Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11: Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian by Philip Schaff
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I began reading this series about two months ago. There is an online schedule that has you read 7 pages a day for 7 years to get through them all! I started where the schedule was, instead of with volume 1, page 1.
I picked a doozie to start with, apparently. Severus and Vincent and Cassian wrote in the 400s, A.D., mostly about how monks should order their lives, food, prayers, thoughts, clothes, etc. They catalogue virtues and vices, praise specific saints and monks for their asceticism, and decry monks that give it up and go back to their wives (!).
The huge star that shines in this comparative darkness is the last entry: Cassian's seven books on the Incarnation of the Lord, against Nestorius. A brilliant polemic against Arianism, Cassian makes many Scriptural and rational arguments for the full deity of Christ, rebuffing every possible and subtle heresy that would assert Jesus was less than God from all eternity. THAT was worth reading!
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