John Cassian: The Conferences is the first complete English translation of the twenty-four dialogues between Cassian and the desert fathers of Egypt. A native of Dacia, Cassian (c. 360-430) joined a monastery in Bethlehem when he was in his early adult years. From Palestine, Cassian and Germanus, a companion, traveled several times to Egypt where they learned about the monastic tradition from the great desert masters or abbas. Cassian's writings here record twenty-four dialogues with fifteen abbas." "The Conferences have long been a key work in monastic circles and among scholars of spirituality. Ramsey's helpful introductions and annotations make them accessible to a new and broader readership. Careful attention to references, notes and appendices demonstrate the outstanding research and writing which helped produce this monumental volume."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The first written work of John Cassian in which he shares the wisdom of Egyptian monasticism, especially rules of monastic life & lessons on battling the eight principal vices.
Drawing on his early experience as a monk in Bethlehem and Egypt, John Cassian (c. 365-c. 435) journeyed to the West to found monasteries in Marseilles and the region of Provence. Conferences is his masterpiece, a study of the Egyptian ideal of the monk.
Fairacres Publications 148 John Cassian is considered by the Church in the East and West to be one of the greatest of the early monastic writers. The breadth of his experience of eremitical life in the Egyptian desert, his distinction as a theologian and churchman, and his veneration for the Desert Fathers are conveyed in the ‘Institutes’ and ‘Conferences’. Augustine Casiday provides a new translation of the two classic conferences on ‘Prayer’, together with a critical introduction.
John Cassian, a native of Scythia Minor, lived between the 4th and 5th centuries A.D. In Institutes, he sets forth a monastic tradition which he models after that in Egypt.
The Twenty-Four Conferences or Collations of St John Cassian, written in the early fifth century, were to have a tremendous impact in the West on the spirituality of monastics and other Religious. A classic of spirituality, they were compulsory reading for St Benedict's monks, the favourite spiritual reading of St Dominic in the late twelfth century and were treasured by St Philip Neri in the sixteenth. The Collations were likened by St John Cassian himself to the twenty-four elders of the Apocalypse, who lay their crowns before the Lamb. Whatever glory they have, they attribute it all to the Word of God made flesh, who speaks through them, as He speaks through Cassian their editor, and indeed, if God wills, through their translator Cassian and his companion Germanus interview a number senior monks and hermits, asking them about difficulties in prayer and in living the Christian life, and are given answers that display a surprising degree of psychological insight into human nature. Although these interviews were first written down for monks, there is much in them that can be applied to the spiritual life of all Christians. This new translation, by a Father of the Oxford Oratory, brings Cassian to life for the twenty-first century.
This book is a study of the life, monastic writings, and spiritual theology of John Cassian (c., 360-435). His Institutes and Conferences are a remarkable synthesis of earlier monastic traditions, especially those of fourth-century Egypt, informed throughout by Cassian's awareness of the particular needs of the Latin monastic movement he was helping to shape. Sometimes portrayed as simply an advocate of the sophisticated spiritual theology of Evagrius of Ponticus (360-435), Cassian was actually a theologian of keen insight, realism, and creativity. His teaching on sexuality is unique in early monastic literature in both its breadth and its depth, and his integration of biblical interpretation with the ways of prayer and teaching on ecstatic prayer are of fundamental importance for the western monastic tradition. The only Latin writer included in the classic Greek collections of monastic sayings, Cassian was the major spiritual influence on both the Rule of the Master and the Rule of Benedict, as well as the source for Gregory the Great's teaching on capital sins and compunction. Columba Stewart's book is the first major study of Cassian to be published in twenty years. It begins by establishing Cassian's credibility as a teacher on the basis of his own experience as a monk and his familiarity with the fundamental literary sources. Stewart then turns to Cassian's spiritual theology, paying particular attention to Cassian's view of the monastic journey in eschatological perspective, his teaching on continence and chastity, the Christological basis of biblical interpretation and prayer, his method of unceasing prayer, and his integration of ecstatic experience with an Evagrian theology of prayer.
How you can learn to focus like a monk without living like one Distraction isn’t a new problem. We’re also not the first to complain about how hard it is to concentrate. Early Christian monks beat us to it. They had given up everything to focus on God, yet they still struggled to keep the demons of distraction at bay. But rather than surrender to the meandering of their minds, they developed powerful strategies to improve their attention and engagement. How to Focus is an inviting collection of their strikingly relatable insights and advice—frank, funny, sympathetic, and psychologically sophisticated. This wisdom is drawn from John Cassian’s fifth-century CE Collationes, one of the most influential manuals for monks from late antiquity. The Collationes follow Cassian and his friend Germanus as they travel around Egypt, asking a series of sage monks how they can make their minds stronger. In response, these monks offer a range of techniques for increasing focus, including setting goals, training the body, managing the memory, using mantras, taking breaks, consulting others—and, most of all, being honest about yourself. As Cassian and Germanus eventually realize, we can’t escape distraction—but we can learn how to confront it and, eventually, to concentrate. Featuring an engaging new translation by Jamie Kreiner and the original Latin on facing pages, How to Focus can help even the least monkish of us to train our attention on what matters most.
After travelling to Egypt from Rome during the fourth century, known as the golden age of Christian Monasticism in the east, St John Cassian wrote two books for the benefit of those who were curious of the monastic life. This book is one of those two. The Institutes first describes the dress of the monks and their prayer life before writing about the 'eight vices' which any monk must struggle against. The Institutes is a classic monastic writing and essential reading for anyone who wants to benefit spiritually in overcoming their weaknesses or temptations. All the writings in this book are inspired either by the life or advices of the saintly monks whom St John encountered.
Quintus Tertullian (c. 160-c. 220) is distinguished by being the first major Christian thinker to write in the Latin language. According to Eusebius, he was raised in Carthage, the son of a Roman centurion. Following his conversion to the faith, he became an impassioned defender of the rights of Christians. Origen Adamantius (c. 185-254) taught in Alexandria, reviving the catechetical school of Alexandria in which Clement of Alexandria had taught. His translations, commentaries, and theological works mark him as one of the finest minds of early Christianity. John Cassian (c. 360-435), born in Europe, first joined a monastery in Palestine and then traveled to Egypt to learn from the Desert Fathers. After his return to Europe, he founded a monastery in southern France. His writings would eventually influence St. Benedict, who recommended Cassian's texts to his monks. All three writers in this collection offer reflections on the Lord's Prayer, together with practical advice for prayer. This common ground provides a basis for comparisons, along with a rich picture of Christian spirituality in the ancient world. At the same time, the authors address questions about prayer that are still relevant today.
Near the end of his writing career, Cassian the monk was commissioned by the future Pope Leo the Great to reply to the Christological positions of Nestorius. Nestorius saw in Christ two subjects, that of the Word and that of the man Jesus. Cassian's foray into ecclesiastical controversy yields a cannonade of arguments from the Scriptures and the early Fathers, bombarding the Nestorian position with an impassioned rendition of the general Christological views of East and West. Unsurprisingly, for one such as Cassian who was so concerned with Christian sanctity, it places special emphasis on the difference between the personal divinity of Christ and the indwelling of the Word in the saints—for the personal divinity of Christ is what indeed makes it possible for Christ to be said to dwell within those saints who tread the heights of union with God. What Cassian lacks in the precision of an Athanasius or a Maximus the Confessor, he makes up for in the verve of his argumentation. (Ex Fontibus Co.)
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St John Cassian's little treatise on the Incarnation is of a very different character his better-known works of spirituality, the Institutes and the Collations. Cassian wrote the De Incarnatione in 429, at the request of Leo, Archdeacon of Rome, as part of the build-up to the condemnation of Nestorius at the Synod of Rome in 430 and the general Council of Ephesus in 431. Leo was himself to become Pope in 440, and intervene conclusively in the next Christological crisis, the Monophysite over-reaction to Nestorianism, settled at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The great divisions which afflicted Christendom in the sixteenth century left the doctrine of the nature of Christ largely intact, so that Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants could at least agree on the conclusions of the first four General Councils. That all changed in the twentieth century, when the 'modernist' or 'liberal' movement in theology gained control over most Protestant and many Catholic writers. Many moderns, who still claim to be Christians, have consciously or unconsciously revived all the erroneous opinions which Cassian nicely terms the 'weeds' in the garden of God. This makes Cassian's work all the more relevant to Christians in the twenty-first century. A refutation of the heresy we know as Nestorianism, it also deals effectively with many other erroneous ideas on the nature of Christ - those of Ebion, Carinthus, Marcion, Sabellius, Arius, and Pelagius, the last of whom is specifically attacked in the fifth book of the treatise. Nestorius himself, as Patriarch of Constantinople, became notorious when he publicly denied that it was appropriate to call the Virgin Mary 'Theotokos' - the one who brought God to birth, or simply 'Mother of God'. Now all these ancient heresies, Ebionism, Cerinthianism, Marcionism, Sabellianism, Arianism, Pelagianism and Nestorianism, can be found happily ensconced in the common rooms of our great universities. Cassian teaches the fundamental Catholic principle of ongoing revelation through both Scripture and Tradition, and the authority of the living Church. In support of his work he quotes the Fathers, the great writers who have been accepted as authoritative by Orthodox and Catholic alike, although of course here they are his own actual or near contemporaries, and shows how the true interpretation of the Bible leads only to a Catholic conclusion. Jesus Christ is true God and true Man.
John Cassian: The Conferences is the first complete English translation of the twenty-four dialogues between Cassian and the desert fathers of Egypt. A native of Dacia, Cassian (c. 360-430) joined a monastery in Bethlehem when he was in his early adult years. From Palestine, Cassian and Germanus, a companion, traveled several times to Egypt where they learned about the monastic tradition from the great desert masters or abbas. Cassian's writings here record twenty-four dialogues with fifteen abbas." "The Conferences have long been a key work in monastic circles and among scholars of spirituality. Ramsey's helpful introductions and annotations make them accessible to a new and broader readership. Careful attention to references, notes and appendices demonstrate the outstanding research and writing which helped produce this monumental volume."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
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