Western Monastic Spirituality: Cassian, Caesarius of Arles, and Benedict (Past Light on Present Life: Theology, Ethics, and Spirituality)

Synopsis

Western Monastic Spirituality presents three authors as individuals, certainly, but also as textual informants who, like road markers, represent a line of the development of a Western monastic spiritual tradition. John Cassian (ca. 360–435) helped bring the wisdom of northern Egyptian ascetical life of the late fourth century to southern France in the early fifth century. Caesarius of Arles (468/470–542), drawing on his own monastic experience and Augustine’s monastic rule, composed a rule for a women’s monastery in the city of Arles. Not many years later, Benedict wrote the most influential rule in Western monasticism, one that still regulates the lives of monks today all over the world. These three texts, when looked at serially and together, offer a theology of monastic spirituality, an example of a relatively short but comprehensive early monastic rule, and a present-day Benedictine interpretation of how Benedict’s monastic spirituality can be summed up in a short present-day digest of his rule. Reflection on early Western monasticism retrieves some basic Christian spiritual values that should inform life today outside the monastery in a busy, secular culture.

Copyright:

2019

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:

9781531502171

Related ISBNs:

9781531502164

Publisher:

Fordham University Press

Date of Addition:

06/07/22

Copyrighted By:

Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota. Used with permission.

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Religion and Spirituality, Law, Legal Issues and Ethics

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.

Edited by:

Roger Haight S.J.

Edited by:

Alfred Pach

Edited by:

Amanda Avila Kaminski