Christian ethical formation was from the outset distinguished from its pagan counterparts by the belief that bodily asceticism is not just a consequence of progress in virtue but, together with affective and cognitive practices, essential to virtue's cultivation. This principle and the integrative programme of self-transformation it undergirded received their first systematic implementation among the desert monks of fourth-century Egypt, and one of their most gifted students was John Cassian. Having lived among them, he committed their teachings to writing for the monks of southern Gaul, his Conferences bringing desert monasticism to life in the dramatic form of conferences given by exemplary elders to his youthful self and his companion Germanus. C. perceptively notes the centrality of this format to his pedagogic strategy, explaining that ‘Cassian's captivated and captivating ascetics show through their examples what systematic direct prescription cannot do’ (p. 3), while his accounts of his and Germanus’ emotional responses ‘affect the reader both by stating the emotions needed (prescription) and enacting them (description) through his dramatised experience’ (p. 132).
C. approaches Cassian from the perspective of his potential to contribute to contemporary ethical discourse. While situating him in his historical context, she uses theoretical analysis to highlight the capacity of his programme of ascetic formation to speak to present-day concerns. Noting that M. Foucault's theoretical shift to ethics was galvanised by ‘the recognition that technologies of domination require an appreciation for technologies of the self as forms of resistance’ (p. 181), she argues for asceticism's ability to ‘contest forms of social, cultural, and economic power that naturalise their own consumptive values’ while at the same time promoting reflection on ‘how nonnormative subjects can shape themselves and their societies through that very struggle’ (p. 180). She rejects Foucault's view of late antique Christian asceticism as essentially renunciatory and self-vitiatory, highlighting its transformative ethos as described by E. Clark and S. Ashbrook Harvey. ‘For Cassian, cultivating the ascetic professio is not simply about coercion and submission but about cultivation and transformation through the influence of (Abba) Moses and other exemplars’ (p. 169).
Bringing analysis informed by gender, feminist and queer perspectives to her reading of Cassian enables her to highlight his ‘robust view of how embodiment, affectivity, and reflection constitute human subjectivity’ (p. 4), and how ‘embodied, affective, and communal practices can be seen as basic to his asceticism and conceptualisation of human agency’ (ibid.). The site of the ascetic self are embodiment, affectivity and reflectivity, and Cassian aims at their integration through ascetic practices engaging bodily, affective and communal forms of subjectivity, each of which informs the others. C. draws attention to his stress on ‘integration and relationality’ and on ‘recognition of dependence and interconnection’ (p. 161), and argues that his ethics is ‘neither a hyperelitist and exclusionary ancient ethics nor a neoliberal contemporary consumerist aesthetic’, but can ‘address broken people in broken times’ (pp. 178–9). She notes, however, that she does not propose adoption of all his ascetic practices.
Following a comprehensive introduction, the book is divided into two parts, each comprising three chapters. Consistent with C.'s foregrounding of Cassian's emphasis on the practical and experiential, each chapter begins with either an anecdote concerning an exemplary abba or a description of a particular vice. The introduction commences with the story of Abba Pinufius, who sought anonymity in the monastery in Bethlehem, where Cassian and Germanus were staying, and whose descriptions of the monks of Egypt inspired them to go there. Part 1 is entitled ‘Constructions of Ethics in Asceticism’. Chapter 1, ‘Forms of Agency and Ways of Life’, lays the methodological and theoretical groundwork for C.'s reading of Cassian in terms of ethical agency. John of Lycopolis’ practice of obedience illustrates Cassian's focus on ‘exemplary marvels embodied in the improvement of one's behaviour and life, not in superhuman feats and miracles’ (pp. 28–9), and introduces his emphasis on human effort. Chapter 2, ‘Cassian the Ethicist’, begins with Abba Theodore's counsel to Cassian and Germanus, in response to their distress at receiving bad news, to focus ‘not on why things are the way they are but on what humans can do from here’ (p. 44). C. notes how this reflects Cassian's concern to ‘respond to real human anxieties by locating human ability not in divine miracles but in everyday cultivation through rigorous practical training’ (ibid.). Chapter 3, ‘Cassian on Human Effort’, focuses on the relation between grace and human effort, citing Abba Chaeremon's likening of the ascetic to a farmer who cultivates their land but remains dependent on God for the harvest. C. outlines Cassian's connection to the Pelagian controversy, the relation between human, divine and demonic agencies, and how Cassian's philosophical anthropology allows for ascetic formation. Part 2, ‘Practices of Ascetic Formation’, begins with Chapter 4, ‘Bodily Practices’, and a description of temptation by acedia. C. discusses eating, work and prayer as domains of bodily practice, and Cassian's treatment of nocturnal emissions and tears as foci of the integration of the physiological and psychological, the one problematic only if desire is involved, the other a sign of progress unless tears occasion vainglory or pride. Abba Apollos’ astute way of dealing with an uncharitable elder sets the stage for Chapter 5, and meditatio, recitation and imitation are presented as examples of its theme, ‘Affective Practices’. We learn how Cassian uses portrayals of his younger self and of Germanus to tutor his readers’ emotions. Chapter 6, ‘Communal Practices’, opens with Cassian's description of pride, which, by inducing a person to suppose themselves ‘superior and self-determining’, makes them ‘a threat to the order that Cassian works to develop’ (pp. 138–9). Friendship, (spiritual) directorship and (liturgical) corporate bodies are explored as interrelational practices. The conclusion begins with the story of Abba Moses’ transformation from troubled youth to outstanding elder as exemplifying Cassian's ‘affirmation of the potential to change one's way of life through the maximisation of human effort’ (p. 166). C. declares that for Cassian ‘ethical agency is an ascetic practice … not a faculty or a structural effect’. Rather than aspire to ‘full conformity with the nomos’, we are to cultivate the ascetic spirit, recognise that we can change our lives, take up the requisite practices, and consider how the changes we make in our own lives ‘can lead to changes in the lives of others … Through human effort we together change lives and societal conditions’ (p. 181).
Monasticism has never been mainstream Christian practice, and furthermore Cassian suffered historical marginalisation as a result of being, as C. notes, ‘doctrinally maligned’ (p. 74) for his perceived affinity with the heresy of Pelagianism. Yet today monastic communities the world over continue to attest to the vitality of their way of life and to the profound personal and social benefits of Cassian's programme of ascetic formation; C. gives a vivid sense of how much his exquisitely detailed and comprehensive expositions of the practical wisdom of the Egyptian monks can offer us. I have just one minor quibble. While C. describes Cassian as a misogynist, I do not see that his association of women with temptation reflects misogyny rather than simply his recognition of the bodily and affective vulnerabilities of his male audience. His teacher Evagrius pushed back against the misogyny endemic to their culture (as did Evagrius’ contemporary and probable associate in Cappadocia, Gregory of Nyssa), and I would need more persuading that Cassian, his immediate pastoral concerns apart, failed to do likewise.
The book is well produced; the only editorial glitches I spotted being two errant apostrophes (pp. 2–3) and the sporadic use of Greek fonts (e.g. pp. 45, 69 and 114, but not pp. 99–101).
This rich study is a welcome addition to the literature on Cassian, important both for its insightful reading of him and for its capacity to speak to present-day concerns. It will be of interest not only to ethicists but to historians of philosophy and scholars of asceticism, monasticism and spirituality.
