CASSIA'N17S, JOANNES, Or JOANNES MASSIMENSIS, Or JOANNES EREMITA, a Christian teacher of the ancient church, who flourished in the early part of the 5th c., and dis tinguished himself as the promoter of monachism in Southern Gaul, and as the oppo nent of the extreme dogmas of St. Augustine respecting grace and free-will. Shortly before 415 A.D., he went to Massilia (Marseille), where he founded two monasteries according to the rules laid down in his De Institutis Ccenobiorum. One of these mon asteries was for nuns. the other was the famous abbey of St. Victor, which under C. is said to have possessed not less than 5,000 inmates, and which served as a model to a multitude of monastic institutions -in Gaul and Spain. -His Collations Patrum Scat corum, is a work in 24 chapters, each of which gives a "spiritual colloquy between monks in the desert of Sketis, ' regarding the monastic life, and the vexed questions of theology. C.'s Grecian erudition, his dislike of dogmatic subtleties, and his zeal for
monastic habits, led him to oppose the doctrine of St. Augustine on works and grace, and to set up a doctrine which was known by the schoohnen as " semi-pelagianism." See PELAGIANISM. As C.'s doctrine gained support from the 3lassilian monks, St. Augustine, having been informed of it by his friend Prosper of Aquitaine, wrote strongly against it, especially in his treatise De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio, contra Colla toren?. It is not known when C. died; but it must have been subsequent to 433 A.D. The first collected edition of the various works attributed to him was published at Basel in 1559; the best at Frankfurt, in 1722. The best account of his life and writings. is by Wiggers, Dc Johanni C. (Rostock, 1824-25).