Self-Justification in John Cassian's Ascetic Prefaces

GOODRICH/SELF-JUSTIFICATION IN CASSIAN 411

Underpinning the Text: Self-Justiﬁcation in John Cassian’s Ascetic Prefaces

RICHARD J. GOODRICH

John Cassian has long been recognized as a master of ascetic theory. It is only in recent years, however, that his abilities as a Latin stylist have begun to be acknowledged. This paper examines how Cassian used the prefaces of his ascetic treatises to win a hearing for his version of the monastic life. His works were intended to inﬂuence a highly literate, aristocratic audience, and the strategies he employed to gain admission into this circle of readers offer a valuable insight into the methods of a late antique writer.

Sometime around 419 c.e., John Cassian wrote the twelve books of his De institutis coenobiorum et de octo principalium vitiorum remediis (Institutes) for an audience of Gallic bishops and ascetics. This work and the one that followed, the tripartite Collationes patrum (Conferences), purported to contain the distillate of Cassian’s lengthy tutelage at the hands of the Egyptian desert fathers.1 To modern readers familiar with the impact that Cassian’s work had on Western monasticism, it may seem self-evident that Cassian’s light from the East (ex oriente lux) was worth

I would like to thank the following individuals for their help and critiques: Gillian Clark, Jill Harries, Conrad Leyser, and the two anonymous reviewers for JECS. Needless to say, any shortcomings that remain in this article are to be attributed to my own obstinancy, rather than a failure of their generous counsel. 1. We lack adequate evidence for the length of Cassian’s stay among the Egyptian desert fathers. The consensus view is 15 years, based on references in Coll. (Columba Stewart, Cassian the Monk [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998], 8). Karl Suso Frank, “John Cassian on John Cassian,” SP 33 (1997): 431, argues for a much shorter stay while Marilyn Dunn, The Emergence of Monasticism: From the Desert Fathers to the Early Middle Ages (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 74, asserts that Cassian had virtually no contact with the Egyptian monks.

Journal of Early Christian Studies 13:4, 411–436 © 2005 The Johns Hopkins University Press 412 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES the attention of his Gallic audience.2 But would this have been the view of his first readers? What right did John Cassian have to prescribe practices for a group that had apparently been getting on well enough without his advice?3 Who gave this foreigner4 the right to delimit authentic asceticism, to be the arbiter of Gallic monastic practices? In fact, John Cassian, even with his wealth of experience, faced the same problem as any new writer, ancient or modern: he had to find an audience for his works. The monastic movement was well underway before John Cassian arrived in Gaul. Other authors, such as Sulpicius Severus, Rufinus, Jerome, and Paulinus of Nola, had already articulated versions of the ascetic life which were readily available in Gaul; local aristocrats such as Honoratus of Lérins were forming their own monasteries. There was no shortage of ascetic advice available: in order to win a hearing for his works, John Cassian would have to justify first his right to write them. Nowhere is this theme of self-justification more evident than in the prefaces of each of his compositions. Cassian bent his formidable rhetorical abilities to winning a favorable hearing for his works. While Cassian has been rightly celebrated as a master of ascetic theory, his artistry as both literary stylist and sophisticated rhetorician has been largely over- looked.5 In part this may be due to a historiographical bias that prefers to see Cassian as a humble, self-effacing monk rather than as a sophisticated writer who shaped his texts to foster the illusion of humility and simplic-

2. On the significance of Eastern practices for Western monks, see F. Prinz, Frühes Mönchtum im Frankenreich (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1965), 94–101, 471. 3. For Cassian as just one of a number of sources available for fifth-century Gallic monks, see Philip Rousseau, “Cassian: Monastery and World,” in The Certainty of Doubt: Tributes to Peter Munz, ed. Miles Fairburn and W. H. Oliver (Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University Press, 1995), 70. 4. The question of Cassian’s birthplace remains open. Supporters of Cassian as a native of the Roman province of Scythia Minor include Owen Chadwick, John Cassian (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950), 190–98; Pierre Courcelle, Late Latin Writers and Their Greek Sources (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), 227 n. 5; Theodor Damian, “Some Critical Considerations and New Arguments Reviewing the Problem of St. John Cassian’s Birthplace,” Patristic and Byzantine Review 9 (1990): 149–70; and Stewart, Cassian, 6. A conflicting view sees Cassian as a native son of Roman Gaul, a position held by M. Cappuyn, “Cassien,” Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques 11 (1949): 1321; Frank, “John Cassian,” 422. 5. Albrecht Dihle, Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire: From Augustus to Justinian (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), 420, notes that Cassian was an “elegant stylist” but offers no evidence to substantiate this appraisal. GOODRICH/SELF-JUSTIFICATION IN CASSIAN 413 ity.6 We would do well to remember Gennadius’ assessment of Cassian’s merits as a writer: “he wrote, with experience as his teacher, in poised speech (and to speak more openly) choosing his words with sensitivity and enlivening his language with vigour, concerning the matters necessary to the profession of all monks.”7 Gennadius recognized both Cassian’s experience and the compositional care that shaped his presentation for a Gallic audience. Cassian’s golden artistry is the subject of this paper. Through an exami- nation of the prefaces to Cassian’s ascetic treatises, I shall demonstrate the rhetorical strategies he employed to win an audience for his works. As we shall see, his early prefaces dwell on the authorizing weight of the bishops who had commissioned them. The later prefaces differ markedly: here Cassian emphasizes how his works are spreading through the province of Narbonensis Secunda and how many exemplary ascetics have adopted and ordered their lives by Cassian’s precepts. Finally, I will compare the strategies Cassian employed in the prefaces of his ascetic treatises with those found in the theological polemic, On the Incarnation, a text directed toward an extra-Gallic, pan-Christian audience. As we shall see, in attempting to cultivate an audience, Cassian demonstrated that the humble monk was also a highly educated Roman writer. In addition to offering a shift in our appraisal of Cassian, this analysis will also serve to demonstrate the strategies a late antique Christian writer might employ in order to gain the attention and following of a local audience.

INSTITUTES

At the heart of each of Cassian’s prefaces is a fundamental, recurrent question: What authorizes him to compose this work? The answer he gives evolves as he gains a readership and is able to portray himself as a more conﬁdent writer. Our survey begins with the preface to the Insti- tutes. In the opening lines of his literary debut, we ﬁnd a very straightfor- ward answer to the question of authority: I write because the great bishop

6. This view is slowly changing. See, for instance Rousseau, Cassian, passim; Conrad Leyser, “Lectio divina, oratio pura: Rhetoric and the Techniques of Asceti- cism in the Conferences of John Cassian,” in Modelli di santità e modelli di comportamento, ed. Giulia Barone et. al. (Torino: Rosenberg and Sellier, 1994), 79– 105. 7. Gennad. Vir. 62 (TU 14:82.10–13): Scripsit, experientia magistrante, librato sermone et, ut apertius dicam, sensu verba inveniens, et actione linguam movens, res omnium monachorum professioni necessarias. 414 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

Castor has (despite my incredible deficiencies) ordered me to do so. Inextricably linked to this is the notion that since Castor has commanded the production of the work, and Cassian is only obeying his instruction, Castor bears responsibility for what is produced. These four themes—the magnificence of the patron, the patron’s demand for the work, the unworthiness of the author, and the patron’s final responsibility for the work— are woven throughout this preface. Indeed, the first three themes feature prominently in the encomium that introduces the Institutes:

The history of the Old Testament tells how the most wise Solomon, after having received from heaven wisdom and prudence beyond measure and a breadth of heart as uncountable as the grains of sand at the seashore—so that, by the testimony of the Lord it is said that no one similar to him had ever existed in the past or will arise after him—wanting to erect a magniﬁcent temple to the Lord, asked for help from the foreigner, the king of Tyre. This king sent Hyram, the son of a widow, to Solomon. Whatever magniﬁcent thing the divine wisdom suggested to Hyram, either for the Temple or the sacred vases, he undertook and it was completed through his work and direction. And so if that ruler, so much higher than all of the kingdoms of the earth, that nobler and more excellent offspring of the Israelite people, that wisdom inspired by God which surpassed the knowledge and institutes of all the Easterners and Egyptians, did not disdain the counsel of a poor and foreign man, quite rightly do you, taught by these examples, most blessed Pope Castor . . . judge it appropriate to summon me, an indigent man and in every way a pauper, to a share in such a great work.

Veteris instrumenti narrat historia sapientissimum Salomonem post acceptam diuinitus sapientiam prudentiamque multam nimis et latitudinem cordis quasi harenam maris innumerabilem, ita ut Domini testimonio nullus ei similis retro actis temporibus exstitisse, neque post eum surrecturus esse dicatur, illud magniﬁcum Domino templum exstruere cupientem, alienigenae regis Tyri auxilium poposcisse. Qui misso ad se Hyram ﬁlio mulieris uiduae, quidquid divina sapientia suggerente praeclarum in templo Domini uel in sacris vasibus moliebatur, ministerio eius ac dispositione perfecit. Si ergo ille uniuersis regnis terrae sublimior principatus et Israhelitici generis nobilior excellentiorque progenies illaque sapientia diuinitus inspirata, quae cunctorum Orientalium et Aegyptiorum disciplinas et instituta superabat, nequaquam pauperis atque alienigenae uiri consilium dedignatur, recte etiam tu his eruditus exemplis, beatissime papa Castor . . . egenum me, omnique ex parte pauperrimum, ad communionem tanti operis dignaris accersire.8

8. Cassian, Inst. coen. pref. (SC 109:22.1—24.29). All citations of Inst. coen. will be taken from Jean Claude Guy, ed., Jean Cassien: Institutions cénobitiques, SC 109 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1965); citations from Coll. are from E. Pichery, ed., Les Conférences, SC 42, 52, and 64 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1955–59); citations from GOODRICH/SELF-JUSTIFICATION IN CASSIAN 415

Cassian begins the Institutes with an extravagant synkrisis,9 in which bishop Castor’s desire to found a monastery is compared with King Solomon’s construction of the Jewish temple. Citing the book of Kings, Cassian noted that by God’s decree, Solomon’s wisdom exceeded that of anyone who would ever live. Yet, when Solomon realized that he needed skilled craftsmen to complete his project, he did not hesitate to seek aid from Hyram, king of Tyre. The king of Tyre sent another Hyram, the son of a widow, to produce the temple furnishings and ornamentation. Cassian’s explicit praise for his patron surfaces in the third sentence of this preface. The relationship between Solomon and Hyram is mirrored in the relationship between Castor and Cassian. Solomon stands at the height of created humanity; the most blessed Castor is his worthy successor, creator of a new temple that will house men who bear the living Christ within themselves. Indeed, this latter project is superior to the work of Solomon, for where his great temple was reduced by enemies and the sacred vessels were captured and misused, Castor’s new temple will be eternal and impregnable. The parallel between the binary pairs Solomon/Hyram and Castor/ Cassian is further strengthened by the patronal decisions to seek the advice of men from a lower social class. Both Hyram and Cassian are characterized as men of no account. Hyram is a poor foreigner, the son of a widow; Cassian’s self-description through an accumulation of deprecatory adjectives—pauper, alienigena, egenus—suggests a man with no standing in secular society. Nevertheless, just as Solomon had drafted Hyram for his project, Castor has chosen to elevate Cassian above his station by offering him a share in such a great work. Naturally, none of this is to be taken too seriously. Cassian’s stylish opening, demonstrating his mastery of Latin syntax and literary convention, points to an advanced rhetorical education that was only available to a member of the aristocratic class.10 While we know absolutely nothing

Incarn. are from Michael Petschenig, ed., Johannis Cassiani Opera, CSEL 17 (Vienna: Tempsky, 1888). All translations, unless otherwise noted, are my own. 9. The beginning of a work is not the usual place for this rhetorical figure, but see Michael J. Hollerich, “Myth and History in Eusebius’ De vita Constantini: Vit.Const. 1.12 in Its Contemporary Setting,” HTR 82 (1989): 423–27, for a similar use in Eusebius’ v.C. 10. Or possibly to a gifted young man who had a wealthy sponsor, as in the case of Augustine (see Robert A. Kaster, “Notes on ‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’ Schools in Late Antiquity,” TAPA 113 [1974]: 341). For the elite nature of Latin literature see E. J. Kenney, “Books and Readers in the Roman World,” in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, ed. E. J. Kenney, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 10. 416 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES about Cassian’s antecedents, his elegant prose suggests a childhood spent among the upper strata of the Roman Empire. The deftness with which he crafts his opening sentences serves as a literary calling card, an announce- ment that he, just like his target audience, belongs to a certain class of highly educated men.11 Cassian’s identification through prose lacks only an apt quotation from Virgil or a well-chosen aphorism from Terence to complete the image of a classical scholar at his writing desk. Cassian also signals his education through his sentence construction. The preface employs a form of prose rhythm known as the cursus mixtus, a combination of Ciceronian metrical forms and an accent-based arrange- ment of words in clausulae.12 There were two forms of the cursus mixtus in use during this period. The first was a restricted version that limited itself to three main accentual cadences (the planus, tardus, and velox) and was favored by writers such as Symmachus, Firmicus, Macrobius, Palladius, and Arnobius.13 A second tradition, used by Augustine and Jerome, employed additional rhythmic cadences (the trispondaicus and miscellanei) in 25 to 30 percent of their clausulae.14 In the preface and first four books of Institutes, Cassian adheres to the narrow tradition of the cursus mixtus (that of Symmachus and Arnobius). His sentences end with the velox 33.8 percent of the time, the planus 28.5 percent, the tardus 23.6 percent, the trispondaicus 8.7 percent, and all other rhythms (the miscellenai) 5.4 percent.15 These results are consistent with the narrow tradition of the

11. See Robert A. Kaster, Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988), 88– 90, for literary language as an identifier of a certain class of educated men. 12. There has been a great deal of recent work on the cursus mixtus. A good starting point is the particularly lucid discussion offered in J. H. D. Scourfield, Consoling Heliodorus: A Commentary on Jerome, Letter 60 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 233–42. Steven M. Oberhelman’s “The History and Development of the Cursus Mixtus in Latin Literature” (CQ 38 [1988]: 228–42) is an accessible reappraisal of earlier work conducted with Ralph Hall on the development of the cursus mixtus in the third to fifth centuries. Also noteworthy are R. G. M. Nisbet, “Cola and Clausulae in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses I.I,” in A Companion to the Prologue of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, ed. Ahuvia Kahane and Andrew Laird (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 16–26, and Nigel Holmes, “Metrical Notes on Vegetius’ Epitoma Rei Militaris,” CQ 52 (2002): 358–73. 13. Oberhelman, “History and Development,” 236–37. 14. Oberhelman, “History and Development,” 237. 15. These percentages were derived by scanning the endings of the 343 sentences in the preface and first four books of Inst. coen. GOODRICH/SELF-JUSTIFICATION IN CASSIAN 417 cursus mixtus, and the elevated percentages of the tardus form mean that Cassian was deliberately shaping his text to use these accentual rhythms.16 More importantly for this analysis is the observation that both forms of the cursus mixtus were highly artificial combinations of both meter and accent. This literary ornamentation did not occur without a conscious effort on the part of the writer.17 The cursus mixtus was a sophisticated type of composition that degenerated into the simpler cursus (prose rhythm based on accent alone) after the fifth century. By utilizing this artificial style, Cassian unmistakably signals his education and ability to his audience, as well as undermines his claims of literary ineptitude. The self-deprecation woven through Cassian’s prefaces should be understood in the context of the conventions of classical literary texts. Rather than monastic humility, these disavowals of literary ability are simply examples of insinuatio, the downplaying of one’s own talents for the purpose of winning the favor of an audience.18 Cassian has no doubts about either his ability to write the Institutes or the importance of what he is writing. Nevertheless, Latin literary convention suggested that when making an appeal to an audience of strangers, a healthy dose of insinuatio was a valuable ally in making a favorable first impression.19 Cassian works a thread of insinuatio throughout this preface. Castor stands at the summit of speech and spiritual knowledge, but Cassian is “inarticulate and a pauper in both speech and knowledge”;20 he reels before the demand that he should supply something “from his pitiful understanding” to fulfill Castor’s request.21 Compounding these claims of ineptitude are the obstacles that would hinder his work: the inability of his weak mind to comprehend the teachings of the fathers, the lack of practice that has made him forget much, and the fact that other notable men have already written learned treatises on the ascetic life.22 The burden

16. The criteria used to differentiate between the random occurrence of rhythmic forms and the deliberate use of these forms is discussed in Steven Oberhelman, “The Cursus in Late Imperial Latin Prose: A Reconsideration of Methodology,” CP 83 (1988): 138–45. 17. Oberhelman, “History and Development,” 239. 18. See Tore Janson, Latin Prose Prefaces: Studies in Literary Conventions (Stockholm: Almquist and Wiksell, 1964), 124–41 for a treatment of insinuatio among the later Christian authors. 19. Janson, Latin Prose, 129–48 for the forms of the captatio benevolentia. 20. Cassian, Inst. coen. pref. (SC 109:24.35–36): me quoque elinguem et pauperem sermone atque scientia. 21. Cassian, Inst. coen. pref. (SC 109:24.37): de inopia sensus mei. 22. Cassian, Inst. coen. pref. (SC 109:26.65–76). 418 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES that Castor had laid across Cassian’s shoulders was only lightened by Castor’s injunction that he should supply a tome written in “simple words”23 for the simple monks who would read it in Castor’s monastery. A rudimentary composition of this sort might be within his grasp. This claim, coming at the end of an highly periodic sentence, one that is 106 words long and ends in a velox/dispondee combination, strikes this reader as deliberately ironic. Cassian also employs his insinuatio to exaggerate the importance of his patron, bishop Castor. He praises Castor by downplaying his own talents and relative worth. Castor has chosen to consult the inarticulate John Cassian, even though Castor is accomplished “in all virtues and knowledge and so heavily laden with every spiritual gift that to those seeking perfection not only his speech but also his life would sufﬁce as an example.”24 It would seem that he did not need the works of John Cassian because his position at the summit of spiritual excellence made him more than adequate to instruct the monks that he wished to gather into a monastery. Castor is mighty, while Cassian is barely able to construct a coherent sentence. Yet, Cassian implies, from the height of his excellence, Castor sees far. Like Solomon, he realizes that a project of the scope he envisions requires the help of an authority on the monastic life. Solomon too, despite pos- sessing wisdom and abilities that outshone any human, past or future, understood that some tasks required specialized knowledge. An expert was required to complete the temple or to establish a monastery. Hyram the shaper of the temple furnishings is paralleled by Cassian, the conduit for the Egyptian Institutes. Lesser, untrained monks, as Cassian will note in his later chapters, believe themselves sufﬁcient to impose their own ascetic ideas on the lives of monks around them.25 This is nothing more than pride and folly, and their example is set in counterpoint to that of the excellent bishop who has demanded the input of an expert. Cassian’s exaggeration of his own unworthiness creates an obvious problem: How may his own stated inadequacies as a thinker and writer be reconciled with the production of this text? If Cassian is as inept as he

23. Cassian, Inst. coen. pref. (SC 109:24.43–44): simplici sermone. 24. Cassian, Inst. coen. pref. (SC 109:24.32–35): cum sis ispe cunctis uirtutibus scientiaque perfectus et uniuersis ita refertus diuitiis spiritalibus, ut perfectionem quaerentibus satis abundeque non modo tuus sermo, sed etiam sola uita sufficiat ad exemplum. 25. See for instance, Cassian, Inst. coen. 2.2–3 (SC 109:58.1–64.49). GOODRICH/SELF-JUSTIFICATION IN CASSIAN 419 claims, how dare he put stylus to vellum? The resolution of this contra- diction also follows a very standard rhetorical topos. Cassian simply asserts that Castor has ordered him to produce the work and his duty to obey outweighs the grave reservations he holds about his ability to do so. Cassian frames Castor’s request using two verbs that convey the sense of an order or a demand (poscis, praecipisque).26 Studying the prefaces of Latin literature, Tore Janson noted an authorial tendency that increased over the centuries to use stronger verbs to depict literary requests. When early Latin authors mentioned a request for a work in their prefaces, they favored less emphatic verbs of asking, such as rogare and hortari.27 Quin- tilian and Pliny on the other hand used the stronger efflagitare, which has the force of a demand or an urgent request.28 In the fourth and fifth centuries, the compulsory quality of the verbs grew even stronger. We find cogere in works by Jerome and Cassian,29 as well as the two words that Cassian uses here (poscere, praecipere). Near the end of this preface, Cassian again employed two forceful verbs to describe Castor’s request: he states that he will carry out the work that Castor has enjoined (iniungis);30 this is followed by his vow to attempt to satisfy Castor in the task that he has ordered (praecipis).31 It is the demand for his work, the command that a humble, obedient monk may not disobey, that overrides Cassian’s insinuatio. Cassian’s dilemma is resolved by laying ultimate responsibility for the work on the man who has commissioned it. Castor chose Cassian to be his Hyram for the construction of this temple, despite the fact that Cassian claims to be woefully underqualified for a work of such a magnitude. He has elevated Cassian to a share in this great work; he has suggested that whatever Cassian is able to produce (simple words for simple monks) will be well received;32 Cassian cannot be blamed for the work, for having issued his caveat, he now simply carries out what has been commanded of him. Just as Solomon took ultimate responsibility for the workmanship that went

26. Cassian, Inst. coen. pref. (SC 109:24.37–38). 27. Janson, Latin Prose, 117. 28. Janson, Latin Prose, 118. 29. Janson, Latin Prose, 118. 30. Cassian, Inst. coen. pref. (SC 109:28.88). 31. Cassian, Inst. coen. pref. (SC 109:30.108). 32. This sentiment is repeated in lines 77–86, where Cassian states that after what has been written about the monastic life by men such as Basil and Jerome, he would not have the confidence to write were it not for Castor’s assurance of the acceptability of his treatise and his promise to forward it to the monks living in his new monastery. 420 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES into the Jewish temple, so too will Castor bear responsibility for Cassian’s final product. It is unlikely that Cassian would have expected his audience to take his claims of ineptitude and unworthiness seriously. The use of these literary conventions was more important as an identifier of Cassian’s education and social background than as an example of persuasive rhetoric. Rather than seeing these tropes as an attempt to convince an audience that Cassian was functionally illiterate, or that Castor truly bore responsibility for what Cassian would write, we should probably read them as the Masonic handshakes of the educated elite. Cassian’s elegance and sophisticated mastery of literary conventions, prominently displayed in the preface to his work, would signal that he was an author worth reading. Cassian’s craftsmanship demonstrates that he is not an uneducated Egyp- tian country bumpkin, but rather a card-carrying member of the elite class. The elegance of his prose and his deft use of rhetorical convention buttress his claim to a place in an intellectual world, making his text more palatable for his intended audience. Moreover, the preface serves to identify unambiguously Cassian’s patron. Castor is labeled the commissioner of the work, painted in glowing terms, and made responsible for promulgating and distributing the Insti- tutes. In addition to the interpretation advanced above, the extravagant praise of Castor may also have been intended to galvanize the distribution and spread of this work. The bishop, who is lauded in this preface, achieves a certain immortality if the text becomes well-known and wide- spread. Indeed, what little we now know about Castor comes from Cassian’s prefaces; if this work had not been circulated, Castor would have just been one name in a list of obscure Gallic bishops. His enduring legacy was bound to the success of Cassian’s work. Finally, bishop Castor serves as a point of entry to a network of bishops and ascetics in Narbonensis Secunda. The fact that Castor has taken Cassian’s work seriously lends some credence to it with the other members of his network. Cassian is (evidently) a stranger to these bishops and ascetics; until he achieves an independent reputation as an ascetic authority, he does well to emphasize Castor’s role in demanding the production of the Institutes.

CONFERENCES, PREFACE 1 The opening lines of the first preface to Conferences signal a dramatic shift: at some point between the commissioning of the Institutes and the production of this text, bishop Castor had died. Cassian was left without GOODRICH/SELF-JUSTIFICATION IN CASSIAN 421 a patron and the preface for the first ten books of Conferences marks his attempt to fill this gap. The preface may be divided into five major sections: a reminder of the circumstances that prompted the first book (Institutes); a dedication to his new patrons; the difficulties presented by his new work; a brief discussion of the new subject; and an oblique condemnation of the detractors of his previous work. Each of these sections makes a contribution to Cassian’s task of justifying his right to compose the Conferences. Cassian opens his preface with an emphatic reminder of the circumstances that had led to the production of Institutes: “the obligation that was promised to the most blessed bishop Castor in the preface of our book, which, concerning the institutes of the cenobites and the remedies for the eight principal vices were arranged in twelve divisions with the help of the Lord, a task for which the poverty of our talent sufficed, has been patched together somehow or other.”33 The Institutes were a debt that had been owed to bishop Castor. The word debitum is emphasized by moving it to the beginning of the sentence, pushed forward so that no reader could possibly mistake the grounds for the previous work. From the opening word of his preface to Conferences, Cassian reminds his readers that his treatises were grounded in an external authority. Maintaining continuity with his earlier work, Cassian then returns to his favorite device of insinuatio: the work had been cobbled together (sarcitum est) somehow or another (utcumque), despite the poverty of Cassian’s talent (tenuitas nostri ingenii). This is followed by an anxious aside: Cassian states that he would have liked to have known what the judgment of Castor (and his new, yet unnamed patrons) might have been on this earlier work.34 Would its treatment of matters “so profound and sublime” have been worth the attention of the patrons and the holy brothers?35 This statement strikes a dissonant chord. Surely if Cassian is truly interested in the judgment of his new patrons on his earlier work, he may seek an opinion by submitting the work to these readers. Possibly the sentiment is best interpreted as an instance of Cassian employing self- doubt as insinuatio; on the other hand, the reference to the brothers may

33. Cassian, Coll. pref.1 (SC 42:73.1–6): Debitum, quod beatissimo papae Castori in eorum uoluminum praefatione promissum est, quae de institutis coenobiorum et de octo principalium uitiorum remediis duodecim libellis domino adiuuante digesta sunt, in quo tenuitas nostri suffecit ingenii, utcumque sarcitum est. 34. Cassian, Coll. pref.1 (SC 42:73.6–11). 35. Cassian, Coll. pref.1 (SC 42:73.8): tam profundis tamque sublimibus. 422 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES have been intended to remind his patrons of their responsibility to pro- mote and distribute his works. Having offered a précis of his preface to Institutes, Cassian then turns to the task of justifying his new work. He begins by identifying his patrons. Castor, as noted above, had died and gone to be with Christ. Before he had passed away, however, he had laid an intolerably heavy burden on Cassian’s weak shoulders.36 He had ordered (iusserat) Cassian to compose ten books on the conferences of the elders.37 Once again, as with the Institutes, the justiﬁcation for the work is couched as an episcopal command. Likewise, Cassian’s insinuatio (in this instance, the heavy burden placed on inﬁrm shoulders) continues to wind serpent-like through his preface. Since Castor is no longer able to serve as patron for Conferences, Cassian has thought it appropriate to select two new patrons, Leontius and Helladius. Cassian’s choice of Leontius, the bishop of Forum Iulii, rests on three main factors: he is the brother of Castor;38 he and Castor are both bishops; and he shares Castor’s spiritual zeal. In addition to these qualities, Cassian wrote, Leontius had demanded (deposcit) the ten books of Conferences by his right of inheritance.39 Leontius becomes Castor redivivus: he lends his authority to the work for a new audience and offers an important connection to the abbot and monks of Lérins.40 Cassian’s praise for his new patron has a stilted, formal quality. It is much more businesslike and cursory, a marked contrast to the exuberant accolades that had been placed at the feet of his former patron. Cassian might have been more subdued if he had never met Leontius. This possi-

36. Cassian, Coll. pref.1 (SC 42:73.17–18): quanto infirmas ceruices pondere praegauaret. 37. Cassian, Coll. pref.1 (SC 42:73.11–18). 38. Adalbert de Vogüé, Les règles des saint Pères, SC 297 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1982), 149; Stewart, Cassian, 18. 39. Cassian, Coll. pref.1 (SC 42:73.19–23). 40. Hilarius of Arles claimed that Honoratus had chosen Lérins for his monastery in order to be close to bishop Leontius (Vit. Hon.15). On the connection between Leontius and Lérins see Rousseau, Cassian, 71, 74, and Salvatore Pricoco, L’isola dei santi: Il cenobio di Lerino e le origini del monachesimo gallico (Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo e Bizzarri, 1978), 33–34. For Cassian’s influence on the monks of Lérins, Conrad Leyser, “‘This Sainted Isle’: Panegyric, Nostalgia, and the Invention of Lerinian Monasticism,” in The Limits of Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R. A. Markus, ed. William Klingshirn and Mark Vessey (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 188–206. See T. Murphy, “Cicero’s First Readers: Epistolary Evidence for the Dissemination of His Works,” CQ 48 (1998): 495, for the role of carefully chosen dedicatees in disseminating works to new circles of readers. GOODRICH/SELF-JUSTIFICATION IN CASSIAN 423 bility may also explain the difference in adjectives used to describe the two patrons who appear in this preface: Leontius receives a particle41 plus a superlative adjective (o beatissime) while Helladius is tagged with a positive adjective (sancte). In a survey of earlier classical forms of address, Eleanor Dickey discovered that it was much more common for a writer to use the superlative adjective when addressing someone who stood at a distance from the writer, while the positive was more frequently employed between two people who enjoyed a level of intimacy.42 Unfortunately, Cassian is not consistent enough in his usage of the two forms of the adjective to draw an unimpeachable conclusion: in the second preface to Collationes, he uses the positive adjective when refer- ring to these two dedicatees (sanctis Helladio et Leontio episcopis),43 but in the third preface of the work, he reverts to the superlative (beatissimis episcopis Helladio ac Leontio).44 It is certainly possible that the variation is only that which was deemed appropriate when addressing two dedicatees of disproportionate rank.45 Bishop Leontius bears the main weight in authorizing the production of the first 10 books of Conferences. The other dedicatee, Helladius, fills a much different role. Cassian designates Helladius a brother (frater) sug- gesting that he was an ascetic of some kind.46 The significance of Helladius for Cassian is that he desired Conferences in order to further his own

41. Eleanor Dickey, Latin Forms of Address: From Plautus to Apuleius (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 226, has shown that the interjection o is rarely used in early non-literary texts. It seems to have been an affectation intended to make an address sound more Greek. Cassian employs it here, in Inst. coen. 5.1, and in the second and third prefaces of Coll. 42. Dickey, Latin Forms, 134–41. 43. Cassian, Coll. pref. 2 (SC 54:99.26–27). 44. Cassian, Coll. pref. 3 (SC 64:8.2–3). 45. Also intriguing is the fact that Cassian reverses the order of names in his later references to the pair: Helladius is listed before Leontius. If, as has been suggested (Owen Chadwick, “Euladius of Arles,” JTS 46 [1945]: 200–205; Élie Griffe, La Gaule chrétienne: à l’époque Romaine [Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1966], 240–41), this Helladius was promoted to the see of Arles after the death of Patroclus, then the names might be ordered by the importance of their bishoprics (a trend noted in council subscriptions; see Ralph Mathisen, “Episcopal Hierarchy and Tenure in Office in Late Roman Gaul: A Method for Establishing Dates of Ordination,” Francia 17 [1990]: 128–29). 46. In the preface to the second set of conferences, Cassian indicates that Helladius has been elevated to a bishopric. Chadwick (“Euladius,” 204–5) suggested that Helladius became the bishop of Arles after the death of Patroclus (426 c.e.) and before Honoratus. This suggestion has been generally, although not universally, accepted. For a summary of the debate on the question, see Stewart, Cassian, 153, n.161. 424 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES monastic practices.47 Helladius represents one of Cassian’s target audience, a representative of Narbonensis Secunda who has allegedly been influenced by Cassian’s works. Helladius “has preferred to be instructed not through things of his own devising, but rather through their tradi- tions.”48 The contrast between those who follow established Egyptian practices and those who (in Gaul) simply live the ascetic life by doing whatever seems right to them was an important theme in Institutes.49 Helladius serves as an example of someone who is adopting Cassian’s first treatise as the standard for his own life. Cassian’s reference suggests that the work is spreading among the ascetics of Narbonensis Secunda. The next two sections of Cassian’s preface need not detain us. Once again he returns to his use of insinuatio, comparing his own ineptitude to the difficulty of his new subject. The prayers of his new patrons are twice invoked, which if offered will help Cassian complete the work. Although Cassian labels his new work much more difficult than what had been offered in Institutes, there is also a parallel sentence that suggests that Cassian feels confident about his ability to write the work. Conferences are part of a spiritual progression; they are written for those readers who deserve the appellation “Jacob,”50 those who have read the Institutes and used them to drive out the carnal vices. This reader is now ready for a graduate-level course in asceticism, the teaching that is provided by the conferences of the Egyptian fathers. Helladius, as noted above, was clearly one example of this advanced learner. This positive instance of someone who was adopting Cassian’s framework is balanced in the final paragraph, where Cassian chastised those who, “on account of their status or displayed nature or [owing to] common custom and use, might judge these guidelines to be hard or impossible to follow.”51 These ascetics are unable to fathom the elevated teachings of the masters because of the contexts within which they practice asceticism and the mediocrity of their self-prescribed practices. The

47. Cassian, Coll. pref.1 (SC 42:73.23–75.29). 48. Cassian, Coll. pref.1 (SC 42:75.27–28): non tam suis adinventionibus quam illorum traditionibus maluit erudiri. 49. See Richard Goodrich, “A Temple of Living Stones: John Cassian’s Construc- tion of Monastic Orthodoxy in Fifth-Century Gaul,” (PhD diss., University of St. Andrews, 2002), 46–68. 50. Cassian, Coll. pref.1 (SC 42:75.48–50). Cassian here echoes Laban’s lament in Gen. 27.36: iuste vocatum est nomen eius Iacob. 51. Cassian, Coll. pref.1 (SC 42:76.65–67): in his pro status sui et propositi qualitate siue pro usu et conuersatione communi uel inpossibilia putauerit esse uel dura. GOODRICH/SELF-JUSTIFICATION IN CASSIAN 425 statement suggests that Institutes may have encountered resistance among its target audience. There can be little doubt that the Institutes, with their emphasis on complete renunciation and the total conversion of life, would have made uncomfortable reading for an aristocrat interested in the ascetic life. Cassian’s solution is simple: before censuring what Cassian has written, the critics are to first emend their lives by adopting the lifestyle that Cassian sets out, and then see if they understand what has been offered to them. The proof is in the practice. A person is in no position to judge the ascetic teachings of the masters until they have first tried them. Here, once again, we can see the importance of a Helladius who is offered as an example of an ascetic who has successfully ordered his life by the ancient Egyptian practices. Galvanized by the Holy Spirit, Helladius has eagerly received Cassian’s works. He is a positive example of the spread and adoption of these works in Narbonensis Secunda, one that can be set against the detractors signaled in the closing paragraph of this preface. There is an evident contrast between the preface of the Institutes and this preface. Cassian is more inclined to allow the first ten books of Conferences to stand on their own merits. The foreign writer has a toehold in the ascetic communities of Narbonensis Secunda and feels less need to justify himself and his work. Consequently we find a diminished emphasis on the authorizing role of his patrons as well as a diminution of insinuatio. Cassian emerges as a more confident writer, able to launch an oblique attack on those who did not find his ascetic guidelines to their taste. Cassian had established himself in Narbonensis Secunda, but was still actively expanding his network. Bishop Leontius, with his connec- tions to Lérins, would be especially useful in this task.

CONFERENCES, PREFACE 2

The second preface of Conferences extends the theme initially articulated in the previous preface: the spread of Cassian’s work in the province of Narbonensis Secunda. This preface opens by dedicating the next seven books of Conferences to Honoratus and Eucherius. Both of these men were associated with the island monastery of Lérins; Honoratus was the founder and abbot of the monastery, and Eucherius was one of the brothers who lived there with his wife and sons.52

52. For the career of Honoratus see Vogüé, Les règles, 21–22; for Eucherius, see Rousseau, Cassian, 72–73. 426 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

An obvious question is raised by this shift in dedicatees. Cassian’s selection of Leontius and Helladius as dedicatees for the first ten Confer- ences is easily explained by the fact that his previous patron, Castor, had died. But there is no sign that Leontius and Helladius have passed on. To the contrary, when they are mentioned in Cassian’s subsequent prefaces, they seem alive and well. Indeed, Helladius is doing so well in this preface that he has been elevated to a bishopric.53 Nor should this switch of patrons be ascribed to the idea that Cassian had become dissatisfied with Leontius and Helladius. In preface two, where he evinces ample satisfaction with his dedicatees, Honoratus and Eucherius, Cassian hints that he will dedicate a planned third installment of his Conferences to another group of ascetics, those who are living on the Stoechadian Islands. Moreover, rather than receiving the damnatio memoriae, in this preface and the next, bishops Leontius and Helladius continue to be mentioned for their role in the production of the first set of Conferences. Cassian’s shifting dedications seem to have been selected to signify the accelerating spread of his work among the ascetic communities of Narbonensis Secunda. Each new name marks a widening gyre of ascetic contacts. In this preface he indicates that his works have reached (and have been well received in) Lérins. Moreover, his next treatise will extend his influence down the coast to the Stoechadian Islands. The prefaces to Cassian’s works are used to suggest that his writings are rapidly acquiring a keen and devoted audience. For the moment, however, that audience is Honoratus, Eucherius, and the monks of Lérins. In describing the pair of ascetics, Cassian returns to the excessive, exuberant praise that characterized his description of Cas- tor in the preface of the Institutes. The formality of the dedication to Leontius is cast aside when Cassian turns his attention to Honoratus and Eucherius. They are, “great beacons of light, shining forth in the world.”54 As teachers of holy men (the brothers of Lérins), there are none who are able to rival the excellence of their perfection. As new examples of men who have ordered their life by the teachings of the Egyptian masters, Honoratus and Eucherius are on fire with the praise of these lofty men from whom Cassian had received the first Institutes of the anchorites.55

53. Cassian, Coll. pref. 2 (SC 52:99.26–27). 54. Cassian, Coll. pref. 2 (SC 54:98.2–3): qua uelut magna quaedam luminaria in hoc mundo admirabili claritate fulgetis. 55. Cassian, Coll. pref. 2 (SC 54:98.5–7). GOODRICH/SELF-JUSTIFICATION IN CASSIAN 427

He then, as with Leontius and Helladius, divides his attention between the two men, singling out the distinctive qualities of each. Honoratus, who presided over a large community, had wanted his brothers to be instructed by the Institutes of the fathers. This despite the fact that his own life, like Castor’s in the Institutes, served as a perfect example of the holy life for those who had gathered around him.56 Eucherius, on the other hand, was so inspired by the Egyptian example that he longed to make a pilgrimage to Egypt, trading the cold frost of Gaul for the land that baked under the sun of righteousness. There he would be edified by the living example of holy saints and would wing over the blessed land like a chaste turtle dove.57 Like Helladius, Honoratus and Eucherius are positive examples of monks who have adopted the Institutes and precepts of the desert fathers. This is not to say that all the ascetics of Narbonensis Secunda have followed suit, and we may read an implied criticism in the comparison between the land of Egypt, which is warmed by the sun of righteousness, and Gaul, characterized by those who are still made sluggish (turpentem) by its chilling frost. But those who remain coldly indifferent to Cassian’s prescriptions are tangential to his main argument: the enthusiastic acceptance of his work by Honoratus and Eucherius. Honoratus’ desire for additional teachings to inspire his flock and the need to make unnecessary a potentially perilous trip for Eucherius are offered as reasons for composing the new work. This represents a soften- ing in Cassian’s pattern of authorial self-justification. Castor had ordered the Institutes and Cassian was bound to obey; Leontius had demanded the ten books of Conferences by his legal right of inheritance. Here, however, the next seven books of Conferences are underpinned by the claims of friendship: “the strength of affection extorted this as a necessity from me.”58 While we should not assume that the men actually had not met and were friends, we do need to keep in mind that the claim to friendship was also a very common topos in classical literature. For Cassian, however, the claim that he was writing in response to the sort of request that friends made of each other alters his position; he moves from being the client of

56. Cassian, Coll. pref. 2 (SC 54:98.7–11). 57. Cassian, Coll. pref. 2 (SC 54:98.11–16). 58. Cassian, Coll. pref. 2 (SC 54:98.16–17): Necessario hoc mihi uirtus caritatis extorsit. 428 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES powerful men to the role of a companion and friend of local aristocrats.59 It may be a subtle distinction, but with this preface Cassian passes clear of the shadow of powerful bishops and asserts his right to stand as an equal with members of the local aristocracy. He does not offer these books to fulfill an episcopal command, nor does he portray himself as a writer under duress. This preface seems to suggest that he has been admitted into the ascetic literary circle of Narbonensis Secunda on his own terms, recognized as an ascetic authority by the people who counted in that region. Now he feels able to drop the elaborate defense of his work, underpinned by the imprimatur of bishops.60 His self-presentation as an ascetic authority increasingly dominates each work, conveying a sense of status and standing that is inversely related to the elaborate self-justification packed into the earlier prefaces. Another indication of self-confidence is the diminished level of insinuatio. Cassian alludes to the formidable hazard of writing61 that he may not evade if he is going to produce this work for his friends. He also, again, characterizes Institutes and the first ten books of Conferences as books that had been written “one way or another” (utcumque).62 But these mild expressions of self-doubt are more than adequately balanced by his claim that if his extant treatises had passed over or treated obscurely the teachings which concerned perfection, his present work would compensate for these shortcomings.63 Compared to the formulaic self-denigration found in his earliest prefaces, this small expression of confidence borders on preening.

CONFERENCES, PREFACE 3

The ﬁnal preface to Conferences suggests an author writing at the height of conﬁdence. Dedicated to four otherwise unknown monks, the last

59. The word amicus can be used to describe both friendship and a client/patron relationship. See Barbara Gold, Literary Patronage in Greece and Rome (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), 134; David Konstan, “Patrons and Friends,” CP 90 (1995): 328–42, for the difficulties in distinguishing between these two roles. 60. This is not to say that he completely ignores the patrons of his earlier works. Castor is mentioned as the patron of the Inst. coen., and the first 10 books of Coll. are said to have been put together at the command of bishops Helladius and Leontius (Cassian, Coll. pref. 2 [SC 52:26–28]). But again, this is nothing like the extreme self- justification that characterized the earlier prefaces. 61. Cassian, Coll. pref. 2 (SC 54:98.19): scribendi periculum. 62. Cassian, Coll. pref. 2 (SC 54:99.27). 63. Cassian, Coll. pref. 2 (SC 54:99.32–34): quae de perfectione in praeteritis opusculis nostris obscurius forsitan conprehensa uel praetermissa sunt, suppleantur. GOODRICH/SELF-JUSTIFICATION IN CASSIAN 429 seven books are presented as works that are worthy of their readership, enjoying a wide spread throughout southern Gaul. The preface begins by recapitulating the reasons for producing the earlier works: the first set of Conferences was demanded by Leontius and Helladius. Books 11 through 17 were dedicated to Honoratus and Eucherius.64 Interestingly, Cassian fails to mention his original patron, bishop Castor, the first such omission in these prefaces. In these ascriptions we also find the only trace of insinuatio in this preface: he repeats the claim that he has made in each of the prefaces to Conferences, that they had been written “one way or another” (utcumque).65 The haphazard production of those books is a far cry from the multiple instances of insinuatio found in the preface to Institutes. Cassian has found his voice and confidence before his audience. The preface is dedicated to four monks (Jovinianus, Minervus, Leontius, and Theodore) who are otherwise unknown. Theodore (who may have been the successor to Leontius as bishop of Forum Iulii) was credited with “establishing the holy and exceptional discipline of the coenobia in the provinces of Gaul by the extension of the ancient virtues.”66 Theodore, in other words, is busy training monks in monasteries that conform to the teaching of the Egyptian desert fathers. The other three monks were also instrumental in inspiring the Gauls to long for the ascetic life. Because of their advocacy, “great flocks of brothers flourish not only in the western regions [Gaul] but also in the islands.”67 An orderly training program has been instituted that finds initiates entering their monasteries and then moving on “to follow the disciplines of the anchoritic life.”68 It is not entirely clear from this preface whether this program is based on Cassian’s earlier works. However Cassian does assert that their con- formity to the ancient disciplines will make it easier for the monks to grasp his works: “they have now been prepared by the same exercises to more easily grasp the precepts of the elders and to receive the institutes.”69 The monks will not follow their own idiosyncratic ideas about the ascetic life, but rather will “become accustomed to taking hold of the discipline

64. Cassian, Coll. pref. 3 (SC 64:8.1–5). 65. Cassian, Coll. pref. 3 (SC 64:8.3). 66. Cassian, Coll. pref. 3 (SC 64:8.7–10): Posterior siquidem uestrum illam coenobiorum sanctam atque egregiam disciplinam in prouinciis Gallicanis antiquarum uirtutum districtione fundavit. 67. Cassian, Coll. pref. 3 (SC 64:8.16–9.17): qua non solum occiduas regiones, uerum etiam insulas maximis fratrum cateruis fecistis florere. 68. Cassian, Coll. pref. 3 (SC 64:9.20–21): etiam illi haud longe a uestris coenobiis secedentes anachoretarum sectari gestiunt disciplinam. 69. Cassian, Coll. pref. 3 (SC 64:9.24–26): ut parati iam atque in isdem exercitiis deprehensi facilius praecepta seniorum atque instituta suscipiant. 430 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES of the eremetic life, having been better taught by the example of those whom ancient tradition and the hard work of experience have instructed in all things.”70 This preface builds on the theme of acceptance developed over the previous two prefaces. Just as Honoratus had requested Cassian’s work to use with his monks at Lérins, these new monks in leadership positions are said to be promoting Cassian’s works across Gaul and in the islands. Cassian’s writings will reach the great colonies flourishing in the West as well as those who have settled on the islands. Moreover, the work will also be passed on to those who have chosen an anchoritic life; Cassian offers a delightful picture of anchorites receiving the fathers into their cells and holding daily conversations with them through “a certain kind of questioning and answering”71 of the matters contained in the volumes. With his last preface, Cassian has cast aside all pretense of doubt or hesitation about his work. The transition from cautious foreigner to local ascetic authority has been completed. Over the course of his prefaces, he has portrayed himself as a client of powerful bishops, the friend of promi- nent ascetics, and now as an authoritative writer with something to offer the monks of the West. He indicates an ever-widening audience for his works, broad acceptance, and no hesitation about the value of what he has written. The writer’s persona and self-presentation has completely altered over the course of these four prefaces, a masterful display of rhetoric wedded to the aim of influencing a local population of ascetics.

THE LOCAL AUDIENCE Before turning to the last preface I will consider in this paper, I would like to indulge in a brief excursus, drawing attention to the signiﬁcance of a local population of ascetics. It has long been assumed that John Cassian was intimately involved in some form of Massilian monastic project when he wrote his two great ascetic works. While scholars debate Cassian’s place of birth, the length of time he spent in Egypt, and the historical reliability of his testimony about Egyptian monastic praxis, there has never been any challenge offered to the proposition that Cassian settled in Marseilles upon his arrival in Gaul. If there is one universally accepted

70. Cassian, Coll. pref. 3 (SC 64:9.33–36): anachoreseos disciplinam illorum potius praeceptis capere consuescant, quos in omnibus et antiqua traditio et longae experientiae instruxit industria. 71. Cassian, Coll. pref. 3 (SC 64:9.28–29): interrogationibus ac responsionibus. GOODRICH/SELF-JUSTIFICATION IN CASSIAN 431 fact in Cassian studies, it would be his identification with Marseilles and the burgeoning ascetic movement in that city.72 But is this biographical attribution correct? In fact, it hangs on a single explicit73 piece of evidence, Gennadius’ assertion, nearly a half-century after Cassian’s death, that Cassian had been a priest of Marseilles and had established two monasteries in or near Marseilles.74 This is obviously a strong piece of evidence for a Massilian provenance, but it certainly does not nest comfortably with the literary dedications I have examined in this paper. If Cassian was part of a Massilian ascetic endeavor, why does he fail to mention any of the bishops, priests, or monks around him? Where we might expect a Massilian priest to dedicate his ascetic treatises to the bishop of his own city (Proculus, a man who exercised a great deal of influence in southeastern Gaul), Cassian confounds us by dedicating his works to the obscure Castor et al., bishops and ascetics of the nearby province of Narbonensis Secunda. If he was a priest of Marseilles, why would he risk offending Proculus in this way?75 The peculiarity of this action is heightened when we remember that Cassian wrote his works during a fierce struggle for the ecclesiastical control of southeastern Gaul. A number of bishops, including the bishops of Narbonensis Secunda and the bishop of Arles, had banded together in an uneasy alliance to resist Proculus’ attempt to exercise the rights of a metropolitan bishop over this

72. So Chadwick, John Cassian, 41; Henri Marrou, “Jean Cassien à Marseille,” Revue du moyen age latin 1 (1945): 21–26; Stewart, Cassian, 15–16; Philip Rousseau, Ascetics, Authority, and the Church in the Age of Jerome and Cassian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 174–75; Rousseau, Cassian, 68; Conrad Leyser, Authority and Asceticism from Augustine to Gregory the Great (Oxford: Clarendon, 2000), 35. This list could easily be expanded; I have yet to ﬁnd any scholar who questions the attribution of Cassian to Marseilles. Leyser, “Sainted Isle,” 192, approached the question when he wrote: “Scholars have presumed that the unnamed parties at Marseilles referred to in the late 420s by the Augustinian Prosper of Aquitaine as dissenting from his master’s predestinarian views are none other than John Cassian and the Lerinians.” 73. The letters of Prosper about the anti-Augustinian sentiments afoot in Marseilles may imply that Cassian was associated with that city, but as I have argued in Goodrich, “Temple,” 19–23, this is more a case of reading Cassian into, rather than out of, Prosper’s works. 74. Gennad. Vir. 61. A surprising number of modern scholars still assert that Cassian was the founder of St Victor’s, despite the cogent argument to the contrary found in Simon Loseby, “Marseille in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages,” (PhD diss., University of Oxford, 1992), 139–42. 75. See, for instance, the messy explanation Sidonius had to offer Lupus of Troyes when he dedicated a work to others (Sid. Ep. 9.11); cf. Jill D. Harries, Sidonius Apollinaris and the Fall of Rome, AD 407–485 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 8. 432 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES region.76 If Cassian was a priest of Marseilles, writing as a client of Proculus, why are all of his works dedicated to men who are (to a greater or lesser extent) Proculus’ adversaries? Are we right, in fact, to prefer Gennadius’ later testimony about Cassian to the evidence of a different afﬁliation found in his prefaces? Unfortunately, space limitations prevent me from pursuing this question further here.77 But I am persuaded that the evidence I have delineated above (especially Cassian’s careful method of inserting himself into the Narbonensis Secunda ascetic coterie) admits more than the answer “Marseilles” to the question: Where was John Cassian when he wrote his ascetic works?

ON THE INCARNATION, PREFACE

To conclude this paper, I would like to examine the final preface John Cassian composed. It could be argued that the shifting interplay of themes outlined in my analysis of the previous four prefaces was more happen- stance than a conscious application of rhetoric. Cassian’s diminishing use of insinuatio, for instance, could be attributed to a genuine growth of self- confidence. He may have begun his project unable to guess the quality of what he might produce, but then, to his great surprise and amazement, his treatises came out well and he felt a reduced need to apologize for what he had written. His heavy reliance on the authorizing power of bishops in the early prefaces might be attributed to nothing more sinister than the fact that bishops had requested the works. Fortunately, the preface to Cassian’s On the Incarnation offers additional testimony to Cassian’s literary method. Cassian’s last work was written ca. 429/30,78 after the Institutes and Conferences had been completed. He was now an established ascetic authority and needed to apologize to no one for his works. Yet this self-confidence does not emerge in the preface to On the Incarnation. The opening of this preface is worth citing in full:

76. For the tensions between the sees of Arles and Marseilles that characterized this period, see David Frye, “Bishops as Pawns in Early Fifth-Century Gaul,” JEH 42 (1991): 349–61, and Ralph Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism and Religious Controversy in Fifth-Century Gaul (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1989), 27–43. 77. But see Goodrich, “Temple,” 13–45 for an extended discussion of this topic, one that I will return to in a forthcoming monograph. 78. Stewart, Cassian, 22. GOODRICH/SELF-JUSTIFICATION IN CASSIAN 433

Some time ago, having released the books of the spiritual Conferences— books that were distinguished more for their ideas than their composition, because the discourse of my ignorance was unequal to the lofty thought of those holy men—I had pondered and nearly decided (after that shame of ignorance displayed) to lodge myself in the harbor of silence, so that I might excuse as much as I could through the taciturnity of modesty, the audacity of my talkativeness.

Absolutis dudum collationum spiritalium libellis sensu magis quam sermone insignibus, quia alto sanctorum uirorum sensui sermo nostrae inperitiae impar fuit, cogitaram et propemodum constitueram post illum proditae inscientiae pudorem ita me in portu silentii collocare, ut excusarem, quantum in me esset, per taciturnitatis uerecundiam loquacitatis audaciam.79 What are we to make of this? Has Cassian, whose growing confidence we have traced through the prefaces of Conferences, suddenly lost his nerve and repudiated everything that he had written? Naturally not. Cassian finds himself facing a new audience, the church at Rome and all the other churches throughout Christendom that were interested in the Nestorian controversy. Consequently, just as when he first wrote for the ascetics of Narbonensis Secunda, he reverts to a standard template for introducing a work. On the Incarnation recycles the same themes and self-deprecatory set pieces that had been employed in the preface to the Institutes. If anything, these themes—the greatness of Cassian’s patron, the patron’s demand for the work, the unworthiness of the author, and the patron’s final responsibility for the work—are articulated more force- fully than in the Institutes. This may be illustrated through a brief analysis of the preface. As the first sentence of On the Incarnation suggests, Cassian is once more drawing deeply from the well of insinuatio.80 He was so deeply embarrassed by his previous works that he had resolved to take refuge in a harbor of silence and never write again. This resolve is only overturned by the laudable eagerness and overwhelming affection of his friend Leo, the archdeacon of Rome. Leo drags Cassian forth from this harbor of silence and thrusts him again into the public arena, which Cassian still blushing from his previous work claims to dread. Cassian, who was

79. Cassian, Incarn. pref. (CSEL 17:235.1–6). 80. Ironically, he does this so well that at least one later writer (Ruricius of Limoges) repeated snippets of insinuatio from Incarn. (often verbatim) in the prefaces to his own letters (for examples, see Ralph Mathisen, Ruricius of Limoges and Friends: A Collection of Letters from Visigothic Gaul [Liverpool: Liverpool Univer- sity Press, 1999], 54). 434 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES found wanting in his ability to write about the small triﬂing subjects that he had undertaken, is now made to write about greater things. Leo receives a measure of praise as Cassian’s patron, although nothing like the encomium that had been produced for Castor. Cassian labels Leo an esteemed and highly regarded friend.81 The archdeacon is the glory of the Roman church and of the Christian ministry. There is also an implica- tion that Leo’s superiority over the local bishops of Narbonensis Secunda grants him the authority to induce Cassian to proffer a work that is much greater in spiritual terms than anything he had previously composed: “for before we spoke, when commanded, about the master’s studies, but now you demand that we might speak concerning the incarnation itself and the majesty of the Lord.”82 In the past Cassian had undertaken small works (opusculis),83 but now his pen would turn to the loftiest of themes. Leo’s predecessors had brought Cassian into the temple, but Leo was responsible for taking Cassian into the holy of holies. As with Cassian’s earliest prefaces, the writer uses strong words of ordering and obedience to characterize the request that Leo had made for this work. Leo drags (producens)84 Cassian from the refuge of silence that he had contemplated and forces (cogis)85 Cassian to once again subject himself to public judgment. Leo requires and orders (exigis itaque ac iubes)86 Cassian to undertake this task. Cassian’s response, of course, is one of obedience: “I obey your entreaty; I obey your command. For concerning myself I prefer to place more trust in your judgment than my own, especially since the love of Jesus Christ, my Lord commands this with you. He orders this thing in you.”87 Once again, as with the preface to the Institutes, Cassian characterizes his motivation for writing as that of obedience when faced with the irresistible command of an ecclesiastical superior. Indeed, his obedience is

81. This sense of friendship and personal relationship is buttressed by his use of the particle mi (mi Leo), which can convey the idea of closeness and intimacy (Dickey, Latin Forms, 214–26) although it is also common in the epistolary register. 82. Cassian, Incarn. pref. (CSEL 17:235.17–236.1): nam qui iussi antea de dominicis studiis locuti sumus, nunc id exigis ut de ipsa incarnatione domini ac maiestate dicamus. 83. Cassian, Incarn. pref. (CSEL 17:235.14). 84. Cassian, Incarn. pref. (CSEL 17:235.9–10). 85. Cassian, Incarn. pref. (CSEL 17:235.11). 86. Cassian, Incarn. pref. (CSEL 17:236.5–6). 87. Cassian, Incarn. pref. (CSEL 17:236.11–14): pareo obsecrationi tuae, pareo iussioni. malo enim de me ipso tibi quam mihi credere, maxime quia id tecum amor Iesu Christi domini mei praecipit, qui hoc ipsum etiam in te iubet. GOODRICH/SELF-JUSTIFICATION IN CASSIAN 435 further qualiﬁed by the observation that he never would have undertaken his earlier works apart from the command of a bishop.88 While we may never establish how much of the responsibility for instigating an episcopal commission—from either Castor, Leontius, or Leo—lies with Cassian, there is no doubt that he attributes all of his works to the commands of his superiors. But the force of this command also allows Cassian to shift ultimate responsibility for the work back on the patron. Nowhere is this made more explicit than in the preface to On the Incarnation. His lack of responsibility is implied by the insinuatio of his early paragraphs: he claims that he had been unworthy of the smaller works he had composed before, but now, against his will, Leo was elevating him to something that exceeded his ascetic treatises in difﬁculty. Where Cassian wanted to hide in his harbor of silence, Leo had dragged him out into the public forum. The shift of responsibility implied in these opening lines became explicit as the preface concluded. Cassian transferred the responsibility for this work squarely onto Leo’s shoulders. According to Cassian, Leo bore the greater risk; Leo’s reputation as a sound judge was threatened by his choice of Cassian to write this work.

For, whether I might prove equal to your command or whether I might not, to a certain extent the consideration of obedience and humility excuses me... and so this work and business belongs to you, the embarrassment of the work will be yours. Pray and appeal to God lest your choice be imperiled by my lack of skill and I do not live up to the great opinion you have of me, and even if I do well to obey and am excused by obedience you are seen through thoughtless judgment to have commanded badly.

me enim, siue par sim tuo imperio siue non sim, ipsa aliquatenus oboedientiae ratio atque humilitatis excusat . . . tua ergo haec res, tuum negotium, tui pudoris opus est. ora et obsecra, ne imperitia mea periclitetur electio tua, et opinioni tantae nobis non respondentibus, etiamsi ego per oboedientiae ueniam bene pareo, tu tamen per inconsiderantiam iudicii male imperasse uidearis.89 Cassian has come full circle in this preface. His reversion to the themes ﬁrst articulated in the preface to the Institutes suggests that this was his view of how a work ought to be introduced when an author was making his debut before an unfamiliar audience. His situation in producing On the Incarnation paralleled his production of the Institutes. Where the

88. Cassian, Incarn. pref. (CSEL 17:235.15–16): nisi episcopali tractus imperio. 89. Cassian, Incarn. pref. (CSEL 17:236.17–26). 436 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

Institutes were designed to sway a small provincial audience of ascetics, On the Incarnation is intended for the universal Church, an audience drawn from the entire known world. Consequently, Cassian sets aside his apparent conﬁdence (increasingly displayed in the prefaces of his ascetic treatises) and reverts to the form and stylistic conventions that characterized the preface of his ﬁrst monastic writing. This deliberate manipulation of rhetoric in the last preface he would write, long after he had apparently achieved recognition for his standing as an ascetic authority, highlights John Cassian’s mastery of not only the ascetic disciplines, but the rhetorical ones as well.

Richard J. Goodrich is a Research Fellow in the Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of Bristol