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Bede on the Jewish Church*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Conor O’Brien
Conor O’Brien*
Affiliation:
Queen’s College, Oxford
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Extract

We upon whom the ends of the ages have come can love with sincere affection those faithful who were in the beginning of the world, and receive them into the bosom of our love … and believe that we are also being received by them with a charitable embrace.

Bede (d. 735) is renowned as the first Englishman to write seriously about the history of the church in England. But the Ecclesiastical History of the English People was not the only work of his to address the history of the church, and his interest in the past extended far beyond that book’s temporal and spatial boundaries. He saw the Anglo-Saxon church as part of a universal church whose origins lay in the pre-Incarnation past. The above quotation from his commentary On the Tabernacle, a work interested in the religious institutions of the Israelites, portrays Jews from before the Incarnation as Bede’s fellow members of that church.

Type
Part I: The Churches’ Use of the Past
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 49: The Church on its Past , 2013 , pp. 63 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2013

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Sarah Foot for her support and helpful comments on this essay.

References

1 Bede, De Tabernaculo [hereafter: Tab.] 2 (CChr.SL 119A, 62): ‘nos in quos fines saeculorum deuenerunt etiam eos qui in primordio saeculi fuerunt fideles sincero affectu diligamus et … in sinu nostri amoris suscipiamus et nos quoque ab illis per amplexum caritatis suscipiendos esse credamus’ (ET from Bede: On the Tabernacle, transl. Arthur Holder, TTH 18 [Liverpool, 1994], 69). The following abbreviations are used here for works by Bede: Act. = Expositio in Actuum Apostolornm (CChr.SL 121); Cant. = In Cantica Canticorum (CChr.SL 119B); Ezra. = In Ezram et Neemiam (CChr.SL 119A); Gen. = In Genesim (CChr.SL 118); HE = Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglonim (Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. and transl. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, OMT [Oxford, 1969]); Hom. = Homeliae Euangelii (CChr.SL 122); Luc. = In Lucae Euangelium Expositio (CChr.SL 120); Temp. = De Templo (CChr.SL 119A).

2 Tab. 2 (CChr.SL 119A, 42–3); Cant. 1 (CChr.SL 119B, 190).

3 Olsen, Glenn, ‘Bede as Historian: The Evidence from his Observations on the Life of the First Christian Community at Jerusalem’, JEH 33 (1982), 519–30.Google Scholar

4 Gen. 4 (CChr.SL 118A, 241–2); Act. (CChr.SL 121, 67); Tab. 2 (CChr.SL 119A, 74); HE 3.25 (Ecclesiastical History, ed. and transl. Colgrave and Mynors, 300–3).

5 Scheil, Andrew, The Footsteps of Israel: Understanding Jews in Anglo-Saxon England (Ann Arbor, MI, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chs 1–2.

6 Tugène, Georges, ‘Le thème des deux peuples dans le De Tabernaculo de Bède’, in Lebecq, Stéphane et al., eds, Bède le Vénérable entre tradition et postérité / The Venerable Bede: Tradition and Posterity (Lille, 2005), 73–84.Google Scholar

7 Hom, 1.11 (CChr.SL 122, 74): ‘idem salutiferae curationis auxilium circumcisio in lege contra originalis peccati uulnus agebat quod nunc baptisma agere reuelatae gratiae tempore consueuit’ (ET in Bede the Venerable: Homilies on the Gospels, transl. Lawrence T. Martin and David Hurst, Cistercian Studies 110, 111, 2 vols [Kalamazoo, MI, 1991], 1: 104); Gen. 4 (CChr.SL 118A, 206).

8 Hom. 1.11 (CChr.SL 122, 75); Gen. 4 (CChr.SL 118A, 234).

9 Gregory, Moralia in Iob 4.pref.3 (CChr.SL 143, 160): ‘Quod uero apud nos ualet aqua baptismatis, hoc egit apud ueteres, uel pro paruulis sola fides, uel pro maioribus uirtus sacrificii, uel pro his qui ex Abrahae stirpe prodierant, mysterium circumcisionis’ (‘Certainly that which the water of baptism achieves amongst us, amongst the ancients either faith alone for children, or the power of sacrifice for elders, or, for those who had come from Abraham’s line, the rite of circumcision achieved’; translation mine).

10 Hom. 1.11 (CChr.SL 122, 74–5).

11 Tab. 2, 3 (CChr.SL 119A, 77–8, 124).

12 Tab. 2 (CChr.SL 119A, 48): ‘Nam passionis dominicae per quam utrique sumus redempti sacramentum illi in carne ac sanguine uictimarum nos in oblatione panis et uini celebramus’ (Tabernacle, transl. Holder, 52); Temp. 1 (CChr.SL 119A, 158); HE 5.21 (Ecclesiastical History, ed. and transl. Colgrave and Mynors, 538–9).

13 Carroll, Mary Thomas Aquinas, The Venerable Bede: His Spiritual Teachings, Catholic University of America Studies in Medieval History, n.s. 9 (Washington, DC, 1946), 124–5.Google Scholar

14 Temp. 1 (CChr.SL 119A, 150); Luc. 1 (CChr.SL 120, 27–8).

15 Gen. 3 (CChr.SL 118A, 191).

16 Ezra. 1 (CChr.SL 119A, 255, 262, 279–80); cf. Isidore, Etymologiae 7.12.22-3 (ed. W. M. Lindsay, Oxford Classical Texts [Oxford, 1911], unpaginated).

17 Tab. 3 (CChr.SL 119A, 95): ‘recte ecclesiae sacerdotibus congruit’ (Tabernacle, transl. Holder, 109); see also Tab. 3 (CChr.SL 119A, 97); Ezra. 1 (CChr.SL 119A, 256, 277); ibid. 2 (CChr.SL 119A, 303).

18 Tab. 3 (CChr.SL 119A, 139): ‘nostra humilitas … non quidem de Aaron stirpe nascendo sed credendo in eum in quem et Aaron cum Sanctis illius aeui credidit’ (Tabernacle, transl. Holder, 162); cf. Hom. 1.4 (CChr.SL 122, 29). For the readership of Bede’s commentaries as clerical, see McClure, Judith, ‘Bede’s Notes on Genesis and the Training of the Anglo-Saxon Clergy’, in Walsh, Katherine and Wood, Diana, eds, The Bible in the Medieval World, SCH S 4 (Oxford, 1985), 17–30.Google Scholar

19 Scully, Diarmuid, Introduction to Bede: On Tobit and On the Canticle of Habakkuk, transl. Connolly, Seán (Dublin, 1997), 17–37 Google Scholar, at 23–5; Ezra. 1 (CChr.SL 119A, 255); Hom. 2.3 (CChr.SL 122, 203).

20 Tab. 1 (CChr.SL 119A, 27–8, 31); ibid. 2 (CChr.SL 119A, 52–3, 65).

21 Temp. 1 (CChr.SL 119A, 157): ‘in nullo apostolis … putandi sint esse minores’ (ET in Bede: On the Temple, transl. Sean Connolly, TTH 21 [Liverpool, 1995], 18); Gen. 4 (CChr.SL 118A, 239).

22 Tab. 1 (CChr.SL 119A, 40): ‘multifaria Christi et ecclesiae sacramenta’ (Tabernacle, transl. Holder, 44).

23 Temp. 1, 2 (CChr.SL 119A, 159, 223). See also Tab. 1 (CChr.SL 119A, 22); Temp. 2 (CChr.SL 119A, 219); Ezra. 3 (CChr.SL 119A, 385).

24 Tab. 1 (CChr.SL 119A, 31, 40); Hom. 2.15 (CChr.SL 122, 281).

25 Temp. 1 (CChr.SL 119A, 191).

26 Act. (CChr.SL 121, 26, 66–7); Tab. 2 (CChr.SL 119A, 86); Cant. 1 (CChr.SL 119B, 190); cf. Augustine, Epistulae 190.2.6 (CSEL 57, 142).

27 Act. (CChr.SL 121, 37).

28 HE 3.25 (Ecclesiastical History, ed. and transl. Colgrave and Mynors, 300–3).

29 Tab. 1 (CChr.SL 119A, 28): ‘nec scripturis ultra nee interpretibus earum opus habebimus’ (Tabernacle, transl. Holder, 30); also Tab. 1, 3 (CChr.SL 119A, 39, 94); Hom. 2.25 (CChr.SL 122, 376).

30 Carroll, Spiritual Teachings, 72–3; Olsen, Glenn, ‘From Bede to the Anglo-Saxon Presence in the Carolingian Empire’, Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto Medioevo 32 (1984), 305–82 Google Scholar, at 363.

31 Hom. 1.2 (CChr.SL 122, 10).

32 Cant. 1 (CChr.SL 119B, 190); Luc. 2 (CChr.SL 120, 101); cf. Isidore, Etymologiae 8.1.8. Unless otherwise indicated, I take the dates of Bede’s works to be those suggested in the relevant CChr. SL volume. For the date of Cant., see Holder, Arthur, ‘The Anti-Pelagian Character of Bede’s Commentary on the Song of Songs’, in Leonardi, Claudio and Orlandi, Giovanni, eds, Biblical Studies in the Early Middle Ages (Florence, 2005), 91–103 Google Scholar, at 100–3.

33 Tab. 2 (CChr.SL 119A, 42–3); Temp. 1 (CChr.SL 119A, 157).

34 Luc. 6 (CChr.SL 120, 364); Bede, In Marcae Euangelium Expositio 4 (CChr.SL 120, 595).

35 Luc. 1 (CChr.SL 120, 56); also Cant. 5 (CChr.SL 119B, 345).

36 Luc. 1 (CChr.SL 120, 59–60).

37 Hom. 1.11 (CChr.SL 122, 75): ‘legis decreta suo tempore doceret esse saluberrima’ (Homilies, transl. Martin and Hurst, 1: 106); Luc. 1 (CChr.SL 120, 57).

38 Del Giacco, Eric Jay, ‘Exegesis and Sermon: A Comparison of Bede’s Commentary and Homilies on Luke’, Medieval Sermon Studies 50 (2006), 9–29 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 10–11.

39 Luc. 6 (CChr.SL 120, 363).

40 Temp. 2 (CChr.SL 119A, 223–4).

41 Tab. 1 (CChr.SL 119A, 6–7).

42 Bede, In Primam Partem Samuhelis 2, 3 (CChr.SL 119, 108, 188); Cant. 1 (CChr.SL 119B, 191–2); ibid. 3 (CChr.SL 119B, 258, 271–2); Act. (CChr.SL 121, 36, 55).

43 Tugène, ‘Le thème’; Temp. 1 (CChr.SL 119A, 157–8, 182–3); Tab. 1, 3 (CChr.SL 119A, 19, 135).

44 Scully, , Introduction to Tobit, transl. Scheil, Connolly, Footsteps, 43, 89–97 Google Scholar; Foley, W. Trent and Higham, Nicholas J., ‘Bede on the Britons’, EME 17 (2009), 154–85 Google Scholar, at 168–9.

45 HE 3.17 (Ecclesiastical History, ed. and transl. Colgrave and Mynors, 264–7); cf. Jennifer O’Reilly, Introduction to Temple, transl. Connolly, xvii–lv, at xxxvi–xxxvii.

46 HE 3.3; 5.22 (Ecclesiastical History, ed. and transl. Colgrave and Mynors, 218–19, 552–5); cf. Rom. 10: 2.

47 HE 5.21–2 (Ecclesiastical History, ed. and transl. Colgrave and Mynors, 532–55).

48 Holder, ‘The Anti-Pelagian Character’, 101–3.

49 Stancliffe, Clare, Bede, Wilfrid, and the Irish (Jarrow, 2003), 10–11.Google Scholar