CHAPTER II FOUNDER OF MONASTICISM
Table of Contents In the heart of the Sabines, where the Nar breaks out from the rock near the mountain called the Lioness, there has been since very early times a little town, too inaccessible to tempt the spoiler and the invader, too sturdy and independent to serve long as a footstool for mediæval tyrants. It was well fortified, however, and the ancient walls encircle it still, in good repair, as witnesses to its immunity from the fate that has annihilated so many other little old cities, its neighbours. Nature, stern and wild enough here, helped to protect it. Even now it can only be reached by a carriage journey, a lengthy, tedious business in the winter time, when the snow almost cuts it off from communication with the outside world.
The townsfolk have long memories, however. The chief square is called Piazza Sertorio, after the Roman General, Quintus Sertorius, who was born here in the second century before Christ, and the only public monument in Norcia is a statue of their other distinguished citizen, St. Benedict, in the same square. People from other places do not interest the good burghers of Norcia. They have accorded a passing notice to a gentleman named Vespasian, known elsewhere as a fairly successful Emperor, but, as they would tell you, "a person quite without education"-that is to say, with no manners; nevertheless they have allowed a hill in the vicinity to be called Monte Vespasio because his mother was a decent woman and owned a farm there.
I fancy life in Norcia is in its essentials very much what it was when, in the year of grace 480, the lord of the manor was informed that his good wife had borne him twins, a son and a daughter. It is easy, knowing the ways of the people, to call up the picture of the "Matrona" in her best gown-the midwife is the most honoured woman in every Roman town-coming down from the lady's apartment in the tower to the head of the house, sitting, quite forgotten and rather lonely, in the hall, waiting for news from the centre of interest upstairs. His own servants would only approach with signs of submission and respect; not so the all-important Matrona! Conscious of her dignity and grave as a judge, she would advance a few steps and wait for him to rise. Then, as he approached on tiptoe and with some timidity, she would turn back the woollen covering from the unexpectedly large bundle on her left arm, and, without a word, show him two little pink faces where he only expected one.
"Yes," she would say in answer to his exclamations of delight and astonishment, "two has Domine Dio sent to this noble house. Two will be the gifts my lord must bestow on his lady"-this to remind him as well of the double remuneration due to herself. "Pretty? Oh no, but they are not bad-thanks be! Will it please my lord to send for the priest-the 'feminuccia' is the younger-and seems not over strong! I thank my lord!"
My lord has been feeling in his pouch and has slipped two of his few gold pieces into her hand, and, seeing that he is inclined to admire the babies, she covers them up and stalks away. Her demeanour has been rhadamanthine throughout. There must be no expression of admiration, no kissing or fondling of the little creatures before they are baptized. That would call the attention of the devil to the small unregenerates who are still his property. When the taint of original sin has been washed away they will be angels of innocence, beautiful cherubs to be shown proudly to all and sundry-but not before!
So my lord sent for the priest, and pondered meanwhile on the names he would give the new son and daughter, little dreaming, good man, that fifteen centuries later those names would be household words to every Catholic ear and perpetuated in the colossal literature of sanctuaries of holiness and learning. He fixed on Benedict for the boy, and Scholastica for the girl, and, so far as I can trace, it was the first time the names had been used. Benedict means "the Blest" or "Well-spoken," Scholastica signifies a lover of learning, or "the Well-taught"; so we may infer that the Lord of Norcia (it was called Nursia then) was a man of more education than most country gentlemen of those rough times, times of which history says, "Europe has perhaps never known a more calamitous or apparently desperate period than that which reached its climax at this date, the year 480. Confusion, corruption, despair, and death were everywhere; social dismemberment seemed complete. In all the ancient Roman world there did not exist a prince who was not either a pagan, or an Arian, or a Eutychian. In temporal affairs, the political edifice originated by Augustus-that monster assemblage of two hundred millions of human creatures, 'of whom not a single individual was entitled to call himself free'-was crumbling into dust under the blows of the Barbarians."[1]
Nevertheless Rome still continued to be looked upon by the surrounding provinces as the centre of education-there was none, at any rate, to be had anywhere else within reach; and thither the Lord of Norcia, a descendant of the great family of the Anicia so often mentioned in the Roman chronicles, sent his son to be instructed in philosophy and law-the two subjects which still promised some kind of a career to an intelligent youth. Benedict was scarcely that yet-he was certainly not more than twelve years old, so much of a child that his nurse, Cyrilla, was sent with him to take care of him. Doubtless she found some respectable people with whom to lodge, and indeed one feels some pity for the simple countrywoman, charged with such a heavy responsibility in a strange and, as it must have seemed to her, a very wicked great city.
So it seemed to the boy too. He studied, tried to carry out his father's instructions as faithfully as he could, but all he saw around him inspired him with such a horror of the world and its ways that life became insupportable to him, and he resolved to fly into the wilderness and seek for God. He was only fourteen years old, but he knew with certainty that his life was not to lie in the crowded places. The devout nurse did not oppose his decision; his will was hers, and together they left Rome and took the road towards their old home. I fancy that the boy only then told her that Norcia was not to be their destination. Before reaching it he would find the place where Heaven willed him to stay.
Thus they travelled on, till they came to La Mentorella, one of the strangest spots in all those strange mountains. Its parent is Guadagnolo, the highest standing town in the whole of Romagna, perched on a peak 4,000 feet high, and yet shut in on every side with a wall of rock that completely hides it from the outer world. Just below the town a ledge of the precipitous rock juts out abruptly and affords foothold for a church and hermitage, built here in memory of the conversion of St. Eustace, the mighty hunter. He was called Placidus then, and was a soldier, a noble and a good man, a commander-in-chief much trusted by his Emperor, Trojan, and very upright and charitable in all his dealings with his fellow men. It has been thought by scientific historians that it is of him that Josephus spoke when recounting the exploits of the Tribune Placidus in the war with the Jews. There are links which seem to connect Placidus with the Octavian family, thus making him a relation of Augustus, and some writers see in the young Placidus, whom his father Tertullus confided to Benedict's care, a descendant of the gallant soldier and hunter of Trojan's time.
Be all that as it may, we do know that in the days of his pagan prosperity Placidus, hunting in the mountains, sighted a magnificent stag and pursued it madly through the narrow defiles till it fled up to the summit of an apparently inaccessible rock, and there turned and stood still, gazing down on him. Then Placidus fell on his knees in mortal fear, for between the creature's antlers was a crucifix of fire from which shot forth rays of such brilliance that they lighted up all the hillside. And from it came a voice saying, "Placidus, why dost thou pursue me? I am Christ, whom thou hast hitherto served without knowing Me. Dost thou now believe?"
Yes, indeed, Placidus believed, and his whole house with him, and in the after years was privileged to suffer great things for his, till then, unknown Master. But for me, I never got much farther with his story than that blessed word, "Whom thou hast served without knowing Me." When I read it I think of all the good, brave souls who thus served in past ages, and of those who are serving thus now, all over the world, truly and successfully, by the inner light which is imparted to all, of every clime and every faith, so long as they are sincere and have the "single eye" to which Christ promised that "the body shall be full of light."
Placidus, on becoming a Christian, took (or began to use, it may have been his already) the name of Eustace. Either in his time or soon afterwards a church was built on the site of his vision, and the bell-tower of the "Madonna della Vulturella," although its name has been shortened to "La Mentorella," still carries on its summit a gigantic pair of antlers in commemoration of the miracle. Until a few years ago (it may be so even now) the Feast of St. Eustace attracted great crowds of pilgrims to the wild and beautiful spot. His day-the day of his martyrdom under Trajan, who, after all his great services, could not forgive him for refusing to sacrifice to the gods on the occasion of the triumph which Eustace had won for him-falls on September 20, that ominous "date which marks one of the blackest steps of...
