§ 43. BEJ^EDICT OF NDKSIA. 2 It)
fiimself conscientiously observed. His power over the hearts, and the veneration in which he was held, is illustrated by tlio visit of Totila, in 542, the barbarian khig, the victor of the Romans and master of Italy, who threw himself on his face before the saint, accepted his reproof and exhortations, asked his blessing, and left a better man, but fell after ten years* reign, as Benedict had predicted, in a great battle with the Grseeo-Koman army under ISTarses, Benedict died, after partaking of the holy communion, praying, in standing posture, at the foot of the altar, on the 21st of March, 543, and was buried by the side of his sister, Scholastica, who had established a nunnery near Monte Cassino and died a few weeks before him. They met only once a year, on the side of the mountain, for prayer and pious conversation. On tLe day of his departure, two monks saw in a vision a shining pathway of stars leading from Monte Cassino to heaven, and heard a voice, that by this road Benedict, the well beloved of God, had ascended to heaven.
His credulous biographer. Pope Gregory I., in the second book of his Dialogues, ascribes to him miraculous prophecies and healings, and even a raising of the dead.' With reference to his want of secular culture and his spiritual knowledge, he calls liim a learned ignorant and an unlettered sage.* At all events he possessed the genius of a lawgiver, and holds the first place among the founders of monastic orders, though his person and life are much less interesting than those of a Bernard of Glairvaux, a Francis of Assisi, and an Ignatius of Loyola.'
' Gregor. Dial. ii. 37. ^ " Scienter nesciens, et sapienter indoctus."
* Butler, 1. c, compares him even with Moses and Elijah. "Being chosen by God, like another Moses, to conduct faithful souls into the true promised land, the kingdom of heaven, he was enriched with eminent supernatural gifts, even those of miracles and prophecy, lie seemed, like another Eliseus, endued by God with an extraordinary power, commanding all nature, and, like the ancient prophets, foreseeing future events. He often raised the sinking courage of his monks, and baffled the various artifices of the devil with the sign of the cross, rendered the heaviesi stone light, in building his monastery, by a short prayer, and, in presence of a multitude of people, raised to life a novice who had been crushed by the fall of a wall at Monte Cassino." Montalembert omits the more extraordinary miracles, except the deliverance of Placidus from the vhirl pool, which he relates in the language of Bossuet, ii. 15.
220 TniKD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
§44. The Rule of St. Benedict.
The Regula Bexedicti has been frequently edited and annotated, best bj HoLSTEMUs : Codex reg. Monast. torn. i. p. 111-135; by Dom Martene: Conaraentarius in regulam S. Benedict! literalis, moralis, historicus, Par. 1690, in 4to. ; by Dom Calmet, Par. 1734, 2 vols.; and by Dom Chaei-es Beandes (Benedictine of Einsiedeln), in 3 vols., Einsiedeln and New York, 1857. Gieseler gives the most important articles in his Oh. H. Bd. i. Abtheil. 2, § 119. Comp. also Montalembert, 1. c. ii. 39 sqq.
The rule of St. Benedict, on which his fame rests, forms an epoch in the liistory of monasticism. In a short time it superseded all contemporary and older rules of the kind, and became the immortal code of the most illustrious branch of the monastic army, and the basis of the whole Roman Catholic cloister life.' It consists of a preface or prologue, and a series of moral, social, liturgical, and penal ordinances, in seventy-three chapters. It shows a true knowledge of human nature, the practical wisdom of Rome, and adaptation to Western customes ; it combines simplicity with completeness, strictness with gentleness, humility with courage, and gives the whole cloister life a fixed unity and compact organization, Avhich, like the episcopate, possessed an unlimited versatility and power of expansion. It made every cloister an ecclesiola in ecclesia, reflecting the relation of the bishop to his charge, the monarchical principle of authority on tlie democratic basis of the equality of the brethren, though claiming a higher degree of perfection than could be realized in the great secular church. For the rude and undisciplined world of the middle age, the Benedictine rule furnished a wholesome course of training and a constant stimulus to the obedience, self-control, order, and industry wliich Avere indispensable to the regeneration and healthy growth of social life.'
' The Catholic church has recognized three other rules besides that of St. Benedict, viz. : 1. That of St. Basil, which is still retained by the Oriental monks ; 2. That of St. A'jgustine, which is adopted by the regular canons, the order of the preaching brothers or Dominicans, and sevei-al military orders ; 3. The rule of St. Francis of Assisi, and his mendicant; order, in the thirteenth century.
' Pope Gregory believed the rule of St. Benedict even to be directly inspired, and Boasuet {Panegyric de Saint Benoit)^ in evident exaggeration, calls it "an