The Venerable Bede

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Historian andDoctor of the Church, born 672 or 673; died 735. In the last chapter of his great work on the "Ecclesiastical History of the English People" Bede has told us something of his own life, and it is, practically speaking, all that weknow. His words, written in 731, when death was not far off, not only show a simplicity andpiety characteristic of the man, but they throw a light on the composition of the work through which he is best remembered by the world at large. He writes:

Thus much concerning theecclesiastical history of Britain, and especially of the race of the English, I, Baeda, a servant of Christ and apriest of themonastery of the blessed apostles St. Peter andSt. Paul, which is atWearmouth and at Jarrow (in Northumberland), have with the Lord's help composed so far as I could gather it either from ancient documents or from the traditions of the elders, or from my ownknowledge. I was born in the territory of the saidmonastery, and at the age of seven I was, by the care of my relations, given to the most reverend Abbot Benedict [St. Benedict Biscop], and afterwards to Ceolfrid, to beeducated. From that time I have spent the whole of my life within thatmonastery, devoting all my pains to the study of the Scriptures, and amid the observance of monastic discipline and the daily charge of singing in theChurch, it has been ever my delight to learn or teach or write. In my nineteenth year I was admitted to thediaconate, in my thirtieth to thepriesthood, both by the hands of the most reverend Bishop John [St. John of Beverley], and at the bidding of Abbot Ceolfrid. From the time of my admission to thepriesthood to my present fifty-ninth year, I have endeavored for my own use and that of my brethren, to make brief notes upon the holy Scripture, either out of the works of the venerable Fathers or in conformity with their meaning and interpretation.

After this Bede inserts a list orIndiculus, of his previous writings and finally concludes his great work with the following words:

And Ipray thee, lovingJesus, that as Thou hast graciously given me to drink in with delight the words of Thyknowledge, so Thou wouldst mercifully grant me to attain one day to Thee, the fountain of all wisdom and to appear forever before Thy face.

It is plain from Bede's letter to Bishop Egbert that the historian occasionally visited his friends for a few days, away from his ownmonastery of Jarrow, but with such rare exceptions his life seems to have been one peaceful round of study andprayer passed in the midst of his own community. How much he was beloved by them is made manifest by the touching account of thesaint's last sickness and death left us by Cuthbert, one of his disciples. Their studious pursuits were not given up on account of his illness and they read aloud by his bedside, but constantly the reading was interrupted by their tears. "I can with truth declare", writes Cuthbert of his beloved master, "that I never saw with my eyes or heard with my ears anyone return thanks so unceasingly to theliving God." Even on the day of his death (the vigil of theAscension, 735) thesaint was still busy dictating a translation of the Gospel of St. John. In the evening the boy Wilbert, who was writing it, said to him: "There is still one sentence, dear master, which is not written down." And when this had been supplied, and the boy had told him it was finished, "Thou hast spokentruth", Bede answered, "it is finished. Take my head in thy hands for it much delights me to sit opposite any holy place where I used topray, that so sitting I may call upon my Father." And thus upon the floor of his cell singing, "Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost" and the rest, he peacefully breathed his last breath.

The titleVenerabilis seems to have been associated with the name of Bede within two generations after his death. There is of course no early authority for the legend repeated by Fuller of the "dunce-monk" who in composing an epitaph on Bede was at a loss to complete the line:Hac sunt in fossa Bedae . . . . ossa and who next morning found that theangels had filled the gap with the wordvenerabilis. The title is used byAlcuin, Amalarius and seeminglyPaul the Deacon, and the important Council ofAachen in 835 describes him asvenerabilis et modernis temporibus doctor admirabilis Beda. Thisdecree was specially referred to in the petition whichCardinal Wiseman and theEnglishbishops addressed to theHoly See in 1859praying that Bede might be declared aDoctor of the Church. The question had already been debated even before the time ofBenedict XIV, but it was only on 13 November, 1899, thatLeo XIII decreed that the feast of Venerable Bede with the title ofDoctor Ecclesiae should be celebrated throughout theChurch each year on 27 May. A local cultus of St. Bede had been maintained at York and in the North ofEngland throughout theMiddle Ages, but his feast was not so generally observed in the South, where theSarum Rite was followed.

Bede's influence both upon English and foreign scholarship was very great, and it would probably have been greater still but for the devastation inflicted upon the Northernmonasteries by the inroads of the Danes less than a century after his death. In numberless ways, but especially in his moderation, gentleness, and breadth of view, Bede stands out from his contemporaries. In point of scholarship he was undoubtedly the most learned man of his time. A very remarkable trait, noticed by Plummer (I, p. xxiii), is his sense of literaryproperty, an extraordinary thing in that age. He himself scrupulously noted in his writings the passages he had borrowed from others and he even begs the copyists of his works to preserve the references, a recommendation to which they, alas, have paid but little attention. High, however, as was the general level of Bede's culture, he repeatedly makes it clear that all his studies were subordinated to the interpretation of Scripture. In his "De Schematibus" he says in so many words: "Holy Scripture is above all other books not only by its authority because it is Divine, or by its utility because it leads to eternal life, but also by its antiquity and its literary form" (positione dicendi). It is perhaps the highest tribute to Bede's genius that with so uncompromising and evidently sincere a conviction of the inferiority of human learning, he should have acquired so much real culture. Though Latin was to him a still living tongue, and though he does not seem to have consciously looked back to the Augustan Age of Roman Literature as preserving purer models of literary style than the time ofFortunatus orSt. Augustine, still whether through native genius or through contact with the classics, he is remarkable for the relative purity of his language, as also for his lucidity and sobriety, more especially in matters of historical criticism. In all these respects he presents a marked contrast toSt. Aldhelm who approaches more nearly to the Celtic type.

Writings and editions

No adequate edition founded upon a careful collation ofmanuscripts has ever been published of Bede's works as a whole. The text printed by Giles in 1884 and reproduced inMigne (XC-XCIV) shows little if any advance on the basic edition of 1563 or the Cologne edition of 1688. It is of course as an historian that Bede is chiefly remembered. His great work, the "Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum", giving an account ofChristianity inEngland from the beginning until his own day, is the foundation of all ourknowledge of British history and a masterpiece eulogized by the scholars of every age. Of this work, together with the "Historia Abbatum", and the "Letter to Egbert", Plummer has produced an edition which may fairly be called final (2 vols., Oxford, 1896). Bede's remarkable industry in collecting materials and his critical use of them have been admirably illustrated in Plummer's Introduction (pp. xliii-xlvii). The "History of the Abbots" (of the twinmonasteries ofWearmouth and Jarrow), the Letter to Egbert", the metrical and prose lives ofSt. Cuthbert, and the other smaller pieces are also of great value for the light they shed upon the state ofChristianity in Northumbria in Bede's own day. The "Ecclesiastical History" was translated into Anglo-Saxon at the instance ofKing Alfred. It has often been translated since, notably byT. Stapleton who printed it (1565) atAntwerp as a controversial weapon against theReformation divines in the reign of Elizabeth. The Latin text first appeared inGermany in 1475; it is noteworthy that no edition even of the Latin was printed inEngland before 1643. Smith's more accurate text saw the light in 1742.

Bede's chronological treatises "De temporibus liber" and "De temporum ratione" also contain summaries of the general history of the world from the Creation to 725 and 703, respectively. These historical portions have been satisfactorily edited by Mommsen in the "Monumenta Germaniae historica" (4to series, 1898). They may be counted among the earliest specimens of this type of general chronical and were largely copied and imitated. The topographical work "De locis sanctis" is a description ofJerusalem and the holy places based uponAdamnan andArculfus. Bede's work was edited in 1898 by Geyer in the "Itinera Hierosolymitana" for theVienna "Corpus Scriptorum". That Bede compiled a Martyrologium weknow from his own statement. But the work attributed to him in extantmanuscripts has been so much interpolated and supplemented that his share in it is quite uncertain.

Bede'sexegetical writings both in his ownidea and in that of his contemporaries stood supreme in importance among his works, but the list is long and cannot fully be given here. They included a commentary upon thePentateuch as a whole as well as on selected portions, and there are also commentaries on the Books of Kings, Esdras, Tobias, the Canticles, etc. In theNew Testament he has certainly interpretedSt. Mark,St. Luke, theActs, theCanonical Epistles, and theApocalypse. But the authenticity of the commentary on St. Matthew printed under his name is more thandoubtful. (Plaine in "Revue Anglo-Romaine", 1896, III, 61.) Thehomilies of Bede take the form of commentaries upon the Gospel. The collection of fifty, divided into two books, which are attributed to him by Giles (and inMigne) are for the most part authentic, but the genuineness of a few is open to suspicion. (Morin in "Revue Bénédictine", IX, 1892, 316.)

Various didactic works are mentioned by Bede in the list which he has left us of his own writings. Most of these are still preserved and there is no reason todoubt that the texts we possess are authentic. The grammatical treatises "De arte metricâ" and "De orthographiâ" have been adequately edited in modern times by Keil in his "Grammatici Latini" (Leipzig, 1863). But the larger works "De naturâ rerum", "De temporibus", "De temporium ratione", dealing withscience as it was then understood and especially withchronology, are only accessible in the unsatisfactory texts of the earlier editors and Giles. Beyond the metrical life ofSt. Cuthbert and some verses incorporated in the Ecclesiastical History" we do not possess much poetry that can be assigned to Bede with confidence, but, like other scholars of his age, he certainly wrote a good deal of verse. He himself mentions his "book ofhymns" composed in different meters or rhythms. SoAlcuin says of him:Plurima versifico cecinit quoque carmina plectro. It is possible that the shorter of the two metricalcalendars printed among his works is genuine. The Penitential ascribed to Bede, though accepted as genuine by Haddan and Stubbs and Wasserschleben, is probably not his (Plummer, I, 157).

Venerable Bede is the earliest witness of pureGregorian tradition inEngland. His works "Musica theoretica" and "De arte Metricâ" (Migne, XC) are found especially valuable by present-day scholars engaged in the study of the primitive form of the chant.

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