Degrees of Prayer Summary
1) Preliminaries: In order to enter upon the life of prayer one must be detached from objects. Evagrius distinguishes detachment from objects and from the thoughts of objects. Here we are pretty much on the same ground as in Cassian, Conference 3.
2) Apatheia—The true life of prayer begins when one has not only left behind the things of earth, but is beginning the struggle with thoughts of those things. The first step in the life of prayer is the struggle with “passionate thoughts,” i.e., thoughts that move us to passion, whether anger, lust, etc. Here, meditation is important, including the constant meditation of death and the last things, until the soul begins to be free. Here the big thing is virtue. Note—combat with evil spirits is crucial. According to Evagrius (Or. 49), the chief purpose of the battle waged by devils against the monk is to prevent or to frustrate interior prayer. The devils tempt us to those vices most contrary to prayer, especially lust and anger. Apatheia is the victory of the soul over all the devils (i.e., all the passions). Note that apatheia is not mere insensibility. It is compounded of humility, compunction, zeal, and intense love for God. Apatheia is the state of a soul that is no longer moved by passionate thought. The thoughts of such souls are “simple,” that is to say, untainted by passion: they have no “charge” of passion in them; we simply see objects as they are, in simplicity. At this point one reaches the stage of “meditation on simple thoughts.” Note that prayer is inseparably connected with virtue. Without virtue, one cannot resist passion, and if one is dominated by passion, he has no control of thoughts and cannot pray. However, Evagrius always insists that prayer is a pure gift of God; it is not attained by our own ascetic efforts but we must beg Him for the gift of prayer (Or. 58).
3) Spiritual Contemplation—Gnosis and Theoria Physica. The mind is now beyond simple thoughts but it receives in itself the form of the essences of things—an intuitive penetration of reality—of “nature” in so far as it reflects God. This, in other words, is an intuition of the Creator in His Creation. The logoi of creatures are reflections of the divine attributes. He says that in theoria physica we “receive letters” from God, but in the highest contemplation we speak to Him and He speaks to us. (Cf. St. John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle, 2:3.) In the highest contemplation God is present directly to the mind without form or concept. In “Spiritual Contemplation” (gnosis), though the soul possesses apatheia, the devil can still tempt it—but now not with passions—rather he injects into the mind spiritual forms, images and visions which claim to “represent” God or divine things (Or. 67–68). In the highest contemplation (Theologia) the soul is beyond the reach of the devil because it no longer uses any concepts whatever and is pure of “all forms,” and cannot be deceived by any false idea. This supposes that it is directly illuminated by God. How? It is not clearly explained.
4) Theologia—Union with God without intermediary of His creatures. The mind is now above all essences. (Cf. Ruysbroeck, Spiritual Espousals). Or. 60: “If you are a theologian you will truly pray and if you pray truly you are a theologian.” For Evagrius: Theologian equals Mystic.
[So], is Evagrius dangerous? Evagrius is an extremist and several dangers are often pointed out in his teaching:
Angelism: There is a possibility that his doctrine on purity of prayer may tempt people to the idea that man is capable of living like a pure spirit without a body and without passions, and that the perfection to which we should tend is superhuman—total spiritualism. Does he ignore the reality of man? And despise God’s Creation?
Is his doctrine pagan (Platonist) rather than Christian? Certainly there are many Platonic elements in it and Christ appears very little in it, almost not at all. However, the Holy Spirit plays a central role.
There is danger of pride and self-sufficiency. It is not altogether true that Evagrius exaggerates man’s ascetic power and underestimates grace. But it is a spirituality centered on one’s own purity and perfection. In the long run Evagrius is too idealistic and presents a program that is inaccessible to men.
There is truth in all these criticisms, but they are not absolute. They must be taken with a grain of salt, too. Evagrius can usually be interpreted in a way that gives his doctrine value for all time, and for the whole Church. It is a high contemplative ideal, aspiring perhaps to an exaggerated spiritual perfection which is not preached in the Gospel. In any case, the Evagrian ideal is what Cassian encountered in the desert, tempered by the simplicity of the more humble Desert Fathers as we have seen it in the Apothegmata.
LECTURE 13
Master of the Spiritual Life: Cassian
He is the great monastic writer—the Master of the spiritual life par excellence for monks—the source for all in the West. He is a classic, profoundly attached to tradition. He is a perfect source for the whole tradition of Oriental monasticism—basically the doctrine of Origen, adapted for monks by Evagrius—resuming all that we have so far discussed in Patristic thought.
He is remarkable for his grasp of the essentials of monasticism, avoiding bizarre details, in contrast to Palladius, for example. He is not a mere compiler—he shows real literary talent and ability to organize ideas in an original synthesis valid for all. He propagated in the West the doctrine of active and contemplative lives. He is interesting, human, a good observer and psychologist, a prudent Master of the spiritual life; every monk should know him thoroughly.
He influenced all the early monastic founders in the West, including St. Honoratus of Lérins, St. Caesarius; in Spain, St. Isidore, and St. Fructuosus. He even influenced the early monks of Ireland. In the East he is revered by all—called a saint. He is included in the Philokolia and praised by St. John Climacus as “The Great Cassian.” In modern times, after influencing St. Thomas, Cassian also had a profound effect on St. Ignatius and the Jesuits, on De Rancé and the Trappists, on Port Royal, on Fenelon.
St. Benedict considers Cassian and [the] Desert Fathers ideal reading material for Compline. It is due to Cassian that the Compline reading exists and from his work it gets its name Collatio. Compline reading has a special formative importance in St. Benedict’s eyes. It draws the monks together after the varying business of the day and brings them face to face with the essentials of their vocation, before they retire for the night. The Compline reading is designed especially for recollection and edification. Hence, St. Benedict considered Cassian an ideal author for monks, one who would help them lead their monastic lives more perfectly, one who would bring them into contact with God, for Whom they had left the world. In chapter 73, admitting that the Rule is a map for the “active life” of beginners, and looking forward to the progress of his monks in contemplation, St. Benedict again recommends Cassian. He designates three kinds of reading that will help the monk reach the perfection of his vocation:
1) The Scriptures, “every page of which is a most accurate norm to live by.”
2) The works of the Catholic Fathers, which enable us to go directly to God: recto cursu.
3) “The Conferences of the Fathers and the Institutes (i.e., the two main books of Cassian) and their lives, together with the Rule of our Holy Father St. Basil.”
These are described as “examples of good-living and obedient monks, and instruments of virtue.”
This is one of the things most striking about Cassian: lifelike portraits of the Desert Fathers. They remain “models for imitation.” But, in what sense are they to be imitated? Not in all their exterior actions—impossible to us—not at all suited to our situation; not in all their attitudes—they were extremists—they were often quite wrong. They are to be followed in their faith, their love of Christ, their zeal for the monastic state, and their spirit of prayer and sacrifice. In reading the Desert Fathers one must discriminate, adapt, as did St. Benedict himself, who consciously and deliberately wrote a Rule which some of the Desert Fathers would have condemned as soft:
The priest Cassian, who wrote about the formation of faithful monks, should be diligently re
ad and frequently heard; in the beginning of our vocation, he said, eight principal vices ought to be avoided. This writer so skillfully describes the evil movements of man’s soul, that he helps one to see and avoid faults, whereas before he was in confusion and did not know what they were. However, Cassian was rightly blamed by St. Prosper for his errors about free will, and so we advise that he should be taken cautiously in this matter, in which he was mistaken. (Cassiodorus)
Cassian fell into semi-Pelagianism, but this error only appears in one or two places, and the fact that Cassian continued, in spite of it, to be the standard reading of all monks, is only an additional proof of his great authority in the ascetic field. The saints and Fathers of St. Benedict’s day and of the Middle Ages would never have tolerated any of the works of a man suspected of heresy, if they had not been convinced that his writings were of the greatest value and importance, that in general their orthodoxy was beyond reproach. Compare what happened to Evagrius, who only survived under another name. The name of Cassian was always held in the highest respect.
St. Dominic seized upon the writings of Cassian as a most apt means of learning how to become a saint of God: “He took up the book which is called the Conferences of the Fathers, and read it carefully. He set his mind to understand the things which he read therein, to feel them in his heart, and to carry them out in his actions. From this book he learned purity of heart, the way of contemplation, and the perfection of all virtues” (Life of St. Dominic). This gives us an idea how we ought to read Cassian.
Cassian’s Error
Before we go on to the study of Cassian’s doctrine, we may briefly dispose of the error in his teaching.
It is misleading to use the term “semi-Pelagianism” of Cassian, as if to imply that he sympathized with Pelagius and adopted a modification of his heretical doctrine. Cassian is closer to St. Augustine than he is to Pelagius. Book 12 of the Instituta, on pride, is probably directed against the Pelagians. In his anti-Nestorian writings, Cassian explicitly condemns Pelagius’ denial of the Redemption. Pelagius held that man was entirely capable of achieving his own salvation, even after original sin, and that Jesus had come only as an “inspiration” and a “model of virtue.” Cassian appears to teach that grace is necessary to achieve the perfection of sanctity, and to imply that without grace one can begin the work of our sanctification, but not bring it to completion—in other words, that without grace we can do something to save our souls. Cassian can, however, be defended from this error by texts in which he says that Jesus declared that he could do nothing of Himself and that a fortiori we must say the same:
[Jesus] says, in the person of his assumed humanity, that he is able to do nothing of himself; and do we, dust and ashes, think that in those things that pertain to our salvation we do not need the help of God!
In the dispute about semi-Pelagianism, the argument centers around the initium fidei, the first step towards believing. The heretics held that man could take this first step without grace. Cassian, however, explicitly says in the third Conference that even the initium salutis is a gift of God (Conf. 3:10). Also, he says “Paul declared that the beginning of our conversion and faith, and the endurance of sufferings, is given to us by the Lord.” (Conf. 3:15—cf. Phil. 1:29). The grace of God, he declares, is necessary every day and at every moment.
However, the most disputed text of Cassian on this point is in the thirteenth Conference, the one reproved by St. Prosper, a disciple of St. Augustine. In 432, Prosper wrote a direct attack on Cassian. His motive is to defend St. Augustine against those who attacked his works on grace by appealing to Cassian. Even in attacking Cassian, Prosper calls him a “priest who excels among all others,” and he does not attribute the doctrine on grace directly to Cassian, but to the Desert Father (Chaeremon) whom he is quoting. He praises Cassian for starting out the thirteenth Conference with the statement that God is the principle not only of our good acts but also of our good thoughts—that man has need of grace in all things. However, the language of the thirteenth Conference later becomes erroneous. Cassian says (quoting Chaeremon), “When Divine Providence sees in us a beginning of good will . . . then God begins to give us grace.” He immediately says that God has sown this seed, but seems also to leave a possibility that the seed might also have been sown by our own efforts. It is a “beginning of good will” that comes either from God or from ourselves. But there is no either/or. It must all come from God. Cassian, in the thirteenth Conference, adopts without criticism Chaeremon’s doctrine that the first beginnings of salvation sometimes come from God and sometimes from man. Cassian’s error on this point was not merely a question of hazy terminology, but he actually deviated from the true doctrine (of St. Augustine), seeking a “middle path” between Augustine and Pelagius. As a dogmatic theologian, then, Cassian failed on this point.
Cassian’s Life and Background
His place of birth is unknown—speculations about it name him as native of southern France, Romania, etc. Syria is improbable as [a] birthplace. He was born about 360 or 365. In his early youth he entered a monastery at Bethlehem, before St. Jerome went there. He had already received a complete classical formation. Why did he choose a monastery at Bethlehem? Out of veneration for the mystery of the Divine Infancy, and faith in the efficacy of that mystery as a source of grace for monks. In other words, he did not merely pick this place because it had been made famous by Our Lord, or because it recalled His memory: but above all because of the efficacy of the mystery of His childhood. He perhaps entered the monastery at the same time as his friend Germanus, who accompanies him on his voyage to Egypt.
Monasticism had been imported to Palestine from Egypt by St. Hilarion in the first part of the fourth century. (See above.) Cassian arrived a few years after the death of St. Hilarion, who was one of the first monastic confessors to receive a liturgical cult like that of the martyrs. The monasteries of Palestine were lauras, not quite cenobia, but more compact than the hermit colonies of St. Anthony. Cassian and Germanus probably lived together in the same hut. Palestinian monasticism emphasized exterior practices more than did that of the Egyptians. Cassian frequently remarks that the Palestinian monks made perfection consist in austerity, in long prayers, and special mortifications, while the Egyptians had a better idea of the essence of perfection—union with God, but at the same time were often more austere than the monks of Palestine. When Cassian visited Egypt for the first time, around 385, his discovery of the spirit of the monks of the desert came to him as a revelation, and thereafter he could not think of returning permanently to Palestine. It is for us to catch from him something of the undying inspiration of the Desert Fathers.
Around 385, Cassian and Germanus received permission to visit Egypt. Cassian is about twenty years old. The length of their stay was not determined, but they had to make a vow that they would return. The vow was made in the Cave of the Nativity. Their first stay in Egypt was to last about seven years. They returned for another seven years. They land at Thennesys, in the Delta, and are met by a local bishop, and go to visit three solitaries who live in the marshes nearby (Panephysis): they are Chaeremon, Nesteros, and Joseph. These are the ones who supply material for the second part of the Conferences—11 to 17, including the thirteenth which contains the error on nature and grace.
In the opening chapters of Conference 11, Cassian describes his arrival in the Delta, among “those old monks whose age is evident from their bowed frame and whose holiness shines forth in their expression, so that the mere sight of them is a lesson to the beholders.” They find the anchorites living on lonely islands in the salt marshes. [Abbot] Chaeremon, a hundred years old, is no longer able to walk upright. He excuses himself, and tries to avoid giving them lessons in asceticism, because he is no longer able to observe the full austerity of his rule.
Chaeremon then gives them conferences on the three ways of combating the vices and reaching the perfection of charity, which restores to the soul the image and likeness of God (Conf. 11 on Perfe
ction). The first five chapters are introductory. This is the first conference Cassian and Germanus hear in Egypt. We are introduced to Chaeremon, living in the marshes, a man of very great age, humility and wisdom. They tell him they have come to learn something in order to make progress. This is the starting point. Chaeremon begins with the assumption that perfection means the overcoming of vices. This is axiomatic for Cassian and the Desert Fathers. But besides the mere fact of “not sinning,” what constitutes the deeper perfection of the spiritual life is the motive, the way in which we avoid evil and do good. The various motives for not sinning and doing good are:
1) fear of hell or of violating the law;
2) hope of reward and of the good that we will enjoy as a result of virtue;
3) love of good and virtue as such, for their own sakes.
It is this third that constitutes perfection: doing good without fear and without any interested motive, out of “perfect love” that is centered on the good alone, or even on love alone. It is love for love’s sake (that is, for God’s sake). Chaeremon associates faith with fear (servile attitude), hope with the “mercenary” attitude, and charity with perfection. (This is of course the heart of St. Bernard’s mystical theology, the climax of his sermons on the Canticle of Canticles. Pure love which “casteth out fear” is the way to wisdom, in which we act and are moved only “saporem boni”—see Cistercian Breviary, III Nocturn, Feast of St. Bernard.) When this love is present, there is perfect resemblance to God Who gives all without stint to good and evil alike, who is not troubled by insults, always remaining in His own perfect goodness which does not visualize itself in contrast to evil.
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