The Monastic Institutes : On the Training of a Monk and The Eight Deadly Sins, In Twelve Books Translated by Father Jerome Bertram of the Oxford Oratory

St. John Cassian

ISBN 10: 1901157040 / ISBN 13: 9781901157048

Published by The Saint Austin Press, London, 1999

About this Item

Peach cloth with dust jacket, 8 1/2 x 5 3/4 inches, xvii, 193 clean pp. plus publisher's catalogue. Includes the inserted "A Case against Semi-Pelagianism" as pp. xv-xvii, with the publisher's apologies for omitting it in the print run. Minimal signs of use, clean. Dust jacket in clear wrapper. Plain white label covers over the original price sticker on the back of the dj. "This is the first complete and unabridged translation into English of this key text from one of the most important masters of the spiritual life. Cassian's teaching underlies that of St. Philip Neri and St. Francis de Sales and was also one of the major influences on St. Benedict. Newly translated by Fr. Jerome Bertram of the Oxford Oratory. Includes 'On the training of a Monk' and 'The Eight Deadly Sins.' A spiritual classic with practical advice on how to become holy." - publisher.

Seller Inventory # 9881

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Monastic Institutes : On the Training of a Monk and The Eight Deadly Sins, In Twelve Books Translated by Father Jerome Bertram of the Oxford Oratory
• Publisher: The Saint Austin Press, London
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1901157040
• ISBN 13: 9781901157048
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Very good
• Dust Jacket Condition: very good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Religion

About this title

Synopsis

This is the first complete and unabridged translation into English of this key text from one of the most important masters of the spiritual life. Cassian's teaching underliesthat of St. Philip Neri and St. Francis de Sales and was also one of the major influences on St. Benedict. The work is divided into two sections, both of which are full of practical and hopeful advice for the living of the Christian life.
The first part, "On the Training of a Monk", relates many of Cassian's fascinating first hand experiences of the tradition of the Desert Fathers. He makes suggestions as how their spirit can be reapplied in a Western, more urban context. In the second part, "The Eight Deadly Sins", Cassian sees the classic weaknesses of the human condition as obstacles or hurdles in the Christian life, which the spiritual athlete - under grace - can conquer one by one on the road to sanctity.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

BOOK ONE

Chapter 1 - Of the Girding of a Monk.
In outlining customs and rules for a monastery, where better to begin, under God's guidance, than with the actual monks' habit? Once we have described what we can observe of their exterior appearance, we can better turn to a proper description of their interior attitude. [Migne's Chapter 2] Now it is fitting for a monk, like a soldier of Christ always armed and ready for war, to have his loins girt. (Luke 12:35) The Holy Scriptures show us that those who first laid the foundations of this way of life in the Old Testament, that is to say Elijah and Elisha, were thus clothed, and in the New Testament also we find the leading men, John the Baptist, Peter and Paul and the others of the same rank, to have been girt in the same way. Elijah, who was the first in the Old Testament to give a splendid example of virginity, chastity and self-control, was sent by the Lord to rebuke the envoys of Ahaziah the sacrilegious king of Israel – for he was suffering from a disease, and had sent to Beelzebub the god of Ekron to enquire over his health. The prophet accosted the envoys and declared that the king would never rise from the bed on which he lay. He was identified for the sick King by the description of his clothing (II Kg. 1:8), for when the envoys returned and recounted to him what the Prophet had said, the King asked what sort of man it was who had met them and said these things, and how he was dressed. "A hairy man," they said, "and girt about the loins with a leather belt." From this description the King immediately recognised the man of God, and said "It is Elijah the Tishbite!" It was the belt that indicated him, and the man of God was identified for certain by his hairy and unkempt body, so that among all the thousands of people in Israel he was always marked out by this particular costume as if it were a seal stamped upon him. Of John the Baptist too, who stood like a holy frontier post between the Old Testament and the New, an end and a beginning, we hear in the Gospel text (Matth. 3:4): "This John had a garment made of camel hair, and a leather belt around his loins." Peter too, when he had been thrown into prison by Herod for execution the next day, was commanded by the angel standing by him, "Gird yourself, and put on your sandals." (Acts 12:8) God's angel would not have urged him to do this unless he had noticed that he had removed the girdle which normally bound him, so that his tired limbs might rest in sleep. And finally Paul, when he was on his way to Jerusalem where he would soon be thrown into bonds by the Jews, was met in Caesarea by the prophet Agabus. The latter, taking off his loincloth, tied up his hands and feet, performing this action to foreshadow the process of his passion, and saying: "Thus says the Holy Spirit; the man whose belt this is will be bound like this by the Jews in Jerusalem, and given over into the hands of the pagans." (Acts 21:11) The prophet could hardly have been able!
to say "the man whose belt this is", unless Paul were continually accustomed to wear it around his loins.