BEDE, THE MONK, AS EXEGETE :

EVIDENCE FROM THE COMMENTARY ON

EZRA-NEHEMIAH

The Venerable Bede's exegetical writings collectively form one of

the most extensive bodies of scriptural commentary produced in the

1
early medieval west. The immediate acclaim those writings gained,

attested by their manuscript distribution and requests for them from

2
both England and abroad, early on helped to earn their author a

3
place among the Fathers of the Church. How Bede himself would

have viewed this acclamation one can only wonder. For while he re-

mained ever insistent that his exegetical task was no more than ‘‘to

CCSL = Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina; CSEL = Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesias-

ticorum Latinorum; MGH = Monumenta Germaniae Historica; SC = Sources Chrétien-

RB 1980: The Rule of Saint Benedict

nes; RB = Regula Sancti Benedicti. Citations and translations from RB are taken

from , ed. and trans. Timothy Fry, O.S.B. (Col-

legeville, MN, 1981). I am grateful to Arthur Holder, Allen Frantzen, Brian Stock,

Bruno Heisey, and Bede Kierney, all of whom read this article in draft and provided

constructive comments for improvement. Thanks are due as well to Adalbert de Vo-

güé, Pierre Bogaert, Mary Forman, Glenn Olsen, Joseph Dyer, and Drew Jones, who

all answered specific queries I put to them.

The Venerable Bede

1. We still lack a proper book-length study of Bede's exegetical writings; briefer

Bede the Venerable

surveys may be found in Benedicta W ard, , Cistercian Studies Se-

ries 169 (1990; Kalamazoo, 1998), pp. 41–87; and George B rown,

A Hand-List of
(Boston, 1987), pp. 42–61

Bede Manuscripts
2. On the manuscripts, see M. L. W. L aistner and H. H. King,

Die Briefe des Heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus

(Ithaca, N. Y., 1939). The demand abroad for Bede's works is attes-

ted by the texts in , ed. M. Tangl, MGH,

The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany

Epistolae selectae, I (Berlin, 1916), nos. 75, 76, 116, 125, and the translations and

discussion in C. H. Talbot, ed. and trans.,

The Scriptorium of Wearmouth-Jarrow

(New York, 1954). The issue is treated also in three Jarrow Lectures : M. B. P arkes,

Bede and the Benedictine Reform

, Jarrow Lecture, 1982, esp. pp. 12–17; Joyce

Bede and Germany

Hill, , Jarrow Lecture, 1998, esp. pp. 3–6; and David

Rollason, , Jarrow Lecture, 2001, esp. pp. 9–14.

Concilia Aevi Karolini I

3. According to the Council of Aachen (836), Bede's authority was tantamount to

that of earlier Fathers : see , ed. A. Werminghoff, MGH,

Bede the Venerable

Legum, Section III, Concilia II i (Hannover, 1906), p. 759. On Bede's legacy, see

Beda Venerabilis: Historian, Monk, &

Brown, (n. 1 above), pp. 97–103; J. E. Cross, ‘‘Bede's Influence

Northumbrian
at Home and Abroad : An Introduction,'' in

Bede and the Benedictine Reform

, ed. L. A. J. R. Houwen and A. A. MacDonald (Groningen, 1996),

pp. 17–29; and Joyce Hill, , Jarrow Lecture, 1998.

 ´ ´
344 REVUE BENEDICTINE

4
make brief extracts from the works of the venerable Fathers,'' even a

selective reading of his commentaries and homilies exposes the insuffi-

ciency of that all-too-modest statement. Their cumulative weight as a

corpus, programmatic concern with orthodox teaching, and deft han-

dling of the allegorical method of biblical interpretation not only align

Bede with patristic tradition but suggest that, to some degree at least,

he was out to fashion himself as a doctor scripturarum — however

much the pull of humilitas required him to say otherwise. From a mod-

ern standpoint, Bede's resulting enshrinement among the Fathers has

seemed entirely fitting, and rightly so; if there has been any downside

to it, it is only that it has, perhaps, kept us from exhausting other

contexts for understanding his exegetical achievements. Bede was, for

instance, first and foremost a monk, a fact replete with implications

both for the kind of exegesis he produced and the expectations we

should bring to evaluating it.

Such a claim, it should be said, is not meant to divide the monastic

from the patristic, nor to prioritize one at the expense of the other.

Many of the Fathers were monks, and monasticism itself developed a

heavy reliance on patristic tradition. As far as Bede himself goes,

scholars have rightly emphasized that, however much he looked to

5
the Fathers and viewed himself to be following in their footsteps, he

was not of their world but the product of an early medieval monastic

culture, making his intellectual formation, his motives as a scholar and

4. Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, 5.24. ed. B. Colgrave and R. A. B.

Mynors, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1969), p. 566; hereafter cited as HE. The

full passage from which this quoted phrase is taken is cited below, n. 13.

5. For Bede's favorite slogan (‘‘patrum uestigia sequens''), see Expositio Actuum
Apostolorum, ed. M. L. W. Laistner, CCSL 121 (Turnhout, 1983), p. 3, lines 9–10;

In primam partem Samuhelis, ed. D. Hurst, CCSL 119 (Turnhout, 1962), p. 10, lines

52–54; In Cantica Canticorum, ed. D. Hurst, CCSL 119B (Turnhout, 1983), p. 180,

lines 501–4; and De temporum ratione, ed. C. W. Jones, CCSL 123B (Turnhout, 1977),

p. 287, line 86. On Bede and the Fathers, see M. L. W. L aistner, ‘‘Bede as a Classi-

cal and a Patristic Scholar,'' Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 4th ser. 16

(1933) : 69–94, repr. The Intellectual Heritage of the Early Middle Ages : Selected Essays
by M. L. W. Laistner, ed. C. Starr (Ithaca, NY, 1957), pp. 93–116; Beryl S malley,

Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (1941; repr. Notre Dame, Ind., 1970), pp. 35–36;

Arthur G. Holder, ‘‘Bede and the Tradition of Patristic Exegesis,'' Anglican Theolo-
gical Review 72 (1990) : 399–411; J. N. Hart-Hasler, ‘‘Bede's Use of Patristic Sour-

ces : The Transfiguration,'' Studia Patristica 28 (1993) : 197–204; and Bernice M.

Kaczynski, ‘‘Bede's Commentaries on Luke and Mark and the Formation of a Patris-

tic Canon,'' in Anglo-Latin Literature and Its Heritage : Essays in Honour of A. G. Rigg
on His 64th Birthday, ed. S. Echard and G. Wieland, Publications of the Journal of

Medieval Latin 4 (Turnhout, 2001), pp. 17–26; and now the essays by Roger Ray,
Alan Thacker, Scott DeGregorio, and Joyce Hill forthcoming in Tradition and In-
novation in the Writings of the Venerable Bede, ed. Scott DeGregorio, Medieval Euro-
pean Series 7 (Morgantown, WV, 2006).
 S. DEGREGORIO 345

writer, his views of classical antiquity and its learning, and even his

6
Latinity different from theirs. Bede was, in short, a monk who read

the Fathers — which is to say, that the practice of monasticism itself,

which of course involved the appropriation of patristic writings, was

the paramount determinant of his literary endeavors, and not least of

his approach to Scripture and its interpretation.

And yet, little attention has been paid to the effects the lived expe-

7
rience of the monastic life might have had upon his commentaries.

Reasons for this are not hard to come by. Before the tenth century,

the sources for studying Anglo-Saxon monastic culture are woefully

thin, no rules, no customaries, no liturgical books having survived for

8
our perusal. Those wishing to study the nature of early Anglo-Saxon

monasticism and its influence upon a given author are therefore con-

9
strained by a regrettable dearth of information. For early eighth-cen-

tury Northumbria, Bede's writings are themselves among our only

sources, and scholars have had to work creatively from the bits of in-

formation that may be found in them to piece together a picture of the

monastic life as Bede would have experienced it. Commendable use

here has been made of his historical writings and even of his 50

6. See Holder, ‘‘Bede and Patristic Exegesis'' (n. 5 above), esp. 401–3; Gerald

Bonner, ‘‘Bede and Early Medieval Civilization,'' Anglo-Saxon England 2 (1973) :

71–90; and William D. McCready, Miracles and the Venerable Bede (Toronto, 1994),

pp. 11–14. For more general observations on the shift from the patristic to the medie-

val world, see Robert Markus, ‘‘The Sacred and the Secular : From Augustine to

Gregory the Great,'' Journal of Theological Studies 36 (1985) : 84–96, along with his

larger study of the theme in The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge, 1990), esp.

pp. 157–228.

7. Benedicta Ward, Bede and the Psalter, Jarrow Lecture, 1991, has given us a

magisterial treatment of Bede's monastic approach to the Psalms, but I know of no

study that scrutinizes individual commentaries for monastic influence.

8. No monastic rules composed specifically for early Northumbrian monasteria have

survived : see Peter Hunter B lair, The World of Bede (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 200–1.

Nor is the earliest surviving copy of the Benedictine Rule ( Oxford, BL, Hatton MS

48), produced in England in the early eighth century, believed to have any connection

with Bede or Wearmouth-Jarrow : see Patrick Sims W illiams, Religion and Literature
in Western England, 600–800, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 3 (Cam-

bridge, 1990), pp. 117–18. On the fragmentary nature of liturgical evidence prior to

900 AD, see Henry Mayr-Harting, The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon En-
gland (1972; University Park, PA, 1994), pp. 173–82; C. H ohler, ‘‘Some Service

Books of the Later Saxon Church,'' in Tenth-Century Studies : Essays in Commemora-

tion of the Millennium of the Council of Winchester and Regularis Concordia , ed. D.

Parsons (London, 1975), pp. 60–83; and the essays in The Liturgical Books of An-
glo-Saxon England, ed. R. Pfaff, Old English News Letter, Subsidia 23 (Kalamazoo,

MI, 1995).

9. Sarah Foot, ‘‘Anglo-Saxon Minsters A.D. 597– ca 900 : The Religious Life in Eng-

land Before the Benedictine Reform,'' Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University (1989), pp.

12–48, discusses the limitations of the sources for study of early English monasticism.
346 REVUE BÉNÉDICTINE

10
gospel homilies, the consensus now being that Bede was intimately
familiar with the Benedictine Rule even though it appears not to have
monopolized monastic discipline at Wearmouth-Jarrow, where, it is
agreed, the eclectic rule compiled by the twin monasteries' founder,
Benedict Biscop (d. 689), governed observance. 11 But surprisingly,
what the commentaries might be able to tell us about Bede's brand of
monasticism, or conversely how the experience of living the monastic
life shaped his exegetical practice, has yet to enter the conversation —
this despite the fact that his one explicit citation from Benedict's Rule
occurs in one of his commentaries!
On a first glance, it is true that the commentaries might appear to
have few overt connections to monasticism. The many signposts that
mark out the monastic terrain of the gospel homilies — the mention
of the fratres carissimi for whom they were written, talk of the canon-
ical hours and other monastic practices, the odd reference to ‘‘this
12
monastery'' as their immediate setting — are for instance all but ab-
sent from the commentaries, which contain few explicit statements
about their context of production, aims, and intended audience. We
do, however, have Bede's own description of his exegetical project that
he provides at the end of the Ecclesiastical History :

... I have spent all my life in this monastery, applying myself entirely to
the study of the Scripture; and, amid the observance of the discipline
of the Rule and the daily task of singing in the church, it has always
been my delight to learn or to teach or to write. At the age of nineteen
I was ordained deacon and at the age of thirty, priest... From the time
I became a priest until the fifty-ninth year of my life I have made it

10. In addition to Hunter Blair (n. 8 above), pp. 197–210, see Henry Mayr-Hart-
ing, Bede, the Rule of St. Benedict, and Social Class , Jarrow Lecture, 1976; Patrick
Wormald, ‘‘Bede and Benedict Bishop,'' in Famulus Christi : Essays in Commemora-
tion of the Thirteenth Centenary of the Birth of the Venerable Bede , ed. G. Bonner (Lon-
don, 1976), pp. 141–69; Eric Fletcher, Benedict Biscop, Jarrow Lecture, 1981; and
Ian Wood, The Most Holy Abbot Ceolfrid, Jarrow Lecture, 1995. On the homilies, see
A. Van Der Walt, ‘‘Reflections of the Benedictine Rule in Bede's Homiliary,'' Jour-
nal of Ecclesiastical History 37 (1986) : 367–76.
11. For Biscop's rule, see Bede, Historia Abbatum ch. 11, ed. C. Plummer, in Vene-
rabilis Baedae opera historia, 2 vols. (1896; repr. as one volume, Oxford, 1946), pp.
374–5, along with the comments of C. H. Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism : Forms
of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages (London, 1984), pp. 58–61;
Klaus Zelzer, ‘‘Zur Frage der Observanz des Benedict Biscop,'' Studia Patristica 20
(1989) : 323–9; Hunter Blair (n. 8 above), pp. 197–210; and Wormald, ‘‘Bede and
Benedict Bishop'' (n. 10 above), pp. 141–4.
12. See A. Van Der Walt, ‘‘The Homiliary of the Venerable Bede and Early Me-
dieval Preaching,'' Ph.D. thesis, University of London (1980), pp. 52–83; and Law-
rence T. Martin, ‘‘Introduction,'' to Bede the Venerable : Homilies of the Gospels,
trans. L. Martin and D. Hurst, 2 vols. (Kalamazoo, MI, 1991), pp. xi–xxiii.
 S. DEGREGORIO 347

my business, for my own benefit and that of my brothers, to make

brief extracts from the works of the venerable fathers on the holy

Scriptures, or to add notes of my own to clarify their sense and inter-

13
pretation.

These well-known lines are often cited as evidence of Bede's devotion

to teaching, of his fondness for the Fathers, and of his exegetical meth-

od, but at the same time they reveal two basic points about the debt

his commentaries owe to monasticism. First, any commenting Bede

did, this quotation reminds us, would have occurred ‘‘inter obseruan-

tium disciplinae regularis, et cotidianam cantandi in ecclesia curam.''

That is, far from taking shape in some abstract academic sphere, it

would have occurred alongside of, and in constant dialogue with, the

daily regime of liturgical prayer and meditative reading legislated by

the rule. Secondly, the works themselves, Bede informs us, were in-

tended primarily ‘‘meae meorumque necessitate'' — in other words,

for his own benefit as well as that of his fellow monastic confrè res at

Wearmouth-Jarrow. The original contexts of their reception must

therefore reside in monastic culture itself — private lectio divina , group

instruction in the abbey school, perhaps even public reading in the re-

fectory, the common denominator in any case being the nourishment

of the monk's spiritual needs. This is not to say that Bede's commen-

taries did not fulfill other purposes, only that the immediate contexts

of both their production and usage would have been inseparable from

the liturgical framework of monastic life and the spiritual goals that

orient it.

Consequently, the task before us is not one of determining whether

monasticism influenced the commentaries, but of clarifying the nature,

extent, and tangibility of that influence in the works as we have them.

A full investigation along such lines would be an undertaking too enor-

mous to attempt here. As a prolegomenon to it, these pages will exam-

ine a single Bedan commentary for traces of monastic influence. Tak-

ing Bede's In Ezram et Neemiam 14

as a test-case, I shall consider

13. HE 5.24, p. 566 : ‘‘cunctumque ... uitae in eiusdem monasterii habitatione per-

agens, omnem meditandis scripturis operam dedi, atque inter obseruantiam disciplinae

regularis, et cotidianam cantandi in ecclesia curam, semper aut discere aut docere aut

scribere dulce habui... Ex quo tempore accepti presbyteratus usque ad annum aetatis

meae LVIIII haec in Scripturam sanctam meae meorumque necessitati ex opusculis

uenerabilium patrum breuiter adnotare, siue etiam ad formam sensus et interpretatio-

nis eorum superadicere curaui.''

14. In Ezram et Neemiam , ed. D. H urst , Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 119A

(Turnhout, 1969), pp. 236–392; hereafter cited as In Ezram . I have recently complet-
 ´ ´
348 REVUE BENEDICTINE

various passages that would appear to owe something to their author's

embeddedness in the regular life. For example, this is the commentary

that contains Bede's most explicit reference to the Benedictine Rule;

though its occurrence here is well known, little if any attention has

been devoted to its context and import, and I shall discuss these as

well as some potential, previously unidentified citations from the Rule

that I have uncovered in this commentary. The concern of the present

article, however, is not to identify Bede's brand of monasticism as it

emerges in this one commentary as uniquely Benedictine or otherwise;

rather, it is to present a range of examples from the work that togeth-

er illustrate the varied influence monasticism as such exerted upon his

commenting. Have monastic ideas in some way shaped Bede's interpre-

tation of certain passages? Are there any demonstrable signs that he

was addressing monks in particular? Does the work itself, in its stylis-

tic composition and spiritual ideals, exhibit any recognizable monastic

traits, and can such evidence in the end perhaps warrant a new, dis-

tinctively monastic typology for understanding Bede's commentaries?

It is such questions that the following investigation will address.

* *

Let us start by examining Bede's borrowings from the Benedictine

Rule. As noted, the only one so far identified is considered to be the

most direct reference to the latter in his œuvre. It occurs in Book 3 of

In Ezram, in the midst of his comments on Neh. 3 :15. The form it

takes is not verbatim quotation, but what we might characterize as

an allusion to one of the Rule's central chapters :

Benedict, a father very reverend both in his name and in his life, real-

ized that these steps ( gradus) especially consist in humility when, inter-

preting our journey to celestial things to be designated by the ladder

shown to the Patriarch Jacob, by which angels ascended and de-

scended, he distinguished in a very careful and pious examination the

steps of the ladder itself as the increments and stages of good works
15
that are performed through humility.

ed an annotated translation of the text based on Hurst's edition : Scott D eGregorio,

Bede : On Ezra and Nehemiah, Translated Texts for Historians 46 (Liverpool, 2006).

15. In Ezram, p. 350, lines 466–73 : ‘‘Quos profecto gradus maxime in humilitate

consistere reuerendissimus pater nomine et uita Benedictus intellexit cum scala pa-

triarchae Iacob ostensa angelis per eam ascendentibus ac descendentibus iter ad cae-
 S. DEGREGORIO 349

The reference is to Chapter 7 of the Rule and its treatment of the gra-
dus humilitatis, discussed by Benedict under the symbol of the scala or

16
ladder mentioned in Gen 28 :12. The theme of humility of course has

deep biblical roots, but it was later set in high relief by monastic tra-

17
dition, as Bede's invocation of Benedict attests. Its very presence in

the commentary is, therefore, itself an index of Bede's affinity with

that tradition.

But what at this juncture of In Ezram prompts him to mention

Benedict? At first, the remark may seem to be little more than an

aside, but closer inspection reveals it to be the peak of a highly monas-

tic development begun two verses earlier, with Bede's exegesis of Jeru-

salem's ‘‘Valley Gate'' in Neh. 3 :13. Augustine, and Ambrose before

18
him, had taken the word ‘valley' as a symbol for humility. Accord-

ingly, Bede associates the ‘‘mystical meaning'' ( sacramentum ) of the

Valley Gate with teaching the faithful ‘‘to observe among other things

the virtue of humility so that they may deserve to be raised up by the

19
greater grace of God.'' Though Benedict is not named until later, the

notion of an ascent through humility already evokes Chapter 7 of the

Rule; and in the sentences following, when Bede calls humility ‘‘the

guardian of the virtues,'' we detect a clear echo from a homily on hu-

mility by Pope Gregory the Great, the champion of Benedict whose

own monastically-oriented writings so hugely influenced Bede, as we

20
shall see.

lestia nostrum esse designatum interpretans gradus scalae ipsius incrementis ac profec-

tibus operum bonorum quae per humilitatem fiunt sollertissima ac piissima inquisi-

tione distinxit.'' All translations of this text are my own, and are taken from my

forthcoming volume cited in n. 14 above. Bede's ‘‘reuerendissimus pater nomine et

uita Benedictus'' may echo the opening sentence of Gregory the Great's life of Bene-

dict : ‘‘Fuit uir uitae uenerabilis, gratia Benedictus et nomine...'' — Dialogues 2, ed. A.

de Vogüé , SC 251 (Paris, 1978), p. 126, line 1.

16. The phrase appears too in RB 5.1 : ‘‘Primus humilitatis gradus est...''

17. See André L ouf , ‘‘Humility and Obedience in Monastic Tradition,'' Cistercian
Studies 18 (1983) : 261–82.

18. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos 59.2, ed. D. D ekkers and J. F raipont ,

CCSL 39 (Turnhout, 1956), p. 756, lines 65–68; Ambrose, De fide 4.12, ed. O. F aller ,

CSEL 78 (Vienna, 1962), p. 215, lines 74–76.

19. In Ezram, p. 348, lines 376–80 : ‘‘...patet sacramentum quia porta uallis aedifi-

catur in Hierusalem cum uel imbutis nuper notitia fidei electis uel reparatis in casti-

tate fidei his qui aberrauerant a doctoribus ueritatis inter alia uirtus humilitatis

obseruanda praecipitur per quam maiore Dei gratia sublimari mereantur.''

20. In Ezram, p. 348, lines 384–8 : ‘‘Et bene post portam ueterem et murum pla-

teae latioris porta uallis aedificatur quia nimirum post rudimenta catholicae fidei quae

per dilectionem operatur necesse est humilitas nobis quae est custos uirtutum tenenda

insinuetur ut iuxta praeceptum uiri sapientis quanto magni sumus humiliemur in om-

nibus.'' Compare Bede's ‘‘custos uirtutum'' to Gregory's ‘‘Scientia etenim uirtus est,
 ´ ´
350 REVUE BENEDICTINE

Just prior to Neh. 3 :15, then, the monastic lineaments in Bede's

commenting are clearly discernible. With that verse, however, he

would encounter just the right prompt to trigger the association with

Benedict — the word gradus. With the humilitas of the Valley Gate

still on his mind, he now read in Neh. 3 :15 of ‘‘the steps that come

down from the city of David'' ( gradus qui descendunt de ciuitate Dauid ).
The resulting combination ( humilitas + gradus) would have given him

the same two ingredients that went into Benedict's treatment of the

gradus humilitatis in the Chapter 7 of the Rule. Here then was the

perfect occasion for Bede to pay homage to Benedict and his Rule by

picking up and expanding on the ascent-through-humility theme he be-

gan developing in his discussion of the Valley Gate two verses earlier.

In the sentences leading up to his mention of Benedict, however, Bede

does not portray that ascent in the same terminology as the Rule, with

its twelve steps of humility leading from fear to love; but even so, the

monastic tenor of his vocabulary is readily apparent. In language

clearly indebted again to Pope Gregory, he posits instead a growth in

virtue nourished by Scripture that in turn prompts us ‘‘to progress to-

ad caelestia proficere).
21
ward heaven'' ( Hence the ‘‘steps that come

down from the city of David'' carry a two-fold signification : leading

downwards they symbolize ‘‘the aids of divine inspiration or protection

by which we are gradually aroused so that we might be able to reach

the walls of the heavenly kingdom,'' while leading upward they stand

for divine mercy's teaching us ‘‘the order of the virtues by which we

22
may seek heavenly things.'' The ensuing reference to Benedict and

the stress on humility as a sine qua non of this journey upward thus

humilitas etiam custos uirtutis'' — see Homiliae in euangelia 1.7.4, ed. R. E

´
taix ,

CCSL 141 (Turnhout, 1999), p. 51, lines 130–1.

21. In Ezram 3, p. 350, lines 445–8 : ‘‘Perueniunt et usque ad gradus qui descen-

dunt de ciuitate Dauid cum quis a generali fidelium uita spiritalibus desideriis ad cae-

lestia proficere didicerit.'' Later, at RB 62.4, Benedict uses the phrase ‘‘magis ac

magis in Deum proficiat''; yet Bede's ‘‘ad caelestia proficere'' is closer to a favorite

locution of Gregory : see Moralia in Job 33.6.12, ed. M. A driaen , CCSL 143B (Turn-

hout, 1985), p. 1682, lines 61–62 (‘‘ad caelestiam patriam proficit''); Homiliae in Hie-
zechihelem prophetam 2.2.14, ed. M. A driaen , CCSL 142 (Turnhout, 1971), p. 234, line

335 (‘‘ad caelestem gloriam...proficit''); and 2.7.2, p. 317, line 78 (‘‘in amore caelestis

patriae proficit''). However, Bede's use of attingere (p. 350, lines 450–1, ‘‘ad moenia

regni caelestis attingere'') may derive from RB 7.5 : ‘‘...humilitatis volumus culmen

attingere...''

22. In Ezram 3, p. 350, lines 448–54 : ‘‘Gradus namque qui de ciuitate Dauid ad

inferiora urbis Hierosolimae descendunt auxilia sunt diuinae inspirationis siue protec-

tionis quibus paulatim excitamur ut ad moenia regni caelestis attingere ualeamus. Fe-

cit enim gradus Dauid quibus ad ciuitatem eius ascendere debeamus cum diuina nos

pietas ordinem docuit uirtutum quibus caelestia petamus cum easdem uirtutes exse-

quendi nobis donum tribuit.''

 S. DEGREGORIO 351

serve only to reinforce the already strongly monastic flavor of this sec-

tion of In Ezram , with its emphasis on the virtues, spiritual progress,

and the vision of heaven.

In addition to this direct mention of Benedict, In Ezram contains a

handful of potential reminiscentiae from the Benedictine Rule that I

have identified in the course of preparing an English translation of

23
the commentary. While these lack the development of our first speci-

men, they nevertheless add credence to the claim that Bede was inti-

24
mately familiar with the Rule. Most of these, it turns out, involve

verbal contact with the Rule's Prologue. Hence, at one point in Book

3, Bede uses the words ‘‘dilatato corde nostro in uia mandatorum Dei'';

and later in the same book, he deploys the comparable phrase ‘‘dilata-

25
to in Deum corde.'' While there is doubtless an echo here of Ps.

118 :32 (‘‘uiam mandatorum tuorum cucurri cum dilatasti cor meum''),

Bede's Latin in both instances is closer to verse 49 of Benedict's Pro-

logue : ‘‘dilatato corde inenarrabili dilectionis dulcedine curritur uia

26
mandatorum Dei.'' In Book 1, in a passage resonant with monastic

imagery to be discussed fully below, he speaks of ‘‘those who by pro-

gress in an amended way of life endeavor to subdue the vices'' ( qui

profectu quidem uitae emendatioris uitia superare ), recalling verse 47 of

27
the Prologue : ‘‘propter emendationem uitiorum.'' Also in Book 1,

while discussing the theme of prayer, his exhortation that ‘‘we conse-

crate a place to the Lord in ourselves with an even more assiduous

constancy of praying'' ( locum domino in nobis sollertiore orationum in-

stantia consecremus ) calls to mind a portion of verse 4 of the Prologue

28
— ‘‘instantissima oratione deposcas.'' Finally, to cite a potential bor-

rowing from outside the Prologue, it is possible that, in the prayer

Bede offers at the end of Book 3, the mention of bringing forth old

23. See above, n. 14.

24. See above, nn. 10 and 11.

25. In Ezram 3, p. 371, lines 1265–6; and p. 379, line 1604.

26. RB prol. 49. Significantly, as Kardong notes, lines 46–49 of Benedict's Prologue

have no parallel in his main source, the Rule of the Master (hereafter, RM), being, in

Kardong's words, Benedict's ‘‘most personal and distinctive contribution to the Prolo-

gue'' — Terrence G. Kardong, Benedict's Rule : A Translation and Commentary (Col-

legeville, MN, 1996), p. 22.

27. In Ezram, p. 257, lines 632–3, and RB prol. 47 : ‘‘Sed et si quid paululum res-

trictus, dictante aequitatis ratione, propter emendationem uitiorum uel conseruatio-

nem caritatis processerit.'' Cf. Cassian, who employs a similar phrase : ‘‘quod non

correctionem vitae nec emendationem vitiorum'' — Institutiones 9.9, ed. J.-C. Guy,

Institutions ce´nobitiques, SC 109 (Paris, 1965), p. 376, lines 1–2.

28. In Ezram, p. 267, lines 1030–1, and RB prol. 4: ‘‘In primis, ut quicquid agen-

dum inchoas bonum, ab eo perfici instantissima oratione deposcas.''

 ´ ´
352 REVUE BENEDICTINE

29
and new treasures, though based on the ‘‘noua et uetera'' of Matt.

13 :52, may at the same time owe something to Chapter 64 of the

Rule : ‘‘Oportet ergo eum esse doctum lege diuina, ut sciat et sit unde

30
proferat noua et uetera.''

On at least one occasion, meanwhile, a different kind of monastic in-

fluence in the commentary can be detected. Rather than direct quota-

tion or verbal overlap, it involves a subtler kind of parallel in which a

portion of the Rule — or if not the Rule, then monastic experience gen-

erally — appears to have shaped Bede's interpretation of a given verse.

Here is his comment on Ezra 10 :4, which reads ‘‘Rise up, it is your part

to make a decision, and we will be with you, so take courage and do it'' :

He very fittingly teaches how one should consult with elders, namely

that a person should say what he has understood is best according to

his own reason, if he believes that he has understood well, and yet

leave the prerogative of decision-making to the person who is qualified

to make it and be ready to submit to all that this person ordains

31
should be done in accordance with the will and law of God.

The scenario Bede describes here is a recognizably monastic one — an

abbot's summoning his community for counsel. Note the parallel with

Benedict's pronouncement on the subject in the third chapter of the

Rule :

As often as anything important is to be done in the monastery, the

abbot shall call the whole community together and himself explain

what the business is; and after hearing the advice of the brothers, let

him ponder it and follow what he judges the wiser course. The reason

why we have said all should be called for counsel is that the Lord often

reveals what is better to the younger. The brothers, for their part, are

to express their opinions with all humility, and not presume to defend

their own views obstinately. The decision is rather the abbot's to make,

so that when he has determined what is more prudent, all may obey.

Nevertheless, just as it is proper for disciples to obey their master, so it

29. In Ezram, p. 392, lines 2112–13 : ‘‘...in thesauro prophetici uoluminis non solum

uetera amplectendi uerum et noua sub uelamine ueterum donaria inueniendi...''.

30. RB 64.9. Further echoes include In Ezram, p. 370, lines 1240–1, ‘‘mereamur

esse consortes,'' which is evidently borrowed from RB prol. 50 (...ut et eius mereamur

esse consortes''); and In Ezram, p. 372, line 1328, ‘‘ex corde dicatur'', on which see n.

49 below.

31. In Ezram, p. 331, lines 1734–41 : ‘‘Quodque subiungit, Surge, tuum est decernere
nosque erimus tecum, confortare et fac, decentissime docet quomodo sit apud maiores in

consilio agendum ut uidelicet quisque pro suo sensu quod optimum intellexerit, si bene

intellexisse sibi uisus fuerit, dicat et tamen ei qui potest locum decernendi relinquat

paratus obtemperare omnibus quae ille secundum uoluntatem ac legem Dei agenda

disposuerit.''
 S. DEGREGORIO 353

is becoming for the master on his part to settle everything with fore-
32
sight and fairness (trans. Fry, pp. 179, 181).

The situational overlap between the two passages is clear; and even if

the lack of exact verbal correspondence between them means that

33
Benedict is not the primary source of Bede's remark, the comparison

34
still helps to verify its monastic flavor. If not Benedict's Rule, Bede

evidently had in mind some received teaching on the kind of behavior

that should govern the convoking of counsel. The passage thus exem-

plifies the rather particular way in which the lived experience of mo-

nasticism could impinge on and color his reading of the biblical text.

But might it not also tell us something about his purposes in writing

his commentaries, and the audience he was addressing? No one doubts

that these, like Bede's others writings, were addressed in part to

monks; there is even a consensus that one of their major goals was to

prepare monks for the pastoral work of preaching and teaching so des-

35
perately needed in his time. But it is equally clear that much that we

32. RB 3.1–6 : ‘‘Quotiens aliqua praecipua agenda sunt in monasterio, convocet ab-

bas omnem congregationem et dicat ipse unde agitur, et audiens consilium fratrum

tractet apud se et quod utilius iudicaverit faciat. Ideo autem omnes ad consilium vo-

cari diximus quia saepe iuniori Dominus revelat quod melius est. Sic autem dent fra-

tres consilium cum omni humilitatis subiectione, et non praesumant procaciter

defendere quod eis visum fuerit et magis in abbatis pendat arbitrio, ut quod salubrius

esse iudicaverit ei cuncti oboediant. Sed sicut discipulos convenit oboedire magistro,

ita et ipsum provide et iuste condecet cuncta disponere.''

33. It may be significant, however, that Bede's comments are closer to RB than to,

say, the so-called Rule of the Master, in which the counsel sought of all the monks has

to do exclusively with material issues, not with important matters of the monastery,

as in RB 3: see RM 2.48–50, ed. A. de Vogüé, La Re`gle du Maíˆtre, SC 105 (Paris,

1964), p. 362, lines 106–113, along with the comments of K ardong, Benedict's Rule (n.

26 above), pp. 75–76.

34. Cf. the words concerning counsel Bede puts into the mouth of the dying Cuth-

bert, which likewise stress the need for submission and like-mindedness : ‘‘Pacem in-

quit inter uos semper et caritatem custodite diuinam, et cum de uestro statu consilium

uos agere necessitas poposcerit, uidete attentius ut unanimes existatis in consiliis'' –—

Vita Sancti Cuthberti ch. 39, ed. B. Colgrave, in Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert (Cam-

bridge, 1940; repr. 1985), p. 282. On the significance of the word unanimes, cf. n. 55

below.

35. In addition to Ward, Venerable Bede (n. 1 above), pp. 78–84, see T. R. E cken-

rode, ‘‘The Venerable Bede and the Pastoral Affirmation of the Christian Message in

Anglo-Saxon England,'' The Downside Review 99 (1981) : 258–78; Alan Thacker, ‘‘Be-

de's Ideal of Reform,'' in Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society :

Studies Presented to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill , ed. P. Wormald et al. (Oxford, 1983), p.

149; Judith McClure, ‘‘Bede's Notes on Genesis and the Training of the Anglo-Saxon

Clergy,'' in The Bible in the Medieval World : Essays in Memory of Beryl Smalley ,

Studies in Church History, Subsidia 4 (Oxford, 1985), pp. 17–30; and Scott D eGre-

gorio, ‘‘Bede's In Ezram et Neemiam and the Reform of the Northumbrian Church,''

Speculum 79 (2004) : 1–25, at pp. 23–24. On the larger question of whether all clergy

in Bede's Northumbria were monastic, there has been much debate : for a range of

opinion, see the articles in Pastoral Care Before the Parish, ed. J. Blair and R.

RB 22
 ´ ´
354 REVUE BENEDICTINE

find in the commentaries is concerned not just with the needs of reli-

gious but also with those of ‘‘all the faithful, irrespective of their place

36
in the Church or state of life.'' So where does this leave the monks of

Wearmouth-Jarrow, those fellow brothers in the regular life for whose

benefit, as noted at the outset, Bede claimed to be writing? Did the

commentaries ever have anything besides clerical instruction to convey

to them, and on occasion to them alone? If so, what did they seek to

teach them? Herein lies the value of the foregoing passage, which sug-

gests that the commentaries, if sufficiently scrutinized, may have more

37
to say in response to such questions than once thought. Indeed, to

use a verse from the Book of Ezra as an opportunity to reflect on the

proper way to behave during counsel suggests that, in addition to such

obvious aims as clarifying the mysteria fidei for the benefit of pastors

both monastic and secular, Bede may have sought in his commentaries

to provide instruction of a more exclusively monastic kind as well.

Several passages from In Ezram lend support to this conclusion. In

discussing Neh. 8 :10 (‘‘And he said to them, ‘Go and eat fat food and

drink sweet drink, and send portions to him who did not prepare any-

thing for himself, because it is the holy day of the Lord, and do not be

saddened'''), Bede points out that the sending forth of food and drink

to the needy, read spiritualiter, represents the call for us ‘‘to strengthen

the weaker consciences of our neighbors either by the example of pious

38
works or by the sweetness of devout advice.'' He then concludes his

exegesis of the verse with this remark :

Now it behooves us to imitate this passage even in the literal sense,

namely so that when on festival days, once our prayer, reading of the

psalms, and studies are complete, we arrange to attend to the needs of

the flesh with food, we should remember to give a portion also to poor
39
people and pilgrims.

Sharpe (Leicester, 1992); Eric Cambridge and David Rollason, ‘‘The Pastoral Or-

ganization of the Anglo-Saxon Church : A Review of the ‘Minster Hypothesis','' Early

Medieval Europe 4 (1995) : 87–104; and John Blair, ‘‘Ecclesiastical Organization and

Pastoral Care in Anglo-Saxon England,'' Early Medieval Europe 4 (1995) : 193–212.

36. Gerald Bonner, ‘‘The Christian Life in the Thought of the Venerable Bede,''

Durham University Journal 53 (1970) : 39–55, at p. 46.

37. Cf. Sister M. T. A. C arroll, The Venerable Bede : His Spiritual Teachings, The

Catholic University of America Studies in Mediaeval History, New Series, Volume IX

(Washington, D.C., 1946), pp. 236, 239, 257–8.

38. In Ezram, p. 368, lines 1167–71 : ‘‘Sed et de eisdem saluberrimis nostrae mentis

epulis ei qui sibi non praeparauit partes mittere praecipimur ut uidelicet infirmiores

proximorum conscientias uel exemplo piae actionis uel suauitate deuotae ammonitio-

nis confortare curemus...''

39. In Ezram, p. 368, lines 1174–8 : ‘‘Hunc autem locum nos etiam iuxta litteram

decet imitari ut cum uidelicet diebus festis post orationem lectionem psalmorum stu-
 S. DEGREGORIO 355

Having treated the spiritual sense, Bede here elicits from the verse,

now read iuxta litteram , a point that, to judge from the reference to

psalmody, he addresses specifically to monks, who of course were tradi-

tionally charged with care for the poor. Viewed as a mini-lesson on the

obligations of monastic hospitality, Bede's injunction makes one think

of Chapter 53 of the Rule (‘‘On the Reception of Guests''), which in-

cludes this comparable command : ‘‘Great care and concern are to be

40
shown in receiving poor people and pilgrims.''

Equally conspicuous for its monastic overtone is the meaning Bede

attaches to the image of the holocaust mentioned in Ezra 3 :2. Noting

that the returnees, upon arriving in Jerusalem, immediately set up an

altar for sacrificing ‘‘holocausts and victims'' ( holocaustomata et hostias )

to God, Bede advises that we too should be willing to offer God a holo-

caust, which, he explains, stands for ‘‘perfect thoughts and deeds''

( cogitationes et opera perfecta ). Then, in a crucial passage, he unfolds the

deeper spiritual meaning of that word as follows :

Mystically, these offerings denote the way of life of those faithful who,

seeking nothing of their own, devote their entire life to the servitude of

the internal judge. They not only rejoice to trample down the plea-

sures of their own soul and body for the Lord but also to lay down

the soul itself for him, and they can say with the apostles : Behold, we

have forsaken everything, and followed you . What then shall we have?

[Matt. 19 :27]. The Lord himself said in reply to these people : And

everyone who has left home or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife

or children or lands for my name's sake will receive a hundred times as

much and will possess everlasting life [Matt. 19 :29]. This holocaust of a

more continent and more hallowed way of life must be offered on the

altar of the God of Israel because, as we have said, only through the

faith of our Redeemer can our good works be acceptable to God the

Father. For Diogenes and those like-minded followers of his foolish

philosophy, although they had abandoned their own belongings and

were living a bare and meager way of life in the world, were not fol-

lowing the Lord. They did, indeed, appear to offer a holocaust but not

on the altar of the God of Israel, since they kept themselves aloof from

their own pleasures but did not know that they had Jesus Christ as an
41
advocate with the Father.

dia completa carnis curam reficiendo agere disponimus pauperibus quoque et peregri-

nis partem dare meminerimus.''

40. RB 53.15 : ‘‘Pauperum et peregrinorum maxime susceptioni cura sollicite exhi-

beatur, quia in ipsis magis Christus suscipitur; nam diuitum terror ipse sibi exigit ho-

norem.'' Cf. RB 4.14.

41. In Ezram, p. 265, lines 953–9 : ‘‘Quibus mystice illorum uita fidelium exprime-

batur qui nihil proprium quaerentes omne quod uiuunt in famulatum interni arbitris
 ´ ´
356 REVUE BENEDICTINE

Suggestive of immolation and sacrifice, the holocaust in Bede's treat-

ment of it comes to symbolize one of the essential steps required by

42
monasticism — renunciation of the world. That Bede means renunci-

ation in a monastic sense becomes clear when we compare what he

says here to his homily for the feast of Benedict Biscop. One of Bede's

most monastically-charged writings, this homily takes as its main

theme the rewards this thane-turned-monk received for abandoning

the world for the monastery. Its gospel lection, significantly, is Matt.

19 :27–29, the same monastic-laden verses Bede quotes in the passage

above. Moreover, the homily also makes reference to Diogenes the

Cynic, who again is made to play the role of a foil, this time to Simon

Peter. Glossing the apostle's question to Christ in Matt. 19 :27 (‘‘Be-

hold we have left all things, and have followed thee : what therefore

shall we have?''), Bede draws the following distinction :

Here we must carefully observe that he [Peter] gloried not merely in

having left all things, but also in following the Lord. For it is unques-

tionably foolish to follow Plato, Diogenes and certain other philoso-

phers in trampling underfoot the riches of this life, and not to do this

in order to secure eternal life, but merely to grasp after the empty

praise of mortal men; it is foolish to take on additional hardships in

43
the present without the hope of future rest and peace.

impendunt qui non solum uoluptates animae siue corporis sui pro domino calcare sed

et ipsam animam pro illo ponere gaudent qui possunt dicere cum apostolis : Ecce nos
reliquimus omnia et secuti sumus te, quid ergo erit nobis ; de quibus et ipse respondens,

Et omnis, inquit, qui reliquit domum uel fratres aut sorores aut patrem aut matrem aut
uxorem aut filios aut agros propter nomen meum centuplum accipiet et uitam aeternam
possidebit. Hoc autem holocaustum uitae continentioris et sacratioris in altari Dei Is-

rahel offerendum est quia non nisi per fidem redemptoris nostri bona nostra opera ut

diximus Deo patri esse possunt accepta. Nam Diogenes et similes eius stultae philoso-

phiae sequaces qui cum propria reliquissent et nudam in saeculo ac pauperem uitam

gererent dominum non sequebantur holocaustum quidem facere uidebantur sed hoc in

altare Dei Israhel non fecerunt quoniam a suis quidem se uoluptatibus alienos reddi-

dere sed Christum Iesum apud patrem aduocatum habere nescierunt.''

42. A comparable treatment of the holocaust occurs at In Ezram, p. 325, lines

1497–1502 : ‘‘Hoc est autem holocausti, id est tota incensa, sacrificia uel hostias do-

mino offerre nil nisi eius uoluntatem in omnibus cogitare uel facere. Perfectae quoque

mentis indicium est cum pro omni Israhel immolat, id est pro generali fidelium om-

nium sospitate, quasi unitatis in omnibus ac fraternitatis memor, supernae pietati sup-

plicat.''

43. Cf. Homeliarum euangelii libri II 1.13, ed. D. H urst, CCSL 122 (Turnhout,

1955), p. 88, lines 5–13 : ‘‘Et respondens domino ait : Ecce nos reliquimus omnia et
secuti sumus te; quid ergo erit nobis? Vbi solerter intuendum quod non solum se omnia

reliquisse sed et dominum sequi gloriatur; quia stultum profecto est iuxta Platonem et

Diogenem et quosdam alios philosophos uitae quidem huius diuitias calcare et non

haec pro aeterna adipiscenda uita sed pro inani agere mortalium laude captanda stul-

tum praesentes labores ultro absque spe futurae subire quietis et pacis.'' Trans. M ar-
tin and H urst (n. 12 above), 1 :125.
 S. DEGREGORIO 357

These are the only times Bede mentions Diogenes, and on both occa-

sions the point is the same : renouncing the world for a life of poverty

and asceticism means nothing if its goal is not Christ. Bede's homily is

a deeply personal work, written to commemorate the feast of Wear-

mouth-Jarrow's founder and first preached to the monks who lived

there.
44
That In Ezram should make use of the imagery and themes it

contains is therefore revealing. Like the homily, this passage from the

commentary was evidently written with a discernibly monastic end in

view — to inculcate in the monks of Wearmouth-Jarrow a proper

understanding of one of the cornerstone ideals of their vocation.

At the outset we noted the prayer-life of the monk as a formative

context for Bede's exegetical endeavors. In this light, the interpreta-

tion he gives to Neh. 9 :3 is certainly of interest. The verse, which de-

picts the readings and prayers the returnees performed to solemnize

the day of penance that followed the restoration of the Feast of Tab-

ernacles (see Neh. 8 :13–18), relates how the people ‘‘read in the book

of the law of the Lord their God, four times in the day, and four times

they confessed, and adored the Lord their God.'' These words obvi-

ously struck a chord with Bede, for in commenting on them he ex-

claims :

For who would not be amazed that such a great people had such ex-

traordinary concern for devotion that four times a day — that is, at

the first hour of the morning, the third, the sixth and the ninth, when

time was to be made for prayer and psalmody — they gave themselves

over to listening to the divine law in order to renew their mind in God

and come back purer and more devout for imploring his mercy; but

also four times a night they would shake off their sleepiness and get

up in order to confess their sins and to beg pardon. From this example,

I think, a most beautiful custom has developed in the Church, namely

that through each hour of daily psalmody a passage from the Old or

New Testament is recited by heart for all to hear, and thus strength-

ened by the words of the apostles or the prophets, they bend their

knees to perseverance in prayer, but also at night, when people cease

from the labors of doing good works, they turn willing ears to listen to
45
divine readings.

44. On the monastic audience of the homilies, see n. 12.

45. In Ezram , p. 372, lines 1318–32 : ‘‘Quis enim miretur tantum populum tam exi-

miam habuisse curam pietatis ut quater in die, hoc est primo mane tertia hora sexta

et nona quibus orationi siue psalmodiae uacandum erat, auditui se legis diuinae

contraderent quo innouata in Deum mente purior ac deuotior ad deprecandam eius

misericordiam rediret sed et in nocte quater excusso torpore somni ad confitenda pec-

cata sua et postulandam ueniam exsurgerent. Quo exemplo reor in ecclesia morem

inoleuisse pulcherrimum ut per singulas diurnae psalmodiae horas lectio una de ueteri
 ´ ´
358 REVUE BENEDICTINE

Like the comment above on the convoking of counsel, this remark is

striking for the degree it shows monasticism once again coloring Bede's

reading of a verse. Indeed, the mention of set hours for prayer, psal-

mody and reading calls straight to his mind the structure and content

of the Divine Office. One immediately thinks of the quote above from

the Ecclesiastical History , where Bede speaks of ‘‘the daily task of sing-

46
ing in the church'' ; moreover, there are the anecdotal testimonies of

both Alcuin and the anonymous Vita S. Ceolfridi , which likewise con-

vey something of the ‘‘extraordinary concern for devotion'' Bede him-

47
self evidently had regarding the Office. Against this personal back-

ground, the details of the present passage are intriguing, for they may

48
well afford a glimpse into the horarium as Bede himself practiced it.

In that light, it is notable that he speaks of scriptural readings being

done ‘‘by heart'' ( ex corde ), for the same phrase is used by Benedict,

who after the psalmody prescribes ‘‘a reading from the Apostle recited

49
by heart.'' For us, however, it is the rhetorical implications of Bede's

remarks in this passage that are most significant. For what he is offer-

ing the monks of Wearmouth-Jarrow is not some dry historical expla-

nation of the Jewish origin of the Office, but an invitation to the very

prayer and meditation being described. His comment is less a descrip-

siue nouo testamento cunctis audientibus ex corde dicatur et sic apostolicis siue pro-

pheticis confirmati uerbis ad instantiam orationis genua flectant sed et horis nocturnis

cum a laboribus cessatur operum liberas auditui lectionum diuinarum aures accommo-

dent.''

46. The full passage is quoted at n. 13 above.

47. See Alcuin, Letter 284, in Alcuini epistolae, MGH, Epistolarum IV, Epistolae

Karolini Aevi, ed. E. Duemmler (Berlin, 1896), 2 :443, which tells of Bede's never

failing to miss the Office for fear that the angels present there would upbraid him;

and Historia Abbatum auctore Anonymo, ch. 14, ed. Plummer, Opera Historica (n. 11

above), p. 393, which recounts the story of the young boy believed to be Bede who

helped Abbot Ceolfrith continue the rota of psalms during a period when the monas-

tery was decimated by plague. Both anecdotes are translated in P lummer, Opera His-

torica, pp. xii–xiii. Bonner, ‘‘Christian Life'' (n. 36 above), p. 42, astutely noted that

Bede's words as recounted by Alcuin recall RB 19.6 : ‘‘Ergo consideremus qualiter

oporteat in conspectus diuinitatis et angelorum eius esse.'' For comment on the other
´ ´
anecdote, see Eamonn O Carragáin, The City of Rome and the World of Bede , Jarrow

Lecture 1994, pp. 24–25. The more general issue of the place of the psalms in Bede's

thought and spiritual formation has been magisterially treated by W ard, Bede and the

Psalter (n. 7 above).

48. As noted (n. 8 above), no record of liturgical observance at Wearmouth-Jarrow

has survived, but insofar as this passage from In Ezram has Bede speaking of some-

thing he knew first-hand, the details mentioned could well be relevant to the liturgical

practice of his own house.

49. RB 9.10 : ‘‘Post hos, lectio apostoli sequatur, ex corde recitanda...'' For

comment on the phrase, see K ardong, Benedict's Rule (n. 26 above), p. 177. Cf. RB

17.4–5, which speak of lessons celebrated during Terce, Sext and None that were

probably also recited from memory.

 S. DEGREGORIO 359

tion than a prompt, a directive to be enacted by the monks of his own

50
worshipping community. In this connection, it is perhaps worth not-

ing that the Night Office, evidently implied in Bede's closing reference

to readings at night, deemed biblical commentary to be suitable read-

ing material for lectio divina. For if his own homilies and commentaries

were to be used for such purposes at Wearmouth-Jarrow, a passage

such as this one would then have been nothing less than a script for

reading those texts, inviting the monks to turn ‘‘willing ears'' to listen

51
prayerfully to the words of their own house author.

To take a final passage worth considering in the light of the fore-

going, let us consider Bede's treatment of Ezra 2 :64–65 (‘‘The whole

assembly, like one man, totaled forty-two thousand three hundred and

sixty, in addition to their male and female servants, who numbered

seven thousand three hundred and thirty-seven'') :

Note that the grace of the primitive Church, in which the multitude of
believers had but one heart and one soul [Acts 4 :32], is found in this as-

sembly of exiles as well, so much so that, even though the host was so

great that it totaled nearly fifty thousand people and was moreover of

diverse rank and condition, nevertheless the whole multitude seemed

to be like one man because of the same faith and love, since by his gift

he causes those of one mind to dwell together in his house [cf. Ps.

67 :7]. The male and female servants of those returning from Babylon

to Jerusalem represent figuratively those in the Church who by pro-

gress in an amended way of life endeavor to subdue the vices and to

scale the peak of the virtues, even though they are as yet unable to

discern for themselves the path of the regular life but rather still need

to be kept in check by the diligence of those who have preceded them

52
in Christ and thus be directed towards the way of longed-for truth.

50. The same technique has, interestingly, been detected in Bede's gospel homilies :

see Lawrence T. M artin, ‘‘The Two Worlds in Bede's Homilies : The Biblical Event

and the Listener's Experience,'' in De Ore Domini : Preacher and Word in the Middle
Ages, ed. T. A mos et al. (Kalamazoo, MI, 1989), pp. 27–40; and Marie Anne M ayeski,
‘‘Reading the Word in a Eucharist Context : The Shape and Methods of Early Medie-

val Exegesis,'' in Medieval Liturgy : A Book of Essays, ed. L. L arson-Miller (New

York, 1997), pp. 61–84.

51. Elsewhere I have shown that Bede's commentaries do indeed frequently contain

injunctions urging the reader to prayer : see Scott D eGregorio, ‘‘The Venerable Bede

on Prayer and Contemplation,'' Traditio 54 (1999) : 1–39, at pp. 34–38.

52. In Ezram, pp. 256–7, lines 624–37 : ‘‘Nota gratiam primitiuae ecclesiae in qua

multitudinis credentium erat cor et anima una etiam in hoc transmigrantium coetu rep-

periri ita ut cum tantus esset exercitus qui prope quinquaginta milium summam

compleret et hic diuersi gradus et condicionis existens nihilominus omnis multitudo

ob eandem fidem et dilectionem quasi unus esse homo uideretur donante illo qui ha-

bitare facit unanimes in domo. Serui autem et ancillae redeuntium de Babylone Hie-

rusalem illorum in ecclesia typum tenent qui profectu quidem uitae emendatioris uitia

superare ac uirtutum culmen ascendere satagunt necdum tamen ipsi sibi ad prouiden-
 ´ ´
360 REVUE BENEDICTINE

In these lines Bede is describing the nature of the caravan of exiles

about to journey from Babylon to Jerusalem. As with our previous ex-

amples, the citations, diction and overall sense of this passage should

give us pause, resonant as these are with monastic implication. Indeed,

I suggest that together they amount to a kind of definition of the mo-

nastic life as Bede lived it. The first sign of this is his coupling of Acts

4 :32 and Psalm 67 :7, verses central to the self-definition of coenobitic

tradition. Augustine, for example, made them the starting-point of his

53
so-called Rule, which championed the ideal of living in community.

That Bede understood their monastic connotations in a similar fashion

is quite clear : in his two commentaries on Acts he endorsed the tradi-

tional reading of Acts 4 :32–34, which had equated the communal life-

His-
54
style of the apostles with the origins of the coenobia; and in the

toria Abbatum he relied on the same principle of ‘‘one-mindedness''

( unanimes) expressed in Psalm 67 :7 to characterize the unity of spirit

and brotherhood between the communities at Wearmouth and Jarrow :

55
‘‘fit utrorumque animus unus.'' In the passage above, then, Bede's

deployment of these verses is intended not so much to depict the re-

turnees as a typus of the primitive church as it is to use these images

to promote the same askesis of love and brotherhood that defines the

56
common life itself. The point is repeated in even more provocative

dam uiam uitae regularis sufficiunt sed eorum potius qui in Christo praecesserunt opus

habent adhuc industria coerceri atque ad tramitem desideratae ueritatis dirigi.''

53. Augustine, Praeceptum I.2 : ‘‘Primum, propter quod in unum estis congregate,

ut unianimes habitetis in domo et sit uobis anima una et cor unum in deum.'' — La
Re` gle de saint Augustin, ed. L. V erheijen , 2 vols. (Paris, 1967), 1 :417.

54. See Bede, Expositio Actuum Apostolorum (n. 5 above), p. 27, lines 69–73; and,

in the same volume, Bede's re-treatment of the verse in his Retractatio Actus Aposto-
lorum, pp. 126–7, lines 101–29. For a stimulating assessment of Bede's treatment of

the primitive church, see Glen W. O lsen , ‘‘Bede as Historian : The Evidence from his

Observations on the Life of the First Christian Community at Jerusalem,'' Journal of

Ecclesiastical History 33 (1982) : 519–30.

55. Historia Abbatum ch. 18, ed. P lummer , pp. 382–3 : ‘‘...monachis beati Pauli,

fratribus uidelicet suis, per eorum quosdam qui aderant, necnon et suorum aliquos,

quid decreuerint, pandunt. Adsentiunt et illi, fit utrorumque animus unus, omnium

corda sursum, omnium leuantur uoces ad Dominum.'' Cf. Historia ecclesiastica 2.2, ed.

C olgrave and M ynors , p. 136, where Bede also quotes Ps. 67 :7. Plummer, in his

edition of the Historia, has the following note : ‘‘This is a favorite text with Bede...

It is not the Vulgate version, which has ‘qui inhabitare facit unius moris in domo,' but

is that of the so-called Roman Psalter'' — see Opera Historica (n. 11 above), p. 74. It

is also noteworthy that in the quote above from the Vita Sancti Cuthberti (see n. 34),

Cuthbert uses the word ‘‘unanimes'' to characterize the ideal attitude his brethren

should exhibit at counsel.

56. The same three-way connection between the returnees, the primitive church,

and monasticism occurs again elsewhere in the commentary : in Book 2, where Bede

compares the ‘‘unitas dilectionis et castitatis'' of the returnees to the primitive church

(see p. 304, lines 653–9); and in Book 3 (p. 369, lines 1195–1206), in a passage most
 S. DEGREGORIO 361

terms as the passage continues. Hence the ‘‘serui et ancillae'' — com-

mon expressions, incidentally, for monks and nuns — of ancient Israel

are associated with none other than the contemporary practitioners of

57
the ‘‘uitae emendatioris'' who still require the help of others to dis-

cern the ‘‘uiam uitae regularis.'' As a ringing endorsement of the ideal

of the koinoˆnia , such a comment effectively sums up the thrust of the

entire passage, whose topical force runs deep given the wariness schol-

58
ars have detected in Bede's attitude toward anachoresis . For the

monks of Wearmouth-Jarrow, therefore, his reading of Ezra 2 :64–65

could well have formed something of a meditation on their own brand

of monastic conuersatio , one designed to promote the same values of

brotherhood and active service that he endeavored to impress upon

59
them elsewhere.

What the preceding pages have imparted, I hope, is a heightened

awareness of the ways monastic concerns could surface in his com-

menting, an awareness that will induce future readers of his work to

attend to a wider range of monastic evidence than, say, direct contact

with the Rule or other monastic source. Indeed, the findings offered

here reveal to us a Bede habituated in monastic thought, one who,

despite his great reverence for the Fathers, could not help but think

and write like a monk. In the few pages remaining, let me reinforce

this claim with some closing reflections on two further bits of pertinent

revealing for the monastic tone of its language : ‘‘...quia ad imitationem ieiunii qua-

dragenarii quod Moyses et Helias et ipse Dominus impleuit in magna continentia [pri-

mitiua ecclesia] uitam ducere solebat semper aeternam sitiens patriam et ab uniuersis

mundi huius prorsus sequestrata illecebris quasi secretam in cotidiana diuinae legis me-

ditatione conuersationem gerebat'' (my emphasis).

57. As noted (n. 27 above), the phrase ‘‘uitae emendatioris'' echoes the ‘‘propter

hacker DeGregorio
emendationem uitiorum'' of verse 47 of Benedict's prologue.

tancliffe
58. T , ‘‘Ideal of Reform'' (n. 35 above), pp. 136–42; , ‘‘Bede on

Prayer'' (n. 51 above), esp. pp. 26–34; Clare S , ‘‘Cuthbert and the Polarity

onner layton
Between Pastor and Solitary,'' in St. Cuthbert, his Cult and his Community to AD 1200 ,

ed. G. B et al. (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1989), pp. 21–44; and Mary C ,

zarmach
‘‘Hermits and the Contemplative Life in Anglo-Saxon England,'' in Holy Men and

Holy Women : Old English Prose Saints' Lives and Their Contexts , ed. P. S

(Albany, 1996), pp. 147–75.

59. See, for example, Bede's comments on the active and contemplative lives : Ho-

meliarum euangelii libri II 1.9, (n. 43 above), pp. 64–65, lines 145–209; and especially

the memorable words on the common life he puts into Cuthbert's mouth : ‘‘Hoc

quoque fratribus solebat crebrius intimare, ne conuersationem eius quasi singulariter

celsam mirarentur, quia contemptis saecularibus curis secretus uiuere mallet. Sed iure

inquit est coenobitarum uita miranda, qui abbatis per omnia subiciuntur imperiis. Ad

eius arbitrium cuncta uigilandi, orandi, ieiunandi, atque operandi tempora moderan-

tur, quorum plurimos noui paruitatem meam longe et mundicia mentis et culmine

gratiae prophetalis anteire.'' — Vita Sancti Cuthberti ch. 22 (n. 34 above), pp. 228–30.
 ´ ´
362 REVUE BENEDICTINE

evidence from In Ezram . They are, on the one hand, the spirituality

expressed in the work, on the other, the style in which it is written.

Recently Gerald Bonner, speaking of Bede's writings as a whole, has

suggested that the spirituality they express is ‘‘more pastoral than

claustral,'' a view first put forth by Carroll, who in her 1946 study of

Bede's spiritual teachings noted with surprise that ‘‘... despite Bede's

own predilection for the monastic state, and his glorification of it, in

60
his exegetical works he is concerned mainly with the priestly life.''

These statements could characterize much of In Ezram , whose concern

61
with reforming the clergy I have analyzed elsewhere. But the distinc-

tion they imply between ‘‘pastoral'' and ‘‘monastic'' is in the end un-

satisfactory. For one thing, it misses entirely the pastoral ideal at the

heart of Bede's monasticism, an ideal he inherited from none other

than that great progenitor of monastic spirituality who influenced

62
him in this as in so much else, Gregory the Great. For Bede as for

Gregory before him, the model preacher was in fact the monastic doctor

whose contemplative powers were to be directed to the active service

of ministering to others. Far from the division Bonner and Carroll pos-

it, this Gregorian model envisages a fusion between the pastoral and

the monastic, a collapsing of the two into one and the same conuersa-

63
tio .

But, to come closer to our present concern, the problem with calling

the spirituality of the commentaries pastoral instead of monastic is

that such a characterization fails to describe much of their linguistic

and thematic content, which often does present to us a spirituality

64
that is recognizably monastic in substance. Some sense of this, surely,

60. Gerald Bonner, ‘‘Bede : Scholar and Spiritual Teacher,'' in Northumbria's Gol-

den Age, ed. J. Hawkes and S. Mills (Gloucestershire, 1999), pp. 365–70, at p. 365;

Carroll (n. 37 above), p. 239. Carroll, pp. 257–8, further states that, although Bede

appreciated the regular life, ‘‘he valued still more his life as a priest, and his writings

turn more to the duties of the clergy.''

61. See DeGregorio, ‘‘Northumbrian Church'' (n. 35 above), esp. pp. 9–20, 23–24;

and Id., ‘‘‘Nostrorum socordiam temporum ' : The Reforming Impulse of Bede's Later

Exegesis,'' Early Medieval Europe 11.2 (2002) : 107–22, esp. pp. 115–18.

62. See Paul Meyvaert, Bede and Gregory the Great , Jarrow Lecture, 1964.

63. This point has been much discussed : see DeGregorio, ‘‘Bede on Prayer'' (n. 51

above), pp. 3–15; Thacker, ‘‘Bede's Ideal'' (n. 35 above), esp. pp. 130–6 as well as his

later article ‘‘Monks, Preaching and Pastoral Care,'' in Pastoral Care (n. 35 above), pp.

137–70; and Sarah Foot, ‘‘Parochial Ministry in Early Anglo-Saxon England : The

Role of the Monastic Communities,'' Studies in Church History 26 (1989) : 43–54.

64. See Claudio Leonardi, ‘‘Il Venerabile Beda e la cultura del secolo VIII,'' Setti-

mane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo 20 (1973) : 603–58, 833–43,

who has described Bede's outlook as ‘‘mystic-monastic.'' His view has been discussed

by Glen W. Olsen, ‘‘From Bede to the Anglo-Saxon Presence in the Carolingian Em-
 S. DEGREGORIO 363

has already been afforded by the examples from In Ezram considered

above. It is even more conspicuous, however, in the countless places

where this commentary takes up those very themes that Jean Le-

clercq, in his classic study The Love and Learning and the Desire for

65
God , identified as central to monastic culture and its literature. Con-

sider, for example, the following passages from In Ezram on the vir-

tues and spiritual progress :

They rise up, indeed, when they hear the king's proclamation, or rather

when the Lord stirs up their spirits to ascend to the building of his

house when, prompted by the words of the Holy Scriptures and aflame

with the grace of their Creator, they shake off the torpor of their for-

mer negligence and, having seized upon a resolution for a better way of

life, by making daily advances in good works they strive to reach, as

though by certain steps on a stairway, the heights of the virtues that

66
are in the vision of eternal peace.

The Broad Wall in Jerusalem is the strength and protection of perfect

love in the hearts of the elect at which its architects arrive through the

process of building when, by advancing in works of charity, they can

say to their Creator and Helper : We ran the way of your commands, for

you were broadening our heart — that broadening, doubtless, of a mind

that has been illuminated, which can love both a friend in God and an
67
enemy for the sake of God.

Or on celestial desire :

And so each one of us goes out and makes tabernacles ‘‘on his dwell-

ing'' (i.e. on the roof of his home) when, rising by means of the mind

above the abode of his body, he tramples down his harmful emotions

with constant meditation on heavenly light and liberty. We do the

same thing in our courtyards too when, with a mind burning for heav-

enly things, we stand as it were outside the world and desire to leave

pire,'' Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo 32 (1984) :

305–82.

65. Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God , trans. C. Misrahi

(Paris, 1957; repr. New York, 1994), esp. pp. 53–70.

66. In Ezram, p. 250, lines 368–74 : ‘‘Surgunt uero audito regis edicto immo susci-

tante spiritum ipsorum domino ut ad aedificandam domum domini ascendant cum

uerbis sanctarum scripturarum ammoniti et gratia sui conditoris accensi ueternum ne-

glegentiae prioris discutiunt atque arrepto proposito instituti melioris cotidianis bono-

rum operum profectibus uelut quibusdam gradibus ascensionum ad summa uirtutum

quae sunt in aeternae pacis uisione tendere satagunt.''

67. In Ezram, p. 348, lines 357–63 : ‘‘Murus plateae latioris est in Hierusalem firmi-

tas et munimentum perfectae dilectionis in cordibus electorum ad quem instructores

eius aedificando perueniunt cum in operibus caritatis proficiendo conditori et adiutori

suo dicere possunt, Viam mandatorum tuorum cucurrimus dum dilatares cor nostrum ,

illa nimirum dilatatione mentis illustratae quae et amicum in Deo et inimicum diligere

propter Deum possit.''

 ´ ´
364 REVUE BENEDICTINE

its dwelling-place as quickly as possible; and we also do this ‘‘in the

courtyards of the house of God'' when, even though we are not yet

allowed to enter the courtyard of the heavenly dwelling, we nonethe-

less lay the whole memory and seat of our thought in its vicinity; and

we do this ‘‘in the square of the Water Gate'' also when, as our heart

expands on the path of God's commandments, just as a stag desires

68
springs of water, so does our soul desire the living God .

But in the present life too the Levites are gathered in Jerusalem when

the faithful, aflame with the memory of celestial peace, place the full

delight of their mind in this peace and rejoice over that eternal inher-

itance in heaven which they hope they are going to receive — even

though they are not yet able to — by contemplating it or at least de-

siring it, according to that saying of the psalmist : Rejoice, oh you just,
69
in the Lord, and confess to the remembrance of his holiness.

For we pay our vows to the Lord in the midst of Jerusalem in the sight

of all his people when, in the heavenly homeland, after the whole mul-

titude of the saints has congregated, we offer those praises of thanks-

giving to him which in this present life we sigh for and thirst for with
70
daily desire.

Or, most significantly, on the vision of heaven itself :

His father is Shealtiel, i.e. ‘‘my petition is God,'' to whom he himself

says in a psalm : Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheri-

tance. But since when calling upon him who is the God of each one of

the faithful and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ one seeks nothing

from him other than God himself, it is possible rightly to call him by

the name ‘‘Shealtiel'' i.e. ‘‘my petition is God,'' according to that say-

ing of the psalmist : For what remains for me in heaven? And besides you

68. In Ezram, pp. 370–1, lines 1255–67 : ‘‘Itaque unusquisque nostrum egressus fa-

cit tabernacula in domate, id est tecto domus suae, cum habitaculum suae carnis ani-

mo transcendens affectus eius noxios sedula supernae lucis ac libertatis meditatione

calcauerit. Quod ipsum et in atriis nostris facimus cum mente ad caelestia flagrante

quasi extra mundum consistimus cuius mansionem nos ocius relinquere desideramus;

facimus et in atriis domus Dei quando etsi necdum aulam supernae habitationis licet

ingredi in eius tamen uicinia totam nostrae cogitationis memoriam sedemque collaca-

mus; facimus et in platea portae aquarum cum dilatato corde nostro in uia mandato-

rum Dei sicut ceruus desiderat ad fontes aquarum ita desiderat anima nostra ad Deum
uiuum.''
69. In Ezram, pp. 378–9, lines 1581–7 : ‘‘Sed et in praesenti uita leuitae congregan-

tur in Hierusalem cum memoria supernae pacis fideles accensi totam in ea suae mentis

delectationem collocant ac de ea quam se percepturos sperant aeterna in caelis here-

ditate etsi necdum queunt intuendo saltim desiderando laetantur iuxta illud psalmis-

tae : Laetamini iusti in domino et confitemini memoriae sanctificationis eius .''

70. In Ezram, p. 384, lines 1809–13 : ‘‘In medio quippe Hierusalem uota domino in

conspectu omnis populi eius reddimus cum in caelesti patria omni sanctorum multitu-

dine congregata eas pro quibus in praesenti gemimus quasque gratiarum ei cotidiano

desiderio sitimus laudes offerimus.''

 S. DEGREGORIO 365

what have I desired on earth? , and so on until it says, But it is good for

me to be near to God . Our petition, then, is God since from him we seek

him alone, that we might deserve to enjoy an everlasting vision of

71
him.

For the elect ascend the walls of the city which they have built when

they enter the joys of the heavenly homeland, joys which they them-

selves have created through their perseverance in good works; they

discern the different heights of the gates, steps and buildings when,

entering into the Father's house, they contemplate there the diversity

of the many mansions for the different merits of people. But they

stand still in the house of God and sing even more loudly when, having

each been received in their mansions, they persist with steadfast resi-

dency in the everlasting vision of their Creator and with undivided

72
voice celebrate his praises together.

In these passages, the articulation of a predominantly monastic con-

cept of the spiritual life is loud and clear. Human life is pictured as a

movement toward heaven, dependent on detachment from earthly real-

ities and desire for celestial ones. Through study of Scripture and the

growth in virtue that accompanies it, the Christian soul can ascend,

rising above and away from transitory pleasure toward the things of

heaven. All the expected images ascribed in monasticism to that move-

ment are here : desire, conceived as thirst and burning fire; the virtues,

imagined as the steps by which we ascend; love, configured as an ex-

panding force that brings illumination; and the prospect of heaven, de-

fined as the very vision of the Creator. Such language and ideas, which

again point unmistakably to Bede's debt to the thought of Gregory the

Great, fill the pages of In Ezram; to call its spirituality pastoral rather

than monastic would accordingly be to eviscerate much at the very

heart of the text. In fact, it is often precisely in the commentary's

71. In Ezram, p. 289, lines 64–73 : ‘‘Cuius pater est Salathihel, id est petitio mea

Deus, cui ipse dicit in psalmo : Pete a me, et dabo tibi gentes hereditatem tuam. Sed et

uniuscuiusque fidelium Deum et patrem domini nostri Iesu Christi inuocans cum non

aliud ab illo quam ipsum Deum quaerit potest eum recte Salathihel, id est petitio mea

Deus, nominare iuxta illud psalmistae : Quid enim mihi restat in caelo et a te quid uolui
super terram, et cetera usque dum ait, Mihi autem adhaerere Deo bonum est . Petitio

ergo nostra Deus est cum ipsum solum ab ipso quaerimus ut aeterna ipsius mereamur

uisione perfui.''

72. In Ezram, p. 383, lines 1773–82 : ‘‘Ascendunt namque electi moenia ciuitatis

quae fecerunt cum gaudia supernae patriae quae ipsi instantia bonorum operum sua

fecerunt introeunt cernunt dispertitam portarum graduum aedificiorum celsitudinem

cum introeuntes in domum patris multarum inibi mansionum differentiam pro diuersis

hominum meritis contemplantur, stant autem in domo Dei et clarius canunt cum in

suas singuli mansiones recepti in perpetua sui conditoris uisione stabili habitatione

perseuerant eiusque laudes in saeculum saeculi uoce indiuisa concelebrant.''

 ´ ´
366 REVUE BENEDICTINE

more monastically-charged passages, with their talk of ascent and the

joys of heaven, that one may detect the tight bond that exists for

Bede between the pastoral and the monastic — for heaven he continu-

ally presents as the reward that awaits the teacher. As he puts it near

the end of Book 3,

... those who completed the gates, towers and city wall amidst great

toil, hardship, famine, cold, vigils by day and night while the tireless

enemy fights against and assails them, afterwards, once the enemy

have been beaten back and thrown into disarray, go walking together

through the gates, towers, and buildings of this city and rejoice with

songs, hymns, harps, cymbals, lyres, and trumpets and thanksgivings

together with those very teachers who were the authors of the project

and the teachers of God's Law. No one can doubt that, in the same

sequence, this takes place in the spiritual building too when, as the

hour of final retribution approaches as though it were the long-desired

dedication of God's city, the faithful obtain eternal rewards for their

works when, much like Nehemiah and Ezra and the other priests and

Levites as they each bring forth their workers, all the teachers of faith-

ful peoples conduct their listeners whom they have acquired for the
73
Lord into the fortifications of the heavenly homeland.

In Bede's monastic outlook, the life of teaching finds its end in the one

goal for which the monk strives — the visio Dei .

Secondly, there is the matter of In Ezram 's style. As I began this

article by noting, the writings of the Fathers have long constituted

the dominant context for understanding Bede's commentaries. In terms

of style, the legacy is clear : like the great commentaries of the patres
74
he often professed to be following, Bede's are steeped by and large in

the tradition of allegorical exegesis, their contents comprising careful

analyses of Scripture's various senses, each explicated so as to lay bare

its main significations. For an early eighth-century medieval exegete,

this method of commenting obviously carried enormous authority; but

73. In Ezram , p. 382, lines 1715–30 : ‘‘...qui portas turres et murum ciuitatis in

magno labore aerumna fame frigore uigiliis diurnis nocturnisque repugnante indefesso

hoste atque insidiante perfecerunt tunc repulso et confuso hoste per eiusdem ciuitatis

portas turres et aedificia deambulantes in canticis et hymnis in psalteriis cymbalis ci-

tharis in tubis et gratiarum actione una cum ipsis qui auctores operis et doctores legis

Dei fuere magistris collaetantur. Quod eodem ordine etiam in spiritali aedificio fieri

nulli dubium est cum instante tempore ultimae retributionis quasi diu desiderata de-

dicatione ciuitatis Dei fideles aeterna pro operibus suis praemia consequuntur quando

uelut Neemias et Ezras ceterique sacerdotes et leuitae suos singuli operarios producen-

In Ezram
tes cuncti fidelium populorum magistri suos quique quos domino adquisierunt audito-

res ad moenia patriae caelestis introducunt.'' Cf. , pp. 323–4, lines 1429–51;

p. 375, lines 375–9; p. 383, lines 1745–60.

74. For Bede's favorite tag (‘‘patrum uestigia sequens''), see n. 5 above.
 S. DEGREGORIO 367

was it the only paradigm Bede turned to in writing his commentaries,

and which we, therefore, should turn to in evaluating them? Once

again, Leclercq's book is useful. His outline of the monastic attitude

to Scripture, of monastic lectio as a form of meditation and prayer,

and of the role played here by reminiscence and memory, all of which

75
he deems the hallmarks of a distinctly ‘‘monastic exegesis,'' offers us

a different set of ideas, one that can, I believe, shed light on much that

we find in Bede's commentaries.

A single example from In Ezram can demonstrate some of its pur-

chase. In parts of this commentary, readers may find the argumenta-

tion difficult; digressions appear to abound, thwarting the progression

of logical development. Compared, say, to the prose of Augustine or

Jerome, Bede's text may seem repetitive, confused and even poorly

constructed, devoid of the clarity of thought and expression those ear-

lier Fathers achieved in their work. In treating the Feast of Taber-

nacles mentioned in Ezra 3 :4, for instance, Bede seems to bounce from

one topic to another, moving — in the course of just 70 lines — from

the literal events described in the verse to a constellation of figurative

analyses that include meditations on our exodus from sin, the transi-

ence of earthly life, the symbolism of the number seven, and finally

the spiritual meaning of the holocaust and the word ‘‘tent,'' the latter

76
of which with abundant reference to the writings of St Paul. The ini-

tial effect is dazzling, as each shift in direction gives way first to one

new idea and then another. Of precisely this ever-shifting quality, how-

ever, Leclercq says the following : ‘‘This is true of many monastic

authors; they do not always compose after a logical pattern which has

been definitely fixed upon in advanced. Within the literary form cho-

sen, they make use of the utmost freedom. The plan really follows a

psychological development, determined by the plan of associations,

77
and one digression may lead to another or even several others.''

Understood in these ‘‘monastic'' terms, the serpentine quality of Bede's

exegetical prose becomes intelligible as something other than an aber-

ration of proper style or muddled thinking. Its associative, digressive

quality can be seen as the result of a meditative impulse governed by

what Leclercq terms the ‘‘phenomenon of reminiscence,'' in which indi-

vidual words lead the exegete's mind spontaneously from one meaning

75. See Leclercq, Love of Learning (n. 65 above), esp. pp. 71–88.

76. See In Ezram , pp. 267–8, lines 1035–1105.

77. Leclercq, Love of Learning (n. 65 above), p. 74.

 ´ ´
368 REVUE BENEDICTINE

78
or connotation to another. And so in the passage referenced above,

the word for tabernacle, scenopegia , is evidently linked in Bede's mem-

ory with the word for tent, scenomata , both of which lead him in turn

to the idea of traveling, peregrinatio , hence to our earthly sojourn

through the world as well as to our spiritual pilgrimage to heaven,

and so on. The total effect, understood in Leclercq's terms, is closer

to the workings of lectio divina than to logical argument, a prayerful

mastication of the text whose execution would have been second-na-

ture to Bede, given his monastic background. As such, instead of the

claim that the style of Bede's exegesis is inferior to what one finds in

the Fathers, we are left in the end with something very different —

yet another example of the way the monastic life itself could act as a

primary and powerful determinant of his commentaries.

* *

The foregoing pages, in sifting a variety of monastic elements from

one Bedan commentary, are offered in the spirit of a prolegomenon to

the larger task of charting the interplay between monasticism and bib-

lical exegesis in Bede's commentaries generally. Where the findings

from subsequent treatments of the topic will lead us remains to be

seen. But the evidence examined at this preliminary stage already sug-

gests to me a new way of thinking about Bede as a commentator,

where the focus concerns not just his role as a transmitter of patristic

wisdom or an emulator of auctores , but also his desire to create some-

thing new — namely, a distinctively Anglo-Saxon ‘‘monastic'' form of

exegesis, the kind that grew out of, reflects, and was meant to serve

the needs of an eighth-century Northumbrian monastery. As much as

Bede venerated the patristic past, and as much as the appropriation of

that past was an acknowledged principle of life under the rule, at the

same time it is important to remember that his self-declared exegetical

79
stance was also that of singer of the Divine Office. Indeed, precisely

what we have seen, in case after case, is that the lived experience of

Northumbrian monastic life itself did in fact persuasively influence the

kind of biblical exegesis Bede put into In Ezram . Future studies will

78. Leclercq, Love of Learning (n. 65 above), p. 73.

79. See n. 13 above.

 S. DEGREGORIO 369

have to determine whether or not the experience of the monastery had

a hand in shaping his other commentaries too. The aim of this article
has been to start that debate by bringing to light the impact monasti-
cism clearly had on at least one of those commentaries.

Dearborn, Scott DeGregorio

University of Michigan

RB 23