Scott DeGregorio - The Venerable Bede On Prayer and Contemplation PDF

THE VENERABLE BEDE ON PRAYER AND CONTEMPLATION
By SCOTT DeGREGORIO
As a monk at the famous Northumbrian monastery of Jarrow, the Venerable

Bede (673-735) produced a body of exegetical work that enjoyed enormous
popularity throughout the Middle Ages.1 Something of that spirit seems to have
reawakened in recent years, as Bede's commentaries are increasingly being stud
ied and made available to wider audiences in English translation.2 One distinctive
*On Bede's reputation, see Dorothy Whitelock, After Bede (Jarrow, 1960), and J. E. Cross,
"Bede's Influence at Home and Abroad: An Introduction," in Beda Venerabilis: Historian, Monk,
& Northumbrian, ed. L. A. J. R. Houwen and A. A. MacDonald (Groningen, 1996), 17-29.
The following abbreviations for Bede's works are employed throughout this article:
De tab. = De tabern?culo. Ed. D. Hurst, CCL 119A:1-139.
De tempi. = De templo. Ed. D. Hurst, CCL 119A: 141-234.
De temp. rat. = De temporum ratione. Ed. C. W. Jones, CCL 123B.
Epist. ad Ecgb. = Epistola ad Ecgbertum Episcopum. Ed. C. Plummer, in Baedae Opera
Hist?rica, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1896).
Epist. Cath. = In Ep?stolas VII Catholicas. Ed. D. Hurst, CCL 121:179-342.
Exp. Act. Apost. = Expositio Actuum Apostolorum. Ed. M. L. W. Laistner, CCL 121:1-163.
Exp.Apoc. = Explanado Apocalypsis. PL 93:129-206.
HE = Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. Ed. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford,
1969).
Hist. Abb. = Historia Abbatum auctore Baeda. Ed. C. Plummer, in Baedae Opera Hist?rica,
2 vols. (Oxford, 1896).
Horn. = Homiliae euangelii. Ed. D. Hurst, CCL 122:1-378.
In Cant. = In Cantica Canticorum. Ed. D. Hurst, CCL 119B: 175-375.
In Ez. et Neem. = In Ezram et Neemiam. Ed, D. Hurst, CCL 119A:235-392.
In Gen. ? Liber quatuor in princ?pium Genesis usque ad natiuitatem Isaac et eiectionem
Ismahelis adnotationum. Ed. C. W. Jones, CCL 118A.
In Hab. = In Abacuc. Ed. J. E. Hudson, CCL 119B:370-409.
In Luc. = In Lucae Evangelium expositio. Ed. D. Hurst, CCL 120:1-425.
In Marc. = In Marci evang?lium expositio. Ed. D. Hurst, CCL 120:427-648.
In Prov. Sai. = In Proverbia Salomonis. Ed. D. Hurst, CCL 119B:21-163.
In Reg. Quaest. = In Regum librum XXX quaestiones. Ed. D. Hurst, CCL 119:289-322.
In Sam. = In Primam Partem Samuhelis Libri III. Ed. D. Hurst, CCL 119:1-287.
VC = Vita Sancii Cuthberti. Ed. and trans. B. Colgrave, Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert (Cam
bridge, 1940).
I wish to express my gratitude to Robert Sinkewicz, David Townsend, William Robins, Brian
Stock, Arthur Holder, and Alan Thacker, all of whom read the text of this article in draft and
made suggestions for its improvement.
2I list only recent work on Bede's exegesis: George H. Brown, Bede the Venerable, Twayne's
English Authors Series 443 (Boston, 1987), 42-61; Benedicta Ward, The Venerable Bede,
Outstanding Christian Thinkers (Harrisburg, 1990), 41-87; Roger Ray, "What Do We Know
about Bede's Commentaries?" Recherches de th?ologie ancienne et m?di?vale 49 (1982): 5
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2 TRADITIO
feature of this development is a growing awareness that Bede's reputation as an

exegete is more multifaceted than has been previously realized, that it goes
beyond what Beryl Smalley called "his faithful presentation of the tradition in
its many aspects."3 Whereas earlier interpreters were content to regard Bede as
a mere compiler reputed for his good sense and able Latinity, scholars are now
paying homage to him as a penetrating and perceptive biblical commentator who
did more than reproduce the thought of the fathers who preceded him. As I
intend to show in what follows, Bede's treatment of prayer and contemplation
in his exegesis attests well to this quality of his thought. The topic to date has
received only minimal commentary, mainly on what Bede actually taught about
prayer.4 My approach will be different. I begin with a discussion not of Bede's
exegetical method but of his occupations and aims as a spiritual writer. Neither
20; Lawrence T. Martin, "Bede as Linguistic Scholar," American Benedictine Review 35

(1984): 204-17; idem, "Bede's Structural Use of Wordplay as a Way to Truth," in From Cloister
to Classroom: Monastic and Scholastic Approaches to Truth, ed. E. Rozanne Elder (Kalama
zoo, 1986), 27-46; idem, "The Two Worlds in Bede's Homilies: The Biblical Event and the
Listener's Experience," in De Ore Domini: Preacher and Word in the Middle Ages, ed. Thomas
L. Amos et al. (Kalamazoo, 1989), 27-40; Arthur G. Holder, "New Treasures for Old in Bede's
De Tabern?culo and De Templo," Revue B?n?dictine 99 (1989): 237-49; idem, "Bede and the
Tradition of Patristic Exegesis," Anglican Theological Review 12 (1990): 399-411; idem, "The
Venerable Bede on the Mysteries of Our Salvation," American Benedictine Review 42 (1991):
140-62; Bernard Robinson, "The Venerable Bede as Exegete," Downside Review 112 (1994):
201-26; Paul Meyvaert, "Bede's Capitula Lectionum for the Old and New Testaments," Revue
B?n?dictine 105 (1995): 348-80; idem, "Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus," Spe
culum 71 (1996): 827-83; Michael Gorman, "The Commentary on the Pentateuch Attributed
to Bede in PL 91.189-208," Revue B?n?dictine 106 (1996): 61-108. Recent translations in
clude Bede the Venerable: Commentary on the Seven Catholic Epistles, trans. David Hurst,
Cistercian Studies Series 82 (Kalamazoo, 1985); The Venerable Bede: Commentary on the Acts
of the Apostles, trans. Lawrence Martin, Cistercian Studies Series 117 (Kalamazoo, 1989);
Bede the Venerable: Homilies on the Gospels, trans. Lawrence Martin and David Hurst, 2 vols.,
Cistercian Studies Series 110-11 (Kalamazoo, 1991); Bede: On the Tabernacle, trans. Arthur
G. Holder, Translated Texts for Historians Series 18 (Liverpool, 1994); Bede: On the Taber
nacle, trans. Se?n Connolly, Translated Texts for Historians Series 21 (Liverpool, 1995); Bede:
On Tobit and On The Canticle of Habakkuk, trans. Se?n Connolly (Dublin, 1997); Bede: A
Biblical Miscellany, trans. W. Trent Foley and Arthur G. Holder, Translated Texts for Histo
rians 28 (Liverpool, 1998); Bede the Venerable: On the Song of Songs and Other Spiritual
Writings, trans. Arthur Holder, Classics of Western Spirituality (in preparation). Additionally,
Stephen J. Harris of the Loyola University of Chicago and I are at work on a translation of
Bede's In Ezram et Neemiam.
3Beryl Smalley, Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (1941; repr. Notre Dame, Ind., 1970),
36.
4M. T. A. Carroll, The Venerable Bede: His Spiritual Teachings, Catholic University of
America Studies in Medieval History, n.s. 9 (Washington, D.C., 1946), 198-215; Gerald Bon
ner, "The Christian Life in the Thought of the Venerable Bede," Durham University Journal
53 (1970): 53-55.
venerable bede 3
Bede's spirituality nor his role as spiritual writer have received the atte
they deserve, and it is hoped that the reflections offered here will help rek
interest in these neglected subjects.5 I then consider four prayer-related the
in his exegesis that bring his aims as a spiritual writer into view. Patristic tra
had commented widely on prayer, and Bede, we will see, did not set o
summarize this tradition in its entirety but rather to highlight and distill c
themes within it, those that best suited the needs of his Anglo-Saxon audien
Bede as Spiritual Writer:

In the Footsteps of Gregory the Great
The neglect of Bede as a spiritual writer is in some respects understand

For one thing, he never conveniently expounded his spiritual teaching
single work, nor ever attempted to distill them in a systematic fashion. Rat
he presented his views on the spiritual life in a diffuse and somewhat r
fashion, primarily in his commentaries and homilies, leaving the task o
tematization to posterity. The task, however, has never been adequately fulf
In an ironic twist Bede's commentaries and homilies, the texts which ma
most to him,6 have been significantly understudied, chiefly due to the perce
that he was an unoriginal thinker who merely compiled the teachings of oth
5 Oddly enough, though Bede, who wrote not merely to instruct but to induce in his a
the same desire for heaven that represented the goal of monastic life itself, belongs sq
in the tradition of the great spiritual writers of the Middle Ages, rarely have scholars
him as a spiritual writer. To my knowledge, only four works in all of Bedan scholarship
address the issue: Carroll, The Venerable Bede: His Spiritual Teachings (n. 4 above);
Bonner, "The Christian Life in the Thought of the Venerable Bede" (n. 4 above);
Leonardi, "Il Venerabile Beda e la cultura del secolo VIII," Settimane di Studio del
Italiano di Studi sull'alto Medioevo 20 (1973): 603-58, 833-43; Glenn W. Olsen, "From
to the Anglo-Saxon Presence in the Carolingian Empire," Settimane di Studio del Cen
liano di Studi sull'alto Medioevo 32 (1984): 305-82. The omission is apparent in the l
Bede bibliography by Thomas Eckenrode, "The Venerable Bede: A Bibliographical
1970-81," American Benedictine Review 36 (1985): 172-91. In concluding, Eckenrode
that "there now seems to be an emerging effort to set [Bede] in a wider context" (192)
the statement is not untrue, in the developments Eckenrode goes on to mention, spiritu
barely a concern (a single mention of Bede as liturgist marks the only exception).
6ln his autobiographical note in HE 5.24 (566-67), Bede wrote: "Ex quo tempore ac
presbyteratus usque ad annum aetatis meae LVIIII, haec in scripturam sanctam m
orumque necessitati ex opusculis uenerabilium patrum breuiter adnotare, siue etiam ad
sensus et interpretationis eorum superadicere curaui." In the list of works that follows,
his commentaries first, then his homiliary (ibid., 568-69).
7 Joseph de Ghellinck, Litt?rature latine au Moyen Age (Paris, 1939), 34: "Les comme
ex?g?tiques ... n'ont rien de bien original." On Bede as compiler, see Smalley, Study
Bible ( . 3 above), 35-36.
4 TRADITIO
Fortunately, this perception has been challenged in the past,8 and more recently
by Arthur Holder, for one. Holder writes:
Bede's lack of doctrinal innovation has often been mistaken for mere traditionalism
or slavish imitation. Nothing could be further from the truth. His biblical commen
taries, no less than his renowned historical writings, are artful compositions that
exhibit broad scholarship, pastoral sensitivity, and spiritual depth.9
As Holder's comments suggest, the problem may well be that scholars who have
examined Bede's exegesis have judged it according to standards at odds with
his intentions. Bede had little interest in trying to alter and improve the beliefs
and practices of the Church. The dogmas of the faith were to his mind completely
infallible, established as they were by the incontrovertible, divinely-inspired
authority of the prophets and apostles.10 They were to be believed, not ques
tioned.11 In a homily on St. Peter he roundly declared that "any who separate
themselves in any way from the unity of faith or of this fellowship cannot be
absolved from the bonds of their sins, nor can they enter the gate of the heavenly
kingdom."12 The tenacity with which he attempted to safeguard this unity of
faith and fellowship appears throughout his writings, but nowhere more vividly
than when he attacks heretics and false Catholics, whom he likens in his
Commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah to a contagion (contagium) assailing the
doors of Catholic unity.13 As Bede saw the matter, the teacher's role was
8P. Capelle, "Le r?le th?ologique de B?de le V?n?rable," Studia Anselmiana 6 (1936): 15,
25; Olsen, "Bede to Anglo-Saxon Presence" ( . 5 above), 343-44; and Gerald Bonner, Saint
Bede in the Tradition of Western Apocalyptic Commentary (Newcastle, 1966), 9-10.
9Holder, "The Venerable Bede on the Mysteries of Our Salvation" (n. 2 above), 144. Cf.
Robinson, "The Venerable Bede as Exegete" (n. 2 above), 205, 221.
10Horn. 2.1 (CCL 122:186, lines 73-74): "Fundamenta ecclesiae in soliditate fidei aposto
lomul et prophetarum." Cf. De tempi 2 (CCL 119A:227-28, lines 1402-24); Epist. Cath. (CCL
121:229, lines 161-68). On Bede's ecclesiology, see Carroll, Spiritual Teachings (n. 4 above),
67-98; Olsen, "Bede to Anglo-Saxon Presence" (n. 5 above), 344-82; Edward P. Echlin, "Bede
and the Church," Irish Theological Quarterly 40 (1973): 351-63; Johannes Beumer, "Das
Kirchenbild in den Schriftkommentaren Bedas des Ehrw?rdigen," Scholastik 28 (1953): 40
56; Jan Davidse, "The Sense of History in the Works of the Venerable Bede," Studi Medievali
23 (1983): 647-95.
llHom. 2.16 (CCL 122:300, lines 360-65): "Ad quorum nos exemplum uitam moresque
solerter aptare necesse est quia perfectum uitae magisterium est ecclesiae primitiuae semper
actus imitari illamque aedificii spiritalis normam ad finem usque seruare quam ipsis apostolis
in fundamento fidei liquet esse propositam."
12Hom. 1.20 (CCL 122:146, lines 188-91); trans. Martin and Hurst, Homilies (n. 1 above),
1:203. Cf. Horn. 1.23 (CCL 122:163, lines 61-66); De tempi 2 (CCL 119A:200, lines 317
37); In Cant. 4 (CCL 119B:299, lines 1051-56); Epist. Cath. (CCL 121:285, lines 60-67).
13In Ez. etNeem. 3 (CCL 119A:391, lines 2060-64). Throughout his works Bede denounces
several heresies, e.g., Pelagianism, In Ez. et Neem. 2 (CCL 119A:302, lines 586-88); mono
physitism, HE 2.1 (127); Arianism, Horn. 2.24 (CCL 122:362, lines 159-65); Sabellianism, In
Sam. 2 (CCL 119:97, lines 1233-40); Manichaeism, In Sam. 2 (CCL 119:99, lines 1308-25);
Nestorianism, In Luc. 1 (CCL 120:32, lines 509-21); Apollinarianism, In Luc. 1 (CCL 120:74,
VENERABLE BEDE 5
not to tamper with apostolic doctrine but to defend it against those who
would.14
The true significance of Bede's commentaries and homilies begins to emerge
only when we view them according to a different perspective, namely, with an
eye toward their concern for deepening man's spiritual life. While this approach
may not suddenly reveal him to be an outstandingly original thinker, it at least
provides a better set of criteria against which to measure his work, one that takes
into account the aims of his writing in the first place. These aims are best brought
into view by pondering the immediate social landscape in which the texts were
written. The full details of early Anglo-Saxon England's historical and cultural
development need not concern us here.15 It is sufficient to note that, although
Christianity had progressed considerably since the mission of Augustine, when
only the vestiges of a beleaguered Roman Christianity remained in the island,
by Bede's time there was still a vital need for basic instruction in the faith.16
Although a monk set apart from the world, Bede belonged to a monastic tradition
lines 2159-69); and Donatism, Epist. Cath. (CCL 121:290, lines 46-50), to name just the more
popular ones. He explained that it is better for the brethren to be aware of these corruptions
of the faith so they can remain constantly on guard against them: see Horn. 1.5 (CCL 122:35,
lines 106-21). Bede is always explicit about the fate of these disrupters of the unity of the
faith, e.g., De tempi. 1 (CCL 119A:164, lines 675-81): "Ascendit quidem in cenaculum Oho
zias rex Samariae qui se a domo Dauid separauerat sed per cancellos decidit quia, etsi heretici
siue scismatici aliquam bonae actionis arcem conscendere uidentur, quia tarnen compagem
ecclesiae unitatis non habent quasi patentibus et non solidis laterum praesidiis semper ad
uitiorum infima relabuntur dum diuino destituii auxilio suae pertinaciae fastu intereunt." For
one so staunchly opposed to heresy as Bede, it was a bitter moment when his own orthodoxy
was assailed in front of Bishop Wilfrid for his calculation in De temporibus of the number of
years between Adam and Christ's coming. Instead of the traditional five thousand years, he
reckoned the number to be only 3,952. Bede explained the rationale for his calculation in his
Epistola adPleguinam as relying on Jerome's Hebrew rather than on the Septuagint. The matter
is discussed by Carroll, Spiritual Teachings (n. 4 above), 43-48.
14On this function of the teacher, see esp. De tab. 2 (CCL 119A:57, lines 588-94).
15 The best account of these developments I know of is by Sarah Foot, "Anglo-Saxon Min
sters a.D. 597-c.900: The Religious House in England Before the Benedictine Reform" (Ph.D.
diss., University of Cambridge, 1990), esp. 84-100. See also Henry Mayr-Harting, The Coming
of Christianity to England (New York, 1972); Peter Hunter Blair, An Introduction to Anglo
Saxon England (Cambridge, 1960) and idem, The World of Bede (1970; repr. Cambridge,
1991); Sir Frank Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3d ed. (Oxford, 1971); James Campbell, The
Anglo-Saxons (Ithaca, 1982).
16Bede's Letter to Egbert, written in 734 just months before his death, voiced this need with
urgency, e.g., Epist. ad Ecgb. 7 (1:410): "Audimus enim, et fama est, quia multae uillae ac
uiculi nostrae gentis in montibus sint inaccessis ac saltibus dumosis positi, ubi nunquam multis
transeuntibus annis sit uisus antistes, qui ibidem aliquid ministerii aut gratiae caelestis exhi
buerit; quorum tarnen ne unus quidem a tributis antistiti reddendis esse possit immunis; nec
solum talibus locis desit antistes, qui manus impositione baptizatos confirmet, uerum etiam
omnis doctor, qui eos uel fidei ueritatem uel discretionem bonae ac malae actionis edoceat,
absit."
6 TRADITIO
dedicated to preaching as well as to contemplation, and it fell to his lot to provide

the instruction so badly needed.17 As Alan Thacker has shown, Bede himself
took the mandate to preach the word very seriously and throughout his writings
repeatedly underscored the pastoral obligations of religious.18 In his prose Life
of Cuthbert, for example, he removed many of the details from the earlier anon
ymous life depicting Cuthbert as a contemplative and instead stressed his role
as an active and prayerful preacher, "the very type," Thacker shrewdly observed,
"that Bede was to recommend to archbishop Egbert some fifteen years later."19
His revision of the Life represented contemplative withdrawal as a later stage,
17That Bede envisaged monks undertaking the task of instructing the laity is clear from his
Letter to Egbert. After emphasizing the need for priests who can teach people the Lord's Prayer
and Apostles' Creed, Bede, Epist. ad Ecgb. 5 (1:409) writes: "Quod non solum de laicis, id
est, in populari adhuc uita constitutis, uerum etiam de clericis siue monachis, qui Latinae sunt
linguae expertes, fieri opertet." Foot, "Anglo-Saxon Minsters" (n. 15 above), points out that
early Anglo-Saxon clergy in general seem not to have perceived "any fundamental incompat
ibility between being a monk and performing liturgical functions for the laity, or indeed that
they saw any incongruity in the participation of monks in any sort of activity outside the
cloister" (53; see also 235-52). According to Robert Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity
(Cambridge, 1990), 181-97, this pastoral impulse in medieval monasticism stems from Cas
sian. See n.18 below for further bibliography.
18 See Alan Thacker, "Bede's Ideal of Reform," in Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo
Saxon Society: Studies Presented to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, ed. P. Wormald with D. Bullough
and R. Collins (Oxford, 1983), 130-53, and idem, "Monks, Preaching and Pastoral Care in
Early Anglo-Saxon England," in Pastoral Care Before the Parish, ed. J. Blair and R. Sharpe
(Leicester, 1992), 137-70. The essays in this volume provide an excellent introduction to the
subject of pastoral care in Anglo-Saxon England, which has attracted intense interest of late.
See also John Blair, "Debate: Ecclesiastical Organization and Pastoral Care in Anglo-Saxon
England," Early Medieval Europe 4 (1995): 193-212; Thomas L. Amos, "Monks and Pastoral
Care in the Early Middle Ages," in Religion, Culture and Society in the Early Middle Ages,
ed. T. Noble and J. Contreni (Kalamazoo, 1987), 165-80; Sarah Foot, "The Role of the Mo
nastic Communities," Studies in Church History 26 (1989): 43-54; and Giles Constable, "Mon
asteries, Rural Churches, and the Cura Animarum in the Early Middle Ages," Settimane di
Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull'alto Medioevo 28 (1982): 349-89.
19Thacker, "Bede's Ideal" (n. 18 above), 139. In particular, Bede omitted the earlier Life's
association of Cuthbert's leaving Melrose with anachoresis (see Vitae S. Cuthberti Anonymae
3.1, ed. . Colgrave, Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert [Oxford, 1940], 95, hereafter VC A) and all
the negative language regarding the burdens of episcopacy and pastoral care (VCA 4.1 and
passim). Thus, Bede's Cuthbert leaves Melrose not to seek a hermit's life but because Abbot
Eata sends him to the monastery of Lindisfarne "in order that there also he might both teach
the rule of monastic perfection by his authority as prior and illustrate it by the example of his
virtue" (ut ibi quoque regul?m monachiae perfectionis et praepositi auctoritate doceret, et
exemplo uirtutis ostenderet), VCP eh. 16, trans. Colgrave, Two Lives, 207. For further discus
sion of Bede's revisions, see Clare Stancliffe, "Cuthbert and the Polarity Between Pastor and
Solitary," in St. Cuthbert, his Cult and his Community to AD 1200, ed. G. Bonner et al. (Wood
bridge, Suffolk: Boy dell, 1989), 21-44. Mary Clayton, "Hermits and the Contemplative Life
in Anglo-Saxon England," in Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints' Lives
and Their Contexts, ed. P. Szarmach (Albany, 1996), 155-56, notes the uniqueness of Bede's
views in contrast to the prevailing contemplative strain in Anglo-Saxon England in general.
VENERABLE BEDE 7
one arrived at through the active life, which for him included the ministry of
teaching.20 Bede returned often to this point, and always with the intention of
stressing the obligations of the active life. In one particularly startling instance,
he even went so far as to say that the pastoral activities Gregory the Great had
to undertake as pope in no way diminished his monastic perfectio but, on the
contrary, increased it far more than could a life of peaceful retirement.21
All this pokes holes in the view that Bede's was a life of monastic quies
sharply separated from religious and social exigencies outside the cloister.22 As
a thorough reading of his works reveals, Bede clearly felt that monastic ideals
and institutions should have a decisive impact on society at large. He did not
expect everyone to become a monk and preach the faith.23 Rather, in Olsen's
words, "his task, in his own monastic way, was to present a vision of man's
final end so that the values of the larger society could be reoriented towards that
final meeting with God."24 That vision, whose radically God-ward orientation
constitutes the basis for what Leonardi fittingly calls Bede's "mystic-monastic
spirituality,"25 was encapsulated in and communicated through his writings. Of
course, at a time when few could read and books were produced only with great
expense and effort, he could not have expected the general population to read
his writings. In particular, he appears to have been writing for a select group of
monastically trained religious who would in turn either instruct the laity or train
20E.g., Bede, VCP ch. 17: "At postquam in eodem monasterio multa annorum curricula
expleuit, tandem diu concupita, quaesita, ac perita solitudinis secreta, comitante praefati ab
batis sui simul et fratum gratia multum laetabundus adiit. Gaudebat namque quia de longa
perfectione conuersationis actiuae, ad otium diuinae speculationis iam mereretur ascendere."
My emphasis. Cf. Horn. 1.9 (CCL 122:64, lines 151-74).
21 HE 2.1 (124-25): "Haec quidem sanctus uir ex magnae humilitatis intentione dicebat; sed
nos credere decet nihil eum monachicae perfectionis perdidisse occasione curae pastoralis,
immo potiorem tune sumisisse profectum de labore conuersionis multorum quam de propriae
quondam quiete conuersationis habuerat."
22 Walter Goffart's "Bede and the Ghost of Bishop Wilfrid," in Narrators of Barbarian
History: Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon (Princeton, 1988), 235-328,
and "Bede's Agenda and Ours," Haskins Society Journal 2 (1990): 29-45, provide a most
cogent corrective to this older view. See also Thacker, "Monks" (n. 18 above), 153-54.
23 See, however, Horn. 1.7 (CCL 122:49, lines 99-117), where Bede states that all the faithful
are called upon to fulfill the role of pastores.
24Olsen, "Bede to Anglo-Saxon Presence" (n. 5 above), 318.
25 The basic idea that Leonardi wishes to convey by this cumbersome phrase has nothing to
do with the late-medieval associations encoded in the term "mystic." Leonardi's meaning is
quite simple ? a "mystic-monastic" spirituality has to do with the way monks appropriate
faith. Leonardi describes the core of this spirituality as consisting in the idea that "La vita e
la storia umane hanno valore solo in quanto sono volte all'unione mistica, all'incontro con
Dio" ("Il Venerabile Beda," . 5 above, 617). Olsen, "Bede to Anglo-Saxon Presence" ( . 5
above), 307-10, endorses this typology.
8 TRADITIO
others to do so. In his writings, these rectores or teachers would find the
essential doctrines of Scripture and the fathers distilled in a plainer, less recondite
form.27 Bede was well aware that the works of the fathers were often far too
complex to be grasped by everyone. Thus in his Commentary on Genesis he set
out to consolidate the opinions of Basil, Ambrose, and Augustine, since only
the most wealthy could afford their books, and only the most learned could
understand them. It was to the "novice reader" (rudem . . . lector em), he ex
plained, that his commentary was addressed.28 Similarly, in commenting on the
Apocalypse, he deliberately condensed his discussion to compensate for what
he referred to as the indolent reading habits of his people, explaining that "open
brevity can be better fixed in the memory than excessive argument."29 Such
examples underscore Bede's overriding concern to produce texts that would be
accessible to an audience less learned than himself, yet would at the same time
fulfill the fundamental aim of "appropriating patristic exegesis to an Anglo
Saxon Church which needed to be drawn into the Christian mainstream."30
26This thesis has been argued forcefully by Thacker, "Bede's Ideal," 130-31 and "Monks,"
152-59 (n. 18 above). It has been widely accepted, e.g., Foot, "Monastic Communities" (n.
18 above).
27Carroll, Spiritual Teachings (n. 4 above), 43. Such orthodox knowledge was for Bede a
fundamental prerequisite for the teacher, e.g., De tempi. 1 (CCL 119A:155, lines 340-43):
"Nam frustra sibi officium doctoris usurp?t qui discretionem catholicae fidei ignor?t, ?eque
sanctuarium domino sed ruinam sibi aedificant qui docere alios regul?m quam ipsi non didicere
conantur." Cf. In Ez. et Neem. 2 (CCL 119A:303, lines 629-32).
2SIn Gen., Praef. (CCL 118A:1, lines 18-29): "Verum quia haec tarn copiosa tarn sunt alta
ut vix nisi a locupletioribus tot uolumina adquir?, uix tarn 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. Nec segnior in exequendo quae iubere es dignatus extiti, quin potius statim
perspectis patrum uoluminibus collegi ex his ac duobus in libellis distinxi, quae rudem adhuc
possent instituere lectorem, quibus eruditus ad altiorem disceret fortioremque maiorum ascen
dere lectionem." Bede's terminology of the rudes and eruditi may owe something to Augus
tine's classic discussion of the two classes of catechumens in his De catech?zand?s rudibus,
5-6 (CCL 46:129-31) and 8-9 (CCL 46:133-36); for orientation, see Brian Stock, Augustine
the Reader (Cambridge, Mass., 1996), 186-90.
29Exp. Apoc, Epist. ad Eusebium (PL 93:134): "Nostrae siquidem, id est, Anglorum, gentis
inertiae consulendum ratus, quae et non dudum, id est, temporibus beati Gregorii papae, semen
accepit fidei, et idem quantum ad lectionem tepide satis excoluit, non solum dilucidare sensus,
verum sententias quoque stringere, disposui. Nam ei aperta magis brevitas quam disputatio
prolixa memoriae solet fingi." My translation.
30 Simon Coates, "Bede and the Spiritual Authority of the Monk-Bishop," Journal of Eccle
siastical History 47 (1996): 604.
VENERABLE BEDE 9
However, although "following in the footsteps of the fathers," as he liked to

put it,31 Bede did not set out simply to convey doctrinal truths. At times, he
was obligated to explain such abstract theological concepts as the hypostatic
union to preserve orthodox belief and guard against heresy.32 All the same,
theological speculation was not his main objective. The overriding subject that
concerned him was theology as praxis ? that is, how believers go about living
lives that exemplify their belief. It is this practical, life-oriented strain so promi
nent in Bede's writings that necessitates a serious investigation of his spirituality
and warrants seeing him as a spiritual writer. We have already glimpsed how
this strain manifested itself in the hagiographies and histories. For Bede, the
lives of the great saints were significant not only for their heroic asceticism and
miraculous powers; their lives also exemplified the active ideals of faith, hope,
and charity that all Christians should strive to embody.33 Bede had firmly insisted
that the virtues of the active life were incumbent upon all34 and hence used these
genres to illustrate through saintly example the need for an actualized, lived
faith.
The commentaries and homilies, on the other hand, readily exhibit the same
practical life-oriented focus. Bedan exegesis is a large and complex subject, and
I cannot hope to treat it exhaustively here.35 For our purposes, it is enough to
stress Bede's abiding concern to draw spiritual and moral lessons from the
biblical text.36 Ad litteram exegesis figures only secondarily in his oeuvre. For
him, the greater exegetical task was to extract the spiritual truths latent in the
biblical narrative and urge that they be put into practice. Again and again he
reminds his audience that doctrine is useless unless it is concretized in deeds.
31 In Sam., Prol. (CCL 119:10, lines 52-54): "Nunc ex ordine iniunctum opus superno solum
fidens auxilio et patrum uestigia sequens aggrediar." Cf. In Reg. Quaest., Prol. (CCL 119:293,
lines 22-30); In Cant., Prol. (CCL 119B:180, lines 501-4); Exp. Act. Apost., Praef (CCL 121:3,
lines 9-10); Horn. 2.11 (CCL 122:258, lines 191-92); De temp. rat. 5 (CCL 123B:287, line
86).
32In Luc. 2 (CCL 120:118-19, lines 742-47).
33This emphasis on the saint as holy example runs throughout Bede's works, e.g., In Reg.
Quaest. 30 (CCL 119:321, lines 32-36): "Arma uero quibus contra diabolum repugnantes
libertat?m a Deo nobis donatam defendamus quae sunt alia nisi eloquia scripturarum in quibus
et ipsius domini et sanctorum eius exemplis quo ordine bella uitiorum superari debeant luce
clarius discimus?" Cf. De tempi. 1 (CCL 119A:164, lines 711-21); In Sam. 1 (CCL 119:54,
lines 1800-1806); In Ez. et Neem. 2 (CCL 119A:315, lines 1118-28); In Prov. Sal. 1.2 (CCL
119B:37, lines 155-60); In Cant. 3 (CCL 119B:253, lines 340-43); Exp. Act. Apost. 9.41 (CCL
121:48, lines 134-36); Horn. 1.14 (CCL 122:98, lines 97-104). For a recent analysis of Bede's
use of saints, see William McCready, Miracles and the Venerable Bede (Toronto, 1994), 124
53.
34Horn 1.9 (CCL 122:65, lines 175-76): "Namque actiua non solis in coenobio monachis
sed et cuncto ut diximus populo Dei generaliter ingredienda proponitur."
35 For bibliography, see n, 2 above.
36Olsen, "Bede to Anglo-Saxon Presence" (n. 5 above), 343.
10 TRADITIO
"He alone truly believes," he wrote in his Commentary on James, "who carries
out in deed what he believes."37 This is, of course, a common Christian teaching,
yet Bede returns to it so often as to make the theme especially central to his
thought. To his mind, this teaching is omnipresent in Scripture; even the un
leavened bread Aaron used to consecrate the tabernacle betokens the need to
perform good works.38 Many have found Bede's allegorizing excessive. At bot
tom, however, his objective was utterly practical ? to elucidate the basic scrip
tural themes he believed were necessary for right living. So important was this
aim of his exegesis that he did not hesitate to depart from the fathers if he
thought their interpretations of a given verse overlooked a relevant application
to life.39 A good example of this occurs in his Commentary on Genesis. Com
menting on the offerings that Cain and Abel made to God, Bede held that Cain's
offering was not rejected because he was a farmer and offered insensate vege
tables. To Bede what mattered was less the offering itself than the condition of
the heart of the one who offers:
For I think that Cain did not sin either in that he did the work of a farmer or in
that he offered a gift to God from the fruits of the earth. Rather, because he labored
less with perfect piety in doing the cares of the flesh, he came to offer gifts to God
with less perfect devotion. . . . For it does not say "And the Lord had respect for
Abel's offerings and Abel himself; but He had no respect for Cain's offerings and
Cain himself." Rather, it testifies that the person who made the offering was either
acceptable or not acceptable to God, and then that the offerings were either respected
or not respected.40
It struck Bonner that the significance of this exegesis lay solely in the fact that
31 Epist. Cath. (CCL 121:197, line 154): ". . . tantummodo uere credat qui exercet operando
quod credit." Trans. Hurst, Catholic Epistles (n. 1 above), 28. On this theme, see esp. Horn.
1.21 (CCL 122:150, lines 94-96), 2.16 (CCL 122:300, lines 365-81), 2.17 (CCL 122:305,
lines 148-51), and 2.24 (CCL 122:361, lines 102-4); Exp. Act. Apost. 3.10 (CCL 121:24, lines
41-43); De tab. 1 (CCL 119A:27, lines 883-88) and 2 (CCL 119A:50, lines 325-39); De
tempi. 2 (CCL 119A:199, lines 311-16).
38De tab. 3 (CCL 119A:124, lines 1225-28): "Conspersa sunt autem siue lita oleo crustula
et laga?a ut ammoneremur opera habere non solum a fermento malitiae et nequitiae castigata
sed et pinguedine caritatis diuinis digna conspectibus."
39The excellent papers by Benedicta Ward, '"In medium duorum animalium': Bede and
Jerome on the Canticle of Habakkuk," Studia Patristica 25 (1993): 189-93, and J. . Hart
Hasler, "Bede's Use of Patristic Sources: The Transfiguration," Studia Patristica 28 (1993):
197-204, argue for a similar conclusion.
40In Gen. 2 (CCL 118A:74, lines 42-46, 55-59): "Non enim in hoc peccasse Cain arbitror
quod uel opus exercuit agricolae mu?era Deo de fructibus terrae obtulit, sed quod minus per
fecta pietate in agenda carnis cura laborauerit, minus deuotione ad offerenda Deo mu?era
accesserit. . . . Non enim ait, 'Et respexit Dominus ad mu?era Abel et ad ipsum; ad mu?era
uero Cain et ipsum non respexit.' Sed primo personam offerentis acceptam Deo uel non acceptam,
deinde mu?era respecta uel non respecta, esse testatur." My translation. This exegesis was per
haps inspired by Gregory's persistent stress on the pure intention, e.g., Moralia in lob 1.36.54,
ed. M. Adri??n (CCL 143:55-56, lines 109-22); 4.10.17 (CCL 143:175, lines 16-29).
VENERABLE BEDE 11
it "ignores the view of Ambrose" who "was, for Bede, a great authority."41 Yet
the reason why he ignored Ambrose's view carries equal significance. Seeing a
point of great value in the story with direct implications for daily life, Bede
wished to make them quite clear: without purity of heart, we cannot expect to
find favor with God, no matter what we offer Him.
Of course, such a practical, life-oriented focus did not originate with Bede.
Of all the fathers, the one in whom it is most clearly instanced is Gregory the
Great. Indeed, if Bede followed in the footsteps of the fathers, he undoubtedly
did so wearing Gregory's shoes. In 1931 M. L. W. Laistner first noted Bede's
general debt to Gregory.42 However, twenty-nine years later Paul Meyvaert,
while readily accepting Laistner's view and illustrating further the extent of
Bede's debt to Gregory, spoke only cautiously of the influence of Gregory's
spirituality on Bede.43 Part of Meyvaert's reserve stemmed from the almost
complete lack of adequate critical editions of Bede's work at that time. The
existence of such editions today has indeed made it easier for us to see just how
extensively Bede did borrow from Gregory.44 As a result, we can approach the
question of influence with less caution than Meyvaert was forced to do in 1964.
Indeed, while there may never have been any doubt surrounding his claim that
"from the beginning of his literary career the Jarrow monk was already well
familiar with the pope's works and was reading them with an attention to style
as well as content,"45 his tentative hypothesis concerning a "spiritual affinity"
between Bede and Gregory can today be established as a certainty.46
There is no question that Bede was well schooled in the teachings of all four
major Latin fathers.47 But when one considers the overall shape of his thought,
41 Gerald Bonner, "Bede and Medieval Civilization," Anglo-Saxon England 2 (1973): 75

76. Ambrose, Cain et Abel 1 (PL 14:329): "'Et factum est, post dies obtulit Cain ex fructibus
terrae munus Domino' (Gen. 4:3). Duplex culpa: una quod post dies obtulit, altera quod ex
fructibus, non ex primis fructibus."
42M. L. W. Laistner, "The Library of the Venerable Bede," in Bede: His Life, Times and
Writings: Essays in Commemoration of the Twelfth Centenary of his Death, ed. A. Hamilton
Thompson (Oxford, 1935), 248-49.
43 Paul Meyvaert, Bede and Gregory the Great (Newcastle, 1964), 14.
44Bede appears to have known all Gregory's major works, namely the Moralia in lob, the
homilies on Ezekiel and the Gospels, the Dialogues, and the Pastoral Care, in addition to
several of the letters and the Antiphonarius Liber. See J. D. A. Ogilvy, Books Known to the
English, 597-1066 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), 148-53. Just how well he knew these works is
becoming clearer and clearer to us. Hurst's recent translation of Gregory's homilies (Kala
mazoo, 1990), for instance, records Bede's numerous borrowings and reveals that his debt to
this work is more extensive than previously imagined.
45 Meyvaert, "Bede and Gregory the Great" (n. 43 above), 14.
46Ibid., 19.
47 See Laistner, "Library" (n. 42 above), 263-66, for a list of works of these fathers known
to Bede.
12 TRADITIO
that is to say, not just its content but its style too, there can be little doubt that
his greatest debt was to Gregory. Gregory's concern with and approach to the
spiritual life was unique among the Latin fathers. In contrast to the doctrinal
polemics of Augustine and Ambrose or the grammatical exegesis of Jerome, the
sole question that interested Gregory was the spiritual life, and the single guide
to understanding that life was Scripture.48 Scripture was a door, as one of Greg
ory's favorite metaphors had it, because through it we arrive at the truths of the
faith and an understanding of how we as Christians ought to behave.49 Employing
a predominantly allegorical brand of exegesis couched in a poetic, imagistic,
highly experiential style,50 Gregory set out in his exegetical works to penetrate
the deeper mysteries of Scripture in order to make their meaning clear to all the
faithful. In the process, he returned again and again to a configuration of practical
themes dealing above all with the Christian life ? the need for prayer, re
pentance, charity, and other ascetic values and practices;51 the proper relation
between the active and contemplative lives;52 the importance of compunction;53
48For discussion of Gregory's spirituality, see Robert Markus, Gregory the Great and His
World (Cambridge, 1997), 41-45; Carol Straw, Gregory the Great: Perfection in Imperfection
(Berkeley, 1988); Joan Peterson, "The Biblical and Monastic Roots of the Spirituality of Pope
Gregory the Great," in Monastic Studies: The Continuity of Tradition, ed. J. Loades (Bangor,
1990), 31-41; Grover Zinn, "Exegesis and Spirituality in the Writings of Gregory the Great,"
in Gregory the Great: A Symposium, ed. J. Cavadini (Notre Dame, 1995), 168-80; and Jean
Leclercq, "The Teaching of St. Gregory" in The Spirituality of the Middle Ages, ed. J. Leclercq,
F. Vandenbroucke, and L. Bouyer, trans. Benedictines of Holme Eden Abbey, Carlisle, vol. 2
(New York, 1968), 3-30.
49Gregory, Homiliae in Hiezechihelem 2.3.18, ed. M. Adri??n (CCL 142:250, lines 425-43)
and 2.5.3 (CCL 142:277, lines 68-81). See also ibid., 1.6.18 (CCL 142:78, lines 378-80), and
Moralia in lob 28.8.19 (CCL 143B:1410, lines 28-32). Cf. Bede, De tempi. 2 (CCL 119A.229,
lines 1469-70).
50On these aspects of Gregory's style, see Francis Clark, "St. Gregory the Great, Theologian
of Christian Experience," American Benedictine Review 39 (1988): 261-76.
51 Gregory powerfully illustrated the need for such practices in his Dialogues, through the
examples of Italian saints such as Benedict.
52On the two lives in Gregory, see esp. Moralia in lob 5.4.5 (CCL 143:222, lines 1-21),
5.36.66 (CCL 143:265-66, lines 50-69) and 6.37.60-61 (CCL 143:329-31, lines 160-215);
Homiliae in Hiezechihelem 1.3.12-13 (CCL 142:40-41, lines 219-74), 2.2.7-14 (CCL
142:229-35, lines 165-373).
53On compunction, see esp. Moralia in lob 23.21.40-43 (CCL 143B: 1174-77); Homiliae in
Hiezechihelem 2.10.20-21 (CCL 142:395-96, lines 531-55); Dialogues 3.34.2-5, ed. A. de
Vog?? (SC 260:400-402, lines 1-48); and Homiliarium in Evangelia 1.17.10-11 (PL 76:1143
44). For overviews of this theme, see Joseph de Guibert, "La componction du coeur," Revue
d'asc?tique et de mystique 15 (1934): 255-40; Kathyrn Sullivan, "Compunction," Worship 35
(1961): 227-35; and Sandra McEntire, "The Doctrine of Compunction from Bede to Margery
Kempe," in The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England: Exeter Symposium IV, ed. M. Glas
scoe (Cambridge, 1987), 77-89.
VENERABLE BEDE 13
the obligation of rectores and clerici to teach by example as well as by word;54

and above all the duty to exemplify Christian faith through right living.55
Now, it is hardly coincidental that all these themes occupy a central place in
Bede's thought too, just as it is hardly coincidental that Bede expressed them
in an exegetical style that, if less poetic than Gregory's, still has strong affinities
with it. Bede had read Gregory thoroughly and was undoubtedly drawn to the
mode of spiritual writing exhibited in the pope's major works. The combination
of biblical commentary and practical teaching they exhibited furnished Bede
with a kind of writing well suited to the needs of his own culture, a culture that
needed above all to understand how the Christian faith was to be lived. Other
fathers, notably Cassian, had dwelt on this subject extensively. Yet none of them
had mapped out its practical concerns in quite the way Gregory the exegete and
homilist had, by commenting on the allegorical sense of Scripture with a steady
eye to its immediate application to life, what R. A. Markus has aptly called
Gregory's "scriptural spirituality."56 This aspect of Gregory's thinking, along
with his scrupulous orthodoxy, seems especially to have impressed Bede, for he
was everywhere solicitous about making it his own. Thus he anchored his re
flections on the spiritual life firmly in Scripture and insisted upon a monastic
pastorate dedicated to defending the faith and converting unbelievers, just as
Gregory had done before him.
Strong as these similarities are, however, they should not mislead us into
missing a key difference between Bede's and Gregory's spirituality. However
practical the bent of Gregory's thought, he is still a good deal more speculative
than Bede. Gregory gave far more attention than Bede to the subtle interior
dynamics of the spiritual life, structuring his discussions around a complex
polarity of "inner" versus "outer" that has been shown to permeate the whole
fabric of his thinking.57 Though spiritual growth presupposed a devout Christian
54 Gregory dedicated an entire work, the Pastoral Care, to this all-important theme. See
additionally Moralia in lob 23.1.8 (CCL 143B:1149, lines 222-53), 30.11.47-48 (CCL
143B:1522-23, lines 5-66), and 31.24.44 (CCL 143B:1581, lines 78-109). For discussion, see
Robert Markus, "Gregory the Great's rector and his Genesis," in Gr?goire le Grand, ed. J.
Fontaine et al. (Paris, 1986), 137-46; and Straw, Gregory the Great (n. 48 above), 194-212.
55Gregory, Homiliarium in Evangelia 1.18.1 (PL 76:1150): "Hi perfecto verba Dei non
audiunt, qui haec exercere opere contemnunt." On this theme, which had such a decisive
influence on Bede, see esp. Moralia in lob 19.7.13 (CCL 143A:965, lines 10-32); Homiliarium
in Evangelia 1.9.1 (PL 76:1106) and 2.36.9 (PL 76:1271); Homiliae in Hiezechihelem 1.10.7
(CCL 142:147, lines 103-5).
56Markus, Gregory the Great and His World (n. 48 above), 39; see also 41-45.
57 See P. Aubin, "Int?riorit? and ext?riorit? dans les Moralia in Job de Saint Gr?goire le
Grand," Recherches de science religieuse 62 (1974): 117-66; Claude Dagens, Saint Gr?goire
le Grand: Culture et experience chr?tiennes (Paris, 1977), 133-244; and Bernard McGinn,
"Gregory the Great: A Contemplative in Action," in The Growth of Mysticism (New York,
1994), 34-79.
14 TRADITIO
life cleansed by good deeds and not a little by God's grace, the fundamental
askesis for Gregory, as for Augustine before him, was a radical turning inward
to explore the depths of the interior self.58 Some measure of this dimension of
Gregory's thought may be glimpsed in a well-known passage from his Homilies
in Ezekiel:
The first step is to collect oneself back to the self, the second to inspect what has
been collected, the third to rise above the self and to direct one's attention to the
contemplation of the invisible maker. But he by no means collects himself to himself
unless he has first learned to suppress the representations of earthly and heavenly
images by means of his mind's eye and cast out and tread down whatever arises in
his mind in connection with corporeal sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste, in order
that he may seek himself within to the extent that he is free of these things.59
I will have more to say later about how Gregory's teaching on contemplation
compares with Bede's. My point here is that while much in Bede lets us know
that he in no way disagreed with Gregory's formulation in this passage, he never
explicitly wrote anything like it. Bede showed little interest in exploring the
interior workings and slippery paradoxes of the spiritual life that so captivated
Gregory. Whereas Gregory sought both to encourage right behavior and to un
cover its dark, mysterious roots in human consciousness, Bede by contrast was
concerned almost entirely with the former. Indeed, as we will see, he conse
quently tended to select passages from Gregory that enjoined actualizing faith
in deeds, while neglecting almost entirely the pope's more introspective and
mystical reflections.
Bede's selective use of Gregory is, I suggest, itself a telling register of the
Jarrow monk's spirituality. There were in effect many Gregorys: the pope, the
spiritual writer, the missionary, the mystic, to name only a few of his more
prominent personas. Bede no doubt acknowledged and respected Gregory in
each of these capacities. As a writer, however, he was most drawn to the pastoral
side of Gregory's character, because this Gregory treated those themes that
Bede's Anglo-Saxon audience needed most to hear. Bede thus set out to distill
the works of Gregory and other fathers into simplified, clearly articulated teach
ings that the faithful could readily grasp and put into action. While he borrowed
much from his predecessors in the process, he did not hesitate to select, adapt,
58McGinn, "Contemplative in Action" (n. 57 above), 57.

59Gregory, Homiliae in Hiezechihelem 2.5.9 (CCL 142:281-82, lines 229-37): "Primus ergo
gradus est ut se ad se colligat, secundus ut uideat qualis est collecta, tertius ut super semetipsam
surgat ac se contemplationi auctoris inuisibilis intendendo subiciat. Sed se ad se nullo modo
colligit, nisi prius didicerit terrenarum atque caelestium imaginum phantasmata ab oculo men
tis compescere, quicquid de uisu, quiquid de auditu, quiquid de odoratu, quiquid de tactu et
gustu corporeo cogitationi eius occurrerit, respuere atque calcare, quatenus talem se quaerat
intus, qualis sine istis est." My translation. Cf. Moralia in lob 5.31.55 (CCL 143:257, lines
64-82).
venerable bede 15
and even suggest perspectives different from theirs that would better meet the
needs of the audience he was addressing. How these aims informed his teaching
on prayer will be our subject for the remainder of this article.
QVAE NOBIS SINT EX EIVSDEM LECTIONIS IMITATICENE GERENDA:

Bede's Spirituality of Prayer
The many instances where Scripture deals with prayer gave Bede the exegete
and homilist ample opportunity to treat the subject in genres designed to edify
the faithful. Both testaments provide detailed instructions on how one should
pray, notably in the Psalms and Lord's Prayer, as well as numerous examples
of individuals at prayer ? Abraham, Hannah, David, the apostles, and most
importantly Christ Himself. In treating this material, Bede sought, like any good
medieval exegete, to explain to his audience both the literal sense of the biblical
text and the deeper, mystical arcana beneath it. But his real interest when dis
cussing prayer was tropological. Here especially, what Scripture said had to find
fulfillment on the existential level of the present lives of his audience. This
governing tropological orientation can be discerned in the exordium of one of
his homilies dealing with prayer. "There is no need," Bede declares, "to labor
to explain here the well-known mysteries of the faith which are related in the
gospel account, but rather to tell briefly what we should be doing in imitation
of this reading" (my emphasis).60 The homily goes on to correlate the women
who prepared spices to bring to Christ's tomb with Christians who purge their
hearts of pointless thoughts before devoting themselves to prayer, so that:
at the time of prayer we are able to admit nothing unclean into our minds, and to
think of nothing that concerns transitory natures beyond what we are making our
entreaty for, and to remember who it is to whom we are supplicating, according to
the example of him who said: My heart is prepared, O God, my heart is prepared;
I will sing and say my psalm to the Lord. One who enters a church to pray, and
neglects to drive away from his mind its usual superfluous thoughts while he [pours
forth] his words of entreaty, is like a person seeking the Lord without bringing with
him the spices he has prepared.61
60Horn. 2.10 (CCL 122:246, lines 2-5): ". . . neque exponendo laborare opus est ubi notis
sima fidei nostrae mysteria euangelicis replicantur oraculis sed breuiter intimare quae nobis
sint ex eiusdem lectionis imitatione gerenda." Trans. Martin and Hurst, Homilies ( . 1 above)
2:88.
61 Horn. 2.10 (CCL 122:247, lines 45-52): ". .. tempore orandi nil sordidum mente recip?re
nil rerum labentium cogitare nulla praeter ea quae precamur et ipsum cui supplicamus me
minere nouerimus iuxta exemplum eius qui ait: Paratum cor meum Deus paratum cor meum
cantabo et psalmum dicam domino. Nam qui ad orandum ecclesiam ingressus inter uerba
obsecrationis consuetudinem superfluae cogitationis ab animo repellere neglegit quasi do
minum quaerens minus parata secum aromata detulit." Trans. Martin and Hurst, Homilies ( .
1 above) 2:89-90.
16 TRADITIO
As the repeated reference to his audience signals, Bede gave the meaning of this
passage an immediate application to the present worshiping community. This part
of Luke's narrative contained a model for prayer, and Bede's primary exegetical
task was to make it explicit to his listeners so that they might put it into practice.62
By virtue of this tropological concern to enkindle a prayerful spirit within the
audience, Bede's commentaries and homilies present what I would call a "spir
ituality" of prayer.63 Instead of dwelling on the metaphysical implications or
conceptual structures of prayer, as later writers such as Richard of St. Victor
did, they aim to adduce from Scripture practical examples of true prayer and
urge that they be put into action. They treat prayer, in other words, not as an
idea to be understood but as an ideal to be actualized in the lives of all Christians.
It is precisely this emphasis on the life of the one praying that distinguishes a
"spirituality" from a "theology" of prayer, which targets the informing ideas and
underlying structures of the praying experience. Bede had little interest in the
latter, or at least refrained from expressing it in his writings. In this he was
typically monastic, viewing prayer not as an intermittent experience but as part
and parcel of a life lived for God. Any of the monastic rules Bede would have
known would have likely inculcated in him such an understanding of prayer.
Benedict, to take just one example, required that his monks "bow frequently in
prayer" (orationi frequenter incumbere), meaning not that they should bow in
prayer every so often, but that they should pray continually in keeping with the
ideal of Scripture.64 Prayer and life should form a unity, a unity of "prayerful
62In a similar vein, Martin, "Two Worlds" (n. 2 above), has argued that Bede uses a "ty
pological style of thinking ... in order to bridge the gap between the world of the gospel story
and the world of his listeners" (30). For a comparable analysis that discusses this homiletic
technique in relation to other medieval writers, see Marie Anne Mayeski, "Reading the Word
in a Eucharistie Context: The Shape and Methods of Early Medieval Exegesis," in Medieval
Liturgy: A Book of Essays, ed. Lizette Larson-Miller (New York, 1997), 61-84.
63 The phrase "spirituality of prayer" should not conjure up notions of a systematic teaching
or methods of prayer, as Bede had no intention of proposing any. My use of the phrase is
purely heuristic, intended to isolate the unity of prayer and life at stake in Bede's teaching.
64Benedicti Regula, 4.56, ed. Rudolph Hanslik (CSEL 75:32). On the meaning of Benedict's
phrase, see Adalbert de Vog??, "Orationi frequenter incumbere: Une invitation a la pri?re
continuelle," Revue d'asc?tique et de mystique 41 (1965): 467-72; and Terrence G. Kardong,
ed., Benedict's Rule: A Translation and Commentary (Collegeville, Minn., 1996), 91. Just how
familiar Bede was with the Benedictine Rule has been hotly debated. The consensus now
seems to be that while many rules were known in Bede's time (see Hist. Abb. ch. 11, 374-76),
and that Benedict's was certainly one of them, it by no means monopolized monastic practice;
on this, see Henry Mayr-Harting, The Venerable Bede, the Rule of St. Benedict, and Social
Class (Jarrow, 1976); Patrick Wormald, "Bede and Benedict Biscop," in Famulus Christi:
Essays in Commemoration of the Thirteenth Centenary of the Birth of the Venerable Bede, ed.
Gerald Bonner (London, 1976), 141-69; A. G. P. Van der Walt, "Reflections on the Benedictine
Rule in Bede's Homiliary," Journal of Ecclesiastical History 37 (1986): 367-76; Mechthild
Gretsch, Die Regula Sancii Benedicti in England und ihre altenglische ?bersetzung (Munich,
1973); and Sarah Foot, "What Was an Early Anglo-Saxon Minster," in Monastic Studies, ed.
venerable bede 17
living."65 This unity of prayer and life is essentially what Bede sought to effect
in himself and in his brethren, as the following examples from his commentaries
and homilies will show.
Instar orationvm: Bede's Definition of Prayer
Our first example concerns the way Bede defined prayer. This process was a
necessary exegetical undertaking aimed not at grammatical or theological inquiry
but at providing his listeners with a working definition as the basis for practice.
As was so often the case for later medieval writers, however, the task did not
involve producing a definition ex nihilo but choosing among ones already extant
in the works of the fathers. In addition to the monastic literature on prayer, there
was a distinct body of early patristic texts dealing with the subject,66 originating
in the second century with Clement of Alexandria's gnostic reflections and
stretching into the third with the catachetical treatises of Tertullian, Origen, and
Cyprian.67 While no direct evidence suggests that Bede knew this early body of
patristic writing on prayer at first hand, it is certain that he knew the works of
Augustine, Cassian, Cassiodorus, and Gregory the Great, in whom the ideas of
these earlier writers had been preserved. In these early treatises, prayer in the
strict sense was understood as an offering made to God in the external form of
petitions, thanksgiving, and intercessions noted by Paul in 1 Tim. 2:1.68 More
broadly, it was conceived as a conscious directing or raising of the heart or mind
toward God. This latter sense of prayer, though latent in the thought of the
earliest writers, received its clearest articulation later on, particularly in the
J. Loades (Bangor, 1990), 51, who reminds us that uniform observance of Benedict's rule in
Anglo-Saxon England was a tenth-century development. My invocation of Benedict, in any
case, is meant only to illustrate the general monastic understanding of prayer that would have
influenced Bede.
65The phrase is Michael Casey's, "Saint Benedict's Approach to Prayer," Cistercian Studies
15 (1980): 327-43, at 331.
66On this tradition, see Joseph A. Jungmann, Christian Prayer through the Centuries, trans.
John Coyne (New York, 1978), 7-57; Paul F. Bradshaw, Daily Prayer in the Early Church: A
Study of the Origin and Early Development of the Divine Office, Alcuin Club Collections 63
(London, 1981); Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition, A History of
Christian Doctrine 1 (Chicago, 1971), 137-40; Eric G. Jay, Origen's Treatise on Prayer: Trans
lation and Notes with an Account of the Practice and Doctrine of Prayer from the New Tes
tament to Origen (London, 1954), 3-71.
67Clement, Stromateis (ca. 200), Tertullian, De oratione (ca. 200), Origen, Peri Euches (ca.
233), and Cyprian, De dominica oratione (ca. 251). For discussion and bibliography, see J.
Quasten, Patrology, 4 vols. (Westminster, Md., 1994) 1:12-15, and 2:66-69, 296-98, 353-55;
and Robert L. Simpson, Interpretation of Prayer in the Early Church (Philadelphia, 1965).
681 Tim. 2:1: "Obsecro igitur primum omnium fieri obsecrationes, orationes, postulationes,
gratiarum actiones pro omnibus hominibus." These categories were later developed by Origen,
Peri Euches, 14.2-6, Origen: Prayer and Exhortation to Martyrdom, trans. John J. O'Meara,
Ancient Christian Writers 19 (New York, 1954), 53-57.
18 TRADITIO
writings of Augustine and Gregory. As Augustine's memorable phrase has it,

"Prayer is the affectionate reaching of the mind toward God."69
While these senses of prayer do appear in Bede,70 he never explicitly defined
prayer in such terms. Perhaps they were so clear as to need no explanation. On
the other hand, such formulations were not entirely problem-free, if only because
it was not immediately clear how these senses could accommodate the New
Testament injunction to "pray without ceasing."71 How, that is, could one always
be engaged in saying prayers of petition or thanksgiving, or in directing the
mind to God, when the exigencies of daily life incessantly and invariably got
in the way? For monks, the recitation of the daily Office provided at least a
partial answer to the question. But how was continual prayer to be achieved
after the Office was through? And even more problematical, how was it to be
achieved by those outside the cloister, who lacked the means provided by the
Office?
In response to this crux, Bede argued that prayer must be thought of as more
than just vocal recitation or some interior focusing of the mind. It must also
include the quality of our way of life, the deeds we perform as Christians.
Commenting on the injunction of Luke 18:1 that "we ought to pray always and
not fail," he asks, "But who is able thus to pray always and without fail or to
insist on prayers without respite so that one has time neither for eating or sleep
ing?" and answers:
Either he who does not cease to praise and beseech the Lord daily with psalms and
customary prayers in canonical offices according to the rite of ecclesiastical tradition
is to be said to pray always, and this because the Psalmist says, / will praise the
Lord at all times, his praise will be in my mouth; or certainly everything that the
just man does and says according to God ought to be reckoned as prayer. For, since
a just man does what is just without intermission, he will also pray without respite
nor will he ever cease from prayer, unless he ceases to be just.72
69 Augustine, Sermo 9: "Oratio namque est mentis ad Deum affectuosa intentio"; cited in
Thomas A. Hand, St. Augustine on Prayer (Dublin, 1963), 16, . 58. Cf. Gregory, Moralia in
Job 16.20.25 (CCL 143A:813, lines 1-2): "Ad Deum faciem leuare, est cor ad sublimia in
uestiganda attollere."
70On prayer as a raising of the mind, see esp. Exp. Act. Apost. 2 (CCL 121:18, lines 105
10). On prayer in the strict sense of petitions and the like, see Carroll's discussion, Spiritual
Teachings (n. 4 above), esp. 198-99.
711 Thess. 5:16-18: "Semper gaudete. Sine intermissione orate. In omnibus gratias agite:
haec est enim voluntas Dei in Christo Iesu in omnibus vobis." Cf. Luke 11:1, 18:1; Eph. 6:18;
1 Tim. 2:8.
72In Luc. 5 (CCL 120:322, lines 1051-60): "Aut ergo dicendum est eum semper orare et
non deficere qui canonicis horis cotidie iuxta ritum ecclesiasticae traditionis psalmodiis pre
cibusque consuetis dominum laudare et rogare non desistit et hoc esse quod psalmista dicebat,
Benedicam dominum in omni tempore, semper laus eius in ore meo, aut certe omnia quae iustus
secundum Deum gerit et dicit ad orationem esse reputanda quia enim iustus sine intermissione
quae iusta sunt agit per hoc sine intermissione justus orabit nec umquam ab oratione cessabit,
nisi justus esse d?sist?t." My translation.
VENERABLE BEDE 19
Similarly, in his exegesis of Hannah's prayer in 1 Sam. 2:1, he insisted that far
more is at stake than mere vocal prayer:
Clearly we should understand that all the acts of one who is concerned with divine
obligation, and all the deeds or sayings one does and says according to God, should
be considered a part of prayer. For if prayer is thought to be only what we commonly
know [by the term], neither will Hannah be seen to have prayed in these words, nor
will any of the just pray without ceasing in accordance with the Apostle's injunction.
If indeed every act of the just man who lives in accordance with God should be
reckoned as prayer, since the just man conducts affairs that are just without ceasing,
for this reason the just man will pray without ceasing and will never cease from his
prayer, unless he stops being just.73
Elsewhere Bede went further by suggesting that even our "silences" constitute
prayer.74 As long as we live and act justly, every facet of our being is effectively
a continual prayer to God. For much as perfume will of itself send forth a sweet
fragrance, so too, Bede wrote, the "reputation of good deeds that the just perform
will rise on high to God, in the image of prayers (instar orationum)"15
Now the idea that prayer consists of just actions did not originate with Bede.
As far as I know, it first appears in Origen's treatise on prayer, Peri Euches,
written around 233 as an apology to refute the objections learned Christians of
the time had against prayer.76 It is, however, highly unlikely that Bede knew
73In Sam. 1 (CCL 119:21, lines 432-41): ". .. intellegendumque aperte omnes actus eius
qui in diuino uersatur officio et omnia gesta uel dicta quae secundum Deum gerit ac dicit ad
orationem esse reputanda. Si enim oratio hoc solum intellegatur quod communiter scimus,
neque Anna his uerbis orasse uidebitur neque ullus iustorum secundum apostoli mand?tum
sine intermissione orabit; si uero omnis actus iusti qui secundum Deum uiuit oratio reputetur
quia justus sine intermissione quae justa agit, per hoc sine intermissione justus orabit nec
umquam ab oratione cessabit, nisi justus esse d?sist?t. . . ." My translation. On this theme, see
also In Cant. 3 (CCL 119B:261, lines 673-95); In Hab. (CCL 119B:402, lines 595-99); In
Marc. 3 (CCL 120:550, lines 334-44); Horn. 1.7 (CCL 122:50, lines 159-67).
74Hom. 2.22 (CCL 122:344-45, lines 94-99): "Neque aliter apostolicum illud praeceptum
quo ait, sine intermissione orate, perficere ualemus nisi sic omnes actus sermones cogitatus
ipsa etiam silentia nostra ita domino donante dirigamus ut singula haec cum timoris illius
respectu temperentur ut cuneta perpetuae nostrae saluti proficua reddantur."
75In Cant. 3 (CCL 119B:261-62, lines 682-87): "... sed quia iusti sine intermissione quae
iusta sunt agunt per hoc sine intermissione iusti orant neque umquam ab oratione nisi peccatum
incurrerint cessant. Ideoque odor uestimentorum eorum sicut odor turis redolet quia fama
operum bonorum quae faciunt in diuino examine instar orationum ascendit." My translation.
76 Simpson, Interpretation of Prayer (n. 67 above), 32. In Peri Euches, 12.2, Origen writes:
"He prays without ceasing who joins prayer to works that must be performed, and good works
to his prayer. For virtuous works, or the carrying out of what is enjoined, form part of prayer.
It is only in this way that we can understand the injunction, pray without ceasing, as something
we can carry out; that is to say, if we regard the whole life of the saint as one great continuous
prayer" (trans. John J. O'Meara, Origen: Prayer and Exhortation to Martyrdom [n. 68 above],
46-47; translation modified). Though earlier Tertullian, De oratione, 28.4 (ed. G. F. Diercks,
CCL 1:273, lines 11-15), had stressed the conjunction of good works and prayer, he never
asserted that good works are prayers. Clement, Stromateis 1.1, had come closer in his treatment
20 TRADITIO
this work either whole or in part. From Cassiodorus's Expo sitio salmorum, a.
work that Bede knew well,77 he would have learned of Cyprian's treatise on the
Lord's Prayer, but Cassiodorus made no comparable mention of Origen, Ter
tullian, or other early fathers who dealt with prayer.78 Bede must have picked
up the idea from someone else, perhaps from Cassiodorus himself, who intro
duces it in his Expositio Psalmorum,79 or more likely from Augustine, whose
Enarrationes in psalmos gives the idea even more prominence than Cassio
dorus.80
Augustine's Enarrationes, however, had posed another solution to the problem
of unceasing prayer. "Desire itself is your prayer," Augustine explained in com
menting upon Ps. 38:9, "and if your desire is continuous your prayer is un
ceasing."81 Yet Bede nowhere mentions this idea. His preference, as the passages
noted above suggest, was for the uniting of prayer with just deeds, with a life
of prayerful actions that would externally manifest interior belief. This is not to
say that Bede thought that Augustine's emphasis on desire was somehow wrong.
Rather, this instance of Bede's discriminating between alternatives nicely ex
emplifies his telescoping the sources he believed would best suit the needs of
his own culture. Bede did not repeat patristic wisdom in a haphazard manner.
Choices at times had to be made; sources had to be selected, adapted, digested,
and reworked in order to make them accessible to his newly Christianized Anglo
Saxon audience. Such an audience, Bede may well have thought, would benefit
less from thinking of unceasing prayer in terms of desire than in terms of the
of the gnostic who prays everywhere and always: "Whence not in a specified place, or selected
temple, or at certain festivals and on appointed days, but during his whole life, the Gnostic
prays in every place, even if he be alone by himself, and whenever he has any of those who
have exercised like faith, honors God, that is, acknowledges his gratitude for the knowledge
of the way to live" (trans. William Wilson, The Writings of Clement, 2 vols., Ante-Nicene
Christian Library [Edinburgh, 1872] 2:431). Yet the precise equation of works with prayers
appears to have been Origen's idea.
77See Richard N. Bailey, "Bede's Text of Cassiodorus's Commentary on the Psalms," Jour
nal of Theological Studies 34 (1983): 189-93; Paul Meyvaert, "Bede, Cassiodorus, and the
Codex Amiatinus," Speculum 71 (1996): 827-83; and Ogilvy, Books Known to the English (n.
44 above), 108.
78Cassiodorus, Expositio Psalmorum 71.15, ed. M. Adri??n (CCL 98:656, lines 350-54).
79Ibid., 85.3 (CCL 98:782, lines 109-10).
80Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos 148.2, ed. D. E. Dekkers and J. Fraipont (CCL
40:2166, lines 3-7, 9-12).
81 Ibid., 37.14 (CCL 38:392, lines 5-15); my translation. "Ipsum enim desiderium tuum,
oratio tua est; et si continuum desiderium, continua oratio." Augustine continues: "Non enim
frustra dixit apostolus: Sine intermissione orantes. Numquid sine intermissione genu flectimus,
corpus prosternimus, aut manus leuamus, ut dicat: Sine intermissione orate? Aut si sic dicimus
nos orare, hoc puto sine intermissione non possumus facer?. Est alia interior sine intermissione
oratio, quae est desiderium. Quiquid aliud agas, si desideras illud sabbatum, non intermittis
orare. Si non uis intermitiere orare, noli intermittere desiderare. Continuum desiderium tuum,
continua uox tua est."
venerable bede 21
performance of just deeds. As newcomers to the faith, his people needed to know
the fundamentals of rightful Christian living, not the more subtle points of Au
gustinian theology.82 Consequently, throughout his writings, Bede tended more
toward expounding basic teachings than exploring the workings of the inner
self. Bede sought an actualized, lived faith for his brethren, and his definition
of prayer was meant to help them achieve it.
Orationis pvritas: Homily 1.22
Bede also dwelt in his exegesis on the proper attitudes that should attend
prayer. His longest and most detailed treatment of this topic occurs in a homily
for Lent based on Matt. 15:21-28, the story of the Canaanite woman who begged
Jesus to cure her daughter. For earlier writers, this story was about the translatio
fide i from Israel to the Gentiles on account of the lack of faith of the former
and the faith of the latter.83 While standard exegesis saw the Canaanite woman
as exemplifying the virtues of humility and perseverance, prayer rarely entered
the discussion. Only Jerome's Commentary on Matthew mentioned prayer in
regard to the woman's perseverance.84 Bede knew this commentary well and
may have seen in Jerome's brief allusion to prayer an opportunity for a more
thorough discussion of the dispositions required for prayer.
In his reinterpretation of the story, Bede argued that not only the woman's
perseverance but also her faith, patience, constancy, and humility are paradigms
praying Christians need to emulate. Just as the woman trusted that Jesus could
heal her daughter, and just as she persisted to beg him when he did not im
mediately grant her request, so too our prayers must be marked by perseverance,
faith, and humility.85 She becomes, in effect, a model for the Christian soul at
prayer, firm in her trust that "however small the grace imparted to her by the
Lord might be, it could be sufficient for her salvation."86 After briefly alluding
to the translatio fidei theme, Bede moved to extend the analogy of the woman's
prayer from the individual soul to the Church as a whole. Figuratively, the woman
82In this connection, one should remember that Bede expressed great unease about the spir
itual malaise and atrophy of his own times, which, unlike the earlier golden age of Anglo
Saxon Christianity he glorified in HE, had failed to practice what it preached. See Epist. ad
Ecgb. for Bede's biting reproach of the contemporary situation and plan for reform.
83Origen, In Matthaeum 9.17, ed. Robert Girod (SC 162:360-71); Augustine, Sermo 78 (PL
38:483-90); Caesarius of Aries, Sermo 195.2, ed. G. Morin (CCL 104:790).
84Jerome, In Matheum 2, ed. D. Hurst and M. Adriaen (CCL 77:133, lines 1569-73): "Mira
sub persona mulieris Cananitidis ecclesiae fides patientia humilitatis, fides qua credidit sanari
posse filiam suam, patientia qua totiens contempta in precibus perseuerat, humilitas qua se non
canibus sed catulis compar?t."
S5Hom. 1.22 (CCL 122:156-57, lines 1-70). Bede's exegesis of Jesus' two parables on
prayer (Luke 18:1-14) also deals with these attitudes as prerequisites for prayer. See In Luc.
5 (CCL 120:322-25, lines 1047-1192).
86Ibid. (CCL 122:157, lines 59-60); trans. Martin and Hurst, Homilies (n. 1 above), 1:217.
22 TRADITIO
is Ecclesia, her possessed daughter "any soul in the Church that is delivered up
to the deception of malign spirits rather than to her Maker's commands."87 The
Church must intercede for such a soul, praying with the same tenacity and faith,
the same constancy and humility as the Canaanite woman. The polluted soul
must pray for herself as well, for while the Church's intercession greatly aids
her plight, only Christ may cleanse such a soul by "inspiring her interiorly"
(quam . . . interim inspirando)?* This ultimate dependency upon the efficacy
of Christ's grace should not, however, in any way curb the importunity of their
prayer. The more He delays fulfilling their request, the more the Church and
soul "should persevere with great earnestness" (tanto potius perseuerandum
instantia)*9 in their prayers.
But while praying in this way does much to ensure that God will hear us,90
such prayer, Bede continues, will be truly efficacious only if other conditions
are met too:
this tenacity in praying can only deserve to bear fruit if what we ask for with our
mouth we also meditate on in our mind, and if the crying of our lips is not cut apart
in another direction from the focus of our thought. For there are some who, upon
entering a church, stretch out their psalm-singing or their prayer with many words,
but because their heart is directed elsewhere they do not even reflect upon what
they are saying. They pray, to be sure, with their mouths, but they deprive their
mind, which is wandering outside, of all the fruit of their prayer.91
This passage, which has no corollary in Jerome, has a Cassianic ring to it, as
do the lines immediately following it, which attribute such lack of mental focus
to the "ancient enemy" who is "aware of the benefit of prayer" and always trying
to undermine it.92 Bede had certainly read Cassian's Conferences,93 and had
87Ibid. (CCL 122:158, lines 90-92); trans. Ibid., 1:218.

88Ibid. (CCL 122:158, lines 93-94); trans. Ibid., 1:218.
89Ibid. (CCL 122:158, line 100); trans. Ibid., 1:218.
90Ibid. (CCL 122:159-60, lines 137-42, 173-79).
91 Ibid. (CCL 122:160, lines 142-49): "Notandum interea quod haec orandi pertinacia ita
solum meretur esse fruct?fera, si quod ore precemur hoc etiam mente meditemur neque alio
clamor labiorum quam cogitationum scindatur intuitus. Sunt enim qui intrantes ecclesiam mul
tis psalmodiam uel orationem sermonibus prolongant sed alibi corde intendendo nec ipsi quid
dicant recolunt ore quidem orantes sed mentem foris uagantem omni orationis fructu priuantes.
..." Trans. Martin and Hurst, Homilies ( . 1 above), 1:220.
92Ibid. (CCL 122:160, lines 149-57); trans, ibid., 1:220. The theme of earthly thoughts inter
fering with prayer occupied Bede throughout his writings; see esp. In Sam. 2 (CCL 119:127,
lines 2492-97); In Ez. et Neem. 3 (CCL 119A:389, lines 2003-21); In Luc. 5 (CCL 120:331-32,
lines 1440-52); In Marc. 1 (CCL 120:454, lines 660-72); Epist. Cath. (CCL 121: 253, lines 71
77, 79-81). Cf. Cassian, Conferences 9.7, ed. Dom E. Pichery (SC 54:47), where the monk
Germanus laments the soul's constant bombardment by earthly thoughts: "... ita ut null?m
constantiam sui retinens animus nec potestate propria sanctarum cogitationum possidens firmi
tatem." On the theme of demons disrupting prayer, see esp. Conferences 9.6 (SC 54:45-47).
93Bede cites the Conferences in six different works: In Gen. 3 (CCL 118A:170, line 996)
and 4 (CCL 118A:213, lines 695-715); In Sam. 3 (CCL 119:194, line 2461); In Cant. 3 (CCL
VENERABLE BEDE 23
been encouraged by Cassiodorus to consult Conferences 9 and 10 on prayer.94

Though Bede's homily does not quote Cassian by name, the verbal and thematic
parallels are strong. These could, of course, be instances of simple overlap, but
in any case comparison of Bede's homily with Cassian proves instructive, for
the Conferences dealt explicitly with the problem of thoughts and images dis
tracting the mind from what Cassian called "pure prayer," a phrase echoed by
Bede later in this homily.95
For Cassian, writing in the tradition of Origen and Evagrius, the notion of
pure prayer carried a specific meaning. The phrase denoted that highest stage
where prayer becomes wordless, transcending both image and thought. As a
famous passage in Conference 9 has it, pure prayer is:
that fiery prayer known and performed by very few, and which, more properly
speaking, is ineffable. It transcends all human thoughts, and is distinguished by no
sound of the voice, no movement of the tongue, and no utterance of words. Rather
the mind, illuminated by an infusion of heavenly light, no longer speaks in a confined,
human language, but gushes forth profusely as from a copious fountain in an ac
cumulation of thoughts, and ineffably utters to God, expressing in the shortest
possible span of time things so great that the mind, when it returns to itself, cannot
easily utter or relate them.96
119B:260, lines 618-25); In Luc. 3 (CCL 120:226, lines 2362-64); Exp. Act. Apost. 5.5 (CCL
121:29, line 20); and De temp. rat. 5 (CCL 123B:289, lines 128-29). For discussion, see the
recent dissertation by Stephen Lake, "The Influence of John Cassian on Early Continental and
Insular Monasticism to c. A.D. 817" (Ph.D. diss., University of Cambridge, 1996), 211-16,
which takes us beyond Laistner's uncertainty about just how well Bede knew Cassian; see
"The Library of the Venerable Bede" (n. 42 above), 251.
94Cassiodorus, Expositio Psalmorum 141, conclusio psalmi (CCL 98:1274, lines 235-38).
Benedict (Benedicti Regula, 73.5, CSEL 75:180) also recommended that Cassian be read.
95Horn. 1.22 (CCL 122:160, lines 163-67). On the theme of pure prayer in Bede, see esp.
In Sam. 2 (CCL 119:133, lines 2729-44); In Ez. et Neem. 1 (CCL 119A:252, lines 434-39)
and 3 (CCL 119A:388, lines 1965-82); In Cant. 3 (CCL 119B:255, lines 415-26), In Cant. 3
(CCL 119B:262, 721-23), and In Cant. 4 (CCL 119B:301-2, lines 97-103); De tab. 1 (CCL
119A:28, lines 899-903).
96Cassian, Conferences 9.25 (SC 54:61-62): ".. . ad illam igneam ac perpaucis cognitam
uel expertam, immo ut proprius dixerim ineffabilem orationem . . . quae omnem transcendens
hum?num sensum nullo non dicam sono uocis nec linguae motu nec ulla uerborum pronuntia
tione distinguitur, sed quam mens infusione caelestis illius luminis inlustrata non humanis
atque angustis d?sign?t eloquiis, sed conglobatis sensibus uelut de fonte quodam copiosissimo
effundit ubertim atque ineffabiliter eructat ad deum, tanta promens in ilio breuissimo temporis
puncto, quanta nec eloqui facile nec percurrere mens in semet ipsam reuersa praeualeat." My
translation. Cf. Conferences 9.15 (SC 54:51-53) and 10.11 (SC 54: 90-93). On pure prayer,
see the accounts of Columba Stewart, Cassian the Monk (Oxford, 1998), 47-55,117-18; Owen
Chadwick, John Cassian, 2d ed. (London, 1968), 141-50; and Martin Laird, "Cassian's Con
ferences Nine and Ten: Some Observations Regarding Contemplation and Hermeneutics," Re
cherches de th?ologie ancienne et m?di?vale 62 (1995): 145-56; on the Evagrian background,
see Salvatore Marsili, Giovanni Cassian ed Evagrio Pontico, Studia Anselmiana 5 (Rome,
1936), and John E. Bamberger, Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos: Chapters on Prayer, Cis
tercian Studies Series 4 (Kalamazoo, 1972), lxxxi-xciv.
24 TRADITIO
So understood, pure prayer in Cassian's sense is akin to contemplation, indeed

indistinguishable from it. Yet these are not the associations carried by Bede's
use of the phrase orationis puritas in his homily. Bede is undoubtedly referring
to vocal prayer here, as such phrases as ore precamur and clamor labiorum in
the passage quoted above indicate. By the phrase "pure prayer," Bede thus
appears to have had something quite different in mind from Cassian. For Bede
in this homily, to pray in a pure way does not mean moving to some higher
stage of prayer beyond word or thought but, more simply, focusing the heart
and mind and making them capable of such focus by purifying them through
righteous action. That he has these associations primarily in mind is made clear
by a later passage in the homily in which he says that we can attain pure prayer
only by checking all impulses to sin and by habituating ourselves to walking
according to God's commands.97
Cassian too, of course, had placed great stress on the praying soul's need to
purify itself by living uprightly, or praktike, as he called it.98 But for him such
moral purification was not the essence of pure prayer; it was merely a stage
along the way. It is clear that Bede has shifted the terms here in order to underline
his theme, namely the "lived" values Christians must manifest when praying.
Again, we need not read this as an outright refutation of Cassian on Bede's part.
Whether or not he had Cassian in mind here is not really the issue. Rather, the
comparison of their different understandings of pure prayer is meant to highlight
a key strain in Bede's thought, namely its tendency to stress the outer over the
inner, the active over the contemplative.
To be sure, Bede spoke of contemplation in only the highest terms, as any
monk would, it being the end for which man was created.99 But he was also
very selective when writing about the theme, a reserve hardly precipitated by
ignorance. Rarely did he attempt to sketch the heights of contemplation in the
lavish detail some writers did. The practical bent of his mind pulled him in other
97Horn. 1.22 (CCL 122:160, lines 163-67). Cf. In Ez. et Neem. 3 (CCL 119A:390, lines
2051-60).
98Cassian, Conferences 14.2 (SC 54:184): "Quisqu?s igitur ad e uoluerit perve
nire, necesse est ut omni studio atque uirtute actualem primum scientiam consequatur." Sec
tions 3-7 of Conference 14 (SC 54:184-89) lay out Cassian's conception of praktike, drawing
heavily on Evagrius's teaching in the Praktikos. For orientation, see A. and C. Guillaumont,
?vagre Le Pontique: Trait? pratique ou le moine, 2 vols. (SC 170:38-63), and Stewart, Cassian
the Monk (n. 96 above), 92-96.
"Horn. 1.7 (CCL 122:48, lines 79-89). Compared on their own terms, the active life stands
far below the contemplative, e.g., In Hab. (CCL 119B:403, lines 609-13): "Bene autem uir
tutem suam, non in se, sed subter se dicit esse turbatam; quia raptus ad contemplationem
caelestium arcanorum propheta se quodammodo super se esse uidit eleuatum; et quo altior
efficitur lumine contemplationis eo se inperfectiorem conspicit merito actionis." Cf. In Cant.
3 (CCL 119B:274, lines 123-26). Bede never questioned which of the two lives was superior;
like most patristic writers, he wondered about the role contemplation should play in the lives
of Christians still sojourning in this world. See below for further discussion.
VENERABLE BEDE 25
directions. The life of contemplation was something sojourners in this life could
attain only in part.100 Yet its attainment in the life hereafter hinged precariously
on how fully believers met the call of grace by striving to live righteously while
on earth.101 "It is not the indifferent and the idle," Bede noted, "but those who
sweat in working at virtues, who are worthy of divine contemplation."102 It is
this fundamental preparatory stage of devout Christian living that concerned him
foremost throughout his writings. One of his favorite metaphors for this stage
was the holocaust or burnt offering. In his Commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah
he used the metaphor to catalogue a whole range of good actions that we ought
to perform as preparations for prayer.103 In a later passage he explained why
such askesis is necessary:
It is befitting in every way that whoever begins to beseech the Lord's mercy first
should show himself to be worthy of being heard by living more continently, and
so when petitioning the Lord should have no doubt that the things which he asks
for will turn out well for him.104
Or as he put it more starkly elsewhere:

Praying well does not contribute anything at all useful in the search for heavenly
things, if one does not stop being involved, by living wickedly, in things that are
below.105
It was a theme he returned to again and again; and though it was a common
theme, in Bede it received such forceful and repeated articulation as to shine
forth in a new light. Bede took prayer as a central shaping force in the life of
the Christian. As he wrote in De tabern?culo, the stance of holiness and purity
required for prayer was to provide the standard for our lives in general, rather
l00De tempi. 2 (CCL 119A: 119-20, lines 1083-1103); Horn. 1.15 (CCL 122:109, lines 137
43), and Horn. 2.5 (CCL 122:217, lines 102-10).
10 Gen. 2 (CCL 118A:106, lines 1198-1202); De temp. 2 (CCL 119A:219, lines 1083
1103); Horn. 1.6 (CCL 122:45, lines 301-4), 1.9 (CCL 122:64, lines 163-74), 1.16 (CCL
122:113-14, lines 90-101), and 2.11 (CCL 122:256-57, lines 133-39).
102Hom. 1.7 (CCL 122:48, lines 89-91); trans. Martin and Hurst, Homilies (n. 1 above),
1:68; translation modified.
103In Ez. etNeem. 1 (CCL 119A:266, lines 1008-28). On the theme of holocausts, see also
In Ez. etNeem. 1 (CCL 119A:268, lines 1070-87); In Sam. 2 (CCL 119:133, lines 2733-40);
Horn. 1.18 (CCL 122:133, lines 185-99); Cf. Gregory, Moralia in lob 1.35.49 (CCL 143:51,
lines 2-18).
104In Ez. etNeem. 2 (CCL 119A:321, lines 1331-34): "Oportet namque omnimodis ut qui
cumque ad deprecandam misericordiam domini ingreditur primo continentius uiuendo dignum
se qui exaudiatur praebeat atque ita dominum rogans non dubitet prospere sibi euentura quae
postulat." My translation.
105Hom. 2.12 (CCL 122:262, lines 81-83): "Neque enim quippiam utilitatis adfert bene
orando superna quaerere qui non destitit peruerse uiuendo inf?mis inplicari." Trans. Martin and
Hurst, Homilies ( . 1 above), 2:111. Cf. Gregory, Moralia in lob 18.5.10 (CCL 143A:891,
lines 16-18): "Valde namque apud Deum utraque haec sibi necessario congruunt, ut et oratione
operatio et operatione fulciatur oratio."
26 traditio
than being an occasional state to which we recur when we need somethin

God.106 Prayer for Bede was therefore paradigmatic, in the sense that it a
a basic framework for spiritual living in general ? the need for faith, h
patience, perseverance, indeed the whole range of attitudes Christia
world must live by.
Averte ocvlos tvae mentis: Bede on Contemplation
What then did Bede say in his exegesis about contemplation? Answe
question should help us bring the foregoing into sharper focus. Of co
never intended to present anything like an original treatment of th
Rather, "following in the footsteps of the fathers," he set out to transm
teachings to his own generation, without altering them in any way. Yet
own distinctive attitude toward the subject can be discerned in the
lected, organized, and presented his material.
By Bede's time there was a long and venerable tradition on conte
for him to draw upon.107 Its roots stretched all the way back to t
philosophical tradition of high antiquity. Early thinkers such as C
Alexandria and Origen later gave it a Christian orientation. Many of the
that became the topoi of later writers, such as the "two lives" as exempl
Martha and Mary, indeed go back to Origen's innovative reflections.1
the more influential insights Origen developed in his treatment of the t
is that action and contemplation are complementary rather than opposed
"There is no action without contemplation or contemplation without acti
106De tab. 3 (CCL 119A:131, lines 1482-86): ".. . nimirum necesse est ut an
orationem et fletus ad otiosa uerba siue facta non diuertat sed in eodem se uigore
quem in oratione suscepit etiam finita oratione custodiat iuxta exemplum Annae de
dictum est: Vultusque eius non sunt amplius in diuersa mutati." C?. In Sam. 1 (C
lines 338-46).
107For an overview of the tradition from the Bible to Bede's time and beyond,
Baumgartner, "Contemplation," in Dictionnaire de spiritualit? asc?tique et mystiqu
(Paris, 1932-1995) 3:1643-1948; also Edward Cuthbert Butler, Western Mysticism
ing of SS. Augustine, Gregory and Bernard on Contemplation and the Contemplat
ed. (London, 1927); and J-H. Nicolas, Contemplation et vie contemplative en ch
(Paris, 1980).
108 On the "two lives," see A. Solignac and L. Donnet, "Marthe et Marie," in D
de spiritualit? ( . 107 above), 10:664-65; . Mason, Active Life and Contemplat
Study of the Concepts from Plato to the Present (Milwaukee, 1961); A. Bonnardi?r
vies: Marthe et Marie," in Saint Augustin et la Bible, ed. A. Bonnardi?re (Paris,
25; G. Constable, "Martha and Mary," in Three Studies in Medieval Religious
Thought (Cambridge, 1995), 18-20; S. Rakoczy, "Martha and Mary: Sorting out the
Studies in Spirituality 8 (1998): 58-80.
109 Origen, In Lucam Homiliae, frag. 171; trans. Joseph T. Lienhard, Origen: Hom
Fragments on Luke, The Fathers of the Church 94 (Washington, D.C., 1996), 192
VENERABLE BEDE 27
In Origen the two ideals formed a continuum: the moral discipline and purification
of the active life prepared the way for the vision and rest of the contemplative.
This idea was widely accepted and vigorously developed by later writers in
late antiquity and the Middle Ages, especially Augustine, Cassian, and Gregory
the Great. For Augustine, the lives, though inseparable, were to be distinguished
temporally, the active life being the period of our earthly existence, the contem
plative our future beatitude in heaven.110 Cassian, as R. A. Markus has recently
shown, modified Augustine's eschatological perspective by configuring the two
lives as a cyclical process grounded in the study of the Scriptures.111 Gregory
too emphasized that contemplation is possible only through the study of the
Bible,112 yet made a more significant contribution of his own by tying the two
lives inextricably to the office of preaching. In the Moralia he wrote:
It is brought about through wondrous divine mercy when he who strives with perfect
heart for contemplation is occupied in the service of his fellow man. In this way
his mind, which has been made perfect, can be of use to many weaker brethren;
and at the same time as he beholds his own imperfection, to this extent he may
strive for perfect humility all the more.113
The "service" (ministerium) Gregory has foremost in mind here is the officium
praedicandi, as a host of passages strewn throughout his writings makes clear.114
Like locusts, preachers must be able to raise themselves in flight, in order to
discern "the sublime truths through the spring of contemplation" (ad sublimia
per contemplationis saltum)}15 But like the hind, they must also know how to
bow down and give birth, "For unless holy preachers were to descend from that
boundlessness of inward contemplation that they embrace, by bending, as it
were, to our infirmity with humble preaching, they would surely never beget
110See Augustine, De Consensu Euangelistarum 1.5.8 (PL 34:1045-46); In Iohannis Eu

angelium Tractatus 18.6, ed. D. R. Willems (CCL 36:184, lines 14-27), 101.5 (CCL 36:593,
lines 14-22), and 124.4-7 (CCL 36:682-87); Contra Faustum Manicheum 22.52 (PL 42:432
33). Temporal separation for Augustine does not imply disunity: the exercise of action in uia
prepares for the exercise of contemplation in patria. See Etienne Gilson, The Christian Phi
losophy of Saint Augustine, trans. L. E. M. Lynch (New York, 1960), 117-18.
mCassian develops this idea in Conferences 14.8ff. (SC 54:189ff.), where he equates con
templation with the reading of and meditation upon the Scriptures. See Markus's discussion,
Ancient Christianity (n. 11 above), 187.
112E.g., Gregory, Homiliae in Hiezechihelem 1.7.8 (CCL 142:87-88, lines 137-65). Dis
cussed by McGinn, "Contemplative in Action" (n. 57 above), 39-40.
113Gregory, Moralia in lob 5.4.5 (CCL 143:222, lines 11-16): "Mira enim diuinitatis pietate
agitur, cum is qui perfecto corde ad contemplationem tenditur, humanis ministeriis occupatur;
ut et multis infirmioribus eius mens perfecta profidat et quo se ipse imperfectum respicit, inde
ad humilitatis culmen perfectior assurgat." My translation.
114On preaching and the two lives in Gregory, see esp. Moralia in lob 6.37.56, 60-64 (CCL
143:325-26, 329-33), 30.2.8 (CCL 143B: 1495-96); Homiliae in Hiezechihelem 1.3.2-18
(CCL 142:33-45); Homiliarium in Evangelia 1.17 (PL 76:1139-49).
115Gregory, Moralia in lob 31.25.49 (CCL 143B:1584, lines 81-82); my translation.
28 TRADITIO
sons in the faith."116 In book 28 of the Moralia, Gregory explained that the
conceptual model for this understanding of the two lives derives from none other
than Christ himself, who, "having come in the flesh, led both and united them
in himself."117
Bede was influenced by all these understandings. In his fullest discussion of
the two lives, he used Augustine's Tractates on John to underscore the temporal
difference between them.118 In his exegesis of Luke 10:41-42 he quoted Cas
sian's definition of theoria and throughout his writings made frequent mention
of lectiones sacrae as a means to contemplation.119 But in the end Gregory's
views influenced him most. Numerous texts throughout Bede's exegesis repeat
the pope's message that preaching bonds the two lives together. Jesus and John
returned from the hidden contemplation of the divine will in order to teach
others.120 Jesus' was the perfect mixed life, dedicated equally to ministering and
to contemplation.121 Moses' experience on Sinai sets the pattern for teachers to
follow: having been shown the pattern of the lampstand "in the height of most
secret contemplation" (in altitudine intimae contemplationis), he came back to
build it for his people, just as teachers must show the fruits of their contemplation
to their hearers "by the performance of right action and by the word of saving
116Ibid., 30.13.48 (CCL 143B:1523, lines 28-31): "Notandum uero summopere est, quod
istae ceruae incuruantur ut pariant, quia nimirum si erectae starent, parere non ualerent. Nisi
enim praedicatores sancti ab illa immensitate contemplationis internae quam capiunt, ad infir
mitatem nostram humillima praedicatione quasi quadam incuruatione descenderent, numquam
utique in fide filios procrearent." My translation. Cf. ibid., 30.2.8 (CCL 143B: 1495-96, lines
53-93).
117Gregory, Moralia in lob 28.13.33 (CCL 143B:1420, lines 11-14); my translation. Leon
ardi, "Il Venerabile Beda" ( . 5 above), 633, seems to overlook this dimension of Gregory's
treatment of the two lives when he asserts that Gregory differs from Bede in keeping the active
and the contemplative separate. Despite Gregory's own sadness at having to forsake contem
plation for a life of pastoral activity, it is clear that he felt the Christian life should balance
the two ideals. On this, see Straw, Gregory the Great (n. 48 above), 189-93, 248-51; Markus,
Gregory the Great and his World (n. 48 above), 17-23; Dagens, Saint Gr?goire Le Grand ( .
57 above), 145-54; Clayton, "Hermits and the Contemplative Life (n. 19 above), 147-75.
liSHom. 1.9 (CCL 122:65, lines 176-209), citing Augustine's In Iohannis Euangelium Trac
tatus 124.5 (CCL 36: 685, lines 79-133).
119Bede, In Luc. 3 (CCL 120:226, lines 2362-64), citing Cassian's Conferences 23.3 (SC
64:141). Bede elsewhere cites Conferences 14 (SC 54:182-208), where Cassian develops the
relation between reading and contemplation. Cf. Bede, In Cant. 1 (CCL 119B:208-9, lines
721-25); In Prov. Sal. 3.31 (CCL 119B:155, lines 287-96); De tempi 1 (CCL 119A:164-65,
lines 711-21); In Marc. 1 (CCL 120:454, lines 667-72).
120In Sam. 2 (CCL 119:85, lines 726-29): "Et manifestauit Iesus gloriam suam, et credi
derunt in eum discipuli eius, egressique ambo ipse uidelicet et Iohannes de occulta diuinae
uoluntatis contemplatione ad ostendenda foras operum magnalia processerunt."
121 In Sam. 1 (CCL 119:35, lines 986-88): "Dominus inter praedicandum ministrandumque
spiritalia mortalibus suspensum ab exterioribus oculum mentis in supernae atque intimae lucis
contemplatione defigebat."
VENERABLE BEDE 29
doctrine" (exsecutione recti operis et uerbo doctrinae salutaris)}22 Teachers are

like windows, "And when they reveal publicly to the faithful what they have
seen in private, they fill all the inner recesses of the temple as windows do with
the sunlight they let in."123 Watering the hearts of their hearers with their teach
ing, they are also like clouds, through whom the hidden truths of the faith reach
the less learned.124 Gregory's stamp on these ideas and on Bede's way of ex
pressing them is unmistakable. Indeed, the several instances in which Bede quotes
Gregory directly when discussing the two lives show quite clearly that he cham
pioned the pope's ideals.125
But there are differences. These show up when we turn from the two lives
and compare how Gregory and Bede treated the theme of contemplation on its
own. Bede gave far less attention to interior matters than Gregory, opting instead
to telescope what the pope had said about the relation between devout living
and contemplation. Bede's preferred subject was the two lives ? how contem
plation, insofar as it is possible here, must feed the life of action, and how action
had to be undertaken now if full contemplation was to be enjoyed later.126 The
majority of the passages on contemplation Bede quoted from Gregory deal with
just this theme, rather than contemplation alone.127 Moreover, Gregory also had
much more to say than Bede about the nature of contemplative experience. One
122De tab. 1 (CCL 119A:40, lines 1377-1401); trans. Holder, Bede: On the Tabernacle (n.
1 above), 44.
123De tempi. 1 (CCL 119A:162, lines 615-20): "Fenestrae templi doctores sunt sancti et
spiritales quique in ecclesia quibus mente excedentibus Deo archana secretorum caelestium
specialius ceteris uidere conceditur. Qui dum ea quae in occulto uident publice fidelibus pan
dunt quasi suscepto lumine solis fenestrae cuneta templi penetralia replent." Trans. S. Con
nolly, Bede: On the Temple (n. 1 above), 25.
124InProv. Sal. 1 (CCL 119B:42, lines 169-72): ". . . allegorice nubes sunt ecclesiae magistri
sublimes per contemplationem et uitam rigantes corda auditorum quasi subiectam sibi terram
per doctrinam."
125See esp. In Luc. 2 (CCL 120:119, lines 750-54), citing Gregory, Moralia in lob 28.13.33
(CCL 143B:1420, lines 16-21). The latter passage from the Homilies in Ezekiel, in which
Gregory says that the lives are joined together by the commands of the decalogue, contains a
theme Bede repeated often, e.g., In Gen. 2 (CCL 118A:106, lines 1198-1202); De temp. 2
(CCL 119A:219-20, lines 1083-1103); Horn. 1.9 (CCL 122:64-65, lines 163-74); 1.16 (CCL
122:113, lines 90-96); and 2.11 (CCL 122:256-57, lines 133-39).
126On the two lives in Bede, see In Sam. 1 (CCL 119:57-58, lines 1931-40 and 1977-94),
4 (CCL 119:249-50, lines 1597-1607); In Cant. 1 (CCL 119B: 208-9, lines 713-25), 2 (CCL
119B:229, lines 689-708), and 3 (CCL 119B:225-26, lines 2333-77); In Luc. 2 (CCL 120:118
19, lines 742-60); Horn. 1.9 (CCL 122: 64-65, lines 145-209). In these passages, Bede does
not quote Gregory directly, though the pope's influence is easily discerned.
127ln addition to the passages cited in n. 126, see In Luc. 1 (CCL 120:27, lines 322-28),
citing Gregory, Homiliarium in Evangelia 2.34.13 (PL 76:1255B); In Luc. 3 (CCL 120:226,
lines 2366-77), citing Gregory, Homiliae in Hiezechihelem 2.2.9 (CCL 142:231, lines 219
32); In Cant. 6 (CCL 119B:360, lines 44-46), citing Gregory, Moralia in lob 30.13.38 (CCL
143B:1524, lines 58-60); In Prov. Sal. 2.15 (CCL 119B:88, lines 71-74), citing Gregory,
Moralia in lob 30.15.51 (CCL 143B:1526, lines 43-46).
30 TRADITIO
thinks of his account of Benedict's contemplative vision of Germanus's transport

to heaven in book 2 of the Dialogues, which is described in mystical terms and
includes a disquisition on the nature of the experience unparalleled by any of
Bede's accounts of visions in his hagiography and histories.128 Nor do the ex
egetical excursuses on the soul's consciousness of the divine presence in the
Moralia and Homilies on Ezekiel find any correlation in Bede.129 When Bede
did describe contemplation, he stuck to a small number of negative themes
emphasizing the impossibility of attaining it in full in this life. Of course, he
often mentioned the joyous, spectacular, and anti-carnal qualities of contempla
tion, but never in the detail Gregory did.130 Instead he tended to underline its
transient, fleeting character, together with the fact that it could be enjoyed only
by the perfections, and even then only briefly.131 He vigorously dissuaded the
128See Gregory, Dialogues 2.35.2-8, ed. A. de Vog?? (SC 260:236-42) and McGinn's com
ments, "Contemplative in Action" (n. 57 above), 66. A comparison of this episode with Bede's
account of Cuthbert's vision of Bishop Aidan's transport to heaven (VCP ch. 4) can provide
some sense of the difference between Gregory and Bede I am referring to here. The centerpiece
of Gregory's account is Benedict's mystical vision, in which "omnis etiam mundus, uelut sub
uno solis radio collectus, ante oculos eius adductus est" (2.35.3, SC 260:238, lines 24-26).
What interests Gregory is the nature of the experience itself, which he explains to his disciple
Peter in decidedly mystical terms: Benedict's soul "is enlarged" (laxatur [2.35.6, SC 260:240,
line 54]) and "carried above itself and expanded interiorly" (rapitur super se, in interioribus
ampliatur [ibid., line 57]); the light that precedes the vision doubles as both an exterior phe
nomenon and an "interior light of the mind, which revealed to the soul of the seer, because it
was caught up to higher things, how narrow all lower things are" (lux interior in mente fuit,
quae uidentis animum qu?a ad superiora rapuit, ei quam angusta essent omnia inferiora mon
strauit [2.35.7, SC 260:240, lines 69-71]). Though Bede's account, by contrast, begins by
describing the illumined night sky in terms strongly reminiscent of Gregory's (compare Bede's
fusum de coelo lumen medias longae noctis interrupisse tenebras [VCP 164] with Gregory's
fusam lucem desuper cunetas noctis tenebras exfugasse [2.35.2, SC 260:236, lines 19-20]), it
says nothing more about the nature of the vision itself. The focus shifts immediately to the
moral effect the vision has on Cuthbert: "Compunctus est multum hoc uisu Deo dilectus ado
lescens, ad subeundum gratiam spiritu?lis exercitii, ac promerendae inter magn?ficos uiros
uitae felicitatisque perennis, confestimque Deo laudes gratiarumque referens actiones, sed et
socios ad laudandum Deum fraterna exhortatione prouocans. . . " (VCP 166). These words are
followed by a long exhortation by Cuthbert, which, Bede says, "kindled the hearts of the
shepherds in no little measure to the worship and praise of God" (non parum corda pastorum
ad reuerentiam diuinae laudationis accendit [VCP 166]). Unlike Gregory, Bede shows no
interest in the nature of the vision. See additionally Bede's account of Drythelm's vision (HE
5.12), which is also treated in moral rather than mystical terms.
129See esp. Gregory, Moralia in lob 23.21.40-43 (CCL 143B: 1174-77), 24.6.10-12 (CCL
143B:1194-96) and Homiliae in Hiezechihelem 2.1.17-18 (CCL 142:222-23), along with
McGinn's discussion of these passages, "Contemplative in Action" (n. 57 above), 63-66.
130See, for example, In Prov. Sal. 2.15 (CCL 119B:89, lines 103-9); In Cant., Prol., (CCL
119B:178, lines 429-34), 3 (CCL 119B:234, lines 133-37), 5 (CCL 119B:338, lines 35-40),
and 6 (CCL 119B:370, lines 441-44), citing Gregory, Homiliae in Hiezechihelem 2.2.13 (CCL
142:234, lines 310-17); In Luc. 1 (CCL 120:64, lines 1766-70); Exp. Act. Apost. 2.1 (CCL
121:15, lines 2-4); Horn. 2.17 (CCL 122:310, lines 342-51).
131 On the fleeting nature of contemplation, see In Sam. 1 (CCL 119:59, lines 1985-87); In
VENERABLE BEDE 31
less perfect from seeking it, and hoped if they did that their failure would at
least teach them humility.132 For such people, progress in the active life should
replace a heady desire for contemplation.133 Such reserve marked even the advice
he gave the perfect. One of the more striking passages in this connection occurs
in Bede's exegesis of Song of Sol. 6:4 ("Turn your eyes from me, for they have
overcome me"). Bede took the verse as a direct comment on the aims and
limitations of contemplative experience. Dramatizing his exegesis through first
person narration, he unpacked the verse's meaning by having Christ rebuff the
soul for trying to penetrate the essence of heavenly realities. Christ scolds her,
saying:
I gave you the eyes of doves by which you might come to know the hidden things
of the Scriptures, by which you might separate virtues from vices, by which you
might discern the paths of justice through which you might come to me. But take
heed lest you try to direct your bodily eyes even to gazing at Me, for "no man shall
see" My face "and live." For a time will come when, set free from the chains of
the flesh, you will come to me and then what I have promised will be fulfilled, for
"he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show
myself to him." But now, so long as you are sojourning away from everlasting goods
owing to the fact that you are bound up in a body, turn the eyes of your mind away
from the contemplation of My divine majesty and essence, since those very things
cause Me to vanish ? that is, your spiritual senses by which you have desired to
know me perfectly. Although they raise themselves up greatly, they are insufficient
to comprehend Me perfectly in this life, but can only come to this point: that they
acknowledge that the glory of the divine nature is of such sublimity, that it can in
no way be seen except by those who have been so utterly removed from the visible
life and have been brought to the invisible.134
Cant. 1 (CCL 119B:218, lines 302-6); De tempi. 2 (CCL 119A:220, lines 1120-26); Horn. 2.5
(CCL 122:217, lines 102-10). Bede followed Gregory in restricting real contemplative per
fection to the monastic and clerical states, but even here, he insisted, such perfection is only
partial: see De tempi. 2 (CCL 119A:220, lines 1120-26); In Reg. Quaest. 14 (CCL 119:307,
lines 41-51); In Cant. 1 (CCL 119B:220, lines 376-82).
132In Sam. 1 (119:56, lines 1879-88): "Soli namque scientia et actione perfecti caelestium
contemplationi in hac uita mentem intendere norunt. At si qui minus perfectus adhuc in hu
manis diuina tractare praesumpserit, cauendum ne uel heresi uel desperatione uel alio quolibet
discrimine reuerberetur eius inconsulta temeritas. Sed melius fortasse haec percussio plebis
quae arcam domini uidisset in bono accipietur quia quanto quisque amplius diuinae secreta
maiestatis aspicere coeperit tanto mox de se humilia sentiens a tota sua trepidus uirtutum
fiducia deficit." Cf. De tab. 1 (CCL 119A:22, lines 680-98) and 3 (CCL 119A:125, lines 1258
63).
133De tab. 1 (CCL 119A:7, lines 87-93): "Et nos, si doctores nostros ad altitudinem diuinae
contemplationi s sequi non possumus, curemus solliciti ne aliqua nos temptatio a uicinia montis
Dei retrahat sed iuxta modulum nostrum uirtutum operibus insistamus inhaerentes stabili corde
sacramentis nostri redemptoris quibus imbuti sumus et gratiam Spiritus eius qua signati sumus
intemeratam in nobis conseruare curantes."
134In Cant. 4 (CCL 119B:303, lines 149-65): ". . . ac si aperte dicatur, Oculos quidem tibi
columbinos dedi quibus scripturarum archana cognosceres quibus uirtutes a uitiis secerneres
32 TRADITIO
This little monologue nicely focuses the key strains in Bede's thought. The "eyes
of doves" or contemplative powers the perfect have been given are meant to sustain
and guide the active life. In particular, they should be used to penetrate the scrip
turarum archana, through which vice may be conquered, virtue obtained, and the
path of right living discerned. Contemplation, insofar as it is attainable in this life,
should serve these ends. The perfect have no business trying to use it to penetrate
God's "divine majesty and essence," a task for which their contemplative abilities
are inadequate in any case. Elsewhere Bede treated the matter in much the same
fashion. Commenting on 1 John 4:12 ("No one has seen God"), he collected passages
from Ambrose and Augustine stressing God's transcendence and the need for purity
of heart, and then concluded in his own words by exhorting his brethren to do
works of charity if they wished to attain a vision of Him in the future.135
Bede is hardly in disagreement with Gregory here. All these themes can be
found in Gregory and indeed in other writers as well. What Bede has done,
rather, is highlight certain aspects of Gregory's treatment of the contemplative
life, namely those dealing with its inextricable connection to the active, while
omitting the pope's more mystical reflections. Bede, in short, has distilled Greg
ory's thinking on the subject, emphasizing those themes in it that, he must have
thought, his Anglo-Saxon brethren most needed to hear.
We can best account for Bede's approach to contemplation in his exegesis by
relating it to how he treated the theme elsewhere and, ultimately, by looking
beyond the texts to the religious and social atmosphere in which he was writing.
The key text here is Bede's prose life of Cuthbert, written around 721 and based
in part upon an earlier life of the saint by an anonymous monk of the Lindisfarne
community, where Cuthbert served as prior and bishop.136 Yet, while drawing
quibus semitas iustitiae per quas ad me uenires dinosceres, sed caue ne ipsos adhuc oculos
etiam ad me uidendum intendere quaeras, non enim uidebit homo faciem meam et uiuet; erit
enim tempus cum uinculis absoluta carneis ad me peruenies et tune implebitur quod promisi
quia qui diligit me diligetur a patre meo et ego diligam eum et manifestabo ei me ipsum, at
nunc dum in corpore constitu?a peregrinaris a perennibus bonis auerte oculos tuae mentis a
contemplatione diuinae meae maiestatis et essentiae quia ipsi me auolare fecerunt, id est ipsi
tui sensus spiritales quibus me perfecte cognoscere desiderasti quamuis multum se extollant
non in hac tarnen uita me ad perfectum comprehendere sufficiunt sed ad hoc solummodo
peruenire queunt ut animaduertant diuinae gloriam naturae tantae esse sublimitatis quae ne
qu?quam uideri possit nisi ab his tantum qui a uita uisibili funditus ablati atque ad inuisibilem
fuerint introducti." My translation.
135Epist. Cath. (CCL 121:314-16, lines 136-204), citing Ambrose, Expositio Euangelii se
cundam Lucam 1.25, ed. M. Adriaen (CCL 14:19, lines 396-406); and Augustine, Ep?stula
147.22, 28, 48, ed. A. Goldbacher (CSEL 44: 296, 297, 323), and Tractatus in epistolam
Ioannis ad Parthos 7.10-11 and 8.4, 10 (PL 135:2033-34, 2037-38, 2042-43).
136Bede also wrote a metrical life of Cuthbert, produced sometime between 705 and 716.
For discussion of Cuthbert's lives and his place in early Anglo-Saxon Christianity, see Bertram
Colgrave, ed. and trans., Two Lives (n. 19 above), 1-55; and Gerald Bonner et al., eds., St.
Cuthbert (n. 19 above).
VENERABLE BEDE 33
upon this earlier life, Bede's account made considerable modifications.137 For
example, Bede excised the extreme asceticism of the anonymous Lindisfarne
monk's account and instead affirmed a balance of active and contemplative
ideals. As prior, bishop, and even as hermit, Bede's Cuthbert is portrayed as an
active dispenser of pastoral care who never allows his desire for contemplative
seclusion to outweigh his duty to teach and preach.138 Thacker points out that
Bede had good reasons for making these revisions. On the one hand, the Church
in his day was in sharp moral decline: corruption and ignorance were rife, and
the spiritual duties that were its raison d'etre had been all but abandoned. Bede
deplored these conditions in his well-known letter to Bishop Egbert of York yet
believed that, dire though the situation was, reform was possible.139 On the other
hand, such reform could hardly be carried out by religious dedicated to contem
plation alone; action was needed, especially preaching and teaching, by example
as well as by word. There was, however, a strong tradition of eremiticism in
Bede's day.140 The Irish and Martinian monastic traditions, both of which flour
ished in England in the seventh and eighth centuries, preserved much of the
extreme asceticism of eastern monasticism and generally favored contemplative
over active concerns.141 The anonymous Life very much stood within this ere
mitic tradition, and by reshaping it, Bede set out to introduce a different monastic
model, namely a Gregorian one, which encouraged a balance of contemplation
and action and put a greater stress on pastoral duties, especially preaching.142
Such a tradition better suited the objectives of reform and thus became the
primary paradigm Bede sought to communicate in his writings.
Read against this background, Bede's treatment of contemplation in his ex
egesis is easily grasped. The strong similarities it shares with his treatment of
the theme in the Life of Cuthbert and even in parts of the Ecclesiastical History
can hardly be dismissed as incidental. In all these works, Bede's unifying mes
137Thacker, "Bede's Ideal" (n. 18 above), 130-53.

138Thus Bede emphasizes that those who sought out Cuthbert's hermitage were never denied
his attention, e.g., VCP ch. 22: "Veniebant autem multi ad uirum Dei non solum de proximis
Lindisfarnensium finibus, sed etiam de remotioribus Brittanniae partibus fama nimirum uir
tutum eius acciti, qui uel sua quae commisissent errata, uel demonum quae paterentur temp
tamenta profitentes, uel certe communia mortalium quibus affligerentur aduersa patefacientes,
a tantae sanctitatis uiro se consolandos sperabant. Nec eos fefellit spes. Nanque nullus ab eo
sine gaudio consolationis abibat, nullum dolor quern ilio attulerat redeuntem comitatus est."
139Thacker, "Bede's Ideal of Reform" (n. 18 above), 132-33.
140For a recent account of the eremitic tradition in seventh- and eighth-century Anglo-Saxon
England, see Clayton, "Hermits" (n. 19 above), esp. 147-56.
141 On the ascetic strains of Martinian and Irish monasticism, with reference to the anony
mous Life and Bede's version, see A. Thacker, "Lindisfarne and the Origins of the Cult of St.
Cuthbert," in St. Cuthbert (n. 19 above), 103-22, and Stancliffe, "Pastor and Solitary" (n. 19
above), esp. 38-42.
142Thacker, "Bede's Ideal" (n. 18 above), 137.
34 traditio
sage was that, for Christians in this life, contemplation must embrac
and action contemplation. Thus Cuthbert admonishes his brethren to purs
communal rather than the solitary life;143 Pope Gregory appears as a mis
and pastor rather than a contemplative;144 and the Bride in the Song
tells her lover to rise up out of the bed of contemplation in order "t
the care of salvation to your neighbors also through the pursuit of s
preaching."145 The omnipresence and interrelation of such themes in his
suggest that, even more than Gregory, Bede seems to have worried a
dangers too keen a desire for contemplation in this life could possibly pre
Above all, he seems to have been concerned about the repercussions
desire could have on the social obligations of religious, whose instruc
healthful examples the people so desperately needed. Consequently, he
most emphasis to those teachings of Gregory that stressed the connection
prayer and life, contemplation and action. In this way he reminded his br
that, like all forms of prayer, contemplation had an important role to pl
only in the life of individual Christians but in the world at large too. Tho
whom God allowed to attain it could and indeed were obliged to help
rather than to withdraw from it. As in the preceding sections, here t
that Bede was typically monastic in the way he tried to integrate prayer
for like action and contemplation, the two for him were reciprocal.
Oremvs: Injunctions to Prayer in Bede's Exegesis
This final section continues to explore the theme of the interconne

prayer and life in Bede's exegesis, but from the perspective of the ro
by the commentaries and homilies as rhetorical texts designed to aff
audience in certain ways. Bede's commentaries and homilies do more th
to the paradigmatic role of prayer for life in general; they seek to actual
paradigm by moving the listener/reader to prayer, and this in two ways.
by employing a hortatory mode of discourse common in homiletic lit
Bede will simply urge his audience to pray: "Let us constantly plead
143 cjj "Hoc quoque fratribus solebat crebrius intimare, ne conversatione

quasi singulariter celsam mirarentur, quia contemptis saecularibus curis secretus uiue
Sed iure inquit est coenobitarum uita miranda, qui abbatis per omnia subiciuntur im
eius arbitrium cuneta uigilandi, orandi, ieiunandi, atque operandi tempora moderant
plurimos noui paruitatem meam longe et mundicia mentis et culmine gratiae prop
teire."
144HE 2.1 (esp. 124-25); text cited above, . 21.
145In Cant. 1 (CCL 119B:221, lines 415-20): "Surge de stratu ilio multum tibi amabili in
quo tuimet curam agere in psalmis et orationibus ceterisque uitae studiis delectaris propera et
ueni ad impendendam etiam proximis curam salutis per st?dium sedulae praedicationibus quasi
enim tot passibus ad uoeantem nos dominum properamus quot pro eius causa uirtutum opera
patramus." My translation.
VENERABLE BEDE 35
help, that he may preserve the light of knowledge which he has conferred upon
us and bring us all the way to perfect day."146 Commonly Bede will end a homily
with such an exhortation; but at other times he breaks mid-homily and beckons
the audience to pray while listening. A short way into a homily dealing with
prayer, for example, Bede pauses to exhort his audience to pray:
Hence, my brothers, we must ask painstakingly and pray without respite. Let us fall
down before God; let us weep before the Lord who made us. And that we may
become worthy to be hearkened to, let us eagerly see how he wishes us to live, and
what he who made us has ordered us to do. Let us seek the Lord and be strengthened;
let us seek his face continually. And that we may deserve to find him and see him,
let us cleanse ourselves of every defilement of flesh and spirit, for only those with
a chaste body are capable of being raised up to heaven on the day of the final
resurrection, and only those with a pure heart are capable of looking at the glory
of the divine Majesty. Let us pierce the ears of our benevolent Maker with our
unwearying desire for eternal happiness, and let us not falter in what we have begun
before he opens [the gate], and we become worthy to be snatched from the prison
of this death and to enter the gate of the heavenly fatherland. May no one delude
himself in regard to his own innocence, and may no one, trusting in his own actions,
cease from his prayers as if he has no need of the mercy of the righteous Judge.147
We can see in these lines the intended effect Bede's discussion of prayer is to
have: the listener/reader is to be moved to compunction and thereby to prayer.
And in the experience of prayer, in turn, the listener/reader is to find the par
adigmatic stance of humility and devotion that should mark life in general. The
technique is not, interestingly, one found in the homilies alone; it figures in the
commentaries, too. In his Commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah, for instance,
Bede breaks off his exegesis at one point to exhort his listeners to pray:
When we have completed our daily work, let us not give sleep to our eyes nor
slumber to our eyelids, before we consecrate a place in ourselves to the Lord with
an even more assiduous constancy of praying, in accordance with what the prophet
146Horn. 2.20 (CCL 122:334, lines 209-11): "Eius continue flagitemus auxilium ut lucem
scientiae quam contulit in nobis ipse conseruet et ad perfectum usque diem perducat." Trans.
Martin and Hurst, Homilies (n. 1 above), 2:210.
147Horn. 2.14 (CCL 122:272, lines 19-33): "Vnde necesse est, fratres mei, utpetamus sedule
sine intermissione oremus procidamus ante Deum ploremus coram domino qui fecit nos. Et ut
exaudiri mereamur uideamus sollicite qualiter nos uiuere uelit quid nos facer? iusserit qui fecit
nos. Quaeramus dominum et confirmemur quaeramus faciem eius semper. Et ut hunc inuenire
et uidere mereamur mundemus nos ab omni inquinamento carnis et spiritus quia nonnisi casto
corpore in die resurrectionis ad c?elos subleuari nonnisi mundo corde gloriam ualent diuinae
maiestatis intueri. Pulsemus infatigabili desiderio aeternae beatitudinis aures pii conditoris nec
deficiamus a coeptis prius quam ilio aperiente de carcere mortis huius eripi ac portam mer
eamur patriae caelestis ingredi. Nemo sibi de innocentia blandiatur nullus suis fidens actibus
quasi qui misericordia iusti iudicis non egeat a precibus cesset. . . ." Trans. Martin and Hurst,
Homilies ( . 1 above), 2:125.
36 TRADITIO
himself says: Let my prayer be set forth as incense in your sight, and the lifting up
of my hands as an evening sacrifice}**
At a later point in the commentary, Ezra's own zeal for prayer as recounted in
Ezra 1:4-6 prompts a similar injunction, which Bede couches in the form of a
rhetorical question:
If the holy man, hearing that the buildings of stone and wood had been destroyed,
rightly wept and fasted and prayed and did this sitting in sadness for a very long
time, how much more greatly ought we continually to grieve, weep, and pray over
the destruction or ruination of our souls caused by sin, so that with the Lord's help
they may be raised up to a pristine condition, who, as a reproach to religion through
the triumph of the enemy, wallowed for a long time in the filth and squalor of their
sins?149
The Commentary on Samuel contains a particularly interesting example in this

connection. Commenting on 1 Sam. 1:19 ("And they rose in the morning, and
worshipped before their God: and they returned, and came into their houses at
Rathama"), Bede reminds his audience of the all-important point that the attitudes
of devotion and faith that mark their prayer should also mark their lives. Rathama,
he says, means "loftiness" and in its spiritual sense suggests the loftiness of the
heart raised up in prayer. Thus, he enjoins his audience:
When our prayer is complete that we may obtain what we have asked for, that after
the sad sterility of an unfruitful mind we may be able to offer the sprouts of virtues
for consecration to God, let us strive to return not to doing vain things externally,
but to the habitations of our conscience raised up in faith and truth. And let not our
countenance be further transformed into diverse things, but let it persist, even after
tears of compunction, in that same ardor and devotion that it conceived in prayer.150
Here as elsewhere, it is the spiritual sense of Scripture and its immediate ap

plication to life that most interests Bede.
?4SIn Ez. etNeem. 1 (CCL 119A:267, lines 1029-34): ".. . completis diei operibus non ante
demus somnum oculis nostris aut palpebris nostris dormitationem quam locum domino in nobis
sollertiore orationum instantia consecremus iuxta hoc quod idem dicit propheta: Dirigatur
oratio mea sicut incensum in conspectu tuo eleuatio manuum mearum sacrificium uesper
tinum." My translation.
149In Ez. et Neem. 1 (CCL 119A:341, lines 89-96): "Si enim uir sanctus audiens destructa
lapidum ac lignorum aedificia recte lugebat ieiunabat et orabat et hoc multo tempore sedens
in tristitia, quanto magis in destructione ac ruina animarum quae per peccatum committitur
continuis est luctibus lacrimis orationibus insistendum quatenus miserante domino ad pris
tinam erigantur sospitatem qui in obprobium religionis triumphante inimico iacebant diutina
uitiorum sorde squalentes." My translation.
150In Sam. 1 (CCL 119:19, lines 339-46): "Et nos ergo completa oratione ut postulata ob
tineamus ut post luctuosam mentis infructuosae sterilitatem sacranda Deo ualeamus uirtutum
germina proferre non ad superuacua foras agenda sed ad nostrae conscientiae fide et ueritate
sublimata studeamus habitacula reuerti. Nec sit uultus noster amplius in diuersa mutatus sed
in eodem quem in oratione conceperit etiam post lacrimas compunctionis ardore et deuotione
persist?t." My translation.
VENERABLE BEDE 37
The second way in which Bede endeavored to actualize prayer in his audience
is by inserting actual prayers into his texts. Often, Bede used verses from the
psalms for this purpose. As Benedicta Ward has shown, the Psalter for Bede
was primarily a "structure for personal prayer," aimed at producing compunction
of heart.151 Individual verses and whole psalms were memorized as models to
guide the Christian at prayer. It was Bede, Ward claims, who invented the method
of collecting parts of the Psalter in abbreviated form in order to facilitate the
memorization of the verses and the interiorization of their spiritual meaning.152
Though Bede assembled these in a separate text,153 he frequently deployed in
dividual verses from the psalms in his commentaries and homilies with an eye
toward the same compunctive end. "Let us all, individually and collectively, say
to the Lord, 'Let your good Spirit lead me in the right way S " he says at the
end of one of his Easter homilies, quoting Ps. 143:10.154 Here as elsewhere in
Bede's writings, the Psalm verse evoked furnishes both the form and the content
of prayer. The inclusion of all types of prayers in the Psalter made it a remarkably
flexible medium; it contained prayers of praise, thanksgiving, adoration, con
trition, mercy, and especially supplication, as in Ps. 27:9, "Be my helper, do
not forsake me," which Bede cites in his Commentary on 1 John}55
Similar examples could easily be produced from Bede's commentaries and
homilies, but we should note instead that at times Bede offered prayers of his
own as a models for his audience. Thus he concluded his Commentary on Ezra
and Nehemiah with the following prayer:
And you, highest Father of Lights, from whom all good and all perfect gifts descend,
you who have given me, your humble servant, both the desire and aid to examine
the wonders of your law, and have furnished me, an unworthy one, the grace to
comprehend the old and discover the new in the storehouse of prophetic writing as
a use to my fellow servants ? remember me, My God, for good.156
And before embarking on a new section of the gospel in his Commentary on

Luke, he wrote:
151 Benedicta Ward, Bede and the Psalter, Jarrow Lecture, 1991 (Newcastle, 1992), 10.
152Ibid., 11-14.
153 The text, once known by the title Libellus Precum, is now referred to as Collectio sal
ter?. The standard edition is J. Fraipont, ed., Collectio Psalterii Bedae, CCL 122:452-70.
154Horn. 2.11 (CCL 122:259, line 243-45): "dicamus singuli domino dicamus omnes: Spi
ritus tuus bonus deducet me in uiam rectam." Trans. Martin and Hurst, Homilies (n. 1 above),
2:107.
155Epist. Cath. (CCL 121:303, lines 86-89).
156Bede, In Ez. et Neem. (CCL 119A:392, lines 2108-15): "Et tu summe pater luminum a
quo omne datum optimum et omne donum perfectum descendit qui mihi humillimo seruorum
tuorum et amorem dedisti et auxilium considerandi mirabilia de lege tua quique in thesauro
prophetici uoluminis non solum uetera amplectendi uerum et noua sub uelamine veterum do
nar?a inueniendi atque in usus conseruorum meorum proferendi indigno mihi gratiam praes
titisti memento mei Deus meus in bonum." My translation.
38 TRADITIO
Since, then, this fourth book of the gospel's exposition commences with a passage
in which the spirit of pride is ejected by means of God's finger, I humbly beg your
mercy, Christ, so that your good spirit may lead me on the right path, and keep me
far from him who is in the north [i.e., the Devil]; make me free of evil, in order
that I may examine God's commandments and, by opening the eyes of the mind,
may I, a devout reader, begin to consider the wonders of your most holy law.157
Later in the same commentary, when concluding his exegesis of the parable of
the Pharisee and the publican (Luke 18:9-14), he moved quickly to apply the
spiritual meaning of the story to the lives of his audience:
Hence we can, as from its opposite, also understand from the words of the proud
Pharisee, by which he merited to be humbled, the form of humility by which we
may be exalted. Just as he was exalted only to fall when he considered the sin of
those worse [than himself] and his own virtues, so we ought to be humbled only to
be glorified not by our slothfulness alone but also by examining the virtues of those
who are better [than we].158
Exhorting his audience to "humbly and submissively pray for this" (unusquisque
nostrum haec apud se supplex ac summissus ob secret), he then offered them the
following prayer as a model:
O omnipotent God, be merciful to your servant, for I am not like your innumerable
servants who are sublime through contempt of the world, glorified through the merit
of their justice, angelic through their adornment of chastity, nor even like many of
those who, after public crimes, merit to be devoted to you by doing penance. Indeed,
if I have done anything good through the support of your grace, I know not from
what motive I have done it, nor with what severity you judge it.159
The prayer encapsulates the animating themes of the Gospel parable ? the need
for humility, the importance of penitence, the danger of pride ? and thereby
furnishes a framework to guide the audience's own petitioning. Like a verse
from the psalms, it is meant to serve as structure for personal prayer and, through
this, as a model for living as well. Whether explicating the spiritual meaning of
157 Bede, In Luc. 4 (CCL 120:231, lines 23-30): "Quapropter ipse quartum expositionis
euangelicae librum incipiens a lectione in qua superbiae spiritus in digito Dei eicitur tuam
Christe clementiam suppliciter imploro ut spiritus tuus bonus deducat me in uiam rectam et
eum qui ab aquilone est longe faciat a me quatenus eiectis a me malignis scruter mandata Dei
mei reuelatisque mentis oculis ad consideranda tuae sacrosanctae legis mirabilia deuotus lector
ingrediar." My translation.
158In Luc. 5 (CCL 120:325, lines 1179-84): "Quapropter et de uerbis elati Pharisaei quibus
humiliari meruit possumus ex diuerso form?m humilitatis qua sublimemur adsumere ut sicut
ille consideratis et peiorum uitiis et suis uirtutibus est elatus ad ruinam ita nos non nostra
solum pigritia sed et meliorum uirtutibus inspectis humiliemur ad gloriam.. .." My translation.
159In Luc. 5 (CCL 120:325, lines 1186-92): "Deus omnipotens miserere supplici tuo quia
non sum sicut innumeri semi tui contemptu saeculi sublimes iustitiae merito gloriosi castitatis
laude angelici uelut etiam multi illorum qui post flagitia publica paenitendo tibi meruerunt
esse deuoti qui etiam, si quid boni tua gratia largiente fecero, quo fine haec faciam quaue a te
districtione pensentur ignoro." My translation.
venerable bede 39
a scriptural passage or exhorting his audience to prayer, the one object

sought was to bring the individual to a prayerful and prayer-filled existen
Conclusion
Throughout his exegesis, Bede often described himself merely as "following

in the footsteps of the fathers" (patrum vestigia sequens).160 As the foregoing
examples have shown, however, in doing so he left imprints of his own. Bede
may seem to be little more than a compiler and explicator of the great fathers
who preceded him, but in the process of disseminating patristic wisdom to his
brethren, he did not hesitate to emphasize certain themes over others, or con
versely to downplay some themes entirely, in order better to address the needs
of the immediate audience for whom he was writing. The processes of selection,
adaptation, and redeployment of sources that characterized this exegetical effort
are, as I have shown, particularly visible in Bede's handling of the theme of
prayer. Fathers such as Augustine, Cassian, and Gregory the Great had presented
a range of views on the subject, and Bede's selective appropriation of certain
themes from the patristic tradition itself provides an index of the practical, life
oriented nature of his spirituality. Compared with these fathers, Bede appears
as the more conservative thinker, always solicitous to integrate prayer and life
and to further right behavior, linking the purely contemplative with active values,
especially the need to teach others. "It is not possible for one and the same
doctrine to be suitable for everyone," Bede wrote in De tabern?culo, echoing a
well known teaching from Gregory's Pastoral Care.161 Bede apparently believed
that he knew what teachings on prayer his brethren needed to hear and set out
in his commentaries and homilies to tell them.
University of Toronto
160 See above, . 31.

161 De tab. 1 (CCL 119A:26, line 832-33). Trans. Holder, Bede: On the Tabernacle ( . 1
above), 27. Cf. Gregory, Regula pastoralis 3.1, Prol. (PL 77:47); Moralia in lob 30.3.12 (CCL
143B:1499, lines 91-107).

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THE VENERABLE BEDE ON PRAYER AND CONTEMPLATION

As a monk at the famous Northumbrian monastery of Jarrow, the Venerable

feature of this development is a growing awareness that Bede's reputation as an

20; Lawrence T. Martin, "Bede as Linguistic Scholar," American Benedictine Review 35

Bede as Spiritual Writer:

The neglect of Bede as a spiritual writer is in some respects understand

dedicated to preaching as well as to contemplation, and it fell to his lot to provide

However, although "following in the footsteps of the fathers," as he liked to

41 Gerald Bonner, "Bede and Medieval Civilization," Anglo-Saxon England 2 (1973): 75

the obligation of rectores and clerici to teach by example as well as by word;54

58McGinn, "Contemplative in Action" (n. 57 above), 57.

QVAE NOBIS SINT EX EIVSDEM LECTIONIS IMITATICENE GERENDA:

Instar orationvm: Bede's Definition of Prayer

writings of Augustine and Gregory. As Augustine's memorable phrase has it,

Orationis pvritas: Homily 1.22

87Ibid. (CCL 122:158, lines 90-92); trans. Ibid., 1:218.

been encouraged by Cassiodorus to consult Conferences 9 and 10 on prayer.94

So understood, pure prayer in Cassian's sense is akin to contemplation, indeed

Or as he put it more starkly elsewhere:

than being an occasional state to which we recur when we need somethin

Averte ocvlos tvae mentis: Bede on Contemplation

110See Augustine, De Consensu Euangelistarum 1.5.8 (PL 34:1045-46); In Iohannis Eu

doctrine" (exsecutione recti operis et uerbo doctrinae salutaris)}22 Teachers are

thinks of his account of Benedict's contemplative vision of Germanus's transport

137Thacker, "Bede's Ideal" (n. 18 above), 130-53.

Oremvs: Injunctions to Prayer in Bede's Exegesis

This final section continues to explore the theme of the interconne

143 cjj "Hoc quoque fratribus solebat crebrius intimare, ne conversatione

The Commentary on Samuel contains a particularly interesting example in this

Here as elsewhere, it is the spiritual sense of Scripture and its immediate ap

And before embarking on a new section of the gospel in his Commentary on

a scriptural passage or exhorting his audience to prayer, the one object

Throughout his exegesis, Bede often described himself merely as "following

160 See above, . 31.

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