Works (excl. History) 5 part 1/6

[1] In the aforementioned year of the eclipse just mentioned and of the pestilence soon following—in which also Bishop Colman, overcome by the unanimous resolve of the catholics, returned to his own people—Deusdedit, the sixth bishop of the church of Canterbury, died on the day before the Ides of July; and also Eorcenberht, king of the Kentish men, dying in the same month and day, left the seat of the kingdom to his son Egbert, which he, having received it, held for nine years.

Then, the episcopate ceasing for no small time, there was sent to Rome by him together and by Oswiu king of the Northumbrians—as we briefly said in the preceding book—Wigheard the presbyter, a man most learned in ecclesiastical disciplines, of the race of the English, with the request that he be ordained archbishop of the church of the English; with gifts likewise sent to the apostolic pope, and with not a few vessels of gold and silver. When he reached Rome—over whose apostolic see at that time Vitalian presided—after he had disclosed the cause of his journey to the aforesaid apostolic pope, not long after both he himself and almost all the companions who had come with him were destroyed by a pestilence supervening.

But the apostolic pope, having held counsel concerning these matters, earnestly inquired whom he should send as archbishop to the churches of the English. Now there was in the monastery of Niridanum, which is not far from Naples in Campania, an abbot Hadrian, a man African by nation, diligently imbued with the sacred letters, instructed in monastic as well as ecclesiastical disciplines, and most skilled equally in the Greek and the Latin tongue. The pope, having summoned him to himself, bade him, having received the episcopate, come to Britain. He, answering that he was unworthy of so great a rank, said he could point out another whose erudition and age would better suit for undertaking the episcopate.

And when he offered to the pontiff a certain monk from a neighbouring monastery of virgins, by name Andrew, this man was judged by all who knew him worthy of the episcopate. But the weight of bodily infirmity stood in the way, that he could not be made bishop. And again Hadrian was urged to undertake the episcopate; he asked for a respite, in case he might perhaps in time be able to find another who might be ordained bishop. There was at that very time at Rome a monk known to Hadrian, by name Theodore, born at Tarsus in Cilicia, a man learned in both secular and divine literature, and instructed both in Greek and in Latin, of upright morals, and venerable in age—that is, having sixty-six years of age. Offering this man to the pontiff that he might be ordained bishop, he obtained his wish;

these conditions, however, being interposed, that he himself should conduct him to Britain, since he had already twice gone to the parts of Gaul for various reasons, and on that account had a greater knowledge of accomplishing this journey, and was sufficiently provided in the possession of his own men; and that, being a fellow-worker in doctrine, he should diligently attend, lest the other should introduce anything contrary to the truth of the faith, after the manner of the Greeks, into the church over which he should preside. Being ordained subdeacon, he waited four months, until his hair grew, so that it could be shorn into a crown; for he had had the tonsure after the manner of the easterners, of the holy apostle Paul. He was ordained by Pope Vitalian in the year of the Lord's incarnation 668, on the seventh day before the Kalends of April, a Sunday.

And so together with Hadrian he was sent to Britain on the sixth day before the Kalends of June. When they had come together by sea to Marseilles, and thence by land to Arles, and had delivered to John, archbishop of that city, the letters of commendation of Pontiff Vitalian, they were detained by him until Ebroin, mayor of the royal household, granted them leave to proceed wherever they would. This being received, Theodore set out to Agilbert, bishop of Paris, of whom we spoke above, and was kindly received by him, and was kept a long time. Hadrian went first to Emme, bishop of Sens, and afterward to Faro, bishop of Meaux, and was for a good while well treated under them; for the impending winter had compelled them to remain at rest wherever they could.

When sure messengers had related this to King Egbert—namely that the bishop whom they had sought from the Roman prelate was in the kingdom of the Franks—he sent thither at once his reeve Raedfrith to conduct him; and when he had come, he took up Theodore with Ebroin's leave, and led him to the port whose name is Quentavic; where, wearied by infirmity, he tarried for some little while, and, when he had begun to convalesce, sailed for Britain. But Ebroin retained Hadrian, because he suspected that he had some embassy of the emperor to the kings of Britain against the kingdom of which he himself then bore the greatest care. But when he had truly ascertained that he neither had nor had had any such thing, he released him, and permitted him to go after Theodore.

As soon as he came to him, he gave him the monastery of the blessed apostle Peter, where, as I have aforesaid, the archbishops of Kent are wont to be buried. For the apostolic lord had commanded Theodore, on his departing, that he should provide for him in his diocese, and give him a place in which he might fitly dwell with his own people. [2] Now Theodore came to his church in the second year after he was consecrated, on the sixth day before the Kalends of June, a Sunday, and held it for twenty-one years, three months, and twenty-six days.

And soon, the whole island being traversed wherever the English peoples dwelt—for he was most willingly received and listened to by all—he disseminated the right order of living and the canonical rite of celebrating Easter, Hadrian accompanying and co-operating in all things. And he was the first among the archbishops to whom the whole church of the English consented to give the hand. And because both were abundantly instructed, as we have said, in sacred as well as secular letters, a crowd of disciples being gathered, rivers of saving knowledge daily flowed forth to water their hearts; so that they imparted to their hearers the discipline even of the metrical art, of astronomy, and of ecclesiastical arithmetic, among the volumes of the sacred writings.

A proof of this is that there still survive to this day some of their disciples, who know the Latin and Greek tongue as well as their own, in which they were born. Nor were there ever in any way happier times since the English sought Britain; for while they had kings most brave and Christian, they were a terror to all the barbarous nations, and the desires of all hung upon the joys of the heavenly kingdom newly heard of, and whoever wished to be instructed in the sacred readings had teachers ready at hand to teach them. Moreover, the sounds of singing in church, which until then they had known only in Kent, from this time they began to learn throughout all the churches of the English;

and the first master of singing for the churches of the Northumbrians—except for James, of whom we spoke above—was Æddi, surnamed Stephen, invited from Kent by the most reverend man Wilfrid, who was the first among the bishops who were of the English nation to learn to hand down the catholic manner of living to the churches of the English. And so Theodore, traversing all things, ordained bishops in suitable places, and corrected, with these also helping, the things which he found less than perfect. Among whom, when he reproved Bishop Chad with not having been duly consecrated, he himself, answering with most humble voice, said: 'If you know that I have not duly received the episcopate, I willingly withdraw from the office; seeing that I never reckoned myself worthy of this;

but I consented, though unworthy, to undergo this, being commanded for obedience' sake.' But he, hearing the humility of his answer, said that he ought not to lay down the episcopate; but he himself completed his ordination anew by the catholic rite. Now at that time when, Deusdedit being dead, a bishop was being sought, ordained, and sent for the church of Canterbury, Wilfrid too was sent from Britain to Gaul to be ordained; and since he returned before Theodore, he himself also ordained presbyters and deacons in Kent, until the archbishop should come to his see.

But he himself, coming soon to the city of Rochester, where, Damian being dead, the episcopate had now long lain vacant, ordained a man more instructed in ecclesiastical disciplines and content with simplicity of life than vigorous in the affairs of the world, whose name was Putta; most skilled, however, in chanting in church after the manner of the Romans, which he had learned from the disciples of the blessed Pope Gregory. [3] At that time Wulfhere ruled over the province of the Mercians, who, when, Jaruman being dead, he sought a bishop to be given to himself also and to his people from Theodore, did not wish a new bishop to be ordained for them;

But he asked of King Oswiu that Chad be given to them as bishop—a man who at that time was leading a quiet life in his monastery at Lastingham, while Wilfrid administered the see of the church of York, and indeed of all the Northumbrians, and even of the Picts, as far as King Oswiu was able to extend his dominion. And because it was the custom of that most reverend prelate to carry out the work of the Gospel by going about on foot rather than on horseback, Theodore commanded him to ride whenever a longer journey lay before him; and as he greatly resisted out of zeal and love for the pious labour, Theodore himself lifted him onto the horse with his own hand, for he had perceived that the man was holy, and compelled him to be carried by horse wherever it was necessary.

And so Chad, having received the bishopric of the Mercians together with that of the people of Lindsey, took care to administer it in great perfection of life, after the example of the ancient fathers. King Wulfhere also gave him land of fifty households for the building of a monastery in a place called Barrow—that is, At the Wood—in the province of Lindsey, where to this day the traces of the regular life he instituted there still remain. He had his episcopal seat in a place called Lichfield, in which he both died and was buried, and where to this day is also the seat of the bishops of that province who came after him. He had made for himself a dwelling somewhat remote, not far from the church,

in which, whenever he was free from labour and the ministry of the word, he was wont to pray and to read more privately with a few brethren—that is, seven or eight. When he had governed the church in that province most gloriously for two and a half years, by the disposing of the judgment from above there came the time of which Ecclesiastes speaks: 'A time to cast stones, and a time to gather them together.' For there came a plague sent from God, which through the death of the flesh might transfer the living stones of the church from their earthly seats to the heavenly building.

And when very many had been taken away in the flesh from the church of that same most reverend prelate, his own hour came that he should pass from this world to the Lord. It happened on a certain day that he chanced to be staying in the aforesaid dwelling with one brother only, whose name was Owine, the rest of his companions having returned to the church on a fitting occasion. Now this Owine was a monk of great merit, who had forsaken the world with the pure intention of the heavenly reward, and was worthy in all things that the Lord should reveal His secrets to him in a special way, worthy that those who heard should give credence to his telling. For he had come with Queen Æthelthryth from the province of the East Angles, and had been the chief of her ministers and the steward of her household.

When, with the increasing fervour of faith, he resolved to renounce the world, he did not do so half-heartedly; but he so stripped himself of worldly things that, leaving behind all that he had, clothed only in a simple garment and carrying an axe and an adze in his hand, he came to the monastery of that same most reverend father, which is called Lastingham. For he signified that he was entering the monastery not for ease, as some do, but for labour. And this he also showed by his deed; for the less he was equal to the study of the Scriptures, the more zeal he applied to the work of his hands. In short, having been received among the brethren with the bishop in the aforesaid dwelling out of respect for his devotion, while they within gave themselves to reading, he laboured outside at whatever seemed needful.

On a certain day, while he was busy with some such work outside—his companions having gone off to the church, as I began to say, and the bishop alone in the oratory of the place being engaged in reading or prayer—he suddenly heard, as he afterwards related, a most sweet voice of singers rejoicing, descending from heaven down to earth. This voice, he said, he first heard from the south-east—that is, from the height of the winter sunrise—and then little by little it drew near to him, until it reached the very roof of the oratory in which the bishop was; and entering it, it filled the whole and surrounded it round about.

And while he, anxious, was fixing his mind upon the things he heard, after the space of about half an hour had passed, he heard again that same song of joy rise up from the roof of that same oratory, and by the very way it had come return to the heavens with ineffable sweetness. When he had remained for a little while as though thunderstruck, and was searching out with attentive mind what these things might be, the bishop opened the window of the oratory and, making a sound with his hand as he was often accustomed to do, commanded that if anyone were outside he should come in to him. He went in quickly, and the prelate said to him: 'Go at once to the church, and cause these seven brethren to come hither; you too be present at the same time.'

When they had come, he first admonished them that they should keep the virtue of love and peace toward one another and toward all the faithful; and that with unwearied diligence they should follow the institutions of the regular discipline which they had either learned from him and seen in him, or had found in the deeds or sayings of the fathers who had gone before. Then he added that the day of his death was now very near at hand. 'For that lovable Guest,' he said, 'who was wont to visit our brethren, has deigned today to come to me also, and to call me forth from the world.'

'Wherefore, on returning to the church, tell the brethren that they should both commend my departure to the Lord with prayers, and also remember to forestall their own departure—whose hour is uncertain—with vigils, prayers, and good works.' And when he had spoken these and many more things of this kind, and they, having received his blessing, had gone out now very sorrowful, he who had heard the heavenly song returned alone by himself, and prostrating himself on the ground said: 'I beseech you, father, may I ask something?' 'Ask,' he said, 'what you will.' And he said: 'I beseech you, tell me what that song of the rejoicers was, which I heard coming from the heavens over this oratory, and after a time returning to the heavens.' He answered:

'If you have heard the voice of the song, and have recognized the coming of the heavenly hosts, I charge you in the name of the Lord that you tell this to no one before my death. In very truth they were the spirits of angels, who came to call me to the heavenly rewards which I always loved and desired, and promised that they would return after seven days and take me with them.' And this indeed was fulfilled in deed just as it had been told him. For he was immediately touched by a bodily sickness, and as this grew worse day by day, on the seventh day, as had been promised him, after he had fortified his departure by receiving the Lord's body and blood, his holy soul, released from the prison of the body, sought the eternal joys, led—as it is right to believe—by angels as his companions.

It is no wonder that he looked joyfully upon the day of his death—or rather upon the day of the Lord—which he had always taken anxious care to await until it should come. For among his many merits of continence, humility, teaching, prayers, voluntary poverty, and other virtues, he was so subject to the fear of the Lord, so mindful of his last things in all his works, that—as a certain brother who was among those that instructed me in the Scriptures, and who had been brought up in his monastery and under his teaching, named Trumberht, was wont to relate—if perchance, while he was reading or doing anything else, a stronger gust of wind suddenly arose, he would at once call upon the mercy of the Lord, and pray that it might be merciful to the human race.

But if a more violent blast pressed on, then, closing the book, he would fall upon his face and apply himself more earnestly to prayer. And if a stronger storm or downpour bore down, or even flashes of lightning and thunder terrified earth and air, then, coming to the church, he would devote himself with anxious and fixed mind to prayers and psalms until the calm of the air returned. And when he was asked by his people why he did this, he would answer: 'Have you not read that the Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High gave His voice; He sent forth His arrows and scattered them, He multiplied lightnings and confounded them?'

'For the Lord moves the air, stirs up the winds, hurls lightnings, thunders from heaven, in order to rouse the earth-born to fear Him, to recall their hearts to the memory of the judgment to come, to scatter their pride and confound their boldness, by bringing back to mind that dreadful time when He Himself, with the heavens and the earth ablaze, shall come in the clouds, in great power and majesty, to judge the living and the dead. Wherefore,' he said, 'it behoves us to respond to His heavenly admonition with due fear and love;'

'so that, as often as He, the air being disturbed, stretches forth His hand as though threatening to strike, and yet does not as yet strike, we may straightway implore His mercy, and—the inmost recesses of our heart being searched out and the rubble of vices cleared away—we may act with anxious care lest we ever deserve to be struck.' Now to the revelation and the account of the aforesaid brother concerning the death of this prelate there also agrees the testimony of the most reverend father Ecgberht, of whom we have spoken above, who long ago, together with the same Chad when both were young men, was diligently leading a monastic life in Ireland in prayers and continence and meditation upon the divine Scriptures. But the other afterwards returned to his homeland, while he himself remained a pilgrim for the Lord's sake until the end of his life.

When therefore, long afterwards, there came to him from Britain for the sake of a visit a most holy and most continent man named Hygbald, who was an abbot in the province of Lindsey, and—as befitted holy men—they were holding converse about the life of the earlier fathers, and rejoicing to emulate it, mention arose of the most reverend prelate Chad, and Ecgberht said: 'I know a man in this island still remaining in the flesh, who, when that man passed from the world, saw the soul of Cedd, his brother, descend from heaven with a host of angels, and, having taken his soul with them, return to the heavenly realms.'

Whether he said this of himself or of some other, remains uncertain to us; yet this, that what so great a man said is true, cannot be uncertain. Now Chad died on the sixth day before the Nones of March, and was buried at first indeed beside the church of Saint Mary; but afterwards, when a church of the most blessed Peter, chief of the apostles, had been built in the same place, his bones were translated into it. In both of which places, as a token of his power, frequent miracles of healings are wont to be wrought.

Indeed, lately a certain frenzied man, while wandering and running about through all places, came thither in the evening, the keepers of the place either not knowing or not caring; and resting there the whole night, in the morning he went out with his senses restored, and showed to all, who marvelled and rejoiced, what healing he had there obtained by the Lord's bounty. Now the place itself of the tomb is covered with a wooden coffer made in the manner of a little house, having a hole in the wall through which those who come thither for the sake of devotion are wont to put in their hand and take some of the dust from within; and when they have put this into water and given it to be tasted by ailing cattle or men, soon, the trouble of the sickness being removed, they shall regain the joys of the longed-for health.

In his place Theodore ordained Wynfrith, a good and modest man, who, like his predecessors, should preside by the office of the episcopate over the provinces of the Mercians, the Middle Angles, and the people of Lindsey; over all of which Wulfhere, who still survived, held the sceptre of the kingdom. Now Wynfrith was of the clergy of that prelate whom he himself had succeeded, and had discharged the office of deacon under him for no little time. Meanwhile Colmán, who was bishop from Ireland, leaving Britain, took with him all the Scots whom he had gathered together on the island of Lindisfarne; but also about thirty men of the English nation, both groups of whom had been imbued with the pursuits of the monastic manner of life.

And having left some of the brethren in his church, he first came to the island of Iona, whence he had been sent to preach the word to the English nation. Then he withdrew to a certain small island, which, lying far secluded toward the western quarter from Ireland, is called in the Scottish tongue Inisbofin—that is, the island of the white heifer. Coming therefore to this island, he built a monastery, and there settled the monks whom he had brought, gathered from both nations. But as these could not agree among themselves—because the Scots, in the summer season when the crops were to be gathered, leaving the monastery, wandered dispersed through places known to them, but when winter came on returned, and desired to use in common the things which the English had prepared—

Colmán sought a remedy for this dissension, and going about everywhere near and far, found a place in the island of Ireland suitable for building a monastery, which in the tongue of the Scots is called Mayo; and he bought a not large part of it, for establishing a monastery there, from the nobleman to whose possession it belonged, on this added condition: that the monks dwelling there should offer prayers to the Lord on behalf of him also who provided them with the place. And, the monastery having been at once built, with the help also of the nobleman and all the neighbours, he settled the English there, leaving the Scots in the aforesaid island. This monastery, indeed, is held to this day by English inhabitants.

For it is the very monastery which, now made great out of small, is commonly called Mayo; and, all having long since been converted to better institutions, it contains an excellent company of monks, who, gathered there from the province of the English, live after the example of the venerable fathers, under a rule and a canonical abbot, in great continence and sincerity, by the labour of their own hands. In the year of the Lord's incarnation 670, which is the second year from when Theodore came to Britain, Oswiu, king of the Northumbrians, was oppressed by an infirmity, of which he also died, in the fifty-eighth year of his age.

At that time he was held by so great a love of the Roman and apostolic discipline that, if he should be saved from his infirmity, he had even resolved to come to Rome and there to end his life at the holy places, and he asked that Bishop Wilfrid should become the leader of his journey, promising a not small gift of moneys. He, having died on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of March, left his son Ecgfrith heir of the kingdom; and in the third year of whose reign Theodore convened a council of bishops, together with those, many masters of the church, who both loved and knew the canonical statutes of the fathers. When these had been assembled together, he began diligently to teach the things that befitted the unity of ecclesiastical peace, to be observed, with that spirit which became a pontiff.

The text of this synodal action is of this kind: 'In the name of the Lord God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, the same Lord Jesus Christ reigning forever and governing His church, it has pleased us to come together according to the custom of the venerable canons, to treat of the necessary affairs of the church. Now we assembled on the twenty-fourth day of the month of September, in the first indiction, in a place which is called Hertford: I indeed, Theodore, though unworthy, appointed by the apostolic see bishop of the church of Canterbury, and our fellow-priest and brother, the most reverend Bisi, bishop of the East Angles; with whom also our brother and fellow-priest Wilfrid, bishop of the Northumbrian nation, was present through his own delegates.

There were present also our brethren and fellow-priests: Putta, bishop of the stronghold of the Kentishmen which is called Rochester, Leutherius, bishop of the West Saxons, Wynfrith, bishop of the province of the Mercians. And when we had come together into one and had taken our seats each according to his rank, I said: "I ask, most beloved brethren, for the fear and love of our Redeemer, that we all treat in common for our faith; that whatsoever things have been decreed and defined by the holy and approved fathers may be kept incorrupt by us all." These and very many other things which pertained to charity and to preserving the unity of the church, I set forth.

And when I had finished the preamble, I asked each of them in order whether they consented to keep the things that have been canonically decreed of old by the fathers. To which all our fellow-priests answering said: 'It pleases us all exceedingly to keep, with cheerful mind and most gladly, whatsoever things the holy canons of the fathers have defined.' To them I straightway produced that same book of canons, and from that same book I showed before them ten chapters which I had noted in various places, because I knew them to be most necessary for us, and I asked that these might be more diligently received by all. The first chapter: That we all keep the holy day of Easter in common on the Lord's day after the fourteenth moon of the first month. The second:

That no bishop intrude upon another's diocese, but be content with the governance of the people committed to him. III: That whatsoever monasteries have been consecrated to God, it be lawful for no bishop to disturb them in anything, nor to draw away by violence anything of their property. IV: That the monks themselves shall not migrate from place to place—that is, from monastery to monastery—except by the dismissal of their own abbot; but let them remain in that obedience which they promised at the time of their conversion. V: That no cleric, leaving his own bishop, shall roam about anywhere at random, nor, coming anywhere, be received without commendatory letters of his own prelate.