The Venerable Bede

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Editor’s note: The following is extracted from The Lives of British Historians, Vol. I, by Eugene Lawrence (published 1855).

….Bede, the venerable, has been claimed by both England and Italy, but there is no doubt that he was born in 672, near Wearmouth, in the diocese of Durham, in England, and was educated at the monastery of St. Paul, near the mouth of the river Tyne. Here he soon made himself observed by his piety and his application to study: he was ordained a deacon at nineteen, and a priest at thirty. The fame of his learning having spread over all Europe, Pope Sergius invited him to Rome to aid by his counsels, in the government of the church. But Bede preferred to remain in his peaceful cell, devoted to literature, and happily engaged in instructing the young monks of his monastery.

No man was ever more thoroughly an author than Bede. From youth to age he was incessantly occupied with his writings. It was said of him that he passed from his prayers to his studies, and from his studies to his prayers. The result of this life of labor was a vast number of works, upon a wide range of subjects, embracing the whole learning of his time. It would be tedious even to name all his productions, and I can only offer a few examples of their subjects. He wrote “Four Books of Philosophy,” “Of the Substance of the Elements,” a “Martyrology,” a description of Solomon’s Temple, besides works upon Grammar, Arithmetic, Chronology, and similar topics, for the use of his pupils in literature.

His great work, the “Ecclesiastical History of England,” by which he has gained a lasting fame, was not published until a few years before his death. Notwithstanding its absurd legends, this is an astonishing production for an age when so few materials existed for a learned research. It was looked upon, until long after the Norman conquest, as the glory and the wonder of English literature; and, even as late as the reign of Henry VIII, England had produced no writer who could rival the learning or the vigorous diction of the Saxon monk.

Bede was not only a writer, but a philanthropist and a reformer. He desired to restore the church to its primitive simplicity, which, even in that rude age, seems to have long since departed: he wrote a letter to his friend Egbert, Bishop of York, a relative of the royal family, and a man noted for his liberal views and wise policy, to obtain his sympathy in the movement. He points out to Egbert that the monasteries are filled with the immoral and the dissolute; that the number of these institutions was rapidly increasing, and threatened to swallow up in their vast possessions all the arable land of the kingdom: he complains that the great nobles make their children abbots and abbesses, without any proper preparation, and long before they have arrived at the lawful age; and he recommends as the only cure for these pressing evils, the assembling of a synod to consider the state of the church. When this letter was written Bede was in a decline: he did not live to carry out his reforms, but died May, 735, aged sixty-three.

His body was laid in the church of the monastery of Tarrow, and so sacred was his tomb, in the opinion of his countrymen, that thousands flocked thither every year to pray over his ashes. His life had been one of singular purity, and amid the general corruption of a barbarous age, he might well be invested with supernatural sanctity.

His love for study ceased only with his life. It is related that on the night of his death, as he was dictating certain passages from St. Isidore, the young monk who wrote for him said to him that but one chapter remained, and begged him, as he seemed to have great difficulty in speaking, to leave it for another time. “No,” replied Bede, “take a new pen, and write as fast as you are able.” When there remained but one passage more to be translated, Bede urged him to hasten, and soon the young man said to him, “It is done.” “You speak truly,” answered Bede. “It is done;” and some minutes afterwards expired.

His Latin style is clear and strong, although necessarily far from correct, and he writes with an easy flow of thought that fixes the attention of the reader. He had apparently good natural sense, as well as great learning, although he indulges in many strange fancies upon theological subjects. His account of Joseph, Mary’s husband, whom he asserts to have been a farmer, and his particular description of each of the three wise men who came to worship the infant Saviour, are novel and amusing. The elder of the Magi, whom he calls Melchior, had, Bede tells us, grey hair, and a long beard, and offered gold to the Saviour in acknowledgment of his sovereignty. Gasper, the second, was younger, had no beard, and offered frankincense in confession of his divinity; while Balthasar, the third, was of a dark complexion, wore a long beard, and offered myrrh to the Christ, a type of his humanity. He then describes minutely their dress, having perhaps borrowed his description from some ancient picture. He delights in the supernatural, and although possessing excellent common sense upon all other subjects, seldom fails to lose it wholly when treating of theology.

His writings have been greatly admired by the English of every age, and, perhaps, too much decried by the French critics. Camden calls him “the singular light of our island, whom we may more easily admire than successfully praise.” Leland commemorates him as “the glory and chief ornament of England.” In opposition to this extravagant praise, the French have ridiculed his credulity, and undervalued his monastic lore.

But the eminent merit of Bede as an author has been proved by the extent and permanence of his fame. Arising from the gloom of a dark age, he is still considered one of the most illustrious of the learned men of England. He was the first of her men of letters: and cultivated literature at a time, when, except among the Saracens, the love of learning had apparently died out. He gained an European celebrity, such as no author since the time of Augustus had possessed: his example served to cherish among his countrymen a love for letters, and his assiduous teaching diffused the literature which he had cultivated. By these efforts, as well as by his educational books, his grammars, arithmetics, and other useful compilations, he must have done great good, and have elevated the mind of many a young monk above the sensuality and superstition in which his companions were plunged. His various translations made his countrymen acquainted with works which otherwise might have remained inaccessible to them, while his rendering of the Bible into early English made them familiar with sacred truth. The amiable and philosophic King Alfred was a diligent student of the writings of Bede, and became the translator of his Ecclesiastical History; and it is not unlikely that, without the influence of the learned monk, Alfred might have remained as rude and uncultivated as his ancestors.

Bede is always called the “venerable,” a name, the origin of which, his admirers have variously explained. It is said that he was held in such veneration by his contemporaries, that his homilies were ordered to be read in every church, as a part of the service: but, in announcing the lecture, an embarrassment occurred as to what title was to be given to the author; that of Saint could not apply to a living man-his name without some mark of distinction would appear too bare, and the title of venerable was therefore invented and universally applied. This explanation, however, would not satisfy the monks, who have added the following miracle. “Bede,” they relate, “being blind from age (though he was not very old when he died, and was never blind), a young monk, one day having led him in a rocky place, where there were many stones lying around, told him, in sport, that he was surrounded by a crowd of people, who waited in silence to receive his exhortation. The good father, having made them a long address, ended with a prayer, to which, to the surprise of his companions, the stones respectfully added, ‘Amen, venerable Bede.’ ” There is another version. A monk, little skilled in the poetic art, was engaged in writing Bede’s epitaph. He could only compose these imperfect lines: “Hâc sunt in fossâ Bedae — ossa.” Having vainly labored to fill up the blank, overcome with weariness, he lay down and fell asleep. But on the morn in looking over his work, he was astonished to find his doggerel completed as follows :—

Hâc sunt in fossâ
Bedae venerabilis ossa

The name, however attained, was certainly well deserved. Few men have been more truly venerable than the good Saxon monk, and English historians may well exult that the first of their race was the pure, learned, and venerable Bede.