Monks and Students Meet the Monks - St. John's Abbey

When Saint Benedict wrote his
Rule, he didn’t use footnotes,
but he never claimed to be
original. In the fi nal chapter of the Rule,
he refers to “the Conferences of the Fathers,
their Institutes and Lives, and the
Rule of our holy father Basil” (RB 73).
Benedict assumed that everyone knew
he was talking about John Cassian’s
Conferences and Institutes, the most
extensive collection of monastic teaching
available in sixth-century Italy, and
indeed, today.
John Cassian was born about 365. He
spent several years in Bethlehem in a
cenobitic (communal) monastery before
visiting Egypt. There he learned the essential
monastic wisdom about prayer,
distracting thoughts, temptations and
reading the Bible.
Cassian ended up in the port city of
Massilia, modern-day Marseilles, in
southern Gaul. There he established
monasteries for men and women and
wrote his great summary of monastic
A color lithograph based on a fi fteenth century
French miniature entitled “Calligrapher,” from
the Arca Artium collection,
courtesy of Mary Schaffer, curator
John Cassian:
Early Spiritual Writer
by Columba Stewart, OSB
Introducing one of the major sources of
St. Benedict’s monastic teaching.
teaching, the Institutes and Conferences.
Their infl uence on later Latin monastic
authors, including Benedict, would be
enormous. He provided one-stop shopping
for the monastic seeker.
From this massive work we fi nd two
useful themes. First, Cassian knew that
every way of life needs a clear sense
of purpose, a goal. For the monk, that
goal is purity of heart, which enables us
to “see God” in the Bible, the creation
around us and in one another. Cassian explores
this goal in its many aspects of unceasing
prayer, chastity and insight into
Scripture. To be “pure of heart” is to be
focused, to live in the peace that comes
from a sure sense of one’s vocation.
Second, Cassian knew that coming
to such maturity is a lifetime process,
requiring awareness of all the attractions
and distractions that hold us back from
SPIRITUAL LIFE
living as we should. His emphasis
on a developmental understanding
of the Christian life, and his
sharing of a traditional Egyptian diagnostic
system of “eight thoughts”
that subvert our intentions, have
helped many Christians today take
stock and move forward.
The eight are: gluttony, lust,
avarice, anger, sadness, listlessness
(accidie), vainglory and pride. If
you think you’ve seen something
like this list before, you have:
Cassian’s model inspired the medieval
notion of the Seven Deadly
Sins, just one of his many marks on
later Christian spirituality.
Columba Stewart, OSB, associate
professor of theology, specializes in
monastic studies.
The Abbey Banner Fall 2003 page 27