Rev. José Mario O. Mandía
We will now talk about one of the last Church Fathers of the West. Saint Bede was born in England in 672 or 673. At the age of seven, his parents put him under the care of a nearby Benedictine monastery. He himself wrote in his work Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English Peoples): “I wholly applied myself to the study of Scripture; and amidst the observance of the monastic Rule and the daily charge of singing in church, I always took delight in learning, or teaching, or writing” (v, 24). Living in the monastery at an early age gave him ample opportunity to read and learn from the precious manuscripts that were found there. Pope Benedict comments: “His teaching and the fame of his writings occasioned his friendships with many of the most important figures of his time who encouraged him to persevere in his work from which so many were to benefit” (General Audience, 18 February 2009). His interests spanned the learning of his time: philosophy, astronomy, arithmetic, grammar, church history, lives of saints and, above all, Sacred Scripture. All these helped him mature quickly. At the age of 19, he was ordained deacon, and at 30, a priest.
His work included copying books and also writing his own books (45 of his own and 30 commentaries on Sacred Scripture). He hardly traveled but remained in his own monastery until he passed away. The volume of work that he handled did not make him forget the ultimate reason that motivated him. He concluded his most outstanding work with the following prayer: “I beseech you, O good Jesus, that to the one to whom you have graciously granted sweetly to drink in the words of your knowledge, you will also vouchsafe in your loving kindness that he may one day come to you, the Fountain of all wisdom, and appear for ever before your face” (Ecclesiastical History of the English Peoples).
On 26 May 737, eve of the feast of the Ascension, the Lord answered his prayer and called him home. He had just finished making an Anglo-Saxon translation of the Gospel of John and in his last moments, prayed his favorite prayer: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.”
What were the main themes in his studies and writings?
The first was Sacred Scripture. In interpreting the Bible, he did two things: he tried first to understand the literal meaning of the text, and then he reflected on how all these teachings converge in Christ (spiritual meaning). He saw both Old and New Testaments as pathways that lead us to Jesus Christ. In his study of the spiritual meaning, he pointed out the figures in the Old Covenant. Pope Benedict cites an example: “the tent of the covenant that Moses pitched in the desert and the first and second temple of Jerusalem are images of the Church, the new temple built on Christ and on the Apostles with living stones, held together by the love of the Spirit. And just as pagan peoples also contributed to building the ancient temple by making available valuable materials and the technical experience of their master builders, so too contributing to the construction of the Church there were apostles and teachers, not only from ancient Jewish, Greek and Latin lineage, but also from the new peoples, among whom Bede was pleased to list the Irish Celts and Anglo-Saxons. St Bede saw the growth of the universal dimension of the Church which is not restricted to one specific culture but is comprised of all the cultures of the world that must be open to Christ and find in him their goal” (General Audience, 18 February 2009).
Aside from Sacred Scripture, he also worked on Church History which is, in fact, a continuation of the History of Salvation that began in the Old Testament and passes through the New Testament. “After studying the period described in the Acts of the Apostles, he reviews the history of the Fathers and the Councils, convinced that the work of the Holy Spirit continues in history” (General Audience, 18 February 2009).
This interest in salvation history and his background in the sciences led him to write the treatise De temporum ratione (‘On the reckoning of time’), a treatise on astronomy and timekeeping. At that time, there was intense discussion on the science of time reckoning and the art of calendar construction. He proposed “a chronology that was to become the basis of the universal Calendar ‘ab incarnatione Domini’ [from the Lord’s incarnation – Anno Domini, the ‘year of the Lord’]. In his day, time was calculated from the foundation of the City of Rome. Realizing that the true reference point, the center of history, is the Birth of Christ, Bede gave us this calendar that interprets history starting from the Incarnation of the Lord (General Audience, 18 February 2009).
In his historical work, he recorded the first six Ecumenical Councils, presenting correct Christian teaching on Christ and the Blessed Virgin. His Ecclesiastical History of the English Peoples brought him fame as ‘the father of English historiography.’ Venerable Bede stressed two of the four marks of the Church: catholicity and apostolicity. He was able “to convince all the Irish, Celtic and Pict Churches to have one celebration for Easter in accordance with the Roman calendar. The Computo, which he worked out scientifically to establish the exact date of the Easter celebration, hence the entire cycle of the liturgical year, became the reference text for the whole Catholic Church” (General Audience, 18 February 2009).
Finally, he was also an eminent scholar of liturgical theology. Through his Homilies on the Gospels for Sundays and feast days, he undertakes a mystagogical exposition of the mysteries that we celebrate and connects them to daily life. This way of teaching explains the inner spiritual meaning of the external signs and rituals of the liturgy. Bede taught that Baptism makes every person not only Christian but turns him into a Christ.
By weaving together these three fields of interest – Scripture, history and liturgy – Bede delivered a message for different kinds of people: for scholars, for pastors, for consecrated people, and for lay people.
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