infested Africa. Always with the war he also subdued other people and for this he deserved the title of Alamannic, Gothic, Frankish, Germanic, Ancient, Alanic, Vandalic and African. He put order in the laws of the Romans which had become too long-winded and often useless and contradictory, abolished the numerous promulgations of the many principles that had preceded him in only twelve books and called this volume the Justinian Code. Even the laws of individual magistrates and judges, who reached almost two thousand books, ordered them in fifty and called this work the Digest Code or the Pandette. In a new form he composed the four books of the institutions which contain the general principles of all the laws. He also ordered that the new laws enacted by him be collected in a volume and called it the Code of Tales. Within the walls of Constantinople he had a temple erected at Chrysostom, at the Wisdom of God the Father and called it with the Greek word Agian Sophian, or Saint Wisdom. The construction is magnificent and daring, so much so that nowhere in the world can one see such. Justinian was Catholic, righteous in working and righteous in judgments, and that is why he did everything well. Under his reign, near Rome, Cassiodorus lived, excellent both in human science and in divine things, in particular he composed, with a high spirit and acute interpretation, the darkest Psalms. Cassiodorus was first consul, then senator and finally monk. In the same period, the abbot Dionigi also settled in Rome and calculated the Easter cycle with great skill. And yet, Prisciano understood the most profound laws of the art of grammar and Aratore, subdeacon of the church of Rome, put the acts of the Apostles in hexameter verses.
26.
At the same time our blessed father Benedetto also shone for the merits of his extraordinary life and apostolic virtues, first in Subiaco, a place forty miles from Rome and then in the citadel of Cassino also called "La Rocca". As is known, the Blessed Pope Gregory in his Dialogues drafted his biography with beautiful style. I too, in my own small way, have listed his miracles in "elegiac meter" one by one, arranging them in the individual couplets as follows:
Whence I will begin with your triumphs, O blessed saint
with the accumulation of your virtues whence will I begin?
Glory to you, blessed father, who reveals your merit with the name itself!
Shining light of the century, Glory to you, blessed!
Norcia, how much you can join the praise, or you exalted for those who, so great, you raised;
O you who bring the sun to the world, Norcia, how much you can join in praise.
O boyish decoration, which transcends its years with costumes
And the old men overtake, or boyish decorum!
Your flower, O paradise, did not care for what is blooming in the world,
Your flower did not cure the splendour of Rome, o paradise.
Bitterly the nurse gathers the pieces of the broken vase,
Pleased can return the nurse's recomposed vase.
Those who have the name of Rome hide the recluse among the rocks;
he who has the name of Rome offers the help of his pity.
From Lauds to you, Christ, the caves hidden from all mortals resound;
But you know them well, the lairs of Lodi resound to you.
The colds, the freezing winds, the snows animatedly endured for three years;
In love for God do not cure colds, freezing winds, snows.
Deception by veneration is accepted, thefts that inspire piety are praised;
Since man consecrated to God has nourished himself with it, deception is accepted.
It gives the signal that food has come, but the bruise wants to oppose;
Nonetheless, the other faith gives the signal that food has come.
According to the rite, those who listen to Christ celebrate the feast;
By feeding those who fast, according to the rite, they celebrate the feast.
Greedy shepherds bring welcome sustenance to the cave
But they bring back pleasing food to soothed souls.
Fire extinguishers fire, while the flesh tears the brambles;
The carnal fire is extinguished by the celestial fire.
An unjust death is hidden, but from afar he warns it shrewd;
The unjust death hidden does not bear the weapons of the cross.
They correct the mind that wanders slight rods and discipline it;
Slight rods close out the plague that is wandering.
A stream of perennial water flows from the native rock;
the arid hearts irrigate the wave of perennial water.
At the bottom of the whirlpool you had come down, fold like a scythe detached from the handle;
it rose to the surface, leaving the bottom of the eddy.
Dropped into the water while waiting for his father's order, he survives;
runs on the water, while waiting at the order of the father.
The wave led the way to those who were ready for the master's order;
to those who did not know where he was running, the wave made the road.
And you, little child, are drawn on the wave and do not drown;
and intervene, true witness too, little boy.
The perfidious hearts stirred by evil stimuli are attracted;
inflamed from hell perfidious hearts become sad.
The crow takes the food offered to him by benign hands;
and in command takes the deadly food away from the crow.
It pains the holy heart that his enemy died in the fall;
through the guilt of the disciple the holy heart hurts;
On the pleasant banks of the glorious Liri guides accompany you;
from heaven you fell to the pleasant banks of the Liri.
Iniquitous snake, you rage stripped of the woods and the area;
for the peoples you have lost, O unjust serpent, you are raging.
Evil you are on top, go away: let the marble be placed on the walls;
His order bends you: go away, wicked you're on.
You can see a voracious fire rising with false flames;
