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

EPILOGUE: THE NEXT GENERATION

EPILOGUE THE NEXT GENERATION Cassian is difficult to summarize; and there is no denying the contradictions in his work. While formulating concepts of authority and discipline that cater for the coenobite, and encourage the development of corporate monasticism, he continues to plead the supreme value of the eremitic life. While advocating attitudes that prompt the monk to involve­ ment with the world, and equip him for pastoral endeavour, and the exercise of priestly authority, he still defends the esoteric-the maintenance of an exclusive group, governed by arcane principle. It was not that Cassian was unable to make up his mind on these issues. He felt it was impossible, or rather imprudent, to commit himself in public on one side or the other. For he had a deep sense of obligation to the past, to the 'traditio maiorum'; and this would have urged upon him the need for fidelity, a fidelity embracing many potentially conflicting traditions. It would have been immensely difficult for any man in his position, or in his period, to repudiate or ignore the practice of heroes so recently dead, so powerful a force in the memory and life of their disciples. Cassian may have wished, for his own part, to discipline the ascetic enthusiasm of his adopted province; but he had to be careful not to reject in the process the original ideal of cwaxwpT/otC;, now (in his eyes) subject to abuse. There would have been a need for caution, too: caution in the face of criticism by the fol­ lowers or successors of Brictius (Martin'S heir, and enemy, in Tours) or Vigilantius (criticized by Jerome)-men opposed to avaxwpT/otC; in every sense. Cassian was, in any case, a diplomatic man. Having subscribed to the teaching of Origen, he may have had a past to live down: he took great care, in his ascetic works, to attack no one by name; and, over a period of fifteen years, (during which, to judge by his 236 EPILOGUE writings, he must have acquired a considerable reputation,) he was able to move from the status of a protege of Proculus -a man not exactly persona grata in the eyes of Rome, not to mention his colleagues nearer home-to become the col­ laborator in controversy, if not the friend, of Leo the Great himself. Nevertheless, there is in Cassian's work a drawing together of the threads of development identified here in the East, and following through the writings of Jerome and Sulpicius. The values of the hermit are not only described in the Institutes and Conferences,-prayer, self-mastery, and close­ ness to God,-but woven into the daily life of the coenobite. Ascetic values in general are analysed and recommended by Cassian in such a way as to make very clear their possible application to a world beyond the monastery, with needs and aspirations that differed only in degree from those of monks. This had happened, to some extent, in the writings of Jerome and Sulpicius. What makes Cassian particularly important is that his work has an obvious unity. These threads are drawn together by one man, impelled by one purpose; and Cassian's relative success in this respect provides a point of focus in the development of monastic history that is in some ways more convincing than the emphasis of Sulpi­ cius, in whose work there is always a suspicion of division . between himself, the retiring ascetic, and Martin, the 'aposto­ lic man'. Moreover, Cassian's essay in ascetic theory was destined to exert a more rigorous influence, and to survive in a written form that was quite independent of the reputa­ tion, not only of its author, (who was, indeed, almost forgot­ ten,) but also, to some extent, of the other figures portrayed in his pages. The Institutes and Conferences stand as a com­ plete and entirely literary creation, exerting upon w:eir readers the influence of a rule of life. For this reason, the study of early monastic history reaches, with Cassian, a point de depart, rather than a con� clusion. Ranging over a hundred years or more of as<:etic development and influence, the survey given here represents a species of aerial photography. Just as patterns are revealed by the camera in flight,-in the varying height of crops, in the uneven lie of the land,-(patterns impossible to observe THE NEXT GENERATION 237 at ground level, and pointing, perhaps, to archaeological sites below,) so the historian, taking a broad view, can discover trends that extend beyond the bounds of individual biography: such are the trends described here towards social complexity, pastoral involvement, and dependence upon literary forms. But the insight gained is no more than an invitation to return over the same ground, first surveying the surface, and then, perhaps, digging deeper, in the light of patterns revealed from the more distant viewpoint. There is more that could be said, therefore, about monks in Egypt: not so much about their spectacular but (to the historian) relatively familiar intrusions upon public affairs, (the destruction of temples, the forcing of the issue over Origen, the lynching of Hypatia,) but about the relationship between Egyptian bishops and the monks from among whom they were often drawn. There is more that could be said about the development, during the fifth century, of an urban monasticism in Egypt, somewhat estranged from the desert. There is more, a great deal more, that could be said about Jerome: not only about his ecclesiastical ambitions, but about his own relationship with Egypt and the writings of Pachomius, the development of monasticism in Palestine, and some less familiar aspects of his character as a polemical writer and biblical exegete. More could be said about the circle at Aquileia. There are links to be made between this analysis and the history of Pelagianism, which involved spiri­ tual direction, the setting of ascetic standards, a certain with­ drawal from the 'official' church, and a great predilection for privately circulated literature. Basil and Chrysostom are examples of the 'monk-bishop': pastoral men, but with great secular influence, who left behind them an extensive and important corpus of ascetic and liturgical texts. They had their western counterparts, to some extent, in Ambrose and Augustine: men similarly dedicated to the ascetic life; simi­ larly involved in developing an understanding of the office of bishop; similarly the inspiration of ascetic rules, and of hagiography. Finally, there is more that could be said about Martin of Tours: about the schism in the Gallic church during and immediately after his lifetime, and its relation to controversy on the issue of asceticism; and about the progress 238 EPILOGUE and influence of the cult of Martin in later years. All these people and places were marked by changes in the understand­ ing and use of sanctity and power, therefore; changes that affected the course of church history in many ways still open to investigation, still not clearly understood, taking place precisely during that period when churchmen, with a new sense of freedom, laboured to capture the allegiance of a new pagan empire. There is also in Cassian an invitation to the future. Reading him, ascetics in the West would have looked, as it were, through a window, on to the whole field of monastic de­ velopment from Antony to their own day. The historian, however, can see that his work acted more as a lens, a kind of prism in reverse, capturing the diverse colours, the diverse traditions of the ascetic life, and focusing them in a concen­ trated ray of light upon the religious imagination of the West. He constitutes, therefore, a point de depart in another sense. He marks the beginning, perhaps more than Sulpicius, of a tradition that reaches at least to Gregory the Great, and, in Ireland and Germany, far beyond: a tradition that linked more and more firmly the practice of ascetic virtue and the preaching of the Gospel. This is the tradition represented, at the level of monastic experiment, by Cassiodorus and Benedict, and by the early Regulae of the Benedictine move­ ment. At the level of the episcopate, it was a tradition that inspired not only the many bishops who emerged from the monasteries of Lerins in the middle years of the fifth cen­ tury,-Faustus of Riez, for example, or Lupus of Troyes,­ but also mert like Caesarius of Arles or Gregory of Tours. It was most of all a literary tradition, and culminated in Gregory the Great himself: a monk, a bishop, and a missionary ; a lawgiver, and a hagiographer. . These are the invitations and the possibilities, therefore; and to press the matter further would be to write another book. The survey of Egypt given here, the tracing of themes in Jerome, Sulpicius, and Cassian, and swift glances aside at men such as Basil and Augustine, should reveal, at least, an understanding of tradition, cooperation, discipline, auth­ ority, and obedience which, when permanently formulated, and made more readily available in written form, would THE NEXT GENERATION 239 teach a man 'already holy in the eyes of all' how to become 'a man of power as well, a true successor of the apostles'. ...