VI

    During the fourth century we find a very different technology for the disclosure of the self, exagoreusis, much less famous than exomologesis but more important. This one is reminiscent of the verbalising exercises in relation to a teacher/master of the pagan philosophical schools. We can see the transfer of several Stoic technologies of the self to Christian spiritual techniques.

At least one example of self-examination, proposed by John Chrysostom, was exactly the same form and the same administrative character as that described by Seneca in De Ira. In the morning we must take account of our expenses, and in the evening we must ask ourselves to render account of our conduct of ourselves, to examine what is to our advantage and what is prejudicial against us, with prayers instead of indiscrete words. That is exactly the Senecan style of self-examination. It also important to note that this self-examination or self-inquire is rare in Christian literature.

The well-developed and elaborated praxis of the self-examination in monastic Christianity is different from the Senecan self-examination and very different from the Chrysostom and from exomologesis. This new kind of praxis must be understood from the point of view of two principles of Christian spirituality: obedience and contemplation. In Seneca, the relationship of the disciple with the master was important, but it was instrumental and professional. It was founded on the capacity of the master to lead the disciple to a happy and autonomous life through good advice. The relationship would end when the disciple got access to that life.

For a long series of reasons, obedience has a very different character in monastic life. It differs from the Greco-Roman type of relation to the master in the sense that obedience isn't based just upon a need for optimisation but must bear on all aspects of a monk's life. There is no element in the life of the of the monk which may escape from this fundamental and permanent relation of total obedience to the master.

John Cassian repeats an old principle from the oriental tradition: Everything the monk does without permission of his master constitutes a theft. Here obedience is complete control of behaviour by the master, not a final autonomous state. It is a sacrifice of the self, of the subject's own will. This is the new technology of the self.

The monk must have the permission of his director to do anything, even die. Everything he does without permission is stealing. There is not a single moment when the monk can be autonomous. Even when he becomes a director himself, he must retain the spirit of obedience. He must keep the spirit of obedience as a permanent sacrifice of the complete control of behaviour by the master. The self must constitute self through obedience. The second feature of monastic life is that contemplation is considered the supreme good. It is the obligation of the monk to turn his thoughts continuously to that point which is God and to make sure that his heart is pure enough to see God. The goal is permanent contemplation of God.

The technology of the self, which developed from obedience and contemplation in the monastery, presents some peculiar characteristics. Cassian gives a rather clear exposition of this technology of the self, a principle of self-examination which he borrowed from the Syrian and Egyptian monastic traditions.This technology of self-inquire of Oriental origins, dominated by obedience and contemplation, is much more concerned with the thought than with action. Seneca had placed his stress on action. With Cassian the object is not past actions of the day; it's the present thoughts. Since the monk must continuously turn his thoughts toward God, he must scrutinise the actual course of his thought. This inquire thus has as its object the permanent discrimination between thoughts which lead toward God and those which don't. This continual concern with the present is different from the Senecan memorisation of deeds and their correspondence with rules. It is what the Greeks referred to with a pejorative word: logismoi (cogitations, reasoning, calculating thought).

There is an etymology of logismoi in Cassian, but I don't know if it's sound co-agitationes. The spirit is polukinetos: perpetually moving. In Cassian, perpetual mobility of spirit is the spirit's weakness. It distracts one from contemplation of God.

The inquire of conscience consists of trying to immobilise consciousness, to eliminate movements of the spirit that divert one from God. That means that we have to examine any thought which presents itself to consciousness to see the relation between act and thought, truth and reality, to see if there is anything in this thought which will move our spirit, provoke our desire, turn our spirit away from God. The inquire is based on the idea of a secret concupiscence.

There are three major types of self-examination: first, self-examination with respect to thoughts in correspondence to reality (Cartesian); second, self-examination with respect to the way our thoughts relate to rules (Senecan), third, the examination of self with respect to the relation between the hidden thought and an inner impurity. At this moment begins the Christian hermeneutics of the self with its deciphering of inner thoughts. It implies that there is something hidden in ourselves and that we are always in a self-illusion which hides the secret.

In order to make this kind of inquire, Cassian says we have to care for ourselves, to attest our thoughts directly. He gives three analogies. First is the analogy of the mill (First Conference of Abbot Moses 18).Thoughts are like grains, and consciousness is the mill store. It is our role as the miller to sort out amongst the grains those which are bad and those which can be admitted to the mill store to give the good flour and good bread of our salvation.

Second, Cassian makes military analogies (First Conference of Abbot Serenus 5). He uses the analogy of the officer who orders the good soldiers to march to the right, the bad to the left. We must act like officers who divide soldiers into two files, the good and the bad.

Third, he uses the analogy of a money changer (First Conference of Abbot Moses 20 - 22). Conscience is the money changer of the self. It must examine coins, their effigy, their metal, where they came from. It must weigh them to see if they have been ill used. As there is the image of the emperor on money, so must the image of God be on our thoughts. We must verify the quality of the thought: This effigy of God, is it real? What is its degree of purity? Is it mixed with desire or concupiscence? Thus, we find the same image as in Seneca, but with a different meaning.

Since we have as our role to be a permanent money changer of ourselves, how is it possible to make this discrimination and recognise if a thought is of good quality? How can this discrimination actively be done? There is only one way: to tell all thoughts to our director, to be obedient to our master in all things, to engage in the permanent verbalisation of all our thoughts. In Cassian, self-examination is subordinated to obedience and the permanent verbalisation of thoughts. Neither is true of Stoicism. By telling himself not only his thoughts but also the smallest movements of consciousness, his intentions, the monk stands in a hermeneutic relation not only to the master but to himself. This verbalisation is the touchstone or the currency of thought.

Why is confession able to assume this hermeneutical role? How can we be the hermeneutics of ourselves in speaking and transcribing all of our thoughts? Confession permits the master to know because of his greater experience and wisdom and therefore to give better advice. Even if the master, in his role as a discriminating power, doesn't say anything, the fact that the thought has been expressed will have an effect of discrimination.

Cassian gives an example of the monk who stole bread. At first he can't tell. The difference between good and evil thoughts is that evil thoughts can't be expressed without difficulty, for evil is hidden and unstated. Because evil thoughts cannot be expressed without difficulty and shame, the cosmological difference between light and dark, between verbalisation and sin, secrecy and silence, between God and the devil, may not emerge. Then the monk prostrates himself and confesses. Only when he confesses orally does the devil go out of him. The verbal expression is the crucial moment (Second Conference of Abbot Moses II). Confession is a mark of truth. This idea of the permanent verbal is only an ideal. It is never completely possible. But the price of permanent verbal was to make everything that couldn't be expressed into a sin.

In conclusion, in the Christianity of the first centuries, there are two main forms of disclosing the self, of showing the truth about oneself. The first is exomologesis, or a dramatic expression of the situation of the penitent as sinner which makes manifest his status as sinner. The second is what was called in the spiritual literature exagoreusis. This is an analytical and continual verbalisation of thoughts carried on in the relation of complete obedience to someone else. This relation is modelled on the renunciation of one's own will and of one's own self.

There is a great difference between exomologesis and exagoreusis; yet we have to underscore the fact that there is one important element in common: You cannot disclose without renouncing. Exomologesis had as its model martyrdom. In exomologesis, the sinner had to kill himself through ascetic macerations. Whether through martyrdom or through obedience to a master, disclosure of self is the renunciation of one's own self. In exagoreusis, on the other hand, you show that, in permanently obeying a master, you are renouncing your will and yourself.

This praxis continues from the beginning of Christianity to the seventeenth century. The inauguration of penance in the in the thirteenth century is an important step in its rise.

This theme of renunciation is very important. Throughout Christianity there is a correlation between disclosure of the self, dramatic or verbalised, and the renunciation of self. My hypothesis from looking at these two techniques is that it's the second one, verbalisation, which becomes more important. From the eighteenth century to the present, the techniques of verbalisation have been reinserted in a different context by the so called humanities in order to use them without renunciation of the self but to constitute, positively, a new self. To use these techniques without renouncing oneself constitutes a decisive break.

TECHNOLOGIES of the SELF
A Seminar with Michel Foucault