§ 43. Benedict of Nursia,
GpEsoEnis M. : Dialogorum, 1. iv. (composed about 594 ; lib. ii. contains the biography of St. Benedict according to the communications of four abbots and disciples of the saint, Constantino, Ilonoratus, Valeutinian, and Simplicius, but full of surprising; miracles). Mabili.ox and other writers of the Benedictine congregation of St. Maurus : Acta Sanctorum ordinis S. Benedict! in ssBculorum classes distributa, fol. Par. 16G8-1701, 9 vols, (to the year 1100), and Annales ordinis S. Bened
* Jerome says, Eustochium hoped to pay the debts of her mothiT — probably by the help of others. Fuller justly remarks: "Liberality should have banks, as weU as a stream."
§ 43. BENEDICT OF NUESIA, 217
Par l703-'39, 6 vols. fol. (to 1157). Dom (Domnus) Jo=!. Dk MkoE Vie de St. Benoit, Par. 1G90. The Acta Saxctop.um, nnd I'utleu, sub Mart. 21. Montalembert : The Monks of tlie West, vol. ii book iv.
Benedict of ITursia, the fonnder of the celebrated order wliich bears his name, gave to the "Western monasticism a fixed and permament form, and thus carried it far above the Eastern with its imperfect attempts at organization, and made it exceedingly profitable to the practical, and, incidentally, also to the literary interests of the Catholic Chnrch. He holds, therefore, the dignity of patriarch of the Western monks. He has furnished a remarkable instance of the incalculable influence which a simple but judicious moral rale of life may exercise on many centuries.
Benedict was born of the illustrious house of Anicius, at Nursia (now Norcia) in Unibria, about the year 480, at the time when the political and social state of Europe w^as distracted and dismembered, and literature, morals, and religion seemed to be doomed to irremediable ruin. He studied in Rome, l)ut so early as his fifteenth year he fled from the corrupt society of his fellow students, and spent three years in seclusion in a dark, narrow, and inaccessible grotto at Subiaco.' A neighboring monk, Romanus, furnished him from time to time his scanty food, letting it down by a cord, with a little bell, the sound of which announced to him the loaf of bread. He there passed through the usual anchoretic battles with demons, and by prayer and ascetic exercises attained a rare power over nature. At one time, Pope Gregory tells us, the allurements of voluptuousness so strongly tempted his imagination that he was on the point of leaving his retreat in pur- Buit of a beautiful woman of previous acquaintance ; but summoning up his courage, he took off his vestment of skins and rolled himself naked on thorns and briers, near his cave, until the impure fire of sensual passion was forever extinguished.
' In Latin Siiblagueum, or Sublacum^ in the States of the Church, over thirtj English miles (Butler says "near forty," Monialembcrt, ii. T, " fifty miles") east of Rome, on the Teverone. Butler describes the place as " a barren, hideous chain of rocks, with a river and lake in the valley."
^18 TTOKD PERDD, A.D. 311-590.
Seven centuries later, St. Francis of Assisi planted on thai spii-itual battle field two rose trees, which grew and survived the Benedictine thorns and briers. He gradually beeamo known, and was at first taken for a wild beast by the surrounding shepherds, but afterward reverenced as a saint.
After this period of hermit life he began his labors in behalf of the monastery proper. In that mountainous region he established in succession twelve cloisters, each with twelve monks and a superior, himself holding the oversight of all. Tlic persecution of an unworthy priest caused him, however, to leave Subiaco and retire to a wild l)ut picturesque mountain district in the Neapolitan province, upon the boundaries of Samnium and Campania. There he destroyed the remuanta of idolatry, converted many of the pagan inhabitants to Christianity by his preaching and miracles, and in the year 529, under many difficulties, founded upon the ruins of a temple of Apollo the renowned cloister of Monte Gasshio^ the alma mater and capital of his order. Here he labored fourteen years, till his death. Although never ordained to the priesthood, his life there was rather that of a missionary and apostle than of a solitary. He cultivated the soil, fed the poor, healed the sick, preached to the neighboring jDopulation, directed the young monks, who in increasing numbers flocked to him, and organized the monastic life upon a fixed method or rule, which he
• Monaatmum Cassinense. It was destroyed, indeed, by the Lombards, as early as 383, as Benedict is said to have predicted it would be, but was rebuilt in 731, consecrated in 748, again destroyed by the Saracens in 857, rebuilt about 950, and more completely, after many other calamities, in 1C49, consecrated for the third time by Benedict XIII. in 1727, enriched and increased under the patronage of the emperors and popes, but in modern times despoiled of its enormous income (which at the end of the sixteenth century was reckoned at 500,000 ducats), and has stooi throujrh all vicissitudes to this day. In the days of its splendor, when the abbo; was first baron of the kingdom of Naples, and commanded over four hundred towns and villages, it numbered several hundred monks, but in 1843 only twenty. It haa a considerable library. Moutalcmbert (I.e. ii. 19) calls Monte Cassino "the most powerful and celebrated monastery in the Catholic universe ; celebrated especially because there Benedict wrote his rule and formed the type which wgs to serve as a model to innmnerable communities submitted to that sovereign code." He also quotes the poetic description from Dante's Paradho. Dom Luigi Tosti publishe(/ U Naples, in 1812, a full history of this convent, iu three volumea.