Christian History Home > Issue 72 > When God Came to England
When God Came to England
In Bede's view, the history of the English church—like the history of redemption—begins in Genesis and ends in Revelation.
Frank A. James III | posted 10/01/2001 12:00AM
The remote monastery at Jarrow, nestled on a spit of land extending into the river Tyne, was only a few years old when the plague hit in 686. Every monk succumbed to the pestilence except Abbot Ceolfrid and a "little lad" who had been made a ward of the monastery. Most scholars identify the "little lad" as Bede. The young survivor, if not yet "venerable," was resilient.
Relatively little else is known of Bede's life. Most direct information we possess derives from Bede's own abbreviated account of his life at the end of his most famous work, the Ecclesiastical History. Beyond the fact that he was a "priest of the monastery of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul at Wearmouth and Jarrow," Bede offers only the following pithy autobiographical fragment:
"I was born on the lands of this monastery, and on reaching seven years of age, I was entrusted by my family first to the most reverend Abbot Benedict and later to Abbot Ceolfrid for my education. I have spent all the remainder of my life in ...
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