two vitae of two monastic saints. It certainly would be understandable that to take a look at the history of monastic spirituality, to have any kind of perspective on monastic spirituality, one would have to deal with the life of St. Benedict as given to us by Gregory the Great in the second book of the Dialogues. But it might not be so clear as to why I would make the first choice, namely that of the Dieter of St. Martin of Tours. Because in a sense, probably we don't think of Martin of Tours, of course we don't think of Martin of Tours at all, but we don't think of Martin of Tours as being particularly monastic. And yet probably of the two works, the leader of Martin of Tours, from the historical point of view, from the cultural point of view, and perhaps even to a certain extent from the monastic point of view, is more important.

[01:15]

and probably had, and maybe, well it would be difficult for me to gauge the impact, but the details in my natura had as much impact on the religious, cultural, and spiritual history of our western civilization as did the nature of St. Benedict. My natura is roughly contemporary. with Cassian, with Evagrius of Pontus. Martin of Tours is a pioneer, like Antony. He is a symbolic figure, just as Antony was, and just as Herodotus of Comius was. And Martin of Tours is also a kind of answer, a response.

[02:27]

First and foremost, it is life, a written life, as a response to Anthony and to Egypt and its financial world. It is the answer that God too, and this great Anthony, It has its monastic world, its spiritual world. And even more than this, we have also a great bishop. And in St. John's Martin, the two of them, they are not only sort of a Gaelic answer, but we have also a trendsetter, a prototype. He is what a holy bishop should be. In the same way, The life of St. Benedict is somewhat, perhaps not as, we do not get the finished sort of apologetic tone, because the life of Martin the Steward definitely has not to die.

[03:38]

And who will he get? It's people to attack. It's more than just the lightning bolt. It's also out to get those who are against it. Lightning is for a lifetime. But with the life of vengeance, it is not so much perhaps an indefinite apology or a defense of the saint, but it is also a sign that it will lead to as her answer to other places which can bolster their holy men and women into late truth on both. And we have these among them, most particularly, is this man blessed both by life and indeed, and that is Herodotus. The Venus in Magnetur, and written by Sophitius of Arras, It has been, you'll find a French translation in the source KVM, published in 1967.

[04:55]

It's a very, very well studied by Jacques Fontaine, in which Jacques Fontaine gives a very good introduction. into what is particularly in regard to the life of Saint Pontius of Ares himself, who was a very, very important individual, and then to a look at the whole course of the documentation of the Vita of Saint Martin, its significance, and its later history, and then the text in Latin and French, and then a very, very extensive commentary of a volume, or practically two volumes of commentary on the life of the Veda itself. Very well done. Pointing out that this life written by St. Peter is in itself a kind of literary masterpiece of the period.

[06:04]

A work that you might find interesting is a very recent work published in 1980 by an Englishman named Christopher Donaldson, simply entitled Martin of Tours, London, who lives in Keating Hall. It's very well done, it's popular, but depending heavily on Jacques Fontaine and others, Donaldson has reconstructed, in a way, the Gauls and the Europe of Martin Luther's lifetime. He looks at Martin precisely in terms of his vocation. And he does a very good job as parish priest and bishop. and as, and finally as not. Because, you know, when marginal is all resolved here, that's where the intriguing thing is.

[07:11]

Margin comes to us as a prototype of a type of monasticism, and a prototypal type of a certain kind of epistolic activism. And these both are intertwined. Both of these are intertwined. To some extent, one must be part of the other. That's why Martin is a very interesting figure. So, Apicius Severus himself was living what was not exactly called a monastic life. He was an ascetic. He had been married. Probably after the death of his wife, Apicius Severus retired. He was very wealthy. He managed a London gulp with a gallery of aristocracy. of Gaul, the 4th century. After the death of his wife, he followed the example of Sokolos among them, a close friend of Kolano Fignola, and he retired on one of those days, not living exactly in poverty, but still living a life of simplicity.

[08:24]

He had a certain rigor with only a servant or two, and there was with Mark Twain, Prater, and so forth. He gave himself up to prayer and modification. But also, he was a man who had been trained in school. In a period of the barbarian invasions and so forth, there was a decline in learning theories, and the man still was hard to write Latin, was hard to observe the the prosody, the Latin prosody, the rhythm, the proto-rhythm, who was a man of a certain amount of culture and background and refinedness, educated. And he, through his mother-in-law, Basila, who was a very devout woman too, also one of the very wealthy women who had ended up on a life of asceticism, he becomes interested in

[09:26]

the Bishop of Tours, who was somewhat odd and different from the other Dalek bishops. And in fact, he meets him and talks with him, and he then takes up the cudgels on his behalf, because Martin Bishop of Tours was not at all a retiring individual uninvolved, unconcerned, he was more or less in a state of confluence all the time, whether he liked it or not. And a kind of person who evidently evoked strong support, sympathy, or was greatly defiant. And he then, Sotheisios Riverus, probably writes the life, it's pretty certain now, that he wrote this life of Saint Martin of Tours before Martin died.

[10:35]

Martin was born probably around the year 216, dies in the year 397. two years before the death, two years before the expulsion of the originist Greek monks from Egypt. Martin died, and with him died, in a certain sense, the first generation of monks in Gaul. This life by St. Peter, to a very extent, has to be completed with letters, and also a book of dialogue for young self-growth. Dialogues in which you recount the wonderful events of modern life, or that's giving vignettes, like the first book of the dialogue book, giving little vignette anecdotes relating to the life of some modern obturer, and so forth.

[11:39]

In the letters, it is a third letter. to his mother-in-law, Batsui-Long, who had written him a letter, complaining about the fact that, remember, in the early days, letters were always private or public property. You read everybody's letters. No one had any problem about the folks making up a letter and reading it, because if you wrote it, you should take advantage of it. You read it, not just put it on the toilet paper. That's right. Anyway, she got him into the fact that he had written his life and that He had referred to the death of some Martians when I actually went into detail. I was in a call with a Martian nurse. No one knows just exactly how he died. Circumcised. So you then have to go out there and watch it. And what you describe is the history of Martians. And that is the third line, Tabasola, which really completes the whole response that we get on St. Mark's Day to us. We shall go down here then, in Will's arms, here to the three letters at the end of his work, at the end of his epoch.

[12:49]

The life of St. Martin by St. Peter Silverius is comparable to the life of St. Anthony in this sense. Whereas Athanasius, in giving the life of St. Anthony, gives a monastic teaching, that's more the kind of monastic theology, a monastic spirituality, spells it out, puts it into the mouth of Anthony, whether it was there or not, we're not sure, but he's giving a teaching that is very definite, that is very precise. But at the same time, he's setting up a model of what kind of monastic life This man lived what is really the monastic life. So, Bishop Segarra was also writing a life of St. Martin. He is, from a literary point of view, he is also a kind of a masterpiece, well-written, and he too is setting out in kind of a plan, a literary plan, this life of this extraordinary man.

[14:05]

But it isn't so much a monastic doctrine that he gives, but he sort of gives away what the ideal bishop would be like. He is standing for a sort of Christian ideal, the Christian ideal of the apostle. Now, he doesn't do it with the same authority as Athanasius, patriarch of Alexandria, one of the leading theologians of his time, the primordial of the faith, and so forth. But he is standing forth as a very learned man. He's got a man's hand in the legal affairs, taking up the cudgels to attack those oppressive bishops. And we have very few kind words to say about the bishops who he runs his alliance with. It's a perfect point, too. He is saying, this is what a bishop should be. Now in doing this, what he also says is, a bishop should be a monk.

[15:12]

And that the Christian ideal, the ideal of sanctity, is that of a monk-bishop. Because Martin Luther is, in fact, the first non-martyr to be honoured with sanctity in the world. And so in a way he is the ideal for the confessor. And the fact that he is a monk is as basic to his episcopacy and to his sanctity of the bishop as anything else. And that is important because in a way this sets the stage then for the medieval bishop who for many many years would be a Benedictine monk and later on a Cistercian monk. But that the monastic bishop in a certain sense was the idea. Which is not at all, which of course is something that no doubt would make many people squirm, I'm sure, and of course it means I signed for you.

[16:23]

The monastic front means I've only been lately come with any great strength. But the But the interesting thing is that this is the norm in most of the Orthodox Churches as well, the Eastern Churches as well, is that the Bishop will not fall for other reasons, no doubt, but the historical facts still remain. But what I think is also important is a notion of apostolic life, of pastoral activity. I use the term apostolic life and I may be a little bit... I should be called down for that because the term apostolic life historically always meant initially the life of a lived in common

[17:24]

and prayer in common, in other words, the life-structures of a community of beings, those really could be understood as the monastic life, and a lot of them the sympathetic life. And only later, in our own time, did it take on also the endurer, in terms of going out, preaching and engaging in what we term the apostles, going out to others and preaching and teaching and ministering in various ways, like the original would like to get, And certainly I feel that earlier meaning is what was considered the apostolic light and ideal at the time of Salvation of the World. But yet, what does Salvation of the World do when he is describing Nachum? He is describing him after as a monk who goes out and begins to preach the Jesuit Order. Interesting thing here, as we shall find out a little later. This is what Gregor the Great described Benedictus onto.

[18:28]

Martin, St. Peter the Great, probably had the beta of St. Anthony before him when he wrote. In a certain sense, the life of St. Anthony by Athanasius was his model, just as the light I would say modern life of Jesus Christ would become the typical model for the life of a monk during the Middle Ages. The other thing in regard to modern life is that not only is Jesus a monk, but he is also what a monk should be at this time. He is a father in the world. This is the hero of the masses. This is the man of the people. And his success was due not because of his contemporary or his colleagues, many of whom are photos of him, but his success was because the common people adored him.

[19:41]

It's again, it's sort of indicative of that. the monk who is carried along in the enthusiasm of other ordinary people. Now again, no doubt, it's the reason for his fame. The reason for his fame is the desire of the saint precisely because it was the ordinary people who acclaimed him, acclaimed the saint. And he would have remained then the popular saint, not just of France, but the popular saint of Europe. More than any probably I think it's in terms of the dedication of churches. There are no more churches dedicated to St. Martin throughout the length of Brussels, York, than any other St. Martin. He is the popular man, even down to Bombarding Tuck. So what do we have? We have this man who sees the imagination of the populace, Born probably around the year 316 in the region of present-day Hungary, Spanonia then, before the invasion of the Magyars, a region that was close to the Limas, close to the borders of the Roman Empire,

[21:01]

You are the son of a Roman soldier and official, keeping in mind this time of the later Roman Empire. A son had to stay within the social rank and the professional service of his father. One was frozen. In the attempt to deal with the falling apart of an empire, the disintegration of a society, one had to be frozen within one's professional or one's social status. That meant if you, in that way, you prevent the leakage of individuals from post of responsibility. You prevented people trying to cop out of the situation. And so that, you know, by freezing them in their first rank and status, you can be sure they would carry out their civic duties.

[22:06]

And among them there would be those with funds of socialism, had to become socialists themselves. So that it was quite obvious then that the young Martin would enter the military service. His parents were pagan. He himself evidently became archaic to him when he was very young. We find him in one of the Roman armies, the army situated in Gaul around the region of Ammian. as a young man. It was there that takes place the famous incident one would sort of be the signature of this man for the rest of history. His encounter with the beggar at the gate of the city of Avignon. The beggar, in a better word than a beggar, freezing cold, asked him about the love of Christ to give him a warmth. He took him off his great military cloak, held him in his hand, and gave him a beggar hat, and a knife, and made an appearance to him in the cloak, announcing that it was Martin, who was only a kind of human, who gave to him some clothing made, and it was clothing Christ.

[23:21]

And at this event, and in doing this, he receives the the ridicule and the derision of his fellow officers and so forth. But this scene, this dramatic gesture, is of course, again, becomes extremely important because it gives us a warning. or chapel and chaplain, and becomes the cuppa of St. Martin with the cloak of St. Martin that becomes the relic, and it is the relics of St. Martin after the conversion of Gaul. is the sign of authenticity for the king of Francia, for the Menevingian line and the Carolingian line, to possess the relic of Saint Martin, to possess the Kappa. It is to possess, then, the right to rule, a sign that you are authentic, and therefore, the Arab Indian kings made displacement all over, all that they could stay in one place by that time, as well as the Arab Indian kings.

[24:39]

As they moved from villa to villa to villa to the city, they moved with them the great relic. And they would have to set up then your portable altar, your portable worship place. Well, the relic was the kappa. The place in which it was kept was the kappala. And the clergy attached to the service for the kappala. And so it gives a point, it's with chapels and chaplains. And it is significant, it's almost a significant kind of role that Martin's cult played in subsequent history. It is at this time too then that he gets out of the army, is able to get himself dismissed, and to try to begin what may some attempt to live a villain-era medical life it would seem.

[25:40]

Where he gets the inspiration card, and while he's been in Italy for a while, then uses itself to go home to Hungary, tries to convert his parents, the father of course remains under it, as was Fagin, and his mother is converted. He turns and to idolate an ill-destined God, and follows in John's footsteps to St. Hilary, who is God's answer to St. Athanasius, the great defender of my faithful, the great God. theologian, teacher, polemicist, and fighter. But he resists the attempts of Saint-Henri to be enrolled among his clergy, is ordained an exorcist, but begins to live an aramidical life. Later on, we'll be having a liturgy, a liturgy, where excavations will be able to uncover one of the oldest monastic sites in France. And here, presumably, we would have continued until new monasterical life, almost now, almost at the same time, that the monastic life would be in the Arab Medical Library in Jerusalem.

[26:59]

People joining in, people joining in, but also be well known to the populace. So well known. But when there is agency in the city of Tours, the populace decides he will become a missionary. Again, it's kind of significant. Slightly different than what takes place in Egypt, but it's so contentedly different. Here is an area which is more highly populated, which is still a missionary, and where you still find very strongly the ancient exercise of what should be a way in which bishops are selected, namely popular selection. We vote by the clergy, with the acclamation of the people.

[28:06]

Here, it is the people who take the initiative, despite what they do, who take the initiative, go out to get markets. Obviously, it wasn't on account that they knew about Louvain Fisher, but a man tells them My wife said, oh I'd like you to come and take a look at him, he's not a priest, he's from a high school. I'd like you to come and take a look at him, in order to show me that you are surrounded and like a prisoner. And my school took a tour of him. and mastered the Mutukundu and were trained by the population. In other words, the clergy who were the ones who had to debate the election, that would be the neighboring bishops and the clergy against Mutukundu, had to found themselves before what was really a coup d'etat. Namely, you had this populist population consisting, it's got to be the bishops. And of course you don't have to worry about what they're marketing for, it's not because they don't worry about those things.

[29:11]

There'd be many, many people all through early history where a man was ordained where no one cared what he wanted to do. It was the novices who taught him there and ordained him. on the stylite of St. Daniel the Stylite. I didn't mention stylites yesterday, but he was Daniel the Stylite on his column in Constantinople, and the emperor decided he was going to become a priest, and the bishop said, come with me, I've come to ordain you. He said, what am I doing? And so they bid the patriarch, Constantinople, to wait an hour, and you can't wait forever. And the man won't let down the ladder, and you can't get up to him, so he said, well, I'll ordain you from down here. He was ordained. We've been worrying about those canonical reports. But the objection to Martin, of course, was interesting. In the text of the Encyclopedias Severitas, widely, the objection to Martin on the part of the neighboring bishops was, by and large, the fact that, first of all, he was

[30:19]

unkempt. His hair was not tidy. His clothes were dirty. In other words, he did not dress and look the way a bishop should. What is interesting is that he looked and dressed the way a monk should. And I think it's interesting. In other words, Martin was attempting, this is the indication, of the kind of Montreal. Because we have no idea what kind of monk was Martin. He still lives to the 4th century, but he was affecting, it would seem, the sort of lifestyle and dress and appearance that began to be typical of a certain kind of a monastic aesthetic. Not too pleasant. certainly not one to be in our bourgeois Benedictine background would appreciate.

[31:32]

But remember, remember that our early monks were not would not have been acceptable in our living world. I think you have to keep that in mind. Now, you have to keep in mind that early monasticism is very much a remodeled idea of its own kind of culture by saying it's anachronistic. By which you want to understand it, it is that. And Martin is not acceptable. That's exactly what a bishop's not like. He didn't look like a bishop. You couldn't have a man looking like that. The king of the land would be unkempt, and soiled, and so forth, [...] and

[32:39]

that by a given monk. Like a monk could be cast in the internal part of the figure. And Martin in the internal part of the figure. As soon as the election takes place, and the bishops are sort of faced with a federal concede, it is true to buy, what Martin recounts, as a sort of a divinatory act In other words, the liturgy was to proceed with the singing of a song, there was the cantor electing ways to get there in order to be able to sing in the Cretan or Islamic field, and the embal, and some other member of the clergy. All of this very well had been carefully orchestrated and arranged. We must not be naive enough to think that it was all left up to chance, that these people were footing around troops, no doubt. The populace and the clergy who wanted Martin knew whom they wanted, and knew how they were going to get him and how they were going to keep him.

[33:47]

But at any rate, the elector arrives, someone from the clergy assemble gets up, and seemingly by chance, doesn't can't find the right space, the balls on the floor and vomit. and read the text out loud as it bathes in influence, you have perfected, praised and crushed the avengers. You'll crush the enemy and the avenger anyway. The text of course was a Latin text, not of the Vulgars, but of probably of the old Yiddish Yit'alot. And where the word for, I think to do with them, avenger, is Detensorem, in the Hebrew. So, Detensorem. And Detensorem was the name of one of the bishops. The bishop who served still in the avant-garde. The bishop who was in opposition to Martin. And this text was a divine sign that Martin's election was the right one and that his enemies were condemned.

[34:55]

Now, all of this seemingly happened by chance, and that's because the ancients As you know, one of the ways of divination is to find a text in scripture. If you should use scripture, you also learn it, you also can use the original, you can also use other books. But by finding through through an individual who is supposed to be pure enough to allow you to be allowed to text. If you've got a nightfall, or a dagger, or something on your text, then those scriptural texts will indicate to you what is right, what you should be done. In other words, it's a form of rejuvenation. Ancient forms condemned many, many times, but used, and would be used by or to ease the obstacle. So that in a certain sense, this was to be divine sign.

[35:56]

Martin was the man, any remedies that can solve it. They probably had fixed it. Probably did. But the people saw it, the people understood it, and they appreciated it, and they knew who the pencil was. Martin and Bishop remained amongst. That's the constant theme then of politicians of the arts. Martin and Bishop remained among. And in a certain sense of monasticism, it's fully realized because it is outside the city of Tours, and he builds them, or he springs up the monastery of Montmoutier, which I don't want to use the name, it's the monastery of Montmoutier, where We don't know exactly what kind of monastic life was led. Martin lived there much of the time when I was living in this hotel room on the ground floor. And we were seemingly a large community together.

[37:01]

Many members of the senatorial families of Southern Gaul. They are engaged in coitus officius severus. There are those engaged in living the life of hezekiah, living in the living rock, cutting the fire in the earth. Others constructing built caverns. However, it is a kind of a hermitage, a lower type monastery. Others engage in copying manuscripts, however. Others engage in copying manuscripts. Others engage in preaching. I was engaged, and we got ready to become bishops, because many, many future bishops would all come out of that monastery of Martin Luther King. So they'd start, which is Martin Luther King Monastery. Now, Martin Luther King himself lived there for a while. He's living there with our father. He's acting as bishop to tour, but he's also a missionary.

[38:05]

And, of course, Genevieve is on the road constantly. And so much of the rest of the last part of the Vita of St. Mark recounts his peregrinations, which is a wish to people of St. Joseph and his pilgrimages. All were gone, outside of his diocese, but for him it was a chance to have women. In other words, Martin meets the devil in the way Anthony also meets the devil. casting out demons, correcting, working wonders, healing. He is a wonder worker. He also is able, and his conversion, his acts of converting others, is confrontation with the Satan gods, who are not the demons. and these wonderful confrontations that took place. All of this is very much popular. He sees the popular imagination in his confrontation with the remnants of the Druid religion in Andalusia.

[39:14]

But he also is sort of showing the activity now, the spread of the church from an urban phenomenon. which is what the early church always was. It was an urban religion to the countryside, where the Agandes, we call them the Papus, the countryside world, the Pagans. In a way, Martin is considered to be a part of the law, and he is certain of that, because he takes law to the world culture to the people. And the beginning of the establishment of this church, which is, remember the church was always geared and built for a city. And it's not really structurally made for vast territory where people are living on land. And he does that. He does help begin then the setting up of the Mourning of the World's Parish.

[40:20]

The Parish was the most, was it six before it became a church, Roman Catholic Church, the section of Roman Catholic Church. He's also important in terms of confronting the heresy, the resilience problem and so forth. But remember that Martin does not get along with us efficiently. Martin is not, he's not one of those who will get along and work along with others. He's not a young, he's not a keen man. He's to some extent an old man, I have quite some pieces of that under his defense. But he was not one of the boys. And in the affair, the Priscillian and Pharisee, Priscillian was basically fainting, probably nauseated, probably nauseated. The apothecary is not received yet. In his iron apartment, the bishop is received to it, and he gets properly, the Sicilian is brought to trial, and then he is properly dealt with.

[41:23]

The emperor in Gaul at that time agrees. Therefore, Maximus, Maximus wants to do the right thing, wants to put the bishop on his side, because he wants to maintain the authority. And he's ready to put the man to death too. And we will insist on Martin, The emperor should not have to be in a clear gospel manner, and that death should not be a part of it, or a part of faith. The interesting thing, all this is still in the 4th century, the same century in which Constantine, I believe, is dealing with the Donatists, And where Augustine had finally decided, reluctantly, but finally decided the only way to deal with people like the Baptists is to use the sword, and finally has agreed that you've got to repress heresy with force. Martin, quite really a hero. Not at all a theologian. Not at all really a man of the, who belongs to the group.

[42:26]

Martin, more charismatic in a way. And still, you know, still basically mocked, taught, non-conformist. He will go to his grave, aware of the fact that he dared to take part in the Euclid with these bishops who he wanted to put to Silman the Dead. And the means of trying to save for Silman the Last Mother. He thought he was doing that. And he felt in the end that he had betrayed his principles. But the great principle we had was no material interference in the relics of animals, and no death by heresy. It's kind of interesting. The one last thing I want to say before we break through that, so please just bear with us, also, in describing this man, describing his life briefly, are gratifying activity which would particularly wonder were to include a combination of demons and then also it is about bishops.

[43:38]

Describes the virtues in the end of the last year or two chapters, after describing his own visit with him, how its gracious marking goes to him. And then, I think in chapter 27, he does a very interesting thing. He makes a description, which I would just like to read, of Martin very briefly, in terms of his title system. Ah, this is chapter 26, the last chapter in the line. Ah, happy man and true, who engaged in no deceit, judging no one, condemning no one, rendering evil for evil to no one. But such was his patience, so was the patience, such was the patience with which he was armed against all offenses, that having the fullness of the priesthood,

[44:46]

He let himself be outraged with impunity even by the least of his clearance and he never took, never got rid of them or degraded them from their functions and never set them aside from his affection. Never did anyone see him with anger, see him Drunk with emotion. See him afflicted. See him laughing. He was always the same. Always equal for himself. His countenance shining with a joy that one would call heavenly. He had an air that was a sort of sympathizer and a stranger in human nature.

[45:50]

Never did he have anything but Christ on his lips. Never did he have anything but goodness, peace, mercy in his heart. Baldwin was even in his habit to deplore the faults of those who showed themselves as detractors while at the same time he remained peacefully in his retreat. Even though their tongue is torn apart, like so many vipers, is part of that. Saltyrius Severus did not want living animals. He lacked emotion. Is Saltyrius Severus' way of saying the mind's hero and also a king, it's kind of a lack of fair, it's kind of ideal. Now, whether he is speaking in terms of a conscious understanding of his ideal, spiritual ideal, which at the same time, he vaguely is developing, I'm not sure.

[46:57]

I think there may very well be, and St. Peter is very well-reported, and the well-defined alliance of Norway and Wales, more where the spiritual current that was progressing at the time. I think there is a conscious effort to picture now this hero as also having attained a lot of help and love. One of the things I forgot to mention in looking at the life of St. Martin by St. Peter Severus was that not only did I, I should have brought out that prior to describing the character and the subtle disposition and the equilibrium of St. Martin, St. Peter Silvarius describes his unlisted virtues, some of which are sort of commonplace, all virtues of all the saints who have, but he does take particular, place particular emphasis on the man's continual prayer.

[48:09]

And I think that probably it isn't just the commonplace that he was stressing, who is also on the line, what was, and I hope to bring out a little bit to touch on them, but was a monastic ideal found among the Dezik fathers, a notion that prayer should be a continual prayer. One should engage in prayer all the time. And he suggests that this is exactly what was the case with Martin, but he was always praying even though he was engaged in other things, but only in a literary form, To underline this, a simile in which instead of Jeff, like the blacksmith, even when at rest and not doing anything else, will constantly sort of rhythmically strike the anvil with his hammer, so did Martin constantly strike the anvil of prayer, no matter what he was doing. It would seem that he is talking with particularly emphasis on this virtue of continual prayer which was very much a desert monastic ideal.

[49:23]

Now the Vita of St. Benedict by Gregory of the Great is also a literary work Gregory the Great is not the same kind of writer as Sophusius of Arras, although he too comes from the aristocratic milieu of a Roman senatorial family. In fact, he has a family that has two hopes in his lineage. So, he comes from an ancient coastal family. He was a member of the establishment, if you will, of the city of Lodge. a man with the train, but already in a certain sense the time for the scholastic achievement of the 6th century is not the same as it was till the 4th century. He's not a man who's had that much learning.

[50:29]

Nevertheless, he writes a work by the dialogue made up of four books, three of which form a whole. The three books are a series of vignettes of holy men and women in Italy. Italy's response to the holy men and women in Egypt It is the sign, the guide, even in the midst of the terrible, terrible calamities that really were undergoing in the 6th century, and we can describe the 6th century as the Vietnams, or the Cambodia, or the Byzantine Empire. Battlegrounds. in which the last stand for empire was taken by the army of Justinian, who was attempting to rout the Ostrogoths.

[51:38]

And the only ones who toppled, of course, are the Lombards, who sweep in on the north, ostensibly as allies of the Byzantine armies, but it is a chance to take over for themselves with the defeat of the Ostrogoths. Italy's final separation, severance from influence of the Byzantine Empire from the Empire of Constantinople having any effect of control on it at all. And really the beginning of Italy then has been part and parcel of what would then soon become Germanic Europe. the Middle Ages had begun. Gregory the Great is in a certain sense the last of the Church Fathers, but he's also the last really of the Popes of the later Roman Empire, and almost in a certain sense the first of the Medieval Popes. So if this man, Gregory, attempting to console his people, is the only force really there, the Emperor

[52:44]

You're not bad at hope, really, in face of the Lombard pressure. You know, only if you've done it once or so, God is with us. In the time before, I greatly was assured of that. At the end time, it comes. There was no question about it. But it wasn't our last war, now. You know, the plagues, the earthquakes, the famine, the warfare, it was only a bit of it. I mean, we're all going to come to them, but still we have these holy men and women. And in book one and book three, you have these nice pictures and scenes on the lives of these holy men and women. We also have a quick indication of the time, when you're talking about the monks, of the time of the Naxal rivalry, a very small, kind of almost domestic monastery. Very simple, very, very simple. Book two is different in that you have one character who violates.

[53:55]

And it gave them the life of this tragedy. It remains one of them. They thought, was that really his moment? Well, yes, perhaps. But still, he was also, after all, a blessed one, a scripting man, too. We are set forth in a series of chapters with a certain order, In certain literary form, not only the outlines of his life, but again most particularly the style of his whole life. And that's exactly what he wants to show us, the signs of the truth. Now, Book 4 deals with what's called the problem of life after death, you know, the charge of the soul. But then he goes a little further through that. He looks to his reading, he looks to the signs of it, the holiness of it now, which is proof. And one of the signs of the holiness is that he is filled with the spirit of all the just, therefore he can see all of the prophets of the Old Testament in him.

[55:03]

And, uh, The signs of the Holiness are much more important than anything, and that's why the Galactic Parliament, as well as the facing of the evil one, are also dominant. Dominate the text. There's now researchers, obviously, of interest these days in the book to a dialogue. Probably when I was a novice and read talk to other dialogues, and we have to believe in their words, because obviously this is a profile of one's own fitness, of one's own life. Now, if you want to call it a question, you will have to look it up. And of course, we went through a period when we thought only of the mishmash of miracles and marvelous things and things where we were silent whether you were really intelligent or not.

[56:07]

That's the way they used to treat us. We didn't have credence at all. Now, of course, we're going to look down to a lot of the book of these stuff. We'll see if it alliterates some of those literary poems that are both, but it's still definitely an historical source. But remember, an historical source, the point was, because of what does the source say? I want all the stories are true enough, but what is it saying? What is it revealing? And everything, even a document that has been falsified, even a document, even a fairy tale, reveals something about the period in which it was written. And it's very important for the historian who knows how to spring out of it all of the last drops of historical reality that could possibly be there. And that's, I think, what the people that gathered me to work with, and others, are now attempting to do.

[57:11]

And dealing now with the Book Two of the Dialogues, all those that are outsourced, and also those that are outsourced now, because all those chapters are two, because they are showing some very definite things about Gregory's own mentality and the mentality of Tom, and so forth. But also, remember, it is this work which sets the stage for later, a later talk of St. Benedict, and for certain ideals of spirituality, a monastic spirituality. Now again, one of the interesting things is that Benedict is portrayed as a hero. He is a hero who dominates the sinner, and who, like Martin, must come face to face with the evil one, and who, like Martin, also treats him. The interesting thing is that Benedict the abbot is an apostle. He is an apostle to the people around the area of Cappuccino who are still pagan.

[58:12]

We're still in a world in which the church is still an urban phenomenon and still in the pockets of what we found before dying. The inhabitants were still pagans at times. And it confronts the pagan reality. It's also a preaching. You also must deal with it. At the same time, Benedict feels one who lives an established monastery, spiritual monastery life, and then don't reach a much greater natural state. That's all. One of the other things that Benjamin can do is that he foretells the future, which is a common trait for what the Saint can do. He foretells the future destruction of his monastery, and so forth.

[59:18]

Then he acts at a distance. in place of giving a kind of résumé of a spiritual teaching, which Athanasius does, and given a philosophical angle, he goes, yeah, that's wrong in discourse, but Anthony gives to his monks, which he sort of sums up a monastic theology of, like, there's a lot like that, where he simply sort of, according to the vocal ways, he is one who notices it, and the source of it, he simply It gives you the price for which empowerment is known. I'll try to compete with you if you want to name it or rule it. Now there are problems, of course. We have two expressional terms and a rule that gives credence to what was mentioned. Before we take a look at that, I would like to point out that as far as historians dealing with the cultural dialogue,

[60:20]

One of the questions is, how can you put this book into a historical context? And the only problem is that with the sort of pasting together of miraculous events and anecdotes, there seems to be no historical time frame which you can play for. Now it's time to hose me back to Anson's book. Identity is even more difficult because you have no other contemporary evidence for a reducer. There is the one incident, however, on the visit of Tottenham to one of the... to the sea, then, on a place of sort. We don't want to go there because this man, who has obviously excluded all his life, has the ability, as a man of discernment, and is able then to see one who is wearing the trappings of another's office, and not only is he able to see the falsehood there, but then is able to give a salutary warning to the king, and tell him about the future, so that if there's any invitation, he must follow it, and so forth.

[61:41]

Now, if God is helpless, There needs to be some sort of chronological point behind some of the signs. Namely, Patala, who is the successor to the Ostrogothic kings, the successor to Whittaketh, was the husband of Amalasumpa, who was the daughter of Vyadari. of being the great Ostrogothic king, to become king in the hour upon, I mean in the hour, the latter part of the fourth century. Tatala comes through, Benedict tells him, you may take the city along, and then you will die. most people date this event a list of total of about the year 546.

[62:44]

That brings up the whole question about when the band had lived. This year we're celebrating the first millennium. I was deaf. James called me one. I was deaf. [...] I was deaf acquired a 4-E. Eugene Manning is a monk, a Cistercian monk, a Horsespore in Belgium. Eugene Manning's work on the story of Nuremberg, went on for a long time.

[63:56]

He worked with Nafal, a man of the land, also of Belgium, for a while with Marx and Schottinger. a long time then, a librarian of the Political Alliance. He and Lassalle, or Lassalle, I guess that's what he was, sort of stand forth as the exponents of a certain interpretation of the sources dealing with the life, I don't know if those are the rules, or whatever, over against a lot of great scholars. of a man called Lapierre Thibir, a long time professor of French Ensemble in Rome, namely Albert de Gautouet, who also then took part as a particular exponent of a certain, of his conclusion, a scholarly conclusion regarding the life of Benedict and the rule of the master and the rules of Benedict, which we'll talk about a little later.

[65:02]

All right, Eugene Manning and I don't know about the vocalists, on our opposite sides, of what is an increasing controversy, which shows you how exciting it is to be an historian, including more than just your spirituality, and that's something that we all have all done. It's something that you worry about, you fight about. Eugene Manning is always interesting to read. And to celebrate the first millennium, he came up with a very nice translation. are in French, other will have been in it, with our notes, and where they've struck into Braxton, obviously you must understand they seem to have a long ideal about the rule of law, and don't start to think about rules of law, but over against what Albert de Burgoyne had said, and we'll talk about that this afternoon.

[66:03]

But I want to mention here is that Eugene Brown, in his introduction, points out that the dates of Benedict's father's death couldn't be 485-47. And so, I mean, I'll celebrate the first millennium a little later. Well, many of us won't be alive. He's going to be, at the date written out there, it should be 5-20-5-75. So you're going to put me around 5-20-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7- There absolutely is no way of knowing just if I do or don't know this.

[67:07]

The Book of Dialogues is the only historical, contemporary, almost contemporary, book of life and the work of St. John the Good. It doesn't give any clues to all of them. And the only one you can hang around is We know then definitely the cause of that death is 546. No, excuse me, it's 547. And it takes around 546. But I am lost. So that's one day we do know. But we know Benedict was a liar. For various reasons, Eugene Bannon says, we've got to move it back. Because Gregory the Count depends, he says, upon certain eyewitnesses who are still living.

[68:12]

And we know where that person is. It was much more reasonable to suppose that Benedict was still in closer proximity, as far as when he lived, to these people whom Gregory would interview. Otherwise, he would have been awfully old if he died in 542. Awfully old. The other thing he says is, we know that the destruction of Monica's funeral takes place by the Lombards around 580. Then he mentions much more likely that Benedict would foresee this and had a whole lot of extra supernatural help in the year 575, before his death, when the Floyd Banks dropped in the 540s. That would be the ultimate destruction of Monica's funeral and so forth. He's also accused, dearly, that the monastery of the Lateran, where the monks of Montefiore eventually wrote, was a monastery founded by monks.

[69:20]

He had some arguments there in terms, that's the reason why you've got Roman practices in the world, to tell you the truth. Lateran was a monastery in Rome. Whenever you can understand, you've got a lot of tricks in the world with those bookmarks. All of this, of course, is a very elaborate move on dark hypotheses, as anything is. But it does seem very reasonable. That brings us to the other question, the other question that Eugene Ryan poses, and everyone really must pose it, when in the dialogues, wherever he talks about this rule of small growth, what rule is he talking about? First of all, most historians, though, will certainly not think of some Gregory, as being a man called the River Bennet.

[70:22]

Unfortunately, we probably will find the reason they say River Bennet, that Gregory was one of them. But he probably, in the monastic life that we follow, does, or a while after he is, he finishes public service, or he retires, he lives a monastic life, and being a wealthy aristocrat of the Roman nobility, He does what many of them did, he turned the vast estates over into sort of monastery, made for slaves and monks, if you want, from the folks with the instant population. We didn't plan to live in a monastery, we lived on one of the estates in Fulham as well, it was a place with some armed troops. and find themselves pressed to the service immediately with a time of crisis into the papal service and has to serve as ambassador to all the apocryphalius or the apocryphalian in the vassal and local etc.

[71:43]

But it would seem that most of these kinds of house monasteries, small domestic communities, They probably followed different people, different traditions, put them all together and made a mission. That's what was important, was what the elders thought. And what the elders decided was the tradition that we were going to look into. It was important to remember that they were hooked into a tradition. It wasn't a sense of, well, we're going to integrate now. No one integrates. in ancient times. You never even believed you were. You never said you were. You adopted, you put an ancient name to it. Which perhaps isn't all bad. I'll tell you why sometime. But the important thing is that you obviously hooked into a tradition. But it's not in itself. Nothing at all. We hooked into a revision of this rule, which we'll have to name later on.

[72:46]

First of all, there's no indication of what this rule for monasteries has in common with the plans to it. But there's no indication that we know that it indicates what the rule is that this man wrote, what influence it had, what he thought. Just like it was great, it was wonderful. And Eugene Manningford, that would probably indicate that he didn't know it very well. He was just giving a general vague present. Now, I don't know what to assume that. I don't know. That's who Eugene Manningford was. Did Gregory know the context of it all? Maybe he did, to some extent. But there's nothing exactly in his account of dialogue, in the case of Newton, that he knew it very thoroughly. And there's only one other incident in the Dialogues that helps us hook on to the text of a rule, if I'm not mistaken. As far as I know, there's very little that really helps us hook on exactly to the words of a rule.

[73:55]

But, Gregory is more of an individual than later on will be taught. one of the most important individuals as far as populism is concerned and as far also as monastic history and even Klingon history in general. He is giving us a figure, a figure that will dominate the history of Europe, even though all we have of him is a rule of laws of man. when this portrayal of Benedict is mostly of an individual as a wonder worker, like Ittle responds, in some sense, to God and to each other. There is, however, one of the other incidents, which I'm going to explain a bit. And though Sophie Suarez talks about Martin's continual prayer,

[75:01]

And in the text of the Sons of Mother of Adam and Eve, Gregory the Great, too, gives a look at Benedict of America, an extraordinary man. In the very last chapter, he talks about an incident in the life of Benjamin. Early on in chapter 2, he talks about Benedict, who had a family with a hermit, Uh, and it goes, a kind of combat, somewhat similar, I went to one, maybe I'm still too much older, but somewhat similar to Ma Antony with his combat with the demons as he was locked up for 20 years in a fortress. And then, after he had undergone this, he enrages on the self-possessed, having orphans and enjoy harmony, and so forth, having a pathéon. Benedict, after this bout of temptation, especially against the clergy, only decides then to really, really handle it all once and for all, and he rolls around a little in the middle.

[76:13]

This act of combat, this act of wrestling with the clergymen, he says afterwards, he is We acknowledge our temptations, but we have an indication that we are ready to become a spiritual father. Soon after, there will be many people in the world to place themselves under those guidance. But now that we are freed from these temptations, we are ready to unscrupulously practice a virtue. Which, maybe I'm too much in it. But if one has arrived at that affair, one is then ready for spiritual power, one is then able and ready to teach. And there's certainly, in the mind of Gregory, this incident in between a transition period for him, who is now ready to take on his political, major role, that of being spiritual father, or teacher of others. At the end of his life in the dialogues, there is that remarkable scene

[77:18]

which is a description of Benedict's experience of God. It is important, I think, because neither in the life of St. Anthony nor in the life of St. Martin is there so far as in such a profound way, I think, a mystical experience of the world. Here, I really do believe that part of the dialogue in the Second Book of Dialogues is less a literary work, less a great work than either the like of some anthology or the like of some minor. Nor is this one incident is more important than anyone else's on the other two. It is a description of Benedict's mystical experience. It's not just simply a history. It is an experience of prayer for Gregory the Great. And Gregory himself is a mystic. What I wrote this man knew was extraordinary.

[78:22]

Extraordinary preacher and so forth. My great learned man, the servant of God, was a mystic. And a mystical writer, of course. In chapter 35, he has, at another time, the deacon said, I'm just going to see the servant of God on one of his regular visits. He was avid of the monastery in Tapani, where it had been built by the late Santa Ligerios, and always brought on an opportunity to discuss with Benwick the truths of eternity, for he too was a man of deep spiritual understanding. In spooking of their hopes and longings, they were able to taste in advance the heavenly food that it was not yet fully managed to enjoy. When it was time to retire from the night, Benwick went to his room on the second floor of the tower that he had been serving in the one below, which was connected with his own by a stairway. The disciples slept in a large room in the basement tower. Long before the night office began, the man of God was standing at his window, where he watched and prayed while the rest were still asleep. On the dead of night, he suddenly beheld a flood of light shine down from above, more brilliant than the sun.

[79:24]

and withered every trace of darkness to the weather. Another remarkable sight followed. According to his own description, the whole world was gathered up before his eyes in what appeared to be a single ray of light. As he gazed at all this dazzling display, he saw the soul of the Romanian sub-bishop, Takua, being carried by the angels off to heaven in a ball of fire. Wishing to have someone else witness this great marvel, he called out for Sylvandus, repeating his name two or three times in a loud voice. As soon as he heard the sims call, Sylvandus rushed to the upper room, or just in time to catch a final glimpse of the miraculous life. He remained speechless, but Wanderer then described everything that had taken place. It reminds us, I think, of the, of the ensemble, of a mystical experience, of a shared mystical experience, that a Gospel has with its mother, some minor prayer. Ecclesiastes, described in the book Ten of the Contortions, is inspired to a prayer. where it was really a moment of shared prayer, they began to talk about heaven and heavenly things and fairies.

[80:31]

And notion that they began to talk, when the talking and the sharing of ideals passed on into a contemplation, an upper contemplation of God, a shared contemplation, in which they were, I guess, aware of God's presence in a very remarkable way. And that description of the time was one of the, again, a very remarkable description of a mystical state, which he shared with his mother. And it's also the epitaph that she got. And then you have here these Benedict talking to herself on this, and a shared kind of prayer, a shared contemplation, And finally, later on, Benedict Heavenboost might have not been that patient with our vision in terms of our direct equilibrium. Well, that might be the case with Vandervoort, but it is an experience of light, an experience of the fullness of light, and an experience of God's transcendence, and of

[81:44]

All things in a way, I sort of have an understanding, which is similar to an intuition, a mystical intuition, of all things holding together and coming to one, and that's power, that's not losing. And it is this. that you see. And it looks like there's a little stronger kind of explanation. Gregory lived in the midst of the light. Gregory's whole mystical terminology is not so much of the darkness, but very much, in his other writings, his commentaries, especially his mystical commentary on Ezekiel and so forth, it is a light experience that he uses for his mystical understanding. Gregory doesn't live in himself. was no stranger to the group of the higher reaches of Frank. And I think it's this that is one of the most important now in his life. Really. He is placing Benedict in a month in an experience of mysticism that is, that the other, when I say heroes, I'm not supposed to.

[82:59]

Now, is he describing his own experience of putting it on Benedict? Or is... How did he know that Benedict had it? These are the questions you can't answer. It may very well be that this experience of Benedict is something that Solanges recounts later on. We don't know. We have no idea, among what other sources of Gregory, in terms of his life, other than various individuals whom he said he talked to. And so forth. I have a question. Well, there's a particular experience of seeing a particular world's growing up, isn't there? You see that a lot in the Afro-Plague material, where the father, the elder, looks and sees a flash of light and sees someone go up to heaven. I think several of the fathers mentioned this very sort of thing, seeing this one and that one ascend to heaven.

[84:01]

And I think even more than that, it's the intonation of of all things being in God, of God's... not necessarily of God's transcendence, but how all things can sort of fit together into the vision of God. And obviously not seeing God, but you are... Because ultimately, intellectually, it's very much an intellectual experience. Intellectual mystical experience, it's not a vision. but it's from a picture. But I think it's an intellectual understanding, an intellectual intuition. I think I have to learn more than the Sunningham particular. But it fits into a literary comment. What I would liken it to is what I would want to remember tomorrow, talking about tomorrow, is Julianne of Norwich.

[85:02]

expression of seeing all things in the hazelnut. That ability to, that notion of the one and many being resolved in a mystical way, the many, the manifold, and the oneness, and what oneness is in that. That's why I think it's more important that we are ultimately in a good place still in the American dialogue some period. I'm very discharacterized to work as Gregory taking a totally different approach than the world out there. If you look around the Greek, it's visual, it's light. Whereas in Benedict's little Hebrew, it's open to the word, it's all, you know, it's to listen. So it's a type of thing, you know, totally different direction. Medieval spirituality will pick up much more.

[86:07]

Do you agree with that? Why, it sounds like someone who I know. Right. I don't know. It's a little fast, but I knew it was afternoon. Right to a quick afternoon. Don't look at the world in that sort of way, don't you? But I want to look at those two chaplains again, prayer. But following my prejudices, no. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Be not my son. Yeah. Yeah.

[86:59]

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