Cassian, Contemplation and the Coenobitic Life

Philip Rousseau

doi:10.1017/S0022046900045942

Cassian, Contemplation and the Coenobitic Life

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011

Philip Rousseau

Show author details

Philip Rousseau: Affiliation:
Senior Lecturer in History, University of Auckland, N.Z.

Article contents

Extract
References

Get access

Rights & Permissions

Extract

Cassian was not a systematic writer; or, perhaps to be more just, he was not afraid to allow his ideas to develop, and even change. He suffers, therefore, more than some at the hands of historians of spirituality. It is temptingly easy to present him as the instigator of a twotier system: of an asceticism that distinguished contemplation from the ‘practical’ eradication of vice, or the régime of the hermit from that of the coenobite; and that distinguished them as activities of greater and lesser merit, raising the contemplation of the hermit above the more preoccupied discipline of community life. Those who think of Cassian in these terms have also to face the fact that most western ascetics, in the centuries that followed, came together in groups to conquer sin; and yet they thought Cassian (as did Benedict) in some sense their master. Indeed, there are signs that Cassian himself witnessed the growing popularity of the coenobitic life. Given this apparent contrast, therefore, between his supposed interpretation of the spiritual life and the relentless development of communal asceticism, many feel impelled to regard him as a remote perfectionist, or at best—where signs of resignation to community life appear—as a weary and reluctant realist.

Type: Articles
Information: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , April 1975 , pp. 113 - 126

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046900045942 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

^{page 113 note 1} The chief works on Cassian avoid a little this simplicity: Marsili, Salvatore, Giovanni Cassiano ed Evagrio Pontico (Studia Anselmiana v), Rome 1936Google Scholar, and Chadwick, Owen, John Cassian, Cambridge 1950, 2nd ed., 1968Google Scholar; but Cassian has yet to receive his due as a writer of humanity and moderation.

^{page 113 note 2} This classic distinction is almost always referred to in accounts of Cassian's spirituality; but his use of it is virtually restricted to Conference xiv: there is a partial reference at Con., xxi. 34.

^{page 114 note 1} Cassian, Conferences, ed. E. Pichery (Sources chrétiennes, xlii, liv, lxiv; Paris, 1955–9). xiv. 1.

^{page 114 note 2} Con., xiv. 9.

^{page 114 note 3} Con., ix. 2.

^{page 114 note 4} Evagrius, De oratione (PG., lxxix), 2: see Marsili, Giovanni Cassiano, 97. It is probably rash to suppose that Evagrius was appreciably neater or more consistent than his pupil: see, for example, Nonnenspiegel und Mönchsspiegel des Euagrios Pontikos, ed. H. Gresmann (Texte und Untersuchungen, xxxix, iv; Berlin 1913), Mönchsspiegel, 121—γνωστικς κα πρακτικς ὑπήντησαν λλήλοις, μέσος δε μφοτέρων ιστήκει κύρις; or De oratione, 124—μοναχός στιν, πάντων χωρισϑεῖς, κι πᾶσι συνηρμοσμένος. So I would question the judgements of Chadwick in this regard, John Cassian, 1st. ed, 83; 2nd ed., 88. (Those less familiar with the literature on Cassian should be warned that these two editions are really two different books: the second is more sympathetic but less incisive).

^{page 114 note 5} Con., ix. 3.

^{page 114 note 6} The same point is made in Con., x. 14. I would agree with Peter Munz that ‘prayer was the Christian's full-time occupation and time spent in prayer in the strict sense was merely its most concentrated phase’: ‘John Cassian’, in this Journal, XI (1960), 20; but that need not imply that less concentrated phases excluded ‘work’ or ‘social virtue’.Google Scholar

^{page 115 note 1} Con., xxiii. 3, recalling Lk. x. 41–2.

^{page 115 note 2} Con., xxiii. 5.

^{page 115 note 3} Con., xxiii. 6.

^{page 115 note 4} Con., xxiii. 11–15.

^{page 116 note 1} I am not entirely sure that this distinction matches that of Marsili between contemplation as a state and contemplation as an act, Giovanni Cassiano, 26–7: particularly since he qualifies the distinction by referring later to ‘lo stato contemplativo’ as ‘un atto continuato’, 41.

^{page 116 note 2} Con., i. 8.

^{page 116 note 3} Con., i. 9; the phrase is that of Moses himself.

^{page 116 note 4} Con., i. 10.

^{page 116 note 5} Con., i. 13.

^{page 117 note 1} Chadwick describes a move away from an ‘eschatological society’ to a ‘sanctifying and educating society’ as part of the background to monasticism in this period: John Cassian, 1st ed., 77–8.

^{page 117 note 2} Chadwick, 1st ed, 88; 2nd ed., 93.

^{page 117 note 3} Con., i. 17.

^{page 117 note 4} Con., vi. 12.

^{page 117 note 5} Con., vi. 16.

^{page 117 note 6} Con., i. 8.

^{page 118 note 1} Ibid.

^{page 118 note 2} Ibid. I feel sure in contrast to Marsili (Giovanni Cassiano, 47) that the ‘pauci’ of ‘contemplatio paucorum’ must refer to persons: hence ‘sanctorum actus’. There seems no reason for Chadwick to speak of ‘the contemplation of angels or saints’ (italics mine), as if to suggest that these holy men are not living companions of the ascetic: John Cassian, 1st ed., 148.

^{page 118 note 3} Con., i. 15. Passages like this must qualify the assertion of Peter Munz, that ‘Cassian aimed at taking to pieces the world of sound and form’: ‘John Cassian’, op. cit., 5.

^{page 118 note 4} Con., first preface.

^{page 118 note 5} Con., xvi. 18.

^{page 118 note 6} Con., xxi. 36.

^{page 119 note 1} Cassian, Institutes, ed. J.-C. Guy (Sources chreétiennes, cix, Paris 1965), x. 24.

^{page 119 note 2} Con., v. 25.

^{page 119 note 3} Inst., v. 10.

^{page 119 note 4} Con., viii. 25.

^{page 119 note 5} Inst., ii. 5.

^{page 120 note 1} Con., xii. 2.

^{page 120 note 2} Con., xxii. 6.

^{page 120 note 3} Con., xii. 2—a justifiable interpretation of Colossians iii. 5.

^{page 120 note 4} Con., vii. 12.

^{page 120 note 5} Con., vii. 15.

^{page 120 note 6} Cassian followed Evagrius here: Marsili, Giovanni Cassiano, 97. For other examples in the East, see Apophthegmata Patrum, Macarius 3 (PG., lxv. 261) and the Vita prima of Pachomius, 19 (ed. Halkin, p. 13).

^{page 121 note 1} Con., iv. 7.

^{page 121 note 2} Con., iv. II.

^{page 121 note 3} Con., xii. 5.

^{page 121 note 4} Inst., ii. 14.

^{page 121 note 5} Ibid.

^{page 121 note 6} Inst., iii. 1.

^{page 122 note 1} See Marsili Giovanni Cassiano, 29.

^{page 122 note 2} Con., ix. 4.

^{page 122 note 3} Con., vii. 4.

^{page 122 note 4} Con., vii. 8, recalling Con., i. 17. For the link with Evagrius, see Marsili, Giovanni Cassiano, 94.

^{page 122 note 5} Con., i. 4.

^{page 123 note 1} Con., i. 13. Evagrius made more precise distinctions between βασιλεία τῶν υρανῶν and βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ: see Marsili, Giovanni Cassiano, 108.

^{page 123 note 2} See Marsili, 38–40; and, for Evagrius, 93. I am less convinced by his assertion of Stoic parallels, 38 n. 1.

^{page 123 note 3} Con., i. 13.

^{page 123 note 4} Con., i. 5.

^{page 123 note 5} Con., i. 7.

^{page 123 note 6} Con., ix. 2.

^{page 123 note 7} Ibid.

^{page 123 note 8} Ibid.

^{page 124 note 1} Inst., viii. 18.

^{page 124 note 2} Con., xviii. 4.

^{page 124 note 3} Inst., v. 19.

^{page 124 note 4} Inst., v. 36; Con., xviii. 8.

^{page 124 note 5} Con., xviii. 8.

^{page 124 note 6} Con., v. 9.

^{page 124 note 7} Con., xviii. 4.

^{page 124 note 8} Inst., viii. 18.

^{page 124 note 9} Con., xviii. 6, although it is striking that their new endeavours against evil were to be pursued ‘aperto certamine ac manifesto conflictu’: at first sight a strange contrast to the ‘hidden’ disciplines of the coenobitic life.

^{page 124 note 10} Con., x. 6.

^{page 124 note 11} Con., x. 6–7.

^{page 124 note 12} Con., xiv. 4.

^{page 124 note 13} Con., first preface.

^{page 125 note 1} Con., ix. 9.

^{page 125 note 2} Con., ix. 15.

^{page 125 note 3} Con., ix. 18.

^{page 125 note 4} Con., ix. 25.

^{page 125 note 5} Con., ix. 35.

^{page 125 note 6} See Rousseau, , ‘The spiritual authority of the monk-bishop’, in Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. XXII (1971), 391–2.Google Scholar

^{page 126 note 1} Con., ix. 26–7.

^{page 126 note 2} Con., ix. 26.

^{page 126 note 3} Compare Augustine, Confessions, viii. 7—‘retorquebas me ad meipsum’—with ix. 10—‘adtigimus eam modice … et remeavimus ad strepitum oris nostri’.

^{page 126 note 4} This must qualify Marsili, Giovanni Cassiano, 36–7.

^{page 126 note 5} Con., ix. 35.

^{page 126 note 6} Con., x. 6.

^{page 126 note 7} Inst., ii. 9.

Article contents

Cassian, Contemplation and the Coenobitic Life

Extract

Access options

References

Save article to Kindle

Save article to Dropbox

Save article to Google Drive

Reply to: Submit a response

Your details

You have entered the maximum number of contributors

Conflicting interests