Ascetics, Authority, and the Church in the Age of Jerome and Cassian: Second Edition

IV. AUTHORITY

IV AUTHORITY 1. THE DECLINE OF THE CHARISMATIC MASTER Cassian not only espoused, therefore, the cause of the coeno­ bitic movement: he developed an interpretation of spiritual authority that responded to the needs of a coenobitic society. In this he maintained the tradition of the East. He portrayed the ascetic master as a man of experiencel and insight;2 a man deeply rooted in the Scriptures,3 and inspired by God.4 The master's example was to have, in Cassian's opinion, an even greater influence. He would teach his disciples, 'not with fine words', but 'on the basis of his own experience, by an example that can be trusted'.s When Cassian had first arrived in Egypt, Chaeremon had sounded a warning: 'The authority of a man intent upon forming others will never achieve re­ sults unless he is able to win the hearts of those who hear him by the successful example of his own labour'.6 Cassian's audience in Gaul took the lesson to heart: for Honoratus, 'Great men suffer much: they are born to give example to others, and so teach them to suffer also'.? Probity of life, therefore, was a quality of leadership just as important for Cassian as respect for tradition.s This emphasis on example, as well as on insight, Scripture, inspiration, and experience, recalls the development of monasticism in Egypt. But Cassian raised other points about authority that show he had moved into a world of doubt, compromise, and structural change. A fresh anxiety disturbs 'lnst., Preface, 5; Can. xiv. 9, 14; xxi. 36. 'Can. i. 20; viii. 16. 3lnst. i. 7; Can. xiv. 16. • Can. i. 23; vii. 7, 34; viii. 20; xviii. 3, 30; xxi. 9; xxiv. 1. Compare all these characteristics with those described above, pp. 21 ff. slnst. xii. 13. 6 Can. xi. 4. Pinufius would repeat the point, xx. 1. 7 Hilary, Sermo, 31. 8 Can. ii. 11. 190 CASSIAN the ascetic group: a fear that the elders might sometimes mis­ lead. This was a danger inseparable from the history of sin itself. The serpent in Eden, the erroneous counsellor par excellence, had lost his position of influence; but that did not save his disciples: 'Beware evil counsel, therefore: its author will be punished; but sin and punishment will be shared no less by him who is deceived'.9 The risks were enormous: 'We should not follow, therefore, in the footsteps of every elder, nor accept what they say of the past, or of the course that we should take: attend only to those whom we know to have lived praiseworthy and proven lives in their younger days'.10 The admission that grey hairs might be a deceit of the devil is at least one step away from the original gerontocracy of Egypt. Even tradition was, for Cassian, a fallible touchstone. Sarapion's famous plaint, 'They have taken my God away from me', (following the promulgation of the Paschal Letter of Theophilus in 399,) impressed itself deeply on Cassian's mind-not merely because of Sarapion's venerable age, but also because of the terms of his objection to the patriarch's attack on anthropomorphic piety: 'To him this opinion seemed new'. Those present at the reading of the Letter had felt confident that God would soon rescue the old man from his ignorance;l1 but Cassian felt the need to explain away Sarapion's appeal to tradition, in a cause with which he him­ self (a follower of Origen) could never sympathize: 'You should not be surprised that a totally unlettered man could still be possessed or deceived by the habit of longstanding error. He was persisting, in fact, in the error of his own youth: his obstinacy sprang, not (as you suppose) from a sudden trick of demons, but from the ignorance of his early paganism' Y The intellectual lineage and religious temperament of many Christians would still have borne, 9 Con. viii. 11. God's judgement was not always so impartial. Referring to Cyprian, and to the Council of Carthage of 256, Vincent of Lerins gave a dry warning: 'The masters were forgiven, the disciples were condemned', Com­ monitorium, vi Ill). The same anxiety had inspired the Commonitorium itself: 'When you think a man a prophet, ... when you have attached yourself to him with deep respect and love, it is a great trial for you, if he should suddenly intro­ duce in secret ways harmful errors: you will not be able to...