Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days | Page 9

grit, directness of expression, simplicity, to be found in early English
work; all these being great things, yet capable of receiving into their
fellowship and above it and beyond it, that which should give what we
look for in a great literature; the power of appeal to various kinds of
people, to "all sorts and conditions of men." And to Celtic influence,
Irish, British, French, we look for that which turns grey, however fair a
grey, to green, and purest pallor to the glory of whiteness. It is beautiful,
is it not, to think how various kinds of men and women can help to
complete one another by giving and taking what each has to give, and
each needs to take? It is the same with nations: each has its own gifts,
its own needs; and for a great and noble world-literature we need the
gifts of all.
[Footnote C: I have not, of course, forgotten the mission of St Paulinus;
but, as history shows, this does not affect the question here. Glow and
fervour permeate life, and literature being its outcome could not but
keep the mark of what had been set upon that life.]
CHAPTER IV
Prose-writing. St Bede the Venerable. His love of truth. His industry
and carefulness. Cuthbert's account of his last days. "Bede whom God
loved."
We leave our poets now for a time, and go to the writers of prose in
early days. We want first to think about a beautiful-souled religious,
who gave us the first great historical work done in England. We know
him as St Bede, the Venerable Bede, as he has been called from the
epithet inscribed on his tomb in Durham Cathedral, which bears the
words
Hac sunt in fossa Bedæ Venerabilis ossa.
"In this grave are the bones of Venerable Bede." We know the old story

how the pupil who was writing his dear master's epitaph could not find
the right word, as it has happened to many a one for the time being; and
how he slept and awoke to find the word supplied by the gracious angel
hand.
In his Benedictine cell at Jarrow, St Bede read and thought and wrote;
and all that he wrote was done in noble sincerity of purpose, springing
from the dedication of his whole soul to Him who is truth itself. He told
as history what he believed to be true, and collected his materials from
sources acknowledged to be trustworthy; and he is always careful to tell
us when he gives a story on evidence only hearsay.
St Bede refused to be Abbot of Jarrow, because "the office demands
household care, and household care brings with it distraction of mind,
which hinders the pursuit of learning."
He wrote many things, and it has been said that his writings form
nearly a complete encyclopædia of the knowledge of his day; but the
work of St Bede by which he is best known is the "Church History of
the English Race." It is of greater value than we can tell, and has been
used for many generations for knowledge and help.
The history of England was in St Bede's time inseparable from the
history of her Church, as we pray that one day it may again come to be.
The book begins with a short account of Britain before the coming of
St Augustine. St Bede used old writers for this, and he was much
helped by two of his friends, Albinus and Northelm. Northelm used to
make researches for him at Rome, and brought him copies of letters
written by St Gregory the Great, and other Popes, bearing on the
Church history of Britain. From other sources also he took the
information which has come down through him to us, a heritage for
which we cannot be too grateful. Our two great early histories are the
"Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," and Bede's "Church History of the English
Race." Without these, what could our historians have done?
This great book of St Bede's was, like almost all his work, written in
Latin; the grand old tongue in which our priests say their daily Office

and minister at God's altar. It was King Alfred who gave us a free
translation of it in English. But although it was written in Latin, it
belongs absolutely to our Catholic Heritage in English Literature.
Bede was the first historian to date from the Incarnation of Our Lord,
the form which we have always used. The History comes down to A.D.
731, a short time before its author went to his rest. We can never think
of St Bede as a mere bookman, a purely "literary man." His own
character, truth-loving, wise, devoted, cheerful, has been felt through
his work; a character that has made people love him and stretch