Jean Cassien

Biography

Jean Cassien would have been born between 350 and 360 and died between 433 and 458 is a Mediterranean man of the church which one knows few things.

Childhood

According to Gennadius, it would have been born in Scythie (natione Scytha), in Dobroudja zone currently shared between the Romania and the Bulgaria, following others in the Désert of Skété (heremus Scitii), close to the delta of the the Nile (which was only one monastic site). Confusion could come from an amalgam between Scytha and the desert of Skété, where it will remain later. Others still lean for the Provence. It would have passed its childhood in the monastery of Bethlehem. It is supposed that it came from a fortunate family.

The monk

From a certainly rich family, from good education, its first youth occurred in the monastery from Bethlehem. Between 385 and 390, it obtained the permission to leave there during seven years, to go with Germain, his friend, of a few years his elder, to visit the holy places of the Palestine and the Anachorète S of the Thébaïde.

In 403, with Constantinople, it receives the lesson of Saint Jean Chrysostome who orders it Diacre and the load of the treasures of its cathedral gives him. After the exile of its Master, it is charged to request the intercession of the pope Innocent Ier in favor of the persecuted bishop. He visits the monastic sites of Egypt and gives an alive description like life that one practiced there and of the lesson which was exempted there. He fixes himself thereafter in Occident and founds, in 414 or 415, two monasteries in Marseilles, Saint-Victor for the men and Saint-Saver for the women.

According to the tradition, he would have asked the bishop of Marseilles, Proculus, the authorization to found a monastery close to the cave where rested the relics of holy Lazare and of Saint Victor.

He would have even made build close to this cave, two churches, one dedicated to Pierre saint and holy Paul, the other with Jean-Baptiste saint. It is ensured that five thousand monks lived there under his discipline.

He died towards 440. However, there exists an uncertainty and same differences over the time in its death. According to the legend of Holy Prosper, he lived in 433 more; Rivet places its death in 434 or 435; others, between 440 and 458. Baillet and Dupin claim that he lived ninety seven years.

Its work

He professed a semi Pélagianisme which was fought by Saint Augustin.

One knows two works of Jean Cassien:

the cenobitic institutions ( De Institutis coenobiorum and of octo principalium vitiorum remediis ), a treaty in twelve books writes in 420 and devoted to the monastic life and the obstacles of the perfection: gloutonnery, impurity, greed, anger, abatement, trouble, vanity and pride.
the conferences ( Collate patrum in Scithico eremo commorantium ), a collection of twenty-four conferences reporting the memories of Cassien in Egypt, its talks on the ascetic perfection with the fathers of the desert. With the Middle Ages, the practice to read the Collationes during the evening meal ended up giving to this last the name of collation.

Other works are allotted to him in manner apocryphal book. The best edition of Cassien is that of Leipzig, 1722, in-fol.

Jean Cassien developed the doctrines of the Four directions of the Writing, on the basis of idea of Origène. He is known to have introduced the Cénobitisme in occident.

Its posterity

Benoît de Nursie was based on the works of Jean Cassien to establish his monastic Règle.

After the death of Jean Cassien, the Council of Orange, in 529, condemns the Semi-pélagianisme and gives a theological formulation of the grace as preached by Augustin. The council decided against those which, like Jean Cassien of Marseilles, Faust de Riez and Vincent de Lérins, gave to a more important role to the free will.

This probably explains why Jean Cassien forever be a saint of the Roman Catholic church, even if it is honoured locally. Some villages close to Lérins bear its name and one has sometimes the memory of a festival on February 29th. Its writings however were read much in the monasteries of Occident.

It appears on the other hand in the calendar of the saints of the orthodoxe Église where it is very estimated for its writings and its positions on the grace in which the orthodoxe ones recognize, well better than at Augustin d' Hippone, the positions traditionally taught by the orthodoxe Fathers. Thus monks (and bishops) orthodoxe often bear his name. It is celebrated on July 23rd.

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