John Cassian

In his own words on Ecclesiastes

• Ecclesiastes 3:17

  The Divine Wisdom has pointed out in Ecclesiastes that for everything, i.e., for all things happy or those which are considered unfortunate and unhappy, there is a right time: saying: "For all things there is a time, and a time for everything under the heaven." … and below: "For there is a time," it says, "for everything and for every deed." None therefore of these things does it lay down as always good, but only when any of them are fittingly done and at the right time, so that these very things which at one time, when done at the right moment, turn out well, if they are ventured on at a wrong or unsuitable time, are found to be useless or harmful; only excepting those things which are in their own nature good or bad, and which cannot ever be made the opposite, as, e.g., justice, prudence, fortitude, temperance and the rest of the virtues, or on the other hand, those faults, the description of which cannot possibly be altered or fall under the other head. But those things which can sometimes turn out with either result, so that, in accordance with the character of those who use them, they are found to be either good or bad, these we consider to be not absolutely in their own natures useful or injurious, but only so in accordance with the mind of the doer, and the suitableness of the time.

  CONFERENCE 21:12

• Ecclesiastes 4:6

  And therefore it is better for us with unbroken continuance to aim at this very slender profit in the desert, from which no secular cares, no worldly distractions, no pride of vainglory and vanity can detract, and which the pressure of no daily wants can lessen (for "a small thing that the righteous hath is better than great riches of the ungodly") rather than to pursue those larger profits which even if they are procured by the most valuable conversion of many, are yet absorbed by the claims of secular life and the daily leakage of distractions. For, as Solomon says, "Better is a single handful with rest than both hands full with labour and vexation of mind." And in these allusions and inconveniences all that are at all weak are sure to be entangled, as while they are even doubtful of their own salvation, and themselves stand in need of the teaching and instruction of others, they are incited by the devil's tricks to convert and guide others, and as, even if they succeed in gaining any advantage from the conversion of some, they waste by their impatience and rude manners whatever they have gained.

  CONFERENCE 24:13

• Ecclesiastes 5:4

  This will be fulfilled in this way by each one of us. We pray when we renounce this world and promise that being dead to all worldly actions and the life of this world we will serve the Lord with full purpose of heart. We pray when we promise that despising secular honors and scorning earthly riches we will cling to the Lord in all sorrow of heart and humility of spirit. We pray when we promise that we will always maintain the most perfect purity of body and steadfast patience, or when we vow that we will utterly remove from our heart the roots of anger or sorrow that bring about death. And if weakened by sloth and returning to our former sins we fail to do this, we shall be guilty as regards our prayers and vows, and these words will apply to us: "It is better not to vow than to vow and not to pay," which can be rendered in accordance with the Greek: "It is better for you not to pray than to pray and not to pay."

  CONFERENCE 9:12

• Ecclesiastes 5:5

  For as unbounded glory hereafter is promised to those who faithfully serve God and cleave to him according to the rule of this system, so the severest penalties are in store for those who have carried it out carelessly and coldly and have failed to show to him fruits of holiness corresponding to what they professed or what they were believed by people to be. For "it is better," as Scripture says, "that one should not vow rather than to vow and not pay"; and "Cursed is he that does the work of the Lord carelessly."

  INSTITUTES 4:33

• Ecclesiastes 7:9

  The deadly poison of anger has to be utterly rooted out from the inmost corners of our soul. For as long as this remains in our hearts and blinds with its hurtful darkness the eye of the soul, we can neither acquire right judgment and discretion nor gain the insight which springs from an honest gaze, or ripeness of counsel. Nor can we be partakers of life, or retentive of righteousness, or even have the capacity for spiritual and true light, "for," says one, "mine eye is disturbed by reason of anger." Nor can we become partakers of wisdom, even though we are considered wise by universal consent, for "anger rests in the bosom of fools."

  INSTITUTES 8:1

• Ecclesiastes 7:24

  But already the approach of dawn is bringing to a close our discussion, which has occupied nearly two whole nights, and our brief and simple words have drawn our bark of this Conference from the deep sea of questions to a safe harbour of silence, in which deep indeed, as the breath of the Divine Spirit drives us further in, so is there ever opened out a wider and boundless space reaching beyond the sight of our eye, and, as Solomon says, "It will become much further from us than it was, and a great depth; who shall find it out?" Wherefore let us pray the Lord that both His fear and His love, which cannot fail, may continue steadfast in us, and make us wise in all things, and ever shield us unharmed, from the darts of the devil. For with these guards it is impossible for anyone to fall into the snares of death.

  The Second Conference of Abbot Serenus, Chapter 25

• Ecclesiastes 8:11

  Until now, never confuting him with your own answer or that of another, you allowed him to lord it over you, according to that saying of Solomon's: "Because sentence is not speedily pronounced against the evil, the heart of the children of men is full within them to do evil." Therefore after his exposure that evil spirit will no longer be able to disturb you, nor will that foul serpent ever again make his lurking place in you, since he has been dragged out into light from the darkness by your life-giving confession."

  CONFERENCE 2:11

• Ecclesiastes 8:11

  It is clear, then, that no one can be deceived by the devil except one who has chosen to yield to him the consent of his own will. As Ecclesiastes clearly puts it in these words: "For since there is no speedy opposition to those who do evil, therefore the heart of the children of men is fully set to do evil." It is therefore clear that each person goes wrong from this; namely, that when evil thoughts assault him he does not immediately meet them with refusal and contradiction.

  CONFERENCE 7:8

• Ecclesiastes 10:11

  These silent bites are alone in fending off the medicine of the wise people. This deadly menace is so utterly incurable that it is worsened by soothings, inflamed by serious treatment, and irritated by gifts.

  CONFERENCE 18:16

• Ecclesiastes 10:11

  "If a snake bites without hissing," Ecclesiastes says, "there is no advantage for the charmer," showing that the bite of a snake in silence is dangerous. This means that if a suggestion or thought springing from the devil is not by means of confession shown to some charmer (I mean some spiritually minded person who knows how to heal the wound at once by charms from the Scripture and how to extract the deadly poison of the snake from the heart), it will be impossible to help the sufferer who is already in danger and will no doubt die.

  CONFERENCE 2:9

• Ecclesiastes 10:15

  It is we, who make rough with the nasty and hard stones of our desires the right and smooth paths of the Lord; who most foolishly forsake the royal road made stony with the flints of apostles and prophets, and trodden down by the footsteps of all the saints and of the Lord Himself, and seek trackless and thorny places, and, blinded by the allurements of present delights, tear our way with torn legs and our wedding garment rent, through dark paths, overrun with the briars of sins, so as not only to be pierced by the sharp thorns of the brambles but actually laid low by the bites of deadly serpents and scorpions lurking there. For "there are thorns and thistles in wrong ways, but he that feareth the Lord shall keep himself from them." And thus wandering from the king's highway, they can never arrive at that metropolis, whither our course should ever be directed without swerving. And this also Ecclesiastes has pretty significantly expressed saying: "The labour of fools wearies those who know not how to go to the city;" viz., that "heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all."

  CONFERENCE 24:24

• Ecclesiastes 10:18

  But we must not imagine that anyone slips and comes to grief by a sudden fall, but that he falls by a hopeless collapse either from being deceived by beginning his training badly, or from the good qualities of his soul failing through a long course of carelessness of mind, and so his faults gaining ground upon him little by little. For "loss goeth before destruction, and an evil thought before a fall," just as no house ever falls to the ground by a sudden collapse, but only when there is some flaw of long standing in the foundation, or when by long continued neglect of its inmates, what was at first only a little drip finds its way through, and so the protecting walls are by degrees ruined, and in consequence of long standing neglect the gap becomes larger, and breaks away, and in time the drenching storm and rain pours in like a river: for "by slothfulness a building is cast down, and through the weakness of hands the house shall drop through."

  CONFERENCE 6:17

• Ecclesiastes 12:7

  "Before the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns unto God who gave it." What could be said more clearly than that the matter of the flesh, which he styled dust because it springs from the seed of man and seems to be sown by his acts, must again return to the earth because it was taken from the earth? At the same time he points out that the spirit which is not begotten by intercourse between the sexes, but belongs to God alone in a special way, returns to its creator. This too is clearly implied in that breathing by God, through which Adam in the first instance received his life.

  CONFERENCE 8:25