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Bede's Use of Miracles in ‘The Ecclesiastical History’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Joel T. Rosenthal
Joel T. Rosenthal*
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Stony Brook
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Extract

Bede believed in miracles. They were basic to him, both as a practicing Christian and as a working historian. Without accepting this we can understand him neither as a man of the seventh and eighth centuries ncr as the author who carefully constructed the Ecclesiastical History.

One of Bede's warmest admirers, the late Bertram Colgrave, was rather embarrassed by what seemed to be the naíveté of his hero. To rescue Bede from the charge of being either overly credulous or simply simple-minded, Colgrave did a useful study of the use of miracle stories in Bede's works, particularly in the Ecclesiastical History. And yet, despite himself, he always remained a little uneasy. His comments to the British Academy reflect a continuing ambivalence, and his last words on the subject were still apologetic in tone.

Type
Miscellany
Information
Traditio , Volume 31 , 1975 , pp. 328 - 335
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

1 Colgrave, Bertram, ‘Bede 's Miracle Stories' in Thompson, A. Hamilton, ed., Bede, His Life, Times, and Writings (Oxford 1935) 201–29.Google Scholar

2 Colgrave, B., ‘The Earliest Saints' Lives Written in England,’ Proceedings of the British Academy, 44 (1958) 35–60. B. Colgrave, and Mynors, R. A. B., editors, Bede's Ecclesiastical History (Oxford 1969) xxxiv–xxxvi. The editors ask ‘How is it that one who is supposed to be our greatest medieval historian can spend so much time telling wonder stories?’ (xxxv). David, Knowles is also defensive about Bede's ‘manifest belief in the miraculous,’ p. x of the Everyman Library edition of the Ecclesiastical History, The concern is not only with Bede, for in Colgrave's, B. edition of The Life of Bishop Wilfrid, by Stephanus, Eddius (Cambridge 1927) xi–xii, the editor is again concerned with whether the author is ‘credulous’ as well as partisan.Google Scholar

3 Among the works that elucidate the thought and faith of early medieval Europe, the following are particularly relevant: Colgrave, B., Two Lives of St. Cuthbert (Cambridge 1940 ); Jones, C. W., Saints' Lives and Chronicles in Early England (Ithaca 1947); Laistner, M. L. W., Thought and Letters in Western Europe, 500–900 revised edition (London 1957); Levison, W., England and the Continent in the Eighth Century (Oxford 1946). A recent book with a good bibliography is Blair, P. H., The World of Bede (London 1970).Google Scholar

4 Thompson, A. H., Bede, 201.Google Scholar

5 Ec. History, 3. 2 (216). The emphasis is mine.Google Scholar

6 Colgrave, , ‘Earliest Saints’ Lives,’ 59. The tales are a methodological and intellectual regression, since Bede had reached the ‘realm of pure history’ in his introduction to the History. Google Scholar

7 Ec. History, 4.22 (409).Google Scholar

8 Thompson, , Bede, 226–27.Google Scholar

9 Ec. History, 3. 8 (238).Google Scholar

10 Ec. History, 3. 19 (274).Google Scholar

11 Ec. History, 4. 3 (344). Other examples are readily found: Ec. History, 4.10 (364); 4.19 (390–96), etc.Google Scholar

12 Ec. History, 4. 7 (356): ‘many signs and miracles were performed which were set down by those acquainted with them as an edifying memorial for succeeding generations and copies are in possession of many people.’Google Scholar

13 Colgrave, , ‘Earliest Saints’ Lives,’ 40.Google Scholar

14 Ec. History, 5. 12 (488). A Northumbrian rose from the dead, ‘a memorable miracle … like those of ancient days’ (antiquorum simile). Colgrave, ‘Earliest Saints’ Lives,’ 41: Along with Nazianzen, Gregory, Chrysostom, John, Augustine, , and Gregory, Pope, Bede accepted that miracles belonged to a ‘past dispensation.’Google Scholar

15 Knowles, , op. cit. x, and Jones, , op. cit. 76, for the distinction in Bede between ‘historical truth’ and ‘ethical truth.’ The latter, naturally, depended in large part on the piety and character of the transmitter of the information.Google Scholar

16 Ec. History, Praefatio (7).Google Scholar

17 Colgrave, , ed., Two Lives of St. Cuthbert, 65, for an incident of Cuthbert's youth which came to the author from Bishop Tumma, ‘of holy memory, who learnt from St. Cuthbert's own lips … and Elias also, a priest of our church. These tell the story thus …’ There are numerous other source-identifications of this type.Google Scholar

18 For a piece of hagiography which names the sources in the prefatory bit but not miracle-by-miracle, see Colgrave, B., editor, Felix's Life of St. Guthlac (Cambridge 1956). The introduction professes great methodological concern: 62–63, ‘just as I learned it from the words of competent witnesses whom you know …’ and, 65, ‘I would not write anything about so great a man without an exact inquiry into the facts.’Google Scholar

19 Life of Bishop Wilfrid, 77: A woman was cured of palsy, and now, ‘like Peter's wife's mother, she ministered to our holy bishop in all honour; she is still living and is now a holy abbess named Aebbe, and is wont to tell this story with tears’ (cum lacrimis hoc narrare consuevit). There are other examples on 129 and 147, where a story ‘is proved by the witness of many’ (quod multorum testimonio comprobatur). …Google Scholar

20 Op. cit. 61–67, 89, 105, 117.Google Scholar

21 The quotation is from Gardner, Edmund, translator, Gregory the Great's Dialogues (London 1911) 23–24. The text is found in Gregorii Magni Dialogi, libri v, edited Moricca, U., Fonti per la Storia d'Italia 57 (Rome 1924) 39: (21). ‘Cuiusdam coepiscopi mei didici relatione quod narro, qui in Anchonitanam orbem per annos multos in monachio habitu deguit, ibique vitam non mediocriter religiosam duxit; cui etiam quidam nostri iam provectioris aetatis, qui ex eisdem sunt partibus adtestantur. …’ There is another such citation on page 38: ‘Ea etiam quae subiungo praedicti venerabilis viri Fortunati, qui valde mihi aetate, opere et simplicitate placet, relatione cognovi.’Google Scholar

22 Ec. History, 1. 7 (33). The persecution does not seem to have ceased because of the miracle, Ec. History, 1. 7 (35): ‘iudex, tanta miraculorum caelestium novitate perculsus, cessari mox a persecutione praecepit.’ But Alban's own conversion was the result of his desire to emulate a confessor whose purity of life had greatly impressed him: page 11.Google Scholar

23 Ec. History, 1. 18 (58–60). Bede concluded this episode by saying, 61: ‘After these incidents a countless number of men turned to the Lord on the same day.’ But his ‘quibus ita gestis’ does not quite force us to conclude that the miracles were responsible.Google Scholar

24 Ec. History, 1. 17 (58).Google Scholar

25 Ec. History, 1. 26 (76).Google Scholar

26 Ec. History , 2. 9 (80). For Constantine's conversion, see Culfon, J. and Lawler, H., editors, Eusebius: The Ecclesiastical History (London 1932) 2. 359–65, and Baynes, Norman, ‘Constantine the Great and the Christian Church,' Proceedings of the British Academy 15 (1929) 341–442. For Clovis' decision to come over, Dalton, O. M., trans., Gregory of Tours: History of the Franks (Oxford 1927) 67–70. It was almost a commonplace that miracles and conversion went together: Thompson, E. A., The Visigoths in the Time of Ulfila (Oxford 1966) 80.Google Scholar

27 Ec. History, 2. 12 (174–82), and 2. 13 (182–86).Google Scholar

28 Ec. History, 2. 14 (188).Google Scholar

29 Ec. History, 2. 15 (188).Google Scholar

30 Ec. History, 2. 16, 17 (190).Google Scholar

31 Ec. History, 3. 3 (218–20): ‘… preaching the word of faith with great devotion …,’ ‘administering the grace of baptism to those who believed …,’ ‘people flocked together with joy to hear the word,’ ‘monks who came to preach. …’Google Scholar

32 Ec. History, 3. 19 (268).Google Scholar

33 Ec. History, 3. 2 (p. 216).Google Scholar

34 Ec. History, 4. 13 (374). The bishop showed men how to improve their fishing techniques, and this is referred to as a ‘good turn’ (beneficio) rather than as a repetition of the miracle of the loaves and fishes. It seems like a deliberate attempt to play down the marvelous aspects of the incident.Google Scholar

35 Ec. History, 5. 9 (480).Google Scholar

36 Ec. History, 4. 30 (442).Google Scholar

37 Ec. History, 1. 31 (110). Colgrave, , ‘Earliest Saints’ Lives,’ 49: The author of the Anonymous Life of St. Gregory ‘points out how the gift of performing miracles, as Gregory himself taught, is sometimes of less importance than the gift of teaching.’Google Scholar