BENEDICT

From Agepedia

BENEDICT, St.; the founder of the first religious order in the West; born at Norcia, in Spoleto (in the present Ecclesiastical States), 480. In the 14th year of his age, he retired to a cavern situated in the desert of Subiaco, 40 miles from Rome, and, in 515, drew up a rule for his monks, which was first introduced into the monastery on Monte Cassino,inthe neighborhood of Naples, founded by him (529) in a grove of Apollo, after the temple had been demolished. This gradually became the rule of all the Western monks. The abbots of Monte Cassino afterwards acquired episcopal jurisdiction, and a certain patriarchal authority over the whole order. B., with the intention of banishing idleness, prescribed, in addition to the work of God (as he called prayer and the reading of religious writings), the instruction of youth in reading, writing and ciphering, in the doctrines of Christianity, in manual labors (including mechanic arts of every kind), and in the management of the monastery. With regard to dress and food, the rule was severe, but not extravagant. B. caused a library to be founded, for which the aged and infirm brethren [ordo scripiorius) were obliged to copy manuscripts. By this means he contributed to preserve the literary remains of antiquity from ruin; for, though he had in view only the copying of religious writings, yet the practice was afterwards extended to classical works of every kind; and the learned world is indebted for the preservation of great literary treasures to the order of St. Benedict. (See Benedictines.)