Benedict of Nursia

 

Have you heard of St. Benedict of Nursia? He was born in 480 AD and belonged to an illustrious Roman family who could trace their descent to the 4th century BC, the gens Anicia. A family which could boast of victorious generals, one was awarded a triumph in 184 BC, Consuls, Praetorian Prefects and, of course, senatorial status.

They were, it's claimed, the first senatorial family to convert to Christianity and went on to produce several short term emperors in the 5th century AD as well as popes, not least Gregory the Great. All this and more, imagine, if you can, their immense wealth, but back to Benedict.

The future saint went to Rome for his education and lived in one of the family's houses, perhaps on the Caelian Hill, where he would've received a classical education which, at that point, was very classical; rhetoric, grammar, philosophy, geometry(?) and all of that, no small thing. But, around the year 500 AD, during the reign of Theodoric, Benedict grew disgusted at the life of a wealthy Roman noble in the eternal city and moved from the metropolis to the country, to Enfide, some 40 miles distant.

Why did he do this? Because life in the big city contrasted, sharply, from his deeply held faith. Bear in mind, Rome at that point numbered around 300-400,000 people, and aristocratic bad behaviour was probably much as it ever has been and perhaps ever will be. Bear in mind, too, that this was the final period of Rome's classical grandeur before the Justinian reconquest of Italy ravaged the city in the following century.

Regardless, Benedict moves to the country to escape the wickedness of big city life. He leaves with his old nurse, whom he retains as a servant but, on performing a minor miracle, with all its subsequent notoriety, leaves Enfide and walks to nearby Subiaco (Sublaquem) where he sets up in a cave and becomes a hermit, practicing extreme asceticism. He goes on to found Western monasticism, but here's the thing.

The site of Benedict's cave was on the grounds of one of Nero's country villas, a vast arrangement of houses, baths and artificial lakes. This, curiously, had fallen into ruin by the 5th century and Benedict was, evidently, free to live there, devoting himself to holiness of life. Consider, all you pundits of late antiquity, the irony. Benedict forsook all worldy goods and ambition, and he was heir to plenty, to devote himself to the life in Christ. And he did so on the grounds of, I say again, one of NERO's villas.

This, to me, is remarkable and evidence of divine logic. From Subiaco, Benedict founds the great monastery of Monte Casino, and his famous Rule becomes the standard of Western monasticism in subsequent ages. 

If you read Benedict's Rule several times over, and you should, the character of the saint begins to be revealed. Benedict is urbane, vastly civilized, and at the same time immensely practical, he's all about the right ordering of communities of Christian men in pursuit of holiness. There is, too, no mistaking a man to whom command is written into his DNA.

Crux sacra sit mihi lux, non draco sit mihi dux.

Vade Retro Satana,

LSP