Well, today comes the answer to the question posed by the disciple Germanus and also by ourselves. That most fundamental question, which Jesus himself receives, teach us to pray. In the context of Cassian's conferences, the question becomes, teach us how to pray unceasingly and to attain this goal, which has been presented to us by the father, Abba Isaac. Last night we left off with Germanus' request that he be given something for his meditatio, for his repetition, his pondering, his reflection. And we noted the fact that in Conference 9, throughout its discussion of prayer, there is no mention of scriptural meditation. But when Germanus comes to the point of saying, okay, tell me what to do, he seems to feel that it has to somehow relate to that basic spiritual practice of meditating a text from the Scripture.

[01:05]

So, we're well on our way toward finding an answer. And that is exactly what he gets from Abba Isaac. With Germanus' statement, then, that he wants something for his meditation, and implying his recognition of the fact that it will relate to his practice... of ceaselessly revolving, as the text says, ceaselessly revolving something in his heart and mind, Abba Isaac feels ready to give him what he regards as the tradition of all of the older fathers of the desert. He makes his concern explicit in chapter 9 of Conference 10, the reason why he didn't give the answer earlier. And he says... Your minute and subtle inquiry affords an indication of purity being very nearly reached. For no one would be able even to make inquiries on these matters.

[02:09]

I will not say to look within and discriminate, except one who had been urged to sound the depths of such questions by careful and effective diligence of mind and watchful anxiety. And this next part's important. and one whom the constant aim after a well-controlled life had taught by practical experience to attempt the entrance to this purity and to knock at its doors. Now, the key phrase there is practical experience. The point that Abba Isaac is making is that now he's satisfied that Germanus is devoting himself to the praktike, to the spiritual discipline, those basic tools of the spiritual art. And with that assurance now, Isaac can tell him what the answer to his question is, because it won't be wasted on him. There's a foundation there. So in chapter 10 comes the answer. This formula then shall be proposed to you of the system, which you want, and of prayer,

[03:23]

which every monk in his progress toward continual recollection of God is accustomed to ponder, ceaselessly revolving it in his heart. He says that this formula he's about to give him was that delivered to him by a few of those who were left of the oldest fathers, divulged by us to a very few and to those who were really keen to kind of building up this answer. I'm satisfied with you. We don't tell this to everybody. This was the inheritance from some of the older people. This is the treasure. And here comes the answer. For keeping up continual recollection of God, this pious formula is to be ever set before you. O God, come to my assistance. Lord, make haste to help me. Now when we hear that phrase, the thing that we instantly think of, is the beginning of the office in the rule of Benedict and in our tradition. This is a tricky thing because you have to keep in mind that when Abba Isaac's hearers heard this verse, they were probably very puzzled.

[04:34]

They had no special association with that phrase because that was not a liturgical tradition in their time. So for them, this was a verse from one of the Psalms. it was not hallowed as it is for us by its liturgical connection. So if someone were to say to us today, a good thing for you to meditate on is, oh God, come to my assistance, Lord, make haste to help me, we'd say, well, that makes some sense. That's in our tradition. It's connected to the liturgical prayer. For Isaac's hearers, this was not the case. So their immediate reaction must have been, this? Why this? It's so simple. There's nothing to it. You just pulled something out of the Psalms almost at random. So what Isaac does at that point is give a very lengthy explanation of how useful this verse can be. And he jumps right into this explanation almost to anticipate their puzzlement.

[05:35]

So he talks about the fact that this verse contains invocation of God, It contains a confession of the might of God. It refers to watchfulness that all of us should have. It's an acknowledgment of our weakness, of our confidence, and our hope, thereby covering all of the basic elements of prayer. And then he goes on to give a wonderful description of all of the occasions when one can use this verse. So he says, this will be handy no matter what your situation is. So he goes on and on and on. One of them that I thought was kind of nice is he says, as an example of when you can use this first, when I want for the sake of steadfastness of heart to apply myself to reading, a headache interferes and stops me. At the third hour, sleep glues my head to the sacred page. And I am forced either to overstep

[06:39]

or to anticipate the time assigned to rest. And finally, an overpowering desire to sleep forces me to cut short the canonical rule for service in the Psalms. He says, what do you do? You say, God, come to my assistance. Lord, make haste to help me. And he gives, as I say, a number of situations where this can be useful. So it's an all-purpose prayer. Encompassing, he says, in few words, all of those aspects of prayer that he talks about at length in Conference 9. So that's where we begin to have a connection. So note, the method he proposes of unceasing prayer comes right out of that basic practice of meditatio. That's important. And secondly, it's a verse taken from Scripture. After making the point then that this verse is to be used constantly in every situation, and he talks about the fact that you should get used to saying it when you get up, when you go to bed, if you do that you'll pray it even while you sleep, and so on, he gets to the point.

[07:56]

What happens if we use that verse? And here is where I find the very interesting connection with the rest of Scripture and with what we would identify as liturgical prayer. the office of psalmody and readings. He says, this is the formula, chapter 11, which the mind should unceasingly cling to until strengthened by the constant use of it and by continual meditation, here he means meditation of the verse, it casts off and rejects the rich and full material of all manner of thoughts and and restricts itself to the poverty of this one verse. And it arrives at the beatitude of the gospel. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I think his point about poverty is an extremely significant one.

[08:59]

And this could be an answer to the objection of Germanus and the other people there of, why do you pull this little thing out? What's the point of it? What Cashin goes on to say is that by the use of this verse and its focusing ability and the poverty and simplicity in which it places the one who prays, it is not that he is cut off from the rest of Scripture and that you're cutting yourself off from the richness of the table of the Word. Rather, you are given the ability to approach the rest of Scripture. In its richness, without the danger of being overwhelmed. And this anticipates something that Germanus says about, I hear something from the Psalms, and it reminds me of something from the Gospels, it reminds me of something in the Old Testament, and my mind is just going all over the place. So Isaac is saying, if you start with this and get into this poverty, the simplicity of the one verse, then you can approach the rest of Scripture.

[10:14]

without being, in a sense, made drunk by it. So that seems to be what he's after. Now, I think this is significant, because he's not saying, say this verse, say this verse, say this verse, and that's fine. Nor is he saying, say this verse, and it'll shoot you up to unceasing prayer. But what he's saying is, this will enable you to accept... the rest of the spiritual practices with mind and heart renewed and open. So this is what he says about approaching scripture. After a wonderful description about the fact that we become spiritual hedgehogs by praying this. This must be some quirk of this translation. I didn't look it up in the source Christian. I think I saw you had that. Yeah, that's the context. So we're protected by the verse.

[11:22]

So he says, Thriving in this pasture, this simple pasture of the nourishment of the verse, he will take into himself all the thoughts of the Psalms and will begin to sing them in such a way that he will utter them with the deepest emotion of heart. not as if they were the compositions of the psalmist, but rather as if they were his own utterances and his very own prayer. For then the Holy Scriptures lie open to us with greater clearness, and as it were, their very veins and marrow are exposed, when our experience not only perceives but actually anticipates their meaning. Skips down. If we have experience of the very state of mind in which each psalm was sung and written, we become like their authors and anticipate the meaning rather than follow it. Now this is kind of interesting because you would think that having reduced the monk's meditatio of scripture to one verse, he'd say, there you are, you've arrived at simplicity of prayer.

[12:35]

But here he's saying that by doing that, you in a sense return to to the rest of Scripture. But now somehow you've gotten on the inside of it, anticipating its meaning rather than searching after it. So apparently you're still reading Scripture, you're still even meditating it, but somehow you've got the meaning and you've acquired the spiritual knowledge that he talks about in Conference 14. But if we've had experiences similar to the psalms, then that helps. In other words, we need the prayer and the preparation. We also need some life experience, which is similar to the psalms. And it seems to be saying this is where we can put it together. It's almost as if, maybe this is reading into the text, life experience is no longer distraction from prayer, but kind of becomes integrated into it and does help us get at the meaning of the text.

[13:40]

So there's something about this one verse not being the end of prayer, but being somehow a center from which one can then return to the rest of Scripture. Now, he says that what this does permit is access to that higher kind of prayer, that he talks about in Conference 9, the kind of prayer which is not a perpetual state, but something which can be reached on occasion as a foretaste of the bliss of heaven. Now, what's interesting about this description in Chapter 11 of Conference 10 is that if you take a comparison of the text, and this is in my monastic studies article, you can kind of get the point, even though you certainly can't read the words from here. What I have here on the right-hand side are the two descriptions I read you last night from Conference 9.

[14:43]

And here is the description from Conference 10. And what Cashin does is take the two descriptions from Conference 9 and put them together into a complete version in Conference 10, which is kind of a collation of the two previous descriptions. That is of more than just grammatical or literary interest because it shows that he very much has a clear sense of structuring these conferences so that Conference 10 becomes the very clear fulfillment of Conference 9. It sums up everything he's trying to do in that previous conference, and he does that in a literary way as well as in a theological or spiritual sense. So this is what he says is kind of the goal. Talking about the Psalms again. It is as if they were not just committed to memory, but implanted in the very nature of things.

[15:49]

We are affected from the bottom of the heart. We get at its meaning not by reading the text, but by experience anticipating it. And so our mind will reach that incorruptible prayer. to which in our former treatise, Conference 9, as the Lord vouchsafed to grant, the scheme of that conference mounted. This higher form of prayer is not merely not engaged in gazing on any image, all that business at the beginning of Conference 10, but is actually distinguished by the use of no words or utterances, but with the purpose of the mind all on fire. There's our fire flame imagery again. is produced through ecstasy of heart by some unaccountable keenness of spirit, and the mind being thus affected without the aid of the senses or any visible material, pours it forth to God with groanings and sighs that cannot be uttered.

[16:52]

Now that's a pretty lofty thing, and we might expect Germanus, who was dazzled by Conference 9, to be so dazzled at this point that he's speechless, but he asks a question which might be ours as well. He in effect says, okay, you've told us, I accept that. But he says, how can we keep firm hold of this verse which you've given us in such a way that as we've been by God's grace set free from the trifles of worldly thoughts, so we may also keep a steady grasp on all the spiritual ones. In other words, how do we persevere in that simple phrase. And how can we perform our spiritual offices, meaning the obligation to recite psalms and scripture every day? And this is where Cashin's point, I think, becomes applicable to Cenobites as well as Anchorites, because both in the early monastic tradition had a certain daily obligation

[18:03]

to pray morning, evening, at other times, set psalms, the canonical prayers. Not set in the sense of, you know, Tuesday you do these numbers, but that was an expectation, that psalmody was prayed at certain hours. Now, at this point, we might expect Isaac to say, well, you know, this is kind of the way you do this, and give some higher knowledge again about how you hold on to this verse. Because remember, before he said, you've built your foundation with the praktike, so we can move on to this. But what does he tell him he has to do to hold on to this ultimate secret of unceasing prayer? Watchings, meditation, and prayer. This cannot be secured in any other way unless all cares and anxieties of this present life have been first got rid of by indefatigable persistence in work dedicated not to covetousness, but to the sacred uses of the monastery.

[19:08]

He goes on and reminds him of something he said in Conference 9, what we would be found when at our prayers, that we ought to be before the time of prayer. And he's telling him the same stuff that he told him in Conference 9, that he tells people in the institutes, that he tells people in the rest of the conferences. And he says, it's the work of the practicate. So what's happened is we've had this kind of spiral and we've worked up to this high point of spiritual insight and then it's as if he plummets right back down to the start and says, keep it this like you keep it anything else with the basic tools of the spiritual craft. That's where trying to systematize Kashin and trying to work out method becomes very difficult. He makes a point which I think is... very comforting to us, and that is the fact that monastic life is not a steady ascent.

[20:10]

You don't work your way through all this stuff and reach the point where you have this one verse and then have your occasional jumpings up to higher prayer and then back down to regular meditation of the Scripture. He's saying, very much like Anthony says, every day is a new beginning. You never leave behind the work of the practical life. It's always the same kind of cycle, success and failure, struggle and effort. This is where I find the real wisdom of these conferences. And this is where I find the way in which they are most often abused by people who fail to recognize that and who turn it into kind of this unachievable but beautiful spiritual treatise. So I'm very glad about the work of people like the Montreal community, and John Mayne especially, who I think have seen the real strength of these conferences and have tried to make them into something that people can appropriate for themselves.

[21:13]

Because we're not talking about things open to the few, but to the many. And I think that Cashin's insistence on the fact that this is very much related to the ongoing work of the monk is a great consolation to us. Let me stop just by reading a quotation which sums up very well what I've been trying to say. This is the quotation I conclude my article with in monastic studies, but it's one of the best statements I've found of the way that Scripture can relate to prayer, and especially the way it does in Cassian's conferences. Remembering these themes of simplicity, the poverty of the verse, all of which relate to to the basic attitude of the monk, the very word monk, alone, simple, single. This is from Thomas Merton.

[22:14]

The words of God have the power to signify the mystery of our loneliness and oneness in Christ, to point the way into its darkness. They have the power also to illuminate the darkness, but they do so by losing the shape of words, and becoming not thoughts, not things, but the unspeakable beating of a heart within the heart of one's own life. I think that's what Kashin is saying. Maybe I can stop there just for now, and we can discuss or ask questions or something. Just for our own people, the hedgehogs are the little rabbits. Saturday vespers. we have to learn how to hide in the rocks. The very last part there is, I would think of that phrase in Psalm 118, turn my heart to do your will and not to love gain.

[23:28]

It's this, again, it's a transformation of the heart that my work in the monastery is not for gain or not but it really is, again, for God's kingdom. As you say, you can't systematize that in a legal method. It's a real change of art that's, you know, for some is more difficult than others, but it also is very practical. It's whatever you're doing, you're not doing it as you would in a commercial world or game, but for the sake of the kingdom, that in all things God may be glorified against, but in business. So it's a whole, you know, he comes back constantly to the So if we pray as we are, it's out of our being that we pray, and our praying changes our being and back. With that whole basic idea of the skapos, the goal, the aim, purity of heart as singleness of purpose, purity of intention. One thing that really attracts me to this was something I mentioned last night, and that was, I think, the value of this understanding of prayer for people.

[24:35]

especially like me, who spend all their time reading books and lecturing and so on, whose minds are just filled with all kinds of thoughts and reflections and even theological things, which have nothing to do with prayer, but which somehow loosely relate to God. And this is a wonderful counterpart to the physical escesis for the mind. And so I find this tremendously appealing as kind of a parallel. for heart and mind, to the praktike of the fasting and vigils and so on. And so that's why I think this connection he makes at the end with the way you hold on to the verse is with this other basic stuff is so profound. And if we want to talk about, you know, body and soul and mind and heart and all those kind of integrations, as we did with Antony, I think there it is again. It's one of the... important things here, I think. Well, see, there are and there aren't.

[25:47]

In Avagrius, it's... Avagrius is much more into clear distinctions than Cassian is. So in Avagrius, he tries to set it up so that you take care of the practicae, and then the idea is you finish with that and you move to the state of theoria or contemplation. And there's a sharp distinction between the two. I don't think Kassian is doing that. In Kassian it seems to be much more, your life is always practique, and occasionally you attain theoria. But I don't sense in Kassian that he really thinks that that is a state on any kind of abiding way, which is why I think this is experientially much much more useful. Now, I caricature Avagrius by what I said. I don't think it's as simple as that in Avagrius. But he's much more hung up on a kind of a schema than Cashion is. Although, you know, Avagrius is wonderful.

[26:48]

But those kind of sharp distinctions, Cashion will sometimes mention, here's the work of the Prakticae, which is especially the work of the Cenobite, and here's the work of Theria, which is especially the work of the Anchorite. But it's much more muddy when he talks about it. And when he reaches conferences 9 and 10 and talks about prayer, all that Anchorite, Cenobite, Practique, Theoria stuff, the distinctions disappear. And I think it becomes much more a whole kind of approach. That's the way that I read it. Do you think that the individual who has this... desire, and for John Cashin, do you think the individual that has this desire and perseveres in this type of mindfulness, which leads to this purity of heart, do you think that person retains a hierarchy in his prayers, too, between this and

[28:00]

I think that some of his language would lead one to think that, but I think this whole business of the role of Scripture in prayer, between Conference 14 and then the stuff at the end of you know, what this high technique of prayer enables you to do then is get inside Scripture. Muddies it considerably for me. So I think it might be like his constant saying that anchorites are better than cenobites. I don't know if it really cashes out that way in the writings. It may just be something he feels he has to say. So I would hesitate to say that. That's my bias, too. I mean... Maybe I'm reading it into the text, but I really don't think he follows through with those kind of distinctions.

[29:07]

As soon as you said that, that reminded me of Benedict's Four Kinds of Monks. It almost makes me think that his mention of the anchorite and the centipede in the storm is likewise muddy. He He doesn't seem to want to articulate a superiority in either one. Although there certainly wasn't an opera-Egyptian tradition that the Anchorite, in any of the semi-Achoritic communities, which are the problem example, that was considered the loftier. but neither Benedict nor it's strange for me to say this because otherwise it seems like what you're suggesting is that Cashin is not too sure or he's not willing to follow through on that suggestion I think it is complicated if you read his conferences 18 and 19 where he talks about the Cenobite and the Anchorite

[30:30]

You know, he talks about the dangers of being an anchorite, which are very interesting. He says an anchorite is hung up on what he's going to eat because he's got to worry about where his food comes from and when he's going to eat it and how much. He says a centibite, no. He just turns up and there it is. That decision is made for him. And a number of other things like that. He has an example of this, I think it was Abhijan, who was an anchorite and returned to the Cenobium because all these people would come to see him out in the desert. And pride was a real problem for him because he was deferred to as a spiritual leader. So he came back to the synovium. And he says, well, I may give up unceasing prayer, but here I can be humble and poor in spirit and so on. And better to succeed at that than to fail at the goal of the anchorite. So it's things like that that I think that make it less than crystal clear. I had a graduate student write a paper for me on that topic. She didn't have much use for anchorites.

[31:33]

She had a Benedictine sister. And so she had a bit of a bias, granted. But I was impressed with the evidence that she pulled together about the confusion in the conferences and the institutes about the relative superiority of them. And a number of the conferences, by the way, are given by Cenobites. This first set are all from Scatus, but some of the other collections are given by Cenobitic. Mm-hmm. Wasn't there a strong aspiration for the Anchoritic life that can keep these communities together? I got the impression there was something like that going on. Well, the whole monastic tradition in Gaul was kind of torn up because of Martin and his communities, which were, well, they weren't really communities. I mean, there was an anchoritic ideal. And then they had Les Rains getting off the ground about the same time. So it was all up for grabs. But I wondered whether the later conferences, 11 to 28 or 24, weren't in some way some sort of correctives, or not to correct Cassian's own view of things,

[32:53]

but somehow to appease these bishops who wanted stronger synabetic themes and this kind of thing. Could be, but then there's also the tradition that Cashin established his own synobia at Marseille. Maybe that tempered his perspective. I don't know. At the end, they said that they arrived in teaching and they wanted to follow the teaching, I mean, . But when they tried to practice that, they found it very hard. It was harder than, you know, to one day about the speech or the Bible.

[33:54]

I'm glad you mentioned that because I didn't say that. Yeah. This is my question. Why, even though with all their experience and they practicate, they found it harder to keep that disease and repeating that verse? That's one question. The other one is, what can you say about the, what Isa said, that in order to keep the mind in check from wandering from, you know, and you have to watch and pray. And they said that in order to do that, you have to do timeless work for the religious need of the synagogue. What would be the religious need of the synagogue or the community? Well, I think the-

[34:56]

Yeah, this translation translates it, persistence in work dedicated not to covetousness but to the sacred uses of the monastery. So what that means, I think, is basically a renunciation of will and self-gain and kind of putting yourself into the routine of the monastery, which would involve the prayer. And it's interesting they're talking about, obviously, a community here. just as a footnote, and also some forms of service and attention to others, all of which would relate to the praktike. And I think what that is telling us is that you don't finish the praktike. And so this would relate to your first question, that that kind of perfection is not granted us. And so it's always a kind of dialogue between the work of the praktike and the life of contemplation, and that as soon as you, you know, think you're satisfied with one of them. Well, I mean, the other one makes its demands or expresses its needs.

[36:02]

And that's what's so interesting about it because, you know, you think he's shot you right off into outer space with this prayer of fire stuff and you're right at the pinnacle and then it ends just thud with back to the same stuff you've been doing. That's weird, but I find it real comforting. You know, keep at it. Keep at it. I would think so, yeah. Sure. Sure. And he talks about, you know, you pray this thing while you work too. I mean, it pervades all of your activities. You don't give up your activities. But you kind of, you know, redirect them or fill them with this understanding. So it's the same old desert stuff, really. It's just much more explicit. ... [...]

[37:29]

of how well has this been living in the tradition? How well was this known to St. Benedict and on? Well, there's no doubt that it was very widely known. Manuscripts of Cashin, my understanding is, that in medieval monastic libraries, that copies of Scripture were the only thing that were more numerous than copies of Cashion. So it becomes very important. The question, though, is how well known and how primary was it for Benedict? And this is a real live controversy now, because there's some people who argue that Benedict's references at the end of the rule, where he talks about the institutes and conferences with the fathers and so on, and the lives, are not to be read as referring exclusively or even primarily to Cassian, that it could be any number of works.

[39:18]

And a lot of people work from that then to try to downplay the influence of Cassian on Benedict. Now de Vogue Way has said in print just about this, and he said it personally to me, he said anybody would have to be stupid to think that Benedict's not talking about Cassian. I don't know if I'd say it that way, but... I think he's right. I think he's right. Hmm? Well, I think that was his point, because, I mean, they're the ones who've been fighting this out. Now, I guess my problem with that struggle is I'm not on a side. See, de Vogue is on one side. He's really arguing for the primacy of the anchoritic model and really arguing for the primacy of Cashin and of the Master. And Ambrose Wathen... you know, I guess we should be grateful to him, has taken up the other position. And I'm between the two, or I like to be. And so my sense would be we take both.

[40:22]

You know, we can accept Cassian, and we also take Procomius and Basil and so on. So I would say the influence is very strong on Benedict. And I would also say that the reason that Benedict places the deus and auditorium at the start of the office is because of Cassian. I can't prove that. But I think that. And I'll probably say something about that when we talk about Benedict tomorrow. But I think that's where it really touches down for us. Even if Benedict is not referring to the conferences at the end, he's used all this stuff from Cashin, of course, to the master. He used it all in three-part rules. So, again, he wouldn't have any close dichotomy. You couldn't read this one when you can read this one. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. a variety of influences and as he says there, what pay Job, you know? So that scripture and the various things. I even find to you before that I see these things alive still in the work of the unknown author, the cloud of unknowing.

[41:34]

I mean, so far, I mean, it's much later, but I mean, that seems that same kind of experience is being used all right over. Well, the cloud talking about, you know, using the word love or God as the dart. And the image in cash-in of, you know, the monk's goal or target with that same business of, you know, hitting the target. It's also, I think you can find parallels in Gregory of Nyssa, like the life of Moses. I don't know how many of you have read that, but that's a wonderful, wonderful book. Allegorical understanding of the book of Exodus, and talking about a cloud again. And you begin to realize all this stuff is connected. It's all connected. The cloud of unknowing doesn't just appear in medieval England. It's a rich tradition. We may not be able to track down all the specific connections, but... It certainly is in a tradition. Did you find it?

[42:38]

Yeah. The idea was where I saw a reminiscence here was that it seems to be suggesting that this repetition along with all the practicare, you know, and the liturgical office in the scriptures creates a sort of a mindfulness that puts one on a different level when, say, reading the scriptures or upon a reading the word inside. And when I read this, I may think of what we talked about here on the first day was the optimist, this notion that that we are created upright, you know, and that somehow this particular boat to somehow put us in touch with this goodness of our nature.

[43:45]

And so this seemed familiar in a sense that what was going on, he has to see God, you know, and he says to, you know, He says, tell me, do you desire to seek him here or in the age to come? And he says, there. Because he says, do all you can to observe the commandments written in the gospel. And he says, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall seek God. Then he goes to a sort of practical study, and he says to them, if there are impure thoughts arising in their heart, hatred for your brothers and wicked person, and be contempt for your brothers and vain glory, remember it once and say, if I consent in my heart to one of these thoughts, I shall not seek God. And this is where it ends in the Bofiric life, but here it goes on with this real affirmation of this positiveness inside us, which I think that he is trying to kick off. And so he says, now this is only in this 10th fragment of the Sajidic.

[44:49]

He says, and if you want all these thoughts to diminish in you and not to have power over you, then recite in your art without ceasing every fruit that is written in the scriptures Having in yourself the resolution to walk in them, as it is written in Isaiah, your heart shall meditate on the fear of the Lord. And all these things shall cease to be little by little, and they shall grow weak like a spider. For the Lord has placed in man conscience and free will and judgment and understanding and wisdom. For even as the members of the body which are visible and with which man works, now with one, now with another, according to his need, And then there's the . And then he goes, the house has a door, which is the heart. And further, just as the door has a key and a bolt, a chain and a peg, and every security, so it is with free will, conscience, understanding which one. And then he goes on to tell that he uses that thing in Romans where he says, what he's trying to do is

[46:00]

that essential goodness inside. And he calls that thing from Romans. He says, when the Gentiles, who do not have the law by nature, do things of the law, these men, although without the law, are a law unto themselves. They teach you the work of the law written in their heart, their conscience. I see that as a, somehow I just, when I read that yesterday, it seemed to be reminiscent of this essential positiveness for which they're often accused of not having. And this kind of what you said is giving me kind of a better insight to that perhaps, you know, Cash is in fact affirming that and not saying we have to take refuge and only a few of us are going to ever get to this, say, flame of fire. He's in this spirit of fire or something. That's the one lofty height. Most of us won't make it. It seems to say this is just a... A thing inside us that we have to tune up, you know, so that may not be enough at all, but that's what I picked up.

[47:07]

Well, this reminds me of something that I didn't mention today, which I should have. I talked a little bit yesterday about Cassian's Christology and the fact that he has a much more definite conception of the role of Christ than of Agrius does, and he has that discussion of we begin with the humanity of Christ, but we should try to work toward a sense of the glorified Christ. Something that is striking is that his conception of this verse, God come to my assistance, Lord make haste to help me, is one of addressing that to Christ. I think we might read that and assume it's just a general invocation of God or of God the Father. But there's been some pretty convincing work done to say that he is addressing that to Christ, just as Benedict and most of his references to God is talking about Christ. And I think there's some implications there. perhaps about our essential goodness, our createdness, because of the Incarnation could be connected, and just a personal sense of what it means to invoke Christ in this prayer, which then makes the connection with the Jesus prayer much more evident, because we might look at this verse and say, where's Jesus?

[48:21]

I mean, that's the whole richness of the Jesus prayer. Well, it's there because that's also an invocation of Christ. So that's a real important thing to mention. The teaching of the church about the Martha and the Mary's. That's an interesting question. It was just later that they emphasized that. No, because... There was already a tradition of doing exegesis of that passage, and you find bits of it in Avagrius, and apparently, from what I remember, origin does not... I'm trying to...

[49:24]

recall now a page of notes I made one time. I don't think origin emphasizes it, but you find hints of it in origin, and you find it very richly developed in Gregory of Nazianz and the Cappadocians. So that tradition is there, but you don't find that becoming a predominant motif in this stuff this early. You know, much later, of course, that's the big paradigm, but it's not so strongly emphasized here. which I think is probably all to the good, because then it doesn't make that strict distinction between the one who serves and the one who prays. Cashin seems to be saying, arguing for a little more connection, which would certainly be our perspective. No, I don't think so. Nor did Picomius. No, that's a good point, because the history of the exegesis of that thing from the Gospels is very interesting to see what people do with it.

[50:29]

It seems that we're cut also by the ideal. I was amazed that you mentioned that St. Benedict doesn't favor the Anchoritic life. He says that it's... It is higher. Yeah, it is higher. No, no, he does not say that. Well, what does it say? Okay, you gotta help me over here. You know, he never says... Those who have attained or something... No, no, he says, those who long for the loftier heights. Yeah, but... He says that in 73. He doesn't use a relative adjective towards that in the chapter on the four different types of monks. All he says is, and those, after having lived in the monastery and with the strength being strengthened with the prayers of those, go out to fight the devil and to the dead.

[51:30]

But he doesn't say this is better or worse than that. He doesn't say that in that chapter. He says, after being strengthened and tested in the monastery, go off alone to fight the death. He doesn't say, this is somehow a superior thing. Let us return now to be. Yeah, he wants. He's not interested in someone. But he doesn't say, he doesn't actually say, But it seemed that it's implied that the guys had no perfection. You're a fly. [...] You can also say if you have more muscle.

[52:31]

It's just different. Yeah, it's different. You've just got it here. I recognize that all the implications are subjective. It's not so subjective if you read a lot of stuff that's in favor or that is superior. No, I mean, to read St. Benedict and say that he says clearly one thing or another, you just can't imply it. It's easy to imply. Yeah, that's right. It is easy. A lot of people say that. I say Benedict goes out on a limb because he calls Basil his father, yet Basil was much against me. But he doesn't let that prevent him from allowing it to be a possibility. I just mean the better and worse, or the higher and lower.

[53:35]

He doesn't make those distinct... Not in a sense he does about the chair of things, which there definitely works, there's no doubt about it. Yeah. I mean, according to the rule. But it seems that there's a kind of personal perfection. If you achieve a certain personal perfection that you don't need any more, again, then you can... you can soar on your own. This is a little bit... That's not what Benedict says. It's an implication. He doesn't really use perfection. In fact, St. Paul says exactly the opposite. I'm all ready to go to Christ, but you guys need the help to understand what you... He stays in that sanctity context. Yeah, if not that... Well, that's why I say the same thing can be true here. Even though I could do it myself, my vocation may be, for the sake of the other, to stay with the sanctity. Or it could be to go out and be armed. But you can't walk them down. That could be an individual.

[54:38]

I mean, I think in a position for a new rule. But you've reached a point that you say, well, I want to. My vocation will be a certain fight forever. And you may reach a point and say, no, I think now I am ready to fight a role to be in my vocation. Because at that moment, there will be any truth that will tell you, no, you have to be... Well, but the question we're going to hear is, does one say it's better to do this? Oh, no, I agree with you. There is no question. There is no way. There is no way. Yeah, it can be better for one person, it can be worse for the other. Sure. But the church as a whole, so, you know, always tended to say that this is, you know, The Pope visited the Cartusians, and I read all his speeches he gave, and it was at the Upsipatura Bottom. Of course, they were the peaks, they are the peaks of the church and all that.

[55:45]

Yeah. They can't help but say that. But that poor anchor-riding Kashnu runs back to the monastery after that happens to him. I mean, he hears people saying, you're the peak, you're the greatest, and oh dear, he says, I may start to believe it. I better get back to the Zenobia. You will say this, eh? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, [...] no People are living in the contemplative life. He puts them all in the same category. He says they're at the heart of the church. There's no suggestion of a loftiness or anything like that in the recent documents.

[56:51]

One of the great reformations and catalogs is you can't go up to those kind of things. They took away that gradation. Anyway, it's noun word. Sideways. Like St. Thomas said, it's charity, not strictness. It makes a difference. Yeah, because you see in the medieval, you see William of Centurion. He was a canon, and then he became a Benedictine, and then he was not good enough, and he became a Cistercian. It was okay. I've heard that sentiment spoken by some older Cistercians. They were, for example, talking about Foucault, who left them. Oh, that was the good thing. We weren't good enough for him. This kind of thing. That's understanding, indeed. He's read. Probably got the wrong education.

[57:52]

I think that was the teaching of the church. all of a sudden to say it's no longer true. There's some conference or somebody somewhere who says that for some people the angriolic way is the way they should go because of their own weaknesses, you know. And the other hand, I think it's in regard to . Pachomius says that. He says that When people would come to the koinonia who had had problems in their former life, he wouldn't accept them. Because he would say, if you've had these difficulties with lust and so on, you better go be an anchorite. Because you can't be a part of the koinonia. On the other hand, if somebody, their biggest problem is getting angry, they should stay there and work at it. It seems to me that was the other one.

[58:57]

Hold on. So we're angry and the anchorites are lost. That's how he punishes Theodore. He makes him live by himself. This is quite a punishment for his own. Don't the confusions combine both the synonymic and anchoritic life that come together for certain offices of the day. All right. And they have their spatsy momentum once a week. And then, of course, they take their meals alone, but on certain feast days, they eat in common. So they're not what you call true anchorites. Yeah, but there almost never worked any through anchorage, because most of the so-called hermits lived in Lowry. There were motel rooms all around this.

[59:58]

Around a swimming pool. You never saw them and so forth, but they were pretty rare. We always had things like hermits and we never saw them. Well, I mean, somebody had to hear all this stuff and write it down. You know, there was somebody standing there taking dictation for these things. I also find it interesting what happened to Foucault. When you see that his community became dedicated to communal life, even more so that monastic life, putting themselves in the middle of society. In other words, that feeling of people, He left us because we weren't tough enough. Well, he currently used that for, again, like Anthony, like a preparation time to grow towards, again, but to think what you said.

[61:01]

Well, look at all of our synabetic founders. They all began as anchorites. And Benedict, obviously, but St. Jerome. Basil was living in retirement before he established his communities. Pachomius was an anchorite. He founds the koinonia. That's very interesting, because we're so used to it. We're talking here about the other direction. And here, you know, coming in from solitude to do something with the community. They still have it, but they have that ability of what they call an anchorite, which was pretty much the anchorite. That would be the no contact. Yeah. They walled her up but left a hole that she could talk to people.

[62:02]

Julian would be an example. They were right next to the parish church. It'd be interesting to talk with them later on to see what they really had in mind. Well, they're just pinned there. They can't get away from people. Yeah, I was just thinking, what's his name? A lot of the saints in the early days were not really saints. In fact, many were not even in heaven. And I think sometimes it's a... Man, they just, you know, real full-blown schizophrenia or something. People were living totally alone and walled up and just kept them off the streets. I mean, not to... I can't get that to anybody and everybody. In fact, I've seen some meditations by some real schizophrenia that are magnificent. Even aware of their, you know, being out of it. So it's...

[63:08]

It's 11. I have a question. Going back to the . Do you think he implies there that we have to use exclusively that first? Or we can pick up anything that you feel? I don't think he does. I mean, he says, he really emphasizes strongly that this is a great verse, but we don't find this verse in other Desert Fathers. We find other forms of short prayer. So I wouldn't say that push to the wall, he would say you have to use this one. Because I think you could take every argument he gives in support of this one and apply it to a number of other things. I think it is important for him that it's scriptural. I think that he would regard as important. And he would regard the qualities of it in the sense of an appeal for aid. Remember Antony's prayers, you know, God save me, God help me.

[64:13]

He would regard that as important. But I think given those considerations.

[64:18]

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