Founder of
western monasticism,
and influential pastoral theologian, born at Nursia in Italy, about
480;
died at Monte Cassino, 543.
The only authentic
life of Benedict
of Nursia is contained in the Dialogues
of St. Gregory the Great, Book 2, The Life and Miracles of St.
Benedict. [Editor's
note: This is a dated translation, but has the virtue of being in the
public
domain.] The Dialogues
are a character sketch than a biography and largely consists of a
number
of miraculous incidents. Although they illustrate the life
of the saint, they give little help towards a chronological account of
his career. St. Gregory's authorities were the saint's own
disciples,
viz. Constantinus, who succeeded him as Abbot of Monte Cassino; and
Honoratus,
who was Abbot of Subiaco when St. Gregory wrote the Dialogues.
Benedict was the
son of a Roman
noble of Nursia, and tradition makes him a twin with his sister
Scholastica.
His boyhood was spent in Rome, where he attended school until he had
reached
his higher studies. Then he left his father's house with a mind to
serve
God. He was between 14 and 20 at the time, but old enough to
understand
the dissolute and licentious lives of his companions, and to have
been deeply affected himself by the love of a woman. He was
capable
of weighing all these things in comparison with the life taught in the
Gospels, and chose the latter. He gave up a career as a Roman
noble.
If we accept the date 480 for his birth, we may fix the date of his
abandoning
the schools and quitting home at about A.D. 500.
Benedict does not
seem to have left
Rome for the purpose of becoming a hermit, but only to find some place
away from the life of the great city; moreover, he took his old nurse
with
him as a servant. They settled in Enfide, outside of Rome, in
some
kind of association with "a company of virtuous men" who were in
sympathy
with his feelings and his views of life. At Enfide, Benedict worked his
first miracle by restoring to perfect condition an earthenware
wheat-sifter
or sieve that his old servant had accidentally broken. The notoriety
which
this miracle brought upon Benedict drove him to escape still farther
from
social life, and "he fled secretly from his nurse and sought the more
retired
district of Subiaco."
On his way to
Subiaco, Benedict
met the monk Romanus, whose monastery was nearby. Romanus discussed
with
Benedict the purpose which had brought him to Subiaco, and gave him a
monk's
habit. By his advice Benedict became a hermit and for three
years,
unknown to men, lived in this cave above the lake. The monk apparently
visited him frequently, and brought him food.
During these three
years of solitude,
broken only by occasional communications with the outer world and by
the
visits of Romanus, Benedict matured both in mind and character, in
knowledge
of himself and of his fellow-man, and at the same time he became
respected
by those about him. On the death of the abbot of a monastery in
the
neighbourhood (identified by some with Vicovaro), the community came to
him and begged him to become its abbot.
Benedict was
acquainted with the
life and discipline of the monastery, and was skeptical but at length
agreed.
The experiment failed; the monks tried to poison him, and he returned
to
his cave. From this time his miracles seen to have become frequent, and
many people, attracted by his sanctity and character, came to Subiaco
to
be under his guidance.
For them he built
in the valley
twelve monasteries, in each of which he placed a superior with twelve
monks.
In a thirteenth he lived with a few he thought would profit more and be
better instructed by his own presence. He remained, however, the
abbot of all. He also established of these monasteries he began schools
for children.
The remainder of
St. Benedict's
life was spent in realizing the ideal of monasticism which is in his
Rule,
which, as St. Gregory says, is St. Benedict's real biography.
This article taken
largely from the Catholic
Encyclopedia, 1917
