The Origins of Monasticism
The Origins of Monasticism
Through each of the texts, stemming from John the Dwarf, Cassian’s, Conference XVIII, The Rule of Benedict, and The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus, the prominent underlying themes are centered around individuals’ ability to improve themselves by implementing a life of asceticism and humility. Each author attempts to preach the importance of adopting the Psalms or word of God and stripping away any comforts in life. The authors, for example, in Athanasius’s, the Letter to Marcellinus, is known to be the first of its kind in providing a guide for reaching the divine through personal, devotional meditation and signing of the Psalms.
While John Cassian mentions the idea of a person’s turn to flight when faced with his “enemies,” more or less temptations, I found that he also created the presumption of cowardice, in some respects. The concept of flight is also utilized in John the Dwarf, the desert abbas, or fathers, who create a community of monks inhabiting their cells in the desert. This idea of finding solitude in a cell where a person, devoted to God, can find divinity and is free to worship as he so chooses, while an attractive appeal, the question is in which lifestyle is the most favorable. To worship God and meditate on his teachings by leading a life of example in solitude or immersing yourself in society and devoting yourself instead to social welfare through the divine intervention granted you by God. There is a passage in John Cassian’s Conference Eighteen which references fake humility by Abba Sarapion, one of the desert fathers, who scorns a young man who claims to be wallowing in sin and so visits Sarapion. The passage continues as Sarapion urges the young man not to come to him simply to achieve a form of free sanctity and food, but instead to take advantage of his strength and “support himself by his own efforts rather than through the generosity of someone else.” (John Cassian, Conference Eighteen, 192)
Through each of the texts, stemming from John the Dwarf, Cassian’s, Conference XVIII, The Rule of Benedict, and The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus, the prominent underlying themes are centered around individuals’ ability to improve themselves by implementing a life of asceticism and humility. Each author attempts to preach the importance of adopting the Psalms or word of God and stripping away any comforts in life. The authors, for example, in Athanasius’s, the Letter to Marcellinus, is known to be the first of its kind in providing a guide for reaching the divine through personal, devotional meditation and signing of the Psalms.
While John Cassian mentions the idea of a person’s turn to flight when faced with his “enemies,” more or less temptations, I found that he also created the presumption of cowardice, in some respects. The concept of flight is also utilized in John the Dwarf, the desert abbas, or fathers, who create a community of monks inhabiting their cells in the desert. This idea of finding solitude in a cell where a person, devoted to God, can find divinity and is free to worship as he so chooses, while an attractive appeal, the question is in which lifestyle is the most favorable. To worship God and meditate on his teachings by leading a life of example in solitude or immersing yourself in society and devoting yourself instead to social welfare through the divine intervention granted you by God. There is a passage in John Cassian’s Conference Eighteen which references fake humility by Abba Sarapion, one of the desert fathers, who scorns a young man who claims to be wallowing in sin and so visits Sarapion. The passage continues as Sarapion urges the young man not to come to him simply to achieve a form of free sanctity and food, but instead to take advantage of his strength and “support himself by his own efforts rather than through the generosity of someone else.” (John Cassian, Conference Eighteen, 192)