Join me today to meet a saint who inspired Western monasticism.
Name: Benedict of Nursia
Life: c. 480 - c. 547 AD
Status: Saint
Feast: July 11, March 21 for monks in the Benedictine tradition
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Zalla the Goth disliked Christians. Partly, this was because Zalla, like most of the Gothic people, was a follower of the heresy of Arianism. He thought that Jesus was not God but rather one of God’s creations. Yet this religious disagreement does not fully explain Zalla’s dislike of Christians. The Arian Goths had arrived in Italy decades earlier, and once there they had soon wrested power away from the last Western Emperor of Rome. Since then, though, the Goths had been fairly easygoing rulers. Their current king, Totila, had developed a grudging respect for some leaders of the Christians. Not so the warrior Zalla, who hated Christians in general and priests and monks in particular. And now a Christian peasant had fallen into Zalla’s clutches, and Zalla was making him pay.
Our sources don’t say why Zalla had chosen this particular peasant. Perhaps the peasant owed money or taxes. The peasant had nothing, and couldn’t pay. But Zalla was certain that the peasant had money hidden away somewhere. Zalla began to torture him. Finally, in desperation and pain, the peasant shouted out a lie that he hoped would at least buy him a few hours of rest. The peasant told Zalla that his secret stash of money did exist after all, and it was being kept safe by Benedict, the abbot of the monastery in the old pagan temple on Monte Cassino, midway between Rome and Naples in the centre of modern Italy.
Zalla had no intention of leaving the peasant alone while he went to get the money, so he tied the peasant’s arms and dragged him along up the mountain through the whispering woods to the monastery. Zalla barged in, shouting that he wanted to speak to Benedict. The Gothic warrior found the abbot sitting quietly and reading. Zalla yelled that Benedict had to get up and pay him the money he was keeping for the peasant.
Benedict looked up from his reading. But what got his attention was not the angry Gothic warrior in front of him, but the brutalized, tired peasant at the back. Under Benedict’s gaze, the ropes binding the peasant’s hands fell away, the cords dropping to the stone floor. Zalla watched in shock as his prisoner was freed. The schock turned to worry as he wondered what would happen if Benedict turned that quiet gaze on him. Deciding that he did not want to learn this the hard way, Zalla began backpedalling and asking Benedict’s forgiveness. But all Benedict did was call in a few monks, and tell them to make sure Zalla got a meal before he went home. And so Zalla would leave Monte Cassino with a full belly and an unsettled mind, and with the feeling that he had better not pick on the Christian peasants of Italy again.
The peasant who had lied and said that Benedict was holding onto his money might have acted out of desperation, but he was right about the power dynamic that had emerged in the lands of what had once been the Roman Empire. As barbarians flooded into the empire and caused its collapse, saints and other great men appeared to steer the course of history. Up North in modern Germany and France, Saint Vedast would persuade King Clovis of the Franks to become a Christian. To the East, in modern Austria, Saint Severin would appear to guide the people of what had been the province of Noricum. Rome in particular had benefited from the leadership of saints, ever since the first pope, Saint Peter, had settled at Rome and made his own last stand in the city. Now Blessed Boethius helped the downtrodden as he reinvented philosophy, and when Attila the Hun came to Rome’s gates, the only man with the courage to face him was the pope, Saint Leo the Great.
In Italy under the Goths, a kind of balance had emerged, upheld by the power of the Goths on the one hand and the moral authority of the Church on the other. It wasn’t perfect, but it was peace. And it was into this fragile moment of peace that Benedict was born in Norcia, Nursia as we sometimes spell it in English, in the hills to the North of Rome, around 480 AD.
We know that Benedict came from a reasonably wealthy family, because the family could afford to send Benedict to study in Rome. Young Benedict seems to have felt a religious vocation without knowing quite how to pursue it. He soon found his studies in Rome unsatisfying. He likely discussed the problem with his sister, possibly his twin, Scolastica, who would in time have her own religious vocation. Benedict probably explored the monasteries that were in Rome, but they were connected to big churches in the city. They were busy, worldly, and political. Benedict didn’t want any of that. He had read about the desert fathers of the third and fourth centuries, and their stories inspired him. It seems that by the time Benedict reached the conclusion that he would not find what he was looking for in Rome, his restless search had made an impression on many of the Christians of the city.
Finally, Benedict reached a decision. He left his studies and headed East. His first stop was in modern Affile, about 43 miles East of Rome. He was travelling with a servant, a woman who had been his nurse when he was much younger. At Affile Benedict discovered what we might call an intentional community, a group of Christians who were trying to live apart from the world, each person doing as seemed best to him. For a little while, Benedict stayed with them, but soon he began to see the limitations of this form of life that had no order or hierarchy.
And so Benedict left his servant in Affile and went North, to a place called Subiaco. The area had been the site of a pleasure palace built by one of the Church’s great persecutors, the Emperor Nero. The palace complex was near a waterfall, and the parts of the palace had been built on either side of the river, connected by a bridge. But there was no emperor of Rome anymore, and the complex had fallen into ruin. Strangely enough, the grounds of Nero’s palace had become a home for hermits and monks.
In the area, Benedict found an older monk who was willing to help him. The older monk showed him an isolated cave. It was so hard to climb into, that the older monk would lower food to Benedict using a rope.
Here at last was the solitude to which Benedict was being called. Alone with God, Benedict began ordering his own life around prayer and discipline. It wasn’t easy. He was a young man, and he struggled with temptation - including sexual temptations. On one occasion, he couldn’t get the memory of a woman he had met out of his mind. All he could think about was leaving his solitude and returning to the world. But as he felt his will begin to fail, Benedict reacted decisively and jumped into a thorn bush. The thorns tore at him, but his mind focused on the pain. He could think clearly again. Something seemed to have given way, and solitude became easier. By the time locals discovered the young man living in the cave and began bringing him gifts of food and asking him about their questions and fears, Benedict was established as a hermit.
By now Benedict was about thirty years old. A group of hermits who lived in the region had noticed his example and were impressed with his sanctity. They asked Benedict to come and be their leader. He hesitated, but finally let himself be persuaded. Benedict left his cave to become an abbot for the first time.
It did not go well.
The hermits had been impressed by Benedict’s simple, austere life. It apparently had not occurred to them that to be as Benedict was, they would have to live as he did. Benedict tried to reorganize and discipline the community, and soon it was in open revolt. Things came to a head when someone decided to correct the problem of their interventionist abbot by poisoning his drink.
Benedict received the poisoned cup and, as usual, he blessed it. The cup cracked, and Benedict understood what had happened. It’s an event memorialized on the popular Saint Benedict medal. Benedict is usually depicted with a cup to his right, and if you look closely you can see a venomous serpent emerging from it. The other side of the medal contains letters running around the perimeter, spelling out a strange and ancient exorcism: V. R. S. N. S. M. V. S. M. Q. L. I. V. B. It’s so old that the meaning of the letters was forgotten for several centuries after the middle ages and recovered through the discovery of an old picture that contained the key. The meaning is:
Vade retro, Satana; Numquam suade mihi vana. Sunt mala quae libas; ipse venena bibas.
Begone Satan, don’t tempt me with vain things. The cup you offer is full of evils; drink the poison yourself. (My translation)
The formula on the medal takes Benedict’s story as a symbol of a greater, spiritual conflict. Of course, Benedict’s situation in his first, failed attempt at building a monastic community was more mundane and more sordid. Benedict recognized that the people who had tried to poison him were only men, men whose mistake had been to overestimate their own capacity for discipline. He forgave them. Benedict sadly told them that he was not the abbot for them. He left his position and returned to his cave.
Benedict would not be alone for long. His fame had spread. People in Rome remembered the young student, and wondered if he had achieved the sanctity he was looking for. When they heard that he had, they came - or sent their sons. And so Benedict emerged from his solitude again to be an abbot for the second time. This time he planned to do things differently. Benedict had found it difficult for a single abbot to supervise many monks. So he set up many small communities, about twelve brothers living under a senior monk. Soon Benedict’s communities dotted the area around Subiaco, built with the abundant building supplies of the crumbling ruins that had once been the Emperor Nero’s palace.
Benedict had become a kind of abbot over many small communities. But this success provoked envy from an unexpected direction. A powerful local cleric, Florentius, felt his own influence waning. The problem was clearly not his management of his own church, Florentius decided. No, the issue was that Benedict was making him look bad. And so began a bizarre, one-sided vendetta in which Florentius set out to ruin what Benedict had built in increasingly inventive ways.
Florentius turned out to have a knack for revenge. Was Benedict trying to help young men to live a contemplative life away from temptations? Florentius would bring temptations to them. He paid prostitutes to dance naked in front of a monastery. Of course the real problem, his true enemy, as Florentius had decided, was Benedict himself. And so Florentius tried to assassinate him by poisoning the bread headed for Benedict’s table. Once again, Benedict noticed the attempted poisoning. Benedict had trained a raven to eat from his hand, and he handed the poisoned loaf to the big bird and told it to go and drop it far away where no one would find and eat it. The bird flapped off, returning after several hours. The raven too appears on the medal of Saint Benedict.
Florentius and his strange vendetta helped Benedict to reach a decision. Perhaps if Florentius had been attacking the community in general, Benedict would have stayed to defend it. As things were, he came to think that his own departure might help. It connected to a plan which Benedict had been forming for a new kind of community. He made sure his monasteries were in good hands, and set off Southeast. He was fifty years old.
As Benedict and a few followers headed out of town, word came to Florentius that he had won. Florentius was delighted, and rushed out onto his terrace, perhaps hoping to catch a sight of the retreating monks. The terrace collapsed under his feet, killing Florentius in the fall. No one could miss the symbolism, and one of the monks who had been left behind sent a happy message to Benedict telling him that his enemy was dead and it was safe to return. But Benedict saw things differently. He shed tears for the memory of Florentius, aman who had hated him for no reason at all, and disciplined the monk who had rejoiced in Florentius’ death. And as for going back, Benedict had already set out and he did not plan to change his course now.
Benedict was headed to a wooded mountain known as Monte Cassino. The peoples of the ancient world had long understood that mountains were places where a man might encounter the divine. Thus the Greeks taught that the gods lived on Olympus. Moses climbed Mount Sinai to meet God, and Jesus revealed Himself to Peter, James and John on a mountaintop in the Transfiguration. Monte Cassino had long been considered a holy place, and there was an old temple of Jupiter on the mountain top. Benedict’s plan was to turn that temple into a church. He removed the idols - including a secret idol that had been ritually buried on the site. In time, the old temple site became known as a place of prayer and healing.
Benedict’s sister, Scolastica, was in the area, living a monastic life as well. They were close enough that Benedict could visit her. Once a year, Benedict would go to see his sister, and the two would discuss their spiritual lives.
Benedict’s fame spread. The Gothic king Totila came to visit, although he decided to test Benedict’s famous insight by dressing up one of his lords in royal finery and telling him to pretend to be the king. The false king didn’t even manage to say anything before Benedict snapped at him to take off the clothes that did not belong to him, and Totila, now nervous, presented himself to the abbot and listened to his words.
It was here, at Monte Cassino, that Benedict produced what he is most famous for today: his Rule. It is a short book that serves a guide for setting up a community of monks or nuns. The Benedictine idea is often summed up in the Latin ora et labora, pray and work. But Benedict’s Rule goes well beyond this, explaining how to eat, how to sleep, how and when to pray. There is much in it for laymen as well, like the short, punchy pieces of advice that Benedict calls the “instruments of good works”. Here are the final few:
Shun arrogance.
Reverence the Elders. (Lv. 19:32)
Love inferiors. (1 Tm. 5:1)
For Christ’s sake, pray for your enemies. (Mt. 5:44)
Make peace with adversaries before the setting of the sun. (Eph. 4:26).
And never loose hope in God’s mercy. (J. Conor Gallagher translation)
One of the themes which runs through Benedict’s first biography is the abbot’s ability to look beyond appearances. One monk struggled to settle down in the monastery. Benedict tried to persuade the man to stay, but finally gave up and told him that he was free to leave. As the monk prepared for departure, Benedict prayed for him. The monk set off down the path that led away from the monastery where he got a shock. His way was blocked by an ugly creature that he recognized as a dragon. It opened its toothy mouth, and at first the monk thought it was threatening him. Then he realized it was beckoning him to follow along as he always had, and he suddenly understood he was seeing his path as Benedict saw it. This was the ugly temptation to abandon his vocation, revealed as it truly was. The monk hurried back to the monastery, now without the slightest desire to leave. This story also is worked into the Saint Benedict medal, on which the cross spells out the letters C. S. S. M. L. / N. D. S. M. D.:
Crux sacra sit mihi lux. Nunquam draco sit mihi dux.
Let the holy cross be my light. Let the dragon never be my guide. (My translation)
The community of Monte Cassino was flourishing. But as Benedict aged, the world changed again, and the peace in Italy came to an end. The mighty Eastern Emperor Justinian was determined to retake the lands that had belonged to Rome. His general, Belissarius, waged war on the tribes who had defeated the Roman Empire, including the Goths of Italy. The Goths were afraid that their subjects might be inclined to rebel, and they grew suspicious and violent. War returned to Italy, and with war came chaos and famine.
Many peasants now climbed the mountain looking for food. Benedict gave generously. When Monte Cassino ran out of food, he reassured his monks that help was coming, and even though no one had much to spare, they found sacks of grain piled in front of the monastery the next morning. Benedict himself knew that things would get worse before they got better. A new barbarian group was on the move: the Lombards. They were still far away, and they would not arrive in his lifetime, but Benedict told his monks that Monte Cassino itself would be overrun.
Toward the year 547, Benedict met his sister Scolastica for their annual conversation. When the day had come to an end, she asked him to stay. Scolastica wanted to keep talking until dawn. Benedict told her gently that he could not stay, he had to return to his monastery. There were rules about this sort of thing. He had written them. His sister surprised him by starting to cry. As Scolastica’s tears fell, Benedict heard rain begin to hit the roof. By the time a freak storm had blown in, making night travel impossible, Benedict had gotten the message. Throughout the night the holy brother and sister spoke about God. It would be their last conversation. Scolastica would die in the coming days, and Benedict had long known that his own death was not far off.
Saint Benedict and Saint Scolastica would be buried side by side in the old temple at Monte Cassino. And then, soon afterward, the Lombard invasion would roll into Italy, sweeping away what they had built. At least, it looked that way for a time. Yet even after the Lombards came, locals would still sneak up the hill to Monte Cassino to pray in the holy place that was now Saint Benedict’s tomb. And the Rule of Benedict would be passed on from monastery to monastery, copied and recopied and translated until it was in England, in Armenia, in the lands of the Franks. It would return to Monte Cassino as well. As Europe entered the middle ages, the Rule was so widespread that most Western monks and nuns were heirs of Benedict. Even the new orders that emerged would take inspiration from the Rule. The spiritual heirs of Benedict and Scolastica would spread, and count among their numbers nuns and monks, priests and bishops and popes, knights and lords and kings and emperors and hundreds upon hundreds of saints. They are with us today.
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Masterful. A pleasure to read.
Holy Benedict, pray for us!