Benedict
aint Benedict and his Rule are
much in the news of late, as Eastern Orthodox author Rod Dreher has recently released a book entitled The Benedict Option¸ discussing the application of Benedict’s ideals to contemporary America. Benedict was the founder of the Benedictine Order and the author of the Rule of Benedict, a guide for those seeking a more regimented, communal monastic life.
Although many Catholics today tend to view monasticism and Benedictine monasticism synonymously, in Benedict’s day, monasticism was more often than not eremitic (hermits).
The great desert fathers like Saint Anthony had already established a strong tradition of Christian spirituality centered on hermits living their lives in seclusion and prayer more than a hundred years before Benedict’s time.
Nevertheless, even from the Fourth century, there was some interest in forming cenobitic (communal) monasteries, the first of these likely being founded by Saint Pachomius.
Benedict was born into a wealthy family and came of age during the reign of the barbarians in Italy, following the fall of Rome. Still a young man of Benedict’s background had tremendous opportunities in life.
He rejected this life in favor of his calling to serve God as a monk. Finding Rome to be a city of degenerates, pagans, and worldly temptation, he retreated to the countryside, there to found a small community of Christians dedicated to a regimented life of prayer and work.
In order to provide a formal system of rules for the rapidly expanding monastic community, Benedict authored a set of rules regulating much of a monk’s conduct.
These rules, still in use today by some orders, are collectively referred to as the Rule of Saint Benedict.
Pope Gregory tells us of the many works performed by Benedict during his life. Here is where, perhaps, we begin to drift into the realm of legend, as Gregory tells us that almost all that he knows of Benedict is what he was told by four of Benedict’s monks: Constantinus, Honoratus, Simplicius, and Valentinianus.
He relates how Benedict experienced visions, performed exorcisms, was granted the gift of prophecy, raised the dead, and walked on water (or gave to another the power to walk on water).
Of course, none of these things is beyond the power of saint, yet we know so little of Benedict’s life beyond what we are told by Gregory.
Was he one man, or a series of holy men, known to Gregory through the stories of Benedictine monks? Some scholars believe that the latter is more likely, and Gregory’s use of the contemporary formula for writing about the lives of the saints makes it reasonable to believe that Benedict is merely a literary construct.
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