Christ Church

The collect for today, the Feast of The Venerable Bede (673-735), Monk, Historian, Doctor of the Church (source):

Almighty God, maker of all things,
whose Son Jesus Christ gave to thy servant Bede
grace to drink in with joy
the word which leadeth us to know thee and to love thee:
in thy goodness
grant that we also may come at length to thee,
the source of all wisdom,
and stand before thy face;
through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

For The Epistle: Wisdom 7:15-22
The Gospel: St Matthew 13:47-52

St Bede was born and, as far as we know, lived his entire life in the north of England, yet he became perhaps the most learned scholar in all of Europe. At the age of 7, he was sent to Wearmouth Abbey for his education; at age 11, he continued his education at the new monastery at Jarrow, eventually becoming a monk and remaining there until his death. He lived a routine and outwardly uneventful life of prayer, devotion, study, writing, and teaching.

Bede’s writings cover a very wide range of interests, including natural history, orthography, chronology, and biblical translation and exposition. He was the first to translate the Bible into Old English. He considered his 25 volumes of Scripture commentary to be his most important writings. His best-known book is Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731. This work earned him the popular title “Father of English History”, and not just because it was the first attempt to write a history of England. His historical research was thorough and far-reaching. For example, he asked friends traveling to Rome to bring him copies of documents relevant to English history, and he made use of oral traditions when written materials were not available. The book provides much historical information that can be found in no other source.

His pupil Cuthbert, later Abbot of Jarrow, has left a moving eyewitness account of St Bede’s last hours. Bede fell ill shortly before Easter 735, when he was in the midst of translating the Gospel of John into the Anglo-Saxon language. Everyone realised that the end was near, but he was determined to complete the translation. Between Easter and Ascension Day, he persisted in the task while continuing to teach his students at his bedside.

After a restless night, he resumed dictating the translation on the morning before the Ascension. That afternoon he called the priests of the monastery to him to distribute his remaining earthly possessions. Seeing they were overcome with grief, he comforted them with these words:

“If it be the will of my Maker, the time has come when I shall be freed from the body and return to Him Who created me out of nothing when I had no being. I have had a long life, and the merciful Judge has ordered it graciously. The time of my departure is at hand, and my soul longs to see Christ my King in His beauty.”

The young man who had been writing down the translation said there was still one sentence remaining, and Bede dictated the final words.

After a short while the lad said, “Now it is finished.”

“You have spoken truly,” he replied. “It is well finished. Now raise my head in your hands, for it would give me great joy to sit facing the holy place where I used to pray, so that I may sit and call on my Father.”

And thus, on the floor of his cell, he chanted, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit” to its ending, and breathed his last.

When he received word of the great scholar’s death, St Boniface, who had used Bede’s Bible commentaries, said, “The candle of the Church, lit by the Holy Spirit, has been extinguished”. Within a generation or two, St Bede was being called “Venerable”. His bones were translated from Jarrow to Durham Cathedral in the mid-11th century; in 1370 they were placed in the cathedral’s Galilee Chapel. (A photo of the tomb can be seen about halfway down this page).

These are the final words of the Ecclesiastical History:

I implore you, good Jesus, that as in your mercy you have given me to drink in with delight the words of your knowledge, so of your loving kindness you will also grant me one day to come to you, the fountain of all wisdom, and to stand for ever before your face.

St Bede is the only Englishman named in Dante’s Paradise. He is also the only English Doctor of the Church.