CONCERNING SAINT BENEDICT, MONK IN CAMPANIA.
SIXTH CENTURY.
CommentaryBenedict, monk in Campania (S.)
[1] This monk lived at the same time as the great Benedict, the founder of the Order, and together with him was reported under March 21 by Galesinius, Canisius, Grevenus, and Whitford: whom the Tables of the Roman Martyrology celebrate on March 23 in these words: Commemoration in the sacred calendars: "In Campania, S. Benedict the monk, who, enclosed by the Goths in a burning oven, was found unharmed the following day." The same was inscribed in the Benedictine Martyrologies by Wion, Dorgan, Menard, and Bucelinus, for whom at least the name of Benedict procures favor and affection. What can be known about him is related by S. Gregory the Great, book 3 of the Dialogues, chapter 18, in these words:
[2] Eulogy from S. Gregory. "A certain brother lived with me in the monastery,
most devoted to Sacred Scripture, who preceded me in age: he was accustomed to edify me from many things I did not know. From his narration, therefore, I learned that there was a certain man in the parts of Campania, within forty miles of the city of Rome, named Benedict, young in age indeed, but mature in character, his cell not burnt, and strictly binding himself to the rule of holy life. When the Goths, in the time of King Totila, discovered him, they attempted to burn him together with his cell: for they set fire to it, but while everything round about was burned, the cell itself could not be consumed by fire. The Goths, seeing this and growing yet more savage, dragged him from his dwelling, and not far away they saw a heated oven, unharmed in the oven: prepared for baking bread, and threw him into it and sealed the oven. But the next day he was found so unharmed that not only was his flesh untouched by the flames, but not even the outermost edges of his garments were in any way singed."
[3] So S. Gregory, from whom Peter de Natalibus in book 3 of the Catalogue, chapter 216, contracted his account, the time of his life: as did Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, the above-mentioned Bucelinus, and others. Totila, King of the Goths, under whom the said miracle occurred, reigned in Italy from the year 541 to the year 552. But how long afterward S. Benedict still lived, is established neither from S. Gregory nor from any other source.
[4] Whether his feast day is March 31. After writing this, we found that his feast day is assigned to March 31 in very ancient Martyrologies, namely the manuscript Roman Martyrology in the library of Cardinal Barberini, marked number 1852, the Arras manuscript of the Cathedral Church, and the Tournai manuscript of the monastery of S. Martin. There is a certain manuscript Benedictine Calendar of the monastery of S. Saviour, compiled from Trithemius and others, in which the commemoration is made of S. Benedict the monk, of whom Gregory speaks in book 3 of the Dialogues. Bucelinus in the Benedictine Menologion asserts that he found, in the work of Andreas of Bamberg, S. Benedict a Campanian monk, and nothing else was recorded beyond the name: from which, not sufficiently mindful of himself, as if this were a different monk from the S. Benedict who died in Campania, whom he had reported on this day from the Dialogues of S. Gregory, he celebrates the same person a second time.