saint near his cave, but at first took him for a wild beast; for he
was clad with the skins of beasts, and they imagined no human creature
could live among those rocks. When they found him to be a servant of
God, they respected him exceedingly, and many of them were moved by his
heavenly discourses to embrace with fervor a course of perfection. From
that time he began to be known, and many visited him, and brought him
such sustenance as he would accept: in requital for which he nourished
their souls with spiritual instructions. Though he lived sequestered
from the world, he was not yet secure from the assaults of the tempter.
Wherever we fly the devil still pursues us, and we carry a domestic
enemy within our own breasts. St. Gregory relates, that while St. Bennet
was employed in divine contemplation, the fiend endeavored to withdraw
his mind from heavenly objects, by appearing in the shape of a little
black-bird; but that, upon his making the sign of the cross, the phantom
vanished. After this, by the artifices of this restless enemy, the
remembrance of a woman whom the saint had formerly seen at Rome,
occurred to his mind, and so strongly affected his imagination, that he
was tempted to leave his desert. But blushing at so base a suggestion of
the enemy, he threw himself upon some briers and nettles which grew in
the place where he was, and rolled himself a long time in them, till his
body was covered with blood. The wounds of his body stifled all
inordinate inclinations, and their smart extinguished the flame of
concupiscence. This complete victory seemed to have perfectly subdued
that enemy; for he found himself no more molested with its stings.

The fame of his sanctity being spread abroad, it occasioned several to
forsake the world, and imitate his penitential manner of life. Some time
after, the monks of Vicovara,[2] on the death of their abbot, pitched
upon him to succeed him. He was very unwilling to take upon him that
charge, which he declined in the spirit of sincere humility, the beloved
virtue which he had practised from his infancy, and which was the
pleasure of his heart, and is the delight of a God humbled even to the
cross, for the love of us. The saint soon found by experience that their
manners did not square with his just idea of a monastic state. Certain
sons of Belial among them carried their aversion so far as to mingle
poison with his wine: but when, according to his custom, before he drank
of it