September 13, 1998
St.
John Cassian: The Anchoretic Life
Here we continue the conversation of John Cassian with Abba
Piamun about the three kinds of monastic life. Last week, we learned about the cenobitic
life and how it developed from Apostolic times; today we will look at the development of
the anchoretic life.
BEGIN: From this number of perfect men and, if I may put it so, from this most fertile
root there came subsequently those flowers and those fruits, namely, the holy anchorites.
As I have already said a little while ago, Saint Paul (of Thebes) and St. Anthony (the
Great) were the originators of this profession. Unlike the case of some, it was not
petty-mindedness not the scourge of impatience which moved them to look for the secrets of
solitude. Rather, it was the desire for greater perfection and a more contemplative route.
This is so despite what is said regarding Paul, that the treachery of his own kin
compelled him to flee to the desert at the time of persecution.
And so it was that, as I have said, there arose out of the discipline of the early days
another way of seeking perfection. Adherents of this are rightly called anchorites, that
is, people who go aside into a retreat. It is not enough for them to have successfully
trampled down the snares of the devil among men. They long to join in open combat and in
clear battle against the demons. They are not afraid to push into the great hiding places
of the desert. They are surely the imitators of John the Baptist, who remained in the
desert throughout the whole of his life. They do like Elias and like Elisaeus, about whom
the apostle had this to say: "They wandered about dressed in the skins of sheep or
goats. They were persecuted and poor -- they of whom the world was unworthy. They went to
live in lonely places, on mountains, in caves, in the hollows of the earth" (Heb
11:37-38). The Lord, using figurative language, had this to say about them to Job:
"Who was it that set the donkey free and loosened his chains? I have given him the
desert for a home and the salt plains as his place of dwelling. He laughs at the city mob.
He does not hear the complaint of a taskmaster. He will look to the mountains for his
pasture and afterward he will seek all things green" (Job 39:5-8).
Furthermore, there is this in the Psalms: "Let those rescued by the Lord speak out,
those whom he has bought back from the land of the enemy" (Psalms 100:2). Later on
there is this: "they wandered about in a waterless solitude. They did not find the
road to a city where they might live. They were hungry and thirsty. The spirit within them
grew weak. In their misery they cried out to the Lord and He freed them from their
needs" (Psalms 100:4-6). These are the men described by Jeremiah: "Lucky the man
who bore the yoke from the days of his youth. He will sit alone and will be silent because
he has taken this yoke upon himself" (Lamentations 3:27-28). These are the men who in
their love and in their work sing, with the psalmist, "I have become like the pelican
in the desert. I have kept watch. I have become like the lonely sparrow on the
rooftop" (Psalms 101:7-8). END
NEXT WEEK: The third kind of monk -- the one to be deplored.
John Cassian, "Conferences," trans. by Colm Luibheid, from the
"Classics of Western Spirituality Series," (New York: Paulist Press, 1985), pp.
187-188
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