RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Benedict
Francesco Peggi a Bologna, 1729-58, ed. F. X. Kraus, Freiburg, 18S8; Opera inedita, ed. F. Heiner, St. Louis, 1904. Consult: E. de Martinis, Acta Benedicti XIV, 2 vols.! Naples, 1884-85; A. Borgia, Vie de Benolt XIV, Paris 1783; H. Formby, Life and Miracles of Benedict Xiv' London, 1858; A. von Arneth, Geschichte Maria Ther'esias, ii, 178, iv, 54 sqq., Vienna, 1864, 1870; M. Brosch, Geschichte dee Kirchenstaats, ii, 68, Gotha, 1882; Ranke, Popes, ii, 433-443, iii, No. 164.
BENEDICT OF ANIANE : The reformer of the Benedictine order in the Frankish empire. He was born about 750 in his father's county of Maguelone in Languedoc; d. at Inden (13 m. n.e. of Aix-Ia-Chapelle) Feb. 11, 821. His youth was spent at the court of Pepin and of Charlemagne, where, as a page, he had opportunity to distinguish himself in feats of arms. During Charles's first Lombard campaign, Benedict rescued his brother from drowning at the risk of his own life, and the shock brought to a head the resolve which had been slowly forming in him, to renounce the world and give himself to the service of God in the monastic life. This he entered in 773 at Saint- Seine in the diocese of Langres. Returning home in 779, he built a small monastery on his own land near the little river Aniane (where the town of Aniane, 16 m. w.n.w. of Montpellier, later grew up), which was replaced by a larger one lower down when the number of his disciples increased, and by a third still larger about 792. This became the center of Benedict's efforts for the reformation of the monastic life in the south and southwest of France. King Louis of Aquitaine, who had favored him from the outset, entrusted him with the oversight of all the monasteries within his territory, and the greatest churchmen, such as Alcuin and Leidrad of Lyons, sought his counsel. He had a wide knowledge of patristic literature, and forwarded the cause of education with zeal. He stood out as a champion of the orthodox faith against Adoptionism (q.v.), and wrote two treatises against it, the first of which is specially interesting as showing how close was the practical connection between Adoptionism and Arianism. His influence became still wider with the accession of Louis the Pious, who first brought him up to the Alsatian abbey of Maurmunster, and then, to have him nearer at hand, founded another for him at Inden, giving him the general oversight of all the monasteries in tne empire. He could now hope to accomplish his great purpose of restoring the primitive strictness of the monastic observance wherever it had been relaxed or exchanged for the less exacting canonical life. This purpose was clearly seen in the capitularies drawn up by an assembly of abbots and monks at Aix-la-Chapelle in 817, and enforced by Louis's order throughout the empire.
Benedict's chief works are compilations of the older ascetic literature. The first of them is called by his biographer, Ardo, Liber ex regulis diversorum ■patrum collecfus ; an enlarged edition of this was prepared by Lucas Holsten (published at Rome only after Holsten 's death, in 1661, with the title Codex regularum). The other work, called Concordia regularum by Benedict himself, is based on
the first; in it the sections of the Benedictine rule (except ix-xvi) are given in their order, with parallel passages from the other rules included in the Liber regularum, so as to show the agreement of principles and thus to enhance the respect due to the Benedictine. The Concordia was first published in 1638 by H. Menard of the Congregation of St. Maur, with valuable notes (reprinted in MPL, ciii). A third collection of homilies, to be read daily in the monasteries, has not been definitely identified. Benedict's place is in the second rank of the men who made the reigns of Charles and Louis glorious. He had not the breadth of view possessed by Charlemagne himself or by Adalhard, nor the lofty endeavor for a fusion of secular and spiritual learning of Paulus Diaconus and Alcuin. He was primarily an ecclesiastic, who zealously placed his not inconsiderable theological learning at the service of orthodoxy, but gave the best thing he had, the loving fervor of an upright Christian soul, to the cause of Benedictine monasticism.
(Otto Seebass.)
Bibliography: The Vita by Ardo Smaragdus, his successor as abbot, with preface by Henschen, is in ASB, 12 Feb., ii, 606-620, in MPL, ciii, and is edited by Waitz in MGH, Script., xv, 198-220, Hanover, 1887. There is a Fr. transl., Montpellier, 1876. P. A. J. Paulinier, St. Benoit d' Aniane et la fondation du monastere de ce nom, Montpellier, 1871; P. J. Nicolai, Der heilige Benedict, Grander von Aniane, Cologne, 1865; R. Foss, Benedikt von Aniane, Berlin, 1884; O. Seebass, in ZKG, xv (1895), 244-260; Hauck. KD, ii, 528-545.
BENEDICT BISCOP: First abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow; b. of noble family about 628; d. at Wearmouth (on the north side of the Wear, opposite Sunderland, Durhamshire) Jan. 12, 689 or 690. Biscop was his Saxon name, his ecclesiastical name was Benedict, and he was also called Baducing as a patronymic. He was a thane and favorite of Oswy, king of Northumbria (q.v.), but in 653 decided to abandon the world and went to Rome. He became a monk at the monastery of Lerins about 665, and was appointed by Pope Vitalian to conduct Theodore of Tarsus (q.v.) to Canterbury in 668. In 674 be began to build the monastery of St. Peter at Wearmouth on land given by Egfrid, king of Northumbria. In 681 or 682 he founded the sister house, dedicated to St. Paul, at Jarrow (5 m. farther north, on the south bank of the Tyne). He made six visits to Rome, learned the Roman ecclesiastical usages and the rules of monastic life, and strove faithfully to introduce them in England; he also brought back a rich store of books, vestments, pictures, and the like. He induced John, the archchanter of St. Peter's at Rome, to accompany him to England and instruct his monks; and he brought skilled workmen from Gaul to build his monasteries, including the first glass-makers in England.
Bibliography: The source for a biography is the life by his great scholar Bede, Vita beatorum abbatum, chaps. 1- 14, best and most accessible in the ed. of C. Plummer, i, 364-379, with notes, ii, 355-365, Oxford, 1896, Eng. transl. by P. Witcock, Sunderland, 1818; cf. also Bede, Hist, eccl., iv, 18, v, 19; Horn., xxv. Consult also C. F. Montalembert, Let Moines de V Occident, iv, 456-487, Pans, 1868; DNB.iv, 214-210.
Benedict