ENGLISH HISTORY

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 22, 25 July 1935, Page 13

ENGLISH HISTORY

HONOUR FOR "FATHER"

THE VENERABLE BEDE

The Diocese of Durham has been honouring the name of one of the greatest of Englishmen, who died 1200 years ago, and the whole English Church should join in paying homage to his memory, writes the Dean of Durham in the "Dally Telegraph." Nor is it Churchmen only who should hold his memory dear; he is in a very real sense the Father of English History. The title is given him by the most brilliant of our historians of today, himself a Northumbrian; but even that title is not enough. He was not only, as Burke called him, "the father of English learning," but the founder of all medieval history. For 54 years he lived and worked at Jarrow as monk and schoolmaster, gradually mastering the whole range of the knowledge of his time. "I am my own secretary," he writes, "I niake my own notes. lam my own librarian." But, unaided, he achieved no fewer than 45 works, dealing not only with history but with theology, astronomy, physics, music, philosophy, grammar, rhetoric, arithmetic, and medicine. In the words of the historian J. K. Green (who compiles this formidable list), "His encyclopaedic researches left him in heart a simple Englishman. He loved his own English tongue, he was skilled In English song, ilia best work was a translation into English of the Gospel of St. John, and almost tlio last words that brpko from his lips wore some English riiues upon death." SAINT AND SCHOLAR. He was as truly a saint as he was a scholar, full of affection to his pupils, whose hearts go out in return to their "dear father" or "their most beloved master"—full of a simple piety which takes him from his books to a regular attendance at the daily offices, "lest the angels should find him absent"; full of devotion to 'the Author of all wisdom, ending his history with the words:— "I beseech Thee, merciful Josus, that to whom Thou hnst of Thy goodness given sweetly to drink in the words of the Knowledge of Thee, Thou wilt also vouchsafe in Thy loving kindness that lie may one day come to Tliee, the fountain of all wisdom, and stand for ever before Thy face." His title of "Venerable" has given rise to various . legends. The "best known, and the worst, declares that the word was "supplied,by an angel to the monk who, when wishing to commemorate Bede. by an epitaph, was unable to complete the line. After puzzling his brains for a long time he fell asleep in despair, and, upon his awaking, found the hiatus miraculously supplied" and the line complete:— Hac aunt in fossa Baedae Venerabilis ossa. . That inscription stands today in nineteenth century lettering on the slab covering the tomb in the Galilee of Durham Cathedral, in which his bones lie. The shrine which once stood,there was defaced by the King's visitors at the Reformation, and in 1543 the accounts of the church contain this melancholy entry, "Payd to Rayffe Skelis and iij fellows for taking away Sanct Bed's tummbe, 15d." Another tale, scouted by scholars, but in itself delightful, tells how when he was old and could not see he was told by some mischievous boys that a congregation was waiting for a sermon from hirri, He preached in the empty church, and when he ended with a prayer the jesters heard angelic voices say, "Amen, thou very venerable Bede," NOT NEEDED. But in truth no legend is needed to account for the homage paid to one so learned and 50 lovable, Camden has a story of a French bishop who, "returning out of Scotland, coming to the Church'Of Durham and brought to the shrine of St. Cuthbert, kneeled down, and after his devotions offered a bawbee, saying, 'Sancte Cuthberte, si sanctus sis, ora pro me1 (Saint Cuthbert, if thou art a saint, pray for me). •But afterwards, being brought unto the tomb of Bede, saying likewise his orisons, offered there a French crown, with,this alteration, Sancte Beda, quia sanctus es, ora pro me (Saint Bede, pray for me, because thou art a saint)." The memorial volume to be published in his honour under the auspices of the Bishop of Durham will contain many tributes to his genius and his character: it may be hoped that it arouse anew our veneration for the man whom J. R. Green rightly called "the father of our national education" —"the first figure to which our science looks back." "First among English scholars, first among English theologians, first among English historians, it is in the monk of Jarrow that English literature strikes its roots," The church at Jarrow in which he worshipped celebrated a few weeks ago the 1250 th anniversary of its dedication. ' Durham in Itself has small claim to celebrate the Saint of Jarrow, It possesses his bones, but does not attempt to' justify the pious fraud by which they were acquired some nine ' centuries ago. The Cathedral and the University are uniting to do honour to one to whom they owe so much, and a "Bede play" (not a pageant) in the cloisters of the Abbey Church will attempt to represent some of the scenes of his life and to. tell, as far as possible in his own words, some of the immortal stories which his Eccleciastical History contains, We shall sea him first as he enters the Monastery at Wearmouth at the age of seven; next, still a child, at Jarrow, where he and his abbot, the sole survivors of a plague, maintain the service of the Church, and dream of happier days to come, • The main and central scene shows him among his pupils. They show that his teaching has not been wasted by acting among themselves some of his most dramatic tales—the vision of the mysterious stranger who came to promise Edwin a kingdom, the dealings of the blessed Aidan with the Northumbrian king, or the voice from heaven which bids Caedmon burst into that wonderful song with which English poetry begins. We see him refusing to be tempted away from Jarvow by an invitation from Rome, We see him, very old and feeble now, finishing his latest work and giving his parting presents to his weeping friends. We see his body carried out to burial by the monks among whom he had lived and laboured so long. The beauty of the setting will, it is hoped, make amends for the absence of professional skill both in actors and author. At least It will be a sincere attempt to honour the memory of this "truly blessed man"—"the candle" (to use the words of St. Boniface) "which the Lord lighted up" in Northumbria— a candle which has burned with a calm lustre through the centuries which have canonised his name.

ual may possess as the concession of the organised State. Our own system will have none of this. We British people still believe that men are born free, and that the function of government is to limit that freedom only by the consent of the Government. So long as we believe that freedom is no crushing concession granted either by a mob or by a dictator, so long will we cherish that old-fashioned means of government by which we reconcile the authority of the law with the electoral subjugation of the lawgivers." l