Citadel of God

Citadel of God: A Novel of St Benedict by Louis de Wohl, 352 pages 

 

Citadel of God is the story of Benedictus, that is, St Benedict, the father of Western monasticism, but more space is taken up with the parallel, fictional story of Peter, Benedictus' former pupil, a young Roman nobleman who becomes deeply involved in the political intrigue between the courts of Constantinople and Ravenna.  In the tradition of pious classics such as Ben Hur, The Robe, and Quo Vadis, the invented characters are used to illuminate the significance of the real subjects without overly distorting the historical record.

 

After a successful career as a writer in Weimar Germany (and an odd turn as an astrologer with MI5 during the War), de Wohl became famous in the '40s and '50s for his novelistic treatment of the lives of holy men and women from King David to Pope Pius XII.  He does an excellent job here of contrasting decadent semi-Christian Rome to the monastery of Monte Cassino, and the transitory nature of worldly politics with the lasting power of truth.  The author inevitably takes considerable liberties with certain subjects, but avoids the obvious pitfalls (his Theoderic is an excellent administrator and a charismatic leader, not a stereotypical brutish barbarian).  Some issues are considerably oversimplified, of course, and there are occasional anachronisms (while Justinian had spies, they were not the medieval equivalent of the CIA), but nothing overly jarring, indeed, the changes probably make the story more accessible to modern audiences.

 

A light, easy read with a pointed message.