Benedict died, after partaking of the holy communion,
praying, in standing posture at the foot of the altar, on the 21st of
March, 543, and was buried by the side of his sister, Scholastica, who
had established a nunnery near Monte Cassino, and died a few weeks
before him. They met only once a year on the side of the mountain for
prayer and pious conversation. On the day of his departure two monks saw
in a vision a shining pathway of stars leading from Monte Cassino to
heaven, and heard a voice that said by this road Benedict, the well
beloved of God, had ascended to heaven.[7]
His biographer, Pope Gregory I., in the second book of his Dialogues,
ascribes to him miraculous prophecies and healings, and even a raising
of the dead.[8] With reference to his want of secular culture and his
spiritual knowledge, he calls him a learned ignorant and an unlettered
sage.[9] At all events he possessed the genius of a lawgiver, and holds
the first place among the founders of monastic orders, though his person
and life are much less interesting than those of a Bernard of Clairvaux,
a Francis of Assisi, and an Ignatius of Loyola.
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