SAINT BENEDICT OF NURSIA
(c. 480-c. 544), the patriarch of
Western monks. Our only authority for the facts of St Benedict's life is
bk. ii of St Gregory's
Dialogues. St Gregory declares that he
obtained his information from four of St Benedict's disciples, whom he
names; and there can be no serious reason for doubting that it is
possible to reconstruct the outlines of St Benedict's career (see
Hodgkin,
Italy and her Invaders, iv. 412). A precise chronology
and a pedigree have been supplied for Benedict, according to which he
was born in 480, of the great family of the Anicii; but all we know is
what St Gregory tells us, that he was born of good family in Nursia,
near Spoleto in Umbria. His birth must have occurred within a few years
of the date assigned; the only fixed chronological point is a visit of
the Gothic king Totila to him in 543, when Benedict was already
established at Monte Cassino and advanced in years
(Dial. ii. 14,
15). He was sent by his parents to frequent the Roman schools, but
shocked by the prevailing licentiousness he fled away. It has been usual
to represent him as a mere boy at this time, but of late years various
considerations have been pointed out which make it more likely that he
was a young_ man. He went to the mountainous districts of the Abruzzi,
and at last came to the ruins of Nero's palace and the artificial lake
at Subiaco, 40 m. from Rome. Among the rocks on the side of the valley
opposite the palace he found a cave in which he took up his abode,
unknown to all except one friend, Romanus, a monk of a neighbouring
monastery, who clothed him in the monastic habit and secretly supplied
him with food. No one who has seen the spot will doubt that the Sacro
Speco is indeed the cave wherein Benedict spent the three years of
opening manhood in solitary prayer, contemplation and austerity. After
this period of formation his fame began to spread abroad, and the monks
of a neighbouring monastery induced him to become their abbot; but their
lives were irregular and dissolute, and on his trying to put down abuses
they attempted to poison him. He returned to his cave, but disciples
flocked to him, and in time he formed twelve monasteries in the
neighbourhood, placing twelve monks in each, and himself retaining a
general control over all. In time patricians and senators from Rome
entrusted their young sons to his care, to be brought up as monks; in
this manner came to him his two best-known disciples, Maurus and
Placidus. Driven from Subiaco by the jealousy and molestations of a
neighbouring priest, but leaving behind him communities in his twelve
monasteries, he himself, accompanied by a small band of disciples,
journeyed south until he came to Cassino, a town halfway between Rome
and Naples. Climbing the high mountain that overhangs the town, he
established on the summit the monastery with which his name has ever
since been associated, and which for centuries was a chief centre of
religious life for western Europe. He destroyed the remnants of paganism
that lingered on here, and by his preaching gained the rustic population
to Christianity. Few other facts of his career are known: there is
record of his founding a monastery at Terracina; his death must have
occurred soon after Totila's visit in 543.
Continued on page two.
This article is from the 1911 edition of an
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