Christian History Magazine Collection

The “Father of Western Monasticism” spent his life teaching spiritual beginners about kindness, community, and prayer.

by Carmen Acevedo Butcher from Christian History magazine no. 93

Beside a lake, a monk wielded a scythe up and down in fluid arcs, clearing a thicket of thorns for a garden. He had hacked at the wild, tangled weeds most of the morning and stood briefly to wipe the stinging sweat from his eyes before returning to work. But when he swung the heavy scythe heavenward this time, its iron blade loosened without warning and flew from its wooden handle, landing with a splash far from shore. The dark water swallowed it up, along with his heart. His hand and the abandoned tool handle shielded his eyes against the sun while he searched the ripples for the blade. He began pacing beside the lake, thinking how hard tools are to replace. What will Father Benedict say?

The diligent, anxious monk-gardener was a Goth—a member of one of the pagan tribes marauding through Italy at the time. The abbot Benedict, however, had accepted this outsider into his monastery. Perhaps this Goth had once been a lowly soldier bullied by a sharp-tongued superior officer, or a servant beaten regularly with a stick. Whatever his former life, his panic at losing the tool’s blade suggests that he was accustomed to being berated whenever things went wrong.

When Benedict heard of the Goth’s dilemma, he sent no messenger to investigate, nor did he form a committee to look into the matter. He went himself and stood beside the Goth, who relaxed as he realized that he was not in trouble for losing a valuable tool. Benedict motioned for the scythe handle. The monk handed it over, then bent to rest his hands on his knees and studied the inexplicable movements of the abbot, who was sticking the scythe handle into the shallow water at the lake’s edge. Then, out of the corner of his eye, the Goth saw something pop up through the wet surface yards from shore. His body snapped to attention as he heard a soft splash and watched the iron blade glide across the dark water to meet the handle and reattach itself.

Benedict handed the repaired scythe to him, saying, “Here. Take your tool. All is well. Go back to work, but don’t be sad anymore. Stop worrying.”

The sixth-century pope Gregory the Great tells this story in his biography of St. Benedict, who is called the Father of Western Monasticism. Benedict’s birth around A.D. 480 coincided with an unstable, violent period in Italy. Wave after wave of pagans invaded while the Roman Empire collapsed. Benedict responded to the anarchy of his time by founding monastic communities built on the ideal of cultivating a family spirit among the monks, on disciplined daily worship, on a balanced and non-competitive approach towards fasting and other ascetic practices, and on the dignity of manual work for rich and poor alike.

Monastery after monastery based on Benedict’s Rule brought light into Italy’s darkest medieval days, and because the Rule has proved remarkably adaptable in the centuries since, its notion of balancing prayer, study, and work still informs the daily lives of peace-focused Benedictine monks, nuns, and oblates around the world.

Why did Pope Gregory take time out of his busy schedule to write a life of Benedict? It allowed him to present the ideal Christ-like pastor in vivid stories. Gregory had already described this pastoral ideal in his Liber pastoralis curae, or Book of Pastoral Care, which he finished a few years before composing Benedict’s story. Gregory’s Pastoral Care outlines the important spiritual duties of those who serve God: They must not put their own egos before divine concerns, and they must be sensitive and responsive to the idiosyncrasies of each member of their congregation.

The story of the repaired scythe shows Benedict as a hands-on abbot whose pastoral ministry helped others achieve peace in the minutiae of ordinary life. Benedict’s understanding of Christianity led him to accept and encourage people from all walks of life.

Benedict comes from the Latin word benedicere, meaning “to speak well of, to praise, to bless.” Gregory viewed Benedict’s name as synonymous with his ministry. Both focus our attention on the need to listen to others in order to see their unique, God-given strengths, and then choose the right words to encourage them. Both Gregory and Benedict believed that right speech is integral to right action. Benedict’s Christ-like care for others cannot be divorced from his “blessed” words of reassurance to all who knew him.

The Story and the Storyteller

Gregory’s Dialogues include the only ancient account we possess of Benedict’s life. Composed in 593, three years after Gregory’s elevation to the papacy and roughly one generation after the traditional date of Benedict’s death (547), the four books of the Dialogues describe the lives of Italian abbots and bishops as patterns of the Christian life. Gregory wanted to show a post-Roman Empire world that God was still in control despite plague, hunger, poverty, drought, pagan invasions, and division among Christians. Because our own age is scarred by similar problems, Gregory’s description of Benedict’s peaceful life still speaks to us all.

Gregory’s work is not a biography in the modern sense of the word but a hagiography, or “saint’s life.” Athanasius’ Life of Saint Anthony (c. 298) set the standard by which all later works of hagiography were judged. Saints’ lives featured common themes such as temptation, wilderness, hermithood, asceticism, miracles, and the nobly born protagonist who gives up his inheritance for the desert and communion with God.

Gregory never intended to write a chronological, historical account of Benedict’s life, but he conscientiously based his stories on direct testimony, establishing his authority by explaining that his information came from a handful of Benedict’s disciples who lived with the saint and were eyewitnesses to his miracles. What we know of Benedict, therefore, comes from an authentic medieval hagiography, and we should think of it as a genuine spiritual portrait.