The fight spread to Egypt, where the Doctors had hitherto been content to pass over Origen’s errors in silence, while highlighting the truths taught by him. Among their number was St. Athanasius. But when the conflict arose, it divided the contemplatives: students of Scripture who naturally loved Origen, headed by Evagrius Ponticus, against the actives who distrusted lofty doctrines which they did not understand and who were looking for an opportunity to get the contemplatives condemned. Some of the monks met by Cassian were of this last party, especially Abbot Abraham, who thinks the reading of Scripture is of little value. The actives, however, had fallen into another heresy, anthropomorphism, believing that God had the form of a man, not only in the Incarnation but in His own being.
In 399, after the death of Evagrius, Archbishop Theophilus of Alexandria, an Origenist who wants to gain control over the desert, sends his paschal letter (announcing the feast—cf. announcement of Easter in our chapter rooms today) and included a condemnation of anthropomorphism to please Origenist monks. Three congregations of Scete declared the bishop heretical and refused to read the pastoral letter. Paphnutius alone held firm. See the story of old Abbot Serapion, who cannot give up the heresy, until finally convinced by a learned visitor from Cappadocia, he sobs, “They have taken away my God.” (Conf. 10)
Rioting monks in Alexandria persuaded Theophilus to condemn Origen. He meets them saying, “When I see you, I see the face of God.” They reply, “If you believe that, condemn Origen.” Thus they got some satisfaction. Having changed his position completely, Theophilus now begins a persecution of the Origenists in the desert, supported by the actives. The Origenists begin to leave Egypt, either expelled, or departing of their own accord. Theophilus (according to Palladius, pro-Origen) attacked Nitria with soldiers, burnt three cells, books, etc. Theophilus in turn said Origenists fortified Nitria to resist his “visitation.” Isidore and the “Tall Brothers” (four leading Origenists) lead a troop of three hundred Origenist exiles to Palestine. Leaders go on to Constantinople, to get support of St. Chrysostom.
Was Cassian involved in the Origenist conflict? He himself says nothing directly about his own part. [There is] no Origenist heresy in Cassian, but Cassian follows Evagrius, in orthodox Origenist ascetic doctrine. Cassian probably knew Evagrius. Cassian’s friends (Paphnutius, etc.) were the Origenists of Nitria. [Also], Cassian leaves Egypt at this time and is found at Constantinople where he is ordained around 402.
It is probable that Cassian and Germanus left Egypt with the Origenists, or as a result of the struggle. They were probably involved with the Origenist theologians and probably rated as the frowned on “foreign element” which Theophilus and the Copts attacked at Nitria (out of political opportunism of course). The golden age of Egyptian monasticism came to its end at the moment when Cassian left Egypt, at the beginning of the fifth century. Now the monastic movement would gain firm foothold in the West, especially in Southern France.
Constantinople and Gaul
The Origenists fled to Chrysostom because he was an ardent and uncompromising defender of the truth—not a politician or an opportunist. Indeed he was not enough of a diplomat for some: too outspoken; no human respect; above petty squabbles—a holy and objective thinker. Cassian was an enthusiastic admirer of Chrysostom, who ordained him deacon.
St. John Chrysostom was born in 347 at Antioch. He was a great orator at Antioch who pleads the cause of the poor. In 398 he was consecrated archbishop of Constantinople and shows ardent reforming zeal along with fearless condemnation of abuses. Cassian considered Chrysostom an ideal bishop and a great saint. He pointed to him as a master. However there is apparently little real influence of Chrysostom in Cassian. (He quotes him once only and the sentence has never been found in Chrysostom’s writings!)
From Constantinople, Cassian went to Rome where he met and made friends with St. Leo the Great, not yet Pope. (Some think he met Pelagius at Rome at this time.) Legend says that in his contact with Cassian, St. Leo wanted to go off and be a hermit but was forbidden by Pope Innocent I. In 410, Alaric and the Goths invade Italy. Cassian leaves about this time. He goes to Marseilles, where the bishop is a friend of St. Jerome and St. Honoratus and a patron of the monastic movement. Cassian was ordained priest by Innocent I or Proculus, Bishop of Marseilles.
Provence was the last refuge of Roman and Christian civilization as the barbarians broke through in the north and in Italy. Refugees came from France and Italy. Many of these refugees, disillusioned with the world, became monks. In 412, Visigoths passed through Provence and unsuccessfully besieged Marseilles. Arles became capital of Gaul. Monasticism existed in Gaul (St. Martin, St. Honoratus, etc.) but it was still not completely accepted even by Christians. Bishops persecuted the monks, crowds mocked and attacked them. In many places, monks were accused of heresy, and Proculus of Marseilles did not have an easy time of it because he liked the monks. His adversaries used this as a weapon against him. Gallic monasticism was also still internally weak.
Cassian was admirably fitted to make the great synthesis of monastic doctrine and adapt the Eastern tradition to the West:
1) He was an experienced monk himself;
2) He had met and lived with the greatest monks of his time;
3) He knew all the great centers of monasticism;
4) He knew both the cenobites and the hermits;
5) He was steeped in monastic doctrine;
6) He himself had a high monastic ideal;
7) He had the genius required to make this synthesis.
Cassian arrived at Marseilles about 410. The monastery of Lérins had just been founded. Cassian founds the monastery of St. Victor, on a point across the bay from the city—a center for monastic life in southern France. Castor, Bishop of Apt (back in the mountains) asks for some writings on monasticism and Cassian writes the Instituta (about 420). The idea was to give a basis for uniform observance based on the traditions of the East. The Conferences were written 425–428. The influence of his writings dominated Lérins—nursery of bishops, who soon took over great dioceses of France. This influence spreads through Italy, Spain, Africa. His influence on St. Benedict made him, in fact, a permanent force in Western monasticism. He died about 433, shortly after being attacked as a semi-pelagian. [His] local cult grew—with [a] feast at Marseilles on July 23—Pope Urban V engraved the words “Sanctus Cassianus” on a silver casket containing his relics. The Oriental Church still celebrates his Feast on February 29. In the Philokalia he is included as Saint Cassian the Roman.
LECTURE 14
The Conferences of Cassian
There are twenty-four conferences. This whole group is divided into three parts. Part I consists of ten conferences of hermits in Scete: Abba Moses on the essence of the Monastic Life and on Discretion; Abba Paphnutius on the Triple Renunciation; Abba Daniel on concupiscence and conflict of flesh and spirit; Abba Serapion on the Eight Principal Vices (cf. Instituta); Abba Theodorus on why God permits the saints to be killed; Abba Serenus: two on Distractions, Devils and Temptations; Abba Isaac: two on prayer. This part contains the best and most important of the conferences and we will do well to concentrate on these.
The Prologue to the First Part is addressed to Bishop Leontius and to “Brother Helladius” (the latter evidently a hermit in France). Cassian, writing in retirement in his monastery (“in the harbor of silence”), will look out upon the “vast sea” of doctrine of these Fathers of Scete, awed by the fact that here is the wisdom of great solitaries and contemplatives, elevated far above the anachoresis of cenobites. The difference between the Instituta (for cenobites) and the Conferences (for hermits) lies in the fact that the Instituta deal with observances, liturgy and asceticism, the Conferences with “the invisible state (habitus) of the interior man,” with perpetual prayer and contemplation. He warns the reader not to be upset at the loftiness and difficulty of the ideals proposed and not to judge them by his own state and vocation (presumably if he is a cenobite) because he does not have the where
withal to make a right judgement. One cannot fully appreciate these doctrines, says Cassian, unless one has lived in the desert and experienced the illumination of mind which comes from dwelling alone in the vast emptiness of total solitude.
Undoubtedly the first two conferences are among the most important of all Cassian’s writings. They are absolutely fundamental and without a knowledge of his doctrine on purity of heart and discretion, we would fail to understand the true monastic attitude and miss the whole purpose of the monastic life. They show us that contemplation does not consist exclusively in solitude and silence and renunciation but that these are only means to purity of heart. Aspirations to a “more perfect life” are to be interpreted by us as inspirations to seek a greater interior perfection.
Conference 1: “On the Purpose and Goal of the Monk”
What is the purpose and end of the monastic life? This is the great and all-important question to which we must always return. Why have we left the world? The answer is given by Abbot Moses, a hermit of Scete. “We have come to the desert, he says, to seek the Kingdom of God, and the way to enter the Kingdom is by achieving purity of heart.” To begin with, Cassian shows us the modesty of Abbot Moses, and his great hesitation to embark on a spiritual discourse. The Desert Fathers lived in the true spirit of silence, and were not given to much talking, or indiscriminate talking even about spiritual things. Hence Moses has to be begged “with tears” to tell them something. It would be wrong to reveal the secrets of the spiritual life to the curious or the indifferent.
What is the purpose of the monastic life? The skopos and the telos—the immediate objective and the final end. This distinction must be made first of all. The monastic life, being an “art,” has these two distinct aims: one immediate, the other ultimate. When the farmer clears the ground and ploughs, it is to prepare it for seeding: this preparation is the skopos. The telos is the harvest. In the monastic life we have a skopos and a telos, and for these we undergo all our labors and hardships. We know what we seek, and this is sufficient to make every sacrifice worthwhile. If you do not know what you are after, it is much harder, in fact almost impossible, to apply yourself to the search.
Moses asks them why they have undertaken their long journey and their sojourn in the desert. They answer, “For the Kingdom of God” and this he says is the right answer; this is the telos. But what is the immediate objective—the skopos? Note the practical importance of this. In order to act prudently we must take into account not only what is general and universal, but above all what is particular and concrete. I must not only do “good” in a big, general way, but there is a particular good that must be done here and now. If I do not see it, I will not act rightly. Hence the importance of having a clear immediate aim even in small things: to know what we are doing, not confine ourselves to big universal aims; in the particular case their power to move us may be very weak, for example in meditation, [for which it is] better to have a precise aim, not just “union with God.”
Cassian and Germanus confess that they do not know what is the immediate objective of the monastic life and many monks today are in the same predicament. Hence Abbot Moses says definitely: “In every art and discipline a particular target is paramount: that is, an end point for the soul, a constant intention for the mind, for no one will be able to reach the objective of a desired goal unless he keeps this target in focus with complete attentiveness and perseverance.” The skopos has a certain primacy, hence importance.
It must be seen and kept in mind with perseverance and care. It is the “intention of the mind”—the what and the how and the why of our conduct. Without it, our activity is wasted and gets nowhere. “Those who proceed without a road to follow have labor and not advantage for their journey.”
The skopos is purity of heart. “Indeed our aim, that is, the target, is purity of heart, without which it is impossible for anyone to reach the ultimate goal.” Hence, if we are to make a success of the monastic life, we must turn all our attention and all our efforts to gaining purity of heart, that is the ability to love God purely and to do His will for love’s sake alone: disinterested love. This apparently simple little principle, which we all take more or less for granted once we hear it, is one that has had a profound effect on all monastic spirituality. St. Benedict is based on it, and St. Bernard’s mystical theology is built on it as on a cornerstone.
Hence, a second practical principle of great importance: “Therefore whatever can direct us toward this target, that is, purity of heart, should be followed with absolute commitment; but whatever pulls us away from it, should be shunned as dangerous and poisonous.” What is good for us? Everything that helps us gain purity of heart. What is bad for us? Everything that prevents us from purifying our hearts. “For this we do and suffer all, for this we have left our families, our dignities, riches, pleasures,” etc.
Applications and illustrations:
1) It is useless to leave great riches in the world and become attached to a pen or a needle in the desert: the heart is not pure, because the monk has not kept his objective in view. His eye has wandered and become ensnared by a trifling possession (this then has become his skopos). He speaks of one being so attached to a book that he will not even let another touch it or look at it. We remember that a regular war was precipitated among the early Irish monks over a psalter.
2) But purity of heart is equated with perfect charity. “If I should give my goods to feed the poor and have not charity . . . it profiteth me nothing.” Hence, purity of heart is not the mere external act of renunciation and emptying one’s hands. The heart must be emptied of love for creatures and open itself entirely to the love of God. Hence, further important details: purity of heart means—no jealousy, no vanity, no pride, no rivalry, anger, selfishness, no rejoicing in the evil that befalls others, not thinking evil thoughts of them; all this is to offer a pure heart to God. It is the ideal of apatheia (freedom from passion), the crown of the “active life.”
3) It is for the sake of purity of heart that we do everything we do in the monastic life. Each monastic observance, fasting, silence, reading, labor, etc., has as its function to purify the heart of vices and self-love, to free it from passion, and to raise us to the perfection of charity, “to make ready our heart, unharmed by all noxious passions, . . . by depending on these steps to rise to the perfection of love.”
4) If on the other hand, we fall into sadness or disquiet when we have to omit one or other of these observances for the sake of something higher (for example—to forego fasting in order to entertain a guest) then it shows that the observance is not serving its purpose. For the very purpose of these observances is to purify our souls of anger and sadness and the other vices.
5) It must be understood that if our observances are not working for purity of heart then they will work against it (that is, if we are attached to them out of motives of self-love). “The profit of fasting is not as great as the loss we suffer through anger, and the fruit we gather through reading is less than the harm we incur through despising a brother.”
He clearly states the great distinction between ends and means. Fasting, etc., are means, instrumenta. Charity is the end. Perfection does not lie in the means, but in the end attained by them. This cardinal principle of the monastic life must never be forgotten. If we remember it, we should logically make a generous and perfect use of the means, and thus attain our end. If we forget it, we will inevitably waste our efforts and our monastic life will end in frustration, even perhaps in sheer illusion. “One who is satisfied with (the means) as if they were the chief good, and limits the strivings of his heart to this alone and does not apply all his energies to achieving the end . . . will undertake all these exercises fruitlessly.”
Peace, tranquility, purity of heart in perfect love, this is the summit of the monastic life: it is the life of contemplation, which the monk leads alone with God. Here Cassian simply repeats what has been said, and makes clear that contemplative life on earth is the skopos whic
h we must seek by active asceticism. Cassian says:
Therefore this should be our main effort, this unwavering purpose should be unceasingly aspired to: that our mind always cling to God and to divine things.
[Then, he] adds: “Whatever differs from this, however great it may be, is to be rated as secondary, or indeed as trifling if not actually harmful.” He then goes on to speak of Martha and Mary in the Gospel (Luke 10). In Cassian’s use of the story, Martha represents the active life in the ancient sense of the practice of virtue, the bios praktikos, which leads to apatheia, and thence to theoria (contemplation). He is not at all speaking of the apostolic life or preaching as contrasted with the enclosed life of the monk. The works of Martha, practicing the virtues and following out the observances which form us to the life of virtue, is indeed not a “vile opus” (“a worthless work”) but a “laudabile ministerium” (“praiseworthy ministry”).
All the Desert Fathers agree that there is also an illusory “active life” or a temptation to activism in which the monk indulges in unnecessary activity (trumped up with false pretexts) in order to avoid being alone with himself before God.
A Course in Desert Spirituality Page 12
