August 30, 1998
St.
John Cassian:
The Three Kinds of Monk
John Cassian, a father of the fourth and fifth
centuries (365-435), was strongly steeped in the traditions of the desert. Born in
Romania, he travelled to Palestine and Egypt where he lived for some time as a monk, then
returned to Europe via Constantinople and Rome, ending his life in the south of
present-day France where he founded monasteries in Marseilles and Provence.
In this selection from his Conferences, John Cassian is told by the blessed
Piamun about the monastic way of life in Egypt. Although longer and richer in detail than
some of the other explanations we have seen of the monastic way by other desert fathers,
Piamun’s talk with John Cassian is very instructive for us and teaches us well how we
– as lay people – can benefit the most from our study of monasticism. This
series from Conferences will continue over several weeks.
BEGIN: My sons, wen a man wishes to acquire the skills of a particular art he needs to
devote all his possible care and attention to the activities characteristic of his chosen
profession. He must observe the precepts and, indeed, the advice of the most successful
practitioners of this work or of this way of knowledge. Otherwise he is dealing in empty
dreams. One does not come to resemble those whose hard work and whose zeal one declines to
imitate.
I have known some people who came here from where you live and who travelled around to the
monasteries of the brethren, and all for the sake of acquiring knowledge. But it never
occurred to them to practice the rules or the customs which were the objective of their
travels. Nor would they withdraw into a cell where they could try to practice what they
had seen and heard. They stuck to their old habits and practices, just as they had learned
them, and the criticism was made of them that they had left their own provinces not for
the sake of their own progress but to avoid the presence of poverty. Not only were they
unable to acquire any learning but they could not even stay around here because of the
sheer stubbornness of their disposition. They would make no changes in their habits of
fasting, in the order in which they followed the psalms, or even in what they wore. What
else could we believe except that they had come here solely for the purpose of getting
fed?
Now I believe that is if for the sake of God that you have come here to get to know us.
You must therefore abandon all those teachings which marked your own beginning as monks.
You must take to yourselves, completely and quite humbly, all the practices and teachings
of our old masters. It may be that a moment will come when you fail to grasp the deep
meaning of a certain statement or of a mode of conduct. Do not be put off and do not fail
to conform. Those seeking profit only, and struggling to imitate faithfully what they have
seen their masters doing and saying, and have not argued about them, these will receive a
knowledge of everything even while they are still undergoing the experience. But the man
who teaches himself by engaging in arguments will never reach the truth. The Enemy will
note that he relies more on his own judgement than upon that of the fathers and he will
easily bring him to the point where he considers even the most useful and saving matters
to be unnecessary or dangerous. The Master of deceit will take advantage of his
presumptuousness and the man will hold so stubbornly to his unreasonable opinions that he
will reach the stage of being convinced that the only thing that is holy is that which his
own blind obstinacy deems to be right and just.
What you have to learn first, therefore, is the appropriate sequence and the first steps
of our profession. You must know about how they came into being and where they came from.
Then it will be possible for a man to pursue more effectively the discipline of the art to
which one is committed. One will be moved to practice it more eagerly when one has
recognized the worth of those who originated it and established it.
In Egypt there are three types of monk. Two of them are quite excellent. The third is a
lukewarm type and is to be avoided in every way.
The first type is that of the cenobites, those who live together in one community under
the authority of an elder. Most of the Egyptian monks are of this kind.
The second type is that of the anchorites, men who are first trained in monasteries, have
achieved perfection in their way of life and who have chosen the hidden life of solitude.
And our wish is to belong to this profession.
The third type – and one to be deplored – is that of the sarabites.
To all of those, one by one, we will devote a fuller discussion.
The founders of these three professions are those who, as I have said, you must first get
to know. Our of this will arise the detestation of the profession to be avoided and a
longing for that which ought to be followed, for it is necessarily the case that each
route will take its follower to the end reached by the one who established it and founded
it. END
NEXT WEEK: Blessed Piamun discusses the cenobitic life.
From Colm Lubheid, trans., "John Cassian: Conferences," from
"The Classics of Western Spirituality" series, (New York: Paulist Press,
1985), pp. 184-185
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