With the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the rise of various Barbarian tribes, Western Europe saw an unprecedented age of darkness in learning. Great libraries and centers of learning, together with the books and manuscripts stored there, perished in endless wars, and scholarly activities retreated into the more remote Monasteries. As a result, Monks became increasingly more influential by preserving and copying ancient manuscripts and teaching Philosophy, Theology, and Scripture. This allowed Monks to amass a great number of books and build libraries in their Monasteries. As the best representation of Catholic monastic orders, the Order of Saint Benedict produced great literary activities vital to not only the later Renaissances, which saw the rediscovery and development of arts and sciences as well as Philosophy and Theology, but also the High Middle Ages, the first Golden Age of Scholasticism. Among them, the most acclaimed was Saint Bede of England (Bedas Northanthyboriae / Βέδας Νορθουμβρίας), Monk, Father and Doctor of the Church.
The English Saint was born in 672 or 673, in a place very close to the twined Monasteries in Jarrow and Monkwearmouth, which were the Monastery of Saint Peter and the Monastery of Saint Paul. However, there is very little to know about his family. At the age of seven, Bede was sent to the as a puer oblatus to the Monastery in Monkwearmouth to be educated by Abbott Benedict Biscop, a common practice that would suggest a Germanic origin and noble birth of Bede. At one point of his life, Ceolfrith succeeded Biscop as the Abbot of the Monastery in Monkwearmouth and then founded a Monastery in Jarrow in 682, transferring Bede together to the new Monastery. A plague then broke out four years after Bede moved to the new Monastery, leaving nothing but three survivors, the other two of which being Abbott Ceolfrith and a young boy.
When Bede was 17 years old, Abbott Adomnán of the Iona Abbey visited Monkwearmouth and Jarrow and met Bede. The Abbott brought the Easter dating controversy to the knwoledge of Bede, sparking his interest in natural sciences. Bede never lost his scientific interests, even after being ordained a Deacon in 692 and a Priest in 702, both of which rituals being performed by Saint John, Bishop of Hexham.
Bede devoted almost his entire life in the twinned Monasteries at Monkwearmouth and Jarrow. At his Monasteries, Bede strictly followed the Rule of Saint Benedict and had a holy contemplative life. As a scholar, Bede established a vast library, containing the works of many great sacred and profane writers, and his works covered a wide range of philosophical and theological topics, including, but not limited to, education, history, biography, exegesis, dogma, moral, art, science, and chronicle.
There were, however, several rare occasions of Bede travelling a bit far away from his Monasteries. One occasion was in 708, when some fellow Monks accused Bede of Heresy for his decision to independently calculate the age of the world, instead of accepting the widely accepted view of previous theologians, such as that of Saint Isidore of Seville, and the subsequent different result on this question. Another occasion was his visit to his pupil and friend Ecgbert, Bishop of York, in 733. It is widely believed that Bede and Ecgbert had a lengthy discussion on the elevation of the Diocese of York to the rank of Archdiocese of York, a proposal that would come into fruition in 734. Although these were not the only long travels of Bede, it is certain that long visits were extraordinarily rare in the whole life of Bede, causing someone to even mistakenly believe that Bede never traveled far away from his Monasteries.
In 735, after having served his Master for more than six decades, Bede finally came to the end of his earthly life. On May 26, 735, the Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord, the saintly Benedictine Monk was still busy translating the <Gospel according to Saint John>>. When the young boy transcribing his words told him that all were finished, Bede, knowing his Judgement was coming, thanked the boy and told him to leave his cell so that he could pray and give thanks to his Father for the last time. As he was lying on the floor of his cell, Bede prayed Glory Be, and took his last breath when finishing the prayer, ascending to Heaven on the day of the Ascension of his Master, encouraging his followers to continue reviving the European civilization.
Bede, a scholar at an age during which Europe was slowly beginning to recover from wars and Barbarian influences, was an accomplished educator of children and Monks who wrote numerous pedagogical and didactical treatises. The most famous and important of his numerous treatises on education was <<De Arte Metrica>>. Bede wrote this work for the purpose of teaching the grammatical rules and practices of spelling of Latin in the monastic environment during the 8th century. The precious treatise was divided into 25 chapters and can be grouped into three parts. The first part contained the first eight chapters and was centered on the letters and syllables of the words and phrases in relation to their length and was mainly modeled after the works of the English grammarian Aldhelm and the Roman grammarians Aelius, Theodorus, and Honoratus. The second part contained the middle fifteen chapters and was focused on the knowledge of ancient meters, the basic rhythmic structure of verses or lines in a verse of a poem. The third part contained the last two chapters and was based on the examples of the poetical works of Christian authors and, to a less extent, authors of Classical Antiquity. While the treatise should not be considered very original on its own, it was nevertheless backed by the unparalleled learning of the Saint and was used as a textbook in Western Europe for centuries.
Another two related works were <<De Schematibus Scripturae>> and <<De Tropis Scripturae>>. The two works may be viewed as the two integral parts of a single work, with the former dealing with the figure of speech and the latter dealing with the way of the use of the word. Although Bede was highly familiar with the works of Vergil and other pre-Christian Latin authors, he believed it is not appropriate to use their works to teach Biblical grammar and believed that the Biblical grammar was superior. A fourth and more minor work on education was <<De Orthographia>>, a work on orthography, the conventions or norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, break, emphasis, and punctuation, serving the purpose of helping readers understand the unfamiliar abbreviations and words from Classical Latin works. Unlike the three more major works on education, this work served more as a manual or reference book rather than a textbook or treatise.
Apart from being an educator, Bede was also a prolific author on various disciplines on arts and sciences, having written about thirty minor works and three major works on arithmetic, music, astronomy, and other related disciplines. Examples of such small works include <<De Arithmeticis Numeris>>, <<De Computo Dialogus>>, <<De Divisionibus Temporum>>, <<De Ratione Calculi>>, <<De Cyclo Paschali>>, and <<De Musica Theorica>>, the last being a treasure for the study of early Gregorian music.
The major work of Bede that offers a general treatment of the nature, observed from a Biblical point of view, was <<De Natura Rerum>>, also known as <<De Rebus Caeli Et Mundi>>. The treatise was written at the beginning of the 8th century and comprised of fifty-one chapters and was divided into three parts. The first part included the first two chapters, describing the creation of the Earth and the universe as the work of God according to the account in the <<Book of Gensis>>. The second part ranged from chapter 3
to chapter 24 and treated cosmological questions, including the nature and shape of the Earth, the size of the moon, the sun, and the planets, and the zodiacs, and the causes and effects of solar and lunar eclipses. The third part ranged from chapter 25 to chapter 51 and treated meteorological questions, covering earthly phenomenon such as lightning, thunder, rainbow, tide, and earthquake. The primary sources Bede used for his treatise were <<Naturalis Historia>> of Pliny the Younger and <<De Natura Rerum>> of Isidore of Spain, and Bede placed Christian writings and teachings above pagan counterparts throughout the entire work.
The work considered the companion of the great cosmological and meteorological treatise was <<De Temporum Ratione>>, written in 725. The work was an astronomical treatise with an ultimate focus on the calculation of the date of Easter. The treatise contained 71 chapters and was divided into 3 sections. The first section, ranging from chapter 1 to chapter 43, centered on the scientific analysis on topics and questions about calendars. The section started with 4 chapters formalizing terminologies regarding the measurement of time, followed by 37 chapters on the movements of the Earth and the Moon as well as the reckoning of the leap year. The second section, ranging from chapter 44 to chapter 65, centered on the Easter cycle. The scholar based his calculation on the works of Dionysius Exiguus, who composed an Easter table for years from 532 to 626. With some adjustments on the dates, Bede expanded the old Easter table for the years from 722 to 1063, with information on the position of the Moon and the date of Easter. The third section, ranging from chapter 66 to chapter 71, centered on the world chronicle. The section started with an exhaustive description of the Six Ages of the World, comparing and contrasting the calendars used by Egyptians, Hebrews, Latins, Greeks, and Anglos to determine the dates of various Biblical events, followed by a series of extensive discussions on End Time prophecies.
An important theme in this influential masterpiece was the development and popularization of BC/AD dating system. Similar to Dionysius Exiguus who created the Anno Domini system, Bede employed an Ab Incarnatione Domini system, and created an Ante Incarnatione Domini system, which is what the BC style ultimately came from.
A more condensed work on similar topics was <<De Temporibus>>, written in 703. The work contained 22 chapters and was divided into 3 sections. The first section ranged from chapter 1 to chapter 9 and was concerned with various concepts and definitions about time and calendars, borrowing heavily from the works of Varro, Pliny the Elder, and Saint Isidore. The second section ranged from chapter 10 to chapter 15 and was concerned with considerations for the Easter date. The concept of leap year used to compensate for the slowness of the Sun, the lunisolar calendar that combines lunar and solar years with differing lengths, and many other astronomical subjects were extensively discussed and analyzed. Even though Bede is quite indebted to Dionysius Exiguus, in multiple occasions, his calculations deviated from those of the Scythian Monk. The third section ranged from chapter 16 to chapter 22 and was concerned with establishing a world chronicle containing both sacred and profane events. Therefore, it was viewed as a concise representation of world history.
With his exceptional ability as a chronicler, it is not surprising that Bede was an extraordinary historian and biographer. His magnum opus on history, <<Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum>>, was a work on the Ecclesiastical and political history of England, covering events from Roman Britannia of the Late Roman Republic period to his day. The history classic was divided into five books, with the first covering the events before 603 and the last four covering the events between 603 and 731.
The first book contained 34 chapters and opened with a description of the geography of England and its residents in the past in a way similar to the description offered by Tacitus. The most important event in the first book was the mission of Saint Augustine of Canterbury under the order of Pope Saint Gregory I in 597, commonly known as the Gregorian Mission. Regarding other events in England before 603, Bede drew his chief sources from Orosius, Pliny the Elder, and Gildas. The second book contained 20 chapters and covered the events between 604 and 633, ending with the death of King Edwin of Northumbria. The third book contained 30 chapters and covered the events between 633 and 665, from the aftermath of the death of King Edwin to the conversion campaign waged Jaruman, Bishop of Mercia. The fourth book contained 30 chapters and covered the events between 664 and 698, mainly focused on the history of the Catholic Church in England, embellished with a great number of religious miracles and legends. The fifth book contained 24 chapters and covered the events between 687 and 731, ended with an inventory of his own works, an autograph that served as a major source of accounts of his life, and a chronology of the history of England.
In general, the most important theme of the work was the conversion of the British to Christianity. Bede, a partisan of Rome, regarded Pope Saint Gregory I, instead of Saint Augustine of Canterbury, as the true Apostle to the English. Like in his other works, Bede used the Anno Domini dating system in his history of the English Church, further popularizing the system. In terms of style, Bede modeled his work after the Acts of the Apostles and <<Historia Ecclesiastica>> of Eusebius of Caesarea, focusing on the gradual and steady development of the Church. Despite the fact that Bede was a partisan on some Ecclesiastical and political issues, his work on history was noted for its remarkable accuracy and attention to detail, and it was frequently quoted by Ecclesiastical historians when compiling a universal Church history, such as by Cardinal Baronius, and by Catholic polemicists when defending the Catholic Church in England and other British regions against the Protestant usurpers, such as by Bellarmine and Suarez
Other than being a historian, Bede was also a biographer. Bede wrote ten biographies, such as <<Vita Divi Cuthberti>> and <<Vita Divi Eustasii>>, together with a poem for Saint Justin Martyr, a martyrology, and a few Biblical anthropological works.
The most theologically influential works of Bede, however, were his works on the Sacred Scripture. The works of Bede on the Sacred Scripture constituted the bulk of his all works, and can be categorized into three classes, namely commentaries, homilies, and questions. The commentary category accounted for more than half of the works of Bede on Scripture and entailed lengthy commentaries on <<Five Books of Moses>>, <<Four Books of Kings>>, <<Two Books of Esdras>>, <<Book of Tobias>>, <<Book of Job>>, <<Canticles of Solomon>> and <<Proverbs of Solomon>>, as well as on <<Four Gospels>>, <<Acts of the Apostles>>, <<Fourteen Pauline Epistles>>, <<Seven General Epistles>>, and <<Apocalypse according to Saint John>>. The homily category was grouped with topics, with two series based on liturgical seasons, two series based on Saints, one series focused on the Easter season, and a few shorter series on the miscellaneous topics. The question category was organized based on Biblical books for questions about the Old Testament and based on topics for questions regarding the New Testament.
The first feature in the works by Bede on the Sacred Scripture was the synthesis and systematization of the works of the previous Fathers and Doctors of the Church. Bede was, evidently, extremely familiar with their works, especially those of the Eight Great Latin and Greek Fathers and Doctors. Besides those Great Eight whom Bede quoted frequently, Bede relied heavily on the works of Origen, Cyprian, Cassian, Cassiodorus, and Isidore, and it was even more impressive that Bede was very familiar with the works by
authors less known at his time, such as Fulgentius of Ruspe and Prosper of Aquitaine, disciples of Saint Augustine. In fact, it was highly likely that Bede was the one who originally coined the influential terms Four Great Latin/Western Fathers/Doctors and Four Great Greek/Eastern Fathers/Doctors. Both these two terms later influenced the decisions of Pope Boniface VIII and Pope Saint Pius V to name the Great Eight as the first eight Doctors of the Church.
The second feature was the increased attention paid to books less commented on in previous centuries, such as on Acts of the Apostles. Such efforts were intimately connected with the attempt to synthesize and systematize the studies on the Sacred Scripture and reflected a less polemical environment during the Late Patristic Age. The third feature was unity of the literal and allegorical approaches of exegesis, or the unity of the School of Antioch and the School of Alexandria.
Bede was the first Catholic author to write commentaries on the Sacred Scripture with such wide range of sources and coverages, with several passages incorporated into <<Glossa Ordinaria>>, a collection of Biblical commentaries which later became of standard Biblical reference work throughout the Medieval times. Bede achieved a long-lasting influence on Catholic exegetes in later following centuries, from Nicolaus Lyranus and Augustinus Calmet of France and Dionysius Carthusianus and Cornelius Lapide of Belgium.
In general, the writings of Bede reflected a general humanistic trend at his time, which can be proved by the large portion of works devoted to human arts, sciences, and history unseen in the writings of Fathers in the High Patristic Age and by the literary style of Bede, which was closer to that of Cicero and Vergil than to that of Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome, a stark contrast to the style of Saint Aldhelm, whose style was noticeably more Celtic.
Three editions of <<Opera Omnia>> of Bede were published. All three editions were divided into eight folio tomes, with the first edition printed in Basel in 1563 and the second and third editions printed in Cologne in 1612 and 1688, respectively. The three editions were virtually the same. A modern edition of the complete works by Bede was collected in Volumes XC-XCIV of <<Patrologia Latina>> by Migne, an edition which discarded several works of disputed authenticity. The works on education and most of the small works on art and science were included in Tome I, including the famous <<De Arte Metrica>>, <<De Schematibus Scripturae>>, <<De Tropis Scripturae>>, and <<De Orthographia>>. The other works on art and science were taken in Tome II, including <<De natura Rerum>>, <<De Temporum Ratione>>, and <<De Temporibus>>, followed by <<Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum>> and the other works on history, chronicle, and biography arranged in Tome III. The rest five tomes were dedicated to the works about the Sacred Scripture, with Tome IV, Tome V, and Tome VI containing the commentary category, Tome VII containing the homily category, and Tome VIII containing the question category.
An edition of the commentaries by Bede was printed in Paris in 1544, divided into three folio tomes, and multiple editions of his particular commentaries went through numerous editions. In addition, the three scientific works, namely <<De Natura Rerum>>, <<De Temporum Ratione>>, and <<De Temporibus>>, survived throughout the Middle Ages through hundreds of manuscripts, until their first printed edition came all in 1529. Similar things may be said on <<De Arte Metrica>>, whose first printed edition came in 1473. All these four great works were used extensively throughout Medieval universities as textbooks and reference manuals. Various translations of the four treatises exist, primarily in English, such as <<On The Nature Of Things>> and <<On Times>> by Faith Wallis in 2008 and <<The Reckoning Of Time>> by the same author in 1999, reprinted in 2004.
The most diffuse work of Bede was his <<Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum>>. Besides nearly 200 manuscripts that survived throughout the Middle Ages, there were at least three editions before the end of the 16th century, printed in Strasbourg, Antwerp, and Paris. It was translated as early as in the late 9th century, and a new translation was offered by the great Thomas Stapleton, printed in Antwerp in 1565, and most of its modern translations are titled <<Ecclesiastical History Of The English People>>. As a popular work, it had been translated into various other languages, such as three French editions titled <<Histoire Ecclesiastique Du Peuple Anglais>>, printed in Paris in 1995, 1999, and 2005, and one German edition titled <<Kirchengeschichte Des Englischen Volkes>>, printed in Darmstadt in 1982 and 1997.
Bede was revered both as a Christian scholar and as a humanist. Although Bede rarely traveled far away from his Monasteries, he already exerted a fair amount of influence on Ecclesiastical affairs through his pupils, such as Ecgbert, Bishop of York. However, it is only after his death when his scholarly influence grew strong. Alcuin, the most achieved student of one of the pupils of Bede, brought his works to the Carolingian Empire under the invitation of Charles the Great, first Frankish Emperor, commonly known as Charlemagne. The scholastic models of learning developed by Bede was adopted and improved by Carolingian scholars at the 9th century, mostly his Benedictine confreres. Therefore, the death of Bede should be viewed as the dawn of the Carolingian Renaissance, a glorious artistic, scientific, and literary renaissance to bring high culture back to Europe after centuries of Barbarian influences. For this reason, Bede was address with the epithet Venerable by Alcuin, Amalarius, Paul the Deacon, and the Council of Aachen in 835, and later generations would call him Pater Historiae Anglorum, or Father of the English History. A local cultus soon emerged after the death of the saintly scholar, and then soon spread to the Northern England, but it was only during the High Middle Ages when Bede was widely venerated throughout Europe. There were already debates on whether Bede should be declared a Doctor of the Church before the reign of Pope Benedict XIV, but it was only in 1899, under the reign of Pope Leo XIII, was Bede declared a Doctor of the Church.
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