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O’BRIEN 255
BEDE ON CREATION*
*
This paper is based on a presentation first given at the Oxford Patristics
Seminar ; it has gained much from the comments of Sarah Foot.
1. Bede, Libri Quatuor in Principium Genesis usque ad Nativitatem Isaac et
Eiectionem Ismahelis Adnotationum, ed. Charles W. Jones, CCSL 118A [hereafter
Gen.], p. 8 : ‘lucemque habitet inaccessibilem’ ; I take the English translation
from Calvin B. Kendall (trans.), Bede : On Genesis (Liverpool, 2008) [hereafter
Kendall trans.], p. 73.
2. Gen., p. 9 : ‘hoc enim superni est seculi fixa ac perpetua luce perfrui’ ;
Kendall trans., p. 74.
3. For a wider examination of the entire Latin tradition of interpretation on
Genesis, see Thomas O’Loughlin, Teachers and Code-Breakers : The Latin Genesis
Tradition, 430-800 (Turnhout, 1999).
DOI : 10.1484/J.RB.1.103601
256 REVUE BÉNÉDICTINE
4. Gen., pp. 3-72. For a detailed discussion of the date of the text, see
Kendall’s introduction and appendices.
5. Gen., p. 1 : ‘Verum quia haec tam copiosa tam sunt alta ut uix nisi a
locupletioribus tot uolumina adquiri, uix tam profunda nisi ab eruditioribus
ualeant perscrutari, placuit uestrae sanctitati id nobis officii iniungere ut
de omnibus his, uelut de amoenissimis late florentis paradisi campis, quae
infirmorum uiderentur necessitati sufficere decerperemus.’
6. Joseph F. Kelly, ‘Bede’s use of Augustine for his Commentarium in
principium Genesis’, in Augustine : Biblical Exegete, eds. Frederick van Fleteren
and Joseph C. Schnaubelt (New York, 2001), pp. 189-96 argues that Bede
became more independent and original in the later books of On Genesis and that
his original material in Book I is limited to ‘points of physical creation’ (p. 192).
This seems to underestimate the significance of the original material.
7. Gen., p. 1 (quotation above n. 5) ; Bede, In Lucae Evangelium Expositio, ed.
D. Hurst, CCSL 120, pp. 5-6.
8. Cf. Bede, Expositio Apocalypsis, ed. Roger Gryson, CCSL 121A, p. 233, for
comment on Anglo-Saxon readers.
C. O’BRIEN 257
9. Judith McClure, ‘Bede’s Notes on Genesis and the Training of the Anglo-
Saxon Clergy’, in The Bible in the Medieval World : Essays in Memory of Beryl
Smalley, eds. Katherine Walsh and Diana Wood (Oxford, 1985), pp. 17-30 ;
Kendall, On Genesis, p. 4 : ‘his first priority in On Genesis was to provide
information and instruction for the working clergy’.
10. Gen., p. 1 : ‘Nec segnior in exequendo quae iubere es dignatus extiti, quin
potius statim perspectis patrum uoluminibus collegi ex his…quae rudem adhuc
possent instituere lectorem, quibus eruditus ad altiorem disceret fortioremque
maiorum ascendere lectionem.’ For Acca’s learning see Michael Lapidge, ‘Acca
of Hexham and the Origin of the Old English Martyrology’, Analecta Bollandiana
123 (2005), pp. 29-78.
11. I focus on the contrast with Augustine since, while Bede did make use of
other exegetes, it is Augustine’s work and in particular De Genesi ad Litteram
which is the overwhelmingly dominant source in Book I : Paul Siniscalco, ‘Due
opere a confronto sulla creazione dell’uomo : il De Genesi ad litteram libri XII di
Agostino e i Libri IV in principium Genesis di Beda’, Augustinianum 25 (1985),
p. 451.
258 REVUE BÉNÉDICTINE
That the Bible said nothing by chance was one of the core ten-
ets of Bede’s exegetical approach. So when, having established that
‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth’, the scriptural text
goes on to say that ‘earth was void and empty’, the fact that it does
not mention heaven is significant. ‘Now why did Scripture introduce
these details about the earth, with no reference to heaven,’ asked
Bede, ‘except that it wished nothing of this kind to be understood
about heaven ?’12 While earth was created unformed and in darkness,
he argued that heaven was created instantly populated by the angels
and bathed in the light which is God. This fact proves to be impor-
tant when the biblical account goes on to say that God created light
(Genesis 1 :3) since this can now only refer to material light on the
earth – light already existing in heaven. It is appropriate, claimed
Bede, that the God who is light set about beautifying the world
by first creating material light.13 But the creation of light was not
always read in such a literal fashion.
Augustine had understood Genesis 1 :3 as the creation of the angels
and it was this interpretation which proved most popular with sev-
enth-century Irish exegetes who interpreted the light as being the
heavenly creation of angelic intelligence.14 That Bede deliberately
chose an alternative to such a reading seems to explain why he
emphasised the fact that angels and spiritual light pre-existed mate-
rial light : ‘Since he himself is the true light and inhabits inacces-
sible light, the most blessed sight of which the angels in the heaven
of heavens had begun to enjoy immediately as they were created,
he properly also bestowed the first grace of material light upon this
world for the sake of adornment’.15 But, as we have seen at the begin-
ning of this paper, material light was different to God’s heavenly illu-
mination in that it was limited and inconstant.16
12. Gen., p. 4 : ‘Vt quid enim haec de terra praetermisso caelo intulit, nisi quia
nihil tale de caelo intellegi uoluit ?’ ; Kendall trans., p. 69.
13. Gen., pp. 7-8.
14. Marina Smyth, Understanding the Universe in Seventh-Century Ireland
(Woodbridge, 1996), p. 95 ; Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram, ed. J. Zycha,
CSEL 28 [hereafter De Genesi], II.8, p. 43 : ‘An eo modo demonstratur primo
die, quo lux facta est, conditionem spiritalis et intellectualis creaturae lucis
appellatione intimari - in qua natura intelleguntur omnes sancti angeli atque
uirtutes’ ; De Civitate Dei, eds. B. Dombart and A. Klab, CCSL 48 [hereafter
DCD], XI.9, pp. 329-30.
15. Gen., pp. 7-8 : ‘Congruit operibus Dei et mundi ornatum a luce incipiat – qui
cum ipse sit lux uera lucemque habitet inaccessibilem, cuius beatissima uisione
mox creati in caelis caelorum angeli iam perfrui coeperant’ ; Kendall trans., p. 73.
16. See above p. 255.
C. O’BRIEN 259
17. Gen., p. 9 : ‘Factumque est uespere occidente paulatim luce post expletum
spatium diurnae longitudinis atque inferiores mundi partes subeunte, quod nunc
usitato solis circuitu noctibus agi solet. Factum et mane redeunte eadem paulatim
super terras atque alium diem initiante. Et huc usque dies expletus est unus,
uiginti scilicet et quatuor horarum.’
18. Bernhard Bischoff and Michael Lapidge, Biblical Commentaries from the
Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 304-5.
19. Gen., p. 14 : ‘Patet ex his Dei uerbis quod uerno tempore mundi est
perfectus ornatus, in hoc enim solent herbae uirentes apparere in terra et ligna
pomis onustari.’ Ambrose also discussed the fact that creation took place at
springtime in terms of a more spiritually-focused discussion of baptism, Easter
and rebirth : Exameron, ed. C. Schenkl, CSEL 32, I.4.13-14, pp. 11-3.
20. Gen., pp. 16-9 ; p. 16 : ‘Sunt ergo luminaria in signa et tempora et dies et
annos, non quod a conditione eorum uel tempora coeperint, quae constat coepisse
a principio quo fecit Deus caelum et terram, uel dies et anni qui originem sumsisse
noscuntur ex quo dixit Deus, Fiat lux et facta est lux, sed quia per ortus eorum
siue transitus temporum ordo dierumque annorumque signatur.’
21. Gen., pp. 18-20. Faith Wallis, ‘Si Naturam Quaeras : Reframing Bede’s
“Science”’, in Innovation and Tradition in the Writings of the Venerable Bede, ed.
Scott DeGregorio (Morgantown, 2006), p. 83.
260 REVUE BÉNÉDICTINE
tion of the date of which was the key duty of a computist such as
Bede, was not only the major annual feast of the Christian Church.
It also marked the great moment at which salvation was wrought in
time, thereby providing the means for the inhabitants of this imper-
fect earth to escape the waning and waxing of material light and
reach God’s eternal light.22
Creation therefore established time as a rhythm which would save ;
God made the celestial bodies because they were vital to human par-
ticipation in salvation. Using them one could determine the correct
date for Easter. And keeping the correct date for Easter was a vitally
important mark of membership of the Catholic Church, especially in
the Insular world of the late seventh and early eighth centuries.23
The Easter Controversy which bitterly divided the Insular Church in
those years was not simply a battle between local traditions and uni-
versalist dogmatism ; it was a disagreement over membership of the
society of the elect in which salvation itself was at stake. In such
a context the incorrect dating of Easter could be seen as making a
heretical statement. For example, Catholics denounced celebrating
Easter too early as akin to Pelagianism in suggesting that humanity
could be saved without Christ’s sacrifice – thus denying one’s abso-
lute dependence on God and grace.24
The Easter Question is not the only recurring interest of Bede
that he addressed in his exegesis of Genesis 1. He followed tradition
in linking the six days of creation with the six ages of the present
world.25 The theme of the world ages is one with which Bede was
very taken ; its presence in On Genesis highlights the extent to which
all human history unfurls from the beginning according to a divinely-
ordained plan.26 Discussion of the six ages automatically led Bede to
think of the seventh and eighth ages (the pre-Judgement rest of souls
22. The correct date of Easter was closely linked with the symbolism of light :
Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave
and R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford, 1969), V.21, pp. 542-45.
23. For a discussion of the Easter Controversy and how it relates to the Insular
Church see Charles W. Jones, Bedae Opera de Temporibus (Cambridge, Mass.,
1943), pp. 3-122 ; Faith Wallis, Bede : On the Reckoning of Time (Liverpool,
1999), pp. xxxiv-lxiii.
24. Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, ‘“New Heresy for Old” : Pelagianism in Ireland and the
Papal Letter of 640’, Speculum 60 (1985), pp. 505-16 ; Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica,
V.21, pp. 544-5.
25. Gen., pp. 35-9. Augustine, DCD, XXII. 30, pp. 865-6.
26. For Bede’s interest in the world ages see Charles W. Jones, ‘Some
Introductory Remarks on Bede’s Commentary on Genesis’, Sacris Erudiri 19
(1969-70), pp. 191-8 ; Peter Darby, Bede and the End of Time (Burlington, 2012),
C. O’BRIEN 261
and the life of the resurrection, respectively) which locate the human
history of this world in its appropriate place on the journey towards
eternal life with God.27
A consequence of Bede’s attempt to read his contemporary inter-
est in computus into the initial account of creation is that it may
seem to suggest that the prelapsarian world needed salvation. After
all, before the fall why should God have gone to the effort of pre-
paring the means for humanity’s salvation ? Discussing why God
made unfallen humanity master of the other animals, Bede suggested
that God, foreknowing that they would fall, created the prelapsar-
ian world with comforts designed to assist postlapsarian humans.28
No doubt he would have extended this explanation also to the saving
rhythm of time. More than that, this view of creation allowed Bede
to emphasise the importance of salvation history as the means by
which God’s grace was given to humanity. The incarnation was that
moment where grace entered into human experience, but it was not a
reactive response to the fall. All of time actually forms itself around
the incarnation. Thus for Bede, salvation did not simply take place
in time, time existed so as to be the vehicle for salvation.29
In Bede’s understanding, time was a process of improvement for
the Christian and the Church, which had developed through history
and grown towards the perfection which lay in heaven. Bede’s view
of the apostolic Church, for example, complicated the traditional ide-
alization of the early Church by seeing it simply as a passing stage
in the overall growth of the Church. The Church on earth, like all
pp. 21-4, 69-74. Also Bede, De Temporum Ratione, ed. Charles W. Jones, CCSL
123B [hereafter DTR], 66, pp. 463-5.
27. Gen., p. 39 : ‘Septimo die requieuit Deus ab omnibus operibus suis, et
sanctificauit et benedixit illum ; et septima est aetas perpetuae quietis in alia
uita, in qua requiescit Deus cum sanctis suis in aeternum post opera bona, quae
operatur in eis per sex huius seculi aetates... Et ideo bene septimo diei uespera
successisse non legitur, quia tristitiam qua terminetur septima haec aetas, nullam
habebit ; quin potius ampliori letitia, ut diximus, octauae aetatis perficitur, illius
uidelicet quae per gloriam resurrectionis tunc incipiens, cum haec tota uita
transierit, nullo umquam fine, nulla rerum uicissitudine a contemplando Dei
uultu transmutabitur.’
28. Gen., p. 29 : ‘Nisi forte dicendum est quia peccaturum praesciebat Deus
hominem et mortalem peccando futurum quem immortalem ipse creauit ; ideoque
ea illi solatia primordialiter instituit quibus suam fragilitatem mortalis posset
tueri, uel alimentum uidelicet ex his uel indumentum uel laborum siue itineris
habens adiumentum.’
29. For a stimulating discussion of the importance of time and history to Bede,
see Jan Davidse, ‘The Sense of History in the Works of the Venerable Bede’,
Studi Medievali 23 (1982), pp. 647-95.
262 REVUE BÉNÉDICTINE
earthly things, was not perfect and unchanging from its beginning
but in fact had to develop through time.30 Individuals were reminded
that they could not instantly move from baptism to heaven, but had
to virtuously struggle through time in this world to reach the per-
petual gifts of heavenly blessedness.31 Hence the importance of the
contrast between the temporal, material light of the earth and the
eternal, spiritual light of heaven, established at the very beginning of
the world. Bede’s account of creation highlighted God’s providential
design for how the imperfect was to be perfected.
Considering then the importance Bede attached to the saving
rhythm of time, it cannot be surprising that he chose a literal inter-
pretation of the six-day creation. This required him to confront the
vast body of Augustinian exegesis on Genesis in which Augustine
argued for a single timeless creation rather than one spread out over
a week. For Augustine the days described in Genesis 1 were not lit-
eral days but rather epistemological days ; they represented the pro-
cess by which the angelic intelligence came to understand the crea-
tion of the world and their order was the ‘order of knowledge’ and
not of time.32 Bede’s rejection of that interpretation and insistence on
a dogmatically literal reading of the Genesis 1 account is important.
It is partially as a consequence of that rejection that medieval think-
ing on the six days rejected Augustine.33 While ‘Antiochene’ exegesis
30. Glenn Olsen, ‘Bede as Historian : The Evidence from his Observations on
the Life of the First Christian Community at Jerusalem’, Journal of Ecclesiastical
History 33 (1982), pp. 519-30.
31. Bede, Homeliarum Euangelii, ed. D. Hurst, CCSL 122, I.1, p. 3 :
‘Denique dominus liberatum sanguine agni populum de Aegypto et per rubrum
mare eductum prius in deserto quadraginta annis instituit et sic in terram
repromissionis induxit quia nimirum populus fidelium non statim post baptisma
caelestis patriae potest gaudia subire sed primo longis uirtutum exercendus
agonibus ac deinde perpetuis supernae beatitudinis est donandus muneribus.’
32. Augustine, De Genesi, IV.35, p. 136 : ‘Dies ergo ille, quem deus primitus
fecit, si spiritalis rationalisque creatura est, id est angelorum supercaelestium
atque uirtutum, praesentatus est omnibus operibus dei hoc ordine praesentiae,
quo ordine scientiae, qua et in uerbo dei facienda praenosceret et in creatura
facta cognosceret non per interuallorum temporalium moras, sed prius et
posterius habens in conexione creaturarum, in efficacia uero creatoris omnia
simul’ ; translation from Edmund Hill (trans.), The Works of St Augustine,
A Translation for the 21st Century : On Genesis (New York, 2002), p. 275. Also
Augustine, DCD, XI.7, pp. 326-7.
33. Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, 3rd edn (Oxford,
1983), p. 132 ; Jones, Opera de Temporibus, p. 336. Frank Egleston Robbins,
The Hexaemeral Literature : A Study of the Greek and Latin Commentaries on
Genesis (Chicago, 1912), esp. pp. 78-9 recognises the importance of Bede here but
complicates matters by taking the spurious work, In Pentateuchum Commentarii
(published in PL 91), to be genuine.
C. O’BRIEN 263
38. Augustine, De Genesi, V.23, pp. 167-9 ; VI.10, pp. 183 : ‘In quibus omnibus
ea iam facta modos et actus sui temporis acceperunt, quae ex occultis atque
inuisibilibus rationibus, quae in creatura causaliter latent, in manifestas formas
naturasque prodierunt, sicut herba exorta super terram et homo factus in animam
uiuam et cetera huius modi, siue frutecta siue animantia ad illam operationem
dei pertinentia, qua usque nunc operatur.’ The rationes are ‘the latent powers
of development in created things’ : Rowan Williams, ‘Creation’, in Augustine
through the Ages : An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald (Cambridge, 1999),
p. 252.
39. Gen., p. 40 : ‘per substantiam seminalem simul condita latebant, quae
postmodum ex his opere creatoris non simul erant producenda’ ; Kendall trans.,
p. 106. Cf. DTR, 5, p. 285 : ‘Sunt etenim quidam patrum, qui in eo quod scriptum
est : In principio creauit Deus caelum et terram ; terra autem erat inanis et uacua,
et tenebrae super faciem abyssi : informem caeli et terrae et aquae omniumque
elementorum confusionem putant esse designatam, ita ut nec aqua, nec terra, nec
caelum, sed eorum omnium una, ut ita dixerim, seminaria sit indicata materies.’
40. Gen., p. 41 : ‘et herba et arbor omnis in ipsius terrae substantia sit causaliter
facta priusquam uisibiliter orirentur aut germinarent ex terra’ ; Kendall trans.,
p. 106. Kendall translates causaliter as ‘for a reason’ which seems to imply that
the plants were made for some purpose, whereas I read Bede as meaning that
plants were created ‘causally’ – that is in causes which pre-existed the plants
themselves. Augustine himself used the word (see above n. 33) in just such a
sense.
41. Bede, De Natura Rerum, ed. Charles W. Jones, CCSL 123A, I, p. 192 : ‘...
quod eiusdem creaturae seminibus et primordialibus causis totius seculi tempus
naturali cursu peragitur, ubi Pater usque nunc operatur et Filius, ubi etiam
coruos pascit et lilia uestit Deus.’
C. O’BRIEN 265
42. DTR, 5, pp. 286-7 ; Gen., pp. 41-2. Calvin B. Kendall and Faith Wallis,
Bede : On the Nature of Things and On Times (Liverpool, 2010), p. 136 consider it
strange that Bede, clearly being familiar with Augustine’s ideas, wrote his long
account of creation in On Genesis with ‘no hint…of pre-existing causes’.
43. Stanley Rosenberg, ‘Forming the Saeculum : The Desacralization of
Nature and the Ability to Understand it in Augustine’s Literal Commentary on
Genesis’, in God’s Bounty ? The Churches and the Natural World, eds. Peter Clarke
and Tony Claydon (Woodbridge, 2010), pp. 1-14 ; Williams, ‘Creation’, p. 252.
44. Gen., p. 41 : ‘Non enim sic in primordio rerum haec terra produxit quomodo
nunc si inrigatio adfuerit aquarum, disponente Deo terra ultro fructificat ;
sed mirabiliore prorsus opere conditoris tunc antequam aliqui fructus ex terra
crescendo orirentur aut germinarent, repente campi montes et colles herbis erant
et arboribus cooperti habentibus congruam altitudinem staturae, diffusionem
ramorum, opacitatem foliorum, copiam fructuum, quam non paulatim ex terra
oriendo uel germinando et accessu incrementorum proficiendo sed subito ex illa
existendo acceperunt.’
266 REVUE BÉNÉDICTINE
two things : the omnipotence of God and ‘because Holy Scripture said
so’.45 An independent ‘nature’ need not, indeed could not, be called
upon to explain such phenomena.46 By such means Bede re-empha-
sised the key message which his analysis of light and time had estab-
lished : the absolute dependence of the created world, including in its
prelapsarian form, upon God.
The need to establish this inadequacy at the heart of the material
world from before the fall could be explained if Bede had believed
that God did not change the nature of the world after the initial
creation. However, Bede accepted that God created thorns and bar-
ren trees (which had not been part of that initial creation) as a con-
sequence of humanity sinning.47 Why then were some responses to
sin programmed into creation and others only subsequently added ?
Perhaps the difference is that while God waited until after the fall to
punish humans (with thorns, etc.), he had prepared comforts and aids
from the beginning (animals to serve humanity, the saving rhythm
of time). God’s great justice could thus be seen by Bede’s readers.
One suspects also, however, that Bede sought to highlight the need
for progression and improvement towards God. Elsewhere he stated
that those in the Church who are called ‘perfect’ are not really per-
fect ; rather they are perfect in earthly terms but still growing in per-
fection in heavenly terms.48 Given the above-mentioned connection
between incorrect Easter dating and Pelagianism, Bede’s emphatic
rejection of natural perfection in the Genesis account may also be an
example of one of his frequent assaults on this heresy.49
45. Ibid., p. 11 : ‘Sane quales aquae ibi sint quosue ad usus reseruatae conditor
ipse nouerit ; esse tantum eas ibi, quia scriptura sancta dixit, nulli dubitandum
reliquit.’ ; Kendall trans., p. 76.
46. Wallis, ‘Si Naturam Quaeras’, pp. 77-8. Cf. Jennifer Neville,
Representations of the Natural World in Old English Poetry (Cambridge, 1999),
pp. 2-3 : ‘…the Anglo-Saxons did not have a word or expression for the
modern conception of the natural world because they did not conceive of an
entity defined by the exclusion of the supernatural.’ The dichotomy of natural/
supernatural only seems to have become popular in Europe in the thirteenth
century : Robert Bartlett, The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages
(Cambridge, 2008), pp. 12-7.
47. Gen., p. 68 : ‘Ante peccatum ergo hominis non est scriptum quod terra
protulerit nisi herbam pabuli et ligna fructuosa ; post peccatum autem uidemus
multa horrida et infructuosa nasci, propter eam uidelicet quam diximus causam.’
48. Bede, De Templo, ed. D. Hurst, CCSL 119A, p. 165.
49. Cf. Arthur Holder, ‘The Anti-Pelagian Character of Bede’s Commentary
on the Song of Songs’, in Biblical Studies in the Early Middle Ages, eds. Claudio
Leonardi and Giovanni Orlandi (Florence, 2005), pp. 91-103.
C. O’BRIEN 267
50. Wallis, On the Reckoning of Time, p. 271 ; Wallis, ‘Si Naturam Quaeras’,
p. 78 n. 29. Cf. Jones, Opera de Temporibus, pp. 335-6.
51. DTR, 5, pp. 286-7. Bede cited Pope Clement (actually pseudo-Clement),
Ambrose, Basil of Caesarea and Jerome by name.
52. Roger Ray, ‘Bede and Cicero’, Anglo-Saxon England 16 (1987), pp. 2-3 ;
Bede, In Primam Partem Samuhelis, ed. D. Hurst, CCSL 119, pp. 119-21 ;
cf. Jerome, Epistulae, CSEL 54, ed. I. Hilberg, XXII.30, p. 190. Also Bede,
Epistola ad Pleguinam, ed. Charles W. Jones, CCSL 123C, pp. 619-20, where he
did not name Eusebius when criticising his chronology.
53. Some medieval readers were able to make the connection of course, and
the gloss of DTR included by Jones in his edition comments on ‘patrum aeque
catholicorum’ with ‘Augustino’ : DTR, p. 286. But the very existence of a gloss
suggests that readers could not be expected to recognise Augustine’s theories for
themselves.
54. See above pp. 256-7.
268 REVUE BÉNÉDICTINE
55. DTR, 5, p. 286 : ‘Sed multo facilior est sensus si, iuxta traditiones patrum
aeque catholicorum, caeli nomine circulus caeli superioris intelligatur esse
monstratus ; terrae nomine tellus ipsa suis quibus et nunc est finium spatiis
inclusa, excepto quod nihil uirentium germinum nihil uiuentium produxerat
animantum ; abyssi uocabulo infinita aquarum diffusio omnem alluentium terram,
in quarum medio postmodum firmamentum caeli esse factum commemoratur.’
56. Gen., p. 3 : ‘Sed diligenter intuendum ut ita quisque sensibus allegoricis
studium impendat, quatenus apertam historiae fidem allegorizando derelinquat’ ;
Kendall trans., p. 69.
57. See Claude Jenkins, ‘Bede as Exegete and Theologian’, in Bede : His
Life, Times, and Writings, ed. A. Hamilton Thompson (Oxford, 1935), p. 180 :
‘A reader who has no taste for allegory had better leave Bede’s commentaries
alone…’ ; Paul Hilliard, ‘The Venerable Bede as scholar, gentile and preacher’,
Ego Trouble : Authors and their Identities in the Early Middle Ages, eds. Richard
Corradini, et al. (Vienna, 2010), pp. 105-6, argues that Bede’s fondness for
allegory was in fact out of step with the sympathies of many Anglo-Saxon
readers.
58. Augustine, De Genesi, V.5, p. 146 : ‘Non itaque temporali, sed causali
ordine prius facta est informis formabilisque materies, et spiritalis et corporalis,
de qua fieret, quod faciendum esset, cum et ipsa, priusquam instituta est, non
fuisset...’ ; also Confessions, ed. James J. O’Donnell, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1992),
XII.29.40, pp. 180-1.
C. O’BRIEN 269
all.63 The late seventh and early eighth centuries saw a great flourish-
ing in education and learning in the Anglo-Saxon world.64 This learn-
ing, however, situated the Late Antique texts which had come to the
Anglo-Saxons with conversion within an entirely Christian frame of
reference. Even in his scientific treatises, Bede placed ancient learn-
ing about the universe within a more explicitly religious context than
had his Christian predecessors.65
It has long been recognised that Bede’s desire to pass on the wis-
dom of the Fathers to his countrymen was not marked by a slavish
devotion. His confidence in his own ability to creatively use patristic
knowledge is now well acknowledged.66 The prefatory comments to
some of his works, especially the early ones, suggest that he self-con-
sciously adapted the Fathers for his fellow country-men ; we should
not be surprised that he dropped elements of patristic exegesis which
may not have been helpful in his own time.67 But there is more to
be said about the differences between Bede and Augustine than to
point out that one lived while the Late Antique educational system
was still strong and the other in a land where it had long since dis-
appeared. Few of Bede’s readers had read as widely or as well as he
had, but many were still confident enough to question his statements
on occasion.
It was the nature of the questions which the two exegetes had to
face which mark them out as different. While Augustine had to con-
tend with the possibility of educated non-Christians disagreeing with
him, Bede’s critics all came from a solidly Christian background and
the nature of their criticisms suggests a dogmatic one at that. Augus-
tine engaged with those outside or on the margins of the Christian
community who could question the appropriateness of Christianity in
a context where there were alternatives. Educated pagans could eas-
ily be familiar with Christian beliefs (aristocratic families frequently
68. See for example the queries arising from Volusian and his circle to which
Augustine was asked to respond : Augustine, Epistulae, ed. K. Daur, CCSL
31B, CXXXV-CXXXVIII, pp. 249-90. Maijastina Kahlos, ‘Incerti in between :
Moments of Transition and Dialogue in Christian Polemics in the Fourth and
Fifth Centuries’, La Parola del Passato 59 (2004), pp. 5-24.
69. Robert Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity, 2nd edn (Cambridge,
1998).
70. Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, II.1, p. 122 : ‘Quem recte nostrum appellare
possumus et debemus apostulum quia…nostrum gentem eatenus idolis
mancipatam Christi fecit ecclesiam…’.
71. Pœnitentiale Theodori, I.XV, in Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents
Relating to Great Britain and Ireland vol. 3, eds. Arthur West Haddan and
William Stubbs (Oxford, 1871), pp. 189-90.
72. Patrick Wormald, ‘Bede, Beowulf and the Conversion of the Anglo-Saxon
Aristocracy’, in R.T. Farrell (ed.), Bede and Anglo-Saxon England : Papers in
Honour of the 1300th Anniversary of the Birth of Bede, given at Cornell University
in 1973 and 1974 (Oxford, 1978), pp. 32-95. Wormald’s study was influenced by
Peter Brown, ‘Aspects of the conversion of the Roman aristocracy’, Journal of
Roman Studies 51 (1961), pp. 1-11.
73. Bede was questioned about his allocations of the four evangelists’ symbols
in his commentary on the Apocalypse and had to defend himself by pointing
out that he was drawing on Augustine : Bede, In Lucae Evangelium, pp. 6-10.
Celia Chazelle, ‘Art and Reverence in Bede’s Churches at Wearmouth and
Jarrow’, in Intellektualisierung und Mystifizierung mittelalterlicher Kunst, eds.
Martin Büchsel and Rebecca Müller (Berlin, 2010), p. 92 describes these
contemporary views which emphasised the literal truth and authority of the
Bible as ‘Pelagian-like’ ; see Michael W. Herren and Shirley Ann Brown, Christ
in Celtic Christianity : Britain and Ireland from the Fifth to the Tenth Century
272 REVUE BÉNÉDICTINE
(Woodbridge, 2002), pp. 106-22. The term ‘Pelagian’ to describe such views is
probably misleading.
74. Bede’s original comment is in Expositio Actuum Apostolorum, ed. M.L.W.
Laistner, CCSL 121, p. 17 ; his defence is in Retractio in Actus Apostolorum, in
the same volume, pp. 110-11.
75. E.g. Bede, Epistola ad Pleguinam, pp. 617-26 – Bede’s response to chiliast
critics of his chronology was to bombard them with erudition and contempt for
their rustic ignorance of the Fathers. On this letter see Darby, End of Time,
chapter 2.
76. It is interesting to note that the defensive list of the ‘equally catholic
fathers’ in DTR 5 postdates the discussion of the seminal creation in On Genesis.
Had a response to the earlier work convinced Bede that he had to safeguard his
authority on this point ?
77. See Louis J. Swift, ‘Basil and Ambrose on the Six Days of Creation’,
Augustinianum 21 (1981), pp. 317-28.
78. See Peter Brown, The Body and Society : Men, Women and Sexual
Renunciation in early Christianity (Berkeley, 1988), pp. 346-8, for this approach
elsewhere in Ambrose’s writings.
C. O’BRIEN 273
79. E.g. Ambrose, Exameron, I.6.22 p. 20, I.6.24 pp. 22-3, 3.6.27 pp. 76-7. See
Swift, ‘Basil and Ambrose’ for many more examples. While it has traditionally
been assumed Bede had read Ambrose’s work, some doubt has recently been
cast on his knowledge of the Exameron : Dabney Anderson Bankert, Jessica
Wegmann and Charles D. Wright, Ambrose in Anglo-Saxon England with Pseudo-
Ambrose and Ambrosiaster, Old English Newsletter Subsidia 25 (Kalamazoo,
1997), pp. 19-21.