f the proper order in which each
should hold his place, "since, whether slaves or free, we are all one
in Christ, and, under the same Lord, wear all of us the same badge of
service."

In a cell hard by the monastery dwelt Benedict's sister, S.
Scholastica, whose religious life he directed, but whom he rarely saw,
and who became a pattern to nuns as he to monks.

[Sidenote: Its wide influence.]

The influence of Benedict was, even in his own lifetime, extraordinary.
There were times when it might almost be said that all Italy looked to
him for guidance; and there is no more striking scene in the history of
the decaying Gothic power than when the cruel Totila, whose end he
foresaw, and the secrets of whose heart lay open to his gaze, visited
him in his monastery and heard the words of truth from his lips. When,
fortified by the Body and Blood of the Lord, he passed away with hands
still uplifted in prayer, he had created a power which did more than
any other to make the Church predominant in Italy. The rule, the
definite organisations, of monasticism came to the world from Italy and
from Benedict. Though the Benedictines were never actively papal
agents, yet indirectly, by their training and by their influence on the
whole nature of medieval religion, they formed a strong support for the
growing power of the Roman see.

{38}

But Benedict was not the only leader, though he was the greatest, in
the monastic revival of the sixth century. With another great name his
work may be placed to some extent in contrast.

[Sidenote: Scholarship and learning.]

S. Benedict was no advocate of exclusively ecclesiastical study. He
adapted the ancient literatures to the purposes of Christian education.
It is true that the main subjects of study for his monks were the Holy
Scriptures, and the chief object the edification of the individual by
meditation and of the people by preaching; but the monks learnt to
write verse correctly and prose in what had claims to be considered a
style. Yet what he himself did in that direction was little indeed.
Perhaps the most that can be said is that he left the way open to his
successors. And of these the greatest was Cassiodorus.

[Sidenote: Cassiodorus.]

Cassiodorus, the statesman, the orthodox adviser and friend of the
Arian Theodoric, lived to become a Christian teacher and a monk. The
friend of Pope Agapetus, he endeavoured with his sanction in 535 to set
up a school in Rome whic