“Distraction is not a new problem tied to our technology. It's something that people have struggled with for centuries… We're not the first to complain about how hard it is to concentrate… Christian monks in the late Roman Empire beat us to it.”
With these words Jamie Kreiner (Professor of History at the University of Georgia) opens her new translation of a selection of John Cassian’s Collationes.
John Cassian was a monk who lived in the Roman Empire during the fourth and early fifth centuries AD. These were still the “early days of Christian monasticism,” notes Kreiner, and Cassian was “part of the generation that sought out the monastic pioneers in Egypt and Palestine to learn from such figures personally.”
Cassian joined his first monastery in Bethlehem in his twenties with his close friend Germanus. From there they embarked on a fifteen-year journey throughout Egypt during which they interviewed and learned from the many elder monks there.
After such travels in the early fifth century, Cassian moved to southern Gaul (France) where his compatriots were hungry for stories of what he’d learned in Egypt. So, in the 420s, he set down the most memorable encounters he’d had in Egypt and “sculpted them into an argument for living ethically, day by day.”
This came to be known as the Collationes, selections of which Kreiner has translated (from the Latin) in her new book, How to Focus: A Monastic Guide for an Age of Distraction (Princeton University Press, 2024).
“One of the central preoccupations of the Collationes is the art of concentration,” writes Kreiner. “This art required many interlocking practices.”
Distraction, in other words, “did not have a single solution.” Monks considered growth in attention and concentration to constitute a form of training. They often liken this training to the work of soldiers, athletes, and artisans.
Such training was necessary “because a monk’s spiritual growth depended on maintaining functional relationships between self and collective, mind and body, technique and reflection.”
Concentration (on God) “wasn’t going to happen simply by resolving to think harder.” It required deliberate training across multiple domains, which over time produced growth.
The writings of Cassian and other monks of this period are well-worth our consideration today.
We live in a world and at a time in which our attention is being constantly bombarded by unwanted yet hard-to-ignore stimuli. This is no less true for Christians whose attempts to focus on Christ are being sabotaged by even so-called “Christian” stimuli: organizations, causes, publishers, app developers, so clamoring for our attention that we’re left distracted from what matters most.
One of the most helpful portions of Kreiner’s translation is a section concerning monks’ goals.
“Every acquired skill and every discipline,” writes Cassian (recalling a conversation he and Germanus shared with a certain Abba Moses in Scetis) “has a scopos and a telos, some immediate goal and some ultimate goal that is particular to it. Practitioners of any skilled craft will gladly and good-naturedly work through all their fatigue and risks and costs as they keep those goals in mind…”
“Take a farmer, for instance, who tirelessly breaks up the soil and plows through the untilled clods of his field over and over again without giving up in the frost and ice or in the withering rays of the sun. He does this while keeping his eye on his immediate goal (scopos) of clearing away all the thorns, purging all the vegetation, and crumbling the earth into a loamy texture. He is certain that this is the only way he'll achieve his ultimate goal (telos): a yield of copious produce and abundant grain that will enable him to live comfortably or even to build up his wealth.”
A farmer’s telos is thus: “to yield an abundant harvest that will enable him to live comfortably and/or build up wealth.” It is that distant point on the horizon toward which the farmer is slowly moving, toward which all his accumulated labor contributes.
The farmer’s scopos, however, varies according to the season, month, week, day, or hour (!). One day it may involve breaking up the soil and plowing the clods of his field. Another day it may involve pulling weeds, fashioning irrigation systems, sharpening tools, repainting barns, etc.
To focus only on one’s telos without any attention to one’s scopos would result in a perpetual state of bewilderment and frustration. Looking only at the distance from where one stands to that point far off on the horizon, would sap anyone of the motivation to act diligently and consistently now.
To focus on one’s scopos, however, action crafted to contribute (eventually) to one’s telos, leads to motivation and resilience in the present. Abba Moses goes on:
“Our own (monastic) profession has particular immediate and ultimate goals, too, and we devote all our labors tirelessly and even enthusiastically to them. This is why fasting doesn't wear us out, why the fatigue from keeping vigil all night appeals to us, why constant reading and meditating on the scriptures is never enough for us, and why incessant work and complete solitude doesn't scare us off.”
Turning to his interviewers John Cassian and his friend Germanus, Abba Moses asks: “What are your immediate (scopos) and ultimate goals (telos)? What is compelling you two to endure all of this so willingly?”
Abba Moses kept trying to elicit a response from them, so they ultimately answered: “the kingdom of God is our ultimate goal.”
“Nicely done!” said Abba Moses. “You've given an incisive answer about your ultimate goal. But before anything else, you should really know what our scopos should be. I'm talking about our immediate goal, the thing we stick to all the time so that we're eventually able to reach the ultimate goal.”
Reflecting on one’s telos and scopos, therefore, is an experience both orienting and rejuvenating. This process, applied initially to the mental habit of concentration or focus, can be broadened, I think, to all areas of human life.
For Christians especially it is imperative that we live life deliberately, engaging in carefully selected habits and actions which contribute to our ultimate goal. The alternative is to live life aimlessly, being “tossed and turned” by the winds of culture, media, and other influences.
I would encourage you, especially if you struggle with discontentment, aimlessness, or bewilderment (at the daily onslaught of stimuli which characterizes our modern world), to ask yourself: “What is my ultimate goal (telos) in life and what immediate goals (scopos) should I thus pursue now?”
If you can identify that point on the horizon toward which you are destined, designed to make progress (telos), you will have the strength to endure those many short stretches (scopos) which combined bring you to that ultimate end.
Habits of concentration and focus –the art of ignoring that which distracts and seeks your attention– are helpful not merely for intellectual growth, but for human flourishing at large.
Heeding Cassian’s advice –to identify one’s telos and scopos, and to resist (as far as is possible) the things which pull you away from such aims– may be precisely what we need to do to combat our world’s many distractions and live into our God-given purpose.
Jonah Bissell
Pastor
*This post’s title of course alludes to a famous passage by Henry David Thoreau, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived” (Walden. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1854).