RULE OF SAINT BENEDICT   The Rule   of Saint Benedict   in English and Latin The Rule of Saint Benedict was written for laymen, not for clerics. The saint's purpose was not to institute an order of clerics with clerical duties and offices, but an organization and a set of rules for the domestic life of such laymen as wished to live as fully as possible the type of life presented in the Gospel. "My words", he says, "are addressed to thee, whoever thou art, that, renouncing thine own will, dost put on the strong and bright armour of obedience in order to fight for the Lord Christ, our true King." (Prol. to Rule.) The purpose of the Rule of Saint Benedict is to bring men back to God by the labor of obedience, from whom they had departed by the idleness of disobedience. Work was the first condition of all growth in goodness. It was in order that his own life might be wearied with labors for God's sake that Saint Benedict left Enfide for the cave at Subiaco. "It is necessary," comments Saint Gregory, "that God's elect should at the beginning, when life and temptations are strong in them, be wearied with labour and pains". As Saint Gregory mentions, the Holy Rule is characterized by prudent regulation and by a wonderful discretion, the mother of all virtues, and therefore we behold a truly admirable combination of severity and mildness, of prudence and love. Saint Fulgentius says that the Rule of Saint Benedict contains everything that is required and is lacking in nothing; the followers thereof will attain to eternal glory. The truth of this statement is confirmed by the fourteen centuries of its existence and by the thousands of saints it has produced.