BENEDICT, St, the founder of the order of the Benedictin monks, was born in Italy about the year 480. He was sent to Rome when he was very young, and there received the first part of his education. At 14 years of age he was removed from thence to Sublaco, about 40 miles distant. Here he lived a most ascetic life, and shut himself up in a cavern, where nobody knew any thing of him except St Romanus, who, we are told, used to descend to him by a rope, and to supply him with provisions. But being afterwards discovered by the monks of a neighbouring monastery, they chose him for their abbot. Their manners, however, not agreeing with those of Benedict, he returned to his solitude; whither many persons followed him, and put themselves under his direction, so that in a short time he built 12 monasteries. In the year 528, or the following, he retired to Mount Cassino, where idolatry was still prevalent, there being a temple of Apollo erected here. He instructed the people in the adjacent country, and having converted them, he broke the image of Apollo, and built two chapels on the mountain. Here he founded also a monastery, and instituted the order of his name, which in time became so famous and extended all over Europe. It was here too
that he composed his Regula Monachorum, which Gregory the Great speaks of as the most sensible and best written piece of that kind ever published. The time of his death is uncertain, but is placed between 540 and 550. He was looked upon as the Elijah of his time; and is reported to have wrought a great number of miracles, which are recorded in the second book of the Dialogues of St Gregory the Great.