Western Monastic Spirituality: Cassian, Caesarius of Arles, and Benedict

By Fordham University Press

Western Monastic Spirituality presents three authors as individuals, certainly, but also as textual informants who, like road markers, represent a line of the development of a Western monastic spiritual tradition. John Cassian (ca. 360–435) helped bring the wisdom of northern Egyptian ascetical life of the late fourth century to southern France in the early fifth century. Caesarius of Arles (468/470–542), drawing on his own monastic experience and Augustine’s monastic rule, composed a rule for a women’s monastery in the city of Arles. Not many years later, Benedict wrote the most influential rule in Western monasticism, one that still regulates the lives of monks today all over the world. These three texts, when looked at serially and together, offer a theology of monastic spirituality, an example of a relatively short but comprehensive early monastic rule, and a present day Benedictine interpretation of how Benedict’s monastic spirituality can be summed up in a short present day digest of his rule. Reflection on early Western monasticism retrieves some basic Christian spiritual values that should inform life today outside the monastery in a busy, secular culture.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fordham University Press
• Release date: Jun 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781531502171

Book preview

I

Introduction to Western Monasticism

The Origins of Monasticism

Looking back from the twenty-first century, the origins of monasticism all but disappear in the shadows of asceticism and solitary quests for holiness in the third century. With the new peace established by Constantine, overt experiments in monastic living began to appear in the fourth century. One can draw a line connecting the texts of this volume with monasticism in northern Egypt where Cassian was a monk for fifteen years. But William Harmless explicitly affirms that "Egypt was not the birthplace, but a birthplace. Syria has at least an equal claim, and Palestine and Cappadocia may as well."¹

Several well-known figures occupy positions of prominence on the landscape of Eastern monasticism in the early years of the fourth century. Pachomius (292–348) began founding monasteries in southern Egypt in the 320s and over the years forged an alliance of several monasteries around a rule. The equivalent of a monk in Syria was a single-minded unmarried imitator of Christ, indicating that the origins of Syriac monasticism lay not in desert dwelling, but in consecrated celibacy.² Basil of Caesarea (330–379) and his older sister, Macrina, both established monastic communities. Basil put together an anthology of texts from Origen and others and developed a set of principles that articulate a coherent monastic spirituality. He oriented the community toward service of society and the poor. He did not discourage asceticism or a solitary life but kept it close to the monastic community. The monastic community for women founded by Macrina flourished for decades.³ Evidence also indicates early monastic beginnings around Jerusalem. Monastic spirituality flourished in Palestine before Cassian’s arrival there in the later part of the century.

The composition of the Life of Antony by Athanasius of Alexandria, shortly after the death of this famous figure in 356, inspired people widely and focused new attention on an ascetic life. Antony lived both a hermit’s solitary life in the desert and in community in northern Egypt. He represented conversion to an absolutely committed Christian spirituality. The transition from life in an external world to an inner journey of becoming closer to God through stages reflects ideas found in Origen and Clement of Alexandria before him. Antony’s story moved Augustine among many others and helped bestow a new exemplary importance to ascetic and monastic spirituality.

Boniface Ramsey describes some of the qualities of this Egyptian monastic life. He ranks poverty as a distinguishing mark. Antony dramatized dispossession. It was the call to poverty, as it had been practiced in the apostolic Church, that had transformed Anthony himself from a pious young man into a monk.⁴ Poverty translated the idea of dependence on God into actuality. Antony’s life also emphasized asceticism as part of a monastic way of life. The point of asceticism was not pain but self-discipline and control of the emotional side of human response. Evagrius had developed this aspect of ascetic and monastic life; apatheia, or loosening the bonds of passion, meant strengthening rational control of the self in this monastic theologian.⁵ Discipline did not aim at eliminating the passions but rather ordering and directing them by an intellect that was guided by Christian principles.⁶ Another quality of ascetic and also monastic life appeared in the phrase struggle with demons. The existence of evil spirits was taken for granted in this period. Combat against them included discerning the effects of good and evil spirits, and this required the help of wise counsel. Egyptian monastic traditions contained a wealth of psychological and spiritual wisdom and occasionally some antiintellectualism. Monasticism did not confuse holiness and education, but a deep wisdom tradition of self-knowledge could occasion a spiritual elitism that ignored intellectual reflection.

John Cassian

John Cassian was almost an exact contemporary of Augustine. He was born in the East, probably around the Black Sea. He was obviously educated and he traveled. As a young man he and the companion of the first half of his life, Germanus, joined a monastery in Bethlehem in Palestine around 380. After some time, when he learned of the monks in Egypt, he moved there and dedicated his life to the monasticism west of Alexandria in Scetis. During the years 399–400, Egyptian monks influenced by Origen were forced to flee Egypt. Cassian and Germanus probably were among them, for, after Egypt, Cassian turned up in Constantinople where he was befriended by Archbishop John Chrysostom and ordained a deacon.

Documents show that in the year 404 Cassian was in Rome as part of a delegation advocating for Chrysostom who, as a victim of controversy, was exiled from his see. The period of his life immediately after this remains unaccounted for until 415, when documents place him in Marseille. There is no word about Germanus after Constantinople. Cassian founded two monasteries in Marseille, one for men, St. Victor, where presumably he lived the rest of his life, and the other for women, St. Sauveur. Sometime after 415, he wrote a work called Institutes that described the externals of monastic life, such as monastic dress and the order of the day, and explained the struggle against the human vices that infect a spiritual life. Cassian compared the monk to an athlete. Just as Olympic athletes train and subject their bodies to fierce discipline to achieve mastery and freedom of action, so monks discipline their bodies to cease being ‘slaves of fleshly desires.’⁷

After the Institutes, Cassian wrote the first set of his Conferences, which was followed by two more sets for a total of twenty-four essays on monastic life. The Conferences wedded theological grounding and long-lived practical common sense in a psychologically sophisticated body of wisdom.⁸ Although it may not be called a systematic work, it contained basic principles and maxims that enjoyed wide authority in Western monasticism.

Around 430 Cassian was invited by Leo, Archdeacon of Rome, who would become pope in 440, to write the treatise entitled On the Incarnation, against Nestorius, which scholars do not consider a major work. Two years later, Prosper of Aquitaine attacked Cassian in the name of Augustine on the theme of grace and free will, and for some it damaged his reputation. But the conflict between Cassian and Augustine may be overemphasized. Cassian died around 435.

The Conferences. Cassian’s Conferences each followed a certain pattern. Cassian and his companion Germanus would interview a certain noted monk in Scetis or one of the surrounding ascetic centers. The basic literary structure took the form of a dialogue in which Cassian set the scene and Germanus asked the questions. The monk, in turn, responded in the voice of monastic wisdom, usually at length and with considerable homiletic skill.⁹ The responses are reconstructed by Cassian rather than being conversations committed to memory. Cassian was perfectly bilingual; he had internalized much during his fifteen years in Egypt, and he was writing for a Western audience. He was also writing in his own voice, interpreting his sources. For example, at a basic level the witnesses are more hermits than communitarian monks, but Cassian adapts their ideas to inspire the interior life of Western monasteries. As Harmless puts it: "Although the Conferences speak of Egypt, the intended audience lived in southern Gaul."¹⁰

Some fundamental ideas. Cassian formulated some of the basic concepts of the Western monastic imagination. They find their home in a large biblical and Christian framework of eschatology. As Columba Stewart notes: The significance of Cassian’s eschatological orientation, a perspective he and his mentors simply took for granted, cannot be overemphasized. His belief in heaven and his attendant conviction that monastic life is entirely oriented toward preparing for heaven shape everything he writes.¹¹ The idea is that the monk lives on earth and is preparing for life in heaven.

Closely entwined with eschatology lies the teleology that characterized the thought of Clement of Alexandria and that the monks learned from Origen. Cassian keeps going back to the distinction between means and ends in order to shift the monks’ outlook from things of this world to those of heaven and to see meanings with a broader and deeper perspective. Cassian’s great contribution to monastic theology … is a relentless insistence on the long view. He finds the reason for every action and aspect of the monastic life in the striving to reach its goal and end.¹²

If one had to choose a single idea that defined the center of gravity of the whole of a monk’s life, for Cassian it would surely come down to purity of heart. Cassian found in this phrase a coming together of all monastic virtues. Stewart suggests that purity of heart combines three essential aspects of monastic life: ascetical purification, an equation of purity of heart with love, and the experience of liberation from sin that creates in turn a tranquil spirit. In Romans 6:22, Paul wrote that in committing the self to God the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life. For Cassian: Sanctification is purity of heart, eternal life is the reign of God.¹³

Contemplation is purity of heart in action. Prayer and contemplation translate purity of heart into actions that are quiet, calm, unfettered by the passions, and exercised in love. This raises the constant discussion of the balance between contemplation and action, especially the moral action of response to neighbor that permeates the gospels. Cassian maintains a practical balance between contemplation and action, but contemplation possesses higher value because it is continuous in the eschatological state. Beatitude consists of fulfilling contemplation; the need for action will end. But in practice Cassian appreciates the necessity of both and the mutual need and support of each for the other.

The virtues in Cassian’s Conferences commingle and reinforce each other. A major virtue is discretion. It gives a monk balance, especially against extreme asceticism or indulgence. It involves suspicion of one’s own immediate judgments and an impulse to consult others. Above all, it requires humility and a desire to consult others, especially the elders who have experience.¹⁴

Finally, obedience dominates the purpose of life in community, the destruction of self-will and pride through submission to the rule, to the superior of the community, and through them to God.¹⁵ One has to mention the celibacy and chastity of monastic life. As external stipulations of community life, these provisions define the social distinctiveness of this spiritual way of life. But the external form of life aims at supporting an interior disposition. The point of celibacy lies in the relationship with God marked by purity of heart and single-minded love.

Caesarius of Arles

Caesarius of Arles provides an example of a carefully crafted and revised rule of monastic life from the early sixth century that translates Cassian’s theory into a practical communitarian life. He wrote the rule for a monastery of women religious in southern France twenty years before Benedict wrote his rule. Caesarius reaches back to three sources that connect his rule with a tradition. First, Caesarius experienced monastic life for some years before becoming a bishop. Second, he appealed to Augustine who had constructed a rule intended for religious women. A third relation connects him to Cassian whose Conferences greatly influenced discussion of the logic of monastic life. An outline of the extraordinary career of Caesarius of Arles will help situate this monastic rule for women in a sixth-century Roman city.

The life of Caesarius. Caesarius was born in 470 in Burgundy. At the age of twenty he entered the monastery at Lérins. After some time, while still in his twenties, he adopted the semi-solitary and more penitential life that was permitted at Lérins to individual monks.¹⁶ While living this life he became sick and was sent to Arles for recuperation. The Bishop of Arles was his uncle, who convinced him to stay and ordained him a priest of the church of the diocese. When the bishop died in 502, the people accepted Caesarius as Bishop of Arles, and he began his forty-year leadership