He was caught up in the monastic movement but ended by channeling the stream into new and fruitful ways. This is evident in the Rule which he wrote for monasteries and which was and is still used in many monasteries and convents around the world see Rule of Benedict. Tradition teaches that St. Benedict lived from to , though we cannot be sure that these dates are historically accurate.
His biographer, St. Gregory the Great, pope from to , does not record the dates of his birth and death, though he refers to a Rule written by Benedict. Scholars debate the dating of the Rule though they seem to agree that it was written in the second third of the sixth century.
Saint Gregory wrote about St. Benedict in his Second Book of Dialogues , but his account of the life and miracles of Benedict cannot be regarded as a biography in the modern sense of the term.
Gregory's purpose in writing Benedict's life was to edify and to inspire, not to seek out the particulars of his daily life. Gregory sought to show that saints of God, particularly St. Benedict, were still operative in the Christian Church in spite of all the political and religious chaos present in the realm.
At the same time it would be inaccurate to claim that Gregory presented no facts about Benedict's life and works. According to Gregory's Dialogues Benedict was born in Nursia, a village high in the mountains northeast of Rome. His parents sent him to Rome for classical studies but he found the life of the eternal city too degenerate for his tastes. Consequently he fled to a place southeast of Rome called Subiaco where he lived as a hermit for three years tended by the monk Romanus.
The hermit, Benedict, was then discovered by a group of monks who prevailed upon him to become their spiritual leader. His regime soon became too much for the lukewarm monks so they plotted to poison him.
Gregory recounts the tale of Benedict's rescue; when he blessed the pitcher of poisoned wine , it broke into many pieces. Thereafter he left the undisciplined monks. Benedict left the wayward monks and established twelve monasteries with twelve monks each in the area south of Rome. Later, perhaps in , he moved to Monte Cassino , about eighty miles southeast of Rome; there he destroyed the pagan temple dedicated to Apollo and built his premier monastery. It was there too that he wrote the Rule for the monastery of Monte Cassino though he envisioned that it could be used elsewhere.
The thirty-eight short chapters of the Second Book of Dialogues contain accounts of Benedict's life and miracles. Some chapters recount his ability to read other persons' minds; other chapters tell of his miraculous works, e. The miracle stories echo the events of certain prophets of Israel as well as happenings in the life of Jesus. The message is clear: Benedict's holiness mirrors the saints and prophets of old and God has not abandoned his people; he continues to bless them with holy persons.
He organized them into twelve communities of ten monks each and an abbot. He stayed there for about twenty-five years, as roman nobles would send their sons to St.
Benedict to be educated. Among the first were Saints Maurus and Placid, who came as young boys and stayed on to become two of St. During these twenty-five years that he stayed in Subiaco, he met resistance regarding the strict regime he required of the communities.
The success of his communities brought about envy and jealously, at least with one priest named Florentius. Florentius was known to spread lies about St. Benedict, though no one believed him. He tried to keep men from joining St.
Benedict, but men kept coming. It was said that Florentius even tried to poison a loaf of bread and deliver it to St. Benedict, begging him to accept it as a token of remorse. By the grace of God, St. Benedict realized the bread was poisoned. He was said to have given it to a raven, commanding the raven to take the bread to a place where no one would find it. In a final effort to ruin St. Realizing that Florentius would never stop his attacks on the community, St. Benedict moved his monks to Monte Cassino, in the imposing mountains of the central Apennines in Italy.
They built a new monastery on the summit, converting an old temple of Apollo into a chapel dedicated to St. His sister, St.
Scholastica, established a community of nuns nearby, and they would meet half-way in between once a year to break bread and discuss spiritual insights. It was at Mount Cassino where he wrote the final version of his Rule of life known as the Rule of St.
The Rule of Benedict he wrote for his monks was in part a reaction against the extremes practiced by some monks, particular those who lived in the deserts of the East. Left to their own devices, these monks, almost all of whom lived as hermits, would literally torture their bodies by depriving themselves of sleep, food and water. It was designed as a different way to achieve holiness and connection to God. The rule is divided into 73 short chapters, which focus on three main themes: Stability, Obedience and Conversion in Life.
Benedict never became a priest, nor did he intend to form a new religious order. However, his Rule and his spirituality not only influenced the growth of Western monasticism, but of Western civilization itself.
He died on March 21 ca. Benedict is well recognized in the later Dialogues of Saint Gregory , but these are sketches to illustrate miraculous elements of his career. Benedict was born into a distinguished family in central Italy, studied at Rome, and early in life was drawn to monasticism. At first he became a hermit, leaving a depressing world—pagan armies on the march, the Church torn by schism, people suffering from war, morality at a low ebb.
He soon realized that he could not live a hidden life in a small town any better than in a large city, so he withdrew to a cave high in the mountains for three years. Some monks chose Benedict as their leader for a while, but found his strictness not to their taste. Still the shift from hermit to community life had begun for him.
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