CASSIANO, GIOVANNI. — G. C., natione Scyta (Gennadius), according to an opinion fairly common today, was born in Dobrugia to well-to-do parents around 360. Having received a good education in classical studies, while still young he became a monk at Bethlehem; then, from about 385, he stayed in Egypt for seven years in order to learn about the monastic life flourishing there; after another, very brief stay in the monastery of Bethlehem, he returned once more to Egypt and remained there for several years among the monks. Around 399 he went to Constantinople, was
because of the Origenist disturbances; here he was ordained a deacon by St. John Chrysostom, on whose behalf we find him active in Rome in 405. From 415 he withdrew to Marseille, as a priest, founder and head of the male monastery of St. Victor, and also founder of a monastery for nuns in the same region. He died around 435.
G. C. produced a considerable literary output:
1) De institutis coenobiorum et de octo principalium vitiorum remediis libri XII, written around 420. Book I treats the monastic habit, Books II and III the hours of prayer (“canonical”) in the monastery, Book IV the novitiate and profession; the remaining books, V through XII, concern the principal passions (eight) and the opposing virtues. The work reveals C.’s conception of the cenobitic life, whose duties are presented in depth, especially in Book IV. The ideas of this book dominate the entire work.
2) Collationes XXIV, published in three stages: I–X around 420, XI–XVII before 426, XVIII–XXIV before 429. The work is devoted essentially to the ideas of the eremitical life.
3) De incarnatione Domini contra Nestorium libri VII. Written before the summer of 430 at the request of the Roman archdeacon who later became Pope Leo I. The work is considerably inferior to C.’s monastic writings.
C. is entirely a monk: his two principal works must be considered solely from this point of view. His monastic doctrine rests on these fundamental concepts: the goal of the monastic life is contemplatio; the condition for contemplation is the actualis life. From these principles, applied to life, two consequences follow for C.: 1) the contemplative life, understood as contemplatio relative iugis, is possible only in the eremitical life; 2) the actualis life constitutes the essential task of the cenobium, which is therefore regarded as a preparatory school for the eremitical life (Coll. XVII and XIX: De tribus generibus monachorum; De fine coenobiotae et heremitae).
Coll. I contains the fundamental lines of our author’s entire doctrine, so that understanding them gives us the key to understanding C. The actualis life consists in the “correctio morum et consummatio vitae perfectae” (De inst., prooenium). And these cannot be achieved without struggle—a struggle taught in the second part of De inst., from Books V to XII, in Coll. IV–VI, VIII, and in other passages of the two works (v. for example, the symbolism of the monastic habit in De inst., II. II–IV).
The profession, abrenuntiatio, described in De inst., I. IV, obliges the cenobite to total renunciation in the complete poverty of Christ, in Christ’s humility, in his obedience and patience, and in the other virtues (on this V. also Coll. III: De tribus abrenuntiationibus and Coll. XXIV: De mortificatione). All these virtues are the fruit of conformity to the life and passion of Christ and to his cross, in which, for C. (as already for Pachomius), the entire life of the cenobite is concentrated. And this conformity also leads to life in Christ (De inst., I. IV).
(Ist. Eur. Catt.)
CASSIANO - Collatio, IV, 19. Eighth-century codex. Vatican Library, cod. Vat. lat. 3766, f. 4.
fear (on which cf. especially Coll. XI; De perfectione). It constitutes the proper goal of the coenobium, and the monk who has attained it now finds himself at the open door of the contemplative life.
For the realization of the actualis and contemplative (theoretica) life, discretio is of capital importance, in order to distinguish what promotes the good from what is contrary to it, what comes from God from what comes from man or the devil (this is treated especially in Coll. II). Man cannot attain complete impeccability (Coll. XXIII: De anamarteto). In order to do good, God’s grace is incessantly necessary: C. insists on this point with the greatest energy. Yet, in opposition to Augustine, he thinks that, in order to safeguard the freedom of the will, a minimal degree of wholly independent initiative must be admitted in free will. Thus C. became the representative of semipelagianism: without this error he could have been called a «doctor gratiae».
Common and private prayer constitutes the noblest task of the coenobite. Contemplatio also has a place in the coenobium; only there it cannot be easily exercised, or at least cannot be iugis, because it is interrupted in many ways by the duties of common life. In compensation, however, the coenobite gains the primary merit of obedience. In the coenobium the contemplative element is the most effective means to virtue (more or less as for St. Thomas, Sum. Theol., 1a-2ae, q. 182, a. 4: movet et docet).
C. treats extensively of the essence of eremitic life, contemplatio iugis, especially in Coll. IX: oratio pura, the forms of prayer, the meaning of the Pater noster, oratio ignea, perhaps for C. the highest degree of prayer, compunctio and the gift of tears, the signs by which we know that we have been heard, oratio in cubiculo clauso, oratio brevis. Coll. X is entirely devoted to contemplatio perpetua. Here, as on other points, C. reveals himself as a follower of Alexandrian spirituality. Coll. XIV: De spirituali scientiae treats of the contemplative life from the standpoint of gnosis, which is precisely this scientia spiritualis, again in the sense of the Alexandrians. Essentially, it is a deeper, «spiritual» understanding of Sacred Scripture, with application also to the moral life. The condition of this spiritual understanding, whose principal forms are Typology and Allegory, is once again the actualis life.
Despite the free forms, especially in the Collations, C.’s doctrine displays great completeness and unity: to realize this, after studying De Inst. and the Coll., one should return to Coll. I.
This completeness and richness of thought, expressed with the greatest warmth and in good language, even if at times somewhat too prolix, have secured for the two principal works a success that continues to this day.
Sources. - Among the sources of C.’s doctrine, after Sacred Scripture, which he cites approximately 1,800 times, generally using it according to Alexandrian exegesis, Basil, Jerome, Palladius, Rufinus, Athanasius, Chrysostom, and above all Evagrius Ponticus should be mentioned. C. also undoubtedly owed much to his personal experiences.
All these factors assisted him when he decided, for his Western friends, to refresh and commit to writing the recollections of the conversations he had held with the Eastern monks. He himself points out that, after so long a time, this was not easy for him. This recollection, preserved and made operative in his life as a monk, teacher, and guide of his,
and his own thought, constructed from what he had heard and learned, became so intimately interpenetrated. And the historicity of the picture he draws of the conditions of monasticism, after the most recent confirmations, can no longer be called into question.