Introduction
The lives of saints often reflect
how they had glorified God through their lives. The saints glorified God in
many ways such as ardent devotion to the Eucharist, in helping the
underprivileged, founding a religious order, taking care of the children,
preaching the truth, etc. Venerable Bede or St. Bede gave praise to God in a
distinct way; through study and writing. A historian and doctor of the Church,
he was a multi-faceted saint who had written voluminous works on various fields
of knowledge. He was famous for writing the Ecclesiastical History of the
English People. It was through studying and writing history that Venerable Bede
found his means of holiness; his means of glorifying God.
His
Life
It is not certain when was the
Venerable born and died. Scholars approximate that he had lived between 673 and
735 AD. Little is known about the saint, saved from the details about him that
he himself revealed in the last part of his opus magnum, the Ecclesiastical
History of the English People. In the
conclusion of the said work, he stated:
Thus much concerning the ecclesiastical history of
Britain, and especially of the race of the English, I, Baeda, a servant of
Christ and a priest of the monastery of the blessed apostles St. Peter and St.
Paul, which is at Wearmouth and at Jarrow (in Northumberland), have with the
Lord's help composed so far as I could gather it either from ancient documents
or from the traditions of the elders, or from my own knowledge.
I was born in the territory of the said monastery, and
at the age of seven I was, by the care of my relations, given to the most
reverend Abbot Benedict [St. Benedict Biscop], and afterwards to Ceolfrid, to
be educated. From that time I have spent the whole of my life within that
monastery, devoting all my pains to the study of the Scriptures, and amid the
observance of monastic discipline and the daily charge of singing in the
Church, it has been ever my delight to learn or teach or write.
In
my nineteenth year I was admitted to the diaconate, in my thirtieth to the
priesthood, both by the hands of the most reverend Bishop John [St. John of
Beverley], and at the bidding of Abbot Ceolfrid. From the time of my admission
to the priesthood to my present fifty-ninth year, I have endeavored for my own
use and that of my brethren, to make brief notes upon the Holy Scripture,
either out of the works of the venerable Fathers or in conformity with their
meaning and interpretation…
And
I pray thee, loving Jesus, that as Thou hast graciously given me to drink in
with delight the words of Thy knowledge, so Thou wouldst mercifully grant me to
attain one day to Thee, the fountain of all wisdom and to appear forever before
Thy face.
From this concluding part of the
Ecclesiastical History of the English People it can be grasped that the
Venerable had spend his whole life in the monastery in praying, studying,
writing and teaching. He was so dedicated in glorifying God through his study
and writing that even on the very day of his death, under condition of a
lingering and failing health, he was still dictating a translation of the
Gospel according to John to his student-secretary. After such piece, he so
requested from his student-secretary to take
my head in thy hands for it much delights me to sit opposite any holy place
where I used to pray, that so sitting I may call upon my Father. Sitting on
the floor of his cell, he sung the Glory be, and breathed his last.
In 1859, Cardinal Wiseman and the
English Bishops petitioned the Holy See to declare Venerable Bede as a Doctor
of the Church. The petition was granted on November 13, 1899 when Leo XIII was
declared a Doctor Ecclesiae with the celebration of his feast every 27th
of May.
His
Contributions
Saint Bede is not prefixed with the
word Venerable without a due reason for reverence and admiration. Legend has it, that a monk was at a loss on
what word to place to complete the epitaph of Saint Bede: Hac sunt in fossa Bedae . . . . ossa (Here are buried the bones of
the… Bede). The next morning, it is believed, that an angel place the word venerabilis (venerable) to fill the gap,
thus the Venerable Bede. But such title, it can claimed, is without a basis,
for several learned men continued to use such title even a century after his
death, such as Alcuin, Amalarius and seemingly Paul the Deacon, and the important
Council of Aachen in 835, which identified Bede as venerabilis et modernis temporibus doctor admirabilis Beda.
One noticeable trait of the
Venerable was his observance of what can be called today as intellectual
property rights. He was rigid in acknowledging the sources and references of
his writings, a practice that is not common at that time.
Though he may had written volumes
of books on history and theology, the venerable would humbly submit himself to
the authority of the Holy Scriptures and would admit that such is the greatest
of all books for it is Divine. He remarked:
Holy
Scripture is above all other books not only by its authority because it is
Divine, or by its utility because it leads to eternal life, but also by its
antiquity and its literary form (positione
dicendi).
In his entire life, the Venerable
would produced numerous works in various field. Some of these works are as
follow: his opus magnum Historia
Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, Letter to Egbert, History of the Abbots (of
the twin monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow), the metrical and prose lives of
St. Cuthbert, a chronological treatises De
temporibus liber and De temporum
ratione (a general history of the world from the Creation to 725 and 703),
topographical work De locis sanctis (a
description of Jerusalem and the holy places based upon Adamnan and Arculfus),
Commentaries on Pentateuch, Kings, Ezra, Tobias, the Canticles, on the gospels
of St. Mark, St. Luke, and of John, the Acts of the Apostles, the Canonical
Epistles, and the Apocalypse. His works also included other sciences than
religious and theological in nature, such as grammatical treatises De arte metrica and De orthographia, works on scientific investigations De natura rerum, De temporibus, De temporium
ratione, and on music Musica
theoretica and De arte Metrica.
Conclusion
The paths to holiness and sainthood
are varied in every person. These paths, however, are not too foreign to man.
They are already given to him by God before he even needed them. One person may glorify God through singing,
another may be through painting, and consequently, finds his way towards a holy
life. The path to holiness can be the very talents God has given to us. The
life of the Venerable Bede is a testament to a person’s utilization of the
gifts, talents he had received from God in order to give glory to God. By using
his inclinations in researching, and writing on history and on other fields,
Venerable Bede was able to glorify God and found holiness in his life. He lived
his life fully, in accord with God’s will for him, through his studies and
writings dedicated to the God and His Church. Indeed, God can be glorified
through the unique talents He had gifted man with.
Bibliography
Cannon, John. "Bede, St." The Oxford Companion to British
History. 2002. Retrieved March 15, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O110-BedeSt.html
The
Venerable Bede. Retrieved February 10, 2016 from
https://www.durhamworldheritagesite.com/history/bede
The Venerable Bede (673 AD - 735
AD). Retrieved February 10, 2016 from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/bede_st.shtml
Thurston, H. (1907). The Venerable Bede. In The
Catholic Encyclopedia. New
York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved
February 12, 2016 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02384a.htm
Thurston, H., and Donald Attwater,
eds. Butler’s Lives of the Saints,
vol. II. Maryland: Christian Classics, 1990.
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