CASSIANUS, JoannesEremita, or Joannes Massiliensis, a celebrated recluse, and one of the first founders of monastic institutions in Western Europe, was probably born about 360, and is supposed to have died about the year 448. The place of his nativity has been much disputed, but he spent the early part of his life in the monastery of Bethlehem, with his friend Germanus. In company with that monk he visited Egypt, and dwelt for several years among the ascetics of the desert near the banks of the Nile. In 403 he repaired to Constantinople, where he received ordination as deacon from the hands of Chrysostom. At Marseilles he founded two religious societies—a convent for nuns, and the abbey of St Victor, which during his time is said to have contained 5000 inmates. In later times his regulations enjoyed a high reputation, and were adopted by the monks and nuns of Port Royal. He was eventually canonized; and a festival in his honour long continued to be celebrated at Marseilles on the 25th of July. Cassianus was one of the first and most prominent of the Semi-Pelagians, a sect who rejected the Augustinian positions that man, since the fall of Adam, is by nature wholly worthless and incapable of even right desire, and that everything holy in him is the Divine gift, bestowed without reference to any merit, or even wish, on his part; but did not assert, with Pelagius, that man is born perfectly pure, and that the exercise of his free-will is sufficient to secure salvation. Cassianus maintained that while man is by nature sinful, he yet has some good remaining in him, and that, while the immediate gift of God’s grace is necessary to salvation, conversion may also be commenced by the exercise of man’s will. He further asserted that God is always willing to bestow his grace ...