Book Snippets

How St. Benedict dropped out of college to avoid falling into Hell

3 min • Digitized on July 10, 2024

#Doctors of the Church #Exhortation #What the Saints Say

From The Life of Saint Benedict, page 14
By St. Gregory the Great

THE LIFE OF SAINT BENEDICT

From the second book of the Dialogues of St. Gregory the Great, Supreme Pontiff.

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There was (in our time) a man most venerable for the holiness of his life, named Benedict, and whom this appellation suited exceedingly well; for he was blessed of God and abundantly endued with His graces.

From his earliest youth he possessed the heart and wisdom of old age. For even then, more sedate in his manners than is usual at that period of life, he followed not the allurements of sensuality, gave not way to pleasure, and permitted himself no worldly enjoyment.

While yet in this land of exile he despised the world with all its empty show and deceitful riches, although he had every opportunity of enjoying them as much as can be in this life; and he viewed them as a withered and barren tree from which no fruit may be expected.

Being of a very respectable family in the vicinity of Nursia, his parents sent him to Rome to receive a liberal education. But seeing that many of those who studied there allowed themselves to be swept down the flood of vice, and although it was his first entrance into the world, he resolved to fly from it, lest, becoming infected with its false maxims, he might be cast headlong into the abyss of sin.

Taking no pains then to acquire learning, he left his father’s house and estate, and, aspiring only to please God, he proceeded to seek one who had the power to invest him with the religious habit.

He thus departed from Rome, having made no progress in his studies; but his behavior in this case was an effect of his understanding (as to things divine), and shows that if he was untaught (as to human science) he was enlightened with the wisdom and with the light of the Gospel.

I have not learned all his deeds, of which I will relate here only a small part, recounted to me by four of his disciples: Constantino, a very venerable man, who was his successor in charge of the Abbey of Monte Cassino; Valentine, who for many years governed the Monastery of Lateran; Simplicius, who was the third Abbot (of Monte Cassino); and Honoratus, who discharges at present the same function in the Monastery of Sublacus, the first abode of the saint.