He was not alone among monastic authors in addressing this issue; such experiences evidently caused anxiety for young monks unsure of their vocations and for older monks despairing of their progress toward perfect chastity.
The issue was not exclusively or originally a monastic one. Classical writers had pondered the moral implications of orgasmic dreams,179 and early Christian writers regularly commented on the question of whether nocturnal ejaculation barred one from receiving the eucharist.180 Writing as bishop, Athanasius sent a letter to a monastic superior urging him to reassure the scrupulous among his flock.181 The monastic writers, like Cassian, were typically interested in in assessing moral responsibility for dreams and emissions,182 while nonmonastic writers were typically more concerned with avoiding scrupulosity about worthiness for communion.183 Cassian goes beyond the usual discussion of whether or not erotic dreams and/or emissions are morally culpable. He uses them as a way into the subcon-scious and unconscious mind to measure the permeation of the grace of chastity.
He is less interested in the phenomenon of nocturnal orgasm itself than in the psychodynamics thought to lie behind it. These provide Cassian with yet another example of the hindrances to perfect intention he explores elsewhere with respect to waking thoughts, images in prayer, and misinterpretation of the Bible.
According to Cassian's teaching, the erotic dreams that are often associated with nocturnal emissions replay experiences and images from past and present encounters and therefore have a moral significance.184 In linking dreams to wak-ing experiences, Cassian is following classical and Christian predecessors;185 Evagrius had provided a typically acute analysis of dreams and their relationship to larger psychological and ascetical issues.186 Cassian notes that although sexually inexperienced monks have dreams of a "simpler" kind than those of monks who have experienced intercourse, such dreams are nonetheless disturbing (Conf.12.7.4). Even certain biblical texts can fuel the juniors' fantasies and are best avoided—a concern also voiced by other monastic writers.187 For more advanced monks, dreams can indicate a perdurance in the unconscious of passions that are no longer active when the monk is awake.188 The proof of real progress in purity, then, is the absence of "illicit images" even in sleep.189 In turn, the link between dreams and nocturnal emissions (for men and, surprisingly, for women) was a commonplace of ancient medical literature.190 Cassian admits that there is disagreement about the relationship between the "deceit of dreams" (fallacia somniorum) and nocturnal emissions. While positing that the actual emissions are typically prompted by dreams, he notes that the dreams themselves can be stimulated by the "abundance" of "humor" seeking release in ejaculation.191 Cassian reflects the divergence between, on the one side, Hippocratic and similar schools that claimed that the "humor" produces the dream, and, on the other side, the tendency of some authors to emphasize the role of somnolent fantasy.192 The ambiguity affects Cassian's use of the word inlusio, which means "illusion" when he applies it to fantasies and "trick" or "humiliation" when he refers to the emission itself.193 Cassian notes that the difference between "natural" and morally culpable emissions can become a point of contention, with some people prone to plead nature when it is actually their own negligence that is to blame for their frequent emissions (Conf. 12.8.2). Even what is "natural" from the standpoint of sinful human nature can be contrary to chastity (Inst. 5.14.3).194 Augustine had written in the Confessions about the ineradicable nature of sexual memories and their ability to compel consent and ejaculation in dreams.195 Cassian argues, however, that even these "ingrained habits" of memory can be lifted from the heart by God's grace. Thus, for the truly chaste, emissions will occur for purely physiological reasons, without the nocturnal fantasies that signalled unresolved passions.196 For them even the experience of penile erection, inevitable while one is asleep, cannot be attributed to concupiscence.197 One has left the scope of physical discipline far behind; only God, through grace, can stand the night watch in the heart (Conf. 12.9-10).
Later, in both Conference 22 and its companion, Conference 23 ("On Sinlessness"), Cassian tries to maintain his ideal of chastity while backing off from the potentially misleading picture of Conferences 12 and 13. The reason for this ac-commodation is probably the pastoral one of helping young monks prone to anxi-ety and despair. Physical, moral, and ascetical perspectives converge in Conference 22 as Cassian analyzes the trap of shame and guilt into which even a well-behaved monk can fall after an emission. The Conference was set up by Germanus' cri de coeur at the end of Conference 21 that ascetical discipline some-times seems to increase rather than decrease the frequency of emissions.198 Cassian invokes a traditional explanation for emissions and "illusions": the devil uses these physical and psychological experiences to discourage the zealous. Cassian attributes to "the Elders" the view that most emissions are attributable not to excessive consumption of food or lack of moral vigilance but to demonic decep-tion.199 He then suggests that the demons use "simple" emissions (i.e., those with-out erotic dreams) to make a monk believe that there was in fact complicity of the will and consequently that he is not worthy to approach the eucharist (Conf.22.6.4).200 The point made in Conference 1 about the diabolical origin of certain kinds of thoughts now gets connected to sexual behavior (Conf. 1.19.3).
The case study Cassian presents in Conference 22, of a zealous monk who has an emission on the eve of every Sunday's eucharist, becomes a parable of monastic transparency. The troubled monk presents his situation to his seniors for discernment, answers their questions fully, and is found morally blameless. When the diagnosis of demonic instigation is made and he returns to regular communion, the "attacks" cease (Conf. 22.6.1-4).
The story is interesting for its psychological tension between shame and reward, but for Cassian the point is twofold. There is the monk's obedience to discernment, especially notable in such a private and embarassing realm. Even more, there is his complete openness, for this monk illustrates the ideal Cassian had evoked in Conference 12:
He is found to be the same at night as in the day, the same in bed as at prayer, the same alone as when surrounded by a crowd of people, he sees nothing in himself in private that he would be embarassed for others to see, nor wants anything detected by the omnipresent Eye [of God] to be concealed from human sight. (Conf. 12.8.5)201
The night, formerly so fearsome, has become like day; God has so profoundly transformed both body and spirit that even the kidneys, identified by ancient writers as the source of sexual potency, have been "possessed" by God (Ps.138 [139]: 11—13).202 This condition, "beyond the natural condition" of human beings, can only be the work of grace (Conf. 12.8.6). Such integrity and consistency of life is another form of the ideal evoked in Conference 9, where Cassian notes that because prayer follows from what precedes it, we should strive for a unified life of virtue (Conf. 9.3.4).
Cassian the Monk
Columba Stewart
No comments:
Post a Comment