quite possibly simply the desire for holiness—he left secular
life to live as a hermit in Subiaco (about 40 miles east of Rome).
He was there joined by followers and founded a community,
possibly even a group of monasteries.o He moved with a small group of disciples to Monte Cassino
(midway between Rome and Naples) and founded the
monastery that became the mother house for all Benedictines,
surviving repeated destructions and rebuildings. The most
recent reconstruction followed the Allied bombing in World
War II to dislodge Nazi soldiers, who used the monastery as a
mountain fortress.• Benedict’s great achievement was his Rule for monks, composed
circa 540 in lapidary Latin. It is widely and properly regarded as
one of the most impressive constitutions ever composed, providing
a version of the monastic life possible to very ordinary people.
Earlier founders seemed to envisage monks seeking a harsh and
demanding regimen. Benedict sought to construct a life that anyone
with good will could live.
o Benedict did not make any claim to originality: His rule freely
acknowledges his debt to such earlier monastic teachers as
Basil, Augustine, and above all, John Cassian. In his epilogue,
he recommends these authors as spiritual reading.o Benedict’s modesty makes more puzzling the lack of reference
to a monastic rule on which he clearly relied, the anonymous
Rule of the Master. We know nothing about the origin of this
longer rule: Was it a draft for Benedict’s Rule, or was his Rule
an epitome? Whatever the literary relationship between the
two, Benedict’s genius is shown in the brevity and clarity of
his version.The Benedictine Rule
• The prologue sets the framework of the Rule, summoning the disciple
to “hearken to the words of the master” and return to God by way of
obedience after having turned away from God by disobedience.