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Dialogues
St Gregory the Dialogist, tr. P. W., 1608
Book 2, 36. How Holy Benedict Wrote a Rule for His Monks
1 GREGORY. Desirous I am, Peter, to tell you many things of this venerable father, but some of purpose I let pass, because I make haste to entreat also of the acts of other holy men: yet I would not have you to be ignorant, but that the man of God amongst so many miracles, for which he was so famous in the world, was also sufficiently learned in divinity: for he wrote a rule for his monks, both excellent for discretion and also eloquent for the style. Of whose life and conversation, if any be curious to know further, he may in the institution of that rule understand all his manner of life and discipline: for the holy man could not otherwise teach, than himself lived.
Notes
- Chapter XXXVI. p. 99. “For he wrote a rule for his monks, both excellent for discretion and also eloquent for the style.” The Latin runs: Nam scripsit monachorum regulam, discretione praecipuam, sermone luculentam. St. Gregory himself, in the epistle to Bishop Leander prefixed to the Moralia, professes to despise “literary style” (ipsam loquendi artem, quam magisteria disciplinae exterioris insinuant); “for I deem it most unworthy,” he says, “to restrict the words of the heavenly oracle under the rules of Donatus” (Epistola missoria ad Leandrum Hispalensem, cap. 5). For the style and Latinity of the Rule, cf. especially E. Wolfflin, Die Latinitat des Benedikt von Nursia in Archiv fur lateinische Lexikographie und Grammatik, ix. Munich, 1896.