Section 07: The Miracles and the Holy Man

The interpretive center of the collection: how to read the miracle accounts that make up the body of the Dialogues, and the account of Benedict’s death. The two files are, first (the flagship for the whole collection’s method), a treatment of the genre of Dialogues II — what a sixth-century Latin hagiography of miracles is, what Gregory meant it to do, how the “man of God” (vir Dei) is constructed in the lineage of the prophets and apostles, and how the modern reader and the Orthodox reader alike should handle such accounts (METHODOLOGY §3.5) — and, second, the death of Benedict: the foretelling of his own death, his last reception of the Eucharist, his dying upright in prayer with his hands raised to heaven, and the vision of the shining road to heaven (Dialogues II.37).

Tradition: Pre-Schism Western (Latin) / Orthodox reception

Contents

File Topic
Reading the Dialogues The flagship method file. The genre of Dialogues II; Gregory’s purpose (that Italy too has its saints and that miracles continue); Benedict as the Latin vir Dei, “man of God,” patterned on Moses, Elijah, Elisha, the apostles, and St Antony; the typology of the miracles; the modern critical and the Orthodox readings; how this collection pins every wonder to its chapter under METHODOLOGY §3.5
The Death of Benedict The foretelling of his death to the brethren (Dialogues II.37); the opening of the tomb six days before; the last communion received in the oratory; dying standing, upheld by his disciples, hands raised in prayer; the vision, granted to two monks, of the road strewn with carpets and lit with lamps stretching east to heaven; the date (traditionally c. 547, 21 March); the burial with Scholastica

How to Use

  • Read Reading the Dialogues as the interpretive key to the whole collection. Every miracle reported in Sections 01–06 is read in the light of this file. It is the fullest statement of the §3.5 discipline that governs the entire guide.
  • Read The Death of Benedict for the close of the life — and for the way the Dialogues gather all their themes (prophecy, the Eucharist, the upward vision) into the death of the man of God.
  • The Rule Benedict left behind, and the tradition it founded, are the subject of Section 08.

Cross-References