Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

monasticism 775
with laborious scruple, and congratulated in his Dialogues a miraculous
power among holy men that habitually averted flood and disease, enhanced
fertility, and provided abundance in time of famine.
So the Dialogues placed Benedict in a broad ascetic context, much of it
now familiar. 108 Alongside the many monasteries, described in the first book
most of all, Gregory mentioned hermits and near-hermits, 109 and even
ascetics who had come from the east, bringing with them customs that
would not have seemed out of place in the writings of John of Ephesus or
Cyril of Scythopolis. 110 Benedict’s contemporaries and immediate disciples
would have jostled with such assorted company. Among them we may even
include the erudite Cassiodorus (about whom Gregory was silent), an exile
in the east after his distinguished but finally embittered career in
Ostrogothic government, and now returned to found something approaching
a monastery at Vivarium. 111 In the matter of authority, bishops had
some pre-eminence, as envisaged by Justinian’s Pragmatic Sanction of a.d.
554; but Gregory could be surprisingly cautious about the extent of their
control in monastic matters, and recommended in practise a very literal
adherence to the precedents established at Chalcedon, keeping bishops well
away from the internal affairs of communities, in Gaul as well as Italy. While
the third book of the Dialogues was devoted to the thesis that bishops could
be (or should be) as holy as anyone, and showed them at work among
monks, Gregory did not disguise the fact that they could often be at odds
with superiors, in spite of being sometimes monks themselves or presiding
over ascetic households. 112 Holy men took their own initiatives, founding
communities; 113 and, like the clergy, they claimed a right to judge and
advise. 114 Not least because of that association, they were portrayed as
natural evangelists, as well as supporters of the poor. 115 Laymen exercised a
further patronage meanwhile, setting up buildings and even appointing
superiors, although their generosity was occasionally rejected. 116
Within that framework of establishment, control and social concern,
ascetics of all types worked the land, miraculously and otherwise. While
108 Gregory included his own monastic experience, which may well have become disillusioned,
wedged as it was between the careers of a prefect and a pope. His famous letter to Leander, Ep. 5.53 a ,
admitted, in relation to the quies monasterii, quia habendo non fortiter tenui, quam stricte tenenda fuerit, perdendo
cognovi. See also Dial. i, preface. 109 Dial. iii.14.2f., 16.1f., 17.1f., 18.1f.; iv.31.2f.
110 Certainly Isaac the Syrian, living in a church and gathering disciples around himself, Dial.
iii.14.2–5. Possibly the cave-dwelling Martin criticized by Benedict for wearing chains, iii.16.9.
Probably the Menas of iii.26.1f. See also iv.37.3f., 40.10f.
111 Whatever justice allows us to think of him as a ‘monk’ has to be based on a reading of his
Institutions (ed. Mynors (1937)), hardly the work of one scienter nescius!
112 For examples of close bonds between ascetic and clerical careers, see Dial. i.4.3f., 9 passim;
iii.13.1, 22.1, 36.1; iv.33 passim. Much is implied less directly elsewhere. Gregory’s caution was
expressed mostly in his letters: see Ep. 3.58, 7.12, 13.12. 113 Dial. i.1.3, iv.11.1f.
114 Dial. ii.23 and 25 make the connection with Benedict, basing authority on experience and insight.
115 Dial. i.1.5f., 4.8; iii.15.2, 34.2f.
116 Dial. ii.35.1 provides a detailed instance. See also ii.22.1, iii.15.2. Contrasting caution is betrayed
in iii.14.4f., iv.9.1. A peasant surrendered his goods to Benedict for safe keeping, ii.31.1f.
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