* Coenobitical Institutions and Conferences of St John Cassian.

This is similar to the position taken in the Conferences of St. John Cassian.

John Cassian, who had visited his monastery, dedicated to him several of his " Conferences ".

Cassian wrote two major spiritual works, the Institutions and the Conferences.

The Conferences, dedicated to Pope Leo, to the bishop of Frejus, and to the monk Helladius, summarize important conversations that Cassian had with elders from Scetis about principles of the spiritual and ascetic life.

The ideas expressed by Cassian to which critics have pointed as examples of his alleged Semipelagianism are found in his Conferences, in book 3, the Conference of Abbot Paphnutius ; book 5, the Conference of Abbot Serapion ; and most especially in book 13, the Third Conference of Abbot Chaeremon.

* The Conferences and The Institutes by John Cassian

However, his scheme was taken from that described by John Cassian, in his two major spiritual works, the Institutes and the Conferences, in which he described the monastic practices of the Desert Fathers of Egypt.

Traditionally, the reading in Benedictine monasteries of excerpts from Collationes patrum in scetica eremo, written by John Cassian, was followed by a light meal.

Lauren Pristas writes: " For Cassian, salvation is, from beginning to end, the effect of God's grace.

When the Patriarch was forced into exile from Constantinople in 404, the Latin-speaking Cassian was sent to Rome to plead his cause before Pope Innocent I.

Many different western spiritualities, from that of Saint Benedict to that of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, owe their basic ideas to Cassian.

" Some other Orthodox, who do not apply the term " Semi-Pelagian " to their theology, criticize the Roman Catholics for allegedly rejecting Cassian, whom they accept as fully orthodox, and for holding, as, in Casiday's interpretation, Cassian did, that everything which pertains to salvation comes from God's grace, and so that even the human consent to God's justifying action is itself an effect of grace, This position of the Roman Catholic Church and of Cassian as interpreted by Casiday is attributed by Eastern Orthodox theologian Georges Florovsky also to the Eastern Orthodox Church, which, he says, " always understood that God initiates, accompanies, and completes everything in the process of salvation ", rejecting instead the Calvinist idea of irresistible grace.

Lauren Pristas, writes: " For Cassian, salvation is, from beginning to end, the effect of God's grace.

John Cassian ( c. 380 ) tells us that throughout Egypt the Psalms were divided into groups of twelve, and that after each group there followed two lessons, one from the Old, one from the New Testament ( De caenob.

Saint John Cassian ( c. 360 – 435 ) presents as the formula used in Egypt for repetitive prayer, not the Jesus Prayer, but " O God, make speed to save me: O Lord, make haste to help me ".

Saint John Cassian recommended use of the phrase " O God, make speed to save me: O Lord, make haste to help me ".

Theoria, contemplatio in Latin, as indicated by John Cassian, meaning vision of God, is closely connected with theosis ( divinization ).

Other methods are equally accepted, such as the recitation, as recommended by Saint John Cassian, of " O God, come to my assistance ; O Lord, make haste to help me " or other verses of Scripture ; the repetition of a single monosyllabic word, as suggested by the Cloud of Unknowing ; the method used in Centering Prayer ; the use of Lectio Divina ; etc.

For instance, Owen Chadwick stated that Cassian held that man can come to God without the intervention of divine grace first ; and B. B.

Warfield called Cassian the leader of the monastics in southern Gaul who asserted that men begin their turning to God and that God assists that beginning.

" And Augustine Casiday states that " for Cassian ... although sparks of goodwill may exist ( which are not directly caused by God ), they are totally inadequate and only direct divine intervention can ensure our spiritual progress ".

Examples among the Egyptian monks of this submission to the commands of the superiors, exalted into a virtue by those who regarded the entire crushing of the individual will as a goal, are detailed by Cassian and others, e. g. a monk watering a dry stick, day after day, for months, or endeavoring to remove a huge rock immensely exceeding his powers.

" Augustine Casiday states that Cassian " baldly asserts that God's grace, not human free will, is responsible for ' everything which pertains to salvation ' - even faith.

Augustine Casiday states that Cassian " baldly asserts that God's grace, not human free will, is responsible for ' everything which pertains to salvation ' - even faith.

Monasticism eventually made its way to the West and was established by the work of John Cassian and Benedict of Nursia.

The Roman Catholic Church includes John Cassian in its official list of recognized saints, with a feastday on 23 July, and cites him in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The trend of early female monasticism, while not as well-documented as that of its male counterpart, began in the fifth century with the founding of a female monastery in Marseille by John Cassian in 410, which preceded several female monasteries in Rome.

It is heavily influenced by the writings of John Cassian, and shows strong affinity with the Rule of the Master.

For the rest Cassian agrees with the " Peregrinatio ".

The Eastern Orthodox Church, as expressed in the teachings of John Cassian, holds that though grace is required for men to save themselves at the beginning ; there is no such thing as total depravity, but there remains a moral or noetic ability within men that is unaffected by original sin, and that men must work together ( synergism ) with divine grace to be saved.

In the novel A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, protagonist Ignatius Reilly informs one of his professors that " St. Cassian of Imola was stabbed to death by his students with their styli.

During the summer of 2005 construction work of the School Improvement Program ( SIP ) ended with the completion of two new wings, the Aimar Wing and the Cassian Wing, named after the first two principals of the school.

Approximately fifteen years later, in c. 399, Cassian and Germanus fled the Anthropomorphic controversy provoked by Theophilus, Archbishop of Alexandria, with about 300 other Origenist monks.

Cassian was ordained a deacon and was made a member of the clergy attached to the Patriarch while the struggles with the imperial family ensued.

The Rule of Saint Benedict was strongly influenced by the Desert Fathers, with Saint Benedict urging his monks to read the writings of John Cassian on the Desert Fathers.

* Assumption of the Virgin with Saints Peter Chrysologus, and Cassian ( 1584 ) -

But the view that the first steps of salvation are in the power of the individual without any need of divine grace, a view expounded by Cassian and Faustus of Riez, was condemned by the Latin church in the local Council of Orange in 529.

Saint John Cassian speaks of an abbot of the Thebaid who had 500 monks under him.

Cassian speaks of an abbot in Egypt doing this ; and in later times we have another example in the case of St Bruno.

In the monastic library at Jarrow were a number of books by theologians, including works by Basil, Cassian, John Chrysostom, Isidore of Seville, Origen, Gregory of Nazianzus, Augustine of Hippo, Jerome, Pope Gregory I, Ambrose of Milan, Cassiodorus, and Cyprian.

His brothers are Damian Elwes, an artist, and Cassian Elwes, a producer and agent.

After the battle, the Romans quickly bridged the river, thereby prompting the Helvetii to once again send an embassy, this time led by Divico, another figure whom Caesar links to the ignominious defeat of 107 BC by calling him bello Cassio dux Helvetiorum ( i. e. “ leader of the Helvetii in the Cassian campaign ”).

St. John Cassian is not represented in the Philokalia except by two brief extracts, but this is most likely due to his having written in Latin.

Hence, the tradition of St John Cassian in the West concerning the spiritual practice of the hermit can be considered to be a tradition parallel to that of Hesychasm in the Orthodox Church.

Peter the Deacon gives a list of some seventy books Desiderius had copied at Monte Cassino, including works of Saint Augustine, Saint Ambrose, Saint Bede, Saint Basil, Saint Jerome, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus and Cassian, the registers of Popes Felix and Leo, the histories of Josephus, Paul Warnfrid, Jordanes and Saint Gregory of Tours, the Institutes and Novels of Justinian, the works of Terence, Virgil and Seneca, Cicero's De natura deorum, and Ovid's Fasti.

He was probably aware of the Rule written by Pachomius ( or attributed to him ); and his Rule also shows influence by the Rule of St Augustine of Hippo and the writings of Saint John Cassian.

About the same time John Cassian dedicated to him the treatise against Nestorius written at his request.

* + The Revd Fr Cassian Reel, OFM Cap, B. Litt., MA

Cassian is a town in Oneida County, Wisconsin, United States.

John Cassian calls it Vespertina synaxis, or Vespertina solemnitas ( P. L., XLIX, 88-9 ).

More than 130 more distant sources have been identified for the tales related of the saints in the Golden Legend, few of which have a nucleus in the New Testament itself ; these hagiographic sources include apocryphal texts such as the Gospel of Nicodemus, and the histories of Gregory of Tours and John Cassian.

He is survived by his wife Mary, as well as their three children, Carol, Ros and Jon, and seven grandchildren ; Sam, Tom, Arthur, Theo, Rylan, Cassian and Lily.

* St. John Cassian