SOURCE: Kardong, Terrence. “John Cassian's Evaluation of Monastic Practices.” The American Benedictine Review 43, no. 1 (March 1992): 82-105.

[In the following essay, Kardong analyzes John Cassian's early-fifth-century writings on monastic practices and experiences.]

Recent books on ascetic and monastic practices by Margaret Miles¹ and Charles Cummings² have been the object of much interest by those engaged in vowed monastic life. Much of the discussion centers on specific practices, but before a given practice can be evaluated, it would be helpful to have a clear idea of the significance of religious practices as such. In other words, a “theory of practice” is needed, but it is not necessary to construct such a theory from scratch, for monastic writers throughout history have meditated on this question.³

One author who had a good deal to say on ascetic practices was the monastic philosopher John Cassian (ca. ad 365-433).⁴ About ad 390-400, he and his friend Germaine toured the Egyptian desert, observing the practices of the monks and interviewing them for their interpretation of how they lived. Years later Cassian wrote up his experience in a voluminous series of Conferences aimed at shaping the monastic life in southern Gaul. It can safely be said that the Conferences reveal more about Cassian's mind than about the Egyptians, but that does not detract from his importance as a monastic theoretician.

One of the most charming and poignant stories in the writings of Cassian concerns a dispute among the desert monks over the nature of God (Conf 10.1-3). Basing their belief on the passage of Genesis which says: “Let us make human beings in our image and likeness” (Gn 1:26), some of the monks reasoned that God must therefore have a face like any woman or man. And so they imagined God before them in very human form when they prayed.

There were, however, monks in Egypt who found this view of God misguided and downright crude. They appealed to the Archbishop of Alexandria, one Theophilus, who denounced the humanization of God in no uncertain terms in his annual Epiphany letter to the churches. When the monks of Scetis read the pastoral letter, most of them were outraged and refused to accept it. They declared that Theophilus, not they, was the heretic.

Nevertheless, the priest of one of the monastic churches agreed with the Archbishop and not with his confreres. In order to convince them of the truth, he invited a visiting theologian to preach on the immateriality of God, which he did with great eloquence. Now there was an old monk named Sarapion in the audience, who was very advanced in monastic discipline, but very ignorant in theology. He definitely believed that God has a face. Yet even Sarapion was convinced by the theologian and so he gave in, but his submission took a heavy emotional toll, as the conclusion of the story shows:

We stood up to bless the Lord and to pour out our prayers of thanks to Him. And then amid these prayers, the old man became confused, for he sensed that the human image of God which he used to draw before him as he prayed was not gone from his heart. Suddenly he gave way to the bitterest, most abundant tears and sobs. He threw himself on the ground and with the mightiest howl he cried out: “Ah, the misfortune! They have taken my God away from me. I have no one to hold on to, and I don't know whom to adore or to address.”⁵

Cassian may be touched by Sarapion's misery, but he has no respect whatever for his theology, which he considers hopelessly naive and materialistic. Nor does he mention that Theophilus soon reversed his position and expelled his own (Cassian's) party from Egypt. We need not linger on the historical details here, nor is our concern with this particular controversy, later called Anthropomorphism.⁶ The story is useful to us as a symbol of a general theme that runs throughout the work of Cassian, namely, the need to continually internalize and spiritualize the piety and practices of religion. If there is a tendency to remake God in our own image and likeness, then we can expect that human efforts to please God or reach God will tend to assume correspondingly materialistic forms. It is against this downward pull of the earth that Cassian wages relentless warfare.⁷

A. MONASTIC PRACTICES

To say that Cassian wishes to dematerialize religion, and especially monastic religion, does not mean that he is against all physical expression of those values. In fact, he often mentions concrete monastic observances as something that all monks must practise. Here is a typical list of monastic practices that he gives: “The hunger of fasts does not weary us. The tiredness from keeping vigil is a delight to us. The reading and endless meditation are never enough for us. The unfinished toil, the nakedness, the complete deprivation, the fear that goes with enormous loneliness, do not frighten us”⁸ (Conf 1.2).

Cassian gives many lists of monastic practices, and these lists may vary slightly from passage to passage, but he always assumes a basic set of concrete observances which characterize the monk and without which there is no monastic life at all. In the Conferences, all of the Egyptian monks take monastic observances very seriously. One of the masters of the Delta region, Abba Piamun, shows how important he considers the practices when he says:

I have known some people who came here from where you live and who traveled around to monasteries of the brethren, and all for the sake of acquiring knowledge. But it never occurred to them to practise the rules or the customs which were the objective of their travels. Nor would they withdraw into a cell where they could try to practise what they had seen and heard. They stuck to their old habits and practices, just as they had learned them, and the criticism was made of them that they had left their own provinces not for the sake of their own progress but to avoid the presence of poverty. Not only were they unable to acquire any learning but they could not even stay here because of the sheer stubbornness of their disposition. They would make no changes in their habits of fasting, in the order in which they followed the psalms, or even in what they wore. What else could we believe except that they had come here solely for the purpose of getting fed?⁹

Notice that Piamun isn't accusing visiting monks of a lack of monastic observances. Their offense is to bring their own customs to Egypt, and to merely look on and discuss the Egyptian practices. To Piamun's way of thinking, monastic practices cannot be learned in this manner. Rather, one must get inside of them by living them experimentally. Only then will reflection and comparison be profitable. In this, he sounds much like our present-day liberation theologians, who speak of “praxis,” meaning reflection on lived experience.¹⁰

Nonetheless, granting that a fairly standard cluster of practices was assumed by all ancient monks, we still have to say that Cassian spends most of his time qualifying these observances and showing how they are not the real point of the monastic life. In almost every Conference, he is at pains to show that the components of the monastic lifestyle, indispensable as they are, are still secondary and ancillary to a goal that transcends the practices. This critique of practices takes many forms under his pen, but the argument is probably made most forcefully in the first Conference:

Every art, said Abba Moses, and every discipline has a particular objective, that is to say, a target and an end peculiarly its own. Someone keenly engaged in any one art calmly and freely endures every toil, danger and loss. The farmer, for instance, does not shirk the burning rays of the sun or the frosts and the ice, as he tirelessly cuts through the earth, as over and over again he plows the untamed sods of the field. All the time he pursues his objective, cleaning all brambles from the field, clearing away all grass, breaking up the earth until it is like fine sand. He is aware that there is no other way to achieve his aim, which is the prospect of an abundant harvest.¹¹

In this metaphor, monastic practices are comparable to plowing and weeding the fields. Unless this is done, there will be no crop, but plowing and weeding alone are not the point. If, for example, a farmer were to become fixated on plowing even when it was shown to be harmful, then the means would displace the end, due to a confusion of priorities. A farmer might prefer immaculately clean fields to fruitful ones, but this is not a recommended way to prosper in agriculture. The harvest is the point.

As important as practices are, they need to be set aside when it becomes clear they are precluding rather than producing their desired goal. Cassian teaches that it does no good to fast in a spirit of anger, nor does scriptural reading count for anything if it shows contempt for another person. In both cases, the virtue of purity of heart or love is being undermined. The reverse is also true: “If this virtue remains whole and unharmed within us nothing can injure us, not even if we are forced to omit any of those other subordinate virtues” (Conf 1.8).

In Conference 21, Cassian does make an exception to the claim that all monastic practices are relative and secondary to purity of heart, for he is adamantly unwilling to admit that chastity can be relativized. A practice such as fasting can be bent or modified in the New Testament, for Jesus says that when the bridegroom is present, one must not fast (Mt 9:14). In the same spirit, the Church does not prescribe fasting during the Easter season. And nature itself prevents us from complete abstinence from food. But chastiy is different, says Cassian. It is one monastic practice that must never be put aside to serve a higher purpose.¹² If the modern Church sometimes seems to focus an inordinate amount of attention on matters of sexual purity, Cassian shows that this emphasis is of very longstanding duration.

Another practice that Cassian makes much of and never relativizes is that of discernment. He considers it indispensable, at least if the other practices are not to slip out of kilter. To illustrate this point, he tells of a time when a group of monks visited Antony. The discussion revolves around perfection and what virtue can best lead to its heights. Each monk suggests his candidate for the chief virtue: one says fasting and vigils; another puts forth detachment from earthly things; a third thinks it is necessary to retire into complete solitude; finally, one proposes hospitality as the vehicle of charity.

When it comes his turn, Antony refuses to admit any of these practices as the indispensable linchpin of a virtuous life. Instead, he points out how often those who excel at these observances suddenly plunge into a state of moral collapse:

Lack of discernment prevented them from reaching the end. No other cause could be found for their downfall. Lacking the training provided by older men, they could in no way acquire this virtue of discernment which, avoiding extremes, teaches the monk to walk always on the royal road. It keeps him from veering to the right, that is, it keeps him from going with stupid presumption and excessive fervor beyond the boundary of reasonable restraint. It keeps him from going to the left to carelessness and sin, to sluggishness of spirit, and all this on the pretext of actually keeping the body under control.¹³

(Conf 2.2)

Perhaps the question arises here as to whether discernment really is a monastic practice at all. Certainly it is a mental activity, and if it becomes deeply internalized, it is a spiritual virtue. But it seems to lack the concreteness of most of the other observances that Cassian considers only preparatory to the goal of monastic life. Since Cassian does not employ any one single term for these activities, it is hard to tell if he makes a clear-cut distinction between them and the spiritual state they are meant to produce.¹⁴

There is one term, however, that does encompass all these exercises in the Greek monastic tradition that Cassian transmits to the West. That term is praktike, and he does employ it in a few unlikely places where these practices are not even the main point of discussion.¹⁵Praktike is a technical term devised by Evagrius Ponticus (ca. ad 345-99) to describe the “active” life of purification from sin that must be undertaken and brought to completion before one can hope to receive the gift of apatheia or purity of heart.¹⁶

The mention of Cassian's mentor, Evagrius, alerts us to look for the ascetical and penitential characteristics of praktike in the discussion of monastic observances. For Cassian, as well as for Evagrius, the “active” life of a monk is not primarily concerned with deeds of charity for others. He does talk about the obligations that one has to those in need, but never as a primary focus for the monk. Rather, the “practical” life means hard, personal labor toward spiritual liberation. For this school of spirituality, these observances are primarily penitential and aimed at purifying the self from the shackles of sin.

Moreover, the interest of these two ascetical writers is much more with the mental and spiritual state of the monk than with the concrete details of self-denial. Evagrius talks a lot about logismoi or thoughts, which really means temptations. His book Praktikos is primarily an analysis of the eight principal evil thoughts, which have become famous as the Capital Sins. Cassian reproduces this excellent taxonomy of sins at length in his Institutes and in a shorter form in Conference 5. In a time long before psychology became a science, it is amazing to see how acutely these people observed the workings of the human mind and heart.

For our present study, however, an analysis of the thoughts against which the monk strives by ascetical observances is not germane. What should be highlighted is the way Evagrius and Cassian tend to reduce monastic practices to the realm of the spirit. They are concerned to understand the spiritual dynamics that lie behind the concrete actions that need to be remedied. Their ideal is the hermit, sitting alone and patiently examining the flow of his thought, sorting the bad logismoi from the good. Such a one can hope to arrive at a place where the thoughts, and consequently the bodily passions, are under control.

The way every moral and religious issue is carefully steered by Cassian toward the realm of the mind can be illustrated from Conference 17, on the taking of oaths. It seems that Cassian and Germaine have sworn an oath to their Palestinian brethren that they will return from their Egyptian junket by such and such a date. And now the time is up, but they don't want to leave, for they are reaping too much spiritual profit. They present their dilemma to Abba Joseph for an expert opinion.

Joseph assures them that they need not worry: since they obviously made a promise to try to attain the greatest perfection possible, as long as they continue to pursue perfection they are being true to their oath:

Now that a riper judgment has supervened, you see that by this means you cannot scale its heights. And so any departure from that arrangement, which may seem to have happened, will be no hindrance, if only no change in that first purpose follows. … And therefore the breaking of a careless promise will be no hindrance, if in every case the end, i.e., the proposed aim at goodness, be maintained. For we do all for this reason, that we may be able to show God a clean heart, and if the attainment of this is considered to be easier in this country, the alteration of the agreement exacted from you will be no hindrance to you, if only the perfection of that purity for the sake of which your promise was originally made be the sooner secured according to the Lord's will.¹⁷

(Conf 17.14)

Here Cassian shows how strenuously he is willing to press his basic principle. Since the only goal of human action is to pursue perfection, or purity of heart, the concrete means used to attain this end are strictly relative and subject to change. According to this view, every right promise is really a promise to do whatever one finds best at the moment to pursue perfection. What Cassian does not seem to take into account is the social implication of this theory. Whose perfection is really at issue here, the subject or the object? And if this ethic is carried out to any extent, why should anyone trust any promise?¹⁸ At any rate, the internal, mental intention is exalted above any concrete result or manifestation.

We have said that Cassian regards the whole realm of monastic practice as one of ascetical renunciation. Not only is the intention more important than the means employed in this project; according to Conference 3 (6-8), renunciation itself should become increasingly interiorized and spiritualized. On the most basic level, the monk must put aside material possessions in order to pursue a life of detachment. Although this stage of detachment might be serious for a wealthy person, it only touches external things and not the self. In a sense, only this self “belongs” to the person.

To achieve a higher level of renunciation, is to undertake a much harder project, for it comes closer to home, that is, the heart. This is the most intimate self, so any alteration will be a very delicate operation indeed. All efforts to effect fundamental change in this area are usually extremely laborious. For most monks, it is not a matter of setting aside spectacular or flagrant vices, but a serious examination of the heart will still reveal plenty of evil to be dealt with.

Once a person has gotten clear of material attachment and made significant progress in personal reformation, what Cassian calls “the renunciations of the body” are complete and one can pass on to the “renunciation of the heart” (Conf 3.7). This is an aspect of the contemplative life wherein all earthly things, even the finest and best, come to decrease in importance. The soul strains ahead to the heavenly things to come. Renunciation, like everything else Cassian discusses, must be progressively dematerialized.

B. PURITY OF HEART: THE GOAL OF THE PRACTICES

Having discussed at some length the “practical” or ascetical element of the monastic life as taught by John Cassian, it is clear that its only purpose is to render the practitioner “pure of heart.” But “purity of heart” is itself a metaphor that can be interpreted in many different ways. From what is the heart to be purified? It would be tempting to use a modern definition of purity as freedom from sexual impurity. Cassian, indeed, often discusses the struggle against lustful “thoughts” and may even be suspected of a degree of sexual obsession, but he does not limit “purity of heart” to chastity.¹⁹ His concept is much broader, meaning freedom from all those tendencies, forces, drives and thoughts that drag the soul down to earth and keep it from soaring to God.

In his famous Conference 9, on prayer, Cassian shows how such purity of heart is the absolute precondition for real prayer. “The whole purpose of the monk and indeed the perfection of his heart amount to this—total and uninterrupted dedication to prayer. He strives for unstirring calm of mind and never-ending purity, and he does this to the extent that it is possible for human frailty” (Conf 9.1). Notice here that purity of heart is synonymous with a “calm mind” (tranquillitas mentis). A little later on he spells out what he means by this:

There must be a complete removal of all concern for bodily things. Then not just the worry but even the memory of any business or worldly affair must be banished from within ourselves. Calumny, empty talk, nattering, low-grade clowning—such like must be cut out. Anger and the disturbance caused by gloominess are especially to be eradicated. The poisonous tinder of carnal desire and avarice must be pulled up by the roots. … The praying spirit is shaped by its own earlier condition. As we prostrate ourselves for prayer, our deeds, words and fastings rise up in our imagination. They are as they were before prayer and they move us to anger or gloom. … So therefore before we pray we must hasten to drive from our heart's sanctuary anything we would not wish to intrude on our prayers.²⁰

(Conf 9.3)

Anyone who has struggled with distractions at prayer for long weary years will find this passage eminently attractive. How fine a thing it would be to have a mind that could withdraw completely from the hubbub of life to devote itself undividedly to the things of God! Yet this is not exactly what Cassian is talking about. Conference 9 is about unceasing prayer; it is not about a short prayer-period in an otherwise busy day. Nor is it a question of simply breaking free from distracting forces for a few minutes. He wants to get clear of them for good: “When the soul is solidly rooted in this peacefulness, when it is freed from the bonds of every carnal urge, when the unshaking thrust of the heart is toward the one supreme Good, then the words of the Apostle will be fulfilled. ‘Pray without cease,’ he said” (Conf 9.6).²¹

The phrase “freed from the bonds of every carnal urge” may cause surprise, for this seems suggest an unhealthy obsession with sexuality, or perhaps a naive desire to be free of all passion. Is it just another species of the Stoicism that Jerome castigated in Evagrius' exaltation of apatheia?²² There are at least two points that can be made in defense of apatheia or purity of heart. First, it is not an end in itself. It can be recalled that a “calm mind” is discussed in Conference 9 strictly as the sine qua non for constant prayer. Likewise, purity of heart in Conference 1 is the preliminary of contemplation (Conf 1.7). Both treatises make the same point: the passions are disciplined and subdued only to the point where they no longer constitute an impediment to union with God. There is no particular spiritual value in being detached, except as a means to a higher goal.

Secondly, by equating purity of heart with love, Cassian shows that he has no intention of promoting self-control and self-denial for their own sake. He does this often, but one passage makes the point well:

Perfection then is clearly not achieved simply by being naked, by lack of wealth or by the rejection of honors, unless there is also that love whose ingredients the Apostle described and which is to be found solely in purity of heart. Not to be jealous, not to be puffed up, not to act heedlessly, not to seek what does not belong to one, not to rejoice over some injustice, not to plan evil—what is this and its like if not the continuous offering to God of a heart that is perfect and truly pure, a heart kept free of all disturbance?²³

(Conf 1.6)

A fine example of Cassian's virtual equation of purity of heart with charity can be seen in his treatise on perfect chastity, Conference 12. There he makes a clear distinction between two levels of virtue: continence and perfect chastity. The former includes the whole struggle to subdue and order libido, and Cassian is very serious about this battle. He prescribes a rigorous regimen (Conf 12.15), and he promises a degree of physical control which no modern doctor would consider possible or even desirable (Conf 12.7). But none of this is the virtue of chastity. Until struggle gives way to love, until one loves purity, one is still at a rudimentary stage and far from the goal.

Cassian insists that there is a higher level of purity which is “perpetual” and which, more importantly, is a great gift from God. It is chastity, which no amount of ascetical practice can attain, but which can only be accepted from on high with gratitude. And what is the proof that the gift has been received? Simply the experience of love in the heart: “However, let him be as ardent with desire and love toward the acquisition of chastity as the greediest man is for money or the vainglorious one is in his overweening craving for honors or the one who is swept off his feet by intolerable love for a beautiful woman and desires with the most excruciating impatience to satisfy his longing.”²⁴

Love, of course, is a more attractive concept to the modern sensibility than purity or calm or, especially, apathy. Yet it must be remembered that for Cassian, love is primarily the theological virtue, that is, love for God. He seldom talks about love for neighbor, but when he does, it is included among the those acts of praktike which are essentially ascetic. For Cassian, community seems to be primarily a means of penance where the infirmities of others provide meritorious trials.²⁵

Given his individualized, vertical view of love, Cassian can afford to treat it as an advanced spiritual state and not as the path that every Christian must take to God. Love may “cover a multitude of sins” for 1 Peter 4:8, but for Cassian there can be no claim to love before one is purified from sin. Although other biblical passages can be quoted against Cassian's view of love, he is certainly correct in holding that religious practices are meaningless until the values they symbolize are internalized, that is, loved.

C. QUALIFICATIONS TO THE PROJECT OF INTERNALIZATION

Throughout this study it has been shown that Cassian downplays the material aspects of monastic ascesis in favor of higher spiritual goals. Can it be concluded from this that he is a thorough-going anti-materialist who may well harbor a deep-seated fear or hatred of the physical realm? Or could it be that he is inexorably driven to a dualism where matter, and especially flesh, is disparaged?

As a matter of fact, Cassian is not a dualist at all, at least in his anthropology. For him, as for the whole Platonic school, the human person is not constituted of two elements, namely, body and soul, but rather of three: body, soul and spirit. In Conference 4 he teaches that these three exist in a dynamic tension, each restraining the others from having full sway. The interesting thing is that Cassian is not ready to declare flesh irremediably bad and spirit impeccably good. Nor is soul, which here means free will (voluntas animae: Conf 4.12), always helpful in its tendencies.

How can flesh control spirit to human advantage? By its very weakness, according to Cassian. If the flesh is physically weak, it cannot carry out the desires of the spirit. That can be a good thing at times, for spirit can forget its limitations and aspire to things too high. Lucifer and his angelic band would have been better off with feeble bodies that might have hindered their revolt and brought them to their senses (Conf 4.13). But even the moral weakness of the flesh can have spiritual advantages. To succumb to sins of the flesh may be humiliating, but at least it can be a brake on pride, which is the great sin of the spirit. Furthermore, pride is more dangerous than sins of the flesh because the latter have a built-in control: sufficient excess causes the body to collapse, but pride has no intrinsic limits (Conf 4.15).

Admittedly, a being made up of body and spirit is an unstable mix. Germaine and Cassian complain to Abba Daniel about this sorrow and the long for a more placid existence. But Daniel tells them that the tension they experience is more profitable for them than a balance of ease. That is what the free will would like, to be able to attain spiritual and physical satisfaction through a life of balance. But Cassian condemns such an equilibrium as “unholy.” It produces a debilitating tepidity, and even worse, it leaves little scope for grace (Conf 4.12).²⁶

There are two especially interesting elements in this triadic anthropology. First, it steers clear of denigrating flesh and overrating spirit. No part of a person is intrinsically bad, and, conversely, every part needs to be controlled. This teaching also shows that Cassian is not hankering after an untroubled existence, free from care and worry, untouched by challenge. Whatever tranquillitas mentis might mean in Conference 9, Cassian shows in Conference 4 that an untroubled life is not at all desirable. It is true that he thinks of this healthy tension mostly in ascetical and individual terms, and not in terms of community conflict and peace, but at least he cannot be accused of fleeing the human drama for an illusory shelter of calm.

For further evidence that Cassian did not consider matter and flesh evil, one can consult Conference 6, which is based on the question: Why does God let the wicked triumph over his saints? Abba Theodore rather harshly tells the two young monks that it is obvious that they do not know the difference between what is truly good and what is truly evil. The only really good thing is “virtue of the soul,” and so, obviously, only sin is truly evil. As for material things such as the death of the saints, they are “indifferent” (medium: Conf 6.3). To say that material things are “indifferent” is not a judgment about their intrinsic worth. Cassian only wants to stress that physical things must never be allowed to dominate the human spirit. On the contrary, they must be controlled by free will. Here is his description of the person who does just that:

And so the mind of the upright person ought not to be like wax or any soft material which always yields to the shape of what presses on it, and is stamped with its form and impress, and keeps it until it takes another shape by having another seal stamped upon it; and so it results that it never retains its own form but is turned and twisted about to correspond to whatever is pressed upon it. But one should rather be like some stamp of hard steel (adamantinus), that the mind may always keep its proper form and shape inviolate, and may stamp and imprint on everything which occurs to it the marks of its own condition, while upon it itself nothing that happens can leave any mark.²⁷

(Conf 6.12)

Here again Cassian's great stress on internalization and spiritualization is obvious. In this case free will must dominate its physical environment and not vice versa. So great is his emphasis on free will that it may seem that he is a proponent of voluntarism, the notion that human will can conquer any obstacle. That notion has been controverted throughout the history of Christian spirituality. Cassian himself was unfortunate enough to get caught in the Pelagian controversy, in which some of his writing was condemned. Luckily for him, he was already a hundred years dead when that happened, but it still cost him the title of saint, which seems a shame.²⁸

Probably the reason Cassian was misunderstood by the protagonists of the Pelagian controversy was that he was formed by a Greek spirituality designed for a different context. In the third and fourth centuries, Origen and his brilliant followers (Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzen, to name a few), did mighty battle against the pervasive fatalism of hellenistic culture. In order to convince people that their fate was not controlled by the stars or any other impersonal force, the Greeks strove to convince them of their power to choose the good and to resist the outside forces in their lives. If sometimes Cassian seems incredibly optimistic about human capabilities in asceticism, that should be read against the background of Greek spirituality.²⁹

Cassian, however, was hardly unaware of the controversy boiling up over grace and free will, so he made frequent efforts to show he understood the primacy of grace. In Conference 13, the one for which he was condemned, he treats of this question at length, alternating back and forth with statements about the human and then the divine part of the process of salvation. The reader could just as well be at a tennis match. Match point, of course, is won by grace, as is shown by this closing comment:

Therefore it is laid down by all the Catholic fathers who have taught perfection of heart not by empty disputes of words, but by deed and act, that the first stage in the divine gift is for each person to be inflamed with the desire of everything that is good, but in such a way that the choice of free will is open to either side; and that the second stage in divine grace is for the aforesaid practices of virtue to be able to be performed, but in such a way that the possibilities of the will are not destroyed; the third stage also belongs to the gifts of God, so that it may be held by the persistence of the goodness already acquired, and in such a way that the liberty may not be surrendered and experience bondage.³⁰

(Conf 13.18)

In this final section treating of Cassian's qualifications on his own project of passing from the material to the spiritual realm, that is the ascent toward God through ascesis, we have heard him warn that spirit itself can sometimes tend to angelism unless it is brought back to earth by weak flesh; and even though free will can achieve very much, it can do nothing at all without the impetus of God's grace.

God, of course, is not only the origin of all our good work, all our monastic practices, but also their goal and object. Christian monasticism is in no sense self-contained, having its ultimate meaning in itself. Indeed, the monk's destination is the same as for every other person, namely, the heaven promised for those who love God and do his will. In theological language, Christian monasticism is thoroughly eschatological. Moroever, it is often claimed that the monastic life is precisely that form of Christianity that witnesses most clearly to the next world. Since certain basic human satisfactions such as family, possessions and autonomy are renounced, monks are therefore called “eschatological witnesses.”³¹

In Conference 1, Germaine and Cassian show that they have learned this lesson well, for when Abba Moses asks them what “is the end and the objective which inspires you to endure all these trials so gladly?” they answer: “We have taken on all this for the sake of the Kingdom of God” (Conf 1.2-3). Moses, however, is not satisfied with this simple answer, for he has asked them a compound question. He points out that they have correctly named their “objective,” but they have not said anything about their “end.” If they wish to attain their ultimate, transcendental objective, they must have a this-worldly end.³²

Using this principle, Cassian insists that a monk cannot attain the Kingdom of God without first achieving purity of heart. Purity of heart differs from heaven in that it is a state of human virtue, realizable here and now with the help of God's grace. Even though purity of heart is a spiritual state, Cassian is convinced that it is a condition fully accessible to human experience. To become pure of heart we need not, indeed we must not, wait for heaven. Cassian makes this point over and over in his discussions of the spiritual life: heaven starts now. That is plain language for what theologians call “realized eschatology.” Cassian's doctrine of repentance will illustrate the point.

After Germaine and Cassian have traveled from abba to abba, they become rather demoralized at the towering ideals that are presented to them on every side. In Conference 20, they tell Abba Pinufius that they are well aware that penitence is essential to the monk, but they know they cannot match the heroic examples they have seen and heard in Egypt. Pinufius himself is one of the great heroes of penitence. Even though he was one of the holiest spiritual masters of the desert, his trick was to sneak into the cenobitic communities of the Nile Valley so as to suffer the humiliations of a novice. Once the monks saw his holiness, of course, he was unmasked and forced to return to the desert (Conf 20.1).

Cassian and Germaine cannot match such deeds of repentance, and they know it. Pinufius responds that such heroics are not necessary, for there are many ways of practicing penance: some may wash away their offenses by shedding copious tears of sorrow; the confession of sins is another time-honored means of doing penance; then there are the corporal acts of mercy, which are very effective for this purpose. And the master goes on to add to his catalogue of effective acts of penance self-denial, prayer to the saints and the conversion of other sinners. No one can do all of these, but each one can and must do something to exhibit compunction and beg mercy from God.

Pinufius is shrewd enough to see that the young monks are not only troubled by their weakness in ascesis. They are also despondent because they wonder where all this is getting them. Even if they find penitential practices suited to their capabilities, will this actually give them any satisfaction? How will they ever know whether they are forgiven? Will God give them some sign that their sins are truly wiped away and no longer held against them?

Pinufius does not hesitate to assure them that they can indeed know when their sins are forgiven. There is an empirical test and its proof is very clear: when their penance has succeeded, they will have ceased to love their sins! In fact, their past sins will fade altogether from their consciousness. He summarizes this condition thus:

Wherefore the truest test of penitence and witness of pardon is found in our own conscience, which even before the day of judgment and of knowledge, while we are still in the flesh, discloses our acquittal from guilt, and reveals the end (finis) of satisfaction and the grace of forgiveness. And that what has been said may be more significantly expressed, then only should we believe that the stain of past sins are forgiven us, when the desires for present delights as well as the passions have been expelled from our hearts.³³

(Conf 20.5)

Here, then, is the spirituality of Cassian in a nutshell, as it applies to sorrow for sins. There are certain time-honored penitential acts and exercises that are useful for expressing sorrow and winning God's forgiveness. Some will be able to accomplish these practices more vigorously than others, though all Christians must perform some concrete acts of penance. But the acts are not an end in themselves; in fact, they are futile unless they produce a penitential person, that is, one who has completely internalized the value of compunction. By the very fact that sin is no longer attractive, such a one knows experientially that forgiveness has been obtained. There is no longer any need at all to look back, for sin (at least serious sin) is gone and we can strain ahead for the prize.³⁴

This is Cassian's approach to all questions of monastic observance: it is not enough to perform acts of ascesis—one must experience personal transformation. One must become the value striven for. Not every witness in the history of spirituality has found this test of experience convincing or even orthodox. Martin Luther would seem to consider it blasphemous.³⁵ For Cassian, however, it is bedrock. It shows us that he is essentially optimistic and humanistic in outlook. Despite the fact that he shares the very austere outlook of the Egyptian desert, demanding a life of strenuous ascesis, nevertheless he promises the monastic practitioner very concrete and tangible rewards here and now. Those who lay down a solid foundation of monastic practices and bring them to maturity through internalization will receive from God a transformed heart: “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.”

CONCLUSIONS

1. Cassian thinks that it is important for monks to act out their spirituality in practical ways, and he often lists the practices which were standard for all monks of his time. Yet, Cassian's overall thrust is not toward concretization but toward spiritualization. He considers the average monk to be too concerned with material observances, and not interested enough in the meaning and purpose of those observances.

2. For Cassian, monastic practices are relative, a means to the proximate end of purity of heart and the remote goal of heaven. Cassian also employs Evagrius' two-step progression of ascesis/contemplation. In this system, the essential monastic practice is ascesis, which is meant to purify the monk for the enjoyment of contemplation.

3. The weakness of the Evagrian/Cassianic approach is its lack of social context. Everything is interpreted in individual and cerebral terms, with little attention paid to physical or to communal charity. This makes the theory problematic for cenobitic monks. It is also legitimate to ask if the system is sufficiently biblical, for the Bible is resolutely physical and social in its outlook.

4. The strength of this approach lies in its relentless push toward deeper transformation and conversion. Monastic practices can serve as a helpful framework for the task, but the real work of the monk consists in conversion, a transformation of the inmost person.

5. Cassian sees monastic practices as a necessary means to purity of heart. This is a state of soul where all impediments to spiritual progress and union with God have been eliminated. Sometimes Cassian sounds rather stoical, but he often insists that self-control is but a preliminary to love. And this final state can only be a gift of God.

6. Although Cassian's project of spiritualizing monastic practices has a strong dualistic cast about it, he is aware of the pitfalls to be avoided. He knows, for example, that spiritual vices are more lethal than physical ones, for bodily weakness is a built-in check that spirit does not know. Nor does he yearn for absolute tranquillity. The struggle we face to balance the claims of body and soul is a stimulating challenge and a good antidote to complacency.

7. Cassian puts so much emphasis on free will that he can sound very Pelagian. Still, he must be judged against his own backdrop, which was more Greek than Latin. For the Greek Fathers and the Eastern monks, the great danger was fatalism—a surrender to uncontrollable destiny. Cassian joins them in urging us to work hard at our liberation.

8. Even though Cassian knows that heaven will surpass anything we can experience as humans, he also knows that the Kingdom of God is in our midst. Thus we should already be experiencing the concrete fruits of grace. It is important to clearly distinguish between monastic practices and monastic experiences, which are anticipations of union with God in heaven.

Notes

1. Practicing Christianity: Critical Perspectives for Embodied Spirituality (New York: Crossroad 1988).

2. Monastic Practices (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications 1986).

3. For a recent article on Pachomius' attitude toward monastic practices, see my “The Monastic Practices of Pachomius and the Pachomians,” Studia Monastica 52 (1990) 59-78.

4. A classic study of Cassian's life and work is Owen Chadwick, John Cassian (Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP 1950; 2nd ed. 1968).

5. Translation of Colm Luibheid in John Cassian: Conferences (New York: Paulist 1985) p. 127. This, the most recent English rendition of Cassian, has the advantage of being done in lively, brisk modern English. But it includes only 9 of 24 Conferences, so I have had to resort to E. Gibson's victorian translation, recently republished by Eerdmans (Grand Rapids MI: 1982) for some of the quotes employed here. The best Latin text is the critical edition of M. Petschenig, printed by J. G. Guy in his translation of Cassian in Sources Chrètiennes (=SC) 42, 54, 64 (Paris 1955-59). Guy also translated the companion work, Institutes, in SC 109 (1965).

6. For a lively account of the controversy, see D. Chitty, The Desert a City (Oxford 1966) pp. 46-60. This controversy was just a symptom of a greater conflict between Egyptian nationalism and Greco-Roman cultural and political hegemony. The majority of Egyptian monks were native Copts, while Cassian and others, including Evagrius, were Greek-speakers and representatives of international hellenistic thought. In his article on Cassian in the Dictionaire de Spiritualité (=DS), M. Olphe-Galliard denies that Cassian was driven out of Egypt with the Origenists (p. 215). In Dialogues 1.6-7 (Fathers of the Church 7), however, Sulpicius Severus says that he was.

7. The insight that all of Cassian's works are part of a drive toward interiorization is from Adalbert de Vogüé. I was fortunate enough to sit in his classes on Cassian in Rome (1975-76), and the notes from those lectures form the backbone of this article. De Vogüé has written much on Cassian over the years, including: “Monachism and the Church in the Writings of Cassian,” Monastic Studies 3 (1965) 19-52; “Les mentions des oeuvres de Cassien Chêz Benoît et ses contemporains,” Studia Monastica 20 (1978:2) 275-86; “Les Sources des Quatre Premiers Livres des Institutes de Jean Cassien,” Studia Monastica 27 (1985:2) 241-313.

8. Luibheid, p. 38. This same basic list is repeated again in Conf 1.7,9,17, as well as in many other places. “Fear of loneliness” (horror solitudinis) probably refers to the sensory deprivation experienced by the denizens of the Nile Valley when they moved to the utter desert. The latter was characterized by barrenness and featurelessness, which could tempt a monk to flee to the visual comforts of the civilized and cultivated zone. Evagrius somewhere associates this hardship with the boredom of acedia. The only solution is to stay with the interior struggle and not to turn outward to distractions.

9. Conf 18.2; Luibheid, p. 184. Piamun's criticism is aimed primarily at the Syrian monastic customs that Cassian and Germaine had first learned in Palestine (Bethlehem). Whether the Egyptians really were so critical of the Syrians, or whether this was Cassian's own feeling when he wrote some 25 years later, is hard to say. It is also well to remember that he wrote to correct abuses in Gallican monasticism.

10. See M. Lamb, “praxis,” art. in The New Dictionary of Theology (Wilmington, DE 1987) 784-87.

11. Conf 1.2; Luibheid, pp. 37-38. Although Conference 1 is very important because it clarifies Cassian's entire system of thought, scholars suspect that Conferences 11-18 were originally first in order, followed by Conferences 1-10 and 19-24. For a discussion of the displacement of the order, see J. Leroy, “Les préfaces des écrits monastiques de Jean Cassien,” Revue Ascétique et Mystique (1966) 157-80.

12. Celibacy, however, is never included in Cassian's lists of monastic practices, since it probably lies too close to the very core of monasticity to be considered a mere practice. Unfortunately, Cassian appears to forbid sexual relations even to married folk on the grounds that carnal desire is too hard to control (Conf 21.33). He claims that marriage is equivalent to being under the old Law, while celibacy is liberation into the realm of grace (Conf 21.6-7). Thus he justified Theonas' abandonment of his wife to become a monk. In addition, Cassian does not allow monks more food during Easter time; they simply eat earlier in the day (Conf 21.23).

13. Luibheid, p. 62. In his discussion of discernment, Cassian emphasizes that it is above all a gift of the Holy Spirit, in fact the greatest of gifts (1 Cor 12:8-11). Those who do not have it in any great abundance must seek frequent counsel from those who do. This is the foundational theory for the master-disciple relation among the hermits and the central position of the abbot in many cenobitic rules. Olphe-Galliard (DS 2.243) says that Cassian got his teaching on discernment (phronesis) from the Stoics through Origen and Evagrius.

14. Some of the terms he employs are: disciplina 1.4; 21.15; virtus 1.7; 21.15; instrumenta 1.7; 21.15; exercitia 13.18; 21.15.

15. Petschenig, in his concordance of Cassian (CSEL xvii [Vienna 1888] p. 500) gives four citations: 13.1; 13.4; 13.8; 21.34.

16. English translation, J. E. Bamberger, Evagrius Ponticus, The Practikos; Chapters on Prayer (Spencer, MA: Cistercian Publications 1970). For a good analysis of apátheia, see A. and C. Guillaumont, Evagre le Pontique, Traité practique ou le moine, SC 170-71 (Paris 1971). Cassian probably used Evagrian terminology sparingly because his mentor was under a cloud from the time of the expulsion of the Origenists from Skete in ad 400 to the time of his condemnation at Constantinople II in ad 553. Fortunately for Evagrius, he died in ad 399, before any of this took place. It should be added that Evagrius was condemned for his systematic theology more than for his ascetic teaching. For a study proving the influence of Evagrius on Cassian's writing, see S. Marsili, Giovanni Cassiano ed Evagrio Pontico (Rome 1936).

17. Gibson, p. 464. The words “exacted from you” (extortae) show that Abba Joseph considered the oath had been taken under some duress and therefore less binding than if freely entered into.

18. De Vogüé (class notes) claims that Cassian was carrying out Origen's policy of economia, that is, getting the job done by hook or crook. Thus, Jacob can be commended for lying, since the intention was to further salvation. In the West, Augustine took a sterner view toward lying in his de mendacia, which de Vogüé thinks was very influential on the Church's moral theology. For the opposite view, see Hans Küng, Truthfulness, the Future of the Church (New York 1968), who complains that truth has had a very low priory in the history of the institutional Church.

19. One whole Institute (6) and two entire Conferences (12,22) are devoted to sexual purity. Since these essays are quite frank in tone, Gibson thought it better to leave them untranslated. I described their contents in my article, “John Cassian's Teaching on Perfect Chastity,” American Benedictine Review 30 (1979) 249-63.

20. Luibheid, p. 101-03.

21. Ibid., p. 106. For a contemporary study on ceaseless prayer in Cassian's writing, see C. Stewart, “John Cassian on Unceasing Prayer,” Monastic Studies 15 (1984) 159-79.

22. Jerome attacks apátheia in Letter 133, in contra Pelagium (PL 23.496A) and in Comment. Jeremiae IV.1. A. Guillaumont (SC 170, pp. 98 ff.) notes that Jerome calls Evagrius a Pelagian and not an Origenist. For Guillaumont, the real father of apátheia is Clement of Alexandria, who teaches that the passions can be so completely pacified that no further struggle is necessary. Guillaumont points to Praktikos 86 as a proof that Evagrius did not teach eradication of the passions, but rather their harmonious ordering. Olphe-Galliard (DS 2.248) agrees that Cassian does not seek to eradicate the passions.

23. Luibheid, p. 41. De Vogüé (class notes) points out that Cassian's tight connection of purity of heart, charity and contemplation have the effect of maintaining the moral dimension of contemplation. Rather than being an affair of the intellect alone, as with the philosophers and even with Evagrius, Cassian makes it depend more on the heart. This point is made again in Conf 5.33-34, when he teaches that the faithful and simple soul is a better exegete of Scripture than a learned student without faith.

24. My own translation from Conf 12.4. Any future edition of Cassian that deserves respect must include Cassian's writings on chastity. As I noted in my study of this material (see my note 16), Cassian combines a heady mixture of graphic realism with soaring idealism. Our jaded and bemused age might find it bewildering, but not at all embarrassing.

25. Conf 19.9. Although Cassian seems to write for cenobites in the Institutes and in Conferences 19-24, this does not mean he has any real sympathy or empathy for the communal life. A. Veilleux shows in his study of Cassian's comments on the Pachomians that he had no first-hand knowledge of the Koinonia. De Vogüé agrees, but insists he did have firsthand experience of the cenobites of northern Egypt (Pachomius lived in the far south). See A. Veilleux, La Liturgie dans le Cénobitisme Pachômien au Quatrième Sicèle, Studia Anselmiana 57 (Rome 1968) 146-54. In his recent book Ascetics, Authority and the Church (Oxford 1978) pp. 175 ff., P. Rousseau concludes that although Cassian prefers eremitism, he considers the Gallic monks too immature for it. Thus Cassian always stresses adherence to authority and tradition, while downplaying individual, charismatic freedom.

26. Although Cassian's triadic anthropology is based on Greek precedents, it also contains an element of originality. Plato's soul strives to keep the steeds of flesh and spirit in a harmonious balance, but Cassian thinks the soul (=free will) is better off when it is hard-pressed by the flesh/spirit tension. Plato teaches a balance of peace, but Cassian teaches a balance of suffering. De Vogüé (class notes) says that this teaching of Cassian is unique among patristic writers.

27. Gibson, p. 359. One wonders whether Cassian isn't describing one of his secret heroes, namely Origen of Alexandria, whose nickname was adamantinus, “man of steel.” Jerome says somewhere that he must have been made of steel, for he wrote no less than 800 books! Cassian, however, may be presenting Origen as a person of great willpower. Even if Cassian is not making a veiled reference to Origen, the Greek theologian stands at the head of a long tradition in the East that emphasized free will.

28. Cassian's Conference 13 was condemned as “semi-Pelagian” by the Provincial Council of Orange in 529. This decree was ratified by Rome in 534. Cassian was censured even though he merely suggested that a sick soul could take the first, stumbling, step toward the medicine chest of divine grace. The condemnation leaves entirely out of account the fact that Cassian writes discursively, not systematically. To take any small part of his vast discourse as a doctrinal statement is unfair and unreasonable. For the full story of the condemnation, see C. Vaggagini, “La positione di San Benedetto nella questione Semipelagiana,” Studia Anselmiana 18-19 (1974) 17-83.

29. Strange as it may seem to us, apparently one of the burning questions for Cassian, and apparently for the monks of his day, was whether a monk who achieves perfect chastity will then cease having nocturnal emissions. Conference 22 revolves around that issue alone, and Cassian holds out the possibility of a complete cessation of fluxus nocturnalis.

30. Gibson, p. 434. De Vogüé (class notes) points out that the sources of Conference 13 are not Egyptian at all, but the Western theological controversy. He adds that Cassian seems to sense that Augustine's stress on grace is overdone, but the Abbot of Marseilles is not a good enough metaphysician to answer the Bishop of Hippo on his own level. Mostly, he just lines up Scripture passages on both sides, hoping for balance.

31. For a discussion of monasticism as eschatological witness, see Consider Your Call, ed. D. Rees (Kalamazoo 1978) pp. 170-72. See also C. Morley, “Benedictine Eschatological Witness: A Vision for Today of Life in the Spirit,” Cistercian Studies 15 (1980) 172-80.

32. I have been careful here to maintain a constant vocabulary as to keep clear the distinction between the proximate and ultimate goals. I discuss this necessity in my article “Aiming for the Mark: Cassian's Metaphor for the Monastic Quest,” Cistercian Studies 22 (1987:3) 213-15.

33. Gibson, p. 498. Cassian's use of finis in this passage is intriguing for two reasons. First, the term can mean cessation or purpose. No doubt the young monks wonder whether penitence is simply an endless, weary trek with no cessation. But Cassian has also used finis in Conf 1.2-4 to mean the ultimate goal of all our striving. Here forgiveness is that goal, while forgetfulness of sin in the proximate end.

34. Penitence, or compunction of heart, was a major concern in ancient monasticism. The ability to weep for past sins, for example, was considered a great grace and not a sign of neurosis. For a good overview of this topic, see I. Hausherr, Penthos (Kalamazoo 1982). More recent studies include: “Larmes,” art. in DS 9.287-303; J. Leclercq, “Penitenza,” art. in Dizionario dei Istituti di Perfezione (=DIP) 6.1383-92; C. Riggi, “La ‘compunctio lacrimarum’ nell' ascesi benedettina,” Benedictina 23 (1981) 681-706; A. Conroy, “Metanoia in the Scriptures and the Rule of Benedict,” Tjurunga 5 (1973) 25-32.

35. Surely Martin Luther never experienced a transformation of heart through monastic practices. It was precisely because he could not “find a gracious God,” no matter how feverishly he tried, that he threw off the monastic life altogether. This in turn contributed to his theological revolution, for he came to teach that no Christian work can ever satisfy or save us—only utter faith in the mercy of God. Luther, then, represents those who have found no experiential “proof” of God's love, but who must go forward in pure faith. For a comprehensive view of Luther's relation to monasticism, see B. Gherardini, art. “Lutero,” DIP 5.771-90.