John Cassian and the Creation of Monastic Subjectivity
Joshua Schachterle [+–]
Independent Scholar
Joshua Schachterle recently received his Ph.D. from the University of Denver/Iliff School of Theology Joint Doctoral Program. His dissertation was on New Testament and Early Christianity.
John Cassian (360-435 CE) started his monastic career in Bethlehem. He later traveled to the Egyptian desert, living there as a monk, meeting the venerated Desert Fathers, and learning from them for about fifteen years. Much later, he would go to the region of Gaul to help establish a monastery there by writing monastic manuals, the Institutes and the Conferences. These seminal writings represent the first known attempt to bring the idealized monastic traditions from Egypt, long understood to be the cradle of monasticism, to the West.
In his Institutes, Cassian comments that “a monk ought by all means to flee from women and bishops” (Inst. 11.18). An odd comment from a monk, apparently casting bishops as adversaries rather than models for the Christian life. This book argues that Cassian, in both the Institutes and the Conferences, advocated for a separation between monastics and the institutional Church.
In Cassian’s writings and the larger corpus of monastic writings from his era, monks never referred to early Church fathers such as Irenaeus or Tertullian as authorities; instead, they cited quotes and stories exclusively from earlier, venerated monks. In that sense, monastic discourse such as Cassian’s formed a closed discursive system, consciously excluding the hierarchical institutional Church. Furthermore, Cassian argues for a separate monastic authority based not on apostolic succession but on apostolic praxis, the notion that monastic practices such as prayer and asceticism can be traced back to the primitive church.
This study of Cassian’s writings is supplemented with Michel Foucault’s analysis of the creation of subjects to examine Cassian’s formation of a specifically Egyptian form of monastic subjectivity for his audience, the monks of Gaul. Foucault’s concepts of disciplinary power and pastoral power are also employed to demonstrate the effect Cassian’s rhetoric would have upon his direct audience, as well as many other monks throughout history.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Introduction [+–]
This chapter introduces the story of John Cassian’s exile from Egypt by the Alexandrian bishop Theophilus. The thesis of the book – that Cassian wanted separate spheres for monasticism and the Church – is explained.
Chapter 2
This begins with Cassian’s Egyptian context, where he learned how to be a monk from the men he considered masters of the monastic vocation. It then examines fifth-century Gaul, the context in which Cassian wrote both the Institutes and the Conferences. Finally, it demonstrates Cassian’s notion of asceticism as mark of authority.
Chapter 3
Establishes how Cassian’s creation of monastic subjectivity creates monks for whom monastic identity is necessarily separate from other roles within the institutional Church. To do this, I use Michel Foucault’s notion of the creation of subjects to analyze Cassian’s formation of a specifically Egyptian form of monastic subjectivity for his audience of Gallican monks.
Chapter 4
Establishes that conflicts between the Church and monasteries or individual monks were matters of historical, or at least rhetorical, record which I argue could have easily induced a type of monastic separatism in Cassian’s writings. This chapter details some of these conflicts and applies a typology to them.
Chapter 5
Verifies that Cassian is explicitly advocating for a clear separation between monasticism and the Church. In this chapter, I appeal to evidence from Cassian’s writings where he envisions an increasing distance between the spheres of monasticism and the Church with monastic authority based largely on proper ascetic practice.
Chapter 6
Conclusion [+–]
To conclude, chapter six will sum up the case I have made. I then discuss the implications of such a conclusion. First, had separation been executed as Cassian may have intended, it may have created a very early “reformation,” with the church split between monastics and clergy. I then include possible avenues for further investigation around this topic.
