This valuable supplement to second- and third-year Latin studies offers a comprehensive collection in a volume that provides a vivid portrait of Bede. In addition to the original text and summaries, the book features an introduction, exhaustive notes, and illustrations.
In one series, the original writings of the universally acknowledged teachers of the Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish, and Islamic traditions have been critically selected, translated, and introduced by internationally recognized scholars and spiritual leaders. Book jacket.
Bede (672/673 - 26 May 735), also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede, was an English monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow (see Monkwearmouth-Jarrow), both in the Kingdom of Northumbria. He is well known as an author and scholar, and his most famous work, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People) gained him the title "The Father of English History".In 1899, Bede was made a Doctor of the Church by Leo XIII, a position of theological significance; he is the only native of Great Britain to achieve this designation (Anselm of Canterbury, also a Doctor of the Church, was originally from Italy). Bede was moreover a skilled linguist and translator, and his work with the Latin and Greek writings of the early Church Fathers contributed significantly to English Christianity, making the writings much more accessible to his fellow Anglo-Saxons. Bede's monastery had access to a superb library which included works by Eusebius and Orosius among many others.
This is the first English translation of the Venerable Bede's commentary on the book of Genesis. Dealing as it does with the biblical account of the creation of the world and of mankind, and of mankind's fall from grace and exile into the life of time, On Genesis offers essential insights into Bede's fundamental assumptions as a theologian, historian, and scientific cosmologist. Bede's role in laying the foundations of the modern world cannot be overemphasised. From his quantitative approach to questions of science to his introduction of the Anno Domini system of dating and his text-critical methods of biblical analysis, he anticipated and influenced modern ways of thinking. Bede regarded the opening chapters of Genesis as the foundation narrative of the world. From it Bede derived the theoretical basis for his scientific treatises and his notion of the English as a chosen people of God, which informs the Ecclesiastical History. This translation and introduction attempts to make Bede's commentary accessible to anyone with an interest in his work.
The Venerable Bede—theologian, historian, and scientific cosmologist—played an undeniable role in laying the foundations of the modern world. From his quantitative approach to questions of science to his introduction of the Anno Domini system of dating and his critical methods of biblical analysis, Bede both anticipated and influenced our modern ways of thinking. Bede: On Genesis is the first English-language translation of Bede's Latin commentary on the book of Genesis—the opening chapters of which he regarded as the foundational narrative of the world and through which he derived the theoretical basis for his scientific treaties and his notion of the English as the chosen people of God. Accompanied by an informative introduction that makes Bede's commentary accessible to anyone with an interest in his work, this volume is an essential contribution to ecclesiastical history.
Designed for personal devotion Bede's abbreviated Psalter distills the essence of each of the Psalms, selecting a few verses which encapsulate the Psalm.
Bede's best known work, An Ecclesiastical History of the English People, was written in Latin and is not immediately easy to understand and follow. Yet it is a key text for any student of English history. Rowan Williams shows in his introduction how Bede works to create a sense of national destiny for the new English kingdoms of the seventh century, a sense that has helped to shape English self-awareness through the centuries, by using the imagery both of imperial Rome and of biblical Israel. But Bede also wrestles with the difficult question of how the Church relates to and serves the political order. The attraction and fascination of his work is partly in seeing the tension between the strategic use of wealth and political power for religious ends and the example of self-effacing service and simplicity of life offered by some of Bede's greatest Christian heroes. The issues around these questions are not academic or antiquarian. Understanding Bede is a key to understanding British society in the present as well as the past.
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