The Life of Saint Benedict: Gregory the Great

by Adalbert de Vogüé

The Life of Saint Benedict, by Gregory the Great, with Commentary by Adelbert de Vogue, OSB

Paperback

Published January 1, 1993

About the author

Adalbert de Vogüé OSB was a Benedictine monk widely regarded as the authority on the Rule of St Benedict.

Reviews

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This life of St. Benedict was written by one of St. Benedict's younger near-contemporaries, Pope Gregory the Great. Really, it is part of the Gregory the Great's Dialogues which was written, primarily, to make good Italy's claim to have effective ascetics and saints. Effective is best defined as the ability to perform miracles. This makes for odd reading for relentless modernist or post-modernists who really can't manage miracles very easily. God knows, I have my own difficulties in this area. Yet, this work fits quite snuggly into the genre of ascetic literature written by such luminaries as St. Athanasius (Life of Anthony), various desert monastic literature, Sulpicius Severus (Life of St. Martin) and Cassian (Institutes and Conferences). So, do brace yourself. It is a bit of a wild ride.

The commentary by Adalbert De Vogue is helpful, although tinged by the academic failing of identifying parallels as determining content. Yes, ancient writers creatively imitate each other, but there really is a line (difficult to see at the best of times) which the similarities might be better explained.

All in all, well worth reading, but odd to our modern sensibilities