Benedictine

“ On my return northward I visited the most famous of Christian monasteries,—the cradle of the Benedictine order,—Monte Cassino, and there met a young English novice, who introduced me to various Benedictine fathers, especially sundry Germans who were decorating with Byzantine figures the lower story, near the altar of St. Benedict. At dinner the young man agreed with me that it might be well to have a Benedictine college at Oxford, but thought that any college established there must be controlled by the Jesuit order. ”

“ Had it not been for monks and monasteries, the barbarian deluge might have swept away utterly the traces of Roman civilization. The Benedictine monk was the pioneer of civilization and Christianity in England, Germany, Poland, Bohemia, Sweden, Denmark. The schools attached to the Lerinensian monasteries were the precursors of the Benedictine seminaries in France and of the professional chairs filled by learned Benedictines in the universities of mediæval Christendom. ”

“ S. Benedict had contented himself with general directions for study; the Cluniacs prescribed the selection of a special officer to take charge of the books, with an annual audit of them and the assignment to each brother of a single volume.
“The followers of the Saint continued in their patient labour, praying, digging, and transcribing. The scriptoria of the Benedictine monastery will multiply copies not only of missals and theological treatises, but of the poems and histories of antiquity. ”

“ He founded a monastery at Subiaco, a little village near Rome, and afterwards the famous abbey on Monte Cassino, a high hill midway between Rome and Naples, which became the mother of all Benedictine monasteries and shone like a light in the Dark Ages. Benedict's ideal was to help men shut themselves off from the temptations of life and realize, as far as they could, the prayer "Thy kingdom come ... on earth as it is in Heaven." ”

“ In conclusion a word must be said on the Benedictine nuns. From the beginning the number of women living the Benedictine life has not fallen far short of that of the men. St Gregory describes St Benedict’s sister Scholastica as a nun (sanctimonialis) , and she is looked upon as the foundress of Benedictine nuns. As the institute spread to other lands nunneries arose on all sides, and nowhere were the Benedictine nuns more numerous or more remarkable than in England, from Saxon times to the Reformation. ”

“ It made every cloister an ecclesiola in ecclesia, reflecting the relation of the bishop to his charge, the monarchical principle of authority on the 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 which were indispensable to the regeneration and healthy growth of social life. ”

“ The greatness of the Benedictines did not, however, consist either in their agricultural skill, their prodigies of architecture, or their priceless libraries, but in their parentage of countless men and women illustrious for active piety, for wisdom in the government of mankind, for profound learning, and for that contemplative spirit which discovers, within the soul itself, things beyond the limits of the perceptible creation. ”

“ Here he founded, it is said, twelve monasteries, each of twelve monks with a "father" at the head of them (Dial. ii. 3) . Of these only two remain, "Il Sagro Speco" and "Sta. Scholastica"; the rest being in ruins, or merely oratories (Mab. Ann. ii. 1) . That of "Sta. Scholastica," so named after Benedict's sister, enjoys special privileges, and takes precedence among the Benedictine foundations even of Monte Cassino, as of older date (Alb. Butler, Lives of the Saints) . Several of the miracles ascribed to Benedict are connected with Subiaco. ”

“ Critical edition of the Benedictine rule by Wölfflin, Leipsic, 1895; in Migne's edition there is an elaborate commentary with many illustrative extracts and formulæ, as well as traditional glosses.
Additional source material: An abbreviated translation of the Benedictine rule may be found in Henderson, Select Historical Documents, 1892, and in full in Thatcher and McNeal, A Source Book for Mediæval History, 1905.
(a) Benedict of Nursia, Regula. (MSL, 66:246.) 1. Concerning the kinds of monks and their modes of living. It is manifest that there are four kinds of monks. ”

“ Benedict XIV., a native of Bologna, a man of marked scholarship and ability; a patron of science and literature, who did much to purify the morals and elevate the character of the clergy, and reform abuses in the Church.
Benedict, Biscop, an Anglo-Saxon monk, born in Northumbria; made two pilgrimages to Rome; assumed the tonsure as a Benedictine monk in Provence; returned to England and founded two monasteries on the Tyne, one at Wearmouth and another at Jarrow, making them seats of learning; b. 628.
Benedict, St., the founder of Western monachism, born near Spoleto; left home at 14 ”

“ Though Benedict was a great reformer of the monks by introducing [Pg 210] systematic labour into the spiritual life, and though his new order of things began with so fair a promise and had done wonders, yet the monks had by degrees yielded to the treacherous influences of fame, ease, and wealth. The Benedictine monasteries were filled with scholars, whose devotion was directed more to the preservation of classic texts than the performance of the Divine office; with luxurious monks, strangers to fasting and unused to vigils, revelling in the good things of life, and in their rich revenues ”

“ The Benedictines considered themselves the special wards of the Papacy, and a number of the Abbots of Monte Cassino, or monks belonging to the community, and of men who had been educated in the monastery, had been raised to the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The origin of modern medical teaching is thus closely associated not only with the Benedictines, but through them with the Popes, without whose encouragement and sanction the work would not have flourished as it did. ”

“ The Benedictines were so widely spread, so wealthy, and so powerful in the social relations which they maintained with the laity, that if they had continued to bring a balance of advantage to the Church and its rulers there would have been no need for the institution of new Orders. ”

“ The origin of this celebrated mediæval institution is involved in obscurity; it has been generally understood to have sprung from the monastery of Monte Cassino, founded by St. Benedict in the sixth century. St. Benedict probably possessed some medical knowledge, and it is certain that many of his order did. The Benedictines had houses in La Cava and Salerno. The legends of the wonderful cures wrought by St. Benedict would naturally attract crowds of sufferers to the doors of the learned and charitable monks. ”

“ Benedict in its rigour, and eat no flesh unless they are sick. The Benedictines were the most extensive and powerful order in England. All the cathedral convents, with the exception of the Augustinian monastery of Carlisle, were of this order, as were four out of the five that were converted into cathedrals by Henry VIII., viz. Gloucester, Oxford, Peterborough, and Chester: and all the mitred abbeys, with the exception of Waltham and Cirencester, which were Augustinian. In Ireland they yielded in importance and numbers to the Augustinians. ”

“ From the earliest systematic introduction of Christianity into England the Benedictines played an active part in the conversion of the people. They accumulated vast wealth, and secured for themselves a strong vantage-ground by the establishment of abbeys and monasteries. ”

“ Of course, so far as the usual forms, manners, and customs of cloister life are concerned, what has been already said of the monastic method of life generally, applies to nuns, with certain necessary reservations, as well as to monks and canons. It will be useful, however, to furnish the reader with some account of certain special features of female religious life. One of the most charming mediæval pictures of that life is given in an account of the abbesses of the Benedictine nunnery of Wherwell, in Hampshire. ”

“ There is no instruction to be had in Aquitaine, and but little in Francia. Lombardy, where I learned most, is the cradle of knowledge." So the satire makes Benedict speak of himself. Then it makes a monk sketch Benedict's sojourn at a convent in Angouleme: "He knows more than any man I ever saw. We have heard his chatter the whole day. O quam loquax est! He is never tired. Wherever he may be, standing, sitting, walking, lying, words pour from his mouth like water from the Tigris. He orders the whole convent about as if he were Abbot. Monks, laity, clergy, do nothing without his nod. ”

“ Benedict had made rules for the persons who wished to serve God, and to live apart from the world. They lived in buildings named monasteries, or convents; the men, who were called monks, under the rule of an abbot, the women, nuns, under an abbess. They took a vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience; lived and worked as hard as possible, and spent much time in prayer and doing good, teaching the young, giving medicine to the sick, and feeding the poor. They would fix their home in a waste land, and bring it into good order, and they went out preaching and convening the heathen near. ”

“ The one source of information regarding the life of Benedict of Nursia is the miracle-laden record of the miracle-loving pope Gregory the Great in the second book of his Dialogues. Benedict’s Rule comprises 73 chapters. The first principle of the monastic life is obedience to the Abbot, as representative of Christ. The choice of abbot lies with the brothers. Of serving brothers the rule knows nothing. The chief occupation is agriculture. Idleness is strictly forbidden. Charge of the kitchen and reading at table are duties performed by all the monks in turn week about. ”

“ Benedict of Nursia was born near Rome at the end of the fifth century. When a boy of fourteen he renounced the world, and, after many changes of abode, finally settled at Monte Cassino, and became the founder of that famous monastery, destroying the temple of Apollo that stood on its site. Benedict died in 543 A.D. Pope Grregory the Great (594-604) , the first real organizer among the popes, pressed the monks into the service of the church. It was the Rule of Benedict that he chose for his guidance, imposing it on a monastery that he himself had founded in Rome. ”

“ How useful must Benedict's library have been in ripening the mind that was to cast a halo of im [161] mortality around that old monastery, and to generate a renown which was long to survive the grey walls of that costly fane; for whilst we now fruitlessly search for any vestiges of its former being, we often peruse the living pages of Bede the venerable with pleasure and instruction, and we feel refreshed by the breath of piety and devotion which they unfold; yet it must be owned the superstition of Rome will sometimes mar a devout prayer and the simplicity of a Christian thought. ”

“ And gradually people began to call him their saint of the mountain, and to come to him for help in all their troubles. Thus the fame of his goodness spread wider and wider, until a company of monks who lived some way off sent and besought him to come and live with them and be their head.
Benedict was grieved to think of leaving his little cell which he had grown to love, and the simple mountain people, who so often came to him in their need. But he thought this was a call he ought to obey, so he sorrowfully set out and journeyed many miles till he came to the convent of the brothers. ”

“ Benedict is as important as any constitution that was ever drawn up for a state. It is for the most part natural and wholesome. It provides that, since every one is not fitted for the ascetic life, the candidate for admission to the monastery shall pass through a period of probation, called the novitiate, before he is permitted to take the solemn and irrevocable vow. The brethren shall elect their head, the [Pg 58] abbot, whom they must obey unconditionally in all that is not sinful. Along with prayer and meditation, the monks are to work at manual occupations and cultivate the soil. ”

“ Benedict, and assuming the habit. In short, he came to our convent dedicated to St. Peter the apostle and St. Ethelrida, [9] implored the favour of the monks, and engaged to put himself and all he had under their rule. But, alas! the evil spirit, through whose malice Adam fell in paradise, will never cease from persecuting his posterity to the last man who shall exist. God, however, whose providence ordereth all things in mercy and goodness, in his omnipotence bringeth good out of evil, and out of good what is still better. ”

“ Saint Benedict was the father of Western organized monasticism; he not only founded an order to which many religious houses already existing united themselves, but he established a rule for their government, which was adopted as the rule for monastic life by all such orders which existed in the Church down to the time of Saint Francis and Saint Dominic. What Benedict did for the monks, his sister Scholastica--who, being a woman, has received far less mention--accomplished for the nuns. ”

“ Benedict, and ten novices, besides six lay brethren, and other our chief servitors. We keep the monastic hours, duly rising at daybreak to sing our lauds, and lying down after compline, with the peace and blessing of Him who alone maketh us dwell in safety.
Our daily work is not light. We preach on Sundays and festivals in the priory church. We visit the sick. We instruct the youth in the elements of Christian doctrine. We superintend the labours of those who till the soil. ”