
































Microsoft Word - Squires review of Clements


[Expositions 15.1 (2021) 65–68]  Expositions (online) ISSN: 1747–5376 

Clements, Niki Kasumi. Sites of the Ascetic Self: John Cassian and Christian Ethical 
Formation. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2020. 288 pages. $65.00 
(hardcover). ISBN: 978–0–268–10785–7. 
 

 

This study continues the popular trend of reading ancient authors through the lenses of gender, 

feminist, and queer theories (4). The subject of this particular work is John Cassian, the early fifth-

century writer who imported Egyptian desert asceticism to Gaul, and thereby laid the foundation 

for the Western monastic tradition that would flower with Benedict of Nursia. The author’s central 

claim is that the heart of Cassian’s literary project is not radical self-renunciation, but a plan for 

ethical formation. The text is divided into two parts: the first is titled “Constructions of Ethics in 

Asceticism,” and the second is titled “Practices of Ascetic Formation.” 

The first chapter establishes the theoretical conditions for assessing Cassian’s writings. It pays 

particular attention to ethics as a way of life, rather than abstract knowledge as often is the case in 

the study of ethics or philosophy today. It continues by reviewing theories of embodiment, 

affectivity, and social formation for agency. This, Clements says, helps “illuminate historical texts 

and how historical texts can help change theoretical discourses to recognize the contingency of 

their own categories” (29). She briefly discusses how many current scholars (Bernard Williams, 

Martha Nussbaum, Pierre Hadot, Charles Taylor, and Edith Wyschogrod) have used ethical 

systems from antiquity as critiques of contemporary “code-based” morality (30). Clements sees 

her own project as continuing this trajectory.  

Chapter 2 investigates Cassian’s biography and historical contexts. It summarizes basic parts 

of Cassian’s life while ignoring others. She states that he was born in Dobrudja (45), but this is not 

certain. Little is said about his time in Egypt, and even less is said about his time in Constantinople 

and Rome. Clements continues by reviewing what is known about Cassian’s three texts (his 

Institutiones, Collationes, and De incarnatione), his involvement in the so-called Semi-Pelagian 

controversy, his influence on the development of monasticism, his fourth-century context, the vita 

activa and vita comtemplativa, the monastic concepts of praktike and theoretike, the connection 

between the “interior life” and the “exterior life,” and the transformative role of biblical exegesis 

in the life of the monk.  

Chapter three succinctly reviews Cassian’s understanding of the relationship between human 

free will (liberum arbitrium) and God’s grace (gratia) (67). Cassian’s exploration of this 



Review of Sites of the Ascetic Self  66 

question—discussed in Institutio 12 and Collatio 3, but most importantly (and exclusively 

addressed here by Clements) in Collatio 13 (De protectione Dei)—resulted in a cloud of suspicion 

over his head during his own lifetime, because Prosper of Aquitaine in Gaul saw him as barely 

distinguishable from the Pelagians (73–76). In certain circles, this cloud continues to loom until 

today. Cassian tried to find the virtue between Pelagius (whom he concluded overly emphasized 

the agency of the will), and Augustine (whom he concluded overly emphasized the necessity of 

God’s assistance). For Cassian, there is a necessary (and mysterious) interplay between the action 

of both God and the individual. Much like a seed that requires both the rain that comes down from 

the heavens as well as the farmer tilling the soil, so also the sinner needs God’s intervention as 

well as his own initiative to choose the Good (66).   

The next chapter investigates how different practices of the body—such as manual labor and 

ritualized prayer—shape ethical practice, especially in response to the vice of acedia. This vice, 

the noonday demon, plagued desert monks in the ancient world, and, as Dom Jean-Charles Nault 

has so eloquently said in his book The Noonday Devil: Acedia, The Unnamed Evil of Our Times,1 

that now plagues contemporary Western culture, especially in the restlessness of married couples 

who often fall to the temptation of divorce, a lack of openness to children, a rejection of the mystery 

of life, and the incessant search for novelty. The first bodily practices assessed are dietary. Cassian 

offered the dietary practices of the Egyptian monks as models for monastic practice in Gaul. This 

diet included, in its most basic form, two pieces of hard bread, a drop of oil, a mixture of salt and 

water, and a restricted amount of water intake (96). More importantly than Cassian’s descriptions 

of what they ate were their moderate fasting practices. He also anticipated Benedict of Nursia when 

he prescribed manual labor, such as collecting wood, making ropes, weaving baskets and mats, 

and farming as necessary for shaping the monastic practice (98). Prayer, as one would assume, is 

also necessary. The physicality of prayer through different postures—such as standing, sitting, and 

kneeling—is just as important (if not more so) than mental prayer, such as the Lord’s Prayer. 

The fifth chapter engages how reading practices of moral exemplars help shape ethical 

formation. These practices, centered around reading, recitation, and imitation of the exemplars, are 

the preferred method of formation for Gallic monks. The imitation of exemplars falls into three 

categories: imitation of biblical figures (especially those in the Psalms), imitation of the abbas, and 

imitation of the young Cassian and Germanus as they struggle to make sense of the ascetic life 

(115). Imitation in this way is so central for Cassian’s pedagogical objective because he knows 



67  Squires 

that his audience of Gallic monks cannot move across the Mediterranean to sit at the desert monks’ 

feet to learn directly from them. If Cassian can’t bring the Gallic monks to the Egyptian desert, the 

next best thing is for him to bring the Egyptian desert to Gaul through texts.  

The final chapter explores how communal practices of friendship, spiritual direction, and liturgy 

shape the ethical response to pride, the worst of the spirits (137). The import of friendship is 

displayed in the relationship between the young Cassian and Germanus. Their friendship persisted 

over a long duration and multiple geographic locations. Most importantly, it flowered because of 

their shared pursuit of spiritual perfection (142). Their friendship helped them each persevere 

during temptations. A more common relationship in ascetic community is one between novice and 

elder. After the novice shares with the elder his most intimate thoughts, the elder discerns for the 

novice which thoughts come from the novice himself, and which ones come from either God or 

demons. This process, over time, allows the novice to become less embarrassed by these thoughts, 

which then promotes spiritual progress. Liturgy offers the most important communal practice for 

formation. The offices throughout the day, evening, and night are foundational for the Egyptian 

monks, and should be imitated in Gaul, which, at the time Cassian wrote, did not have a 

standardized practice. Meditatio and psalmic recitation were at the heart of the synaxes.  

In the end, I’m not left with an overly positive or negative assessment of this book. On the one 

hand, it plays the contemporary academic game as well as it can be played. The author quotes all 

of the names that are found in scholarly journals and monographs today, such as Michel Foucault, 

Judith Butler, and Amy Hollywood, my own former professor at The University of Chicago. For 

that reason, this book probably will win several prestigious awards. On the other hand, I am unclear 

about the significance of the contribution that it makes. While I agree that Cassian’s project is 

centrally concerned with ethical formation, I’m at a loss as to how that insight is noteworthy. From 

the First Century until today, the lives of all Christians have been about exploring the nature of a 

flourishing life. It is unsurprising, then, that Cassian’s project was little more than a detailed 

exploration of that issue. 

  

STUART SQUIRES 
UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS (HOUSTON) 

 
 
 



Review of Sites of the Ascetic Self  68 

Note 

1. Jean-Charles Nault, O.S.B., The Noonday Devil: Acedia, the Unnamed Evil of Our Times, 

translated by Michael J. Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2015). 


