known to his abbot, who presented him for ordination, and to the bishop of his diocese. For it had been decreed by several councils, the authority of which was acknowledged in England,' that none should be admitted to the order of deacon until twenty-five years old; and the few exceptions which were made to this rule were always in favour of individuals of acknowledged intellectual attainments and sanctity of life. It may be added, that the priesthood was conferred upon Beda as soon as he could canonically receive it, that is, at the age of thirty; and that he was ordained both deacon and priest by the celebrated John of Beverley, bishop of Hexham, within whose diocese, and not that of Lindisfarne, the monastery of Jarrow must have been situated. § 29. The historian, William of Malmesbury, informs us that so widely had Beda's reputation extended, that pope Sergius was anxious to have the advice of our countryman in the decision of certain questions of more than ordinary importance and difficulty. In confirmation of this statement he cites portions of a letter addressed by that pontiff to Ceolfrith, abbot of Jarrow, in which he is requested to lose no time in sending Beda to Rome. We have, however, his own authority for asserting that he was not one of the monks of Jarrow who visited Rome in 701; and also for stating that the letters which he inserted in his Ecclesiastical History were procured for him from the papal Regesta, by the kindness of Nothelm, whose services would not have been required had Beda himself been upon the spot. He also tells us distinctly that the whole of his life was spent at Jarrow and within its immediate neighbourhood. These conflicting statements have given rise to much difference of opinion; some writers, as the Bollandists," rejecting the letter introduced by Malmesbury, as if it were a palpable forgery; while others are inclined to receive it as true, upon the supposition that Beda's stay in the papal court was too short to be regarded as any interruption to his residence in his own country. § 30. In an edition of the Historia Ecclesiastica, published by the English Historical Society in 1838, the editor of the present work endeavoured to solve this difficulty by the supposition that this statement originated with Malmesbury; who, having met with a copy of a letter from Sergius to Ceolfrith, in which the pope 1 As for example, the Fourth Council of Arles (A.D. 524, ap. Labbe, iv. 1622), § 1, and the fourth canon of the Quini-Sext Council (A.D. 680-1, ibid. vi. 1149). See also Bingham, II. xx. § 20. 2 See the Excerptiones Ecgberti, arch. Ebor. ap. Thorpe's Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, § xciii. vol. ii. p. 110. 3 Gesta Regum, § 57, vol. i. p. 85, ed. Hardy, Lond. 1840; fol. 11, C, ed. Saville, Lond. 1596. De Temporum Ratione, cap. xlv. Opp. ii. 154, ed. Basil. 1563. "Denique, anno ab Ejus Incarnatione juxta Dionysium septingentesimo primo, indictione quartadecima, patres nostri, qui tunc fuere Romæ, hoc modo se in Natali Domini in cereis S. Mariæ scriptum vidisse, et inde descripsisse referebant, ‘A passione Domini nostri Jesu Christi anni sunt delxviii.' 5 See Eccl. Hist. § 2. 7 Acta SS. Maii, vi. 719, § 8. 6 Ibid. § 454. 8 Mabillon, Vit. Bedæ, ap. Acta SS. ord. S. Bened. III. i. 509, § 10; Annal. ord. S. Bened. xviii. § 2. requested that the abbot would send one of his monks to Rome, hastily concluded that Beda must have been that individual; and without adverting to the chronological difficulties which attended such a supposition, unjustifiably interpolated Beda's name into his text; and further, that he designated him as "presbyter," a rank to which he did not attain until some time after the death of Sergius. In confirmation of this theory, the present editor then printed a copy of the letter as it stands in a manuscript,' written in the eleventh century, which, therefore, presents us with an authority earlier and better than that of Malmesbury; and he stated that in this version of the letter, the name of Beda, and his designation as "presbyter" does not occur. The letter is so important for the illustration of what is obviously a most interesting question connected with the life of our historian, that no apology is made for presenting the following translation of it to the reader, that he may be enabled the more readily to form his own conclusion upon the question. It is here translated from the Cotton manuscript : § 31. "Sergius, the bishop, the servant of the servants of God, to Ceolfrith, the holy abbot and priest, sendeth greeting:With what words and in what manner can we declare the kindness and unspeakable providence of our God, and return fitting thanks for his boundless benefits towards us, who has led us out of darkness and the shadow of death to the light of the knowledge of Himself?.... We give you to understand that we have received the favour of the offering which your devout piety has sent to us by the present bearer, with the same joy and good-will with which it was transmitted; and we offer up our prayers to God and his apostles for the preservation of the purity of your conscience, that He, by whose preaching we have come to the light of the truth, would grant great favours in return for small ones, and an everlasting reward in the kingdom of heaven. 'Yielding to the timely and worthy prayers of your laudable anxiety with the closest devotion, we entreat of your pious goodness, so acceptable to God, that since there have occurred certain points of ecclesiastical discipline, which should not be published without more matured deliberation, which have made it necessary for us to confer with a person skilled in the literature of the arts, as becomes an assistant of God's holy catholic mother-church, you would not delay paying ready obedience to this our admonition, but would send without loss of time to our lowly presence at the venerable church of the chief apostles, your friends and protectors, the lords Peter and Paul, a religious servant of our God, belonging to your venerable monastery, whom, God willing, you may expect to return in safety, when, by God's permission, the necessary discussion of these aforesaid points shall have been solemnly completed. For whatever shall be advantageously added to the church at large, and to the holy and devout college, will, we trust, be 1 MS. Cotton. Tiber. A. xv. fol. 6. b. Malmesbury here reads, "Beda, a religious servant of God, a venerable priest of your monastery." profitable to all those persons also who are committed to your own immediate care." § 32. On the other hand, it is contended by Hardy, and from him by Wright and Giles, that before it can be admitted as a just inference that Malmesbury interpolated the passage in question, it must be shown that this same Cottonian manuscript was the identical copy of the letter which he used; a conclusion which, as they affirm, cannot be fairly drawn, since it is incredible but that other copies of the letter must have been extant when Malmesbury wrote. They maintain also that it ought rather to be contended that the one which he saw must have contained the passage in dispute; for that historian (whose great integrity is admitted by all writers) several times expressly declares, that he declines inserting anything into his narrative for which he had not the best authority. The present editor willingly admits the weight of these arguments, and accepts the solution which was long ago proposed by Alford,' and from him by Cressy and Wilkins. Admitting, therefore, that Malmesbury's version of the letter is correct, and that Beda was invited by name, we may suppose, along with these authors, that the death of pope Sergius-intelligence of which must have reached England shortly after the arrival of the letter-released him from the labours of the journey. 8 § 33. It is not difficult to imagine that Beda's reputation as a scholar and divine would draw around him a crowd of disciples. The names of some of his more favoured pupils are preserved by himself, in the dedications to such of his works as were undertaken at their suggestion, or for their especial benefit. Among these we may notice Huaetberht, to whom he dedicated his treatise "De Ratione Temporum," and his "Exposition upon the Revelation;" Wigberct, for whom he wrote his book "Upon the Art of Poetry;" Constantine, for whose use he composed a dissertation concerning the division of numbers; and, lastly, Nothelm,10 presbyter of London, and afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, at whose request he solved thirty questions which have reference to the books of Kings. Although there were probably other disciples, whose names he does not specify, yet we can by no means agree with Vincent of Beauvais (Speculum Histor. xxiii. 173), in including among the number Rhabanus Maurus, who was not born until fifty years after Beda's death, nor the more celebrated Alcuin, as some writers erroneously have done; a question for the investigation of which a 1 Baronius (Annal. A.D. 701, § 2,) prints the same letter, apparently from a manuscript copy of Malmesbury, but the variations are unimportant. Another copy is also extant in a MS. at Durham, but a comparison of its text with that from which the translation above given is made, and with Malmesbury, leads to no results worthy of notice. more appropriate opportunity will occur when we are employed in tracing the history of that eminent scholar. § 34. Beyond the few circumstances which have now been mentioned, there is little of any moment to state respecting the life of Beda. By identifying the history of the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow with his biography, it might be easy to lay before the reader a summary of the events in which Beda probably took a share; but these, however interesting in themselves, are rather the history of the times than the individual; for we have no ground for supposing that he took any prominent part in the public transactions of either establishment. We are justified in concluding that his life glided on in the undisturbed tranquillity of monastic seclusion, occupied alternately in the duties of religion and in the service of literature, and, consequently, diversified by none of those changes of scene or occupation which furnish the legitimate materials for biography. His death was as quiet as his life; and in speaking of it we cannot do better than lay before our readers the touching picture which has been drawn by one of his own disciples who was present at his decease, and by him transmitted to another. § 35. To Cuthwin,' his most dearly-beloved fellow-student in Christ, his fellow-disciple, Cudberct,' wishes eternal health in the Lord. I most gladly received the gift which you sent, and most gratefully did I read the letters written by your devotion and learning, in which I found (what indeed I chiefly desired), that you would diligently celebrate holy masses and prayers for Beda, the beloved master and father of us both, in God. Wherefore, out of my affection for him, it is the more gratifying to me to comply with your request, and to tell you briefly, but to the best of my ability, the manner in which he passed from this present world. "He had been labouring under a severe attack of difficulty of breathing, yet without pain, for nearly two weeks before the day of our Lord's Resurrection [April 17], and in this state continued, cheerful, and rejoicing, and giving thanks to Almighty God, both day and night, even every hour, until Ascension-day, the seventh day before the kalends of June [26th May]. He daily instructed us, his disciples, and spent the remainder of the day in the singing of psalms, and continued awake during the whole night, in joy and thanksgiving, excepting when interrupted by a moderate sleep. On awaking he returned to his accustomed occupations, and with outstretched hands ceased not to give thanks to God. He was, in truth, a blessed man. He chanted the passage from St.Paul, 'It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God' [Heb. x. 31], and 1 This letter has been repeatedly printed, with various degrees of accuracy, and may be found in Leland's Collect. iii. 84; Simeon of Durham, p. 8; Mabillon, Acta SS. ord. S. Bened. III. i. 503; in the preface to Whelock's Beda; Baronii Annal. A.D. 731, § 20; Ep. Bonif. cxiii.; Opp. Bedæ, viii. 1135, ed. 1563; Acta SS. Maii, vi. 721. It is here translated from a collation of the above texts with MS. Burney, 297; Harl. 3680; Digby, 211; Fairfax, 12; and Digby, 59. 2 Another letter written by this Cuthbert occurs among the Epistles of Boniface, in which he speaks with the greatest affection of his master Beda. There has been some misapprehension as to the exact day of Beda's death, but the chronological details of the text are too clear to admit of dispute or difficulty. many other passages of Holy Writ, in which he admonished us to rise from the sleep of the soul, by anticipating the last hour. And being skilled in our poetry, he thus spoke, in the Saxon language, of the awful departure of the soul from the body : Before the need-fare, No man becometh Of thought more prudent To consider Before his departure What, to his spirit, § 36. "He also sang anthems, as well for our consolation' as his own, one of which was the following:-O King of glory, God of might, who didst ascend to-day in triumph above all heavens, leave us not orphans, but send upon us the promise of the Father, the Spirit of truth. Halleluiah!' And when he came to the words, Leave us not orphans,' he burst into tears and wept much; and after the space of an hour, he resumed the repetition of what he had begun as we heard, we wept along with him. One while we read, another while we wept; and our reading was always mingled with tears. In such kind of joy as this we passed the quinquagesimal' days between Easter up to the day which I have mentioned; and he rejoiced exceedingly, and thanked God, who had thus thought him worthy of suffering. He frequently repeated the text, God scourgeth every son whom He receiveth,' [Heb. xii. 6,] and many other passages of holy Scripture. He also quoted the sentiment of St. Ambrose :-' I have not so lived that I am ashamed to continue longer among you; nor do I fear to die, because our God is merciful.' § 37. In addition to the lessons which we received from him, and the singing of psalms, he strove all this time to finish two very important works-the Gospel, namely, of St. John, which he was translating into Saxon for the use of the church, and certain extracts from the books of the Rotæ of St. Isidore. I am unwilling,' he said, that my children should read what is not 1 The Saxon verses from which these lines are translated occur only in a few copies, and in these they are very considerably modernized and reduced to the dialect used in Wessex. But a MS. of great antiquity, and probably of Northumbrian origin, now belonging to the monastery of St. Gall, in Switzerland, has preserved them in a much purer and earlier form, approaching very closely to the language used by Beda himself. I am indebted to John M. Kemble, Esq., for a transcript of this precious document. 2 Dr. Lingard, here adopting a different text, reads, "He also chanted the antiphons according to his and our custom;" and appends the following note:"I conceive that by these words-'his and our custom'-Cuthbert alludes to the difference in the choral services; the Roman course having been introduced at Wearmouth and Jarrow, and the Scottish being probably retained in Cuthwin's monastery. The antiphon in the letter is that for the Magnificat on the feast for the Ascension according to the Roman course."-Anglo-Saxon Church, ii. 197, ed. 1845. 3 The quinquagesimal days were the fifty days between Easter and Whitsunday, and were ordered to be kept as days of joy and triumph in honour of the resurrection. Lingard, ibid. See also Martene, De Antiq. Monach. Ritibus, III. xviii. 4 This work has not been identified. |