Cuthbert returned with Eata to Mailros; and St. Boisil dying of the great pestilence, in 664, he was chosen provost or prior in his place.
In this station, not content by word and example to form his monks to perfect piety, be labored a.s.siduously among the people to bring them off from several heathenish customs and superst.i.tious practices which still obtained among them. For this purpose, says our venerable historian, he often went out, sometimes on horseback, but oftener on foot, to preach the way of life to such as were gone astray. Parochial churches being at this time very scarce in the country, it was the custom for the country people to flock about a priest or ecclesiastical person when he came into any village, for the sake of his instructions; hearkening willingly to his words, and more willingly practising the good lessons he taught them. St. Cuthbert {626} excelled all others by a most persuasive and moving eloquence; and such a brightness appeared in his angelical face in delivering the word of G.o.d to the people, that none of them durst conceal from him any part of their misbehavior, but all laid their conscience open before him, and endeavored by his injunctions and counsels to expiate the sins they had confessed, by worthy fruits of penance. He chiefly visited those villages and hamlets at a distance, which, being situate among high and craggy mountains, and inhabited by the most rustic, ignorant, and savage people, were the less frequented by other teachers. After St. Cuthbert had lived many years at Mailros, St. Eata, abbot also of Lindisfarne, removed him thither, and appointed him prior of that larger monastery. By the perfect habit of mortification and prayer the saint had attained to so eminent a spirit of contemplation, that he seemed rather an angel than a man. He often spent whole nights in prayer, and sometimes, to resist sleep, worked or walked about the island while he prayed. If he heard others complain that they had been disturbed in their sleep, he used to say, that he should think himself obliged to any one that awaked him out of his sleep, that he might sing the praises of his Creator, and labor for his honor. His very countenance excited those who saw him to a love of virtue. He was so much addicted to compunction, and inflamed with heavenly desires, that he could never say ma.s.s without tears. He often moved penitents, who confessed to him their sins, to abundant tears, by the torrents of his own, which he shed for them. His zeal in correcting sinners was always sweetened with tender charity and meekness. The saint had governed the monastery of Lindisfarne, under his abbot, several years, when earnestly aspiring to a closer union with G.o.d, he retired, with his abbot"s consent, into the little isle of Farne, nine miles from Lindisfarne, there to lead an austere eremitical life. The place was then uninhabited, and afforded him neither water, tree, nor corn.
Cuthbert built himself a hut with a wall and trench about it, and, by his prayers, obtained a well of freshwater in his own cell. Having brought with him instruments of husbandry, he sowed first wheat, which failed; then barley, which, though sowed out of season, yielded a plentiful crop. He built a house at the entry of the island from Lindisfarne, to lodge the brethren that came to see him, whom he there met and entertained with heavenly conferences. Afterwards he confined himself within his own wall and trench, and gave spiritual advice only through a window, without ever stirring out of his cell. He could not, however, refuse an interview with the holy abbess and royal virgin Elfleda, whom her father, king Oswi, had dedicated to G.o.d from her birth, and who, in 680, succeeded St. Hilda in the government of the abbey of Whitby. This was held in the isle of c.o.c.ket, then filled with holy anch.o.r.ets. This close solitude was to our saint an uninterrupted exercise of divine love, praise, and compunction; in which he enjoyed a paradise of heavenly delights, unknown to the world.
In a synod of bishops, held by St. Theodorus at Twiford, on the river Alne, in the kingdom of Northumberland, it was resolved that Cuthbert should be raised to the episcopal see of Lindisfarne. But as neither letters nor messengers were of force to obtain his consent to undertake the charge, king Egfrid, who had been present at the council, and the holy bishop Trumwin, with many others, sailed over to his island, and conjured him, on their knees, not to refuse his labors, which might be attended with so much advantage to souls. Their remonstrances were so pressing, that the saint could not refuse going with them, at least to the council, but weeping most bitterly. He received the episcopal consecration at York, the Easter following, from the hands of St.
Theodorus, a.s.sisted by six other bishops. In {627} this new dignity the saint continued the practice of his former austerities; but remembering what he owed to his neighbor, he went about preaching and instructing with incredible fruit, and without any intermission. He made it everywhere his particular care to exhort, feed, and protect the poor. By divine revelation he saw and mentioned to others, at the very instant it happened, the overthrow and death of king Egfrid, by the Picts, in 685.
He cured, by water which he had blessed, the wife of a n.o.ble Thane, who lay speechless and senseless at the point of death, and many others. For his miracles he was called the Thaumaturgus of Britain. But the most wonderful of his miracles was that which grace wrought in him by the perfect victory which it gave him over his pa.s.sions. His zeal for justice was most ardent; but nothing seemed ever to disturb the peace and serenity of his mind. By the close union of his soul with G.o.d, whose will alone he sought and considered in all things, he overlooked all temporal events, and under all accidents his countenance was always cheerful, always the same; particularly in bearing all bodily pains, and every kind of adversity with joy, he was invincible. His attention to, and pure view of G.o.d in all events, and in all his actions, arose from the most tender and sweet love, which was in his soul a constant source of overflowing joy. Prayer was his centre. His brethren discovered sometimes that he spent three or four nights together in that heavenly exercise, allowing himself very little or no sleep. When St. Ebba, the royal virgin, sister to the kings St. Oswald and Oswi, abbess of the double monastery of Coldingham, invited him to edify that house by his exhortations, he complied, and stayed there some days. In the night, while others were asleep, he stole out to his devotions according to his custom in other places. One of the monks who watched and followed him one night, found that the saint, going down to the seash.o.r.e, went into the water up to the armpits, and there sung praises to G.o.d. In this manner he pa.s.sed the silent time of the night. Before the break of day he came out, and having prayed awhile on the sands, returned to the monastery, and was ready to join in morning lauds.
St. Cuthbert, foreseeing his death to approach, resigned his bishopric, which he had held two years, and retired to his solitude in Farne Island, to prepare himself for his last pa.s.sage. Two months after he fell sick, and permitted Herefrid, the abbot of Lindisfarne, who came to visit him, to leave two of his monks to attend him in his last moments.
He received the viatic.u.m of the body and blood of Christ from the hands of the abbot Herefrid, at the hour of midnight prayer, and immediately lifting up his eyes, and stretching out his hands, sweetly slept in Christ on the 20th day of March, 687. He died in the island of Farne: but, according to his desire, his body was buried in the monastery of St. Peter in Lindisfarne, on the right side of the high altar. Bede relates many miracles performed at his tomb; and adds, that eleven years after his death, the monks taking up his body, instead of dust which they expected, found it unputrefied, with the joints pliable, and the clothes fresh and entire.[2] They put it into a new coffin, placed above the pavement, over the former grave: and several miracles were there wrought, even by touching the clothes which covered the coffin. William of Malmesbury[3] writes, that the body was again found incorrupt four hundred and fifteen years afterwards at Durham, and publicly shown. In the Danish invasions, the monks carried it away from Lindisfarne; and, after several removals on the continent, settled with their treasure on a woody hill almost surrounded by the river Were, formed by nature for a place of, defence. They built there a church of stone, which {628} Aldhune, bishop of Lindisfarne, dedicated in 995, and placed in it the body of St. Cuthbert with great solemnity, transferring hither his episcopal see.[4] Many princes enriched exceedingly the new monastery and cathedral, in honor of St. Cuthbert. Succeeding kings, out of devotion to this saint, declared the bishop a count palatine, with an extensive civil jurisdiction.[5] The great king Alfred, who honored St.
Cuthbert as his particular patron, and ascribed to his intercession some of his greatest victories, and other blessings which he received, was a special benefactor to this church.[6] The present cathedral was built in 1080. When the shrine of the saint was plundered and demolished by the order of king Henry VIII., the body of St. Cuthbert, which was found still entire, as Harpsfield testifies, met with greater regard than many others; for it was not burnt, as were those of St. Edmund, king and martyr, St. Thomas, and others. After the king"s officers had carried away the plunder of his shrine, it was privately buried under the place where the shrine before stood, though the spot is now unknown. His ring, in which a sapphire is enchased, was given by lord viscount Montaigne to the bishop of Chalcedon,[7] who had long been sheltered from the persecution in the house of that n.o.bleman,[8] and was by him left in the monastery of English canonesses at Paris, which is also possessed of a tooth of St. Cuthbert. A copy of St. John"s gospel, which, after the example of his master St. Poisil, he often read to nourish the fire of divine love in his soul, was put into his coffin when he was buried, and found in his tomb. It is now in the possession of Mr. Thomas Philips, canon of, Tongres, on whom the present earl of Litchfield bestowed it.
The copy is judged undoubtedly genuine by our ablest Protestant antiquaries, who carefully examined it.
The life of St. Cuthbert was almost a continual prayer. There was no business, no company, no place, how public soever, which did not afford him an opportunity, and even a fresh motive to pray. Not content to pa.s.s the day in this exercise, he continued it constantly for several hours of the night, which was to him a time of light and interior delights.
Whatever he saw seemed to speak to him of G.o.d, and to invite him to his love. His conversation was on G.o.d or heavenly things, and he would have regretted a single moment, which had not been employed with G.o.d or for his honor, as utterly lost. The inestimable riches which he found in G.o.d, showed him how precious every moment is, in which he had it in his power to enjoy the divine converse. The immensity of G.o.d, who is present in us and in all creatures, and whom millions of worlds cannot confine or contain; his eternity, to which all time coexists, and which has neither beginning, end, nor succession; the unfathomed abyss of his judgments; the sweetness of his providence; his adorable sanct.i.ty; his justice, wisdom, goodness, mercy, and love, especially as displayed in the wonderful mystery of the Incarnation, and in the doctrine, actions, and sufferings of our Blessed Redeemer, in a word, all the incomprehensible attributes of the Divinity, and the mysteries of his grace and mercy, successively filled his mind and heart, and kindled in his soul the most sweet and ardent affections, in which his thirst {629} and his delight, which were always fresh and always insatiable, gave him a kind of antic.i.p.ated taste of paradise. For holy contemplation discovers to a soul a new and most wonderful world, whose beauty, riches, and pure delights, astonish and transport her out of herself.
St. Teresa, coming from prayer, said she came from a world greater and more beautiful beyond comparison, than a thousand worlds, like that which we behold with our corporal eyes, could be. St. Bernard was always torn from this holy exercise with regret, when obliged to converse with men in the world, in which he trembled, lest he should contract some attachment to creatures, which would separate him from the chaste embraces of his heavenly spouse. The venerable priest, John of Avila, when he came from the altar, always found commerce with men insipid and insupportable.
Footnotes: 1. Cuthbert signifies Ill.u.s.trious for skill: or G{}bbertus, Worthy of G.o.d.
2. Bede, Hist. b. 4, c. 30.
3. L. 4, Pontif. Angl.
4. Dunelm, or Durham, signifies a hill upon waters, from the Saxon words Dun, a bill, and Holme, a place situate in or among the waters.
5. See Dugdale"s history of the cathedral of Durham; and Dr. Brown Willis on the same.
6. See Hickes, Thes. Ling. Septentr. Praef. p. 8.
7. Bp. Smith, Flores Hist. Eccles. p. 120.
8. Dr. Richard Smith, bishop of Chalcedon, relates in his life of Margaret lady Montaigne, that queen Elizabeth, out of her singular regard for this lady, from the time she had been lady of honor in the court of queen Mary and king Philip, tacitly granted her house a kind of privilege, by never, allowing it to be searched on account of religious persecution; so that sometimes sixty priests at once lay hid in it.
ST. WULFRAN, ARCHBISHOP OF SENS.
AND APOSTOLIC MISSIONARY IN FRISELAND.
HIS father was an officer in the armies of king Dagobert, and the saint spent some years in the court of king Clotaire III., and of his mother St. Bathildes, but occupied his heart only on G.o.d, despising worldly greatness as empty and dangerous, and daily advancing in virtue in a place where virtue is often little known. His estate of Maurilly he bestowed on the abbey of Fontenelle, or St. Vandrille, in Normandy. He was chosen and consecrated archbishop of Sens, in 682, which diocese he governed during two years and a half with great zeal and sanct.i.ty. A tender compa.s.sion for the blindness of the idolaters of Friseland, and the example of the English zealous preachers in those parts, moved him to resign his bishopric with proper advice, and, after a retreat at Fontenelle, to enter Friseland in quality of a poor missionary priest.
He baptized great mult.i.tudes, with a son of king Radbod, and drew the people from the barbarous custom of sacrificing men to idols. The lot herein decided, on great festivals, who should be the victim; and the person was instantly hanged, or cut in pieces. The lot having fallen on one Ovon, St. Wulfran earnestly begged his life of king Radbod: but the people ran tumultuously to the palace, and would not suffer what they called a sacrilege. After many words, they consented that if the G.o.d of Wulfran should save Ovon"s life, he should ever serve him, and be Wulfran"s slave. The saint betook himself to prayer, and the man, after hanging on the gibbet two hours, being left for dead, by the cord breaking, fell to the ground; and being found alive was given to the saint, and became a monk and priest at Fontenelle. Wulfran also miraculously rescued two children from being drowned in the sea, in honor of the idols. Radbod, who had been an eye-witness to this last miracle, promised to become a Christian, and was instructed among the catechumens. But his criminal delays rendered him unworthy such a mercy.
As he was going to step into the baptismal font, he asked where the great number of his ancestors and n.o.bles were in the next world. The saint replied, that h.e.l.l is the portion of all who die guilty of idolatry. At which the prince drew back, and refused to be baptized, saying, he would go with the greater number. This tyrant sent afterwards to St. Willebrord, to treat with him about his conversion; but before the arrival of the saint, was found dead. St. Wulfran retired to Fontenelle, that he might prepare himself for death, and died there on the 20th of April, in 720. His relies were removed to Abbeville, where he is honored as patron. See his life, written by Jonas, monk of Foutenelle, eleven years after his death, purged from spurious additions by Mabillon, {630} saec. 3, Ben. Fleury, b. 41, t. 9, p. 190. See also the history of the discovery of his relics at St. Vandrille"s, accompanied with miracles, and their translation to Rouen in 1062, well written by an anonymous author who a.s.sisted at that ceremony, several parts of which work are published by D"Achery, Spicil. t. 3, p. 248, the Bollandists, and Mabillon. The Bollandists have added a relation of certain miracles, said to have been performed by the relics of this saint at Abbeville.
MARCH XXI.
ST. BENEDICT, ABBOT,
PATRIARCH OF THE WESTERN MONKS.
From St. Gregory, (Dial. l. 2, c. 1,) who a.s.sures us that he received his account of this saint from four abbots, the saint"s disciples; namely, Constantine, his successor at Monte Ca.s.sino, Simplicius, third abbot of that house, Valentinian, the first abbot of the monastery of Lateran, and Honoratus, who succeeded St. Benedict at Subiaco. See the remarks of Mabillon, Annal. Ben. l. 1, p. 3, and l. 2, p. 38. and Act.
Sanct. Bened. t. 1, p. 80. Also Dom. Mege, Vie de St. Benoit, avec one Histoire Abregee de son Ordre, in 4to. An. 1690. Haeften"s Disquisitions, and abbot Steingelt"s abridgment of the same, and Ziegelbauer and Legipont, Historia Literaria Ord. S. Benedicti, Ann. 1754, t. 1, p. 3, and princ.i.p.ally t. 3, p. 2.
A.D. 543.
ST. BENEDICT, or KENNET, was a native of Norcia, formerly an episcopal see in Umbria, and was descended from a family of note, and born about the year 480. The name of his father was Eutropius, and that of his grandfather, Justinian. When he was fit for the higher studies, he was sent by his parents to Rome, and there placed in the public schools. He, who till that time knew not what vice was, and trembled at the shadow of sin, was not a little shocked at the licentiousness which he observed in the conduct of some of the Roman youth, with whom he was obliged to converse; and he was no sooner come into the world, but he resolved to bid an eternal farewell to it, not to be entangled in its snares. He therefore left the city privately, and made the best of his way towards the deserts. His nurse, Cyrilla, who loved him tenderly, followed him as far as Afilum, thirty miles from Rome, where he found means to get rid of her, and pursued his journey alone to the desert mountains of Sublac.u.m,[1] near forty miles from Rome. It is a barren, hideous chain of rocks, with a river and lake in the valley. Near this place the saint met a monk of a neighboring monastery, called Roma.n.u.s, who gave him the monastic habit, with suitable instructions, and conducted him to a deep narrow cave in the midst of these mountains, almost inaccessible to men.
In this cavern, now called the Holy Grotto, the young hermit chose his abode: and Roma.n.u.s, who kept his secret, brought him hither, from time to time, bread and the like slender provisions, which he retrenched from his own meals, and let them down to the holy recluse with a line, hanging a bell to the cord to give him notice. Bennet seems to have been about fourteen or fifteen years old when he came to Sublac.u.m; St.
Gregory says, he was yet a child. He lived three years in this manner, known only to Roma.n.u.s. But G.o.d was pleased to manifest his servant to men, that he might shine forth as a light to many. In 497, a certain pious priest in that country, while he was preparing a dinner for {631} himself on Easter-Sunday, heard a voice which said: "You are preparing for yourself a banquet, while my servant Bennet, at Sublac.u.m, is distressed with hunger." The priest immediately set out in quest of the hermit, and with much difficulty found him out. Bennet was surprised to see a man come to him; but before he would enter into conversation with him, he desired they might pray together. They then discoursed for some time on G.o.d and heavenly things. At length the priest invited the saint to eat, saying it was Easter-day, on which it is not reasonable to fast; though St. Bennet answered him, that he knew not that it was the day of so great a solemnity, nor is it to be wondered at, that one so young should not be acquainted with the day of a festival, which was not then observed by all on the same day, or that he should not understand the Lunar Cycle, which at that time was known by very few. After their repast the priest returned home. Soon after certain shepherds discovered the saint near his cave, but at first took him for a wild beast; for he was clad with the skins of beasts, and they imagined no human creature could live among those rocks. When they found him to be a servant of G.o.d, they respected him exceedingly, and many of them were moved by his heavenly discourses to embrace with fervor a course of perfection. From that time he began to be known, and many visited him, and brought him such sustenance as he would accept: in requital for which he nourished their souls with spiritual instructions. Though he lived sequestered from the world, he was not yet secure from the a.s.saults of the tempter.
Wherever we fly the devil still pursues us, and we carry a domestic enemy within our own b.r.e.a.s.t.s. St. Gregory relates, that while St. Bennet was employed in divine contemplation, the fiend endeavored to withdraw his mind from heavenly objects, by appearing in the shape of a little black-bird; but that, upon his making the sign of the cross, the phantom vanished. After this, by the artifices of this restless enemy, the remembrance of a woman whom the saint had formerly seen at Rome, occurred to his mind, and so strongly affected his imagination, that he was tempted to leave his desert. But blushing at so base a suggestion of the enemy, he threw himself upon some briers and nettles which grew in the place where he was, and rolled himself a long time in them, till his body was covered with blood. The wounds of his body stifled all inordinate inclinations, and their smart extinguished the flame of concupiscence. This complete victory seemed to have perfectly subdued that enemy; for he found himself no more molested with its stings.
The fame of his sanct.i.ty being spread abroad, it occasioned several to forsake the world, and imitate his penitential manner of life. Some time after, the monks of Vicovara,[2] on the death of their abbot, pitched upon him to succeed him. He was very unwilling to take upon him that charge, which he declined in the spirit of sincere humility, the beloved virtue which he had practised from his infancy, and which was the pleasure of his heart, and is the delight of a G.o.d humbled even to the cross, for the love of us. The saint soon found by experience that their manners did not square with his just idea of a monastic state. Certain sons of Belial among them carried their aversion so far as to mingle poison with his wine: but when, according to his custom, before he drank of it he made the sign of the cross over the gla.s.s, it broke as if a stone had fallen upon it. "G.o.d forgive you, brethren," said the saint, with his usual meekness and tranquillity of soul, "you now see I was not mistaken when I told you that your manners and mine would not agree." He therefore returned to Sublac.u.m; which desert he soon peopled with monks, for whom be built twelve monasteries, {632} placing in each twelve monks with a superior.[3] In one of these twelve monasteries there lived a monk, who, out of sloth, neglected and loathed the holy exercise of mental prayer, insomuch that after the psalmody or divine office was finished, he every day left the church to go to work, while his brethren were employed in that holy exercise; for by this private prayer in the church, after the divine office, St. Gregory means pious meditation, as Dom. Mege demonstrates. This slothful monk began to correct his fault upon the charitable admonition of Pompeian, his superior; but, after three days, relapsed into his former sloth. Pompeian acquainted St.
Benedict, who said, "I will go and correct him myself." Such indeed was the danger and enormity of this fault, as to require the most effectual and speedy remedy. For it is only by a.s.siduous prayer that the soul is enriched with the abundance of the heavenly water of divine graces, which produces in her the plentiful fruit of all virtues. If we consider the example of all the saints, we shall see that prayer was the princ.i.p.al means by which the Holy Ghost sanctified their souls, and that they advanced in perfection in proportion to their progress in the holy spirit of prayer. If this be neglected, the soul becomes spiritually barren, as a garden loses all its fruitfulness, and all its beauty, if the pump raises not up a continual supply of water, the principle of both. St. Benedict, deploring the misfortune and blindness of this monk, hastened to his monastery, and coming to him at the end of the divine office, saw a little black boy leading him by the sleeve out of the church. After two days" prayer, St. Maurus saw the same, but Pompeian could not see this vision, by which was represented that the devil studies to withdraw men from prayer, in order that, being disarmed and defenceless, they may easily be made a prey. On the third day, St.
Benedict finding the monk still absent from church in the time of prayer, struck him with a wand, and by that correction the sinner was freed from the temptation. Dom. German Millet[4] tells us, from the tradition and archives of the monastery of St. Scholastica, that this happened in St. Jerom"s. In the monastery of St. John, a fountain sprung up at the prayers of the saint; this, and two other monasteries, which were built on the summit of the mountain, being before much distressed for want of water. In that of St. Clement, situate on the bank of a lake, a Goth, who was a monk, let fall the head of a sickle into the water as he was cutting down thistles and weeds in order to make a garden; but St. Maur, who with St. Placidus lived in that house, holding the wooden handle in the water, the iron of its own accord swam, and joined it again, as St. Gregory relates. St. Benedict"s reputation drew the most ill.u.s.trious personages from Rome and other remote parts to see him. Many, who came clad in purple, sparkling with gold and precious stones, charmed with the admirable sanct.i.ty of the servant of G.o.d, {633} prostrated themselves at his feet to beg his blessing and prayers, and some imitating the sacrifice of Abraham, placed their sons under his conduct in their most tender age, that they might be formed to perfect virtue from their childhood. Among others, two rich and most ill.u.s.trious senators, Eutychius, or rather Equitius, and Tertullus, committed to his care their two sons Maurus, then twelve years old, and Placidus, also a child, in 522.[5] The devil, envying so much good, stirred up his wicked instruments to disturb the tranquillity of the servant of G.o.d.
Florentius, a priest in the neighboring country, though unworthy to bear that sacred character, moved by a secret jealousy, persecuted the saint, and aspersed his reputation with grievous slanders. Bennet, being a true disciple of Christ, knew no revenge but that of meekness and silence: and not to inflame the envy of his adversary, left Sublac.u.m, and repaired to Mount Ca.s.sino. He had not got far on his journey, when he heard that Florentius was killed by the fall of a gallery in which he was. The saint was much afflicted at his sudden and unhappy death, and enjoined Maurus a penance for calling it a deliverance from persecution.
Ca.s.sino is a small town, now in the kingdom of Naples, built on the brow of a very high mountain, on the top of which stood an old temple of Apollo, surrounded with a grove in which certain idolaters still continued to offer their abominable sacrifices. The man of G.o.d having, by his preaching and miracles, converted many of them to the faith, broke the idol to pieces, overthrew the altar, demolished the temple, and cut down the grove. Upon the ruins of which temple and altar he erected two oratories or chapels; one bore the name of St. John the Baptist, the other of St. Martin. This was the origin of the celebrated abbey of Mount Ca.s.sino, the foundation of which the saint laid in 529, the forty-eighth year of his age, the third of the emperor Justinian: Felix IV. being pope, and Athalaric king of the Goths in Italy. The patrician, Tertullus, came about that time to pay a visit to the saint, and to see his son Placidus; and made over to this monastery several lands which he possessed in that neighborhood, and also a considerable estate in Sicily. St. Bennet met on Mount Ca.s.sino one Martin, a venerable old hermit, who, to confine himself to a more austere solitude, had chained himself to the ground in his cell, with a long iron chain. The holy abbot, fearing this singularity might be a mark of affectation, said to him: "If you are a servant of Jesus Christ, let the chain of his love, not one of iron, hold you fixed in your resolution."
Martin gave proof of his humility by his obedience, and immediately laid aside his chain. St. Bennet governed also a monastery of nuns, situate near Mount Ca.s.sino, as is mentioned by St. Gregory: he founded an abbey of men at Terracina, and sent St. Placidus into Sicily to establish another in that island. Though ignorant of secular learning, he was eminently replenished with the Spirit of G.o.d, and an experimental science of spiritual things: on which account he is said by St. Gregory the Great to have been "learnedly ignorant and wisely unlettered."[6]
For the alphabet of this great man is infinitely more desirable than all the empty science of the world, as St. a.r.s.enius said of St. Antony. From certain very ancient pictures of St. Benedict, and old inscriptions, {634} Mabillon proves this saint to have been in holy orders, and a deacon. Several moderns say he was a priest; but, as Muratori observes, without grounds.[7] By the account which St. Gregory has given us of his life, it appears that he preached sometimes in neighboring places, and that a boundless charity opening his hand, he distributed among the needy all that he had on earth, to lay up his whole treasure in heaven.
St. Bennet, possessing perfectly the science of the saints, and being enabled by the Holy Ghost to be the guide of innumerable souls in the most sublime paths of Christian perfection, compiled a monastic rule, which, for wisdom and discretion, St. Gregory the Great preferred to all other rules; and which was afterwards adopted, for some time, by all the monks of the West. It is princ.i.p.ally founded on silence, solitude, prayer, humility, and obedience.[8]
St. Bennet calls his Order a school in which men learn how to serve G.o.d: and his life was to his disciples a perfect model for their imitation, and a transcript of his rule. Being chosen by G.o.d, 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. He seemed, like another Eliseus, endued by G.o.d 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 heaviest stone light in building his monastery by a short prayer, and, in presence of a mult.i.tude of people, raised to life a novice who had been crushed by the fall of a wall at Mount Ca.s.sino. He foretold, with {635} many tears, that this monastery should be profaned and destroyed; which happened forty years after, when the Lombards demolished it about the year 580. He added, that he had scarce been able to obtain of G.o.d that the inhabitants should be saved.[9] It was strictly forbid by the rule of St. Benedict, for any monk to eat out of his monastery, unless he was at such a distance {636} that he could not return home that day, and this rule, says Saint Gregory, was inviolably observed. Indeed, nothing more dangerously engages monks in the commerce of the world; nothing more enervates in them the discipline of abstinence and mortification, than for them to eat and drink with seculars abroad. St. Gregory tells us, that St.
Bennet knew by revelation the fault of one of his monks who had accepted of an invitation to take some refreshment when he was abroad on business.[10] A messenger who brought the saint a present of two bottles of wine, and had hid one of them, was put in mind by him to beware of drinking of the other, in which he afterwards found a serpent. One of the monks, after preaching to the nuns, had accepted of some handkerchiefs from them, which he hid in his bosom; but the saint, upon his return, reproved him for his secret sin against the rule of holy poverty. A novice, standing before him, was tempted with thoughts of pride on account of his birth: the saint discovered what pa.s.sed in his soul, and bid him make the sign of the cross on his breast.
When Belisarius, the emperor"s general, was recalled to Constantinople, Totila, the Arian king of the Goths, invaded and plundered Italy. Having heard wonders of the sanct.i.ty of St. Bennet, and of his predictions and miracles, he resolved to try whether he was really that wonderful man which he was reported to be. Therefore, as he marched through Campania, in 542, he sent the man of G.o.d word that he would pay him a visit. But instead of going in person, he dressed one of his courtiers, named Riggo, in his royal purple robes, and sent him to the monastery, attended by the three princ.i.p.al lords of his court, and a numerous train of pages. St. Bennet, who was then sitting, saw him coming to his cell, and cried out to him at some distance: "Put off, my son, those robes which you wear, and which belong not to you." The mock king, being struck with a panic for having attempted to impose upon the man of G.o.d, fell prostrate at his feet, together with all his attendants. The saint, coming up, raised him with his hand; and the officer returning to his master, related trembling what had befallen him. The king then went himself, but was no sooner come into the presence of the holy abbot, but he threw himself on the ground and continued prostrate till the saint, going to him, obliged him to rise. The holy man severely reproved him for the outrages he had committed, and said: "You do a great deal of mischief, and I foresee you will do more. You will take Rome: you will cross the sea, and will reign nine years longer: but death will overtake you in the tenth, when you shall be arraigned before a just G.o.d to give an account of your conduct." All which came to pa.s.s as St. Benedict had foretold him. Totila was seized with fear, and recommended himself to his prayers. From that day the tyrant became more humane; and when he took Naples, shortly after, treated the captives with greater lenity than could be expected from an enemy and a barbarian.[11] When the bishop of Ca.n.u.sa afterwards said to that saint, that Totila would leave Rome a heap of stones, and that it would be no longer inhabited, he answered "No: but it shall be beaten with storms and earthquakes, and shall be like a tree which withers by the decay of its root." Which prediction St. Gregory observes to have been accomplished.
The death of this great saint seems to have happened soon after that of his sister St. Scholastica, and in the year after his interview with Totila. He foretold it his disciples, and caused his grave to be opened six days before. When this was done he fell ill of a fever, and on the sixth day would be carried into the chapel, where he received the body and blood of our {637} Lord,[12] and having given his last instructions to his sorrowful disciples, standing and leaning on one of them, with his hands lifted up, he calmly expired, in prayer, on Sat.u.r.day, the 21st of March, probably in the year 543, and of his age the sixty-third; having spent fourteen years at Mount Ca.s.sino. The greatest part of his relics remains still in that abbey; though, some of his bones were brought into France, about the close of the seventh century, and deposited in the famous abbey of Fleury, which, on that account, has long borne the name of St. Bennet"s on the Loire.[13] It was founded in the reign of Clovis II., about the year 640, and belongs at present to the congregation of St. Maur.
St. Gregory, in two words, expresses the characteristical virtue of this glorious patriarch of the monastic order, when he says, that, returning from Vicovara to Sublaco, he dwelt alone with himself;[14] which words comprise a great and rare perfection, in which consists the essence of holy retirement. A soul dwells not in true solitude, unless this be interior as well as exterior, and unless she cultivates no acquaintance but with G.o.d and herself, admitting no other company. Many dwell in monasteries, or alone, without possessing the secret of living with themselves. Though they are removed from the conversation of the world, their minds still rove abroad, wandering from the consideration of G.o.d and themselves, and dissipated amid a thousand exterior objects which their imagination presents to them, and which they suffer to captivate their hearts, and miserably entangle their will with vain attachments and foolish desires. Interior solitude requires the silence of the interior faculties of the soul, no less than of the tongue and exterior senses: without this, the enclosure of walls is a very weak fence. In this interior solitude, the soul collects all her faculties within herself, employs all her thoughts on herself and on G.o.d, and all her strength and affections in aspiring after him. Thus, St. Benedict dwelt with himself, being always busied in the presence of his Creator, in bewailing the spiritual miseries of {638} his soul and past sins, in examining into the disorders of his affections, in watching over his senses, and the motions of his heart, and in a constant attention to the perfection of his state, and the contemplation of divine things. This last occupied his soul in the sweet exercises of divine love and praise; but the first-mentioned exercises, or the consideration of himself, and of his own nothingness and miseries, laid the foundation by improving in him continually the most profound spirit of humility and compunction.
The twelve degrees of humility, which he lays down in his Rule,[15] are commended by St. Thomas Aquinas.[16] The first is a deep compunction of heart, and holy fear of G.o.d and his judgments, with a constant attention to walk in the divine presence, sunk under the weight of this confusion and fear. 2. The perfect renunciation of our own will. 3. Ready obedience. 4. Patience under all sufferings and injuries. 5. The manifestation of our thoughts and designs to our superior or director.
6. To be content, and to rejoice, in all humiliations; to be pleased with mean employments, poor clothes, &c., to love simplicity and poverty, (which he will have among monks, to be extended even to the ornaments of the altar,) and to judge ourselves unworthy, and bad servants in every thing that is enjoined us. 7. Sincerely to esteem ourselves baser and more unworthy than every one, even the greatest sinners.[17] 8. To avoid all love of singularity in words or actions. 9.
To love and practise silence. 10. To avoid dissolute mirth and loud laughter. 11. Never to speak with a loud voice, and to be modest in our words. 12. To be humble in all our exterior actions, by keeping our eyes humbly cast down with the publican,[18] and the penitent Mana.s.ses.[19]
St. Benedict adds, that divine love is the sublime recompense of sincere humility, and promises, upon the warrant of the divine word, that G.o.d will raise that soul to perfect charity, which, faithfully walking in these twelve degrees, shall have happily learned true humility.
Elsewhere he calls obedience with delay the first degree of humility,[20] but means the first among the exterior degrees; for he places before it interior compunction of soul, and the renunciation of our own will.
Footnotes: 1. Called by the Italians, who frequently soften _l_ into _i_, Subiaco.
2. Vicovara, anciently Varronis Vicus, a village between Subiaco and Tivoli.
3. These twelve monasteries were situated in the same neighborhood, in the province Valeria. Moderns disagree in their names and description; according to the account of Dom. Mege, which appears most accurate, the first was called Columbaria, now St. Clement"s, and stood within sixty paces from the saint"s cave, called the Holy Grotto; the second was named of SS. Cosmos and Damian, now St.
Scholastica"s; the third, St. Michael"s; the fourth, of St. Donatus, bishop and martyr; the fifth, St. Mary"s, now St. Laurence"s; the sixth, St. John Baptist"s, situated on the highest part of the rock, but from a fountain which St. Bennet produced there by his prayers, and which still subsists, it is at present called St. John dell"
Acqua; the seventh, St. Jerom"s; the eighth, Vita aeterna; the ninth, St. Victorian or Victorin"s, called from a martyr of that name, who is patron of the province of Valeria; the tenth, at the neighboring village Trebare; the eleventh, at St. Angelus"s; the twelfth, at a fountain near the ancient castle, called Roca de Bore. These monasteries have been all united in that of St. Scholastica, which remains in a very flourishing condition, and is regarded as the mother-house of the whole Order, being certainly more ancient than that of Mount Ca.s.sino. It is a member of the Congregation of St.
Justina, and though it is usually given in commendam, by a peculiar distinction, it is governed by a regular abbot chosen by the General Chapter. Of the rest of these twelve monasteries, only some cells or ruins remain. Besides the hundred and forty-four monks which were distributed in these twelve monasteries, St. Gregory tells us that the holy patriarch retained a small number with himself, by which it appears that he continued to live ordinarily in a distinct little monastery or hermitage about his grotto, though he always superintended and governed all these houses.
4. See Dom. Mege, p. 84.
5. It has been related in the life of St. Maurus, how he walked on the water to save the life of Placidus, then a child, who, going to the lake to fetch water, had fallen in; for to monasteries no distinction was shown to n.o.blemen or their children, nor were they exempted from their share in manual labor, or other severities of the Rule. Such exemptions and privileges granted to many on pretence of health, first opened the door to a relaxation of monastic discipline. Placidus said, that when he was drawn by Maurus out of the water, he saw over his head the melotes of the abbot, and seemed to be saved by it, whence the miracle was by the disciples ascribed to St. Benedict. Dom Haeften thinks by the melotes is meant a cowl, to which that name is given by Paul the deacon, and the Roman Order or Ceremonial. But most understand a habit made of skins of goats, such as the Eastern monks wore, in imitation of the ancient prophets, as Ca.s.sian describes. (Inst.i.t. l. 1, c. 8.) 6. Scienter nesciens, et sapienter indoctus.
7. {Footnote not in text} Annal. Bened. t. 5, p. 122, ad an. 543. See also Muratori, Script. Ital. t. 4, p. 217.
8. By it the abbot is charged with the entire government of the monastery. Seven hours a day are allotted the monks for manual labor, and two for pious reading, besides meditation from matins till break or day. But manual labor has been exchanged in most places for sacred studies and spiritual functions. The rule commands perpetual abstinence from flesh-meat, not only of four-footed animals, but also of fowls, which at that time were only served at the tables of princes as most exquisite dainties, as Mabillon shows from the testimony of St. Gregory of Tours. This law of abstinence is restored in the reformed congregation of St. Maur, and others.
The hemina of wine allowed by St. Bennet per day, in countries where wine and water are only drunk, has been the subject of many dissertations, this measure having not been the same at all times, nor in all countries. The Roman hemina, which was half a s.e.xtarius, contained ten ounces, as Montfaucon demonstrates, (Antiqu. expl. t.
3, l. 4, c. 7, pp. 149, 152,) and as Mabillon allows. (Praef. in Saec.
4.) Lancelot endeavors to show, in a dissertation on this subject, that St. Bennet is to be understood of this Roman hemina. Menard takes it to have been only seven ounces and a half. Mabillon (Pr. in Saec. 4, p. cxv.) and Martenne (in c. 40, Reg.) think the holy founder speaks not of the ordinary of Roman hemina, and understand him of the Grecian, which contained a pound and a half, or eighteen ounces. Calmet looks upon Lancelot"s opinion as most probable. He shows from the clear tradition of Benedictin writers and monuments, that St. Benedict"s hemina contained three gla.s.ses or draughts. See Calmet, (in c. 40, Reg. t. 2, p. 62.) But St. Benedict allows and commends a total abstinence from wine. The portion of bread allowed by this holy patriarch to each monk, was a pound and a half, or eighteen ounces a day, as it is explained by the famous council held at Aix-la-Chapelle in the reign of Charlemagne.
The holy rule of St. Benedict, which the great Cosmus of Medicis, and other wise legislators read frequently, in order to learn the maxims of perfect government, has been explained by a great number of learned and pious commentators, of whom Calmet gives a list, (t.
1. p. 1.) The princ.i.p.al among the moderns are Haeften, prior of Affligem, in twelve books of monastic disquisitions, &c. Steingelt, abbot of Anhusen, gave a judicious abridgment of this work. Dom.
Menard has written upon this rule in his Comments on the Concord of Rules of St. Benedict of Anian. Dom. Mege"s Commentaires sur le Rege de St. Benoit, in 4to. printed at Paris in 1687, have been much blamed by his brethren for laxity. Dom. Martenne published with more applause his Commentarius in Regulam S. Benedicti, in 4to., in 1690.
Son edition de la Regle est la plus exacte qu"on nous a donne; et son Commentaire egalement judicieux et scavant. Il ne parle pas de celui de Dom. Mege, qui avoit parut trois ans avant le sien; parceque ses sentiments relaches ses confreres, de sorte qu"en plusiers monasteres reformes de cet ordre on ne le met pas entre les mains des jeunes religieux Voyez le Cerf, Bibl. des Ecr. de la Congr. de St. Maur, p. 348. Hist. Literaria Ord. St. Bened. t. 3, p.
21. Dom. Calmet printed in 1734, in two volumes, in 4to., Commentaire Literal Historique et Moral sur la Regle de St. Benoit, a work which, both for edification and erudition, is far superior to all the former, and is the masterpiece of this laborious writer, though not entirely exempt from little slips of memory, as when St.
Cuthbert is called in it the founder of the monastery of Lindisfarne, (p. 18, t. 1.) The chief modern ascetical treatise on this subject is, La Regle de St. Benoit, traduite et expliquee par M.