The Venerable Bede
Bede was placed with the monks of Wearmouth at the age of seven and lived the rest of his life behind the walls of that abbey and its sister house at Jarrow. He learned Greek, Hebrew, and Latin and wrote some forty books, thirty-two of them on the Bible.1
It has ever been my delight to learn or teach or write.2 The Venerable Bedeas quoted by Alton Gansky
Many consider Bede the most significant Christian scholar of the years 600 to 800, and his writings became the basis of religious education in the West. His Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731) preserves much of what is known of Celtic Christianity, early missions, and the Synod of Whitby. He quoted some 144 separate works and asked traveling monks to consult the Vatican archives for him.3
He died in 735 translating the Gospel of John into English, pressing his scribe to write faster.4
His Legacy
Bede’s History made the triumph of the Roman mission and Roman order the shape of English church history. His translation of John, however, was an early witness to the conviction that Englishmen should have the Scriptures in their own tongue, a conviction that would cost Tyndale his life eight centuries later.5
