they have ears, and hear not; they have nostrils, and smell not; they have hands, and handle not; they have feet, and walk not; therefore they become like to those who put the hope of their confidence in them. For how can these have any power of helping anyone, who are constructed by the hands of things inferior and even subjected to you, from corruptible matter; to which, that is, lending human craft, you have given an inanimate likeness of limbs; which, unless they be moved by you, will not be able to walk, but, like a stone set in one place, so constructed and having no understanding, and buried in that very insensibility, have obtained no faculty either of harming or of helping?
By what deception of mind, therefore, you follow, in worshiping, those gods to whom you yourselves have handed over the image of a body, we cannot, by discerning judgment, discover. Wherefore it behooves you, having received the sign of the holy cross, by which the human race was redeemed, to cast away from your hearts that detestable supplanting of diabolical cunning—which, envious and jealous, stands opposed to the works of divine goodness—and, laying your hands upon them, take the utmost care that these whom hitherto you have fashioned for yourselves as gods out of the framework of matter be broken in pieces and reduced to nothing.
For their very dissolution and corruption—they which never had a living spirit, nor could in any way receive sensibility from their makers—should plainly suggest to you how truly nothing was that which hitherto you worshiped; since assuredly you, who have received a living spirit from the Lord, nevertheless stand better than their construction; inasmuch as Almighty God has appointed you to spring up from the kinship of the first man, whom He fashioned, through innumerable lineages drawn down across the ages.
Draw near therefore to the knowledge of Him who created you, who breathed into you the spirit of life, who for your redemption sent His only-begotten Son, that He might snatch you from original sin, and, having snatched you from the power of the wickedness of diabolical depravity, might endow you with heavenly rewards. Receive the words of the preachers, and the gospel of God which they announce to you; that, believing, as has been often said, in God the Father almighty, and in Jesus Christ His Son, and in the Holy Spirit, and in the inseparable Trinity;
so that, the perceptions of demons being put to flight, and the solicitation of the venomous and deceitful enemy being driven from you, being born again through water and the Holy Spirit unto Him in whom you shall have believed, you may, by His aiding bounty, be able to dwell together in the splendor of everlasting glory. Moreover we have directed to you the blessing of your protector, blessed Peter the prince of the apostles, that is, one shirt with ornamentation in gold, and one Ancyran cloak; which we ask that your glory receive with that kindly disposition of heart with which it is known to be sent by us. To his consort also, Ethelberga, the same pontiff sent a letter of this kind: A copy of the letter of the most blessed and apostolic Boniface, pope of the city of Rome, directed to Ethelberga, queen of King Edwin.
To the glorious lady, his daughter Ethelberga the queen, Boniface, bishop, servant of the servants of God. The benignity of our Redeemer toward the human race, which He snatched from the bonds of diabolical captivity by the shedding of His precious blood, has furnished the remedies of much providence by which it might be saved; that, making the knowledge of His name known to the nations in diverse ways, they might, having received the sacrament of the Christian faith, acknowledge their Creator. This indeed the mystical cleansing of your regeneration, conferred upon the perceptions of your glory by a heavenly gift, plainly indicates. By the great benefit therefore of the Lord's bounty our mind has exulted with joy, that He has deigned to kindle a spark of orthodox religion in your confession;
by which thing it might more easily inflame unto His love the understanding not only of your glorious consort, but indeed of the whole nation subject to you. For we have learned from the report of those who came to us announcing the praiseworthy conversion of our glorious son King Eadbald, that your glory also, having received the wonderful sacrament of the Christian faith, shines forth continually with pious works pleasing to God, diligently abstains also from the worship of idols and from the enticements of shrines and auguries, and, thus persisting with unimpaired devotion in the love of your Redeemer, keeps vigil so that you cease not unceasingly to lend your effort to the spreading of the Christian faith;
and when our paternal charity had anxiously inquired concerning your glorious consort, we have learned that, serving idols to be abominated thus far, he has deferred to show his obedience to the receiving of the voice of the preachers. From which thing no small bitterness has been heaped upon us, since a part of your own body has remained estranged from the knowledge of the supreme and undivided Trinity. Whence by paternal offices we have not deferred to confer our admonition upon your glorious Christianity; exhorting that, imbued with the supports of divine inspiration, you defer not to act in season and out of season, that he too, by the cooperating power of our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ, may be joined to the number of Christians;
so that thereby you may hold the rights of a marital partnership in an undefiled bond of fellowship. For it is written: They shall be two in one flesh. How then can a unity of conjunction be said to be in you, if he shall have remained a stranger to the splendor of your faith, with the darkness of detestable error interposed? Wherefore, persisting in continual prayer, cease not to obtain from the long-suffering of heavenly clemency the benefits of his enlightenment; that, namely, those whom the joining of carnal affection is shown to have exhibited in a manner as one body, these the unity of faith may also preserve in perpetual fellowship even after the passage of this life.
Press on therefore, glorious daughter, and with your utmost endeavors hasten greatly to soften the hardness of his heart by the religious instilling of the divine precepts; pouring into his perceptions how illustrious is the mystery which by believing you have received, and how admirable is the reward which, born again, you have merited to obtain. Kindle the coldness of his heart by the announcement of the Holy Spirit; that, the torpor of his most pernicious worship being removed, the warmth of divine faith may kindle his understanding by the frequent repetition of your exhortations, so that assuredly the testimony of sacred Scripture, fulfilled through you, may shine forth beyond doubt: The unbelieving husband shall be saved by the believing wife.
For unto this you have obtained the mercy of the Lord's lovingkindness, that you might render back to your Redeemer a manifold fruit of the faith and of the benefits entrusted to you. And that you may be able to fulfill this, with the aiding protection of His benignity, we cease not to entreat with assiduous prayers.
These things therefore being premised, showing to you the offices of paternal affection, we exhort that, an opportunity of a bearer being found, you relieve us as quickly as possible with prosperous tidings concerning those things which the supernal power shall have deigned wondrously to work through you in the conversion of your consort and of the nation subject to you; that our solicitude, which longingly and desirously awaits the things to be wished concerning the salvation of your soul and of all your people, may be relieved by your announcing it, and that, acknowledging more richly the illumination of divine propitiation diffused in you, we may with cheerful confession pay deservedly abundant thanks to God the giver of all good things, and to blessed Peter the prince of the apostles.
Moreover we have directed to you the blessing of your protector, blessed Peter the prince of the apostles, that is, a silver mirror, and an ivory comb gilded; which we ask that your glory receive with that kindly disposition of heart with which it is known to be sent by us. These things indeed the aforesaid pope Boniface treated of in his letters concerning the salvation of King Edwin and of his nation. But also a heavenly oracle, which the divine mercy had once deigned to reveal to him when in exile among Redwald, king of the Angles, aided not a little his understanding toward receiving or comprehending the admonitions of saving doctrine.
When therefore Paulinus saw that with difficulty could the loftiness of the royal mind be inclined to the humility of the way of salvation and to the receiving of the mystery of the life-giving cross, and that for the salvation both of him and of the nation over which he presided he was treating both with a word of exhortation among men and with a word of supplication before the divine mercy; at length, as seems likely, he learned in the spirit what and of what kind was the oracle once shown to the king from heaven. Nor did he thenceforth delay to admonish the king at once to fulfill the vow which, in the oracle shown to him, he had promised he would perform, if, delivered from the tribulations of that time, he should arrive at the summit of the kingdom. Now the oracle was of this kind.
When, being persecuted by Ethelfrith, who reigned before him, he wandered for a long space of years as a fugitive hidden through diverse places and kingdoms, at length he came to Redwald, beseeching that he would, by protecting his life, preserve him from the snares of so great a persecutor; who, gladly receiving him, promised that he would do what was asked. But after Ethelfrith learned that he had appeared in this province, and was dwelling familiarly with his companions at the court of that king, he sent messengers to offer Redwald much money for his death; and accomplished nothing. He sent a second time, he sent a third time, offering more abundant gifts of silver, and moreover declaring war against him if he should be despised.
He, being either broken by threats or corrupted by gifts, yielded to the entreater, and promised either to kill Edwin himself or to hand him over to the envoys. When a certain most faithful friend of his perceived this, he entered the chamber where he was arranging to sleep—for it was the first hour of the night—and, having called him outside, informed him what the king had promised to do concerning him, and moreover added: If therefore you will, this very hour I will lead you out of this province, and bring you into those places where neither Redwald nor Ethelfrith may ever be able to find you. He said: I give thanks indeed to your goodwill;
yet I cannot do this which you suggest, that I myself should first make void the compact which I entered into with so great a king, when he has done me no evil, has so far brought no enmity upon me. Rather, if I am to die, let him deliver me to death rather than any baser person. For whither shall I now flee, who through all the provinces of Britain, through so many courses of years and seasons, have been a wanderer avoiding the snares of my enemies? The friend therefore departing, Edwin remained alone outside, and, sitting sorrowful before the palace, began to be afflicted by many surgings of thought, not knowing what he should do, or whither he should turn his foot.
And when for a long time he was being consumed by the silent anguishes of his mind and by a hidden fire, he suddenly saw, in the dead silence of night, a man of unknown countenance and habit approaching him; seeing whom, as one unknown and unexpected, he was not a little terrified. But that one, drawing near, greeted him, and asked why at that hour, when the rest were resting and pressed by deep sleep, he alone sat sorrowful and sleepless upon the stone. But he in turn inquired what it mattered to that one, whether he passed the night within or without. He answering said: Do not suppose that I am ignorant of the cause of your sorrow and of your sleeplessness, and of your outdoor and solitary sitting; for I know most certainly who you are, and why you grieve, and what evils to come you dread as near at hand.
But tell me, what reward would you be willing to give to him, if there be any such, who should absolve you from these sorrows, and persuade Redwald that he himself neither do you any evil, nor hand you over to be slain by your enemies. When he answered that he would give all that he could to such a one as a reward for the benefit, that one added: But what if he should also truly promise that you shall be king, your enemies being destroyed, so that you should surpass in power not only all your forefathers, but also all who before you were kings in the nation of the Angles? But Edwin, made more steadfast by the questioning, did not hesitate to promise that he would respond with worthy acts of thanksgiving to him who should bestow such benefits upon him. Then that one a third time:
But if, said he, he who has truly foretold to you that such and so great gifts are to come, can also show you counsel for your salvation and life, better and more useful than any of your parents or kinsmen ever heard, do you consent to obey him, and to receive his saving admonitions? Nor did Edwin delay to promise at once that he would in all things follow the teaching of him who should deliver him from so many and so great calamities, and advance him to the summit of the kingdom. Which answer being received, immediately he who was speaking with him laid his right hand upon his head, saying: When therefore this sign shall come to you, remember this time and our conversation, and do not defer to fulfill those things which you now promise.
And these things being said, as they relate, he suddenly disappeared, so that he might understand that it was not a man who had appeared to him, but a spirit. And when the royal youth still sat there alone, rejoicing indeed at the consolation conferred upon him, but much anxious, and pondering with diligent mind who that one might be, or whence he came, who spoke these things to him, there came to him that aforesaid friend of his, and greeting him with a glad countenance: Arise, said he, go in, and, the anxieties of cares being lulled and laid aside, compose your limbs to rest and your mind together, for the heart of the king is changed, and he disposes not to do you any evil, but rather to keep the faith he promised;
for after he revealed in secret to the queen his intention, of which I told you before, she recalled him from that purpose, admonishing that it by no means befitted so great a king to sell his best friend, set in necessity, for gold, nay rather, to lose his own faith, which is more precious than all ornaments, for love of money. What more? The king did as has been said; and not only did he not hand over the exile to the hostile messengers, but he even helped him to come into the kingdom.
For soon, the messengers returning home, he gathered a copious army to make war upon Ethelfrith, and, Ethelfrith meeting him with a much unequal army (for he had not given him space in which to gather and unite his whole army), he slew him in the borders of the nation of the Mercians on the eastern bank of the river which is called Idle; in which contest also the son of Redwald, named Raegenhere, was slain. And so Edwin, according to the oracle which he had received, not only escaped the snares of the king hostile to him, but, the same being slain, also succeeded into the glory of the kingdom.
When therefore, Paulinus preaching the word of God, the king deferred to believe, and for some time, as we have said, used to sit solitary at fitting hours, diligently scrutinizing within himself what he ought to do, what religion ought to be followed, the man of God, entering to him one day, laid his right hand upon his head and asked whether he recognized this sign. And when, trembling, he wished to fall down at his feet, he raised him up, and addressing him as with a familiar voice: Behold, said he, you have escaped, by the Lord's gift, the hand of the enemies whom you feared; behold, the kingdom which you desired you have received, by His granting it.
Remember to defer not to do the third thing which you promised, by receiving His faith and keeping His precepts, who, both delivering you from temporal adversities, has exalted you with the honor of a temporal kingdom; and if henceforth you are willing to comply with His will, which He preaches to you through me, He, also freeing you from the perpetual torments of evils, will make you a partaker with Himself of the eternal kingdom in heaven. Which things being heard, the king answered that he both wished and ought to receive the faith which he taught. But he said that he would still confer about this with his friendly chief men and counselors, that, if they too were willing to think the same with him, they might all alike be consecrated to Christ in the font of life.
And, Paulinus assenting, he did as he had said. For, having held counsel with the wise men, he inquired one by one of all what this doctrine, hitherto unheard, and the new worship of the divinity which was being preached, seemed to them. To whom the first of his pontiffs, Coifi, at once replied: Do you, O king, see what this is which is now preached to us; but I most truly profess to you what I have learned for certain, that that religion which we have hitherto held has absolutely no virtue, no usefulness. For none of your people has more zealously than I submitted himself to the worship of our gods;
and nonetheless there are many who receive ampler benefits from you than I, and greater dignities, and prosper more in all the things which they arrange to be done or to be acquired. But if the gods were of any avail, they would rather wish to help me, who took care to serve them more lavishly. Whence it remains that, if those things which are now preached to us as new, you, an examination being had, shall perceive to be better and stronger, let us hasten to receive them without any delay. To whose persuasion and prudent words another of the king's nobles, giving his assent, immediately added:
Such, O king, said he, seems to me the present life of men on earth, in comparison with that time which is uncertain to us, as when, you sitting at supper with your commanders and ministers in winter time, the fire being kindled indeed in the midst and the hall made warm, while the storms of wintry rains or snows are raging everywhere outside, there comes one of the sparrows and flies most swiftly through the house; which, entering by one door, soon goes out by another. For the very time that it is within, it is not touched by the storm of winter, but yet, that smallest space of fair weather having run by in a moment, soon returning from winter into winter, it slips away from your eyes. Thus this life of men appears for a little while;
but what follows, or what went before, we are utterly ignorant. Whence if this new doctrine has brought anything more certain, it deservedly seems to be followed. Things similar to these the other elders and counselors of the king, divinely admonished, set forth. But Coifi added that he would wish to hear Paulinus himself more diligently making discourse concerning the God whom he preached. And when, by the king's command, he did so, hearing his words he cried out, saying: Long ago I had understood that what we worshiped was nothing; because, namely, the more zealously I sought the truth in that worship, the less I found it.
But now I openly confess that in this preaching there shines forth that truth which has power to bestow upon us the gifts of life, of salvation, and of eternal blessedness. Therefore I counsel, O king, that we make haste to deliver over to anathema and to fire the temples and altars which we consecrated without any profit of usefulness. What need of more words? The king openly gave his assent to the blessed Paulinus as he preached the Gospel, and, renouncing idolatry, declared that he received the faith of Christ. And when he asked the aforesaid high priest of his own rites who ought first to profane the altars and shrines of the idols, together with the enclosures by which they were surrounded, the man replied: 'I.'
For who more fittingly than I myself, as an example to all, should destroy those things which I worshipped in my folly, now by the wisdom granted to me by the true God? And straightway, casting aside the superstition of vanity, he asked the king to give him arms and a stallion, that mounting it he might come to destroy the idols. For it had not been lawful for a high priest of the rites either to bear arms or to ride except upon a mare. Girded therefore with a sword, he took a lance in his hand, and mounting the king's stallion he set out toward the idols. Seeing this, the common folk supposed that he had gone mad. Yet he did not delay, but as soon as he drew near to the shrine, he profaned it by hurling into it the lance which he held;
and greatly rejoicing in the knowledge of the worship of the true God, he commanded his companions to destroy and burn the shrine with all its enclosures. That place where the idols once stood is still pointed out, not far from York to the east, beyond the river Derwent, and is called today Goodmanham, where the high priest himself, inspired by the true God, defiled and destroyed the very altars which he himself had consecrated. [14] So then king Edwin, with all the nobles of his nation and a very great multitude of the common people, received the faith and the washing of holy regeneration in the eleventh year of his reign, which is the year of our Lord's incarnation 627, and about the one hundred and eightieth year from the coming of the Angles into Britain.
He was baptized at York on the holy day of Easter, on the day before the Ides of April, in the church of the apostle Peter, which he himself, while he was being catechized and instructed for the receiving of baptism, had built there with all speed of timber. In that same city he gave to his teacher and bishop Paulinus the seat of the bishopric. But as soon as he had received baptism, he took care, by the same Paulinus's teaching, to build on that very spot a greater and more august basilica of stone, in the midst of which should be enclosed the very oratory which he had first made. Having therefore laid the foundations in a circuit around the former oratory, he began to build the basilica four-square.
But before the height of the wall was completed, the king himself was slain by an impious murder, and left the same work to be finished by his successor Oswald. Paulinus, however, from that time for six continuous years, that is until the end of that king's reign, preached the word of God in that province, with the king's consent and favour; and as many as were foreordained to eternal life believed and were baptized. Among these were Osfrid and Eadfrid, the sons of king Edwin, both of whom were born to him in exile of Cwenburh, daughter of Cearl king of the Mercians.
In the following time his other children also, born of queen Æthelburh, were baptized—Æthelhun and his daughter Æthelthryth, and another son Wuscfrea—of whom the first two, while still in their white baptismal robes, were snatched from this life and buried in the church at York. Yffi too, the son of Osfrid, was baptized, and not a few other nobles and men of royal blood. So great, it is said, was then the fervour of faith and the desire for the saving washing among the people of the Northumbrians, that on one occasion Paulinus, coming with the king and queen to the royal township called Yeavering, remained there with them for thirty-six days, devoted to the office of catechizing and baptizing;
on all which days, from morning until evening, he did nothing else but instruct in the word of salvation the people of Christ who flocked thither from all the hamlets and places, and, when they were instructed, wash them in the river Glen, which was near at hand, in the washing of remission. This township, in the time of the kings that followed, was deserted, and another was made instead of it in the place called Maelmin. This indeed was in the province of the Bernicians; but in the province of the Deirans also, where he was wont more often to abide with the king, he baptized in the river Swale, which flows past the township of Catterick. For as yet, in the very beginning of the church newly springing up there, oratories or baptisteries could not be built.
Nevertheless at Campodonum, where there was then also a royal township, he built a basilica, which afterwards the heathen, by whom king Edwin was slain, burned together with the whole township itself; in place of which the later kings made themselves a township in the region called Leeds. But the altar escaped the fire, because it was of stone; and it is preserved to this day in the monastery of the most reverend abbot and priest Thrythwulf, which is in the forest of Elmet. [15] So great devotion to the worship of the truth had Edwin, that he even persuaded the king of the East Angles, Eorpwald the son of Rædwald, to forsake the superstitions of idols and to receive the faith and sacraments of Christ together with his province.
And indeed his father Rædwald had long before been initiated in Kent into the sacraments of the Christian faith, but in vain; for returning home he was seduced by his wife and by certain perverse teachers, and, turned aside from the sincerity of the faith, he had his last state worse than his first; so that after the manner of the ancient Samaritans he seemed both to serve Christ and to serve the gods whom he had served before; and in the same temple he had both an altar for the sacrifice of Christ and a little altar for victims offered to demons. This temple king Aldwulf of that same province, who lived in our own age, testified to have endured even to his own time, and that he himself had seen it in his boyhood.
Now the aforesaid king Rædwald was noble by birth, however ignoble in his deeds, the son of Tytila, whose father was Wuffa, after whom the kings of the East Angles are called Wuffings. But Eorpwald, not long after he had received the faith, was slain by a heathen man named Ricberht; and thereafter for three years the province lay in error, until Sigeberht, brother of the same Eorpwald, received the kingdom, a man in all things most Christian and most learned, who, while his brother still lived, when he was in exile in Gaul, had been initiated in the sacraments of the faith, and made haste, as soon as he began to reign, to make his whole province partaker of these.
His zeal was most gloriously favoured by bishop Felix, who, coming from the regions of Burgundy, where he was born and ordained, to Honorius the archbishop, and having made known to him his desire, was sent by him to preach the word of life to the aforesaid nation of the Angles. Nor did his vows fall in vain; rather, the godly tiller of the spiritual field found in it the manifold fruit of believing peoples. For he led that whole province, according to the sacrament of his own name, freed from long iniquity and unhappiness, to the faith and the works of righteousness, and to the gifts of everlasting happiness; and he received the seat of his bishopric in the city of Dunwich;