Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Bede the Venerable



Saint Bede the Venerable

Also known as
Venerable Bede
Father of English History

memorial
25 May

Profile

Our saint was born around the time England was finally completely Christianized. Bede was basically raised from an early age in the abbey of Saints Peter and Paul, and lived there the rest of his life. Growing up, he was thoroughly immersed in the church and learning. With nowhere else to go he became a Benedictine monk, when he finally came of age.

Bede was a great teacher and author, he wrote about history, rhetoric, mathematics, music, astronomy, poetry, grammar, philosophy, homiletics, Bible commentary, and hagiography (the study of Saints, but he did not have a saint list or email at the time).

He was without question the most learned man of his day. His astronomical studies noted the sun, stars and planets were out of sync with the calendar we all followed at the time given to us from Julius Caesar. In his religious writings he floated the idea of dating this era (A.D.) from the incarnation of Christ; and correcting the calendar. Many years later this was finally taken up by Pope Gregory XIII under whose direction the current calendar we use today, The Gregorian Calendar, was eventually developed by the monk Dionysis Exegious.

Bede wrote a history of the Church whose central theme was to use its spiritual power to stamp out violence and barbarism. He was known as Bede the Venerable while still alive. Bede was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1899. However, there are some who say that since Bede was so learned, if he didn’t know the answer to a question he made one up…..the ignorant masses were clueless and the intelligent were intimidated by his rep, so they never challenged him.

Born
672 at Wearmouth, England

Died
25 May 735 of natural causes

Patronage
lectors

Representation
monk writing at a desk
old monk dying amidst his community
old monk with a book and pen
old monk with a jug

No comments:

Post a Comment