Lay people today, both in the Church and outside it, are eager for spiritual guidance, longing to develop a life of prayer, and ready to listen to almost anyone who offers a path to holiness. Teachers from many exotic cultures, both sound and dubious, are sure of an audience. Yet the spiritual traditions of the West have been almost lost to sight, for reasons which still remain unclear. This version of Cassian, who influenced Western spirituality more than most, is offered as a help and guide for those in our modern world who are still struggling against the ancient problems of life, and who yearn for a deeper union with God. Cassian's name is not familiar, indeed if he is remembered at all, he is usually considered a monk's writer, a voice from the remote past speaking to men of terrifying asceticism who lived far apart from the hurly-burly of everyday life. Monks, it used to be safely assumed, can all read Latin with ease, and therefore no translation of this ancient writer is necessary, save for those few academics who still concern themselves with such matters.
Presenting Cassian to the laity may therefore seem rather perverse - but there is good precedent. The teaching of Cassian, although unacknowledged, underlies the spirituality of St Philip Neri and St Francis de Sales, both of whom dedicated themselves to the sanctification of the lay state, teaching methods of prayer suitable for men and women in different states of life, both busy and leisured. Theirs is not the only Western spiritual tradition available for the laity - indeed the teaching of the Jesuits is far better known and widely practiced - but it is one which certainly suits many people who find St Ignatius rather difficult.
There is a celebrated passage in Newman's Oratory papers where he contrasts the two spiritualities, comparing the Oratorian tradition of St Philip and St Francis de Sales to the Athenians, and the Jesuit tradition to the Spartans as described by Pericles in his Funeral Speech. (Newman the Oratorian, ed. Placid Murray, pp 210-2) The comparison may not spring immediately to mind in our post-Classical age, but the distinction between two grand streams of spiritual teaching is, I believe, valid, and could usefully be explored further. Both traditions are authentic, both are necessary to the life of the Church, but those who are happy with a writer, an Order or a spiritual director of one tradition will find themselves quite ill at ease when confronted with one from the other tradition.
Newman went further, and suggested that an Oratorian is "almost the reverse ... of a Jesuit". (ibid. p. 208) He was not only thinking of the very different structures, the Society of Jesus being centrally organised and governed from above, whereas the Oratory is so democratic as to be almost anarchical, but also of that much more intangible quality, the approach to prayer, and to the teaching of prayer. Here the Oratory finds itself in a natural association with the older Orders, with the Benedictines, the Dominicans and the Carmelites. Abbot John Chapman's teaching on prayer, with his famous dictum "Pray as you can and don't try to pray as you can't", epitomises our approach. (See his Spiritual Letters) Prayer is unstructured, chaotic perhaps, free, without rigid method or set forms, but is none the less diligently practised and regularly observed. Prayer is infinitely adaptable, for the different circumstances in which we find ourselves. Our prayer and our whole way of life are marked by a lightness of touch which prevents us from ever taking ourselves too seriously.
There is an "Athenian" approach also to the pursuit of virtue. Sin, also, must not be taken too seriously, for that would be to play straight into its clutches. The devil cannot abide being laughed at, as C.S. Lewis has shown us, and a breezy confidence in the effective grace of God may do more to dispel the darkness of vice than intent and gloomy dwellings on the minutiæ of sin. Vice can be seen as a disease, a virus, a poison which we are trying to expel from our system, or it may be seen as a sporting challenge to be surpassed, and the approach to treating this disease or meeting this challenge can be one of cheerful confidence once we have embarked on a programme of spiritual life.
I am not going to attempt to describe exactly what the difference between the two types of spirituality is, for it is essentially something that can only be grasped from much reading and much experience. But perhaps I may suggest that "Athenians" will be those who feel at home, not only with Abbot Chapman and St Francis de Sales but with the mediaeval English mystics, the Cloud, Hilton, Rolle, and their eccentric follower Austin Baker, with Aelred of Rievaulx and Bernard of Clairvaulx, William of St Thierry and the Victorines, and further back, with Denis the Areopagite, and hence with his sixteenth-century follower John of the Cross, and the formidable Teresa of Avila. "Athenians" will recognise that the only clear rule you can really give on prayer is St Benedict's concise "If you want to pray, just go into the Oratory and pray". (Rule, chapter 52) And behind all these teachers on prayer will be found the giant figure of John Cassian.
So who was Cassian? For his life and a discussion of his works we cannot do better than refer to Owen Chadwick's John Cassian (1950, 2nd edition 1968). The theological problems of grace raised by the charge of "Semi-Pelagianism" are too complex to be attempted in a short introduction, though perhaps one day we may attempt a scholarly edition with full commentary and notes. For the present we may be content with a brief summary. John Cassian came either from the Danube Delta or from Provence, and must have been quite young when he entered a monastery in Bethlehem in or before the year 382. After a few years of formation in community he and a close friend called Germanus gained permission to visit the monasteries of Egypt, inspired by their contact with the fugitive Abba Pinufius (see Book IV, chapter 31). They seem to have reached Egypt in about 385, stayed seven years, visited Bethlehem briefly to be released from their obligation to that community, and returned to Egypt where they lived until the crisis of 399.
This crisis was the bringing to a head of the rivalry between the simpler Coptic-speaking native monks and the more sophisticated Greek-speakers. The Egyptians accused the Greeks of "Origenism" while the Greeks retaliated with a charge of "Anthropomorphism". The upshot was a general exodus of Greeks, including Cassian and Germanus, who came to Constantinople where they met and admired St John Chrysostom. Similarities in approach between the two writers are obvious, and Chrysostom's great outburst in praise of the monastic life in his commentary on I Timothy could well owe something to Cassian's stories of what he saw in Egypt. (Homily XIV, in Library of the Fathers Vol. 12, 1843, pp 122-5) Cassian was ordained deacon by Chrysostom, but on the latter's fall from favour at court and exile, had to leave Constantinople in 403. He passed through Rome, and settled finally at Marseilles where he was ordained priest and founded two monasteries, for women and for men, the latter dedicated to St Victor. Here he lived at peace, for Provence escaped the turbulence which swept over Italy in the early fifth century, and died in 435.
Cassian's three surviving books, and the only ones he is known to have written, seem all to date from between 425 and 430. The occasion for the first, the Institutes, was an appeal from Castor, bishop of Apt, for help and advice in founding a monastery. It is clear that the Institutes and the Collations or Conferences were being written at the same time, from frequent cross-references. The Institutes present a systematic treatise on how to be a monk, and how to grow in virtue and combat vice, whereas the Collations are reports of conversations between the young monks Cassian and Germanus, and the various elders of Egypt. The third, more theological, treatise De Incarnatione was an answer to the Nestorian crisis of 429-31, and on quite a different level from the monastic writings.
In describing Egyptian or Palestinian monasticism, and recommending practical modifications for Provence, Cassian is clearly not reporting verbatim conversations he heard thirty or forty years before: in the Preface to the Institutes he admits as much. What we find here are his mature deliberations, drawing on the experience of many years in different sorts of monasteries, although certainly profoundly influenced by what he and Germanus saw and heard during their time in Egypt. Chadwick has pointed out how the scheme of eight deadly sins owes much to the now discredited Evagrius, who really was an Origenist and who wrote in Egypt shortly before Cassian's time. Discussion over the text, and the degree to which we can detect interpolations or rearrangements could be endless; substantially we can say that the text we have is authentic, although a few chapters may be out of place. Again I would refer the reader to Chadwick for further illumination.
Cassian, as is well known, was St Benedict's primary acknowledged authority on monasticism. In fact we find the Father of Monks recommending Cassian for daily reading. (Rule, chapter 42) This reading often took place while the monks took a little light refreshment. Cassian's major work the Collations thus gave a name to breakfast in a number of European languages (Italian collazione, Polish kolacja and so on), an indication of how widespread his influence became. St Dominic also recommended Cassian for daily reading, but it was our own St Philip who first dared to read Cassian to laypeople, to men of the world, to young men in the process of discerning their vocation or deciding on a career. When the "Exercises of the Oratory" were first begun in Rome, as often as not Philip would have a page of Cassian read as a text on which to comment for the benefit of his young lay audience.
St Philip died in 1595, and Cassian remained a popular author for a few years more, judging by the number of editions printed, but after Gazet's great commentary on Cassian had passed through its second edition in 1628, (Ioannis Cassiani opera omnia cum commentariis D. Alardi Gazæi, Arras, 1628) something of an eclipse seems to have come over our author. A different spirituality dominated the Church, and Cassian was out of favour. Perhaps the most striking instance of this is seen in the reaction of St Alphonsus (a "Spartan" if ever there was one) when he caught one of his priests reading Cassian - "I would prefer to see your Reverence study my book on moral theology for half-an-hour a day ... rather than hear that you are studying Cassian." (Frederick M. Jones, Alphonsus de Liguori, p. 318)
Cassian's descent into obscurity must be the explanation of why such a seminal author has never been completely translated into English. His works were reissued twice in Latin during the nineteenth century: Migne in the Patrologia Latina vols. 49-50 simply reprinted Gazet's edition, making a few new mistakes and inserting some inaccurate Biblical references. A far better edition appeared in the Viennese series, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (vols 13 and 17, edited by Michael Petschenig, 1886 and 1888) which is the basis of our translation. A monk of Mount St Bernard translated most of the Collations under their more familiar title of Conferences in a little undated edition, probably about 1860, of such rarity that the Bodleian Library does not possess a copy. (Cassian's Conferences freely translated, by Father Robert of Mount St Bernard's Abbey, 2 vols., London, n.d.) Small selections of the Conferences have more recently appeared in the Library of Christian Classics, (Vol XII, London 1958), and the Classics of Western Spirituality, (with an introduction by Owen Chadwick, New York / Mahwah 1985). The only translation which purports to include all Cassian's works is that by Edgar C.S. Gibson in Vol XI of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, (Oxford & New York, 1894, reprinted Grand Rapids 1964), but we find in this that three whole books have been omitted, namely Book VI of the Institutes and Books XII and XXII of the Collations.
The omission of these books neatly makes my point about the two spiritualities: the "Athenian" spirituality of Cassian can talk quite frankly about sexual sin, point out some practical suggestions for breaking bad habits, and encourage us to defuse the situation by cheerfully recognising that chastity is a gift from God which will be granted once we stop worrying about it and accept that we cannot reform ourselves by sheer will power. The "Spartan" spirituality would rather not talk about it, but assumes that you have dealt with that problem on your own before you venture to sully the church with your presence. Cassian tells us that a sexual bad habit can usually be expected to disappear after about six months in the monastery; the more recent tradition was to demand six months' perfect purity before even beginning the monastic life.
The gaps in Gibson's translation were made up by Terrence Kardong in Cassian on Chastity (Assumption Abbey Press 1993), but it is still true that no complete unabridged English translation of one of the most important masters of the spiritual life has ever been available. The present version of the Institutes is the first stage in supplying a version for popular reading, to be followed, if God gives us grace (as Cassian would say), by the Collations and the Incarnation. Our intention is to make Cassian accessible for the modern reader, offered for the first time since St Philip's days to laypeople who are striving to live the Christian life, as well as for monks and similar professionals. For as I said, St Philip has shown us that Cassian's writings are profitable for people in all walks of life, and can be a valuable asset in the task of sanctifying the lay state which was St Philip's special concern.
The Institutes must therefore be read with a measure of flexibility and common sense. Clearly not everything here is going to be useful for the lay reader, or even for the monk. If I might make a suggestion, I would recommend that in a first reading you omit the first three books altogether. There is something useful to be gained in Cassian's comments on the monastic habit (not the least being the recognition that a special habit was part of monastic life from the very beginning) and there are nuggets of gold in the apparantly dry sections on the night and day psalms, but the fourth book is probably the first one of general interest, and for many readers the second part of the work, on the Eight Deadly Sins, will be far more useful than anything in the first part.
It will be seen that Cassian's list only partly overlaps with St Gregory's better known set of seven sins, but perhaps we need to mention again that he treats the vices as diseases or challenges, not as malicious acts. As we struggle against one bad tendency or another, it is heartening to be reassured that we are not alone, that the great saints and heroes of the early centuries recognised in themselves the same human failings, and have left us sage advice as we follow in their footsteps. Cassian uses two metaphors throughout his treatment of the sins: one is that of the doctor applying appropriate precautions and medicines in treating his patient, where the emphasis is on the healing ministry of the spiritual director. The other lays more stress on the struggling soul, seen in the metaphor of an athlete competing in the highly organised professional Greek games, in what we may call an "Octathlon". The eight sins must be tackled one after another, and in the right order, just as the athlete has to compete in different events, qualifying in one so that he may present himself for the next.
In presenting Cassian for the modern reader I am not merely making available a historical document, but offering what I hope will be something useful in the conduct of our daily life. With this purpose of sustaining the spirituality of the laity, then, I venture to dedicate this translation to the Brothers of the Little Oratory in Oxford.
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