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Manus Bedae: Bede's contribution to Ceolfrith's bibles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Richard Marsden
Richard Marsden
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University of Leeds
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Extract

Bede entered Wearmouth–Jarrow at the age of seven and thereafter, he tells us at the conclusion of his Historia ecclesiastica, spent all his life ‘applying myself entirely to the study of the Scriptures’. He goes on, ‘From the time I became a priest until the fifty-ninth year of my life I have made it my business, for my own benefit and that of my brothers, to make brief extracts from the works of the venerable fathers on the holy scriptures, or to add notes of my own to clarify their sense and interpretation.’ Bede's modest remarks preface an impressive list of his own works, which includes commentaries on Genesis, I Samuel, Kings, Proverbs, the Prophets, Mark, Luke, Acts and Revelation, and many other exegetical, didactic and historical volumes. Installed at Jarrow from about 679 until his death in 735, he contributed more than anyone to the intellectual distinction of early-eighth-century Northumbria. At the same time, the twin house of Wearmouth–Jarrow was winning lasting renown for the products of its scriptorium (or scriptoria). Not least among these were the three great Vulgate bible pandects which Abbot Ceolfrith caused to be made, an achievement celebrated by the chroniclers of the house, who included Bede himself. One of these pandects, which we know today as the Codex Amiatinus, was dispatched to St Peter's in Rome in 716, then spent more than 900 years at Monte Amiata in the Appenines, and is now in Florence (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Amiatino 1). The other two were for use in the Wearmouth and Jarrow churches. One of these has been lost without trace, but the second survived in the cathedral priory of Worcester until the sixteenth century, when an entrepreneurial Nottinghamshire family made use of some of its torn-out leaves as document wrappers. Twelve of these, with some fragments of a thirteenth, are now in the British Library under three different shelfmarks (Loan 81, Add. 37777 and Add. 45025).

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 27 , December 1998 , pp. 65 - 85
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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References

1 V.24: ‘[C]unctumque ex eo tempus uitae in eiusdem monasterii habitatione peragens, omnem meditandis scripturis operam dedi … Ex quo tempore accepti presbyteratus usque ad annum aetatis meae lviiii haec in Scripturam sanctam meae meorumque necessitati ex opusculis uenerabilium patrum breuiter adnotare, siue etiam ad formam sensus et interpretationis eorum superadicere curaui’ (Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Colgrave, B. and Mynors, R. A. B. (Oxford, 1969), pp. 566–7).Google Scholar

2 See Bede's, Historia abbatum, ch. 15, in Venerabilis Baedae Opera Historica, ed. Plummer, C., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1896) I, 364–87, at 379–80Google Scholar, and the anonymous Vita S. Ceolfridi, ch. 20 (ibid. I, 388–404, at 395).

3 On the pandects, see Marsden, R., The Text of the Old Testament in Anglo-Saxon England, CSASE 15 (Cambridge, 1995), 85–106.Google Scholar

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7 I present the arguments in The Text, pp. 98–106.Google Scholar

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16 Expositio mystica in parabolas Salomonis et in Ecclesiasten (PL 53, 967–95, at 988). On Bede and SaloniusGoogle Scholar, see Laistner, , ‘The Library’, pp. 136–8.Google Scholar

17 Baedae Opera, ed. Plummer, I, 372Google Scholar; on the dating of the work, see p. cxlviii.

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27 In Proverbia Salomonis, ed. Hurst, .p. 51.Google Scholar

28 My own fallibility as a copyist allowed the rather surprising ‘grauissima’ to appear for ‘gratissima’ in a previous discussion of this passage (The Text, pp. 115 and 212).Google Scholar

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31 In Ezram et Neemiam, ed. Hurst, D., CCSL 119A (Turnhout, 1969), 254 (ch. i).Google Scholar

32 In Proverbia Salomonis, ed. Hurst, , pp. 6, 9, 11 and 17.Google Scholar

33 The Text, pp. 171–9.Google Scholar

34 Ibid. pp. 232–5.

35 See my ‘The Survival of Ceolfrith's Tobit in a Tenth-Century Insular Manuscript’, JTS 45 (1994), 1–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar and The Text, pp. 179–81.Google Scholar

36 The Text, p. 176.Google Scholar

37 Ibid. pp. 158–63. The text of Psalms, which follows Jerome's ‘Hebrew’ version, is also problematical in Amiatinus, being apparently an emended version of a poor Irish text; see Fischer, B., Lateinische Bibelhandschriften im frühen Mittelalter, Vetus Latina: Aus der Geschichte der latenischen Bibel 11 (Freiburg, 1985), 32Google Scholar and Marsden, , The Text, p. 141.Google Scholar

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40 Paul Meyvaert's observation that Bede's preface to Romans seems to derive from the prologus Hilarii in the Book of Armagh offers further confirmation that Bede had an Irish text to hand; see ‘Bede's capitula lectionum for the Old and New Testaments,’, RB 150 (1995), 348–80, at 378.Google Scholar

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42 Retractatio, ed. Laistner, , p. 116Google Scholar: ‘Some codices have dicit dominus but the Greek exemplars, both in this book and in the psalter, have dixit dominus.’ Bede's allusion is to Ps. CIX.1.

43 Retractatio, ed. Laistner, , p. 131.Google Scholar

44 ‘Bede the Scholar’, p. 48.Google Scholar

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49 See Plummer, , in his introduction to Baedae Opera I, lvi and n. 3.Google Scholar

50 In Ezram et Neemiam, ed. Hurst, , p. 256.Google Scholar

51 Retractatio, ed. Laistner, , p. 109 (II.1)Google Scholar. See Meyvaert, , ‘Bede the Scholar’, p. 49.Google Scholar

52 In Canticum Abacuc, ed. Hudson, J. E., CCSL 119B (Turnhout, 1983) 381–409Google Scholar. On Bede's promotion of the Old Latin versions of the canticles, see Schneider, H., Die altlateinischen biblischen Cantica, Texte und Arbeiten 29–30 (Beuron, 1938), 47–8.Google Scholar

53 Baedae Opera I, p. lv, n. 1.Google Scholar

54 See my The Text, p. 215.Google Scholar

55 Retractatio, ed. Laistner, , p. 103Google Scholar; Meyvaert's, translation, ‘Bede the Scholar’, p. 50.Google Scholar

56 See above, p. 73.Google Scholar

57 See Vetus Latina II, 119–20Google Scholar and Biblia Sacra I, 169.Google Scholar

58 Hebraice quaestiones, ed. de Lagarde, , p. 10Google Scholar. He uses a different Old Latin version, not the one which reached the Vulgate; thus: ‘Et de coruo aliter dicitur “emisit coruum et egressus est exiens et reuertens”.’ In the same place, Jerome notes a variation between what is in the Hebrew and the Latin earlier in the verse, but he does not seem to attribute the positive version of the raven's activities to the Hebrew.

59 In Iohannis euangelium tractatus, ed. Willems, R., CCSL 36 (Turnhout, 1954), 63–4 (VI.19)Google Scholar and Quaestiones in Heptateuchum, ed. Fraipont, J., CCSL 33 (Turnhout, 1958), 5 (I.13).Google Scholar

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61 In Genesim II: ‘… cuius egressui atque itineri recte comparantur hi qui sacramentis quidem celestibus institui atque imbuti sunt, nec tamen nigredinem terrenae oblectationis exuentes, lata podus mundi itinera quam ecclesiasticae conuersationis claustra diligunt’ (ed. Jones, , p. 123).Google Scholar

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63 On the dating, see Jones's, discussion, In Genesim, ed. Jones, , pp. vi–x.Google Scholar

64 The Text, p. 204.Google Scholar

65 Meyvaert, , ‘Bede the Scholar’, p. 49 and n. 39.Google Scholar

66 See James, M. R., ‘The Manuscripts of Bede’, Bede: his Life, Times and Writings, ed. Thompson, A. H. (Oxford, 1935), pp. 230–6.Google Scholar

67 See Meyvaert, P., ‘The Bede Signature in the Leningrad Colophon’, RB 71 (1961), 274–86.Google Scholar

68 ‘Some Notes on English Uncial’, Traditio 17 (1961), 441–56, at 443 and 452CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I suggest examples in The Text, p. 185.Google Scholar

69 The Text, pp. 195–9Google Scholar. My previous conviction (p. 195) that suis in III Kings XI.43, on Add. 37777, was added by a corrector has weakened after a recent reappraisal of the manuscript.

70 But ὡς is absent from Origen's recension.

71 De Athanasio (I.xx): ‘et ascendit Helias in commotionem quasi in caelum’ (ed. Diercks, , p. 36)Google Scholar. This is the only Old Latin citation noted by Sabatier, P., Bibliorum Sacrorum latinae uersiones antiquae seu uetus Italica, 3 vols. (Rheims, 1743–1709) I, 598–9.Google Scholar

72 He does not seem to cite II.1 specifically anywhere.

73 De temporum ratione, ed. Jones, , p. 477 (ch. lxvi)Google Scholar: ‘Elijah was snatched away in a fiery chariot, as though into heaven”. On the dating, which is known from internal evidence, see Jones's, introduction, p. 241.Google Scholar

74 Homeliae 11.15 (ed. Hurst, , p. 287, my emphasis)Google Scholar: ‘And as they continued to converse together, behold: snatched away suddenly in a fiery chariot, as scripture says, “Elijah ascended as though into heaven”. By this upwards flight it is made known that Elijah was not taken up to heaven itself, as our Lord was, but into the upper atmosphere, whence he was carried invisibly to the joys of paradise.’ On the dating, see Hurst, , p. vii.Google Scholar

75 Acts I.10–11: ‘And while they were beholding him going up to heaven, behold two men stood by them in white garments, who also said: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand you looking up to heaven? This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven shall so come as you have seen him going into heaven”.’

76 Expositio, ed. Laistner, , p. 9 (my emphasis): ‘The angels appeared to them for two reasons, namely to console them for the sadness of his ascension by reminding them of his return and to show that he had truly gone to heaven and not, like Elijah, as though to heaven.’Google Scholar

77 On Bede's knowledge of Ambrose, see Laistner, , ‘The Library’, pp. 145–6.Google Scholar

78 Expositio, ed. Schenkl, C., CSEL 32.4 (Vienna, 1897), 274 (VI.96); cf. Phil. II.6: ‘But Christ was not Elijah; the one was snatched away, the other will return; the one was snatched away, the other “thought it not robbery to be equal with God”.’Google Scholar

79 De fide, ed. Faller, O., CSEL 78 (Vienna, 1962), 160 (IV.1,8)Google Scholar; cf. John III.13: ‘Enoch was carried off, Elijah snatched away, but “the servant is not above his master”; for “none hath ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven” … Therefore Enoch was carried off, Elijah snatched away, both as servants, both in the body – but not after resurrection, nor with the spoils of death and the triumph of the cross, had angels seen them.’

80 In ascensione Domini: ‘we rædað on ðære ealdan æ þæt twegen godes men. henoh. and helias wæron ahafene to heofonum butan deaðe. ac hi elcyað ongean þam deaðe. and mid calle ne forfleoð; Hi sind genumene to lyftenre heofenan: na to rodorlicere. ac drohtniað on sumum diglum earde mid micelre strencðe lichaman and sawle. oð ðæt hi eft ongean cyrron on ende þisre worulde togeanes antecriste. and deaðes onfoð (Ælfric's Catholic Homilies: The First Series. Text, ed. Clemoes, P., EETS ss 17 (Oxford, 1997), 352).Google Scholar

81 κα⋯ ⋯πάταξεν τό ὓδωρ καί διέατη. The addition is lacking in the fourth-century Vaticanus and the fifth-century Alexandrinus manuscripts of the Greek Bible, however.

82 See Robinson, J., The Second Book of Kings (Cambridge, 1976), pp. 26–7.Google Scholar

83 Some manuscripts have ‘quae non sunt diuisae’; see Biblia Sacra VI, 215–16.Google Scholar

84 Dialogi, I, ii, 7 (Grégoire le Grand: Dialogues, ed. de Vogüé, A., 3 vols., Sources chrétiennes 251, 260 and 265 (Paris, 1978–80) II, 30; my emphasis)Google Scholar: ‘Just as Heliseus, coming to the Jordan and taking his master's cloak, struck the first time, but the waters did not divide. But as soon as he had said, “Where is now the God of Elijah?”, he struck the river with his master's cloak and made a path through the waters.’ The only other church writer I have noted as using the expanded version of IV Kings II.14 is Hrabanus Maurus, in the ninth century, who cites the verse in his Commentarius in Regibus IV.2 (PL 109, 224).Google Scholar

85 Laistner, , ‘The Library’, p. 129Google Scholar; and see also p. 147.Google Scholar

86 Marsden, , The Text, pp. 130–2Google Scholar; and on Bede's direct use of Greek scripture, see Laistner, , ‘The Library’, p. 140.Google Scholar

87 I acknowledge the generous input of George Hardin Brown and Paul Meyvaert during the preparation of this article, which began as a paper given at a conference on ‘The Golden Age of Northumbria’ at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. July 1996.