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BEDE ON CREATION*
God is light and inhabits inaccessible light and therefore, thought
the Anglo-Saxon exegete Bede (c. 672-735), God created material
light on the first day.1 Material light is a clear reminder of Gods
spiritual light but inferior to it ; the material world was given an
imperfect light, alternating with darkness, for it is for the higher
world to enjoy to the full fixed and perpetual light.2 The very existence of night, the lack of a constant light which afflicts the created
world, was thus, for Bede, a reminder of the inferiority of the creation to the Creator.
Bedes interest in understanding the account of creation in the
first two chapters of Genesis is unsurprising, since traditionally this
account laid the foundations for Christian understanding of the world
and Gods work in it. It provided key information on all aspects of
the divine plan for creation in general and humanity in particular.
Hence a large tradition of Christian interpretation of the beginning
of Genesis developed in the patristic period and continued into the
early Middle Ages. Authors grappled with the perplexities of this
vital text in an attempt to understand their world, and often did so
in the shade of the vast quantities of exegesis which previous Christian writers had produced.3 Bede was one of the most important of
these authors.

*
This paper is based on a presentation first given at the Oxford Patristics
Seminar ; it has gained much from the comments of Sarah Foot.
1. Bede, Libri Quatuor in Principium Genesis usque ad Nativitatem Isaac et
Eiectionem Ismahelis Adnotationum, ed. Charles W. Jones, CCSL 118A [hereafter
Gen.], p. 8 : lucemque habitet inaccessibilem ; I take the English translation
from Calvin B. Kendall (trans.), Bede : On Genesis (Liverpool, 2008) [hereafter
Kendall trans.], p. 73.
2. Gen., p. 9 : hoc enim superni est seculi fixa ac perpetua luce perfrui ;
Kendall trans., p. 74.
3. For a wider examination of the entire Latin tradition of interpretation on
Genesis, see Thomas OLoughlin, Teachers and Code-Breakers : The Latin Genesis
Tradition, 430-800 (Turnhout, 1999).

DOI : 10.1484/J.RB.1.103601

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While he produced cosmological work in a scientific context in his

early On the Nature of Things (c.703) and his later On the Reckoning
of Time (c.725), Bedes most detailed true exegesis of the account
of creation comes in the first book of his commentary On Genesis.
Bede completed the whole work c.725, but may have written Book I
as early as 717/718.4 A prefatory letter to Bishop Acca of Hexham
(ruling 709-731), intended solely for the material which is now Book I,
survives, describing Bedes primary sources and intended audience.
This letter explains that Basil of Caesarea, Ambrose and Augustine
had all provided extensive commentaries on the creation, so extensive in fact that they were too costly for many readers to access.
And, even if available, these works were too complicated for the less
learned to understand. Hence Bede offered his work as a succinct
synopsis of the major patristic exegesis on Genesis 1-2, almost as a
florilegium.5 Indeed much of Book I consists of long verbatim quotations from Basil, Ambrose, and especially Augustine. It would be a
mistake, however, to think that Bede did not offer anything of his
own, for in fact his account of physical creation reveals an exegete
focusing on his own interests and reacting critically to his sources.6
Bedes letter states that Acca specifically requested him to perform this synthesising work on the exegesis of Genesis ; the bishop
had similarly asked Bede to produce a commentary on Lukes gospel
which would be easier for Anglo-Saxon readers to use than Ambroses
work on that gospel.7 This creates the image of a native readership,
rather unsophisticated and unlearned, who required Bede to predigest patristic learning for them.8 Synthesis may have had a rather
more utilitarian goal however ; recent work on Bedes exegesis has
4. Gen., pp. 3-72. For a detailed discussion of the date of the text, see
Kendalls introduction and appendices.
5. Gen., p. 1 : Verum quia haec tam copiosa tam sunt alta ut uix nisi a
locupletioribus tot uolumina adquiri, uix tam profunda nisi ab eruditioribus
ualeant perscrutari, placuit uestrae sanctitati id nobis officii iniungere ut
de omnibus his, uelut de amoenissimis late florentis paradisi campis, quae
infirmorum uiderentur necessitati sufficere decerperemus.
6. Joseph F. Kelly, Bedes use of Augustine for his Commentarium in
principium Genesis, in Augustine : Biblical Exegete, eds. Frederick van Fleteren
and Joseph C. Schnaubelt (New York, 2001), pp. 189-96 argues that Bede
became more independent and original in the later books of On Genesis and that
his original material in Book I is limited to points of physical creation (p. 192).
This seems to underestimate the significance of the original material.
7. Gen., p. 1 (quotation above n. 5) ; Bede, In Lucae Evangelium Expositio, ed.
D. Hurst, CCSL 120, pp. 5-6.
8. Cf. Bede, Expositio Apocalypsis, ed. Roger Gryson, CCSL 121A, p. 233, for
comment on Anglo-Saxon readers.

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257

highlighted the probable importance of a clerical audience with pastoral duties for whom he was providing necessary materials.9 Thus we
might imagine that the primary audience for On Genesis would have
been the clergy over whom Acca had authority ; but the bishop and
the more learned members of his household would also have expected
to gain something from reading Bedes work. The prefatory letter
makes clear that Bede hoped that the eruditus would benefit from
his work, as well as the rudis lector.10 It seems likely that On Genesis
was always intended to be more than a mere synthesis of previous
patristic thought.
In this paper I wish to discuss how Bede set up the material earth
as a dependent and lesser part of Gods creation, but one provided
with the saving rhythms of time from the beginning. Salvation history was a necessary and key part of this world from (quite literally) the first day. In order to establish this image of the prelapsarian
world, Bede found it necessary to disagree with Augustine, the major
patristic authority on Genesis. The two differed fundamentally on
how to read the six days of creation, with Bede developing a much
more literal approach to scripture at this point. I shall go on to argue
that the role which the intended audience had in shaping Bedes
approach to the text explains this difference. While Augustines Late
Antique world was one where Christians and non-Christians could
engage in intellectual conversation, Bedes world was entirely Christian. His interpretation of Genesis 1 did not have to take educated
pagans into account, instead it was written against a background of
literal-minded religiosity.11
9. Judith McClure, Bedes Notes on Genesis and the Training of the AngloSaxon Clergy, in The Bible in the Medieval World : Essays in Memory of Beryl
Smalley, eds. Katherine Walsh and Diana Wood (Oxford, 1985), pp. 17-30 ;
Kendall, On Genesis, p. 4 : his first priority in On Genesis was to provide
information and instruction for the working clergy.
10. Gen., p. 1 : Nec segnior in exequendo quae iubere es dignatus extiti, quin
potius statim perspectis patrum uoluminibus collegi ex hisquae rudem adhuc
possent instituere lectorem, quibus eruditus ad altiorem disceret fortioremque
maiorum ascendere lectionem. For Accas learning see Michael Lapidge, Acca
of Hexham and the Origin of the Old English Martyrology, Analecta Bollandiana
123 (2005), pp. 29-78.
11. I focus on the contrast with Augustine since, while Bede did make use of
other exegetes, it is Augustines work and in particular De Genesi ad Litteram
which is the overwhelmingly dominant source in Book I : Paul Siniscalco, Due
opere a confronto sulla creazione delluomo : il De Genesi ad litteram libri XII di
Agostino e i Libri IV in principium Genesis di Beda, Augustinianum 25 (1985),
p. 451.

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That the Bible said nothing by chance was one of the core tenets of Bedes exegetical approach. So when, having established that
In the beginning God created heaven and earth, the scriptural text
goes on to say that earth was void and empty, the fact that it does
not mention heaven is significant. Now why did Scripture introduce
these details about the earth, with no reference to heaven, asked
Bede, except that it wished nothing of this kind to be understood
about heaven ?12 While earth was created unformed and in darkness,
he argued that heaven was created instantly populated by the angels
and bathed in the light which is God. This fact proves to be important when the biblical account goes on to say that God created light
(Genesis 1 :3) since this can now only refer to material light on the
earth light already existing in heaven. It is appropriate, claimed
Bede, that the God who is light set about beautifying the world
by first creating material light.13 But the creation of light was not
always read in such a literal fashion.
Augustine had understood Genesis 1 :3 as the creation of the angels
and it was this interpretation which proved most popular with seventh-century Irish exegetes who interpreted the light as being the
heavenly creation of angelic intelligence.14 That Bede deliberately
chose an alternative to such a reading seems to explain why he
emphasised the fact that angels and spiritual light pre-existed material light : Since he himself is the true light and inhabits inaccessible light, the most blessed sight of which the angels in the heaven
of heavens had begun to enjoy immediately as they were created,
he properly also bestowed the first grace of material light upon this
world for the sake of adornment.15 But, as we have seen at the beginning of this paper, material light was different to Gods heavenly illumination in that it was limited and inconstant.16
12. Gen., p. 4 : Vt quid enim haec de terra praetermisso caelo intulit, nisi quia
nihil tale de caelo intellegi uoluit ? ; Kendall trans., p. 69.
13. Gen., pp. 7-8.
14. Marina Smyth, Understanding the Universe in Seventh-Century Ireland
(Woodbridge, 1996), p. 95 ; Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram, ed. J. Zycha,
CSEL 28 [hereafter De Genesi], II.8, p. 43 : An eo modo demonstratur primo
die, quo lux facta est, conditionem spiritalis et intellectualis creaturae lucis
appellatione intimari - in qua natura intelleguntur omnes sancti angeli atque
uirtutes ; De Civitate Dei, eds. B. Dombart and A. Klab, CCSL 48 [hereafter
DCD], XI.9, pp. 329-30.
15. Gen., pp. 7-8 : Congruit operibus Dei et mundi ornatum a luce incipiat qui
cum ipse sit lux uera lucemque habitet inaccessibilem, cuius beatissima uisione
mox creati in caelis caelorum angeli iam perfrui coeperant ; Kendall trans., p. 73.
16. See above p. 255.

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The prelapsarian earth was formed with a lack, with an inadequate

substitute for the presence of God in this material light which comes
and goes with the rhythm of day and night. The change between light
and dark reveals the instability of this world in comparison to the
eternal divine illumination above. But it is that imperfect rhythm
of day and night which was for Bede the vehicle driving the world
towards perfection. For the light established time on the first day.
Bede was very clear about this : the light circled the earth just as now
the sun does, creating days of twenty-four hours, even before the sun
itself existed.17 This was also the interpretation taught at the school of
Archbishop Theodore at Canterbury.18 What makes its presence stand
out in Bede is that it marks the beginning of an interest in the issue
of time which appears throughout his exegesis of Genesis 1.
Bede explained step by step how the Christian calendar was tied to
creation through the days of the first week. The appearance of green
plants on the third day made it clear that the season was Spring.19
On the fourth day God created the heavenly bodies which made time
measurable ; the sun, moon and stars provide the means by which
one can interact with time and read Gods message therein.20 Why
humans need to be able to read time is highlighted in Bedes reading of the fourth day. Having established that creation took place at
Spring, he now showed that the sun was created in equinox and the
moon full. Bede thus declared that the fourth day ended with the
first full moon after the vernal equinox : the fourth day was the Passover and the week of creation was Holy Week.21 Easter, the calcula17. Gen., p. 9 : Factumque est uespere occidente paulatim luce post expletum
spatium diurnae longitudinis atque inferiores mundi partes subeunte, quod nunc
usitato solis circuitu noctibus agi solet. Factum et mane redeunte eadem paulatim
super terras atque alium diem initiante. Et huc usque dies expletus est unus,
uiginti scilicet et quatuor horarum.
18. Bernhard Bischoff and Michael Lapidge, Biblical Commentaries from the
Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 304-5.
19. Gen., p. 14 : Patet ex his Dei uerbis quod uerno tempore mundi est
perfectus ornatus, in hoc enim solent herbae uirentes apparere in terra et ligna
pomis onustari. Ambrose also discussed the fact that creation took place at
springtime in terms of a more spiritually-focused discussion of baptism, Easter
and rebirth : Exameron, ed. C. Schenkl, CSEL 32, I.4.13-14, pp. 11-3.
20. Gen., pp. 16-9 ; p. 16 : Sunt ergo luminaria in signa et tempora et dies et
annos, non quod a conditione eorum uel tempora coeperint, quae constat coepisse
a principio quo fecit Deus caelum et terram, uel dies et anni qui originem sumsisse
noscuntur ex quo dixit Deus, Fiat lux et facta est lux, sed quia per ortus eorum
siue transitus temporum ordo dierumque annorumque signatur.
21. Gen., pp. 18-20. Faith Wallis, Si Naturam Quaeras : Reframing Bedes
Science, in Innovation and Tradition in the Writings of the Venerable Bede, ed.
Scott DeGregorio (Morgantown, 2006), p. 83.

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tion of the date of which was the key duty of a computist such as
Bede, was not only the major annual feast of the Christian Church.
It also marked the great moment at which salvation was wrought in
time, thereby providing the means for the inhabitants of this imperfect earth to escape the waning and waxing of material light and
reach Gods eternal light.22
Creation therefore established time as a rhythm which would save ;
God made the celestial bodies because they were vital to human participation in salvation. Using them one could determine the correct
date for Easter. And keeping the correct date for Easter was a vitally
important mark of membership of the Catholic Church, especially in
the Insular world of the late seventh and early eighth centuries.23
The Easter Controversy which bitterly divided the Insular Church in
those years was not simply a battle between local traditions and universalist dogmatism ; it was a disagreement over membership of the
society of the elect in which salvation itself was at stake. In such
a context the incorrect dating of Easter could be seen as making a
heretical statement. For example, Catholics denounced celebrating
Easter too early as akin to Pelagianism in suggesting that humanity
could be saved without Christs sacrifice thus denying ones absolute dependence on God and grace.24
The Easter Question is not the only recurring interest of Bede
that he addressed in his exegesis of Genesis 1. He followed tradition
in linking the six days of creation with the six ages of the present
world.25 The theme of the world ages is one with which Bede was
very taken ; its presence in On Genesis highlights the extent to which
all human history unfurls from the beginning according to a divinelyordained plan.26 Discussion of the six ages automatically led Bede to
think of the seventh and eighth ages (the pre-Judgement rest of souls
22. The correct date of Easter was closely linked with the symbolism of light :
Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave
and R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford, 1969), V.21, pp. 542-45.
23. For a discussion of the Easter Controversy and how it relates to the Insular
Church see Charles W. Jones, Bedae Opera de Temporibus (Cambridge, Mass.,
1943), pp. 3-122 ; Faith Wallis, Bede : On the Reckoning of Time (Liverpool,
1999), pp. xxxiv-lxiii.
24. Dibh Crinn, New Heresy for Old : Pelagianism in Ireland and the
Papal Letter of 640, Speculum 60 (1985), pp. 505-16 ; Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica,
V.21, pp. 544-5.
25. Gen., pp. 35-9. Augustine, DCD, XXII. 30, pp. 865-6.
26. For Bedes interest in the world ages see Charles W. Jones, Some
Introductory Remarks on Bedes Commentary on Genesis, Sacris Erudiri 19
(1969-70), pp. 191-8 ; Peter Darby, Bede and the End of Time (Burlington, 2012),

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261

and the life of the resurrection, respectively) which locate the human
history of this world in its appropriate place on the journey towards
eternal life with God.27
A consequence of Bedes attempt to read his contemporary interest in computus into the initial account of creation is that it may
seem to suggest that the prelapsarian world needed salvation. After
all, before the fall why should God have gone to the effort of preparing the means for humanitys salvation ? Discussing why God
made unfallen humanity master of the other animals, Bede suggested
that God, foreknowing that they would fall, created the prelapsarian world with comforts designed to assist postlapsarian humans.28
No doubt he would have extended this explanation also to the saving
rhythm of time. More than that, this view of creation allowed Bede
to emphasise the importance of salvation history as the means by
which Gods grace was given to humanity. The incarnation was that
moment where grace entered into human experience, but it was not a
reactive response to the fall. All of time actually forms itself around
the incarnation. Thus for Bede, salvation did not simply take place
in time, time existed so as to be the vehicle for salvation.29
In Bedes understanding, time was a process of improvement for
the Christian and the Church, which had developed through history
and grown towards the perfection which lay in heaven. Bedes view
of the apostolic Church, for example, complicated the traditional idealization of the early Church by seeing it simply as a passing stage
in the overall growth of the Church. The Church on earth, like all
pp. 21-4, 69-74. Also Bede, De Temporum Ratione, ed. Charles W. Jones, CCSL
123B [hereafter DTR], 66, pp. 463-5.
27. Gen., p. 39 : Septimo die requieuit Deus ab omnibus operibus suis, et
sanctificauit et benedixit illum ; et septima est aetas perpetuae quietis in alia
uita, in qua requiescit Deus cum sanctis suis in aeternum post opera bona, quae
operatur in eis per sex huius seculi aetates... Et ideo bene septimo diei uespera
successisse non legitur, quia tristitiam qua terminetur septima haec aetas, nullam
habebit ; quin potius ampliori letitia, ut diximus, octauae aetatis perficitur, illius
uidelicet quae per gloriam resurrectionis tunc incipiens, cum haec tota uita
transierit, nullo umquam fine, nulla rerum uicissitudine a contemplando Dei
uultu transmutabitur.
28. Gen., p. 29 : Nisi forte dicendum est quia peccaturum praesciebat Deus
hominem et mortalem peccando futurum quem immortalem ipse creauit ; ideoque
ea illi solatia primordialiter instituit quibus suam fragilitatem mortalis posset
tueri, uel alimentum uidelicet ex his uel indumentum uel laborum siue itineris
habens adiumentum.
29. For a stimulating discussion of the importance of time and history to Bede,
see Jan Davidse, The Sense of History in the Works of the Venerable Bede,
Studi Medievali 23 (1982), pp. 647-95.

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earthly things, was not perfect and unchanging from its beginning
but in fact had to develop through time.30 Individuals were reminded
that they could not instantly move from baptism to heaven, but had
to virtuously struggle through time in this world to reach the perpetual gifts of heavenly blessedness.31 Hence the importance of the
contrast between the temporal, material light of the earth and the
eternal, spiritual light of heaven, established at the very beginning of
the world. Bedes account of creation highlighted Gods providential
design for how the imperfect was to be perfected.
Considering then the importance Bede attached to the saving
rhythm of time, it cannot be surprising that he chose a literal interpretation of the six-day creation. This required him to confront the
vast body of Augustinian exegesis on Genesis in which Augustine
argued for a single timeless creation rather than one spread out over
a week. For Augustine the days described in Genesis 1 were not literal days but rather epistemological days ; they represented the process by which the angelic intelligence came to understand the creation of the world and their order was the order of knowledge and
not of time.32 Bedes rejection of that interpretation and insistence on
a dogmatically literal reading of the Genesis 1 account is important.
It is partially as a consequence of that rejection that medieval thinking on the six days rejected Augustine.33 While Antiochene exegesis
30. Glenn Olsen, Bede as Historian : The Evidence from his Observations on
the Life of the First Christian Community at Jerusalem, Journal of Ecclesiastical
History 33 (1982), pp. 519-30.
31. Bede, Homeliarum Euangelii, ed. D. Hurst, CCSL 122, I.1, p. 3 :
Denique dominus liberatum sanguine agni populum de Aegypto et per rubrum
mare eductum prius in deserto quadraginta annis instituit et sic in terram
repromissionis induxit quia nimirum populus fidelium non statim post baptisma
caelestis patriae potest gaudia subire sed primo longis uirtutum exercendus
agonibus ac deinde perpetuis supernae beatitudinis est donandus muneribus.
32. Augustine, De Genesi, IV.35, p. 136 : Dies ergo ille, quem deus primitus
fecit, si spiritalis rationalisque creatura est, id est angelorum supercaelestium
atque uirtutum, praesentatus est omnibus operibus dei hoc ordine praesentiae,
quo ordine scientiae, qua et in uerbo dei facienda praenosceret et in creatura
facta cognosceret non per interuallorum temporalium moras, sed prius et
posterius habens in conexione creaturarum, in efficacia uero creatoris omnia
simul ; translation from Edmund Hill (trans.), The Works of St Augustine,
A Translation for the 21st Century : On Genesis (New York, 2002), p. 275. Also
Augustine, DCD, XI.7, pp. 326-7.
33. Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, 3rd edn (Oxford,
1983), p. 132 ; Jones, Opera de Temporibus, p. 336. Frank Egleston Robbins,
The Hexaemeral Literature : A Study of the Greek and Latin Commentaries on
Genesis (Chicago, 1912), esp. pp. 78-9 recognises the importance of Bede here but
complicates matters by taking the spurious work, In Pentateuchum Commentarii
(published in PL 91), to be genuine.

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often rejected simultaneous creation, the most obvious example of

that exegesis in Anglo-Saxon England, the teaching of Theodore at
Canterbury, actually emphasised the instantaneous nature of creation
and agreed with Augustine in seeing the six days as the recapitulation of one day six times.34
When confronted with Genesis 2 :4 (the beginning of the second
account of creation in the biblical text), Augustine took its claim
that the world was created on one day as proof that his reading
of the six days was correct ; Bede, in On Genesis, argued in contrast
that day here simply referred to a general period of time, the entire
length of the six days to be precise.35 He accepted that the phrase
In the beginning revealed that Gods creation had taken place at
the very beginning of time so that as soon as time began heaven and
earth were created in an instant. But by this he seems simply to have
meant that the initial creation of both was simultaneous and with no
delay in time, as there must necessarily be in language.36 Six days in
which the details of the earth were worked out through time then followed this initial creation.
In rejecting Augustines complicated loftier scrutiny of the days
of creation, Bede also rejected other ideas which Augustine had suggested.37 These grouped around the idea, which Bede ascribed to certain unnamed Church Fathers, that the initial creation in the beginning was that of a formless matter from which all created things
were to be made. Augustine had proposed a means whereby God
could have created all things at once while still allowing for development through time : God created rationes seminales and causales,
(seminal and causal reasons), which contained within themselves (like
34. Bischoff and Lapidge, Canterbury Commentaries, pp. 308-9, 439.
35. Augustine, De Genesi, V.1, p. 139 : Unde liquidius adparet eundem illum
esse unum diem, quem fecit deus, quo repetito factus est et secundus et tertius
et ceteri usque ad septimum diem ; Gen., p. 41 : Sin autem appellationem diei,
quod consequentius arbitramur, pro significatione positam accipiamus temporis
illius in quo mundus iste per sex dies factus et ornatus est... Genesis 2 :4 : These
are the generations of the heaven and the earth, when they were created, in the
day that the Lord God made the heaven and the earth (Douay-Rheims version).
36. Gen., p. 3 : Vnde benedictum est quia In principio creauit Deus caelum et
terram, ut aperte detur intellegi quia utrumque simul ab eo factum est quamuis
utrumque simul ab homine dici non possit. Denique dicit propheta, Initio terram
tu fundasti, Domine, hic autem Dominus in principio caelum et terram creasse
narratur ; unde liquido colligitur quia factura utriusque elementi pariter expleta,
et hoc tanta uelocitate diuinae uirtutis ut necdum primum mundi nascentis
momentum esset transcensum.
37. DTR, 5, p. 286 : altius perscrutando. Translation from Wallis, Reckoning
of Time, p. 21.

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a seed) all the future evolution of a given aspect of creation.38 By this

mechanism Augustine could explain a created world which apparently
continued to develop and change after the initial, once-and-for-all act
of creation. Thus there was nothing new under the sun, as new forms
were merely the result of rationes pre-existent in the world, all evolution having been initially coded into the created universe. In both On
Genesis and On the Reckoning of Time Bede discussed the possibility
of an initial creation of unformed matter which contained all things
in seminal form, apparently influenced by Augustine.
He presented an interpretation of Genesis 1 where in the heaven
and earth of the initial creation, hidden together as it were in its
seminal substance, those things lay concealed which were soon to be
produced ;39 that is, every plant and every tree was made causaliter
in the substance of the earth itself before they visibly sprang up or
grew from the earth.40 This seems to be very close to what Bede had
stated in one of his earliest works, On the Nature of Things. There
Bede had described Augustines ideas about instantaneous creation
through causes without question.41 However in On the Reckoning of
Time and On Genesis, Bede, having raised this idea, went on to prefer
38. Augustine, De Genesi, V.23, pp. 167-9 ; VI.10, pp. 183 : In quibus omnibus
ea iam facta modos et actus sui temporis acceperunt, quae ex occultis atque
inuisibilibus rationibus, quae in creatura causaliter latent, in manifestas formas
naturasque prodierunt, sicut herba exorta super terram et homo factus in animam
uiuam et cetera huius modi, siue frutecta siue animantia ad illam operationem
dei pertinentia, qua usque nunc operatur. The rationes are the latent powers
of development in created things : Rowan Williams, Creation, in Augustine
through the Ages : An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald (Cambridge, 1999),
p. 252.
39. Gen., p. 40 : per substantiam seminalem simul condita latebant, quae
postmodum ex his opere creatoris non simul erant producenda ; Kendall trans.,
p. 106. Cf. DTR, 5, p. 285 : Sunt etenim quidam patrum, qui in eo quod scriptum
est : In principio creauit Deus caelum et terram ; terra autem erat inanis et uacua,
et tenebrae super faciem abyssi : informem caeli et terrae et aquae omniumque
elementorum confusionem putant esse designatam, ita ut nec aqua, nec terra, nec
caelum, sed eorum omnium una, ut ita dixerim, seminaria sit indicata materies.
40. Gen., p. 41 : et herba et arbor omnis in ipsius terrae substantia sit causaliter
facta priusquam uisibiliter orirentur aut germinarent ex terra ; Kendall trans.,
p. 106. Kendall translates causaliter as for a reason which seems to imply that
the plants were made for some purpose, whereas I read Bede as meaning that
plants were created causally that is in causes which pre-existed the plants
themselves. Augustine himself used the word (see above n. 33) in just such a
sense.
41. Bede, De Natura Rerum, ed. Charles W. Jones, CCSL 123A, I, p. 192 : ...
quod eiusdem creaturae seminibus et primordialibus causis totius seculi tempus
naturali cursu peragitur, ubi Pater usque nunc operatur et Filius, ubi etiam
coruos pascit et lilia uestit Deus.

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his own interpretation of Genesis.42 He clearly felt that such a creation, relying on seminal causes, directly contradicted a literal reading
of the six days. By dismissing the idea of pre-existent causes then
Bede protected the literal interpretation of the six days which he felt
was so necessary, but also perhaps safeguarded the contingent nature
of the material world, utterly dependent on God.
One consequence of Augustines theory of the rationes may have
been that it seemed to grant a great deal of independence to the natural world. Since nature contains all future developments it will go
through within itself, Gods constant intervention in nature becomes
unnecessary. Of course, Augustine himself still viewed the operation of the rationes as entirely dependent on the providence of the
Creator.43 However, once the material earth is created in substance,
Gods direct input may seem less necessary for the details of creation : all those specific aspects of creation which God is said to have
made throughout the week of Genesis 1. Bede explicitly stated that
creation depended not on natural processes such as are now to be
seen, but on the direct input of God proceeding in a non-naturalistic
fashion.
Hence the plants and trees did not initially grow up from fertilised
earth, but appeared instantly fully-formed, green-leafed and heavy
with fruit before the earth had ever been watered. The Bible made
it clear that vegetation pre-existed rain, Bede declared, because it
sought to emphasise Gods direct responsibility for the initial creation of plant life.44 While Bede could try and explain the mystery of
the waters above the heavens (Genesis 1 :7) by recourse to natural
examples such as the formation of rock crystal or the water vapour
of the clouds, in reality belief in these waters rested, he claimed, on
42. DTR, 5, pp. 286-7 ; Gen., pp. 41-2. Calvin B. Kendall and Faith Wallis,
Bede : On the Nature of Things and On Times (Liverpool, 2010), p. 136 consider it
strange that Bede, clearly being familiar with Augustines ideas, wrote his long
account of creation in On Genesis with no hintof pre-existing causes.
43. Stanley Rosenberg, Forming the Saeculum : The Desacralization of
Nature and the Ability to Understand it in Augustines Literal Commentary on
Genesis, in Gods Bounty ? The Churches and the Natural World, eds. Peter Clarke
and Tony Claydon (Woodbridge, 2010), pp. 1-14 ; Williams, Creation, p. 252.
44. Gen., p. 41 : Non enim sic in primordio rerum haec terra produxit quomodo
nunc si inrigatio adfuerit aquarum, disponente Deo terra ultro fructificat ;
sed mirabiliore prorsus opere conditoris tunc antequam aliqui fructus ex terra
crescendo orirentur aut germinarent, repente campi montes et colles herbis erant
et arboribus cooperti habentibus congruam altitudinem staturae, diffusionem
ramorum, opacitatem foliorum, copiam fructuum, quam non paulatim ex terra
oriendo uel germinando et accessu incrementorum proficiendo sed subito ex illa
existendo acceperunt.

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two things : the omnipotence of God and because Holy Scripture said
so.45 An independent nature need not, indeed could not, be called
upon to explain such phenomena.46 By such means Bede re-emphasised the key message which his analysis of light and time had established : the absolute dependence of the created world, including in its
prelapsarian form, upon God.
The need to establish this inadequacy at the heart of the material
world from before the fall could be explained if Bede had believed
that God did not change the nature of the world after the initial
creation. However, Bede accepted that God created thorns and barren trees (which had not been part of that initial creation) as a consequence of humanity sinning.47 Why then were some responses to
sin programmed into creation and others only subsequently added ?
Perhaps the difference is that while God waited until after the fall to
punish humans (with thorns, etc.), he had prepared comforts and aids
from the beginning (animals to serve humanity, the saving rhythm
of time). Gods great justice could thus be seen by Bedes readers.
One suspects also, however, that Bede sought to highlight the need
for progression and improvement towards God. Elsewhere he stated
that those in the Church who are called perfect are not really perfect ; rather they are perfect in earthly terms but still growing in perfection in heavenly terms.48 Given the above-mentioned connection
between incorrect Easter dating and Pelagianism, Bedes emphatic
rejection of natural perfection in the Genesis account may also be an
example of one of his frequent assaults on this heresy.49

45. Ibid., p. 11 : Sane quales aquae ibi sint quosue ad usus reseruatae conditor
ipse nouerit ; esse tantum eas ibi, quia scriptura sancta dixit, nulli dubitandum
reliquit. ; Kendall trans., p. 76.
46. Wallis, Si Naturam Quaeras, pp. 77-8. Cf. Jennifer Neville,
Representations of the Natural World in Old English Poetry (Cambridge, 1999),
pp. 2-3 : the Anglo-Saxons did not have a word or expression for the
modern conception of the natural world because they did not conceive of an
entity defined by the exclusion of the supernatural. The dichotomy of natural/
supernatural only seems to have become popular in Europe in the thirteenth
century : Robert Bartlett, The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages
(Cambridge, 2008), pp. 12-7.
47. Gen., p. 68 : Ante peccatum ergo hominis non est scriptum quod terra
protulerit nisi herbam pabuli et ligna fructuosa ; post peccatum autem uidemus
multa horrida et infructuosa nasci, propter eam uidelicet quam diximus causam.
48. Bede, De Templo, ed. D. Hurst, CCSL 119A, p. 165.
49. Cf. Arthur Holder, The Anti-Pelagian Character of Bedes Commentary
on the Song of Songs, in Biblical Studies in the Early Middle Ages, eds. Claudio
Leonardi and Giovanni Orlandi (Florence, 2005), pp. 91-103.

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Against the belief that Bede rejected some aspects of Augustines

interpretation of creation, Faith Wallis has argued that Bede did not
disagree with Augustine. He did after all mention the seminal interpretation of creation, which it may be doubted he would have done
had he disagreed with it entirely.50 Bede certainly did mention an
interpretation which can be recognised as Augustines, but he was
careful not to mention Augustine himself. To an unaware reader,
Bede simply rejected some unknown exegetes work, and not that of
the primary Latin authority on Genesis. This unwillingness to name
Augustine is all the more suggestive in that Bede went on, in On the
Reckoning of Time, to cite a number of Fathers by name (all equally
Catholic as the unnamed Fathers with whom he disagreed) who he
believed supported his literalist view of Genesis.51 Hiding Augustines
identity seems to have been a deliberate ploy to strengthen Bedes
case against such an esteemed Father. Elsewhere, in his Commentary
on 1 Samuel, when Bede chose to take issue with Jerome over his attitude to pagan rhetoric, he carefully did not name the distinguished
Father, although it is clear, since he certainly quoted Jeromes own
writings, whom it was that he was censuring.52
Clear, that is, to a modern scholar with the aid of a critical apparatus. The rudis lector for whom Bede explicitly stated that he was
writing Book I of On Genesis was unlikely to notice such details.53 It
is worthwhile to focus some attention on the possible importance of
the intended audience of Bedes work. If his interpretation of creation was specifically designed as an aid to beginners, or as a guide to
clerical preaching directed at the inexperienced and unlearned, then
it is unsurprising that Bede chose interpretations which are literal,
consistent and with clear spiritual messages.54 By rejecting Augus50. Wallis, On the Reckoning of Time, p. 271 ; Wallis, Si Naturam Quaeras,
p. 78 n. 29. Cf. Jones, Opera de Temporibus, pp. 335-6.
51. DTR, 5, pp. 286-7. Bede cited Pope Clement (actually pseudo-Clement),
Ambrose, Basil of Caesarea and Jerome by name.
52. Roger Ray, Bede and Cicero, Anglo-Saxon England 16 (1987), pp. 2-3 ;
Bede, In Primam Partem Samuhelis, ed. D. Hurst, CCSL 119, pp. 119-21 ;
cf. Jerome, Epistulae, CSEL 54, ed. I. Hilberg, XXII.30, p. 190. Also Bede,
Epistola ad Pleguinam, ed. Charles W. Jones, CCSL 123C, pp. 619-20, where he
did not name Eusebius when criticising his chronology.
53. Some medieval readers were able to make the connection of course, and
the gloss of DTR included by Jones in his edition comments on patrum aeque
catholicorum with Augustino : DTR, p. 286. But the very existence of a gloss
suggests that readers could not be expected to recognise Augustines theories for
themselves.
54. See above pp. 256-7.

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tine, Bede could provide a very straightforward reading of scripture :

when the Bible said day it meant a twenty-four hour day as commonly understood ; when it said earth it meant the earth.55
The very beginning of Bedes account of creation contains a statement warning against departing too far from the manifest truth of
history when interpreting scripture.56 The warning is all the more
striking since Bede is not an exegete renowned for his restraint in the
use of allegory.57 I think it significant then that this warning comes
directly after a discussion of what the creation of heaven and earth
simul in the beginning means ; Bede may well have felt that the
interpretation of this verse could easily forsake the history of the six
days which was to follow unless the exegete was careful. Augustines
interpretation is certainly a lot more sophisticated than Bedes here
but it is also a lot more complex, requiring elaborate imaginative
stretches of scriptural meaning. It was furthermore based on assumptions, which while obvious perhaps to a Late Antique scholar, would
have been unknown to an Anglo-Saxon monk. Bede himself seems
to have misinterpreted Augustine on occasion. His discussion of
unformed matter implies that it was created first and then formed
in time, whereas for Augustine unformed matter logically, but not
temporally, preceded formed matter.58
Augustine and Bede wrote in very different circumstances and
these naturally shaped the type of exegesis which they produced.
55. DTR, 5, p. 286 : Sed multo facilior est sensus si, iuxta traditiones patrum
aeque catholicorum, caeli nomine circulus caeli superioris intelligatur esse
monstratus ; terrae nomine tellus ipsa suis quibus et nunc est finium spatiis
inclusa, excepto quod nihil uirentium germinum nihil uiuentium produxerat
animantum ; abyssi uocabulo infinita aquarum diffusio omnem alluentium terram,
in quarum medio postmodum firmamentum caeli esse factum commemoratur.
56. Gen., p. 3 : Sed diligenter intuendum ut ita quisque sensibus allegoricis
studium impendat, quatenus apertam historiae fidem allegorizando derelinquat ;
Kendall trans., p. 69.
57. See Claude Jenkins, Bede as Exegete and Theologian, in Bede : His
Life, Times, and Writings, ed. A. Hamilton Thompson (Oxford, 1935), p. 180 :
A reader who has no taste for allegory had better leave Bedes commentaries
alone ; Paul Hilliard, The Venerable Bede as scholar, gentile and preacher,
Ego Trouble : Authors and their Identities in the Early Middle Ages, eds. Richard
Corradini, et al. (Vienna, 2010), pp. 105-6, argues that Bedes fondness for
allegory was in fact out of step with the sympathies of many Anglo-Saxon
readers.
58. Augustine, De Genesi, V.5, p. 146 : Non itaque temporali, sed causali
ordine prius facta est informis formabilisque materies, et spiritalis et corporalis,
de qua fieret, quod faciendum esset, cum et ipsa, priusquam instituta est, non
fuisset... ; also Confessions, ed. James J. ODonnell, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1992),
XII.29.40, pp. 180-1.

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Augustine wrote in an age where there was still a secular educational

system, which produced individuals willing and able to ridicule the
Biblical account of creation if it was not convincingly explained.59
Augustine had personal experience of the damage an unthinking
assertion of unbelievable facts could have on potential believers. It
was his heritage as an educated Late Antique man, rather than as the
son of a Catholic mother, which initially led him to abandon Manichaeism due to its unconvincing cosmology.60 Bede lived in a world
where the only meaningful education existed in a monastic context.
His aim in writing On Genesis was not to woo intellectuals to Christianity but to provide existing Christians with a clear and comprehensible system of belief.61 Book I of On Genesis is not exclusively
aimed at the unlearned ; but even Acca and his household would have
been educated in the Bible text far more than in classical natural
sciences. The interpretation of the waters above the heavens which
Bede chose to offer these readers, i.e. the necessity to believe in them
based on scriptural authority and Gods omnipotence, was the very
kind of assertion which Augustine argued should not be used to interpret such a verse, lest it inspire derision in those learned who did not
accept scriptures authority.62
We should not over-emphasise the ignorance of early Anglo-Saxon
England. The degree to which Bedes learning was without peer in the
monastic world in which he lived can be (and has been) easily overstated ; but the truth does seem to be that in the eighth century, the
Anglo-Saxon clergy could not be guaranteed to be as familiar with
patristic literature as Bede was, nor indeed to know any Latin at

59. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (Berkeley, 1969), pp. 268-9.

60. Augustine, Confessions, V.3-7, pp. 48-51. Cf. OLoughlin, The Latin
Genesis Tradition, p. 169.
61. McClure, Bedes Notes, p. 26, suggests that preaching on the creation
may have been used in Anglo-Saxon missionary work. In such circumstances an
emphasis on the absolute dependence of creation on the Christian God, and the
subordination of natural rhythms and processes to him, would have an obvious
relevance.
62. Augustine, De Genesi, II.1, p. 34 : Hic occurrit admonere cauendum
errorem, quem in libro primo cauendum monui, ne forte, quia scriptum est in
Psalmis : fundauit terram super aquam, arbitretur aliquis nostrum aduersus istos
de ponderibus elementorum subtiliter disserentes isto testimonio scripturarum
esse nitendum, quia illi non retenti auctoritate litterarum nostrarum et
nescientes, quemadmodum dictum sit, libros sanctos facilius inridebunt quam
illud repudiabunt, quod uel certis rationibus perceperunt uel experimentis
manifestissimis probauerunt ; also I.19, pp. 28-9.

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all.63 The late seventh and early eighth centuries saw a great flourishing in education and learning in the Anglo-Saxon world.64 This learning, however, situated the Late Antique texts which had come to the
Anglo-Saxons with conversion within an entirely Christian frame of
reference. Even in his scientific treatises, Bede placed ancient learning about the universe within a more explicitly religious context than
had his Christian predecessors.65
It has long been recognised that Bedes desire to pass on the wisdom of the Fathers to his countrymen was not marked by a slavish
devotion. His confidence in his own ability to creatively use patristic
knowledge is now well acknowledged.66 The prefatory comments to
some of his works, especially the early ones, suggest that he self-consciously adapted the Fathers for his fellow country-men ; we should
not be surprised that he dropped elements of patristic exegesis which
may not have been helpful in his own time.67 But there is more to
be said about the differences between Bede and Augustine than to
point out that one lived while the Late Antique educational system
was still strong and the other in a land where it had long since disappeared. Few of Bedes readers had read as widely or as well as he
had, but many were still confident enough to question his statements
on occasion.
It was the nature of the questions which the two exegetes had to
face which mark them out as different. While Augustine had to contend with the possibility of educated non-Christians disagreeing with
him, Bedes critics all came from a solidly Christian background and
the nature of their criticisms suggests a dogmatic one at that. Augustine engaged with those outside or on the margins of the Christian
community who could question the appropriateness of Christianity in
a context where there were alternatives. Educated pagans could easily be familiar with Christian beliefs (aristocratic families frequently

63. Bede, Epistola ad Ecgbertum Episcopum, ed. Charles Plummer, Venerabilis

Baedae Opera Historica (Oxford, 1896), 5, pp. 408-9.
64. Pierre Rich, Education and culture in the barbarian West : from the sixth
through eighth century, trans. John J. Contreni (Columbia, South Carolina, 1978),
pp. 369-99 ; Rosalind Love, The World of Latin Learning, in The Cambridge
Companion to Bede (Cambridge, 2010), ed. Scott DeGregorio, pp. 40-53.
65. Faith Wallis, Bede and Science, in Cambridge Companion, ed.
DeGregorio, pp. 116-8.
66. E.g. Roger Ray, Who Did Bede Think He Was ?, in Innovation and
Tradition, ed. DeGregorio, pp. 11-35.
67. See above n. 7 & 8.

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consisting of a mix of Christian and polytheistic members) and possess the intellectual qualifications to question them.68
Robert Markus skilfully detailed the great gulf which separated the
world of Gregory the Great from Augustine : for Augustine Christianity was part of a wider world ; for Gregory the world was Christian.69
It is no surprise that Bedes world was closer to that of the Apostle
to the English.70 Of course rigorist clerics, such as Bede himself, did
not see their world as being adequately or completely Christian. But
the remnants of paganism which works like the penitential of Theodore fulminate against strike one as traditional customs rather than
intellectual systems which could be opposed to that of the Church.71
The Anglo-Saxon aristocracy was as half-hearted and conservative in
its conversion as the Roman one had been ;72 but the culture of feasting and song which it refused to abandon provided a very different
threat to Christianity than did pagan philosophy.
Thus when Bede engaged in debate it was not with educated nonChristians, but with other members of the clerical and monastic
elite. The monk of Jarrow had to defend himself from claims that
he undermined the truth of the Bible or overturned tradition.73 For
68. See for example the queries arising from Volusian and his circle to which
Augustine was asked to respond : Augustine, Epistulae, ed. K. Daur, CCSL
31B, CXXXV-CXXXVIII, pp. 249-90. Maijastina Kahlos, Incerti in between :
Moments of Transition and Dialogue in Christian Polemics in the Fourth and
Fifth Centuries, La Parola del Passato 59 (2004), pp. 5-24.
69. Robert Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity, 2nd edn (Cambridge,
1998).
70. Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, II.1, p. 122 : Quem recte nostrum appellare
possumus et debemus apostulum quianostrum gentem eatenus idolis
mancipatam Christi fecit ecclesiam.
71. Pnitentiale Theodori, I.XV, in Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents
Relating to Great Britain and Ireland vol. 3, eds. Arthur West Haddan and
William Stubbs (Oxford, 1871), pp. 189-90.
72. Patrick Wormald, Bede, Beowulf and the Conversion of the Anglo-Saxon
Aristocracy, in R.T. Farrell (ed.), Bede and Anglo-Saxon England : Papers in
Honour of the 1300th Anniversary of the Birth of Bede, given at Cornell University
in 1973 and 1974 (Oxford, 1978), pp. 32-95. Wormalds study was influenced by
Peter Brown, Aspects of the conversion of the Roman aristocracy, Journal of
Roman Studies 51 (1961), pp. 1-11.
73. Bede was questioned about his allocations of the four evangelists symbols
in his commentary on the Apocalypse and had to defend himself by pointing
out that he was drawing on Augustine : Bede, In Lucae Evangelium, pp. 6-10.
Celia Chazelle, Art and Reverence in Bedes Churches at Wearmouth and
Jarrow, in Intellektualisierung und Mystifizierung mittelalterlicher Kunst, eds.
Martin Bchsel and Rebecca Mller (Berlin, 2010), p. 92 describes these
contemporary views which emphasised the literal truth and authority of the
Bible as Pelagian-like ; see Michael W. Herren and Shirley Ann Brown, Christ
in Celtic Christianity : Britain and Ireland from the Fifth to the Tenth Century

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example, when he suggested that the miracle of Pentecost was not

that the apostles spoke in many languages, but that they were understood by the speakers of different languages, Bede appears to have
been taken to task. He had to defend himself by pointing out that
he was following the interpretation of a Father (Gregory Nazianzen)
and that he was not suggesting that Pentecost was any less miraculous in nature.74 From what we can see Bede never had to feel that
he had to be wary of driving a potential convert away ; every time he
was attacked or criticised for his writings it was by fellow Christians
who believed that he had wandered away from the manifest truth of
the textual tradition. And he always gave the same response : it was
in fact Bedes opponents who displayed their ignorance of the writings of that tradition.75 When criticised, Bede always reached for his
authorities. It is against this background then that Bede followed a
very literal interpretation of Genesis 1, and against this background
that he sought to hide the fact that it was Augustine with whom he
disagreed in so doing.76
It is, of course, reductive to suggest that any one figure is representative in their response to the culture of their time. Augustines
stylistic approach to Genesis was not that of Ambrose ; rather than
the cautious and non-confrontational style of the Bishop of Hippo,
the Bishop of Milan, in his homilies on the six days of creation,
directly and aggressively challenged pagans in the early stages of his
work.77 He expressed a stark contrast between the Church and those
outside it and there was no room for ambiguity or caution in this
approach.78 So, Ambrose stated the absolute authority of God over
(Woodbridge, 2002), pp. 106-22. The term Pelagian to describe such views is
probably misleading.
74. Bedes original comment is in Expositio Actuum Apostolorum, ed. M.L.W.
Laistner, CCSL 121, p. 17 ; his defence is in Retractio in Actus Apostolorum, in
the same volume, pp. 110-11.
75. E.g. Bede, Epistola ad Pleguinam, pp. 617-26 Bedes response to chiliast
critics of his chronology was to bombard them with erudition and contempt for
their rustic ignorance of the Fathers. On this letter see Darby, End of Time,
chapter 2.
76. It is interesting to note that the defensive list of the equally catholic
fathers in DTR 5 postdates the discussion of the seminal creation in On Genesis.
Had a response to the earlier work convinced Bede that he had to safeguard his
authority on this point ?
77. See Louis J. Swift, Basil and Ambrose on the Six Days of Creation,
Augustinianum 21 (1981), pp. 317-28.
78. See Peter Brown, The Body and Society : Men, Women and Sexual
Renunciation in early Christianity (Berkeley, 1988), pp. 346-8, for this approach
elsewhere in Ambroses writings.

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creation and the need to believe in it as a polemical, and deliberately anti-pagan, point.79 But though this response to his situation
radically differs to that of Augustine (unsurprisingly for different
individuals with different experiences) it is not as similar to that of
Bede as it may appear. Ambroses aggression arose from the same
wellspring as Augustines complexity the awareness of a body of
highly-literate non-Christians prepared to take issue with the word
of God. Bedes superficially similar emphasis on Gods omnipotence
lacks the combative tone, because the Anglo-Saxon author lacked an
awareness of any such body of critics.
The account of creation in Bedes On Genesis reveals to us an exegete who is well-read in the great patristic work on Genesis but who
nonetheless is willing to use it critically. Bede was perfectly happy to
disagree with a Father as weighty as Augustine on occasion, though
not as keen perhaps to make it clear to his readers that that was
what he was doing. The result may well be an interpretation of Genesis which is rather less complex and sophisticated than that of Augustine in parts a necessary response to the radically different worlds
in which the two exegetes worked. But nonetheless it is an interpretation which fits within Bedes wider corpus in its interest in time as
the means through which God works in, and saves, the world. Bedes
work is important not just for the light it shines on the legacy of the
Fathers, but in its own right.
The Queens College,
Oxford

Conor OBrien

79. E.g. Ambrose, Exameron, I.6.22 p. 20, I.6.24 pp. 22-3, 3.6.27 pp. 76-7. See
Swift, Basil and Ambrose for many more examples. While it has traditionally
been assumed Bede had read Ambroses work, some doubt has recently been
cast on his knowledge of the Exameron : Dabney Anderson Bankert, Jessica
Wegmann and Charles D. Wright, Ambrose in Anglo-Saxon England with PseudoAmbrose and Ambrosiaster, Old English Newsletter Subsidia 25 (Kalamazoo,
1997), pp. 19-21.