[10][11][12] The son of wealthy parents, he received a good education: his writings show the influence of Cicero and Persius.

Approximately fifteen years later, about 399, Cassian and Germanus faced the Anthropomorphic controversy provoked in letter form by Theophilus, Archbishop of Alexandria.

Cassian noted that the majority of the monks received the message of their patriarch "with bitterness", and charged Theophilus with heresy for impugning the plain teaching of scripture.

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.

His foundation, the Abbey of St Victor, was a complex of monasteries for both men and women, one of the first such institutes in the West, and served as a model for later monastic development.

Since Benedict's rule is still followed by Benedictine, Cistercian, and Trappist monks, John Cassian's thought still exercises influence over the spiritual lives of thousands of men and women in the Latin Church.

[14][17] Around 420, at the request of Bishop Castor of Apt in Gallia Narbonensis, Cassian wrote two major spiritual works, the De institutis coenobiorum (Institutes of the Coenobia) and the Conlationes or Collationes patrum in scythica eremo (Conferences of the Desert Fathers).

[18] The Institutes were meant to help Castor to establish a coenobium following the model of Egypt, in contrast to the existing monastic life in Gaul, which included the work of Martin of Tours.

According to Hugh Feiss the Institutes are a counterweight to Sulpicius Severus’ Life of Martin and Dialogues, and are an attempt to put order into a movement Cassian regarded as chaotic.

Cassian, who insists on manual work, had a higher opinion of and close ties with the monastery on the Island of Lerins, founded by Honoratus.

[22][23] Outline of Cassian's Conferences:[20] The desert ascetics of Egypt followed a three-step path to mysticism: Purgatio, Illuminatio, and Unitio.

During the first level, Purgatio (in Greek, Catharsis), young monks struggled through prayer and ascetic practices to gain control of "the flesh"—specifically by purging their gluttony, lust and desire for possessions.

This period of purgation, which often took many years, was intended to teach young monks that whatever strength they had to resist these desires (grace) came directly from the Holy Spirit.

During this period the monks practiced the paths to holiness as revealed in the Gospel, identifying strongly with the Christ who taught the Sermon on the Mount (found in Matthew 5–7).

To find the solitude and peace that this level of mystical awareness demanded, elderly monks often fled into the deep desert or into remote forests.

[14] In his Conferences, Cassian recommended as "absolutely necessary for possessing the perpetual awareness of God" the formula in Psalm 70 (69) v. 2, Deus, in adiutorium meum intende.

For it takes up all the emotions that can be applied to human nature and with great correctness and accuracy it adjusts itself to every condition and every attack.

[27] In the West, Cassian's proposition that "the slightest glimmer of goodwill" could be attributed to the human drive was widely regarded as unacceptable in relation to the prosperity of the Augustinianism of the period (Conf.

[30] His third book, On the Incarnation of the Lord, was a defense of orthodox doctrine against the views of Nestorius, and was written at the request of the Archdeacon of Rome, later Pope Leo I.

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

[c] In The Book of Mystical Chapters, a compilation of sayings of the Church Fathers by renowned theologian and early church historian[38] John Anthony McGuckin, Cassian is quoted as saying the following: The thief on the cross certainly did not receive the Kingdom of Heaven as a reward for his virtues but as a grace and a mercy from God.

[39] This emphasized the role of free will in that the first steps of salvation are in the power of the individual, without the need for divine grace.

His thought has been described as a "middle way" between Pelagianism, which taught that the will alone was sufficient to live a sinless life, and the view of Augustine of Hippo, which emphasizes original sin and the absolute need for grace.

[citation needed] For instance, Anglican priest and historian Owen Chadwick stated that Cassian held that man can come to God without the intervention of divine grace first;[40] and the Presbyterian theologian B.

[citation needed] His works are excerpted in the Philokalia (Greek for "love of the beautiful"), the Eastern Orthodox compendium on mystical Christian prayer.