John Cassian Collection
JOHN CASSIAN COLLECTION
Saint John Cassian, John the Ascetic, or John Cassian the Roman, was a Christian monk and theologian celebrated in both the Western and Eastern Churches for his mystical writings. Cassian is noted for his role in bringing the ideas and practices of Christian monasticism to the early medieval West. Cassian mentions having a sister in the Institutes, whom he maintained a relationship with in his monastic life, she may have ended up with him in Marseilles. As a young adult he and an older friend, Germanus (with whom he would spend much of the next twenty-five years), traveled to Palestine, where they entered a hermitage near Bethlehem. After remaining in that community for about three years, they journeyed to the desert of Scete in Egypt, which was rent by Christian struggles. There they visited a number of monastic foundations.