctification, which aims to attain for itself the divine nature, must be foreign to Jesus. For him there is no such thing as a divine nature; that is specifically a Greek idea. ... for Jesus the will of God in no sense means the demand for asceticism ...

p. 100 - 101 There is therefore no distinction made between the physical nature in man and the spirtual, through which the lower physical nature receives its law and form. Instead the man is seem as a unity , determined by his good or evil will. Also the Jewish idea of God is to be marked off on the negative side from any metaphysical dualism. ... the figure of Satan is a Persian intrusion into Judaism. ... God and the world do not stand over against each other as two hostile natures or substances. ... And though God and man are sharply contrasted as Creator and creature, as the Holy One and the sinner, still this difference is never regarded as a difference between two natures, nor is the redemption of man conceived as deliverance from a lower and endowment with a higher nature. Genuine sacrimental piety and genuine asceticism are therefore lacking in true Judaism, since the whole conception of nature which underl;ies metaphysical dualism is lacking. The world and man are creations of God, and hence not evil by nature; they have been corrupted by sin, and sin is not a condition of nature but the evil will of man. ...all these characteriostics are self evident for Jesus as a Jew, and they are clearly assumed in his preaching.

p. 103 ... the thought of the omnipotence of God is limited under the influence of dualism. The whole of idea of God is thus endangered; for it has lost its meaning, if God is not thought of as the Power which determines man in his present existence.

p. 110 Hence any conception of God as a higher nature is foreign to Jesus. ...nothing is for him low or evil except the evil will of man. it is not sacramental washing that made a man pure, but only a pure heart, that is, a good will.