The Venerable Bede (673 A.D.-735 A.D.). Saint. Confessor. Doctor Of The Church. (Part Eight).

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unless otherwise stated.

Bede, translating the Gospel

of Saint John on his deathbed.

Date: 1902.

Source: http://www.bible-researcher.com/bede.jpg.

Author: James Doyle Penrose.

(Wikimedia Commons)

A full catalogue of the Library available to Bede in the Monastery cannot be reconstructed, but it is possible to tell, for example, that Bede was very familiar with the works of Virgil. There is little evidence that he had access to any other of the pagan Latin writers — he quotes many of these writers, but the quotes are almost all to be found in the Latin Grammars that were common in his day, one or more of which would certainly have been at the Monastery. Another difficulty is that manuscripts of early writers were often incomplete: It is apparent that Bede had access to Pliny's Encyclopedia, for example, but it seems that the version he had was missing Book xviii, as he would almost certainly have quoted from it in his De temporum ratione.

Detail of a Holy Card

depicting the Martyrdom of Saint Anastasius.

Saint Bede wrote a translation of the 

Greek passion of Saint Anastasius.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Image:Anastasius_of_persia.jpg.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The works dealing with the Old Testament included Commentary on Samuel, Commentary on Genesis, Commentaries on Ezra and Nehemiah, On the Temple, On the Tabernacle, Commentaries on Tobit, Commentaries on Proverbs, Commentaries on the Song of Songs, Commentaries on the Canticle of Habakkuk, The works on Ezra, the Tabernacle and the Temple were especially influenced by Gregory the Great's writings.

Bede's works included Commentary on Revelation, Commentary on the Catholic Epistles, Commentary on Acts, Reconsideration on the Books of Acts, On the Gospel of Mark, On the Gospel of Luke, and Homilies on the Gospels. At the time of his death, he was working on a translation, of the Gospel of Saint John, into English.

De temporibus, or "On Time", written in about 703 A.D., provides an introduction to the principles of Easter Computus. This was based on parts of Isidore of Seville's Etymologies, and Bede also included a chronology of the world, which was derived from Eusebius, with some revisions based on Jerome's translation of the Bible. In about 723 A.D., Bede wrote a longer work on the same subject, "On the Reckoning of Time", which was influential throughout the Middle Ages. He also wrote several shorter Letters and Essays, discussing specific aspects of Computus.

Saint Bede's Tomb, Durham Cathedral, England.

Watercolour by the English writer ,Augustus Hare. 

Hare may have created the illustration for his book 

"Handbook for Travellers in Northumberland and Durham," 

published in 1863, which he wrote, as well as illustrated. 

Courtesy of the British Museum, London.

Date: 1834-1903.

Source: British Museum [1].

Author: Augustus John Cuthbert Hare.

(Wikimedia Commons)

On the "Reckoning of Time" (De temporum ratione), Bede included an introduction to the traditional ancient and Mediaeval view of the cosmos, including an explanation of how the spherical Earth influenced the changing length of daylight, of how the Seasonal motion of the Sun and Moon influenced the changing appearance of the New Moon at evening twilight, and a quantitative relation between the changes of the Tides at a given place and the daily motion of the Moon.

Since the focus of his book was calculation, Bede gave instructions for computing the date of Easter and the related time of the Easter Full Moon, for calculating the motion of the Sun and Moon through the zodiac, and for many other calculations related to the Calendar. He gives some information about the months of the Anglo-Saxon Calendar in Chapter XV. Any Codex of Bede's Easter Cycle is normally found together with a Codex of his "De Temporum Ratione".

For Calendric purposes, Bede made a new calculation of the age of the world since the Creation, which he dated as 3952 B.C. Due to his innovations in computing the age of the world, he was accused of Heresy at the table of Bishop Wilfrid, his chronology being contrary to accepted calculations. Once informed of the accusations of these "lewd rustics," Bede refuted them in his Letter to Plegwin.

Church of Saint John Lee, 

Hexham, Northumberland, England.

Stained-Glass Window showing, in the centre panel, 

Saint John of Beverley (to whom the Church is dedicated); 

on the left is Saint Benedict; and, on the right, 

The Venerable Bede, 
author of the Ecclesiastical History of the English People 

- see http://www.britainexpress.com/History/bio/bede.htm.

Photo: 26 March 2009.

Source: From geograph.org.uk.

Author: Mike Quinn.

(Wikimedia Commons)

In addition to these works on astronomical timekeeping, he also wrote De natura rerum, or "On the Nature of Things", modelled, in part, after the work of the same title by Isidore of Seville. His works were so influential that, late in the 9th-Century, Notker the Stammerer, a Monk of the Monastery of Saint Gall, in Switzerland, wrote that "God, the orderer of natures, who raised the Sun from the East on the fourth day of Creation, on the sixth day of the world has made Bede rise from the West as a new Sun to illuminate the whole Earth".

Bede wrote some works designed to help teach Grammar in the Abbey School. One of these was his De arte metrica, a discussion of the composition of Latin Verse, drawing on previous Grammarians' work. It was based on Donatus' De pedibus and Servius' De finalibus, and used examples from Christian poets, as well as Virgil. It became a standard Text for the teaching of Latin Verse during the next few Centuries. Bede dedicated this work to Cuthbert, apparently a student, for he is named "beloved son" in the dedication, and Bede says "I have laboured to educate you in Divine Letters and Ecclesiastical Statutes". Another textbook of Bede's is the De orthographia, a work on orthography, designed to help a Mediaeval reader of Latin with unfamiliar abbreviations and words from classical Latin works. Although it could serve as a textbook, it appears to have been mainly intended as a Reference work. The exact date of composition for both of these works is unknown.

PART NINE FOLLOWS