Introduction, I

The sensitive reader handles these pages with reverence not untouched by amaze. For here are the first fruits of the Christian scholarship of England, and they read as if behind them lay a long tradition of gentle learning. Their spirit is sweetly reasonable as that of Westcott, tranquil as that of Keble or Stanley. While Bede was composing his History in the new monastery at Jarrow, built by Benedict Biscop, some brother-scribe in a Northumbrian monastery—quite conceivably in Jarrow itself—may have been at work, redacting the text of Beowulf, our precious Old English epic of the slayer of monsters and dragons. The father of Bede may, for all we know, have been in his youth a heathen fighter and sea-rover such as we encounter in that poem. In the verse of the so-called Cædmonian School, of the origin of which Bede tells the lovely legend, we see clearly the temper of seventh and eighth century England. It was a temper which, even when reconciled to Christianity, continued mournful and brooding. A turbulent exaltation pervades it, still echoing with the vague imaginative terrors that were slowly to vanish before the invasion of letters. Though it turns for theme to the Scriptures, it paraphrases the Old Testament rather than the New, gloats over scenes of battle and tempest, and opens its ears more readily to the screams of the raven than to the singing of heavenly choirs. Social conditions in many parts of England were still violent and unsettled when Bede wrote: we need indeed go no further than his own works to find pictures of Pagan manners and morals that recall the days of Saga. But these works are written in the scrupulous manner of the finished scholar, living secure laborious Edition: current; Page: [viii] days. How balanced and disciplined is his spirit! With what serene pains does he cite authorities, sift testimony! What eagerness for knowledge of every order do his books display! So steady an intellectual light illumines them that we are tempted to hail the love of truth as the best gift of Christianity to the English nation. Bede tells the story of the conversion of England, and his books and his personality are among the best products of the process he describes.

To dwell on that process as here presented is to embrace an unique opportunity. One turns to modern histories for a more easily intelligible and consecutive account of the great story; but Bede has the freshness of the source. The Ecclesiastical History would be a treasure-house did it contain nothing but the charming tales of Alban and Augustine, of Edwin, Paulinus, Coifi, Cædmon, Cuthbert, Cedd and Aidan. But it holds far more than this. It presents the whole dramatic situation, not only in England, but in the civilized world. We contemplate the cosmopolitan power of the Church Catholic, pouring her riches with generous largesse into the little island of the North. A sketch, first, of physical conditions and of earliest history on that island; then come the Italian monks, headed by Augustine, and the story proper begins. We watch “the simplicity of their innocent life” and hark to the “sweetness of their heavenly doctrine.” We see their wise development of orderly system, their care for just administration down to the most trivial detail, the dignity and gentle force of their dealing with the noble native princes. Time passes on: we behold the arrival of the Greek Archbishop, Theodore, with Hadrian, his African deacon; they bring with them the best learning of the day, Greek letters, a love of art, music, and ordered peace. Presently the English themselves—docile pupils always—can continue the tradition. Benedict Biscop, with his ardour for books and buildings, follows Theodore and Hadrian; Wilfrid the Romanized prelate appears, full like Augustine of passion for administration. But an Englishman may be pardoned for rejoicing that the finest gifts come not from across the Edition: current; Page: [ix] channel, but from the Northern portions of the island itself. Columba died in the very year of the landing of Augustine, and his Celtic followers had already done earnest work from Iona. The political sagacity of the Italians, aiming first at the conversion of the rulers, proved sterile and transitory, while the loving democracy and humble saintliness of the Celtic monks planted a seed destined to have fair permanent growth in English soil. Through Bede’s careful reticence and kindly pacific temper, we can easily discern the antagonism between the schools. He gives us a vivid study of Wilfrid—efficient, worldly, devout prototype of many princes of the Church, from Becket to Manning; on the other hand, we have the exquisite picture of Aidan and his Celtic brethren, living as holy anchorites or traversing on foot the drear country of Northumbria with their message of deliverance and love, united in curious mystic fellowship with man and beast. We cannot fail to perceive how inevitable was conflict between the two types: yet we gratefully recognize the necessity of both to the full life of the Church Catholic. We see that Church reconciling and energizing with new force the varying gifts and powers of those who embrace her; we watch the provincialism and faction born of ignorance, yielding slowly to that unity which is in Christ.