The Akoimetoi (the ‘never-sleeping’ monks)

 No institution during the fifth and sixth centuries demonstrates better the vicissitudes of the times in relation to imperial politics than the monastery of Akoimetoi. During that period it makes sense to speak of monastic politics, even politicised monasteries, which occasionally resisted bishops and archbishops incurring the consequences of their activity. It took only four years (424-428) for the initial monastery of Akoimetoi to evolve from a promising community, located in the capital centre, to almost ruin.

The monastic community of Akoimetoi was founded c. 424 by Alexander the Akoimetos, who died c. 430. The initial gathering in the city comprised Alexander’s pupils from the East, who soon became famous not only for their all-night vigil psalming, but also for their unyielding austerity and ascesis. Following controversial Messalian habits, they intermingled with local people, thus enhancing their social influence. This could have resulted in a powerful community (indeed one based in the city centre), had Alexander not begun to criticise the local authorities openly and to incur the wrath of other abbots, who were seeing their monks being lured away by the Akoimetoi. It was only because another abbot of Constantinople, Hypatios of Rouphinianae helped them find a new place at Gomon, the Asian side of Bosporus, that they escaped total ruin. Nevertheless, the wheel of history never ceased to rotate and shifts were relatively rapid. It took only two decades for the Akoimetoi to regain power, since the council of Chalcedon marked a triumph for them, too.

The most famous abbot was Marcellus, who provided the first Studite monks in 463. A tenth-century manuscript attributed to the monastery of Studios, which relates his life, tells us important things about this remarkable, as well as hardly tractable, community. It is possible that they opted for an intellectual tendency coupled with ascetic holiness rather than manual labour and strict fasting. More important is that at their doors a variety of fugitives found shelter, including refugee bishops and monks. This is a distinctive characteristic, on account of which Cassian may have sought refuge in the monastery right after the death of Sabas, when his Antiochene and Origenistic sympathies would have raised eyebrows at Great Laura in Palestine.

In his fine study, Peter Hatlie reading the Life of Marcellus has identified three possible projects entertained by the community during the office of abbot Marcellus.

First, upon receiving inquiries from abbots as far away as Edessa and Pontus about the Akoimetoi’s peculiar way of life, Marcellus responded by sending members of his own community to them, undoubtedly as instructors and perhaps with some form of rule. Therefore, when Cassian writes setting out to describe the ascetic ethos of Egypt and the East, he actually describes the ethos of older Palestinian monks, such as Euthymius, or Cyriacus, or, simple-minded ones such as Paul, who did not wish to stay as abbot and fled the monastery after six months in office. At the same time, nonetheless, he describes the ethos of the Akoimetoi, who aspired to emulating the hallowed traditions of the desert fathers, while reflecting on the wide and enlightened experience of that ascetic life itself. By the same token, one should wonder why Castor, in the first place, and Leontius later, turned to Cassian in order to be advised about this solemn monastic tradition. To which the answer might well be that they did not simply seek encyclopaedic information: they sought instruction about the vigorous ethos preserved by the Akoimetoi themselves.

Second, so Hatlie has it, Marcellus was instrumental in founding a number of asketeria in the city close to home. They were probably meant for a kind of catechumen-monks preparing themselves for full monastic life, or perhaps client monasteries under the supervision of the Akoimetoi. When, therefore, Cassian founded a monastery at Zouga, he practised a venture of which he was well aware following his stay with the Akoimetoi.

Third, following the Life of Marcellus, it seems that the abbot founded and governed affiliates or satellites of the Akoimetoi, using his own monks as the core of the new community. We know of the most famous of this venture, namely, the foundation of the Studios monastery in 463.

Given this brisk expansion, the suggestion that the Akoimetoi came to comprise a crowd of 1000 monks within the walls would barely come as an exaggeration. Besides, it was not only the monastery of Studios in Constantinople that they had colonised: the surplus of monks could well have expanded this activity as far as the East. Which allows for the surmise that, if Cassian did not found the monastery of Zouga at Scythopolis while he was an abbot of Souka in the 540’s, he may well have established this monastery in his native city during his stay with the Akoimetoi. Cyril of Scythopolis relates that Cassian founded this monastery in Scythopolis, yet he does not say that Cassian was ever its abbot. It was simply all too reasonable for the abbot of the Akoimetoi to do a favour to such an intellectual as Cassian who lived with the fraternity, and make it possible for him to found one monastery in Scythopolis during that period of bustling colonisation.

Furthermore, the Akoimetoi played a major role in the historical events surrounding the Christological controversy. The fact that they put themselves on the side of Chalcedon (as against the monastery of Eutyches which was anti-Chalcedonian) was the cause (or, one of the causes) why they not only received a generous funding from aristocratic wallets, but also were also able to respond positively to public sensitivities.

More important still, the Akoimetoi seem to have been the first monastery to set up a serious scriptorium in Constantinople during the fifth century. Abbot Marcellus was himself a skilled calligrapher, but the point was not calligraphy, it was polemics –and polemics had its casualties. The monastery of the Akoimetoi was probably the headquarters where forged documents were masterminded as part of polemical literature. A set of forged letters aiming at discrediting Peter the Fuller was one of their products. Peter himself had been a monk there before he became a zealous Monophysite and Patriarch of Antioch to return to the Akoimetoi after his deposition ‘hiding therein’. Rudolf Riedinger has suggested that the text by Pseudo-Caesarius could have been written at the monastery of the Akoimetoi, which I am now prepared to endorse, all the more so since I urge that the work was written by Cassian himself. Later still, Riedinger went a step further: he urged that an entire industry of falsification and forgery was at work in the library of the Akoimetoi. According to him, not only the letters of Peter the Fuller, but also the Pseudo-Dionysian corpus, the letters by Isidore of Pelusium, and the redaction of the Homilies of Pseudo-Macarius were the product of the activity by the Akoimetoi. In Cassian’s Scholia in Apocalypsin, I myself have come upon so many instances of notable philological analogies between that text and Pseudo-Macarian ones, that I have come to suggest, though tentatively, that Cassian’s pen must have been somehow related to these texts.

I have surmised that when Sabas visited Constantinople in 511-12, Cassian, who should have been about forty years old, joined him. Cassian was after all a beloved spiritual child of the revered man: ‘he had made his renunciation at a tender age and had been educated by the godly Sabas’.

There was more than that, however. Severus of Antioch stayed for three years in Constantinople, between the years 508 and 510. He went there along with a delegation of 200 monks, in order to seek a compromise between various groups contesting the council of Chalcedon. This turbulent stay had another side effect: a group of Chalcedonian monks from Antioch arrived soon to the purpose of counteracting the numbers and political influence of the Monophysite transplantation. Cassian was an intellectual and it would have been all too natural for Sabas (a man loved by the majority of local monks) to reinforce the Chalcedonian party. Antiochene as he was, Cassian must have been happy to join the Antiochenes who had promptly arrived at the capital to counteract Severus’ influence, indeed doing so under the blessing and very presence of Sabas himself. In any event, the Akoimetoi had live contact with the major cities of the empire, above all Antioch, which played a role in them being influenced from outside with respect to doctrinal / political coalitions.

The Akoimetoi monks practised continuous liturgical prayer in alternating groups and had a very influential library. Although their fifth century legacy was to defend Chalcedon, they actually had no real antipathy for the Three Chapters, which resulted in them losing their power in 534 amid accusations of Nestorianism. When Cassian chose to stay there, he knew that his Antiochene allegiances were most welcome. Certainly, what was pro- or anti-Nestorian was not so clear, and anyway no clearer than the distinction made between Origenism and its opponents. Theodoret himself was almost condemned as a Nestorian, and Antiochene presence among the Akoimetoi smacked of heresy to some in the early 530s. What actually happened is far from clear and I should once again draw on Peter Hatlie, who, however, tells the story without adducing any evidence. According to him, the episode of 428 that had threatened to eliminate the Akoimetoi somehow recurred during the 530s. ‘They challenged the emperor and the Patriarch on theological grounds’, ‘they were promptly punished for it’, and yet ‘after much struggle they emerged from the age a weakened but by no means defeated community’. I have traced echoes of Nestorian or Monophysite provenance in Cassian’s text, which will be discussed in due course, yet it is hardly possible to attribute such views to Cassian on account of such points alone. Rudolf Riedinger has it that Pseudo-Caesarius (which I maintain to be Cassian) is inclined to Monophysitism –which explains the pseudonimity of the work. Besides, there is evidence that the large crowd of the Akoimetoi was not unified as regards the doctrines they espoused. Abbot Marcellus had separated ‘the flock into three parts’, but we are not told on what grounds. Nevertheless, there were two monks in the monastery, who composed liturgical hymns (troparia). Of these, Anthimus was a pro-Chalcedonian, whereas Timocles was an anti-Chalcedonian, in other words, a Monophysite. My own suggestion is that the reason Justinian turned against the Akoimetoi was the fact that they were too tolerant towards Monophysitism and hosted too many representatives of this tendency in their own monastery. It should be recalled that in the early 530s Monophysitism was an issue with which the emperor was preoccupied, and his favoured Leontius took part with the Monophysites in order to seek a compromise. Justinian’s ire against the Akoimetoi at that specific moment can be understood on this ground. This is probably the reason why the Akoimetoi took part in the local synod of 536. They subscribed to the resolution against the Monophysites, and obliged by endorsing the deposition of the Monophysite Patriarch Anthimus (who failed to appear in the synod of 536 in order to vindicate his orthodoxy) and his adherents by Justinian, thus escaping total ruin of their monastery.

Be that as it may, definitely this was a time of hardship for Cassian and his confidants in the monastery. This becomes clear in both Appendices I and II of my edition-volume A Newly Discovered Greek Father, demonstrating that (Pseudo-Didymus) De Trinitate and (Pseudo-Caesarius) Erotapokriseis are two consecutive tractates written by this very same author, namely, Cassian the Sabaite. The Akoimetoi surely survived, yet we do not know either how they made it or how they fared afterwards. We do know, however, that they were present in the local synod of 536, represented by two monks who signed what the emperor demanded them to sign. Cassian’s period of stay in the capital had reached its end and a way out had to be found. In the Great Laura, where he officially belonged, abbot Gelasius could hardly provide the right environment for this open-minded intellectual, who was not shy about dealing with the writings of such dangerous writers as Origen, Didymus (whose commentary on the Apocalypse he by and large copied anonymously), Evagrius, Theodoret, Nestorius, even Severus of Antioch. The way out for him was eventually found, in all probability through the help of his friends Leontius Byzantius and Theodore Askidas. Instead of re-joining his home-monastery of Sabas, he went to Souka as abbot in 539, only to return to the Great Laura in 547, summoned as abbot, too.

Cassian was at home with all the atmosphere and setting of the Akoimetoi. Not only because he was an Antiochene living in a virtually Antiochene community, but also because he was a Sabaite. In the Great Laura, psalmody was venerated as much as was it so at Antioch (and hence, at the Akoimetoi lodge). Their typicon concerning ecclesiastical chanting must have been exemplary, since constitutions of other monasteries postulated that they should employ the Sabaite typicon concerning hymnology, too. There is an apostrophe by Theodore Studites, which indicates that the typicon, or ‘canon’ of mass at the monastery of Studios was the one that had been established by St Sabas. Well into the second millennium, an abbot who founded a monastery of his own on isle Patmos stipulated that the rules of psalmody to be followed should be those of the Great Laura of St Sabas.

At the monastery of the Akoimetoi, the pioneering Antiochene habit of practicing psalmody and antiphony was instilled by the Antiochene monks who joined the place (indeed founded it in the first place) and was embraced by the monastery as a whole. Which is why Cassian’s language has so much in common with collection of hymns now published under the colophon Analecta Hymnica Graeca. Their intellectual priorities apart, to the outsiders the distinctive characteristics of the community were antiphonal psalmody and prayer around the clock. This is also what they regarded as commendable virtues, at which they took pride. A careful reading of the hymns into the Analecta reveals their seal upon them. The collection is arranged in 365 Days, each of which has Canons and each Canon comprises several Odes. A hymn composed for the 29^th of December, the feast day of Marcellus the founder of their monastery, is telling of the universal spirit of the Akoimetoi. “You gathered the flock from all over the earth, from every language and from every sea. Since you performed spiritual praises sleeplessly (akoimetos) with them all, you gave this name to your flock, that is, Sleepless (Akoimeton).” Since different saints have the same feast day, the Akoimetoi composed hymns in honour of each one of them. One can see that the virtues of the saints that are praised are their resilience to endure all-night vigils (pannychis), indeed to do so either standing, neither sitting nor kneeling during all of the service. The epithet Akoimetos (‘never-sleeping’) is accorded to venerated saints every now and then, which in fact reflects their own priorities and values, indeed their own name as a community.

 This community was in effect a spiritual colony of Antioch in Constantinople. The monks of this monastery carried on the noble tradition of Antioch rather than Alexandria cherishing the textual tradition of such figures as Origen and Didymus, alongside Aristotle and his late antique commentators, such as Alexander of Aphrodisias. The community entertained mutual tolerance to divergent theological understanding between its own members. This I could style a sort of ‘Christian universalism’, meaning that they drew without encumbrance on the entire Christian patrimony to no exclusion of authors that had been disputed as heretics, save the Arians. This is all too evident in Cassian’s work. His predilection for the great Antiochene doctors such as Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Theodoret, is all too evident, and yet this does not overshadow his respect for Didymus, Cyril of Alexandria, the Cappadocians, Evagrius, and of course Origen, let alone his heavy liabilities to Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and Chrysippus.

Any Syrian or Antiochene monk was quite at home living at the Akoimetoi (‘sleepless monks’), whose roots were in fact Syrian. The founder of the institution was Alexander (c. 350-430), who engaged in monastic life in Syria in c. 380, and went to Constantinople after 404, the same year when he appeared in Antioch to be thence expelled forthwith. Cassian himself was in a familiar milieu, not only because his writings make clear that Syria was his place, but also because his native Scythopolis was located in Koile Syria. The relations between the Akoimetoi and the wider region of Palestine were close and both the Akoimetoi and the Great Laura were renowned for their libraries. The library of the Akoimetoi was later reproduced by its daughter-monastery of Studios, through the exertions of the already mentioned famous abbot Theodore Studites, who created one of the greater scriptoria of his times there. The library of the Laura is mentioned in the Vita Stephani Sabaitae, which advises that Stephen had been appointed to care for the library when he became a cell dweller. It seems he used to take care of preservation and classification of books in his cell. The author of the collection of stories relating monastic experience entitled Pratum Spirituale (Leimonarion), John Moschus (c. 550-619, born in Damascus), and his pupil Sophronius settled in the New Laura for a long period of time and used to visit the Great Laura frequently. The seventh-century Sabaite monk and abbot Antiochus of Palestine composed his Pandecta Scripturae Sacrae within the same premises drawing heavily on Cassian’s texts, as shown in Appendix I. It is then plain that once intellectuals of this level were able to work in the Great Laura it bespeaks a society of intellectual monks being around. There are testimonies of similar intellectual activity, as well as copying of manuscripts, in other desert monasteries, too. Among them the Laura of Souka appears, which is a telling fact explaining Cassian’s decision to join the specific monastery upon his return to Palestine from Constantinople.

The strictures against the Akoimetoi reflected on Cassian himself. He was vilified by different quarters competing for championing the imperial orthodoxy, which took no pride in the fact that an intellectual such as Cassian had decamped to Constantinople from Palestine. His teaching, no matter how prone to Origenistic tendencies or Nestorian sympathies, or tolerant of the Monophysite cause it was, was embraced (or tolerated) only so long as Justinian was seeking compromises with theological dissent and had not yet communicated his despotic resolutions to the clergy.

I have canvassed how Nestorius and the Monophysites entertained the notion of synapheia (‘coherence’), which made plain that Cassian (and Caesarius, who is the same person) applies the idea more or less in the same sense. Beyond such points, however, Cassian advises that ‘in another work of his’ he has argued that ‘the Holy Spirit does not give birth’ to progeny. It was Nestorius who had made the notion of the Holy Spirit ‘begetting’ (John 3:3 & 3:7) a major point of dispute and he had himself defended his position vigorously, only to be followed by Cassian.

Theologians used to quote John 3:3-7 conveniently, taking this to bespeak spiritual, ethical, and existential renewal, a rebirth, or a new life, through the sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit. Although the scriptural portion involves a notion of birth ‘from the Spirit’, almost no author took this statement to suggest that ‘the Holy Spirit’ gives any kind of ‘birth’ to any kind of offspring. Beside Nestorius himself, it was Cassian alone who felt it necessary to make the assertive proclamation that ‘the Holy Spirit does not give birth to’ progeny. As was the case with the implicit homage Cassian used to pay to Origen, this was in effect his manner to pay his respects to Nestorius, too. His statement is practically a confident Nestorian echo and a courageous defence of his compatriot. No matter what his dissent from Nestorius, this did not go as far as to disown the feeling of spiritual alliance with a doctor who had stood up against the Alexandrian extreme apotheosis of Christ at the expense of his humanity. It was after all Theodoret who had vouched for the real import of Nestorius’ preaching and the master of Cyrrhus was a real spiritual father to Cassian. Nestorius had contended that the portion of Matthew 1, 20, ‘for that which was conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit’ has consequential things to say: ‘It is one thing to co-exist with that which was conceived; but it is quite another to argue that it was the Holy Spirit that made that which was in’ Mary’s womb. As I will sustain presently, no one has ever been able to make a convincing case against Nestorius’ forceful argument: ‘For the holy fathers, who had a profound knowledge of the holy scriptures, saw that, if we substitute the expression the one who was incarnated with the one who was born [from the Holy Spirit], then the Son becomes son of the Spirit, which results in [Jesus Christ] having been born of two fathers. And if [the word gegenemennos] were written with one n, [viz. gegenemenos] then God the Logos becomes a creature of the Spirit’. Nestorius’ point is clear-cut: ‘the fathers’ deliberately refrained from ascribing ‘the conception’ of Jesus in the womb to the Holy Spirit. Instead, they opted for reference to ‘incarnation by the Holy Spirit’. First and foremost was John the Evangelist who eschewed the term ‘conception’ or birth’, and employed the expression ‘incarnated from the Holy Spirit’ instead. Although Nestorius was thrown to fire, no theologian ever took the risk of maintaining that the Holy Spirit is a progenitor whatsoever, or specifically that Jesus was born of the Holy Spirit. Everyone, including Justinian and his anathemas, found it safer to postulate that Jesus ‘was born of Mary’. Nestorius was eventually adjudged a heretic and his teaching was indiscriminately proscribed; yet, no formulations explicitly running contrary to this specific reasoning of his were ever issued by anyone. What therefore Cassian actually did was to endorse Nestorius’ argument banning any notion of ‘birth given’ by the Holy Spirit. He does not fail to advise us that he has argued for this thesis ‘in another work’ of his, too, which means that he had expounded in more detail what at the present point mentions only in passing. The portion of Matthew 1:20 was naturally quoted without encumbrance by gifted as much as mediocre theologians. All of them, however, (including the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon) saw the precariousness of the point and were quick to append the additional avowal that Jesus was ‘conceived from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary’. In other words, Jesus’ human generation was not ascribed to the Holy Spirit alone at the exclusion of Mary. But it was Cassian alone who was bold enough to stand by Nestorius, for which he subsequently paid a heavy posthumous price.

When Cassian the Sabaite wrote the Scholia in Apocalypsin, his main source to quote from was Didymus’ commentary on the same scriptural book. It then hardly comes as a surprise that these Scholia are anonymous. The dominating figure underlying them is Didymus, a persona non grata during the 540’s, which could immediately put Cassian at risk. That Didymus was condemned in 553 clearly bespeaks that his theological views were current among certain monastic circles, such as the Origenists in Palestine and the monastery of Akoimetoi in the capital. How could Cassian possibly have divulged the source of his amidst an environment where controversy was raging over Origen, Didymus, and Evagrius? In addition, the Scholia are the fruit of an amazingly rich library having been studied by Cassian. In fact, Cassian wrote the Scholia entertaining his education, which related not only to orthodox theologians and the acceptable Philo, but also to an impressive abundance of pagan writers. Those were philosophers, poets, biographers, anthologists, historians, rhetors and orators, Late-Antiquity sophists, as well as ‘heretics’, including ‘dangerous’ Arianists, at a time when Arianism was not simply a problem of the past, but a menace to the north of the empire, namely, Arian Goths.

Cassian appears not to have set a great store by words themselves, as distinct from the truth that a particular statement means to convey. Quite simply, he declined to eschew a word or expression only because inauspicious parties had used them. Therefore, the paradox of the period is this: whereas it had been thought that the wave of great theologians during the fifth century had definitely settled the doctrine, it appeared after Chalcedon that no general agreement had been achieved about cardinal issues. Following the fourth century self-confident sense of doctrinal clarity and conclusiveness, the dogma once again appeared to have settled in semi-fixed and ambiguous formularies. Of this development, Neo-Chalcedonism is a conspicuous emblem: although an ‘oecumenical’ council, Chalcedon was now negotiable, which stands in stark contrast with the obdurate tenacity of the terminology employed at Nicaea.

Neo-Chalcedonism sought compromise by means of withholding too much construal of statements by either party. However, their analyses were more likely to obfuscate than to illuminate the mind, to cloud the issues rather than clarify them. The Akoimetoi, on the other hand, appear to have seen their production as part of the required increasing explicitness, which had started with Origen, proceeded with Nicaea and was rescinded by Chalcedon. This is probably a reason why they felt it safer to put their analyses on the lips of defunct authorities, thus resting their case with the stainless orthodoxy of the Athanasius, the Cappadocians, Cyril, Chrysostom, and others. On the one hand, this was a way to expound resolutions on concepts that were beset with misunderstanding and became points of subsequent controversy. On the other, they sought to shield themselves from the shifting imperial vicissitudes of the era. Henceforth, several works actually written by Antiochene hands gave the impression of being Alexandrine. De Trinitate, with its ample scriptural quotation, is an outstanding paradigm, which shows two things. One, how far had Antiochene influence expanded. Two, the author of De Trinitate (that is, Cassian himself) essayed to preserve a modicum of classical learning, which Alexandria since Origen had been all too shy to do, and had actually seen this as an almost sacrilegious anomaly. This tendency however could not mushroom until a couple of centuries later, since this strain of thought was not, and could not be, in ascendancy during Justinian’s reign. At the same time, compromises were deemed inevitable. Which is why during the heated controversies which swirled around Origen’s thought, authors ostensibly endorsed Justinian’s skewed depiction of Origen. No matter how irritating plagiarism is to modern scholarship, the Akoimetoi produced their writings being under the impression that these works were solicitous for the welfare of the entire church.

Cassian lived in an environment that encouraged struggle with the new challenges of the era. Whereas scholars in the capital (such as John Grammaticus) endeavoured to cultivate the so-called neo-Chalcedonism, it seems that the monastic community of the Akoimetoi were more radical and more tolerant to the notion of ‘heresy’. This means that the hypothecation of ‘long traditions’ being carried on in these texts should be avoided. The clergy and courtiers alike must have looked on the Akoimetoi with consternation, as something of a hotbed of libertine preaching. In contrast to the Neo-Chalcedonians who sought a ‘third way’ by obscuring or eliminating uncomfortable terminology, it seems that in divergent approaches to Chalcedon, the Akoimetoi were seeing more homology than polarity, which in turn called for clarification rather than obscurity of the theological apparatus. This notwithstanding, forgeries that were produced in their scriptorium represented such defunct authorities as vatic figures being the mouthpieces of old ecclesiastical platitudes entertained within the new hot Christological context. This eventually turned out to be a cause of discord rather than concord.

The Akoimetoi were completely on their guard against falling into the pitfall of extremism. Which is why they were by no means shy to draw on Greek traditionalism. This can be gleaned from Cassian’s writings, abounding in terse yet revealing references, where subterraneous echoes of Aristotle and Stoicism are audible, even though Cassian is always ready to part company with them whenever necessary. The Akoimetoi freed themselves of fanaticism, yet they incurred imperial onslaught demanding everyone to take sides unequivocally and be a downright Chalcedonian in unswerving compliance to the official faith. The predicament of their monastery in 534 shows that broadmindedness did not avail against the storm, and yet its survival shows that the community held out against staggering odds.

Both truth and error sought to undergird their arguments by means of Scripture, while at the same time decking themselves out in the nomenclature and subtleties of philosophy. Alexandria sought to do this by means of Plato, only to be accused by Antiochenes that they caused the city to become the incubator of all heresies. In order to overcome this, Antioch employed a doctrine of hermeneutics combined with the philosophy of Aristotle, which was in turn held accountable for such aberration as the Three Chapters and Nestorius, not to mention Theodore of Mopsuestia. The Akoimetoi seem to have held that quite simply both Alexandria and Antioch had hyperbolised their differences, which seemed rather idle from a distance of the time-span of a century.

Personal antipathies deformed the appraisement of many churchmen in the sixth century, as in the fourth. Once an embittered antagonist had found reason for branding one of his opponents an Origenist or a Nestorian or a Monophysite, Cassian could have been tarred with every heresy that rancour could lay at his door. This was not difficult, let alone that Cassian’s traffic with Origenist, Nestorian, and Monophysite thought can definitely be traced following the analyses in this book. Especially after the Akoimetoi had come under the emperor’s disfavour in 534, and his hardening of policy after 536, it was all too convenient for anyone to trade on the notoriety of Origen, Nestorius and Severus, rather than to investigate the writings of a specific author such as Cassian. As heresy after heresy was laid at Origen’s door, it was not difficult for critics to find causes for scandal in Cassian’s teaching. Apparently, heresiologists convicted Cassian of straying to Origenism, even though the notion itself was increasingly obscure: to them it sufficed that the emperor had convicted Origen and his eminent followers. Likewise, the blame of Nestorianism and Monophysitism must have been laid at his door, too, which was the case with the Akoimetoi as a whole. The fact is, however, that coming across instances of vocabulary that is redolent of the ferment over Nestorius or Monophysitism, does not mean espousal of doctrine. What we know about the theology of condemned figures is mostly onslaught by the synods. But we also know that these synods present antipodal arguments unsympathetically, in highly abbreviated form, and with only the scantiest indication of how these arguments had been meant to work.

For all this, the process marked by the tolerant Akoimetoi was irreversible and texts such as the monastic ones, as well as the Caesarius-one and De Trinitate, mark this course, no matter how censorious religious orthodoxy might be of them. While Cassian draws conveniently on Gregory of Nyssa, Theodoret, Cyril of Alexandria, and others, he goes a step beyond them, in the sense that his respectful attitude towards Greek letters is ipso facto professed. Origen was shy about quoting much of Greek philosophers and poets in Contra Celsum, whereas Theodoret sought a ‘cure for the Greek maladies’. Origen’s cautious and reticent (and yet condemned) reference to the Greeks was that ‘those outside the faith’ have said certain things that have been ‘well-said’, still he was prompt to add that Moses and the prophets had said the same things in a fuller and more correct manner.

Whereas Cassian’s monastic texts draw heavily (yet covertly) on Greek philosophy (especially on Aristotle, who was favoured by the Nestorian legacy), in the Scholia in Apocalypsin the presence of a vast number of pagan intellectuals turns out to be dominating. Which is why the Scholia were written as anonymous, whereas the text of Caesarius was written as a pseudonymous one. Cassian must have been encouraged, no doubt, by the work of such personalities as Dionysius the Areopagite and John Philoponus. There can be no doubt that he endeavoured to comply with the official doctrine, as far as he was able to grasp and treat it. He did not succeed all the way through none the less, yet he was writing under the strong protection of such powerful persons as Leontius. Along with Theodore Askidas and Domitian, he took part in the local synod of 536 in the capital and subscribed to its acts, thus complying with the wishes of Leontius and of the emperor himself. None of the aforementioned intellectuals had to be present in that synod, since this was a local (endemousa) and only those who happened to be in the capital should have been present. Had they wished not to be there, they could have simply sailed for Palestine (or, anywhere else) for a while. Still they went and paid this service to the court. Theodore and Domitian were rewarded for this: they both became bishops of powerful and historical sees. Cassian had already been rewarded with a convenient abode in the monastery of Akoimetoi, where a vast library was available for him to compose his works. Two monks in that synod (the sole synod in which the Akoimetoi appear to have been represented) also stood for the monastery of Akoimetoi at the local synod of 536: ‘John, presbyter and archimandrite’, and ‘Euethius, deacon and archimandrite’.

Nevertheless, the year 536 marks a shift of Justinian’s policy towards not only Monophysites, but also whatever he saw as aberration by living and deceased theologians alike. Justinian’s sympathies changed and developed over time, with the result that those favoured by him got regularly juggled, too. Cassian realised this change in the air, as indeed the entire community of the Akoimetoi must have done, too. It was time for him to leave the capital. Considerate and aware of the balance of power as he was, he knew that to return to his own monastery of Sabas would only promise him a hard time: the new abbot Gelasius, appointed in 535, was a staunch anti-Origenist. It only remained for Cassian to go somewhere else and, once again, his friend Leontius must have played his part. Instead of subduing himself to the rule of Gelasius, Cassian was appointed an abbot by another historical monastery, that of Souka, in 539. The years 536-539 cannot have been easy for him. Justinian’s change of policy made Cassian vulnerable to censure by the new custodians of mandatory orthodoxy. The monastery of Akoimetoi as an institution had a hard time against the imperial authority, which is probably why they were present in the synod of 536, in order to offer the emperor a supine appeasement. Following this period, De Trinitate must have been written by Cassian in defence of himself when he was an abbot of the Souka monastery, that is, during or after year 539. This is a work clearly evincing the distress of its author being faced with stricture. It is easy to see his anxious endeavour to show that, unlike his unlearned detractors, he is a knowledgeable theologian that had said nothing wrong, and he makes his point by composing a Greek tract exhibiting ample knowledge of both Greek and Oriental writings. De Trinitate is indeed the work where a vast number of pagan quotations are lavishly offered. Some of them are treasures that have never been attested otherwise, and we are not able to identify the source of them all, although there is some room for guessing. It is in this same work that the author announces his subsequent work, which is no other than the text written under the name ‘Caesarius’. It is known that the opening of this work is a grosso modo quotation from the Ancoratus by Epiphanius of Salamis. Although some scholars have been apt to style this ‘plagiarism’, this is actually far from being so. The author writing in the arrogant and exhibitionist style of a highly erudite theologian that just escaped condemnation, declares himself as orthodox as Epiphanius himself was. The latter was not chosen at random: for the bishop of Cyprus was a most stern inquisitor as regards what he saw as theological deviation. It should be noticed, however, this is not a verbatim quotation. Among minor differences here and there, one should be pointed out. Whereas Epiphanius was a bishop and was so addressed (O Despota!), the author of Erotapokriseis is addressed ‘child-loving father’ (filotekne pater), thus emending Epiphanius’ text on this small but telling point, which means that he was an abbot, not a bishop.

A survey may furnish instances of influence or conflict, even though occasional similarities lurk only to obscure research. In the first place, there is some chance to reveal the scope (intellectual, geographical) of a notion being entertained. This may mean nothing significant on its own merit. But it may provide a scope, within which certain relations can be pointed out. For instance, the epithet adiadochos (‘without successor’) applied to the New Testament, has a distinct meaning in Cassian and in Didymus only. How the rest of the scholars use this, may be instructive, but it is not essential, and it would be rash to translate mere verbal affinity to intellectual relevance. Nevertheless, hardly could he have done away with this preliminary process in order to reach more substantial conclusions, even though exhumation of sources is only a preliminary stage, whereas interpretation is the main task to follow. Certainly common linguistic tools do not always translate into influence, neither do they have to suggest influence, or affiliation, or even discord. True, sometimes aleatory references simply mean nothing. But once we come across weird instances, such as Simplicius entertaining characteristic Christian terms or indeed very rare ones, and we have no other parallel instances at all, or Proclus employing a vocabulary exclusively characteristic of Christian theologians, then raising eyebrows yet turning to the next page may cost some historical information lying hidden therein.

Granted, sometimes, though not always, philology can establish the dependence of one author on another, but it takes more in order to complete the task of explanation. Availing himself of Gregory of Nyssa, Theodoret and Cyril alike, Cassian provides some answers as to why he made such selections from his predecessors: during the sixth century, they all made up the single Christian heritage. Nuances or quarrel of previous periods made little sense to intellectuals like Cassian, and to the Akoimetoi in general. At the same time, however, he was a theologian that had been nurtured in the Antiochene-ridden atmosphere of Palestine. A reasoned choice though this could have been, it could not have been easy in the first place to embrace the influence of the Antiochene doctors and not to incur the debt of an overall attitude. He went a step beyond, however. Surrounded by the spiritual atmosphere of the Akoimetoi and their strong Antiochene affiliations and allegiances, he grew not only sympathetic to Nestorius, but also pervious to the Alexandrian allegorism. He was even shy about practising his proclivity to explore divine numerology, although it has to be remarked that reflection on the theological significance of numbers, which transpires in Cassian’s Scholia in Apocalypsin, is not only indulgence to Didymus: it was a tendency cultivated with the monastery of the Akoimetoi, and after all, Iamblichus (c. 245- c.325) who had written the Theologoumena Arithmeticae, was an Assyrian and his influence can be traced in Cassian’s texts. In any event, one could have been all but dissuaded from practising divine numerology while living in the community of the Akoimetoi.

Following an extensive comparative analysis (A Newly Discovered Greek Father, Appendix I, pp. 373-440) I have identified the author of Erotapokriseis (Pseudo-Caesarius) with Cassian. The author of this work knew the person behind the pseudonym ‘Dionysius the Areopagite’ personally and he is the sole author to advise us that ‘Dionysius’ was from Trace. This reference to Thrace is pretty telling, since the larger Prefecture of the East included Thrace, Syria, and Egypt. Although most of the population of the Diocese of the East lived in Syria, this also included Isauria, Cilicia, Palestine, and Roman Mesopotamia. There was therefore a kind of political propinquity between Thrace and Syria.

Telling points of Cassian the Sabaite’s text direct us to the pseudepigrapha Erotapokriseis (Pseudo-Caesarius, but see A Newly Discovered Greek Father, Appendix I, pp. 373-440) and De Trinitate (Pseudo-Didymus, but see A Newly Discovered Greek Father, Appendix II, pp. 441-619). In turn, those texts open the door to the monastery of the Akoimetoi, the broadminded still intractable community of Constantinople. This was the place where the Areopagitan corpus was composed. This was also the place where Pseudo-Caesarius (that is, Cassian the Sabaite) met Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite personally, so that he could advise posterity that this mysterious figure was a monk coming from the region of Thrace. The adventure of exploring these works shows how the Akoimetoi hankered for Greek patrimony, and how persistently did they avail themselves of this patrimony despite all odds and threats by the hostile imperial environment. Not only do we owe them a good number of Greek epigrammatic passages not otherwise attested, but we also arrive at the conclusion that most of the collection Epistulae et Amphilochia, currently ascribed to Photius, are their product and probably the fruit of Cassian’s own pen. Furthermore, Cassian’s own texts compel us to reconsider several epistles ascribed to Basil of Caesarea and ascribe them to Cassian himself. It seems that Rudolf Riedinger was right in endorsing Uwe W. Knorr’s claim, according to which what we are currently presented with as ‘epistles by Basil’ are actually compilations (Lesefrüchte) from Basil’s epistles. Cassian’s texts allow us to go a step further and ascribe some of these epistles to Cassian drawing on Basil, or at least inspired by the Cappadocian.

Besides, I was astonished to come upon a nineteenth-century author who wrote, “John Cassian was a native of Lesser Syria, then comprised under Thrace”. However, there is no information adduced as to how this author came to be aware of this, and anyway he does not dispute the hackneyed myth about the rest of the Latin whereabouts of his Cassian, even though he does not mention Scythia at all. Nevertheless, in the sixth book of the treatise against Nestorius, Cassian (or, ‘John Cassian’) is represented to assault Nestorius by appealing to the creed of the Church of Antioch, where the latter was brought up, taught and baptised. Cassian refers to the creed that was usually recited in the Church of Antioch, not a creed composed by any council of Antioch. At all events, it is impressive the treatise against Nestorius appears to have been written by an Antiochene, who was familiar with, and makes pretty much of, the Antiochene theology, appealing confidently to its didactic authority.

Since I sustain that Pseudo-Caesarius was the same person as Cassian himself, the information supplied by Caesarius that Dionysius the Areopagite was a native of Thrace is of special value and should be given credence. As a matter of fact, my discussion shows that Cassian’s liabilities to Pseudo-Dionysius are so heavy, that personal acquaintance between them could have been probable. Besides, staggering analogies occurring in both Cassian and Simplicius might have brought it about that the identification between Pseudo-Dionysius and Simplicius (which I am not ready to urge at present) might not after all be that much of a fanciful extrapolation.

Following exploration of the text and its correlation with the rest of Greek literature, I am at one with Rudolf Riedinger arguing that ‘Dionysius’ was a member of the Akoimetoi. It is however beyond my scope to either endorse, or not do so, his assertion that this person was Peter the Fuller, which is an overlooked resolution by scholars of the old. One thing is for sure: the Akoimetoi cherished the Neoplatonic lore and certainly felt sympathy for the persecuted masters of the Academy after 529, at a time when (up to the present times) historians have stories to say only about persecutions, real or imagined, that Christians suffered under the Romans.