THE WEEK'S GREAT DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 122, 26 May 1930, Page 6

THE WEEK'S GREAT DAY.

MA& 26.—DEATH OF VENERABLE BEDE. (Copyrighted.) One thousand one hundred and ninety-five years ago, on May 20, Too, the Venerable Bede, or Ba.eda, the great outstanding figure in the anciccit literature of Britain, and probably the most distinguished scholar in the world of liis day, VlSed. K« was born in, or about, the year <J7;i, and his exact birthplace is not known, but it is generally Relieved to have been in what is now the parish of Monkton, near Wearmouth, in the North of England. At the age of seven he was placed in the. Monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul at Weanmouth, and was transferred a few years later to the nearby Monastery of St. Paul at Jan-civ, both of these religious houses having been found!xl just prior to the time that Bede became an inmate. The two houses, which were only about five miles apart, were intended to be a singba monastery under a single abbot, and it was rrithin their walls that Bede/ passed practically ' the whole of his life. Ai; a child he held a foremost place among the pupils in the monastic school, of which he became one of the teachers at an early age. He took deacon's orders when he was only nineteen, which was below the ordinary canonical age, and eleven years later he was ordained a priest. His profound learning and his great ability as a teacli er of Latin, Greek and Hebrew brought him numssfrous disciples, and at one time he had as man - ]' as six hundred pupils, monks and laymen. His fame spread throughout Christendom, and Popo Sergius particularly desired that he might be srnt to Rome to assist in the promulgation of certain points of ecclesiastical discipline, but Bede renin ined within the walls of his quiet and sacred retreat, where he devoted his life to mastering all li'ie learning of his age and to the writing of book) >. His marvellous industry resulted in the production of over forty works, twenty-five of whifih were commentaries on the Old and New Testaments, while among the others were lives of various saints and martyrs, "De Natura Rerum," whid li is an encyclopaedia of the sciences then knew 'ii, and his celebrated work "The Ecclesiastical I listory of England." T his history, which provides us with the best and fullest information that we have regarding the "Motherland prior to the year 731, contains a vast number of facts which are recorded nowhere else, and it is the source of many of the most popular stories in the early history of England. Bedfl secured the materials for the great work parfily from the writings of-Roman historians, partjly from the oral and written communications of Ijhe learned prelates and monks of his day,

but from con temporary chronicles arid nubsic records, which have long since been lost. The- : history, which was written by Befle in Latin, was translated by Alfred the Great into AngloSaxon. A t the time of his death Bede had just completed a translation of St. John's Gospel. During the last few weeks of his life he had persisted in continuing his task from his deathbed, in spite of ij icessant pain and ever-increasing weakness, and when tho monk to whom he. was dictating laid doM'n his pen at the end of the last sentence of tl te final chapter, Bede echoed his words, "It is fin ished." and, turning his face to the last rays of tlsc setting sun, which lightened the gloom of his nell, the father of English history breathed his 1 ast. The prefix "Venerable," which was first atta.< shed to his name about a century after his deat;]'t, was a tribute to his preat learning and pietj', and was not {riven to him on account of •rreaji age, for he was only about sixty-two when he passed to his rest.