Collection

The Conferences (and Institutes)

John Cassian

Composed in Gaul during the 420s by a monk who had spent his formative years among the anchorites of Scetis, this work sets down the teachings he received in conversation with the great abbots of the Egyptian desert. Cast as dialogues, the Conferences move through the whole terrain of the interior life—purity of heart, discretion, renunciation, prayer, the eight principal faults, the shifts of fervor and dryness, the discernment of spirits, and the invisible powers that contend for the soul—while the companion Institutes describe the outward discipline of the cenobitic life. Through Benedict, who required that they be read aloud in his monasteries, they became the channel by which Eastern ascetic wisdom entered and shaped the Latin contemplative tradition. The register throughout is diagnostic and unhurried, a physician of souls speaking to those who mean to be examined.