Another Cassian?

Abstract

During the last century there have been many discoveries that have reshaped our understanding of early monastic texts and their authorship. The writer of these two substantial volumes proposes new ones. In The real Cassian revisited he argues that the Latin monastic works traditionally ascribed to an early fifth-century monk named John Cassian, later resident in Gaul, are actually a medieval ‘augmented interpolated product originating in a far shorter Greek original by Cassian the Sabaite’, whom he identifies as an early sixth-century monk of Mar Saba in Palestine (The real Cassian revisited, 152; cf. A newly discovered Greek Father, p. xii). This Greek text, edited with substantial commentary in A newly discovered Greek Father, has historically been considered a condensed translation of selections from the Latin works. In reversing this view, Tzamalikos announces the ‘rediscovery’ of a forgotten Greek genius.