Bede

“ Bede has been my guide. His records are, indeed, often 'rough,' as rough as the crab-tree, but, at the same time, as fresh as its blossom. Their brief touches reveal all the passions of the Barbaric races; but the chief human affections, things far deeper than the passions, are yet more abundantly illustrated by them. ”

“ Not to ridicule so great a man, but as an instance of the desire to attribute wonderful miracles to distinguished characters, the following silly anecdote concerning Bede is extracted from the “Golden Legend.” He was blind, and desiring to be led forth to preach, his servant carried him to a heap of stones, to which, the good father, believing himself preaching to a sensible congregation, delivered a noble discourse, whereunto, when he had finished his sermon, the stones answered and said “Amen!” ”

“ Mr and Mrs Poyser paused a minute at the church gate: they were waiting for Adam to come up, not being contented to go away without saying a kind word to the widow and her sons.
"Well, Mrs Bede," said Mrs Poyser, as they walked on together, "you must keep up your heart; husbands and wives must be content when they've lived to rear their children and see one another's hair grey." ”

“ Everywhere we find the impress of a mind of wide intellectual grasp, a character of the highest saintliness, and a gentle refinement of thought and feeling. The lofty spirituality of Bede, his great learning and scholarly attainment are the more striking when we reflect how recently his nation had emerged from barbarism and received Christianity and the culture which it brought with it to these shores. ”

“ Back of him was the double tradition of learning, the Irish and the Graeco-Roman. Through a long life of pious study, Bede drew into his mind, and incorporated in his writings, practically the total sum of knowledge then accessible in western Europe. He stands between the great Latin transmitters (Boëthius, Cassiodorus, Gregory and Isidore) and the epoch known as the Carolingian. He was himself a transmitter of knowledge to that later time. If in spirit, race, epoch and circumstances, Aldhelm was Bede's direct forerunner, Bede had also a notable predecessor in Isidore. ”

“ By this Bede has justly earned the title of the Father of English History. By this almost exclusively he is known to others than professed students. It is indeed one of the most valuable and one of the most beautiful of historical works. Bede has the artist’s instinct of proportion, the artist’s sense for the picturesque and the pathetic. ”

“ The door of the house is open, and an elderly woman is looking out; but she is not placidly contemplating the evening sunshine; she has been watching with dim eyes the gradually enlarging speck which for the last few minutes she has been quite sure is her darling son Adam. Lisbeth Bede loves her son with the love of a woman to whom her first-born has come late in life. ”

“ The writings of Bede bear witness to the extent of his learning. He himself gives a list of forty-five works of which he was the author, including, besides his homilies and commentaries on Holy Scripture, treatises on grammar, astronomy, the logic of Aristotle, music, geography, arithmetic, orthography, versification, the computum, and natural philosophy. His Ecclesiastical History and Lives of the Fathers must always be admired as models of unaffected simplicity of style. He was well skilled in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew tongues. ”

“ Life Of Bede Few lives afford less material for the biographer than Bede's; few seem to possess a more irresistible fascination. Often as the simple story has been told, the desire to tell it afresh appears to be perennial. And yet it is perhaps as wholly devoid of incident as any life could be. The short autobiographical sketch at the end of the “Ecclesiastical History” tells us practically all: that he was born in the territory of the twin monastery of Wearmouth and Jarrow ”

“ Bede was born about 673 and lived most of his life in the monastery at Jarrow in Northumbria in the north of England. With Bede's death the home of English prose literature was changed from the north to the south, from Northumbria to Wessex, where there lived a noble boy called Alfred. Asser, the man who was his secretary after the boy grew up, has written a life of Alfred.
From the very first this little boy was full of promise and very attractive. This fact is rather hard on some of us, is it not, who find it difficult to be good and to win the confidence of grown-up people. ”

“ This remarkable man travelled several times to Rome, bringing back books and works of art, masons and glaziers. Bede lived in the monastery of Jarrow all his life, from the age of seven. He received instruction in theology and the Scriptures from Trumhere, the son of Lilla and Bergliot, then very old, who thus trained him for his future historical labours. Bede was ordained priest in 705, during the reign of King Ealhfrith of Northumbria, by John, Bishop of Hexham, better known as John of Beverley. ”

“ BEDE. The good work of the monks is finely exemplified in the life of the Venerable Bede, or Bæda (cir. 673-735) , who is well called the father of English learning. As a boy he entered the Benedictine monastery at Jarrow; the temper of his manhood may be judged from a single sentence of his own record:
"While attentive to the discipline of mine order and the daily care of singing in the church, my constant delight was in learning or teaching or writing."
It is hardly too much to say that this gentle scholar was for half a century the teacher of Europe. ”

“ Bernicia, Bede lived, was himself a man of singular learning, and a very great encourager of it in others; and had, doubtlessly, an extraordinary respect for Bede, as appears by his request to him to write the Ecclesiastical History, and by Bede's submitting the papers to him for his perusal. That prince was not only a lover of learned men in general, but especially of that part of them who led a monastic life, insomuch that, about three years after Bede's death, he resigned his crown, and became a monk at Lindisfarne. ”

“ It was King Alfred who gave us a free translation of it in English. But although it was written in Latin, it belongs absolutely to our Catholic Heritage in English Literature.
Bede was the first historian to date from the Incarnation of Our Lord, the form which we have always used. The History comes down to a.d. 731, a short time before its author went to his rest. We can never think of St Bede as a mere bookman, a purely "literary man." His own character, truth-loving, wise, devoted, cheerful, has been felt through his work ”

“ You will be the less surprised at this opinion in so grave a personage when you learn that Ben had requested Mr Rann to accompany him on the fiddle, and Joshua felt quite sure that though there might not be much in the dancing, the music would make up for it. Adam Bede, who was present in one of the large marquees, where the plan was being discussed, told Ben he had better not make a fool of himself—a remark which at once fixed Ben's determination: he was not going to let anything alone because Adam Bede turned up his nose at it. ”

“ And now having in some degree cleared the ground of difficulties, let us go back to the Lives of the Saints. If Bede tells us lies about St. Cuthbert, we will disbelieve his stories, but we will not call Bede a liar, even though he prefaces his life with a declaration that he has set down nothing but what he has ascertained on the clearest evidence. We are driven to no such alternative; our canons of criticism are different from Bede's, and so are our notions of probability. ”

“ St Bede refused to be Abbot of Jarrow, because "the office demands household care, and household care brings with it distraction of mind, which hinders the pursuit of learning."
He wrote many things, and it has been said that his writings form nearly a complete encyclopædia of the knowledge of his day; but the work of St Bede by which he is best known is the "Church History of the English Race." It is of greater value than we can tell, and has been used for many generations for knowledge and help. ”

“ In the dark glades of that primeval forest a splendid Candelabra, erected by the late Duke of Saxe Gotha, marks now the spot where Christianity first shed its light upon the wild tribes of Saxony. Alcuin, also his countryman, the preceptor of Charlemagne, omits no opportunity of sounding the praises of Bede, whose Homilies in his day were read in all churches, and at whose tomb numerous miracles had been performed.
His relics were removed by stealth from their quiet resting-place at Jarrow, by Ælfred, a priest of Durham. ”

“ Bede's Latin. Other Writers. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: its Value. Alfred the Great. Effect of the Danish Invasions.
Biography.
Bede was a precocious youth, whose excellent parts commended him to Bishop Benedict. He made rapid progress in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; was a deacon at the unusual age of nineteen, and a priest at thirty. It seems probable that he always remained in his monastery, engaged in literary labor and offices of devotion until his death, which happened while he was dictating to his boy amanuensis, "Dear master," said the boy, "there is yet one sentence not written." ”

“ I know Adam Bede well—I know what he is as a workman, and what he has been as a son and brother—and I am saying the simplest truth when I say that I respect him as much as I respect any man living. But I am not speaking to you about a stranger; some of you are his intimate friends, and I believe there is not one here who does not know enough of him to join heartily in drinking his health."
As Mr Irwine paused, Arthur jumped up, and filling his glass, said, "A bumper to Adam Bede, and may he live to have sons as faithful and clever as himself!" ”

“ Bede.
When we think of the time in which Bede, the greatest of our early scholars, lived and worked, it seems amazing that he had such a wide knowledge of books and so comparatively clear an idea of the way in which history should be written. Born in 673 [Pg 24] (died 735) , he was in his thirteenth year when his king, Egfrid of Northumbria, was killed by the Piets (practically Gaelic-speaking Highlanders) , in the great battle of Nectan's mere (685) , in Angus beyond the Tay, for so far into what is now Scotland had English Northumbria pushed her conquests. ”

“ The writings of the Spanish bishop contributed substance and suggestions of plan and method to the Anglo-Saxon monk, whose works embrace practically the same series of topics as Isidore's, whose intellectual interests also, and attitude toward the Church Fathers, appear the same. But Bede was the more genial personality, and could not help imbuing his compositions with something from his own temperament. ”

“ Printed among his theological and philosophical works, is a little manual, drawn up, as it would seem, for his own private use, and consisting of a selection of favourite verses from the Psalms. His disciple, Cuthbert, says of him. “I can declare with truth, that never saw I with my eyes, or heard I with my ears, of any man so indefatigable in giving thanks to God.” Besides the requirements of his monastic rule, and his own private studies, Bede had other duties which engaged a large portion of his time. He was both mass priest and scholasticus. ”

“ And though it would be wrong to call Bede a critical historian in the modern sense of the words, he shows a very unusual conscientiousness in collecting his information from the best available sources, and in distinguishing between what he believed to be fact, and what he regarded only as rumour or tradition. Other historical works of Bede are the History of the Abbots (of Wearmouth and Jarrow) , and the lives of Cuthbert in verse and prose. The History of the Abbots and the prose life of Cuthbert were based on earlier works which still survive. ”

“ In nothing is Bede's history of that great age, to which our own owes all that it possesses of real greatness, [Pg l] more striking than in that spirit of unconscious elevation and joyousness which belongs to the Christian life it records, a joyousness often so strikingly contrasted with the sadness—sometimes a heroic sadness—to be found in portions of his work describing pagan manners. ”

“ Now in the third year of his rule the Prior heard tidings of the companion he had never forgotten, and he took into his confidence one of the religious named Bede, in whom he had great trust, and he told him the story of their friendship. "And now, Bede," he said, "I would have thee go on a long journey, even to the golden city of London, and seek out my friend. He will easily be found, for men know his name, and he hath grown to some repute, and the good things of this world have not been denied him. ”

“ Aye, sir, that's Adam Bede, that is, I'll be bound—Thias Bede's son everybody knows him hereabout. He's an uncommon clever stiddy fellow, an' wonderful strong. Lord bless you, sir—if you'll hexcuse me for saying so—he can walk forty mile a-day, an' lift a matter o' sixty ston'. He's an uncommon favourite wi' the gentry, sir: Captain Donnithorne and Parson Irwine meks a fine fuss wi' him. ”

“ We owe to Bede alone the knowledge of much that is most interesting in our early history.” William of Malmesbury (twelfth century) says of Bede, “That almost all knowledge of past events was buried in the same grave with him”; and he is no bad judge, for in his Chronicles of the Kings of England he himself is considered to have carried to perfection the art of chronicle-making. He is especially vivid and graphic about contemporary events—the story of the dreary civil war of Stephen and Matilda. Meantime, there is Asser, who writes the life of Alfred, whose friend and fellow-worker he is. ”