John Cassian

In their own words

• “The same erroneous notion by which they used to worship devils formed in the figure of people they use even now in thinking that the incomprehensible and ineffable glory of the true Deity should be worshiped under the limitations of some figure. They think they are unable to grasp and hold anything if they do not have some image set before them that they can continually address while they are at their devotion and that they can carry about in their mind and have always fixed before their eyes.… Jeremiah also says, "My people have changed their glory for an idol."”

  CONFERENCE 1:10.5 · on the verse

• “And so learn from your own experience to sympathize with those in trouble, and never to terrify with destructive despair those who are in danger, nor harden them with severe speeches, but rather restore them with gentle and kindly consolations, and as the wise Solomon says, "Spare not to deliver those who are led forth to death, and to redeem those who are to be slain," and after the example of our Saviour, break not the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax, and ask of the Lord that grace, by means of which you yourself may faithfully learn both in deed and power to sing: "the Lord hath given me a learned tongue that I should know how to uphold by word him that is weary."”

  CONFERENCE 2:13 · on the verse

• “And although for this there were great rewards for his merits prepared, yet [Paul's] mind, however holy and sublime it might be, could not help being sometimes drawn away from that heavenly contemplation by its attention to earthly labors. Further, … he saw himself enriched with such practical fruits, and on the other hand considered in his heart the good of meditation and weighed as it were in one scale the profit of all these labors and in the other the delights of divine contemplation. For a long time he had corrected the balance in his breast, while the vast rewards for his labors delighted him on one side, and on the other the desire for unity with and the inseparable companionship of Christ inclined him to depart this life. At last in his perplexity [Paul] cries out and says, "What I shall choose I know not. For I am in a strait between two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, for it were much better: but to abide in the flesh is more necessary for your sakes." Though then in many ways he preferred this excellent good to all the fruits of his preaching, yet he submits himself in consideration of love, without which none can gain the Lord; and for their sakes, whom hitherto he had soothed with milk as nourishment from the breasts of the gospel, does not refuse to be parted from Christ, which is bad for himself though useful for others. For he is driven to choose this the rather by that excessive goodness of his whereby for the salvation of his brothers he is ready, were it possible, to incur even the last evil of an anathema.”

  CONFERENCE 23.5.4-6 · on the verse