BENEDICT, St, the founder of the order of the Benedictine monks, was born in Italy about A.D. 480. He was sent to Rome when he was very young, and there received the first part of his education. At fourteen years of age he was removed from this to Sublaco, about forty miles distant. Here he lived a most ascetic life, having shut himself up in a cavern, where nobody knew any thing of him except St Romanus, who 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, whether many persons followed him, and put themselves under his direction; so that in a short time he was enabled to build twelve monasteries. In the year 528 or 529 he retired to Mount Cassino, where idolatry was still prevalent, a temple of Apollo having been erected there. He instructed the people in the adjacent country, and, having converted them, broke in pieces the image of Apollo, and built two chapels on the mountain. Here he also founded a monastery, and instituted the order of his name, which in time became so famous, and extended itself all over Europe. In this place, too, he composed his Regula Monachorum, which Gregory the Great speaks of as the most sensible and best written piece of the kind ever published. The period of his death is uncertain. He was looked upon as the Elisha 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.