Born in Romania around 365, John Cassian struggled with the problems of living the Christian life in a time when the world seemed to be falling apart. As a young man he traveled to a monastery in Bethlehem and later moved to Egypt, where he sought the tutelageof the great founders of the ascetic movement of the desert, such as Evagrius and Macarius.

At the heart of desert monasticism was the idea that the image of God in each person, tarnished …