Carmen De Sancto Benedicto

A Poem of Marcus Cassinensis, Monk, on St. Benedict. (From Mabillon, *Acta Sanctorum Ordinis Sancti Benedicti*, vol. I.) While the blind crowd worshipped profane images, and believed gods made by hands to be gods, this place had once built temples with crumbling altars, to which it gave bloody sacrifices to obscene Jove. But, coming by command and called from the high hermitage, the holy Benedict purified this ground. He cast down the sculpted marbles with their broken statues, and made the temple serve the living God. Let him hasten here who desires to see the heavens opened, and whom a hard path does not remove from a pious vow. Great things are always sought with difficult labor; the blessed life always has a narrow way. Therefore, when I had entered here, weighed down by a burden of sins, I felt the weight laid down and gone from me. I believe that I shall also enjoy that happy life, if you, Benedict, pray for your Marcus. The foolish crowd once called this place a citadel, and had made it sacred to marble gods. If anyone had then truly named it, he could rightly have called it a Tartarean chaos. To it, with wandering blinded minds, they went to pay wicked vows to death-dealing Jove. But I think the summit had foreseen the hall, calling the modern temples by the name of citadel then. In them the gate of eternal hell is condemned, and the citadel is now of life, which before was of death. From it the door of the starry heaven is struck, while the blessed crowd sings with angelic modes. From it you speak with the true Thunderer, Benedict, and you are the leader of the little mountain and the sacred hermit choir.

To which you, warned by another, came from the mountain; through the deserts, Christ was your guide and road. For two youths led you to every crossroads, who would confirm the path you were to follow. Here also, while you were still living, you foretold to a just man, "Spare these places," and another friend is present. With you taken from it, the heavenly mountain shudders in darkness, and grows pale with its own mists. The caves mourn and drip with copious tears, and the foul lairs with their hearths lament. The liquid lakes wept for you with true grief, and the loosened forest scattered its torn tresses. I would be thought to speak falsehoods, were it not that, lest you go alone, three ravens suddenly earned the right to follow you. Here also, the people, with you as their witness, seek you when you are enclosed. You await the night of the sacred feast. They, as if bereaved, press upon you with hoarse complaints, because they lacked your company. But when you were led here, the cliffs and brambles gave way, and the dry earth uncovered wondrous waters. It is certain that the mountain of Christ rules over the mountains themselves; the mountain itself placed its head beneath your feet. And so that you, O saint, might overtop its summit, it lowers its swollen peak and levels the ground.

Let those who seek you, Benedict, not grow weary; gently your winding path bends everywhere. Yet this mountain itself justly renders you the honor that it merited, adorned by so great a good as you. You, who set dry places in pleasant gardens, and cover bare rocks with fruitful vine. The cliffs marvel at harvests and fruits not their own, and the woodland grows green with fruit-bearing thickets. Thus you direct barren human deeds toward fruitfulness, watering dry hearts with a saving stream. Thus, I pray, now turn the malignant thorns into fruit, which lacerate the brute hearts of your Mark.