BENEDICTINE
443
BENEDICTINE
Benedict -n-as proclaimed Venerable by Pius IX in
18.59 and canonized by Leo XIII S December, 1881.
His feast is kept on the 16th of April, the day of his
death.
Bieg Vnir. (Paris. 18tl-2S): Biog. Eccles. CompUta (Madrid, ISo/); Uie of Venerable Benedict Joseph Labre, French tr., Bahxard (London, 1785): Life of Oie Venerable Servant of God, Benedict Joseph Labre (Oratorian Series London, ISoO).
Joseph F. Del-^nt. Benedictine Order, The, comprises monks liv- ing imder the Rule of St. Benedict, and commonly known as "black monks". The order will be con- sidered in this article under the following sections: I. History of the Order; II. Lay brothers, Oblates, Confraters, and Xuns; III. Influence and Work of the Order; IV. Present Condition of the Order; V. Benedictines of Special Distinction; VI. Other Foun- dations Originating from, or Based upon, the Order.
I. History of the Order. — The term Order as here appl to the spiritual family of St. Benedict is used in a sense differing somewhat from that in which it is applied to other religious or- ders. In its ordinary meaning the term im- plies one complete religious family, made up of a number of monasteries, all of which are subject to a common superior or "general" who usvi- ally resides either in Home or in the mother-house of the order, if there be one. It may be divitled into Tarious provinces, ac- ■cording to the coun- tries over which it is spread, each provin- cial head being im- mediately subject to "the general, just as the superior of each house is subject to his own provincial. This system of centralized authority has never ■entered into the or- ganization of the Benedictine Order. There is no general -or common superior Xm. Ahbh- .
over the whole order
other than the pope himself, and the order consists, so to speak, of what are practically a number of or- ders, called "congregations", each of which is autonomous; all are united, not under the obedi- ence to one general superior, bvit only by the spiritual bond of allegiance to the same Rule, which may be modified according to the circumstances of each particular house or congregation. It is in this latter sense that the term Order is applied in this article to all monasteries professing to observe St. Benedict's Rule.
Beginnings of the Order. — St. Benedict did not, strictly speaking, found an order; we have no evi- dence that he ever contemplated the spread of his Rule to any monasteries besides those which he had hiuLself established. Subiaco was his original founda- tion and the cradle of the institute. From St. Gregory we learn that twelve other monasteries in the vi-
cmity of Subiaco also owed their origin to him, and
that when he was obliged to leave that neighbourhood
he founded the celebrated Abbey of Monte Cassino,
which eventually became the centre whence his Rule
and institute spread. These fourteen are the only
monasteries of which there is any reliable evidence
of ha\-ing been founded during St. Benedict's lifetime.
The tradition of St. Placid's mission to Sicily in 534,'
which first gained general credence in the eleventh
centurj', though accepted as genuine by such writers
as MabiUon and Ruinart, is now generally admitted
to be mere romance. Ven.- little more can be said
in favour of the supposed introduction of the Bene-
dictine Rule into Gaul by St. Maurus in 543, though
it also has been strenuously upheld by many re-
sponsible writers. At any rate, evidences for it are
so extremely doubtful that it cannot be seriously re-
garded as historical. There is reason for believing
that it was the third
Abbot of Monte Cas-
sino who began to
spread a knowledge of
the Rule beyond the
circle of St. Benedict's
own foundations. It
i.s at least certain that
when Monte Cassino
was sacked by the Lom-
bards about the year
580, the monks fled to
Rome, where they
were housed by Pope
Pelagius II in a mon-
astery adjoining the
Lateran Basilica.
There, in the verj-
centre of the ecclesi-
astical world, they
remained for upwards
of a hundred and forty
years, and it seems
highly probable that
this residence in so
prominent a position
constituted an impor-
tant factor in the
diffusion of a knowl-
edge o f Benedictine
monasticism. It is
generally agreed also
that when Gregory
the Great embraced
the monastic state
and converted his
family palace on the
Ca?han Hill into a
monastery dedicated
IK .-^i iiuco to St. Andrew the
Apostle, it was the Benedictine form of monachisra that he adopted there.
It was from the monastery of St. Andrew in Rome that St. Augustine, the prior, and his forty com- panions set forth in 595 on their mission for the evangelization of England, and with them St. Bene- dict's idea of the monastic Hfe first emerged from Italy. The arguments and authorities for this state- ment have been admirably marshalled and estimated by RejTier in his "Apostolatus Benedict inorum in Anglia" (Douai, 1626), and his proofs have been adjudged by MabiUon to amount to demonstration. [Cf. Butler, "Was St. .\ugustine a Benedictine?" in Downside Review, III (1884).] At their various stopping places during the journey through France the monks left behind them traditions concerning their rule and form of life, and probably also some copies of the Rule, for we have several e^^dences of it^
