The Death of Scholastica

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Hello, I'm Dr. Elean Oaniga, and welcome to Gone Medievalrom History Hits. a podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history cover the greatest mysteries Gobpacking details and the latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the Normans From kings to popes to the crusades We delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were and how we got here Twards the end of the fifth century CE A young man arrives in Rome greatest city in the Western world Set there for an education for opportunity for the kind of future any ambitious family would want Beside him travels the woman who has cared for him since childhood his nurse The once steady, familiar presence in a place meant to shape him into something important Everything about this journey points forward Rome is supposed to make it. But instead Rome repels him This is benedictus the future St. Benedict And what he sees in the city is not Relegance notot virtue, not promise but moral confusion vanity and spiritual danger He's still young But he understands something decisive Stay here and he might gain the world while losing himself So he does something extraordinary He walks away. He leaves behind the road to success and status He gives up the education. the ambition The whole blittering machinery of Roman life And his nurse Loyal to him still goes with him Together they withdraw to a quieter place near Rome Trying to live simply, obscurely Payerully And then in that hidden life, something very small happens. Hisiters borrows a seieve ordinary household tool probably for preparing food. than it breaks Nad tips not cracks, it breaks into And suddenly this tiny little domestic mishap becomes a real sorrow because a borrowed item has been ruined Because in a hard life, even small losses matter Because sometimes the thing that undoes us isn't a grand catastrophe A little humiliation at the end of a long day. and she begins to weep and Benedict sees her esn't dismiss her distress Is't tell her, it's only a save He takes the broken pieces goes away to pray And as the story tells it, he weeps too picture that for a moment. The future founder of Western mononasticism, not in a pulpit, he's not before a king, he's not working some dramatic public wonder. He's kneeling over a broken kitchen tool praying out of compassion for the woman who raised him And when he rises Steve perfectly mended. It's restored so completely that there is no sign of the break within it at all. This is Benedict's first miracle. It's not a spectacle. There's no thunderbolt. It's just mercy broken thing that was made whole because somebody cared enough to pray Miracles don't stay hidden for long People hear about it. they come to see it And the downownspeople are so amazed that they hang the repaired sieve at the church door A sign, as a memory, as proof that something holy has happened in their midst and that is how the public story of Benedict begins A young man who fled the corruption of Rome A nurse in tears and a broken household object made whole by prayer Maybe that's why the story lasted becausecause it tells us right at the start exactly what kind of man Benedict would become Rome offered him greatness And instead He chose goodness A man who understood that holiness is not only found in grand gestures, but in tenderness, attention and the refusal to treat another person's grief as something small was this young man who walked away from Rome just when the world seemed ready to open itself to him What did Benedict see in the heart of a great city that made him turn from ambition, success, and status ' silence Prayer and solitude And how did that quiet, uncompromising choice shape the life of the man who would become one of the most influential saints in Christian history The patron saint of Europe and the founder of Western monasticism To explore the extraordinary story and legacy of Stain. Benedict, whose day is celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church mainly on the eleventh of July I am joined by Dror Tim Larson, McVanist prorofessor of Christian thoughtought and prorofessor of history at Wheaton College, Illinois We've spoken before on God medieval about Staint Francis of Assisi and the first Nativity play episode is well worth revisiting So I am delighted that he's agreed to come on the podcast again to help us know Staint Benedict just a little bit better Tim, weelcome back to Gone Medievil. I'm so glad to be here again Listen, the people clamor for more Tim, especially when it comes to chatting about Saints, which is one of my favorite things to do personally And This is one of these saints. you know, this is one of the things that the Medieval world is really obsessed with this guy. And so I think as a result of that All medievalists, we have to be obsessed with this guy H, Saint Benedict. Oh, Staint Benedict, you know, like someone needed to calm these monks down. Someone needed to get them out of the caves in the desert. so we've got Staint Benedict. and He's this really interesting character because he's living in like a really tumultuous time, you know some would say not right thinking people. Some would say that he's living after the fall of the Roman Empire, but I don't believe in the fall of the Roman Empire because I'm a good little medievalist, right Um I think that we have dissolved. into a series of successor states. That's what I would say But I do wonder what do you think about the idea that pererhaps Living through the instability of that, you know, moving from a really centralized imperial state to a more fracturous community of Sparate successor states Do you think that has something to do with Benedict's desire to kind of create order or stability and permanence, which is what we really see in his rule Wow, that's a wonderfully insightful connection between the political landscape and the rule Stability is absolutely central to Benedict's vision for what the monastic life should be like And stability is quite literally staying in the same place with the same people. Working it out in this place, not fleeing away because your problems are too big, not trying to find a better group of people who you can get along with more easily That does seem to chime in with what you're saying. There's a lot of temptation to flee or need to flee in this world. and what would it be like to stay he's a really interesting one too because this is I suppose that now when we think about monasticism, really we're thinking about This idea that he's come up with this set of ideals, you know, you know, you go to the monastery, you're attached to it. Granted, we talked about how Franz of Asisi really blows that wide open and you can do it in a city now But you always go back, right? You go back to that monastery, you go back to this centralized group of people And I mean to me, I think it's really striking because this guy's like a dropout. You know, Benedict, yeah, he's from this incredibly, you know wealthy family. He's a part of all of the most high flutin circles of Roman society But he doesn't finish his education And I mean, do you think that that has something to do with the fact that he's able to come up with this new concept as opposed to like, you know, the established sort of ictorian thinkers who are educated in the correct Roman way. you know, Kple C, Kple R His monasticism is not for the exceptional It is not for the exhibitionists. It is for the ordinary plotting person, which is what he is. I don't think he was great at his studies He's not like the kind of person who is, you know elite person from a Rotic family who has the world to do something with and chooses to kind of channel that in a religious direction rather than a political direction He's trying to create a nesticism for the mediocre Potters And he is doing that with the rule. Listen, I'll tell you what, shout out to anyone else who had to take medieval Latin as part of their educational process such as myself because one of the big tests we were given early on was we had to do the rulle of Stain. Benedict and when you say plotting, I'm like, yeah H it's not sophisticated Latin. It's really tricky in fact, because it's sort of vague. and you can tell that it kind of makes sense to anyone who's reading it within context. but when you're taking it outside of that context, it becomes quite difficult. You know, this is really in comparison to Yeah, the muckety mus at the top of the chain who would probably have, you know, perfect studious slat Right, You know, but I think that's quite perceptive of you ye. I don't know where'm going with. I'm praising you. sorry Take your time. It's interesting, right? because you've got Benedict on the one hand, but at the same time, he's got a twin sister, right? Scollastica. Scolastica. Uh I mean what a name. brring it back Yeah, I think it's fantastic How significant do you think it is that we have this like, let's be so real. Monasticism is a boys' club buy bros for bros. Yes, we invent nuns later, but they aren't the same thing, right But I think it's kind of significant that There's a woman involved in the origin and she's born at the same time as the founder of this really blokey idea I mean, am I just wanting to put women in? No, no. No. It's there So Basically everything we know about Benedict's life is from Gregory the Great's dialogues, where he does the life. And that life, which is the only life ends with St Alastica. The last miracle is not Benedict's, it's herers It's her. defefying him and getting her come up on him He is out in a pavilion meeting with her. And he's a good guy who follows the rule. And he's like, I got to go back to the monastery now and that's what the rule says She actually is acting prophetically because she's going to die in a few days. And she's like, no, you need to spend more time with me today. and we need to have longer fellowship together And he's like, no, the rule' the rule. I'm leaving And so she prays and brews up this tremendous storm that is so strong he can't leave the pavilion and has to stay there and continue to fellowship with his sister. And he's mad at her and says, You didn't do what I said. And she's like, That's right, but I asked the Lord and he did what I said just sur realal for that, you know, and I do think that that's an interesting one because it does show that there are still Th things that we owe one another, even within the monastic setting, you know you still kind of owe some kinship to your sister. you still do Oh something I mean, at least if your sister is also a saint that helps obviously. But you know, it's not just this complete and utter cutting of ties because you've come up with a pretty good rule Yes, and also part of the wisdom is to know when the rules should be bent And so if you're so rigid about rules, you're not really living a life giving rule L look let's let's go back to the founding of this, right? Because here's Benedict. we've already We've already mentioned it, he's supposed to be studying law. He's supposed to be studying liberal arts as a good little Roman boy would do A heat Gs to Rome And he doesn't seem to like it very much. I mean, do you think that him running away from Rome is this kind of turning away from failure of educated classes, right to actually offer anything meaningful, right? Because he really seems to think of Rome as this sort of cess pit. so Do you think I'm reading too much into that or is this is this kind of like a real turning point for him It is the turning point and I do think it is a kind of acuity to the whole life that he's chosen. total sort of way, I think you're right that it is something about maybe this education isn't actually serving human formation the way that it ought to or the way that I think it ought to happen. I think he is seeing all kinds of worldliness in Rome that is confusing and depressing him The interesting thing about what happens next is he does monasticism the wrong way. The way in the rule, he will say, you don't do it He actually tries first this kind of extreme sport monasticism where he's living completely alone as a hermit in a cave, having his food lowered down to him by a rope He's so isolated that he doesn't know it's Easter when it's Easter. That's how off the grid he is And what's fascinating is the rule will tell you very clearly this is the wrong way to go about being a monke. and yet it's the way that he tries first I have a really great quote about the desert Fathers that I've taken from Professor Peter Heather front of the podcast and indeed one of my mentors when I was in my PhD. You know he says about the desert fathers, the guys in the cave He says Ariat's a bunch of guys who are living in the caves trying not to wank. Oh Yeah. So yeah, he is refuting That again, I think the extreme sports thing is the way that I see it. Like Simeian stylights, you like you build a column that's whatever fifteen feet tall and you live on it. whyy do you do that? Just because it's difficult But it's also like difficult in the most public way possible. And so you are like ostentatiously showing off how aesthetic you can live And that is what Benedict is going to correct. That's the fifth century. In the sixth century, Benedict is going say, let's try a moderate sustainable kind of nasticism, which is not showing off, which is not just for the people with superhuman wills or super big egos J just ordinary people living a moderate enough rule that anybody of good faith can keep up with it and not be crushed Do you think that there's a kind of something to the fact that we have all of these people who are running off to caves himself included. Do you think that that says something about kind of the limits of what Roman culture R Yeah because on the one hand, you've got this world that is at least they're characterizing it as decadent. You know, the sort of thing that makes you say if I'm going to get anywhere, I'm going to go run and live in a cave, right? You know, I have to kind of get so far away from this that I don't have a possibility of being involved with the idea of temptation. It's a pnnial. kind of issue in Christianity? Can you live in the world without becoming worldly? And there are bad ways of doing it, which have been tried in every direction And finding the right way to do it is much harder. And so one simple solution is, what if I am just physically cut off from these temptations? Would that be a way to actually live this life And that's the one he tries first So Gregory in his life with like quote time, I've got a good quote for you Gregory says that Benedict stands apart from Rome's lifes sensseliousness like a man knownowingly poisoned who steps back before drinking. And I think this is really interesting because it's like on the one hand, we can say, okay, well, here's a guy to sees himself as being influenced, right? And he's trying not to give into this. So you could say this is a kind of moral heroism, right? But on the other hand, You could also say, okay, this is someone who is like unable to live with ordinary humans who are just having a nice time and partying, right? Like they could also be seen as I don't know, a moral disgust as opposed to heroism, justust, you know being too shocked to even live alongside the ordinary. I think that is a fair kind of vein to mind for sure. you know, And that's why when we get to Stain. Francis, it's like maybe the heroic thing be to be out there amongst the people living this life rather than being sheltered from that life He comes to the miracle game really early on. That's one thing that's quite interesting about him. like I mean Ordinarily, you kind of got to take a run up to it for a while. when you are one of the medieval But he's got this very early miracle and it seems like very funny because it's quite domestic. It's like really homespun, right? You know, and later on, he's getting the cosmic visions's the whole nine yards But C he tell us a little bit about his first little miracle with the clay sieve. So I'm not sure if we're thinking of the same story, but what I'm thinking of is that he's In this, I think, probably boarding house and there's a housekeeper And she's borrowed a kitchen tool and breaks it. and is very upset. And he supernaturally mends it Why I love that story is because throughout the whole corpus with Benedict, including the rule Labor is so important. manual labor Tols are so important In the rule, there is a section on literal tools how monks should take care of the tools that the monastery owns. and there's a metaphorical section on the tools of good works. like how this has become something that's about the spiritual life There's another story later on where a monk is using a sickle and it breaks and the head falls in the water and Benedict once again supernaturally recovers it. So the man cares a lot about tools and keeping the tools good. You know, and I think that actually speaks volumes about him. And one of the things that I like the most about what he really brings to the world is this emphasis on work because Let's be so for real monks or fancy boys Right. Like monks are not ordinary people. they don't come from you know, the peasant class very often, you have to have some money a lot of the time. You know, you have to be able to walk away from your parents farm, right? And so these are people who really could deal. with a good day's work. you know, I think it's great that he finds his way of kind of morally compelling them to pick up a pick, you know, pick up a scythe, get out there and get out there in the field like let's go boys. if you really love the Lord. this is a story in which it says, there's a son of a senator So right away, you're told like this is a class of people who didn't do manual labor, who had everybody serve on them. They didn't make their own food, they didn't wash their own dishes or their own clothes, which you're going to do in the monastery under Benedict And the guy is injured out working It's not quite clear if he's unconscious or he's actually dead But whatever happens, Benedict supernaturally revives him. and then he tells him to go back to work and finish the shift of the day He's not very committed to work I love that.'s like, oh, you think you're sureirid. No, you't get the day off, son, L J just because you were Brucely dead, doesn't get you off Oh, I love it It's kind of like the medieval counterparture. you know those memes about, you know, dying so you don't have to go to work today. and it' say It's like can we rewind a little bit to The cave L let's come with me to the cave. pretretend you are Plato. U And what do you think actually going to happen down there Do you think? that he kind of goes in as one kind of person and comes out at another. Is he just like bored stiff down there and he's like, there's got to be a better way? Or is this like a useful time for him I think it's primarily a false start I think he's trying to imitate the models that he's been given This is the prototype monk is Saint Anthony. You just go out in the desert by yourself and that story got told over and over again. so he's wanting to live there with just life and he picks up this kind of heroic version of it that is there And he realizes eventually that there should be a different template, that this actually doesn't produce the kind of spiritual growth, the kind of healthy spiritual life one really ought to have. And so he finds a way to create a new model for racism that does actually lead to the spiritual growth he thinks should come in the way that he thinks it will actually work But I want to talk about like one little thing because it's my favorite. So there's this story from this time for him, right? It's in the trying not to wank category, right. There is this story that He like many of the monks in these caves is at a point in time struggling with the concept of lust, right? And he has this memory of A woman he knew in Rome who was quite sexy and In order to overcome it, he ends up throwing himself into like a thorn And this is something that comes up a lot in medieval literature over and over again when they are talking about ways to overcome lust not just for clergy, but for everybody in general, right And I think this is quite interesting because for us it's sort of like, yeah, this seems excessive, buddy. but Do you think this does represent kind of failure of self integration, like regulation All right is or is this like being radically honest, you know, about his fallibility and normality as a person It is a weird story. He actually is naked. it says. So he's naked rolling in a brier patch. Again, for Saint Francis, he does the same thing only he makes snow people while he's naked. So that's the kind of Franciscan version of this I'm going to give Benedicts some benefit of the doubt on this trajectory. Because what's interesting is there is no section in the rule on celibacy. It's seventy three chapters long. He never talks In any kind of section about dealing with lust or about celibacy, he talks about obedience a great deal. That's the vow of the monk that he's really interested in So I think he's not a sex med monk from the rule. He seems to not have this centered at all in his thinking. It seems to have actually become something that got decentered in his life I don't recommend his personal way of decentering it The thing I find quite interesting here, though, is, you know Yeah is one of the people who really ends up turning trajectory of monasticism away from the caves, right? You know with the rule he's performing this communal life, and one of the things that we tend to say about it as medieval as we say Oh yeah, well, this is also in the interests of the church because every single guy who goes out to a cave in the desert You can't really control, right?ike you don't know exactly what it is that you're doing out there And these people are racking up disciples as well. and Staint Benedict is not an exception to this rule. You know, he suddenly gets disciples. I don't know where they came from, they just kind of show up and It does seem that there is this sort of pattern that we get from a lot of the spiritual movements or monastic movements in the medieval period where it's like A teacher is hiding. they say I'm not looking for glory and you know, in that just makes people kind of try to follow them more. I mean, what do you think results of that? you know, How do they even find Benedict in the first place to track him down? And what is it about this reluctance that really seems to get people moved, I suppose? So one of the origin stories is, again, I assume what's happening is he's developing a legend for being an extreme aescthetic for holiness. So there's this Amazing guy who can just live on very little food and be by himself So there's a group of monks who ask him to become their abbot and he's like, no, you don't want me to be an yourour abbbot, you had don't want to reform your lives and they want him because he's holy But when they actually get him, they do not want to reform their lives. He calls it Exactly right And so of course, you know, like any you can imagine anybody doing, their solution is to try to assassinate him. Normal, normally Yes We've all had a boss like that And so they try to poison him And he blesses the cup that the poisononss in and it supernaturally shatters But he's like surprisingly leanent. Like I told you guys it wouldn't work out. I'm just gonna leave now And so like, you know, he doesn't seem overly rattled by the fact that people tried to kill him But this is the dynamic that's happening between people honoring holiness and then the question of do you really want to conform to an abbbot's will enter a rule. I think that that is really interesting because You know, we do see him then bring about this rule and set up his particular way of doing monasticism. But I mean, if he's so committed to the concept of, you know, staying in one place, really working things out Like, is this a failure of leadership For him as Abbot, I mean, should he really have stayed there and fought or To a certain extent this reads like, yeah, well You do what you can, but sometimes they are going to try to poison you and you just got to take off Yeah, this is a rub point that even in Gregory the Great senses. So in his account, his account is the dialogues. and there's this deacon named Peter who's kind of like his Dctor Watson. He's there to ask the kind of dumb question. so that Sherlock Holmes can explain the brilliant thing Peter is always asking the questions and then you know, you're getting the explanation that Gregory wants you to have And he kind of asked that, isn't this kind of like Benedict not following stability to walk away from these monks And Gregory's answer is, you know, sometimes when a ministry is not fruitful, it is permissible to move on. I will keep that in mind. Thank you, Gregory. That's me and answering emails. Sounds good.. There's a really great image in this particular story. So you know, he manages to sort of like unpoison the wine, but also it becomes clear to him that This stuff is poisoned because a raven sort of swoops in and carries off this poisoned bread And I find this super interesting, A because I'm a big COVid fan. like shout out to Ravens, shout out to crows. but It's interesting because for ancient people, ravens are oftentimes thought of as Birds of ill omen, right? You know, that they've kind of like, oh, that's a death prophecy sort of thing. And we all know Romans love to read stuff into birds, right? Like that's their entire thing Why do you think we see this particular bird likeike Why is it a raven shows up to protect Benedict. Does that add to the story at all It certainly demonstrates his mysterious powers. And so there are over and over again stories. He's good at reading people's minds. He knows when they've done stuff when he's been away And so I think the connection that this raven also obeys the abbbot To me, that's what I see in the story. That story is a separate story It's about a priest who's also trying to assassinate him. He's in another attempt assassination later on in this ministry. This priest also hires seven strippers to come and like a kind of singing telegram and do it Dance for the monks in the hopes that this will dissolve the monastery because they will not be able to deal with the reality of this temptation, It's a strange story. I love I love that as some kind of like punishment. It's like, oh, the strippers are here. Oh no But I mean, yeah, like Benedict gets away and he ends up starting his first communities. And he's doing this really interesting thing here because at first he's like, all right, we're doing groups of twelve we are like the Apostles And I find this really interesting because are we saying that we are like the apostles? I mean because to an extent it sounds a little bit like hubris You know, clearly he's making it work. I mean, he's clearly understanding his mission in a particular way. but I'm To me, it smacks a little bit of, I mean, yeah, sure it's just a tribute act, but it does seem to be kind of close to the bone I don't think he thinks that the monks are like the apostles, but he does think that the abbbot is like Christ So the Christ figure is what he wants to get out of that imagery. Your abbbot is for you like Christ He's very aware of people trying to be spiritual who are actually just shirkers and devious and he wants them under the control of an abbbot. He wants stability where their life can be watched and not them just showing up in town and saying, I have visions and being impressive and mching off people and moving on So that's where his mind is going, but I from my own reading of the rule, I don't think he particularly grasps possibility that you might have a fanatical abbbit He's just loaded so much into the abbbot and his authority and he has very little checks on what about when you have a rogue Abbot? he doesn't really well on that very much And I find that interesting because to an extent, what he's saying is that we are requiring every abbot to be on the same level as him, which is actual saintthood which no pressure there guys. You know, And it's not as though he's not already running into people who are fairly dastardly, right? L I mean Florentinas the guy with the with the strippers and and and the poisoning and the he, hey, right? Like he also seems to be a priest, right? who is to say it was going to happen when when Florentinas? gets in charge of a group of monks, right T That's a great way of putting it Benedict is surprisingly It would be too provocative, but I'll say anyway, anti clerical. He's suspicious of priests actually. You see that throughout. He doesn't like the idea of monk priests. He admits that's possible, but he his vision is for lay monks doesn't really want priests in the monastery because he worries that people would treat them as special and he wants all monks to be treated equally. Doesn't matter if you're a former slave or you're a senator's son You do the kitchen work and he doesn't want you say, Well, I'm a priest, though I'm special. He's like, no It does also tie into the authority of the Abbot, I think he doesn't want another source of authority. He's very grumpy about a monastery having a prior He allows the possibility, but he worries about it being a different seat of authority from the abbbot. that you can have like a kind of opppposition part of party kind of coalesce around the prior. You see that sort of in the brother Cadbell mysteries. There's always a tension between what the prior wants versus what the abbbot wants and that's pure benedict. That's how he saw it And so yeah, priests can be a problem But I mean, he wins though, right? Because eventually Florentinez gets killed because a balcony collapses underneath It is it's very loononey tunes. A good image there Um You know, I think enough time has passed that I can make a joke about that. Gregory the Great writes about this and he wants us to know When Florentinz dies, Benedict And I think this is really interesting touch that he's got in here because This is sort of presented almost as certainly it's a saintly quality. There's a reason that Gregory is recording it because here we've got a guy who's willing to forgive his enemies and mourn their passing But it's really human, you know, here's a guy who can do miracles, who's got the ravens on his side, et cetera, et ceta. But he can still cry for the guy who is trying to seduce him and all of his friendriends with strippers And he's annoyed that the monks are kind of gloating over this death. He doesn't want it to be something that is our team one and we're now going to have a kind of victory party. He wants the sobriety of it to kind of sink in. that this is a kind of life going awry and that now it's ended You get a feeling that maybe there's some unfinished business between them that he thought maybe there'd be some kind of resolve to this conflict in their relationship, but instead You're dead and now we leave it there H and, you know This really kind of marks the next transition his life because L Ginus dies and off he goes and he starts community at Monte Casino, which is what we tend to associate him with, right? Like Monte Casino, the big mountain monastery. It's sort of the monastery at everybody's head I find it really interesting where he chooses to put it because found this hilltop, sort of mountainside thing and It's still got an old Hag didn Bull on it And he gets to do the whole nine yards. He goes in there, he smashes up the statues find that really interesting because it's kind of a deliberate provocation, right? Like I mean, Do we need to see this almost violent reaction to anything other than Christianity to really understand him O is this just a piece of theater that we are meant to kind of understand sets us up to take on the rule There is this kind of strain of he's got an evangelistic or a missionary calling as well So in the story, this is actually still pagan territory. Pagan means the countryside. These are people who have not gotten on board of Christianity yet and he converts them So that is not how we think of Ben addicted, It's not how I think of usually, but that's I think that's the kind of payoff of the story. He creates this chapel, which is like like you're saying, taking over sacred space and kind of rebranding it. as true sacred space, but he names the chapel after St. Martin, who's a missionary bishop in conflict with pagans So I think it is about this Christianization is really the kind of how I read that story. That's what Gregory wants you to see. Of course, Gregory is going to care about Christianization. He's going to send missionaries out famously to England The entire kind of English world is really a benedicting Mission in Christian terms All the way up to Westminster Abbey is a benedictine Abby. And so I think Gregory wants you to see Benedict is so much a model that he's also a part of the mission of the church I think that that is quite profound because certainly you know this benedictting mission You know, it's been called kind of one of the fundamental parts of Western civilization, you know, if you believe in the concept, right?ike especially the rule, right? It's one of these foundational documents. But it's so interesting because when he actually writes it down. He wasn't doing it to torture me, you know, like fifteen hundred years in the future, whatever. I mean, he managed to do it, but that's not why he did it. I mean, it's supposed to be Here's this rule. for this tiny community of guys who are living on a mountain I mean, what does it tellell us about how cultural influence works, right? You know, this isn't something that was designed to change the world. It was supposed to change a community And yet it gets out there anyway, right And so Look at it how Do we get these these cultural break lines, I guess I really do think that there is spiritual genius in the rule. And therefore, I think it is winning out because of the wisdom that it embodies. Obviously, you can tell a historical story of accidents. The story goes that win Monte Casino is overrun The monks have to leave, they come to Rome, they bring the rule. Maybe that's when Gregory discovers the rule. Obviously later on, Charlemagne will dictate that the rule is the template So you have these turning points But I think the rule itself because of stability because of moderation because of manual labor and the abbbot. I think those four pillars in particular a very viable template that can be used over and over again. You can tweak the rule in various directions and that will happen over and over again throughout Mastic history, but those basic pillars, I actually think are a very wise way to make a sustainable community and it wins out because it actually works It's got one of my favorite Bedrock principles in it as well. this idea that when you have guests come, you're supposed to receive them as you would Christ And I find this really interesting. I was joking around with my friends the other day, you know they're watching one of those shows where people kind of race around the world. and they were saying, it's funny because everywhere they end up, people will say, renowned for their hospitality No matter what And I mean, do you think that in Europe, at least this kind of benedictine tradition has something to do with the creation of a concept of hostility that we sort of cling to now Yeah, if you're traveling around Europe staying at youth hostels, like the origin of that is staying at monasteries, which are benedicting monasteries. And that's being done for radically spiritual reasons. The guest is Christ to you. You treat them like Christ. Benedict says in the rule explicitly, you should especially do this for the poor because the rich will find a way to take care of themselves. Don't worry about them. They've got this poor need you and you are to treat them as if they're Christ, which does create a whole different way of moving about Europe of a whole culture of hospitality and shelter and safety, which is really important. without a doubt could still stay in a lot of monasteries today, you know, if you're on pilgrimage, right? I mean, I know people who have stayed in monasteries as just Youth hostils. Yes., That's totally true. And people go on retreats all the time as well. Pe, you know, whatever their faith or lack of faith, they just go and spend three days to kind of from some of the things that are kind of oppressing them and kind of pressing in on them and to recenter themselves I just think that that is so interesting because You know, you've already touched on this before because The rule pretty un extreme, right? Like be nice to people, listen to your abbot. And you know, it's something that kind of beginners can do. So you know, you can decide that you want to go hang out at a Benedictine monastery for a couple of days and you can probably make that work Like that is something that you as an outsider could do Should we understand this as just orally a smart move because it's just going to be easier to get people in? O is that a compromise? right? Is this just o, this is just an easy way to get people living a good life So the part of the rule that makes me laugh out loud every time is when he allots a daily amount of wine for the monks And the sentence goes something like You could read people who say that monks should not drink wine at all But I find you cannot convince modern monks of this And that's like Yeah it's like it's like the perfect example of the moderation. He's like, how can you make this an actual sustainable life for your ordinary person who's not somebody of superhuman will who's just trying to live a good life but has the normal kind of limitations and temptations. The rule is filled with that. So when it comes to food, he's like, always serve two dishes If somebody has a real bigg a version, they just hate mushrooms, there's a second dish that can have that instead Like, don't make it unreasonably difficult and hard. There are all these accommodations in the rule that I love. It's like when the days are shorter, like make the service of worship shorter. okay? justust help people out a bit When you start the service, you start by singing a psalong, sing it really slowly. so the people who are a bit late actually show up before it starts and they don't feel like they've missed it and done something wrong. L it's just filled with wonderful touches along those lines You know, I think that we could all do with being a little bit less hyper crritical and Benedick is this great example, I think for all of us. And and clearly this takes off, right? Suddenly everybody's aware Monte Casino But this is interesting because not everybody's into it Right. Can you tell us a little bit about how Totila, the king of the Ostergoths tries to kind of get in there and break up the party. Yeah, this is one of the stories that is told in my reading of it to illustrate how Benedict has this supernatural ability to know things that he doesn't know through ordinary means He's often reading people's hearts So the king wants to kind of test him on his kind of spiritual discernment So he has somebody dress up like him, put on his robes and his jewelry and come to visit him as the king Of course, Benedict knows immediately what's going on And he just says right out what's happening. And so he passes that test. And then when he actually does meet the king, he prophesies his future to him. I think he says, you've got nine more years to rule And so I think it's one of those stories that is illustrating the spiritual gifting and holiness of benedict leading to a supernatural knowledge. This one is so important because it really sets you up for what art tests of saintly attributes going forward because quite famously the Dafon puts St Joan of Arc throughrew this test later, you know, like in the fifteenth century. this is still going on like a thousand years later. Kings are still like, o, okay, is this person on the level? Let me dress someone up. And that's kind of like one of the Hallmark signs that someone's a saint, right? Yes. And there's also complicated feelings about Ghs throughout this story because of them as invaders. And so yeah, this is I think Gregory we also want to get a dig in at the gos peopleople like this though, right Why are we still using it for thousands of years, right? Like what you think this means in terms of what people want from saints I mean, there's the same thing In Eastern Orthodoxy, you can read Russian saints, for example. They have this ministry called the Elder And often somebody will come to them and they will know what their problem is without them saying anything, they will just start accounting to them what their issue is that they've come to seek advice for It is, I guess reassuring if somebody knows something they couldn't naturally know, then the advice that they give presumably also is going to be better than your average advice. So it kind of functions as a kind of sign and wonder that this person is a good person to take advice from And he's got the extra one as well. You've already told us about the prophecy that he does for Totilla And it's this all happens, right? You know, he enters Rome, he crosses the sea and he dies nine years later It's really interesting like this idea that you have a prophetic power does come up a lot in hagographical tradition, right? And so it's that spiritual perception you were talking about. but also I am like You know, sorry to be a historian about it, but I'm like, yeah, or is it just that Gregory the Great knows that that happened? And so he's able to write down a really good story and be like, anda lo and behold You know, it's a game to us, right It's possible that in Gregory's account of Benedict, there are a few AI hallucinations I'm going to give that to the reader as a possible warning But It is also true that he prophesies according to Gregory that Monte Casino itself will be overrun But he also gets as a kind of conession from God that the monks will escape and be safe So he's not always controlling events, but he sometimes is seeing them Youre hear to hear first, everyone. Tim Larson says that Gregory, the Greg is a Not really intelligent. Oh, I love it. New beef, new beef, fantastic. But fundamentally, right? What ends up coming out of the story is the thing that we all want to see in Saintly Ageography. So Tilla is like, Oh, Benedict, I'm so wrong. I'm prostrating myself at your feet. I'm groveling. and I think is incredibly important because this image course, especially for Gregory the Great who is in a position where he's trying to make an express political argument for the spiritual authority of the church over worldly power. He's saying, Oh, look back. everyverybody remembers Stain. Benedict. It happened Then And so you know, Totilla gave it up and said that that Benedict was the person that he should be following And of course, yeah, that is. reallyally convenient Thanks, Greger. we love this. But You know, it's not as though we don't sort of have equivalent ideas today, right? Like this is it's quite a powerful image. And I think also to an extent Probably something that ordinary people want. You know, it is nice to have some kind of spiritual restraining power on the worldly powerful, know Yeah. All the Christian history and stories, I think was the martyrdom stories there church is like this is something really bad happening to people who are faithful. And yet there are Miraculous touches in the stories that say it's not totally out of control God is still in control, even though this bad thing is happening to good people And so these stories function that way. You have these powerful people who can do stuff that is really harmful, but we have a story that says there are limits on it and that God's sovereignty, God's control is still going to pop up and not let this thing go completely wrong I want to take us back to the story aboutastica and the storm because I just think it's very sweet And also I like it when there's a woman with a name in a story. It's like we can't do the Beachtel test in medieval literature. We're looking for one named one. You knowre She And she's probably going to talk about a man, but it'side. We know that the point of Benedict is that he's created this rule and we see Scholastica the rule, right And The thing that we see as a part of it is that Gregory writes down She who had the greater love had the greater power And I find that really interesting because it's quite subversive, right? It We have this conventional saints's life. We have someone that we are lionizing very particularly because of the rule, but we have this call out to the power and context of emotional bonds Is this Gregory making a pretty orthodox point Benedict would have accepted? or is this actually quite important It feels to me like a corrective. Like the point is that love is greater than law And Benedict at this moment is like focused on law And actually love is the conqueror even of law And so sometimes You follow the fruit of the Spirit, which is love and against such things there is no law. And this rule has to be set aside momentarily at least because love is a bigger concept, a truer value than law Three days later Glass ora dies, right? And we learearn this because Benedict has a vision, right He is sitting there praying, you know, surprise And he looks out his tower window and he sees this gorgeous white Dove ascending into heaven and he's like, o, my sister's dead And that's her soul And this is a really beautiful image It also kind of arrives Maybe as a result of his unwillingness to stay with her posossibly It is almost a way of remonstrating with him. for doing so Do you think the grief involved in this changes the meaning of this vision? or is this just a way of kind of redeeming him for his refusal to spend his sister's last hours with her The story that I think when I read it that it rhymes with is in the gospels. When the woman takes the enormously expensive perfume and anoints Jesus' feet with it And it's the wrong thing to do and people call her out on it. This is the wrong thing to do. ' too ostentatious. You're spending money in the wrong way. This money should go to the poor The reason why it's not actually wrong, It's the right thing to do which is prophetic but people don't know is that Jesus is about to die And if you know Jesus is about to die, then she's anointing his body for burial And it's the right thing to do And so the story is I read it is kind of rhyming with that story. What Scholastica is asking for, this fellowship that breaks the rule that goes on longer is the right thing to do in light of this prophetic reality of her coming death. Benedict then gets scripted as the kind of muddling disciple who says, This should not happen this way. This is wrong. I don't like it The reality of the prophetic insight is overwhelming that. And again, he will eventually understand that, just like the disciples will eventually understand and be able to write down, well, she was preparing his body for burial. now we know. So Benedict is realizing, okay She actually had a kind of spiritual prompt that this was appropriate when it seemed inappropriate in light of her death This rhyming, as you put it, I really like that. Thank you very much. This rhyming It sort of shows up in Benedict's own life, you know, he's got this sort of sequence of events that are fairly similar in terms of the last week of his own life, right? So it's almost like We're setting up an understanding of how holy people exit the world, or whether it's Jesus, whether it's Glastica, whether it's Benedict. Yeah and his own Exit is not easy. It's pretty clear about the lingering and the pain And so I feel that again, that's also touching and has a reality to it when I read it Towards the end of Benedict's life, he has this thing that we call his great vision. And this idea is that so he's standing at the window In the middle of the night, all the monks are asleep He sees this really bright light descend out of heaven And it's so bright. lights up the entire night. You know, it drives all the darkness out and Everything outside becomes more clear than the day itself is the quote in the middle of that The h n sort of appears to him as though it gathered into a single beam of sunlight, right And he sees the soul of one of the bishops he knows, Germanus of Kapaa carried up into heaven by angels in a globe of fire. B ow, not to put too fine a point on it, but okay. And Gregor kind of uses this And the hagiography of Benedict And it's really interesting because Here we've got Benedict who's basically been in the middle of sixty years of sustained religious practice. You know he's One of the best to ever do it? O are the people who really comes up with a way of making it possible to have a sustained practice, right? Because it's a marathon, not a sprint. You have to have fairly lax rules in order to keep it up over this time And of like This to an extent becomes the way in a European context that you get this expanded perception know Do you think that this is this is One of the things that Eventually people like Gregory and people who are promulgating this life want to teach you know, theres this possibility of prophetic expansion via sublimation to the rule That's what Benedict himself says at the end of the rule that I've written a rule that is for beginners. This is enough to get you started on the spiritual life, but there is a long way to go that you can read the great early church figures who take you farther. But if you do this, if you live this You will have found a sure path to deepening your spiritual life which then, as you're saying, who knows how great that might unfold for individual people That vision at the end where he sees the whole world in that one point Again, rhymes with me with Julie of Norich seeing everything in the hazelnut which is a kind of ultimate mystical kind of sense of the unity of all things and perception Let's start have some rule chat Are you ready? Okay, you've hated it already. But one of the big reasons why the bed addicting rule gets adopted as a sort of standard is Charlemagne which is the reason why I don't know. Everybody has to learn Plato, right?'s becausecause of Charlemagne. It's the same things, right And it's really interesting because usually you don't see spiritual movements like this survive when an imperial power gets involved with them, right? Like that very involvement of the worldly can sometimes change or taint it. Do you think that Medict's original vision is actually preserved in this or does it become distorted as a result of becoming state policy One of the interesting things is Benedicttings are not in order the way like the Jesuits are in order with a hierarchical command structure It's more like open source software which anybody can take and use as they want to use. And so benedictting has within itself the ability to renew itself over and over again because there isn't one direction that's being forced on the whole been a addicting world, whether it's good or bad, whether you like it or not, every community has the potential to rediscover parts of the rule that have been lost And yes, absolutely, along the way Things go in directions that Benedict would not have liked at particular times, with particular communities. For me, I think the loss of manual labor that happens with some of the communities is a really big departure from what Benedict hoped for I think Benedict has got such spiritual wisdom that We're embodied creatures That to pray all the time is not a really a healthy way to live as a human being. It's also a very elillusive way to live as a human being. It's very hard to know sometimes how the prayer is going, but you can know how the vegetables are growing pretty clearly. You can know whether the fence has been made or not made, whether the wall is being built or not. And this kind of keeps you embodied and sane So when they Later Benedictine, some of them want to fudge that and say, well, really our work is much more spiritual, and it should be much more about saying masses I think they're getting away from the spiritual life Benedict actually knew we make them flourish the most I think that this is a really interesting point because you know, one of the big things that happens under Charlemagne and it's something that we're really indebted to as medieval historians or or indeed if you're a fan of the liberal arts and classical literature at all is one of the big I suppose redirections of that work that happens in monasteries is that they purposed within monasteries to copying out classical literature. Right. These guys suddenly are istr one hundred percent writing out Cicero, you know, writing out Aristotle over and over again. And that's great, right? Because we wouldn't have these things if it wasn't for these interventions of monks in the ninth century But at the same time, you know, as you say, this isn't manual labor, this is something else. You know, another thing that people tend to say about it is that it kind of withdraws resources or talent people because they're still living under the rule, right? They're still living in monasteries. And so you do have people copying these things out, but they're doing it within a very enclosed environment. What do you think about those criticisms Also, just to carry on with your thread Benedict says in the rule that you cannot charge too much for your goods. So the manual labor is producing goods But if anything, you should sell them a bit below market value. In Benedict's mind, that's like a way of making sure the monks are not greedy But it's actually like a kind of ruthless capitalism that here are these workers which have very few benefits. They just wear one set of clothes, they get their food rationed They don't own anything and they're producing goods that undercut the market. So I think there are unintended consequences sometimes Mks certainly do not just only the copying, but they produce all kinds of produce, all kinds of crafts, off course, benedictting is also the name of a liqueur that they emitted along the way and still produce. So there's a lot going on economically as well. That's interesting. Unfortunately, I love benedictine. I'm like one of these I'm a herbal liqueor girlyie. I'm like, is that a digestive? I love it, Yum, yum. It's meant to be medicinal. Listen, I got a lot of ailments, Tim, okay? T hear that much ultimately and We end up seeing Benedict named as the Patriot Saint of Europe in nineteen sixty four. by Pope Paul VI. And interestingly, like later on, Pope Benedict XXteI calls him the fundamental reference point for European unity And I find this fascinating, right? Because here Well I'm living, you're not. I in the secular pluralist, you know, like twenty first century Europe, right? Do you think that this is a useful kind of framing point Or is this kind of like a historical courtesy that the church is kind of trying to throw out there that puts them the fulcrum of European life. And then ultimately, do you think that actually matters one way or another? It is an interesting choice to make him the patron saint of Europe for sure It is kind of a thumb on the scale for Western Europe So part of that, I think, is like here is like the Western European way of doing things and values It is a way of trying to create something that is held in common and people can be proud of across different national lines The rule is definitely a document that has more influence than almost any other from quite a few stretch of centuries So that sense does have a certain kind of logic to it. And there are ways like you talk about the manuscripts being copied, but also like the wasteland that the monks kind of restored. they do actually literally change the landscape of Europe by their labor. So I don't know. You could I couldn't I couldn't imagine an answer that would not be contested, but I can see the logic behind it It's not in the rule, but it's more of the motto of the benedictines in general, but aura at Lbora. so praying and working. has been described as Proably the global North's deepest answer to cultural production. Right, about how a human should spend their time Would you agree with that You don't want to have just Tass materialism That is not satisfying for most people of what the human condition is Human beings have a side of them that is connected to the spiritual to the eternal, to the aesthetic. to things that go beyond just like the things that we share with rodents, which is like finding food and water and a mate and shelter. And so the prayer is meaning to signal that workor is signaling our embodiminess that those things matter. We're not so above the rodents that we don't also need food and water and mates and shelter. That's part of our lives too, but our lives can't be reduced to that, even though it's part of it I think Our at Labora is one way to say that Tim This has once again, been an absolute delight. I do love it when you come hang out and gossip. Thank you so much for your time today. It's been delightful, Thank you, Eleanor My thanks once again to Professor Tim Warson and to you for listening to G Medieval.