EXEGETICAL HAGIOGRAPHY

BEDE'S PROSE VITA SANCTI CUTHBERTI

The Venerable Bede has really only been a historian to the modern
1
age. Given the vast importance of his historical writing to modern
scholarship, it's often difficult to see him as medieval readers would
have—that is, as an authoritative exegete whose biblical commen-
taries, and not his history, were the center of attention. There has thus
existed a regrettable tendency to compartmentalize Bede's writings,
and to study the historical works as phenomena unto themselves, sepa-
rate both from the environment in which they were produced, and
from their author's voluminous biblical commentary.
Such attitudes have serious implications for our understanding of
one of the most important figures of the Middle Ages. Bede himself,
in that short piece of autobiography appended to the Historia Eccle-

2
siastica , said that he was a scholar of scripture; only in that context
did he proceed to talk about his work. The obvious conclusion is that
all his writings, from the commentaries to the vitae to the chronologies
and histories, were products of his life-long study of the Bible. It is
thus useless to seek to understand any of them in isolation. To do so
is to ignore Bede's true purpose as a scholar, and so to weaken our
understanding of everything he wrote, whether explicitly exegetical or
not.
The aim of more recent scholarship, sensitive to these considera-
tions, has been twofold—both to remove Bede from abstraction and

1. This paper is dedicated to my kind friend and professor, Thomas G. Waldman,

who was ready with assistance and advice at every point of its construction. I am also
very grateful to E. Ann Matter, whose suggestions and encouragement were invalu-
able. My notes will use the following abbreviations : VC = Bede, Vita Sancti Cuthberti,

ed. and transl. Bertram Colgrave, Two Lives of (Cambridge : Cambridge

St. Cuthbert

University Press, 1940); VA = Anonymous, Vita Sancti, also ed. and transl.
Cuthberti

Colgrave in Two ; CCSL = Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina (Brepols :

Lives

Turnhout, 1953-).
2. See Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis 5.24 (ed. Bertram Colgrave
Anglorum

and R.A.B. Mynors, Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the [Oxford : Clar-

English People

endon Press, 1969], p. 566) : ‘‘...ex eo tempus uitae in eiusdem monasterii habitatione
peragens, omnem meditandis scripturis operam dedi..."

RB 15
234 REVUE BÉNÉDICTINE

3
to place him within the environment of eighth-century Northumbria,
and to remove the Historia from a similar abstraction, and to place it
4
within the environment of the Bedan corpus as a whole. Bede's work
has thus come to be studied as the product of someone who was ‘‘any-
5
thing but detached and neutral," —of someone who, especially towards
the end of his life, wrote with a specific reformist agenda. And his His-

toria has been more fully understood and appreciated not as the work
of a historian whose exegesis merely preceded the composition of more
important things, but as the work of an exegete whose motivation and
intent owe much to his study of the Bible.
This paper is an attempt to further this contextual understanding of
Bede. The object of its consideration will not be Bede's Historia, but a
related text—his prose Vita Sancti Cuthberti. While the study of this
hagiography has moved in direction quite similar to that of the Histo-
6
ria, much remains to be understood about how it relates to Bede's
biblical scholarship. In the pages that follow I will attempt to demon-
strate the various interactions that exist between this Vita and Bede's
exegesis, and to show how themes and techniques that Bede first de-
veloped in his commentaries exercised a significant influence upon his
conception of the life of St. Cuthbert.
Little is known of Cuthbert himself. It is possible to deduce that he
7
was born around the year 634, though his childhood and even his par-
entage are obscure. Bede's remark that Cuthbert decided to enter a
monastery when he saw ‘‘the soul of the holy Bishop Aidan carried to

3. See Walter Goffart, ‘‘The Historia Ecclesiastica : Bede's Agenda and Ours," in
The Haskins Society Journal 2 (1990), p. 29-45; Alan Thacker , ‘‘Bede's Ideal of Re-
form," in Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society : Studies Presented to
J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, ed. Patrick Wormald et al. (Oxford : Basil Blackwell, 1983);
ScottDeGregorio ‘‘ Nostrorum socordiam temporum : The Reforming Impulse of Be-
de's Later Exegesis," in Early Medieval Europe 11.2 (2002), p. 107-22.
Ray
4. Roger D. , ‘‘Bede, the Exegete, as Historian," in Famulus Christi : Essays in
Commemoration of the Thirteenth Centenary of the Birth of the Venerable Bede , ed. Ger-
ald Bonner (London 1976), p. 125-140 is most important in this regard. See also his
‘‘What do we Know about Bede's Commentaries," in Recherches de the´ologie ancienne et
me´die´vale 49 (1982), p. 5-20, and Judith M cClure, ‘‘Bede's Old Testament Kings," in
Ideal and Reality, p. 76-98.
5. Goffart
, op. cit., p. 32.
6. G offart
and T hacker , in their above-cited works, do much to explain the work
in terms of contemporary, local circumstances.
7. C olgrave
, p. 322-323 : ‘‘Fosterage in Ireland ended at the age of 17, and at this
age too the youth had to decide whether he would enter a monastery... According to
[Bede's Vita], c. 4, it was his vision of the death of Aidan which led Cuthbert to make
up his mind..." Aidan died in 651; assuming that Cuthbert was 17 then, he would
have been born around 634.
 E. KNIBBS 235

8
heaven by angels," allows us to date the beginning of his monastic
vocation to 651—the year of Aidan's death—though it was some time
before Cuthbert actually became a monk at Melrose. According to
9
Bede, he remained there for ‘‘some years," until his Abbot Eata was
allowed by King Alhfrith to build a monastery at Ripon. Eata ‘‘took
10
with him certain of the brethren, amongst whom was Cuthbert," to
found the monastery, where Cuthbert was made guestmaster. When
Alhfrith later drove out the Celtic monks and gave the monastery to
the bishop Wilfrid in their stead, Cuthbert followed Eata back to Mel-
rose. His travels, however, were not over; after his community adopted
Roman practice in the wake of the Synod of Whitby (664), Eata was
made abbot of the monks at Lindisfarne and Cuthbert (who, since Boi-
sil's death, had become prior) followed him there. In 676 he withdrew
from the community to live as a hermit on Farne Island, where he
remained until his consecration as Bishop of Lindisfarne at York in
685. For two years he reluctantly endured episcopal office, until, sen-
sing that death was near, he resigned his see and returned to his island
hermitage. On 20 March 687, he died on Farne in the company of sev-
eral Lindisfarne monks. Eleven years later, his body was exhumed and
found to be incorrupt.
The earliest source for Cuthbert's life is a vita written immediately
11
after this translation, between 699 and 705, by an unknown Lindis-
farne monk. This Vita Sancti Cuthberti is a work of four books, each
concerned with a principal period of Cuthbert's life—his childhood, his
public ministry, his life as a hermit on Farne, and his time spent as
bishop and afterward. For the most part, every chapter is devoted to
12
the story of a single miracle. This anonymous account is striking both
for its simplicity of style and for its largely anecdotal nature; readers

8. ‘‘...animam sancti Aidani episcopi ad coelum ab angelis ferri aspexerit." VC, ch.
4, 164. All translations of Cuthbert's two prose Vitae by Colgrave; unless noted, other
translations are my own.
9. VC, ch. 7, p. 174.
10. ‘‘Abbas quosdam e fratribus secum, in quibus et Cuthbertum..." VC, ch. 7, p. 174.
11. Colgrave, p. 13 : ‘‘It must have been written at least a year after the Transla-
tion. The miracle recorded in [Book] IV, [Chapter] 17 is related as taking place in
‘this present year', which would seem to imply that the other miracles recorded as
taking place after the Translation did not take place in the same year but at least a
year before. Now the Translation took place in 698 so we may take the earliest date
for the composition of the Life as 699. The latest date is given by the reference in
III, 6 to ‘Aldfrith who is now reigning peacefully.' Aldfrith died in 705."
12. Exceptions are a number of chapters that occur in the initial or final position of
a book; here readers might be given a brief recapitulation of Cuthbert's present state
in life or, in the exceptional case of book one, chapter seven, a summary of miracles
omitted, ‘‘ne fastidium lectori ingererem" (VA, 72).
236 REVUE BÉNÉDICTINE

are led from miracle to miracle, with each incident strung into the next
almost casually and with little sense of any overall narrative.
Bede brought his own skills to bear on Cuthbert's hagiography not
long after, with two complementary vitae of prose and verse. He began
13
with a Vita Metrica, ‘‘a substantial poem of nearly 1000 hexam-
14 15 16
eters" around the year 705; his prose Vita followed ca. 721. In
these works, Bede does away with the cumbersome four-book format
and presents a continuous narrative of 46 chapters. Yet in other re-
spects he draws heavily on his anonymous predecessor. He retains the
essential sequence of events, along with (for the most part) the chap-
ter-per-miracle method of exposition.
In his prose Vita— the one that this paper will be concerned with—
17
Bede introduces eight new miracles and includes a long, detailed ac-
count of Cuthbert's death that he attributes to Abbot Herefrith. He
reorders the miraculous events that correspond with those contained
in the fourth book of the original Vita , probably ‘‘to add clarity to
18
the work." Bede's account is also more verbose, not as purely anecdo-
tal, and readier to moralize or supply didactic details.
Bede's vitae Cuthberti , taken together, form an opus geminatum —a
work consisting of two complementary vitae , one in prose and the other
in verse. This method of commemorating episcopal saints seems to
have interested Bede, for at roughly the same time that he composed
the Vita Metrica , he made another contribution to the genre with his
19
prose Vita of St. Felix. This work is interesting because Bede never
wrote the poetic counterpart—this role was served by the existing

13. Ed. Werner Jaager, Bedas metrische Vita (Leipzig : Mayer &
sancti Cuthberti

Müller, 1935).
14. Michael Lapidge, ‘‘Bede's Metrical Vita ," in
S. Cuthberti St. Cuthbert, His Cult

and His Community to A.D. , ed. Gerald Bonner, David Rollason and Clare
1200

Stancliffe (Southampton : Boydell Press, 1989), p. 77.

15. Lapidge, p. 78 : ‘‘Bede refers respectfully to Osred as Aldfrith's ‘venerable off-
spring' and describes him as a ‘new Josiah'... Bede's respectful reference to Osred is a
useful pointer ... for ... Osred turned from a young Josiah into a wicked Ahab, defiling
nuns and murdering noblemen ... That Bede should refer to this young monster as
uenerabile suggests that his poem was written very soon indeed after Osred's succes-
sion ... within a year (or two at most) of 705."
16. Colgrave, p. 16 : ‘‘[The ] is dedicated to Bishop Eadfrith who died in
Vita

[721]. In the book usually called De which he wrote in 725, he

temporum ratione

speaks of it as having been written ‘some years ago'. One would therefore gather that
it cannot have been written much before 721."
17. See VC, chs. 3, 8, 19, 23, 31, 35, 36, 46. All of these miracles appeared first in
Bede's metrical ; four others appear exclusively in the
Vita Vita Metrica.

18. Colgrave, p. 14.

19. Ed. Thomas W. Mackay, A Critical Edition of, Ph.D. disser-
Bede's Vita Felicis

tation, Stanford University, 1971 (Ann Arbor : University Microfilms, 1972).

 E. KNIBBS 237

20
verse of Paulinus of Nola (from which Bede's prose had been
21
adapted). It is possible that, early on, Bede had also intended the
Lindisfarne work to serve as the counterpart to his Vita Metrica. This
is the speculation of Simon Coates, who remarks that the preface to
the metrical Vita, in which Bede promises a forthcoming prose work,
‘‘was added only during the final drafting ... and it is possible that in-
itially Bede may have intended the work to be paired with the Lindis-
22
farne Life." This suggestion is compelling because it illustrates that
Bede's prose Vita Cuthberti was in no way necessitated by his earlier
poetic endeavors. Why, then, did he write it?
Some have speculated that the answer lies in Bede's treatment and
use of the original Vita Cuthberti, and they have attempted to derive
some notion of his intent by analyzing the innovations that he makes
23
with respect to the Lindisfarne account. As I will show, a significant
number of these changes involve the incorporation of themes and ideas
from Bede's biblical commentaries.

Bede relies upon two strategies in his exposition of Cuthbert's life—

with material originally contained in the Lindisfarne Vita, he moralizes
or explains while omitting originally-present details of time and place;
with material that he introduces, he provides source references and
specific information. Charles Plummer found the new Vita wanting for
the omissions, and complained that Bede had ‘‘obliterated many inter-
24
esting details of time and place." Plummer supposed that this had
been done for liturgical reasons; an account with less exacting detail
25
would be ‘‘more easy to read ... in church or refectory." Bertram

20. Ed. Guilelmus de Hartel, Sancti Pontii Meropii Paulini Nolani Carmina
, Cor-
pus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 30 (Vienna, 1894).
21. That each of the vitae
could have different authors was a precedent set by Ve-
nantius Fortunatus, who had supplemented Sulpicius Severus' Vita Sancti Martini
with his own poetry. See Simon Coates, ‘‘The construction of episcopal sanctity in
early Anglo-Saxon England : the impact of Venantius Fortunatus," in Historical Re-
search 71 (1998), p. 3.
22. Ibid.
23. For example, Walter Berschin, ‘‘Opus deliberatum ac perfectum: Why Did the
Venerable Bede Write a Second Prose Life of St. Cuthbert?" in Cuthbert, his Cult and
Community , p. 95-102 and Karl Lutterkort, ‘‘Beda Hagiographicus : Meaning and
Function of Miracle Stories in the Vita Cuthberti and theHistoria ecclesiastica," in
Beda Venerabilis: Historian, Monk & Northumbrian , ed. L.A.J.R. Houwen and A.A.
MacDonald (Groningen : Egbert Forsten, 1996), p. 81-106 .
24. Charles Plummer, Baedae Opera Historica (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1896),
p. xlvi.
Ibid.
25.
238 REVUE BÉNÉDICTINE

Colgrave, after making the same observation in his own introduction to

26
his Two Lives of St. Cuthbert , agreed.
Assuming, however, that Bede wanted the Vita adapted for liturgi-
cal use, and that this meant generalizing the account, it makes little
sense that he is always quick to supply the names of sources and pre-
27
cise locations for much of the material that he adds. I would propose
another—perhaps an additional—explanation. In his commentaries,
Bede had ample opportunity to ponder the function of different narra-
tive methods, and apparent biblical contradictions drove him to con-
28
sider, along with Augustine, the practice of generalizing and omitting
information. When Bede comes in his commentary on the Acts of the
Apostles to the events preceding Stephen's martyrdom, he is made to
account for just such a difficulty. His argument is instructive.
Stephen, who has just been accused by false witnesses of speaking
‘‘words against the holy place and the law" (Acts 6 :13), is driven to
justify his beliefs with a speech that comprises most of the seventh
chapter of Acts. In this speech he recounts and summarizes important
events of the Old Testament, so that he might demonstrate how Jesus
had been promised ‘‘according to the Law" (Bede's words) and because
of the inconstancy of the Jewish people. The problem comes in Acts
7:16, when Stephen remarks that Abraham bought a plot of land at
Sichem, contradicting Gen. 33:19, where Jacob is named as the buyer.
Bede's explanation is that Stephen's inaccuracy is excusable because
his purpose was not to recount history, but to make an argument :

Certainly, the blessed Stephen, addressing the multitude, follows to a

greater extent the opinion of the common people in his discourse; for,
joining two narratives together [i.e., Genesis and Acts], he demon-
strates not so much the order of the circumstances of the history, as
the reason for which it happened. Indeed, he who was accused of hav-
ing taught against the holy place and the law proceeds to point out

26. Colgrave, p. 15. As evidence for this assertion, he says that ‘‘... in the Anon-
ymous Life, certain MSS ... have omitted many of the proper names for the same
reason."
27. For example, VC, ch. 3, p. 160; ch. 8, p. 180; or ch. 31, p. 256. These are but a
few such instances.
28. Bede, In Lucae Euangelium Expositio, ‘‘Prologus" (CCSL, vol. 120, Prologus,
lines 127-147) : ‘‘Quod uero ais mouere quosdam quare in apocalipsi noua interpreta-
tione Matheum leoni Marcum homini assignarem intueri debuerant quicumque illi sunt
quos hoc mouet quia non hoc mea noua sed antiqua patrum explanatione traditum
dixi. Neque enim mihi a me ipso ita uisum sed ita a beato Augustino expositum fuisse
memoraui et paucis etiam unde hoc adfirmaret adiunxi. Cuius non ab re est si ipsa
quoque uerba ponentes quid de euangelistis uel typis eorum animalibus senserit osten-
damus quibus et illud nostrum opus ab iniusta uituperatione saluetur et hoc praeposi-
ta tanti doctoris auctoritate firmetur."
 E. KNIBBS 239

how Jesus Christ himself was shown to have been promised according
to the law, because [the Jews] were willing to serve neither Moses then
29
nor the Lord now.

Leaving out the finer details of time and place—the circumstantes his-
toriae—is permissible, then, when doing so means that a given point or
a certain lesson is more easily demonstrated. It can be no accident that
the more didactic portions of Bede's Vita Cuthberti coincide with many
of its author's generalizations and innovations, for these are the places
30
where Bede has made edification his purpose. As an exegete, he
would have felt justified in his changes (even should they occur at the
expense of accuracy) by the precedent of biblical figures like the mar-
tyr Stephen.
The thematic correspondences between the Vita and Bede's exegesis
exist principally with those commentaries that Bede had composed be-
fore 721. This suggests that he did not simply write the Vita Cuthberti
with the general mentality and techniques of biblical commentator,
but that he enriched it specifically with themes he had developed in
earlier works. The correspondence is most evident between the Vita
and three Bedan commentaries— In Primam Partem Samuhelis , In
Evangelium Lucae, and In Epistolas Septem Catholicas . In the case of
the Samuel and Luke commentaries, this is to be expected for tempor-
al reasons. The first three books of the Samuel commentary were com-
31
pleted by 716, and the fourth written shortly thereafter. Assuming

29. ‘‘Verum beatus Stephanus uulgo loquens uulgi magis in dicendo sequitur opinio-
nem; duas enim pariter narrationes coniungens, non tam ordinem circumstantis histo-
riae quam causam de qua agebatur intendit. Qui enim insimulabatur aduersus locum
sanctum et legem docuisse, pergit ostendere quomodo Iesus Christus ex lege monstre-
tur esse promissus et quod ipse nec tunc Moysi nec domino nunc seruire maluerint."
Bede, Expositio Actuum Apostolorum, 7 (CCSL, vol. 121, p. 35, ch. VII, lines 60-67).
This theme occurs in Bede's later writings as well. Ray, op. cit., 138n., points out two
other such instances — one in Bede's In Marci Euangelium Expositio, the other in his
Retractio in Actus Apostolorum.
30. There is a related point to be made here. No little energy has been spent puz-
zling over why Bede neglects to mention his crucial Lindisfarne source in the Vita
Cuthberti, yet finds space to reference it almost casually in the preface to his Historia
Ecclesiastica. I believe that the reason lies in his overall purpose — in the Vita his
principal concern is to edify, not (as is the case with the Historia's preface) to relate
information. When he does reference sources in his Vita, it is, as already said, princi-
pally in regard to material not already contained in the earlier account. This is why I
must disagree with the conclusions of some (i.e., B erschin, op. cit.), who have sup-
posed that Bede intended his work to actually replace its predecessor. If he had,
would he not have been careful to carry through references and related details, as he
does in those places where he knows and intends himself to be the only source? Ste-
phen martyr, after all, is allowed his inaccuracies because a more particular account
with historical aims—Genesis—already exists to provide the circumstantes.
31. M.L.W. Laistner, A Hand-List of Bede Manuscripts (Ithaca : Cornell Univer-
240 REVUE BÉNÉDICTINE

the Vita Cuthberti to have been finished in 721, it is not inconceivable

that parts of Samuel and the Vita were composed at the same time. In

Evangelium Lucae was written somewhat earlier, and had been com-
pleted before 716. It is more difficult to date the most popular of Be-
de's commentaries, his exposition of the Catholic Epistles, but it was
32
certainly among his earlier works; M.L.W. Laistner remarks that its
‘‘general character aligns [it] with the treatises on Acts and on the
33
Apocalypse."
This paper will discuss examples of these correspondences as they
exist in three general categories. My concern will be entirely with the
first 17 chapters of Bede's Vita Cuthberti , for this is where the reso-
nance seemed to be strongest.

I. Cuthbert and samuel

These correspondences are remarkable not only because they exist

entirely between the first chapter of Bede's Vita and the first book of
his In Samuhelem, but also because the overall theme that Bede brings
from his Samuel commentary is allegorical; in all other instances he
seems to incorporate mainly didactic ideas from his exegetical works.
I believe that such a peculiar interaction exists because the composi-
tion of In Samuhelem happened to be among Bede's principal occupa-
34
tions while he was writing on Cuthbert.
Both lives of Cuthbert give the same basic account of their saint's
youth; he was a child who surpassed all his companions ‘‘in agilitate
et petulantia" and indulged freely in frivolous games until a miraculous
encounter with a three-year-old child. This boy addressed him as a
bishop and complained that such amusements were beneath his dig-
nity. In both vitae, the miracle occupies the first place; it acts as a
kind of introduction to, or foreshadowing of, the narrative that follows.
The Lindisfarne account of this event is half as long as Bede's. The
anonymous author is unconcerned with Cuthbert's reactions to the

sity Press, 1943), p. 65, points out the introductory passage of book IV of Bede's In
Samuhelem, from which ‘‘we learn that books I to III had been finished some little
while before Ceolfrid's departure for Rome (June, 716)." See CCSL, vol. 119, p. 212.
32. See Laistner, p. 31 : ‘‘... [Bede] himself tells us that he sent the Commentary
on I John to bishop Acca at the same time as the Commentary on Acts."
33. Ibid.
34. Though this is largely conjecture, it is nevertheless true that of the three com-
mentaries this paper is concerned with, In Samuhelem is the one that seems most
likely to have been composed contemporaneously with the Vita Cuthberti.
 E. KNIBBS 241

child's exhortation; he simply quotes Luke to say that Cuthbert ‘‘kept

in mind the prophetic words, just as St. Mary kept in her memory all
35
the words which were prophesied about Jesus." Bede, on the other
hand, is quick to show that the exhortation was received by Cuthbert
as more than a simple prophecy. ‘‘The boy, being of a good disposi-
tion," Bede says, ‘‘listened to these words with fixed attention, and
soothing the sorrowful infant with kindly caresses, he forthwith gave
up the idle games and, returning home, he began from that time to
36
be steadier and more mature in mind." This was an event that chang-
ed Cuthbert's life.
Bede moves further from his source when he relates the miracle to
the story of Samuel. In the same words that the Bible uses to describe
the prophet before the Lord had called him, Bede tells us that Cuth-
bert did ‘‘not yet know the Lord, neither had the word of the Lord
been revealed to him" (I Sam. 3:7). Further on, Bede departs from
the narrative as it exists in the Lindisfarne vita once again, this time
to present Cuthbert as a type of Christ. This is accomplished princi-
pally through the speech of the admonishing child : ‘‘It is not fitting
for you to play among children," the boy tells the saint, ‘‘when the
Lord has consecrated you to be a teacher of virtue even to your el-
37
ders." This is of course simply a reference to the story of Jesus in
the temple (Luke 2:41-52). In the anonymous life, this child had simply
38
addressed Cuthbert as ‘‘sancte episcope et presbyter" and told him
that his boyhood amusements were contrary to his nature.
There is an apparent contradiction in all of this; on the one hand
Cuthbert is initially ignorant—like Samuel, he does ‘‘not yet know
the Lord." Only a few paragraphs later, however, Bede deliberately
creates parallels between his saint and Christ. How is this to be ex-
plained? The answer lies in In Samuhelem—a commentary where, as
here in the Vita, Bede is very much concerned with allegory, and in
fact chooses to interpret the whole of I Samuel allegorically. In expli-
cation of the verse from Samuel that he uses to describe Cuthbert in

35. ‘‘... prophetiae uerba in mente retinens, sicut sancta Maria omnia uerba prae-
dicta de Iesus memorans conseruabat." VA 1, ch. 3, p. 79.
36. ‘‘Audiens haec bonae indolis puer fixa intentione suscepit, mestumque infantem
piis demulcens blanditiis, relicta continuo ludendi uanitate domum rediit, ac stabilior
iam ex illo tempore animoque adolescentior existere coepit." VC, ch. 1, p. 158.
37. ‘‘Ludere te inter paruulos, non decet, quem Dominus etiam maioribus natu ma-
gistrum uirtutis consecrauit." VC, ch. 1, p. 158.
38. VA 1, ch. 3, p. 64.
242 REVUE BÉNÉDICTINE

the Vita (quoted above), Bede says that :

The savior, whose name was God, was not yet understood by the
world to have always known all the secrets of the father, and not until
he was baptized did John see and give testimony that the heavens had
opened to him and the voice of the father had come from over him. In
the manner of holy scripture, then, the ignorance of the blessed child
Samuel represents the wisdom hidden in the childish flesh of the son of
God. For indeed it was not said in vain that ‘‘in him are hid all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. 2:3)—hidden clearly from
39
unbelievers, manifested to believers.

Cuthbert, then, can resemble Christ in the same manner as Sa-

muel—that is, inversely—and there is no real contradiction. If Samuel
may prefigure by his ignorance the infantile sapientia of the Son of
God, so may Cuthbert's youthful follies serve to recall Christ's more
correct behavior as a child. By first relating Cuthbert to Christ and
then using biblical words to inform his readers of Cuthbert's ignorance,
40
Bede treats him just as he does Samuel in the commentary.
There are other parallels between Bede's Vita and his In Samuhelem.
One might turn to his exposition of I Sam. 1:21-22, for example, to
find a precedent for remarks that Cuthbert, ‘‘when he was a boy, he
knew as a boy, and thought as a boy" (I Cor. 13:11). It is in this por-
tion of I Samuel that Hannah, who has just given birth to the prophet
Samuel, refuses to offer a sacrifice to the Lord with her husband until
her infant is weaned. Parallel to the text of I Sam. 1:21 (‘‘And Elcana
her husband went up, and all his house, to offer to the Lord the sol-
emn sacrifice, and his vow.") Bede places his allegorization :

The Lord went up along with the church of the perfected, which is his
house and home, to offer to the Father who is in heaven the sacrifices
of its works while yet the church remains at home in those who are

39. ‘‘Porro saluator cuius nomen deus necdum agnitus est a carnalibus omnia patris
semper nosse secreta, neque ante quam baptizaretur uidit et testimonium perhibuit
iohannes apertos ei caelos et uocem patris super eum factam fuisse desursum. Sic ergo
more sanctae scripturae infantilis beati samuhelis ignorantia occultam in carnis infan-
tia filii dei sapientiam demonstrat. Neque enim frustra dictum est quia ‘in ipso sunt
omnes thesauri sapientiae et scientiae absconditi,' absconditi uidelicet infidelibus ma-
nifestati credentibus." Bede, In Samuhelem 1.3 (CCSL, vol. 119, p. 36, I.1051-1059).
40. On this point see also a somewhat earlier passage from Bede, In Samuhelem 1.3
(CCSL, 119, p. 36, I.1039-1049) : ‘‘Notet diligens lector non eundem semper allegoricae
interpretationis quem ordinem esse ueritatis historicae sed modo pari modo dispari
modo contrario ad inuicem statu conuersari, pari quidem ut samuhelis pueritia sim-
plex et torpens caecitas heli domini saluatoris humilitatem et perfidam iudaeorum
stultitiam signat, dispari autem ut dubia samuhelis uerba dicentis, ecce ego quia uo-
casti me, ueram certam que christi incarnationem praemonstrant, contrario ut inferius
peccatum dauid in sermone Vriae misericordem christi gratiam qua gentes est saluare
dignatus insinuat."
 E. KNIBBS 243

not yet able to eat the solid food of the word, who, having accepted
the rudiments of the faith now have the senses of a boy. A time will
come however when by nourishing themselves and keeping themselves
in the grace of Christ they might begin to have an experienced sense
for discerning good and evil, and then they might say with the Apos-
tle, ‘‘But, when I became a man, I put away the things of a child"
41
(I Cor. 13 :11).

In all of his commentaries, this appears to be the only place where

Bede again uses this verse from I Corinthians. Just as Samuel and his
inability to attend the sacrifice as an infant stood to symbolize the
spiritually inexperienced, so does Cuthbert serve as an example of the
‘‘church in those who are not yet able to eat the solid food of the
word." Both are boys that become men and so put away childish
things.
The corresponding sections of Bede's Vita Metrica do not emphasize
the same parallels between Cuthbert and Samuel as shown here. As
noted above, roughly fifteen years must have passed between the writ-
ing of the metrical Vita and the prose, during which time the Jarrow
monk produced his In Samuhelem. Perhaps this intervening study of
Samuel enriched and colored Bede's understanding of Cuthbert's story,
to the degree that it influenced his retelling so many years later.

II. Spiritual progress

In the Lindisfarne Vita the word ‘‘praedestinatio" abounds; there is

the sense that Cuthbert was simply chosen—‘‘electus" is the author's
term—and that his sanctity was an ever-present constant after the
first miracle. Bede, who is quite concerned with the theme of spiritual
progression in his exegetical work, must have found such passages ob-
jectionable. It seems very much in response to them that he has re-
worked the narrative to everywhere emphasize the growth of his
42
saint.

41. ‘‘Ascendit dominus et ecclesia perfectorum quae est domus et sedes eius ad of-
ferenda patri qui est in caelis suorum uota operum et manet adhuc domi ecclesia in
his qui necdum solido uerbi cibo possunt ali qui acceptis fidei rudimentis adhuc pueri
sensibus extant. Aderit autem tempus cum et ipsi nutriente et secum morante gratia
Christi exercitatos iam sensus ad discretionem boni ac mali habere incipiant dicantque
cum apostolo, ‘Cum autem factus sum uir ea quae paruuli erant deposui.' '' B ede, In
Samuhelem 1.1 (CCSL 119, p. 20, I.381-389).
42. For a much fuller discussion of the themes of spiritual progression that Bede
introduces to the Vita than that necessitated by my argument in this paper, see
Carole E. Newlands, ‘‘Bede and Images of Saint Cuthbert," in Traditio 52 (1997),
p. 73-109.
244 REVUE BÉNÉDICTINE

He does this principally by emphasizing various points of Cuthbert's

spiritual growth. To begin with, there is Cuthbert's initial progress, as
comprehended in the first chapters of the Vita. This is where Cuthbert
is led to seek a life of virtue by the prophetic urgings of a playmate. Be-
de's already-noted innovation on this point is his concern with the effects
of the encounter upon the saint; readers are shown a newly devout Cuth-
bert in the second chapter, ‘‘holding fast" to the exhortations he has re-
ceived. There follows the eighth and ninth chapters, which relate the
death of Boisil and the start of Bede's public ministry. Finally, there is
the seventeenth chapter, in which Cuthbert begins his life of solitude on
Farne. In each of these places Bede can be found reusing themes from his
exegetical works to discuss or emphasize Cuthbert's progression.
To examine precisely how Bede accomplishes this, it will first be
necessary to reconsider the initial chapter of his Vita Cuthberti, in light
of his exposition on the epistle of James. In the relevant portion of this
letter, James tells the faithful that they ought to be ‘‘swift to hear, but
slow to speak, and slow to anger" (1 :19). Bede chooses this occasion in
his commentary to remark upon the danger that speaking and teaching
pose for humility, and the need for youth to keep an attentive si-
43
lence. He reads into this verse from James an exhortation to what
can only be called spiritual apprenticeship, which idea recalls very
much the above-referenced passage from In Samuhelem and the con-
cern with those ‘‘who cannot yet eat the solid food of the word" :

Hence the Pythagoreans, gifted in the instruction of natural knowl-

edge, order their disciples to be silent for a period of five years and
then finally they permit them to teach. For it is safer for truth to be
heard than to be taught, because when it is heard humility is guarded,
but when it is taught, only with difficulty does some minor boastful-
ness not steal away to someone. Here Jeremiah, describing the mod-
est life of a well-instructed youth, considers the pursuit of silence
among the first of the virtues. He says, ‘‘it is good for a man that he
bear the yoke in his youth; he will sit alone and he will keep silence"
44
(Lam. 3:27).

43. This is a common exegetical theme of Bede's. See In Prouerbia Salomonis 2.10
(CCSL 119B, p. 67, II.70-74) : ‘‘Verum quia semper dominum laudare, non autem
semper docere, non omnia quae nouit omnes docere sapienti conuenit, recte subditur :
‘Sapientes abscondunt scientiam' (Prov. 10:14), scientes uidelicet quia ‘tempus tacendi
et tempus loquendi' (Eccl. 3:7)."
44. ‘‘Hinc Pythagorici naturalis scientiae magisterio praediti auditores suos per
quinquennium iubent silere et sic demum praedicare permittunt. Nam et tutius est
ut ueritas audiatur quam praedicetur, quoniam cum auditur humilitas custoditur,
cum autem praedicatur uix non subripit cuiuis hominum quantulacumque iactantia.
Hinc Hieremias bene instituti adulescentis uitam describens modestiam taciturnitatis
 E. KNIBBS 245

The final use of Lamentations is to be noted, for it is with the same

verse that Bede chooses to open his Vita's first chapter. There again,
he uses it to place emphasis on the necessity, especially during one's
youth, for this early spiritual growth and attentiveness—an idea iden-
tical to that expressed in the given passage. Bede goes so far as to
introduce his verse similarly. ‘‘The prophet Jeremiah," he says in the
Vita,

consecrates for us the beginning of our account of the life and miracles
of the blessed father Cuthbert when, praising the hermit's state of per-
fection, he says : ‘It is good for a man, when he hath borne the yoke
from his youth; he shall sit in solitude and be silent because he will
raise himself above himself.' For being stirred up by the sweetness of
this blessing, Cuthbert the man of God submitted his neck from early
youth to the yoke of monastic discipline; and at a favourable oppor-
45
tunity, he also took to the hermit's way of life. ...

Bede does not confine this theme of apprenticeship to the Vita's first
chapter; instead, he makes it a part of the narrative's very structure.
It is the previously-noted eighth and ninth chapters that Bede uses to
mark the transition from Cuthbert's time of youthful silence to his time
46
of public ministry. Only after Cuthbert's teacher Boisil dies in the
eighth chapter (when Cuthbert can no longer be considered a student)

inter prima uirtutum studia computat : ‘Bonum est uiro,' inquit, ‘cum portauerit iu-
gum ab adulescentia sua; sedebit solitarius et tacebit.'" In Epistolas Septem Catholicas,

Iac. 1.1 (CCSL 121, p. 190, I.269-278).

45. ‘‘Principium nobis scribendi de uita et miraculis beati patris Cuthberti Ieremias
propheta consecrat, qui anachoreticae perfectionis statum florificans ait, ‘Bonum est
uiro cum portauerit iugum ab adolescentia sua, sedebit solitarius et tacebit, qui leua-
bit se super se' (Lam 3:27, 28). Huius nanque boni dulcedine accensus uir Domini
Cuthbertus, ab ineunte adolescentia iugo monachicae institutionis collum subdidit, et
ubi oportunitas iuuit, arrepta etiam conuersatione anachoretica ..." VC, ch. I, p. 154.
46. Though not central to this discussion, the following passage from the eighth
chapter of Bede's Vita is of interest : ‘‘Porro Cuthberto tanta erat docendi peritia,
tantus amor persuadendi quae coeperat ... omnes palam quae gesserant confitendo
proferrent, quia nimirum haec eadem illum latere nullomodo putabant, et confessa
dignis ut imperabat poenitentiae fructibus abstergerent." The phrase fructus dignus

poenitentiae is taken from Luke 3:8, ‘‘Facite ergo fructus dignos paenitentiae," and is
a much-used formula of Bede's. One can find it employed at least thrice in his homi-
lies, four times in his
In Marci euangelium once in his
expositio, In Regum librum xxx

quaestiones , once in his De Tabernaculo, and at least five times in In Lucae Euange-

lium Expositio. It is in this last work that Bede sheds some light on what the words
mean to him. ‘‘In quibus uerbis," he says, ‘‘notandum est quod non solum fructus
paenitentiae sed dignos paenitentiae ammonet esse faciendos. Alius namque est fruc-
tum facere aliud dignum paenitentiae facere. Neque enim par fructus esse boni operis
debet eius qui minus et eius qui amplius deliquit aut eius qui in nullis et eius qui in
quibusdam facinoribus cecidit. Per hoc ergo quod dicitur, ‘Facite fructus dignos pae-
nitentiae,' unusquisque conscientia conuenitur ..." 1.3 (CCSL, 120, p. 77, 2292-2299).
246 REVUE BÉNÉDICTINE

are readers told of his subsequent ‘‘[diligence] in the ministry of the

47
word." This is all a dramatic change with respect to the anonymous
work, which of course contains no such notion of a transition from
48
Cuthbert's tempus tacendi to a tempus loquendi .

The second chapter, which is a somewhat different case, opens with

a quote from Matt. 25:29. At this point of the Gospel, Jesus has just
finished telling his parable of the gold pieces, in which a rich man en-
trusts money to three of his servants, departs, and then returns to see
how they have fared with it. Two of the servants return the money
with profits gained and are rewarded; the third, who had buried the
money in the ground, is cast out. ‘‘For to every one that hath shall
be given," Jesus says, ‘‘and he shall abound : but from him that hath
not, that also which he seemeth to have shall be taken away" (Matt.
25:29). While remarking upon the corresponding verse in Luke (19:26)
in his Luke commentary, Bede says that ‘‘he is able to lose the gift of
God who, having, does not have—that is, does not use—and in him
49
[the gift] is increased who, having, has—that is, makes use of well."
The Lindisfarne account must have been troubling to Bede, for it
contained no reference to Cuthbert's reaction to the ‘‘gift" of the child's
50
prophecy in the first chapter. It did not show how the saint made use
of what had been given him—the prerequisite, as just seen , for receiv-
ing additional grace from heaven. The original narrative, then, called
for a certain amount of clarification—the purpose of the introduction
Bede attaches to the chapter, and his use of Matthew. ‘‘Truly," Bede
says of the saint, ‘to everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall
abound' (Matt. 25:29),

that is, to him who hath the desire and love for virtues, an abundance
of them shall be granted by heavenly gift. For since Cuthbert, the

47. Title to VC, ch. 9, p. 184, ‘‘Quam sedulus erga ministerium uerbi Cuthbertus
extiterit."
48. For the story of the first miracle, the author merely mentions his sources and
then launches into narration. VA I, ch. 3, p. 64 : ‘‘Primum quidem ponimus quod in
prima aetate accidisse relatu multorum didicimus, ex quibus est sanctae memoriae
episcopus Tumma, qui spiritalem Dei electionem predestinatam a sancto Cudberhto
audiens didicit, et presbiter nostrae aecclesiae Elias dicentes, Dum ergo puer esset an-
norum octo ..."
49. ‘‘...posse amittere munus Dei qui habens non habet, id est non utitur, et in eo
augeri qui habens habet, hoc est bene utitur." Bede, In Lucae Euangelium Expositio
5.19 (CCSL 120, p. 341, V.1803-1804).
50. The anonymous author seems concerned with a demonstration of Cuthbert's
‘‘predestination" to sanctity; by way of introduction, its author remarks only that
‘‘In eadem aetate alio miraculo ei electione predestinatum, Dominus magnificauit
eum." VA I, ch. 4, p. 66.
 E. KNIBBS 247

child of the Lord, held fast with diligent heart what he received by
exhortations through man, he also earned the privilege of being com-
51
forted by seeing and speaking with an angel.

Bede's message is clear : Cuthbert was worthy of the healing because

he had ‘‘held fast" to the ‘‘exhortations he had received through man."
The story continues from here much the same as it did in the anon-
ymous life; Cuthbert is healed of an infirmity after an angel orders
him to apply a mixture of flour and milk to his afflicted leg.
The final instance that will concern us is the seventeenth chap-
ter—the tale of ‘‘How [Cuthbert] drove out the demons and made him-
52
self a dwelling place in the island of Farne." At the beginning of this
story, Bede says that ‘‘after [Cuthbert] had completed many years in
that same monastery, he joyfully entered into the remote solitudes
which he had long desired...."

For he rejoiced because, after a long and blameless active life, he was
now held worthy to rise to the repose of divine contemplation. He re-
joiced to attain to the lot of those concerning whom the Psalmist
sings : ‘The saints shall go from strength to strength; the God of Gods
53
shall be seen in Zion.' (Ps. 83:8).

These remarks are important because they portray Cuthbert's retreat

to the Farne hermitage as the culmination of his spiritual growth—a
notion, again, that is a significant departure from the Lindisfarne nar-
rd
rative. Of further significance is Bede's use of the 83 Psalm, which
brings to mind a very similar passage from In Lucam. While discussing
Luke 13:19 (‘‘It is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took
and cast into his garden, and it grew and became a great tree, and the
birds of the air lodged in the branches thereof"), Bede relates the
growth of the tree to the ‘‘praedicatio euangelii." This praedicatio, he
says, ‘‘grows in the mind of whoever believes, because no one suddenly
becomes perfect, but it is said ‘in his heart he hath disposed to ascend'

51. ‘‘Verum quia ‘omni habenti dabitur et abundabit,' id est habenti propositum
amoremque uirtutum harum copia superno munere donabitur. Quoniam puer Domini
Cuthbertus, quae per hominem accepit hortamenta sedulo corde retinebat, etiam an-
gelico uisu et affatu confortari promeruit" VC, ch. 2, p. 158.
52. ‘‘Qualiter sibi in insula Farnce pulsis demonibus habitationem fecerit." VC, ch.
17, p. 214.
53. ‘‘At postquam in eodem monasterio multa annorum curricula expleuit, tandem
diu concupita ... Gaudebat namque quia de longa perfectione conuersationis actiuae,
ad otium diuinae speculationis iam mereretur ascendere. Laetabatur ad eorum sortem
se pertingere, de quibus canitur in psalmo, ‘Ambulabunt de uirtute in uirtutem, uide-
bitur Deus deorum in Syon.' (Ps. 83:8)" VC, ch. 17, p. 214.
248 REVUE BÉNÉDICTINE

and further, ‘they shall go from virtue to virtue : the God of gods shall
54
be seen in Sion' (Ps. 83:6,8)."
In the Lindisfarne Vita Bede had encountered an author who clearly
believed that one could in fact become perfect—a point of view that
he had already taken issue with in this commentary. The similar
vocabulary of both works at this point is instructive. The referenced
passage from In Lucam places the verb fieri (to become) in contrast
to the psalmist's ascendere (to ascend)—one does not become perfect;
rather, one ascends to perfection. In the Vita , Cuthbert is ‘‘held
worthy to rise"—ascendere—‘‘to the repose of divine contemplation."
The verb emphasized in the commentary is thus also used to describe
Cuthbert's spiritual growth; it is taken from precisely the same verse of
Psalms.
Progress also implies narrative continuity, and I believe that this is
among the reasons Bede's Vita is so much less anecdotal than the Lin-
disfarne account. Whereas the anonymous author is often content to
string a series of unconnected stories together, Bede—frequently by
means of short introductory sections like those cited—tells a much
more continuous story. One might of course ascribe this to Bede's
superior literary ability, but the many ideas that he had developed in
his exegesis could have also played a role. How else might one demon-
strate spiritual ascensus, than by extending this theme across the sin-
gular events of Curthbert's life, and thus reducing the episodic quality
of the narrative?

III. Heavenly favors

In the fifth chapter of his Vita, Bede retells a miracle story from
book one, chapter six of the Lindisfarne work, with innovations exten-
55
sive enough to have drawn the attention of several scholars. The
original account is straightforward : Cuthbert is caught in a winter
storm and takes refuge in an empty house. His horse grabs at the
thatched roof with its mouth and meat and warm bread fall to the
floor. Bede's version is longer, more profuse, and introduces new ele-

54. ‘‘Creuit euangelii praedicatio cunctum disseminata per orbem crescit et in

mente cuiusque credentis quia nemo repente fit perfectus, sed ‘ascensus,' inquit, ‘in
corde eius disposuit in conualle lacrimarum, et infra, ‘ambulabunt de uirtute in uirtu-
tem, uidebitur Deus deorum in Sion.'" Bede, In Lucae Euangelium Expositio 4.13
(CCSL 120, p. 270, IV.1550-1555).
55. See Karl Lutterkort, op. cit., p. 87-89. Also Colgrave, p. 15.
 E. KNIBBS 249

ments. Most of the additional material results from the introduction of

a mater familia , who tempts Cuthbert to eat while he is fasting. She
presses the saint; he is journeying and if he does not eat now he may
not have another chance. Cuthbert refuses, only to be provided food in
the same manner as in the Vita Anonyma after his fast, at the hora

nona . He shares the meal with his horse. As in his demonstrations of

Cuthbert's spiritual progress, Bede also adds several significant lines to
the beginning of the story :

While, with diligent heart, he was now meditating entrance into a

stricter course of life, the heavenly grace was present to confirm his
spirit more resolutely in his decision and to show, by manifest signs,
that to those who seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness
(Matt. 6 :33), those things which appertain to the nourishment of the
56
body are added by the favour of divine providence.

From this introduction one can deduce why the addition of the ma-

ter familia was important. As in the above-noted case of Cuthbert's

57
healing in chapter two, it was necessary for Bede to show why his
saint merited heavenly favor. This was a task that had been far more
convenient in the second chapter, for God had just blessed Cuthbert
with admonition and prophecy. There was thus a situation at hand in
which Cuthbert could respond to and derive spiritual benefit from
God's favors (and thus demonstrate his worthiness to be healed). The
only addition necessary was to say that he had done so. In the case of
this miracle, there seems to have been no such opportunity, and so
Bede was forced to invent one. The resulting cause-and-effect se-
quence— Cuthbert is given ‘‘nourishment of the body" only because
he keeps his fast in the face of the mater familia's temptation (and so
seeks first the Kingdom of God)—is a drastic innovation with respect
to the Lindisfarne work.
The phrase from Matthew that Bede uses in the quoted introduction
recurs in his In Epistolas Septem Catholicas , where it is employed to
illustrate a similar point In response to I John 5 :14 (‘‘And this is the
.

56. ‘‘Cunque nouum uitae continentioris ingressum sedulo iam corde meditaretur,
affuit gratia superna, quae animum eius artius in proposito firmaret, ac manifestis
edoceret indiciis quia quaerentibus regnum Dei et iustitiam eius, ea quae ad uictum
corporis pertinent, beneficio diuinae prouisionis adiciuntur." VC, ch. 5, p. 168.
57. Of course, the fifth chapter should also be taken as an instance in which Bede
incorporates themes of Cuthbert's spiritual progress (he tells us, for example, that
Cuthbert ‘‘was meditating entrance to a stricter course of life"); we discuss it sepa-
rately only because Bede's exposition involves another theme as well.

RB 16
250 REVUE BÉNÉDICTINE

confidence which we have towards him : That, whatsoever we shall ask

according to his will, he heareth us"), Bede says that :

Note ... that by praying we are heard by God only if we seek that
which he has willed. For he said, ‘‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God
and his righteousness" (Matt. 6:33). Hence when John said, ‘‘whatso-
ever" we seek, he rightly interposed, for it to be heard, ‘‘according to
his will." Therefore, in addition to everything else, he has ordered us
to have full and doubtless confidence of being heard for things that
are in harmony with the will of the Lord, and neither for our conve-
58
nience nor for temporal solace.

For Bede, it is foolish to expect that God will bestow anything for
our mere ‘‘temporal solace." Whether in the second or the fifth chap-
ter, the Lindisfarne account must have seemed, in Bede's eyes, to treat
of the favors granted Cuthbert carelessly. A reader might infer that
God rewarded Cuthbert with cures and heavenly food for the sake of
his ‘‘temporal solace," and not because such grace was merited.
In his commentary, however, Bede attaches other reservations to
John's assurances that ‘‘we know that the requests we make of [the
Son of God] are granted"—if we can only expect to receive what is in
accordance with God's will, he says, we can also expect that we will
receive only what is conducive to our spiritual development. When he
comes in his commentary to I John 3:22 (‘‘Whatsoever we ask we re-
ceive of him, because we keep his commandments and do the things
that are pleasing in his sight"), for example, Bede is careful to point
out that

... neither should it be seen as contrary to this sentence of the blessed

John, when Paul thrice asked the Lord that the angel of Satan depart
from him, but it was said to him, ‘‘My grace suffices for you; for vir-
tue is strengthened in infirmity" (2 Cor. 12:9). For we do not always
receive what we want, just as the same Paul when, he asked the Lord,
received not what he was seeking but what it was useful that he
59
have...

58. ‘‘Notandum autem, quod ita orantes exaudimur a domino si ea quae ipse iussit
petimus. Dicit autem ipse : Primum quaerite regnum Dei et iustitiam eius (Matt.
6:33). Vnde bene et Iohannes cum dixisset quodcumque petierimus exaudiri nos inter-
posuit, secundum uoluntatem eius. Ergo super his tantum plenam nos et indubitabil-
em iussit exauditionis habere fiduciam quae non nostris commodis nec solatiis
temporalibus sed domini congruant uoluntati." Bede, In Epistolas Septem Catholicas
I. Jo., 5:14 (CCSL 121, p. 324, V.195-201).
59. ‘‘Neque huic beati Iohannis sententiae contrarium uideri oportet quod Paulus
ter dominum rogauit ut discederet ab eo angelus satanae nec impetrare potuit sed
citum est illi : Sufficit tibi gratia mea; nam uirtus in infirmitate perficitur. Etsi enim
non semper ad uoluntatem accipimus, sicut idem Paulus dominum rogans non quod
 E. KNIBBS 251

When Bede assures his readers later in the chapter that Cuthbert, after
he received the food, ‘‘ex illo die promptior factus est ad ieiunan-
60
dum," he illustrates this idea of utility. That is, Bede needed to show
how the heavenly gifts that Cuthbert received were important for his
spiritual advancement; otherwise, God would not have willed them.
Such explanations of the purpose of heavenly favors are not confined
to the fifth chapter of Bede's Vita. When Cuthbert is healed from an
illness at the beginning of the eighth chapter, for example, God leaves
the cure incomplete; Bede explains (with reference to the same verse
from Corinthians, no less) that this was so that ‘‘iuxta apostolum ‘uir-
61
tus in infirmitate perficeretur.'"

Cuthbert died in 687, Bede almost half a century later in 735. It is

an interesting coincidence that, as Bede should provide us with a valu-
able and extended account of Cuthbert's death in his Vita Cuthberti,
our knowledge of Bede's last days should come from the letter of a
Cuthbert—but this one a student of Bede and future abbot of Monk-
wearmouth-Jarrow.
During the three chapters that tell of St. Cuthbert's death on Farne,
62
Bede or Abbot Herefrith finds occasion to put the heroic words of
Timothy into his mouth. ‘‘I have fought my fight for the Lord," Cuth-
bert says to the Lindisfarne brethren at one point, ‘‘and I desire to
63
finish my course." Later it is explained, again in the language of
Timothy, that ‘‘the time of his departure was at hand." This saint,
who has spent almost the whole of the Vita as a tireless worker of
miracles, does not cease to perform wonders even on his deathbed,

quaerebat sed quod utile habebat accepit ..." Bede, In Epistolas Septem Catholicas ,
I Jo 3:22 (CCSL 121, p. 309, III.315-322).
60. VC, ch. 5, p. 182.
61. ‘‘Statimque exurgens, coepit temptare incessum baculo innitens, et crescente
per dies uirtute sanitatem quidem recepit, sed quia tumor qui in femore arebat, pau-
latim a superficie detumescens corporis, ad uiscerum interiora perlapsus est, tot pene
uitae suae tempore aliquantulum interaneorum non cessabat sentire dolorem, uidelicet
ut iuxta apostolum ‘uirtus in infirmitate perficeretur' (2 Cor 12:9)." VC, ch. 8, p. 182.
62. Bede attributes the lengthy account of Cuthbert's death in his Vita (chapters
37-40) directly to abbot Herefrith. ‘‘Cuius obitum," he says, ‘‘libet uerbis illius cuius
relatione didici describere, Herefridi uidelicet deuotae religionis presbiteri qui etiam
tunc Lindisfarnensi monasterio abbatis iure praefuit." (VC, ch. 37, p. 270, 272). Col-
grave, citing the ‘‘verbal reminiscences from Possidius' Life of Augustine, Gregory's
Dialogues (a favourite work of Bede), and also from the Anonymous Life," questions
this attribution and supposes that Bede at least ‘‘worked carefully over Herefrith's
account" (14).
63. VC, ch. 37, p. 278.
252 REVUE BÉNÉDICTINE

from which he heals the ‘‘sick friend" of a ‘‘certain man ... bidden to
64
visit" him by a heavenly dream. Not long after this cure, he gives a
pious speech and sends ‘‘forth his spirit in the very act of praising
65
God."
In Cuthbert's Epistola de obitu Bedae, Bede also speaks in the lan-
66
guage of 2 Timothy. Whether or not this is accidental, it demon-
strates that, just as the saint he had written so much about, Bede too
was worthy of comparison to the biblical martyr. In fact Bede died
very much as Cuthbert did—heroically, and in the midst of his life's
work. In Bede's case this was not the performance of miracles, but
67
study of the Bible ‘‘to the great profit of the Church." His final task,
according to the Epistola, is the translation of John's Gospel and a se-
lection of Isidore's De natura rerum into his native language. Until the
very end he labors with the dictation. ‘‘There is still one sentence, dear
master, that we have not written down," his student Wildberht says to
him finally. ‘‘Scribe cito," is Bede's simple response. Several lines later,
he dies while chanting the ‘‘‘Gloria Patri' and other songs to the glory
68
of God."
As St. Cuthbert's vitae depict a saint surrounded by the miraculous
at every turn, so Bede's hagiographer is concerned to show his teacher
devoted to the task of biblical study even while drawing his final
breaths. A relationship like that outlined in this paper should thus
come as no surprise. Indeed, it is to be expected that the exegesis that
was so central to Bede's outlook should have a fundamental relation-
ship not only with the Vita Cuthberti, but with all of his writings.

University of Pennsylvania Eric Knibbs

64. Ibid., ch. 38, p. 281-83.

65. Ibid., ch. 39, p. 285.
66. ‘‘Gaudebant autem de eo quod dixit : ‘Tempus est, si sic Factori meo uidetur,
ut ad eum modo resolutus e carne ueniam, qui me quando non eram ex nihilo for-
mauit. Multum tempus uixi, beneque mihi pius Iudex uitam meam praeuidit. ‘Tempus
uero absolutionis meae prope est' (2 Tim. 4:6); etenim anima mea desiderat Regem
meum Christum in decore suo uidere." Cuthbert, Epistola De Obitu Bedae, (ed. and
transl. Colgrave and Mynors, p. 584).
67. Ibid., p. 583.
68. Ibid., p. 585, 587.