Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

monasticism 765
those might best be imitated. They were to govern, in any case, more by
example than by rule. 60 The bulk of the Inistitutes (Books v,xii) was
devoted to spiritual guidance, under the headings of eight vices and how
they might best be countered. The Conferences were similar in effect, reporting
conversations with well-known ascetics of northern Egypt: offering, in
other words, instruction from the lips of ascetic masters. Where Cassian
did discuss relations between superiors and subjects, his emphasis was on
formation – on the desire of the disciple and the wisdom of the teacher.
The setting evoked, moreover, was predominantly eremitical: the solitary
life was still acknowledged as the ascetic’s characteristic ideal. There can be
no doubt, nevertheless, that Cassian’s intentions, like his audience, were
coenobitic, and that the virtues and practices he encouraged were those
proper to community life. 61 It is one of his claims to genius that he was able
to respect an ancient Egyptian tradition, while nevertheless adapting it
thoroughly to the new monasteries of Gaul. Thus the apparent conversations
of old masters were transformed into an independently available text
with an authority of its own. 62
Once in place, those southern experiments and precedents set the tone
for monasticism in Gaul until the end of the sixth century. (They also provided
a context for interaction between Gaul, Britain and Ireland: Patrick
was to some degree a disciple of Honoratus.) 63 Yet the close relationship
between ascetics and the episcopate in Gaul, already evident in Cassian’s
career, 64 makes it difficult to assess the significance of specifically monastic
developments in the province. Lérins quickly became a virtual school
for bishops – not only of Arles, as in the case of Honoratus and his successor
Hilary (died 449), but of several other dioceses: Eucherius’ Lyons,
for example, and the Riez of Faustus. 65 Such promotions did not represent
merely enthusiasm for ascetic candidates, ‘common assumption’ though
their suitability might have been. 66 The acquisition of a see depended as
much on the patronage of the powerful, and reflected new aristocratic
ambitions within an increasingly isolated province. 67 The men concerned
60 Cassian, Inst. preface 4f., confirmed in Conlationes (CSEL 13) preface to i. Inst. iv.17–18 discusses
food.
61 That emphasis becomes more and more evident as the Conferences proceed, but is heavily accen-
62 tuated in xix. Cassian, Con. prefaces to xi and xviii. Adaptation to the west: Inst. i.10.
63 Although it was not as a monk that he journeyed to Ireland and worked there.
64 His prefaces in the Institutes and Conferences bear witness to a complex web of relationships; and
he had come to Gaul in the first place under the patronage of Proculus of Arles. See Rousseau, Ascetics
174f., 217f.
65 Sid. Ap. Ep. 6.1.3; 9.3.4. Lérins was not the only source of such recruits. Rusticius of Narbonne,
whose episcopate spanned more than thirty years (from a.d. 427), was a monk from St Victor, one of
Cassian’s foundations in Marseilles. It was to him that Jerome wrote, recommending an ascetic career
as the visible guarantee of worthiness for the priesthood: Ep. 125.17.
66 Familiaris . . . præsumptio: Boniface of Rome, Ep. ‘Exigit dilectio’, PL xx.669f.
67 See Mathisen (1989), (1993), and Drinkwater and Elton, Fifth-Century Gaul.
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