Introduction
INTRODUCTION
Introduction
1. WHY DID BEDE COMPOSE A COMMENTARY
ON LUKE?
1.1 A commission from Acca In his autobiographical notice at the close of the Ecclesiastical History,
Bede prefaced the list of his biblical commentaries with the modest claim that they were composed 'for my own benefit and that of my brothers', and that they consisted of 'brief extracts from the works of the venerable fathers' along with 'notes of my own to clarify their sense and interpre tation'. Concealed behind this explanation is Bede's originality as an exponent of Scripture.1 There is no question that he leaned heavily on the works of the Fathers, but only when he could and when he wished to, and he did so on his own terms. Patristic authority was not always available: his very first commentary, on Revelation, is a case in point.2 Even when prior exegesis was abundant (one thinks of On Genesis), Bede was both selective and capable of modifying his sources. Moreover, his 'notes' were often substantial passages of original exposition. And, despite his stated intention to 'clarify' the Bible for the sake of his brethren, Bede's commen taries are not necessarily easy reading in terms either of content or of style.3
The Commentary on Luke was composed sometime after 710, and before 716, because it is mentioned in Bede's prologue to On First Samuel, which he was writing when Ceolfrith left Wearmouth-Jarrow for Rome
1 Bede's originality as an exegete is now broadly appreciated: it was initially signalled by Jenkins, 'Bede as Exegete and Theologian', 152–200, and more recently by de Margerie,
'Bède le Vénérable', 188, 195; Ray, 'What Do We Know about Bede's Commentaries?', 1–20;
Ray, 'Who did Bede Think He Was?', 11–35; and Holder, 'Bede and the New Testament',
142–55.
2 Wallis, trans., Bede: Commentary on Revelation, Introduction, 1–38.
3 On the complexities of Bede's style in the commentary on Luke, see below, 71–72, and in his commentaries in general, Sharpe, 'The Varieties of Bede's Prose', 339–55.
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
that year.4 It therefore falls into the early stage of Bede's career, after On Revelation (c. 708), around the same time as the first book of On Genesis, and certainly after On Acts (c. 710) and the commentary on 1 John that became part of On the Seven Catholic Epistles. On Luke, On Acts, On Genesis, On First Samuel, and On Ezra and Nehemiah form a suite of commentaries prefaced by dedicatory letters to Bishop Acca of Hexham.
After a long hiatus, one final work was addressed to Acca, On the Temple – apparently to console him in his exile (732).5 Bede also composed two letter-treatises to Acca explaining Isaiah 24:22 (and refuting the notion of universal salvation) and on the mansiones or resting-places, i.e., camps of the Israelites on their journey from Egypt to the promised land.6 In addition, his poem on the day of Judgement (De die iudicii) was almost certainly composed for Acca.7 However, only one other exegetical work by Bede contains a dedication, and that is On Revelation, whose preface addresses his fellow monk Hwætberht.
The answer to the question 'why did Bede compose a commentary on Luke?' would thus appear to be answered by Bede himself: he was asked to do so by his diocesan bishop, and asked repeatedly. In an unusual move,
Bede includes a letter from Acca as part of his preface, and addresses its content in his own dedicatory epistle.8 So behind our initial question lies a second question: why did Acca desire a commentary on Luke? Acca's letter furnishes an apparently straightforward explanation, but Bede's
4 Brown, A Companion to Bede, 14: 709×716; Brown and Biggs, Bede, 2:86: 'around 711'; O'Brien, Bede's Temple, xix: 710×716. See also In Sam. Prologus 10, line 40; trans.
DeGregorio and Love, 103.
5 On the Temple was composed to console Acca after he was driven from his see in 731, as recorded in the Moore Continuation of the Ecclesiastical History: O'Brien, Bede's
Temple, 165.
6 On the Resting Places of the Children of Israel (De mansionibus filiorum Israel) and On What Isaiah Says (De eo quod ait Isaias) date to about 716: Brown, Companion to Bede,
45, 55; both works are translated by Trent Foley and Arthur G. Holder, Bede: A Biblical
Miscellany. These are epistolary essays in response to queries from Acca, not full commen taries. Bede is also said to have composed verses for a church at Hexham, which referred to Acca: Lapidge, 'Some Remnants of Bede's Lost Liber epigrammatum', 804.
7 Ed. and trans. Lapidge, Bede's Latin Poetry, 155–79; see also Lapidge's introduction, esp. 35. For an analysis of this poem and its context, see Darby, 'Apocalypse and Reform in Bede's De die iudicii'.
8 The letter from Acca has the distinction of being the only surviving text not written by Bede himself to witness that he was noticed by name by any of his contemporaries: Higham,
(Re-)Reading Bede, 6. To be sure, we owe the letter's survival to Bede's decision to include it in the commentary on Luke, but it stands out for being in the author's own words.
INTRODUCTION
emotional response suggests that the context of Acca's request has to be excavated from between its lines. Moreover, this letter forms part of a longer correspondence.9
Acca succeeded Wilfrid as bishop of Hexham in 710,10 but he and Bede probably knew one another well before this. As a member of Wilfred's inner circle, Acca probably witnessed the moment in 708 when someone accused
Bede, apparently in the bishop's presence, of being a heretic. What provoked this charge was the world-chronicle in Bede's On Times (c. 703), where Bede broke with the tradition of Eusebius and Jerome by preferring the Vulgate chronology of Old Testament history to the one found in the Septuagint.
The Septuagint appeared to date the birth of Christ to annus mundi 5199.
This date more or less agreed with the established notion that world history unfolded in six ages, the last of which began with the Incarnation, while simultaneously harmonizing with the more controversial but popular idea that each of these six ages was 1,000 years long. That each single age lasted for 1,000 years seemed to be supported by Psalm 89:4, which was quoted in I Peter 3:8. Bede, influenced by Irish scholars as well as the special reverence for the Vulgate in Wearmouth-Jarrow,11 preferred the chronology of what he called the hebraica ueritas. This chronology resulted in a date for the Incarnation of annus mundi 3592, which challenged the concept of a world-age equalling 1,000 years, since the Incarnation inaugurated the Sixth Age. At a public assembly and with Bishop Wilfred apparently present, someone accused Bede of claiming that Christ did not become incarnate at the beginning of the Sixth Age. This was equated with heresy and though
Wilfrid did not approve of the charge neither did he dismiss it.
When Bede heard about it a mere two days later, he composed an incandescent letter of rebuttal addressed to another member of Wilfrid's entourage named Plegwine.12 He not only defended his chronology but he
9 The analysis presented here is indebted to the study by Stancliffe, 'Bede and Bishop
Acca', 171–94, and particularly to her discussion of the preface of the Luke commentary,
178–81.
10 The date of Wilfrid's death (24 April 710) was demonstrated by Levison, England and the Continent, 278–79, and recently reaffirmed by Stancliffe, 'Dating Wilfrid's Death'.
11 Irish influence: McCarthy, 'Bede's Primary Source', 157–79; Stancliffe, 'Bede and Bishop Acca', 177; Darby, Bede and the End of Time, 21–57. On the Vulgate in Wearmouth, see Stancliffe, 'Bede and Bishop Acca', 183, and literature on the Codex Amiatinus cited below, n. 46.
12 See the analysis of Darby, 'Heresy and Authority in Bede's Letter to Plegwine', 145–67;
Darby, Bede and the End of Time, 35–57; Palmer, The Apocalypse in the Early Middle Ages,
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
turned the tables by accusing his accuser of heresy:13 if every age were literally 1,000 years long, then everyone would know exactly when the Last
Judgement would come – something that Christ denied that anyone, even he, could know.14 He asked Plegwine to pass his letter 'to our religious and very learned brother David' and ask him to read it before Bishop Wilfred.15
'David' may have been Acca, whom Bede praises in Ecclesiastical History 5.30 for his musical accomplishments.16
Furthermore, in explaining the Vulgate's figures for the lengths of each generation of the Old Testament patriarchs, Bede observes that one entire generation (that of Cainan [Gen. 11:13]) was erroneously inserted into the Second Age by the Seventy Translators. This was corrected by Eusebius, and by Jerome in his Vulgate translation of Genesis. Bede then adds that Luke also followed the Seventy in his genealogy of Christ (Luke 3:34–36), and untactfully remarks that Eusebius's and Jerome's revision 'called into doubt both the Gospel of Luke and the Seventy Translators'.17 This unfortunate expression must have compounded Bede's troubles, for if the evangelists were inspired by the Holy Spirit, how could Luke be mistaken about Christ's ancestors? Both Eusebius and Jerome had corrected the 98–105; Wallis, 'Why Did Bede Write a Commentary on Revelation?', 26–32; Chazelle,
'Debating the End Times with Bede'; Hilliard, 'The Venerable Bede as Scholar, Gentile and Preacher', esp. 103–05 (who sees the heresy episode as informing Bede's self-conscious assertions of orthodoxy in his exegetical works). O'Brien, Bede's Temple, argues that the heresy charge was not serious, and that Bede's reaction to it has been exaggerated (142): however, Bede was still defending himself in 725, when he composed the preface to The Reckoning of Time (ed. Jones 263–64; trans. Wallis 3–4). Bede also singles out this letter 'on the Six Ages of the World' in his catalogue of his writings (Colgrave and Mynors, eds, Bede's
Ecclesiastical History, 568–69).
13 This rhetorical and legal strategy of remotio criminis has been linked to Bede's indirect or direct exposure to Cicero: Ray, 'Bede and Cicero', 10–11; Darby, 'Heresy and Authority',
154.
14 Bede, Epistola ad Pleguinam 14, ed. Jones, 623–4, trans. Wallis, Bede: The Reckoning of Time, 412–13.
15 Bede, Epistola ad Pleguinam 17, ed. Jones, 627, trans. Wallis, Bede: The Reckoning of Time, 415.
16 'Bishop Acca was himself a musician of great experience (cantator … peritissimus) as well as a very learned theologican, untainted in his confession of the catholic faith and thoroughly expert in canon law': Colgrave and Mynors, eds, Bede's Ecclesiastical History,
530–31; Stancliffe, 'Bede and Bishop Acca', regards this identification as 'speculative', but agrees that Acca was present as all this was happening at Wilfrid's court (178).
17 Bede, Epistola ad Pleguinam 5–6, ed. Jones, 619–20, trans. Wallis, Bede: The Reckoning of Time, 408.
INTRODUCTION
Septuagint chronology discreetly, and without referring to Luke, so Bede's apparent attack on Luke was not supported by patristic authority. Instead,
Bede calls as his witness Augustine's City of God 15.11–14, which states that numerals are often incorrectly copied and that, when the Septuagint and Hebrew text diverge, the version in the original language should be preferred. But even here he is skating on thin ice. Elsewhere in City of God,
Augustine claims that the Holy Spirit inspired the Seventy Translators, and that any discrepancies should be ascribed to the Spirit's decision. He also questioned the value of Jerome's project to translate the Old Testament from the Hebrew, instead of revising the existing Latin translation from the Septuagint.18 Bede's claim that the chronology of the hebraica ueritas was 'recorded by Origen, published by Jerome, praised by Augustine, confirmed by Josephus'19 is thus somewhat exaggerated.
Whether Plegwine and 'David' complied with Bede's wishes is not known, but if the cloud of heresy continued to hang over Bede, the letter to Plegwine would have poured oil on the fire.
Some at Wearmouth-Jarrow20 may also have felt that the orthodoxy and learning of their young scholar–monk needed to be clarified in the minds of the episcopal leadership. Shortly after Acca's consecration, and at the prompting of his fellow monk Hwætberht (Eusebius), Bede arranged for a copy of his commentary on Revelation to be sent to the bishop.21
This commentary insistently refutes any notion that Revelation provides a time-line for the future, and was possibly composed in the immediate aftermath of the episode at Wilfrid's court.22 But Acca was not satisfied with Revelation; he made it clear from the outset that what he wanted from Bede was a commentary on Luke's Gospel. Again Bede tried to dodge the order, sending the bishop instead his On the Acts of the Apostles hastily assembled 'not many days ago' from the author's drafts. Bede's dedicatory letter to this work also reveals that Acca had contacted him several times,
18 Stancliffe, 'Bede and Bishop Acca', 182; on the Vulgate, see De ciuitate Dei 18.43.
19 Bede, Epistola ad Pleguinam 16, ed. Jones, 625, trans. Wallis, Bede: The Reckoning of Time, 414.
20 The site commonly referred to in scholarly literature as Wearmouth is now known as Monkwearmouth, a division of modern Sunderland. We have retained the name 'Wearmouth' as more familiar to readers of scholarship on Anglo-Saxon England.
21 Where Abbot Ceolfrith stood on this potentially explosive matter is not known, and he may have deliberately chosen to let others appear to take the initiative.
22 Wallis, trans., Bede: Commentary on Revelation, Introduction, 39–51; Wallis, 'Why
Did Bede Write a Commentary on Revelation?', 23–45.
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
admonishing him not to 'dawdle and doze' (an echo of Pope Damasus's rebuke to Jerome when he seemed not to be applying himself to exegesis)23 but to produce a commentary on Luke. Bede excuses himself for failing to obey, saying that he was 'terrified (perterritus)' by the immensity of the task; furthermore, he had been held back by 'troublesome circumstances of which you are very much aware (obstrepentium causarum, quas tu melius nosti)'.24
The prefatory letter to On the Acts of the Apostles proceeds to introduce the author, the evangelist Luke, citing Jerome's statement that he was more familiar with Greek materials than Hebrew sources. But then it brings up the issue of Luke's genealogy of Christ in his Gospel, even though it was not relevant to the Acts.
It happens accordingly that I am very much amazed, and, struck with overpowering astonishment because of the slowness of my understanding, do not know how to search for an explanation of why, when in the Hebrew Truth
(Hebraica ueritate) there are found ten generations from the flood down to Abraham, Luke himself (who, being controlled like a pen by the Holy Spirit, could by no means write anything false) chose to put down in his gospel eleven generations, having added Cainan in accordance with the Septuagint.25
Bede then drops this subject, and turns to the context in which Luke composed the Acts.
He further attempts to pacify Acca by enclosing his exposition of the first Epistle of John. Acca was not to be put off, though, and his letter to Bede, which Bede included in the preface of On Luke, provides some insight into Bede's 'terror' as well as the 'troublesome circumstances'. Apparently Acca had visited Bede personally to encourage him. His letter dismisses Bede's
'terror' at undertaking to comment on a work that already had a patristic 23 Stancliffe, 'Bede and Bishop Acca', 183–4; Bede's decision to include both Acca's letter and his own reply may have been inspired by Jerome's Ep. 35.1.1 and 36, the latter of which was certainly known to Bede: Lapidge, The Anglo-Saxon Library, 217. Acca's questioning of Bede on the interpretation of difficult biblical passages is also reminiscent of Damasus's queries to Jerome.
24 Bede, Expositio Actuum Apostolorum et Retractatio, ed. Laistner, CCSL 121:3.11–12
(trans. Wallis); see Wallis, 'Why Did Bede Write a Commentary on Revelation?', 26–27. The reader should be aware that the CCSL edition reprints Laistner's 1939 edition (Cambridge,
MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America) but omits Laistner's introduction, which discusses inter alia the manuscript tradition of this work.
25 Bede, Expositio Actuum Apostolorum, ed. Laistner, CCSL 121:4.7–12; trans. Martin,
The Venerable Bede: Commentary on the Acts of the Apostle, 4 (slightly modified).
INTRODUCTION
interpreter, Ambrose, particularly if this exposed him to new accusations of 'producing novelties by finding fault with the efforts of men of old'. If Bede wants to 'follow the footsteps of the Fathers' he should look to the examples of Gregory and Augustine, both of whom revisited and revised the works of their predecessors. Augustine himself said that diversity of expression does not amount to divergence of faith. Ambrose may have already composed a commentary, but its style was too demanding for the ordinary reader; even Augustine shared this view. If Bede was concerned about criticism, he should preface his work with Acca's letter to show that he undertook it as an act of obedience. Acca closes by adding an additional reason, almost as an afterthought: Ambrose's commentary omitted certain matters that Bede's profound study of scripture would enable him to address, and Bede owed it to the Church to do so. Though Acca does not enter into specifics, the question of the generations in Luke's genealogy of Christ is undoubtedly what he meant, as Ambrose provided no commentary on this issue. As if to drive the point home, Acca then comments that 'some people' were querying why Bede's On Revelation presented a 'novel interpretation' of the four animals of Ezekiel's vision – making the lion a symbol of Matthew and the man the symbol of Mark. In short, Bede was under attack for introducing
'novelties', and had to respond.26
It is not easy to discern Bede's relationship to Acca. As a loyal ally of and successor to Wilfrid, was Acca one of the 'Wilfridians' who criticized
Bede? Or was he the 'David' whom Bede relied on to plead his case at Wilfrid's court? Acca seems to defy the sharp division that some would make between Wilfrid's style of church government and the traditions of Lindisfarne, as celebrated in Wearmouth-Jarrow by Bede in his lives of Cuthbert and, later, his Ecclesiastical History.27 Clare Stancliffe points out that Bede's account of Acca in the Ecclesiastical History credits many of Wilfrid's achievements in architecture, liturgy, and law to Acca, but is silent on Acca's character as a pastor, perhaps even slipping in some veiled contrasts with Aidan and Cuthbert. On the other hand, as Laistner observed, Acca's accomplishments almost exactly replicate those Bede ascribed to Benedict Biscop, in which case the Ecclesiastical History account would be highly complimentary.28 Acca may have hoped to recruit
26 Stancliffe, 'Bede and Bishop Acca', 179–80.
27 Hilliard, 'Acca of Hexham through the Eyes of the Venerable Bede', 440–61. He does not discuss the commentary on Luke.
28 Laistner, 'The Library of the Venerable Bede', 238.
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
Bede as a scholar–theologian, playing Pope Damasus to Bede's Jerome.
Hilliard suggests that Bede and Acca shared a vision of Christian education as the engine of Church reform – 'renewal through text'.29 Hence the bishop
'should probably be seen as a critical, but friendly mediator between Bede and his challenger(s) at Hexham. The eventual appearance of Bede's commentary on Luke justified his faith, and probably won Bede general recognition as a valuable interpreter of Scripture.'30 In sum, Bede owes his breakthrough as a mature and confident exegete to Acca's prodding.
Bede's reply to Acca, also included in the prologue to On Luke, expresses gratitude for Acca's encouragement and implicit promise of protection.
He explains his methodology in detail: first, he researched what all the principal Fathers had said about Luke's gospel, taking notes and making extracts on slips of parchment. To avoid constantly repeating their names in the course of the commentary, he devised a system of marginal source marks to indicate which author was being cited, and where the quotation began and ended. 'Where it seemed proper' he added comments of his own. Bede then points out that his identification of the lion with Matthew and the man with Mark in On Revelation is in fact taken from Augustine's
On the Harmony of the Gospels, which he quotes at length 'to repel the false accusations of the complainants you mention in your letter above'.
The device of the marginal source-marks was evidently designed to protect him from future charges of 'novelty'.31
When Bede comes to confront the question of Luke's chronology in his commentary, he does so with deliberate care and advance preparation.
First, he notes the differences between Christ's genealogy as recorded by Matthew and as set out by Luke. Not only do the two evangelists differ on 29 Hilliard, 'Acca of Hexham through the Eyes of the Venerable Bede', 452. The notion of renewal through text is deeply embedded in Bede's and Acca's shared monastic identity: see
DeGregorio, 'Interpretatio monastica', 38–53, esp. 52.
30 Stancliffe, 'Bede and Bishop Acca', 185. Bede's relationship with Acca may have suffered strain after 720, when Acca moved to demote Lindisfarne and promote Oswald as the premier Northumbrian saint. It was at this time that Bede accepted a commission from Lindisfarne to rewrite the vita of Cuthbert, in a manner calculated to refute Wilfridian criticisms of the saint: Stancliffe, 'Disputed Episcopacy', 7–29.
31 Stansbury, 'Source Marks in Bede's Biblical Commentaries', 383; 'Early-Medieval
Commentaries', 70–73. The use of marginal 'quotation marks' and indexing signs is ancient;
Bede would have been familiar with some of them from Cassiodorus's Expositio Psalmorum: see discussion in Stansbury, 'Source Marks', 386, and 'Early-Medieval Commentaries',
50–58, 63–4, as well as Halporn, 'Methods of Reference in Cassiodorus', 71–91. Source marks are discussed at greater length below, 22–23.
INTRODUCTION
the name of Joseph's father, but Matthew records thirty-eight generations and Luke forty-two. Interestingly, Bede summons the chronographer Julius
Africanus (via Eusebius) to provide a suitable explanation for the first and quotes Augustine's Harmony of the Gospels to resolve the second. Finally he arrives at the generation of Cainan:
[Luke 3:35–36] Who was of Shelah, who was of Cainan, who was of Arphaxad, … The name and generation of Cainan according to the Hebrew truth [i.e., Vulgate] is found neither in Genesis, nor in Chronicles; but Arphaxad is said to have begotten a son Shelah, or Sale, with no one in between. For, accordingly, you have: And Arphaxad lived thirty-five years, and begot Sale
[Gen.11:12]. And likewise in Chronicles: And Arphaxad begot Sale, and Sale begot Heber [I Chron. 1:18]. You should know, therefore, that the blessed
Luke took this genealogy from the edition of the Seventy Interpreters, where it is written that Arphaxad at the age of 135 years begot Cainan, and Cainan himself, when he was 130 years of age, begot Shelah. But which of these is closer to the truth, or whether both can be true, God alone knows. I am simply warning the reader that there is such a great discrepancy in the sequence of time between the two books that from the Flood to the birth of Abraham, 292 years are found to have been reported in the Hebrew Truth, but 1077 years in the translation of the Seventy Interpreters. And now certain chronographers, stepping in as intermediaries, by removing the generation of Cainan alone, and without emending the other years according to the Hebraic exemplar, report this same age as consisting of 942 years.
It seems that Bede has climbed down from the position he took in the Letter to Plegwine: he is content to state the facts and resigned to not knowing which account is true. Instead of blaming his own incapacity, however, he states that no human reader can resolve this question, as the answer is known to God alone. By referring to the Vulgate as the Hebrew
Truth, however, Bede has tipped his hand.32 Moreover, this is not the only point of chronological disagreement: the second Age, from the Flood to the birth of Abraham, is longer in the Septuagint by no less than 785 years. Eusebius' elimination of the generation of Cainin only reduces this gap to 650 years. While he did not spell out all the differences between the Vulgate and Septuagint that produced this discrepancy here, or indeed in On Times, Bede would laboriously catalogue them all in ch. 66 of The Reckoning of Time. So, while the reason why the inspired Evangelist included the generation of Cainan is known to God alone, Bede stands by 32 Darby, Bede and the End of Time, 46.
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
his preference for the Vulgate chronology. For good measure, he repeats his opposition to calculating the time of the Second Coming in his exegesis of Luke 17:22–23.33
On Luke, then, was conceived in controversy and born in self-defence.
And yet it stands out as a milestone in Bede's career. It is, as far as we know, the first work openly addressed to a reading public beyond the walls of Wearmouth-Jarrow (the Letter to Plegwine excepted).34 Compared with the commentaries on Revelation and Acts, On Luke is lengthy and discursive, incorporating many substantial extracts from the Fathers: indeed, it is the longest of Bede's commentaries. It is also important to recall that in the early medieval period exegesis was the locus of theology and the principal form of intellectual discourse.35 The Gospels are the heart of the Christian
Bible and their message illuminates all the rest of Scripture, so Bede was committing himself to a singularly ambitious project. Christ's nature as God Incarnate made his every word and deed heavy with hermeneutic weight, as it gave meaning to all that had come before. That nature and those words and deeds were also the core of theological doctrine and the substantial message of all Christian preaching and instruction. A Gospel commentary was therefore a key to all of Scripture and the evidence for the truth of the faith. Even without potential detractors in the wings, Bede had reason to feel 'terrified'.
How he carried out his task can be analysed along two lines: strategic and thematic. Bede deployed the strategies of an exegete to unlock the meaning of the Gospel, but also to make it accessible for use by preachers and teachers.36 He also made use of some strategies that reflected his personal interests as a historian and as a student of the natural world and the reckoning of time. Secondly, Bede shows a particular interest in certain themes. Some of these, such as the theme of the Temple, he announces; others, such as heresy, or the role of preachers, he weaves into the fabric of the commentary less obviously, but no less insistently.
33 See Darby, Bede and the End of Time, 83–86, who argues that Bede's insistence on this point here and in other commentaries dedicated to Acca is a distant echo of the Plegwine episode.
34 Darby, 'Heresy and Authority', 148–49.
35 O'Brien, Bede's Temple, 2.
36 Holder, 'Bede and the New Testament', 147, 150–52; O'Brien, Bede's Temple: Bede's commentaries were directed not only to monks but to 'a clerical audience with pastoral duties to whom Bede provided necessary materials; hence the moral emphasis of Bede's exegesis: the focus on spiritual means which require realization in action' (33).
INTRODUCTION
1.2 Author, amanuensis, and scribe Before considering Bede's literary strategies, however, we should pay attention to what he tells us about the material and physical conditions of authorship under which he worked. In his prefatory letter, Bede claims that he would have fulfilled Acca's commission sooner had he not been obliged to act not only as 'author' but as 'amanuensis, and scribe'.37 We are reminded here of the economy of literary production in the classical and medieval world. An author might make notes on wax tablets, but the text itself was the product of dictation to a secretary, who would then produce a draft for the author's correction. Once this was done, it could be handed to a scribe to produce a fair copy for distribution. For example, in the prefatory letter to the commentary on Acts, Bede notes that the text of this commentary was prepared for Acca 'not many days ago' and was completed 'as quickly as time permitted in corrected form from little parchments' (emendatum membranulis indideram).38 In short, Bede had rushed to review and revise the draft taken down by the notarius, which had been written out on scraps of parchment (waste material from the production of formal codices) so that a presentation copy for the bishop could be prepared by the scriptor.
It was Bede's normal practice (as indeed it was the practice of Cicero and St Paul) to compose aloud to a secretary, who might double as a scribe: even on his deathbed, he composed in this way, and the account of his last days by Cuthbert does not suggest it was exceptional.39
Evidently, then, it was unusual for Bede to have to perform all three roles – author, amanuensis, scribe – which is why he could proffer such an excuse for tardiness to Acca, particularly in view of the length of the Luke commentary. Was the normal distribution of labour at Jarrow disrupted for 37 His terms are dictator, notarius, and librarius, which Plummer, 'Bede's Life and Works', interpreted as 'amanuensis, shorthand writer, and copyist' (BOH 1: xx). Brown, A Companion to Bede, translates variously: 'dictator, stenographer and copyist' (11) or 'author, secretary, and publisher' (60). Both of Brown's suggestions are more correct than Plummer's.
38 Bede, Expositio Actuum Apostolorum, ed. Laistner, CCSL 121:3.16–17; trans. Martin, 3
(slightly modified).
39 Epistola de obitu Bedae, in Colgrave and Mynors, eds, Bede's Ecclesiastical History,
582–84. This passage from the Luke prologue has been interpreted, however, to suggest that Bede himself worked habitually as a scribe, and even worked on the Codex Amiatinus and its sister volumes: see Brown, 'Bede's Life in Context', 11–12. Richard Marsden argues that Bede may have inserted emendations into Amiatinus, but does not identify him as a scribe:
'Manus Bedae', 65–85.
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
some reason (perhaps the work on the Codex Amiatinus)?40 Or was Bede not taking any chances with this particular commentary, because of what was at stake? Was he particularly concerned to supervise every word of this work, from the gathering of research materials to the final copy? This latter explanation finds support in Bede's circumstantial description of his working methods in his reply to Acca, which forms part of the Prologue to On Luke – working methods that Acca apparently endorsed, and even prescribed:
First I gathered together from here and there the most illustrious (so to speak) works of the Fathers and the ones most worthy of so great a task. Then I applied myself conscientiously to examining what the blessed Ambrose, what
Augustine, and then what the ever-vigilant Gregory (living up to his name), the apostle of our nation, what Jerome, the expounder of sacred history, and what the other Fathers understood in the words of Luke, and what they said.
These I consigned to slips of parchment as you wished (schedulis ut iussisti), either verbatim or, for the sake of being concise, in my own words, as I saw fit.
The word schedula – a small piece of writing material and, by extension, any (short) document or note committed to such a piece of writing material
– is related to the verb scindere (to break or cut into pieces, cf. Greek σχίδη), and denotes the trimmings of parchment left over when it is cut to prepare the pages of books. It is tempting to imagine Bede using these schedulae as index cards (as indeed they were so employed in the later medieval period, e.g., by the thirteenth-century Dominican Giovanni
Balbi in the preparation of the first fully alphabetized Latin dictionary, the Catholicon).41 And it is not impossible that Bede scanned the volumes of the Fathers and made extracts onto schedulae of suitable materials that he would later sort into the order of the lemmata of Luke's Gospel, much as he gathered extracts from Augustine's works that referred to the Pauline epistles and from Gregory to compose the sixth book of his commentary on 40 This is a hypothesis offered by O'Brien, Bede's Temple, 202.
41 In medieval usage, the term scheda/schedula denoted a single-page document of some kind: see Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, s.v. sceda, schedula.
Balbi's definition of schedula in the Catholicon makes it clear that, physically, schedulae were offcuts from the thicker and coarser neck or leg end of the animal skin, which left a rectangular sheet behind. His manipulation of over 14,000 entries of varying lengths into absolute alphabetical order argues strongly for his use of scedulae as index cards: see Wallis,
Communis et universalis: The Catholicon of Giovanni Balbi of Genoa, o.p., and Flanders, A Place for Everything, 167–68.
INTRODUCTION
the Song of Songs.42 However, his insistence that Acca himself prescribed this method seems to point to a different motive, namely ensuring that patristic passages were duly identified and correctly ascribed. Bede goes on:
Since it was tedious to insert their names individually one at a time and to show in detail what was said by which author, I took the opportunity to inscribe the first letters of their names in the side margin, and by means of these to make known in each case where the words of each of the Fathers which I transcribed begin and where they end, for I am anxious above all that I not be said to steal the statements of my elders, to set them down as if they were my own.
In sum, Bede's meticulous description of his working methods, as well as his unusual adoption of the roles of secretary and scribe as well as author, seem closely connected to the troubled circumstances in which the commentary on Luke was produced. It is also a salutary reminder that medieval authors, as much or more than modern ones, were highly vulnerable to the vagaries of the publication process.
2. THE STRUCTURE OF ON LUKE
Bede was an educator.43 He structured On Luke not just as a repository of orthodox teachings for the guidance of preachers but as a tool that could lead his readers to patristically endorsed truths of the Bible. He shaped it to this end by surrounding his verse-by-verse commentary with mutually supporting structural devices – a tripartite division of the text of his commentary into books, chapters, and canon sections. The divisions are independent of each other and serve different purposes.
2.1 The six-book division of On Luke Bede does not explain what governed his decision to divide On Luke into six books. Books 2–6 are all about the same length (between sixty-four and sixty-eight pages in the CCSL edition); Book 1, at eighty pages, is almost one-quarter longer again. In antiquity, when the scroll was the normal
42 On extracting and note-taking in classical, patristic, and Late Antique composition, see
Stansbury, 'Early-Medieval Commentaries', 51–58; on Bede's practice, 73–75.
43 See Brown, A Companion to Bede, 17–32; Kendall, 'Bede and Education', 99–112.
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support for a written text, the length of a book was to some degree calibrated to the optimal or maximum size of a scroll, though of course works of literature measured themes and narratives to fit into the framework of 'books'. At the end of Book 1 Bede invokes the traditional trope of closing a book when he feels the reader needs refreshment. However, when the codex replaced the scroll, the 'book' became a purely literary unit, so Bede was in principle free to make as many books as he wished out of Luke
(Ambrose, for example, had made ten) and to begin and end them where he wished.
Bede never begins or ends his books in the middle of one of the 'chapters', but, apart from that, he seems to have his own ideas of how the Gospel was structured. Book 1 begins perforce at the beginning, with the conception of John the Baptist, and ends with the Temptation in the Wilderness; in short, it deals with events prior to the beginning of Christ's ministry. Luke surpasses the other evangelists in his attention to this preparatory narrative, and the opening chapters of his Gospel are also filled with rich passages of theological poetry, from the Song of Zechariah to the Song of Simeon. This invites the detailed exposition that makes Bede's Book 1 more extensive than the others. But we should also factor in Bede's personal interest in passages such as the genealogy of Christ (Luke 3:23–38).
With the opening of Book 2, Bede starts to inform his readers of the rationale behind his structure. Book 2 covers the beginning of Jesus's ministry up to the mission of the disciples, but the opening paragraph explains that these parameters were chosen to reflect Luke's special contri bution to the history of Christ, in that the other evangelists said relatively less about the beginning of his ministry. Book 3 turns to the events of the Passion, starting with the dinner in the house of Simon the Pharisee and building up to Christ's teaching of the Lord's Prayer and the parable of the man who roused his neighbour at midnight. Bede explains in his opening remarks that this apparent turning point in the narrative is in fact woven into the end of the second book. At the outset of Book 4, Bede's preface changes tone to become less expository and more homiletic, bridging the intensifying narrative of the Passion to the final episode of Book 3, with its message of 'Ask and you will receive'. Book 4 starts with the Pharisees accusing Jesus of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub and, like
Book 3, closes with a parable, in this case the parable of the Prodigal Son.
Book 5 also begins with a parable, namely that of the Unjust Steward, and Bede's proem underscores the theme of judgement and repentance. It leads up to Jesus's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and the scenes in the Temple
INTRODUCTION
and Bede's opening paragraphs in Book 6, a disquisition on Solomon's construction of the Temple, mark the Temple as the critical theme of this section of the Commentary. Book 6 is in fact largely taken up with Jesus's encounters and pronouncements in the Temple. By contrast, he moves quite swiftly though the events of the Passion and Resurrection to the Ascension.
In sum, Bede's six-book structure is far from mechanical. Book 1 might be titled 'Preparation, Incarnation and Epiphany'; Book 2 'The Ministry and the Message'; Book 3 'The Message leads to Conflict'; Book
4 'Conflict and Parable; Book 5 'From Parables to the Temple', and Book 6 'The Temple of His Body'.
2.2 Bede and the Codex Amiatinus For a full understanding of the structural devices of On Luke – what Bede borrowed and what he invented – it is also necessary to consider the Codex
Amiatinus, one of a remarkable trio of Bibles produced at WearmouthJarrow at the time when Bede was working on the Luke commentary.
In about 680 Ceolfrith, the prior of Wearmouth, who had accompanied Benedict Biscop to Rome, returned to Northumbria bearing the Codex
Grandior, a Vetus Latina, or 'Old Latin' translation of the complete Bible, which he had acquired there.44 Two years later, Ceolfrith was sent to form a new establishment at Jarrow and was appointed abbot. Bede, who at the time of the foundation would have been a boy of about nine, was among the group of monks and novices from Wearmouth that came with him.
In 689 Ceolfrith became abbot of the double monastery. In time, Ceolfrith ordered three 'copies' of the pandect to be made, but with the Latin text of Jerome's Vulgate substituted for the Old Latin.45 Two of these are almost though not entirely lost, but one, the Codex Amiatinus, survives intact. It is the oldest complete Latin Bible that is still extant, and Bede was certainly familiar with it.46
44 On Ceolfrith and the Codex Grandior, see Meyvaert, 'Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus', 832–39.
45 See Bede, The Lives of the Abbots 15 and The Anonymous History of Abbot Ceolfrith 20
(in Grocock and Wood, ed. and trans., Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow, 56–60 and 98).
46 The most recent and authoritative account of the Codex Amiatinus is Chazelle, The Codex Amiatinus and its 'Sister' Bibles. See also Richard Gameson's 2017 Jarrow Lecture,
Codex Amiatinus: Making and Meaning. In preparing this translation we consulted the digital facsimile of the Codex Amiatinus available through the Library of Congress at https://www. loc.gov/item/2021668243.
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
The Amiatinus divided all of the books of Bible, except Ruth, Chronicles, Psalms, the Song of Songs, Malachi, Tobit, Esther, Ezra,
Nehemiah, and Revelation, into numbered chapters and preceded the books with summaries (capitula) of their chapters' contents. We know that Bede composed chapter summaries for three of the books for which they are lacking in the Amiatinus: Chronicles, the Song of Songs, and Revelation.
Bede also informs us that he composed summaries for the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Kings, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Isaiah; and for all of the books of the New Testament except the Gospels.47 Paul Meyvaert has shown that the summaries in the Amiatinus from Exodus to Judges are probably the ones composed by Bede.48
2.3 Chapter numbers and summaries The Codex Amiatinus concretely exemplifies the Vulgate's multilayered structure. Jerome arranged many of the books of both Testaments per cola et commata, 'by verses and phrases': that is, by short, grammatically coherent units of speech.49 These fundamental units, when laid out line by line, visually punctuate the text, facilitate oral delivery, and reduce the chances of error in copying. But a text arranged, as the Amiatinus is, per cola et commata is not economical of space. In surviving manuscripts the successive verses of Luke that Bede comments on are strung out like prose, though their boundaries correspond to boundaries established per cola et commata.
Modern editions of the Bible divide the text of each book into a binomial system of chapters and verses. Thus, the Gospel of Luke is divided into twenty-four chapters and each chapter into a numbered set of verses. This system goes back only to around the beginning of the thirteenth century.50
In Bede's time other systems of division were in use. As Paul Meyvaert observes: the number of 'chapters' in a given Book of Scripture could vary considerably.
Different sets of summaries were created to correspond to these divisions. The 47 Colgrave and Mynors, eds, Bede's Ecclesiastical History, 568–69.
48 Meyvaert, 'Bede's Capitula Lectionum', 366–69.
49 See Jerome, Prologue to Isaiah, ed. Weber/Gryson, 1096; Jerome, Prologue to Ezekiel, ed. Weber/Gryson, 1266; and Cassiodorus, Institutions 1.9, trans. Halporn, 109, and n. 8.
50 Gorman, 'Source Marks and Chapter Divisions', 270.
INTRODUCTION
summaries placed at the opening of a given Biblical book were numbered, and corresponding numbers were inserted at the appropriate place in the text.51
The Wearmouth-Jarrow editors of the Codex Amiatinus organized the verses of the Gospel of Luke into ninety-four chapters and prefaced it with ninety-four chapter summaries. The same sequence of ninety-four summaries is found in other Northumbrian gospel texts, including the Lindisfarne Gospels.52 The system may have reached Northumbria
'from the South Italian (Neapolitan?) exemplar' used for these gospel texts.53 Bede borrowed this system for On Luke. He must have copied the ninety-four chapter summaries from one or more of the texts of the Vulgate at his disposal. A comparison of the summaries in the Amiatinus with those in Bede's text reveals only inconsequential discrepancies between the two, with one exception – a phrase Bede apparently added to the summary for chap. 7 (see note on the text of summary 7 below).
The groups or 'chapters' of verses of the Vulgate in the Amiatinus that correspond to the ninety-four summaries are numbered in the margin of the text from 1 to 94,54 and an examination of six of the earliest manuscripts of On Luke55 confirms that Bede did the same, with, of course, the significant difference that his 'chapters' included his commen taries on the verses.
The Codex Amiatinus itself was probably not Bede's model. The pandect prepared for use at Wearmouth-Jarrow and/or the texts of the Vulgate used for its preparation are more likely to be what he consulted.
How and where they differed from the Amiatinus cannot be definitively known. A sequence of errors in the Amiatinus concerning the verses numbered as chaps 21–24 is instructive. In the Amiatinus the text of Luke
6:20–30 is numbered as chap. 21, 6:31–36 as chap. 22, 6:37–49 as chap. 23, and 7:1–10 as chap. 24. For the most part the chapter summaries are detailed enough to indicate where chapter divisions with their numbers
51 Meyvaert, 'Bede's Capitula Lectionum', 350. See also Wallis, trans., Bede: Commentary on Revelation, Introduction, 60–66.
52 Meyvaert, 'Bede's Capitula Lectionum', 349 and n. 5; Chazelle, The Codex Amiatinus and its 'Sister' Bibles, 150.
53 Meyvaert, 'Bede's Capitula Lectionum', 351.
54 Regrettably, Hurst failed to add chapter numbers to the text of On Luke in CCSL
120, although he printed the summaries. In the text of Luke in Codex Amiatinus. ch. 14 is misnumbered as ch. 13, and no number is provided in the text for ch. 81. Neither error turns up in the early manuscripts of Bede (see following note).
55 See Appendix 2.
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
should be placed. Two mistakes are immediately evident in the Amiatinus.
The summary for chap. 21, Upon passing the whole night in prayer [6:12], he names the twelve apostles
[6:13]. The sick are cured by touching him [6:19], corresponds to Luke 6:12–19, which the Amiatinus does not mark as a separate chapter, not to Luke 6:20–30. Evidently, it was Luke 6:12–19 that should have been labelled chap. 21, as it is in the early manuscripts of Bede's commentary. The summary for chap. 22,
He calls blessed those that are poor [6:20], those that hunger [6:21], those that weep [6:21], those that suffer persecution [6:22], and calls down woe upon those that are rich [6:24] and to those that laugh [6:25]. He even orders that enemies be loved [6:27] and that resistance should not be offered to one who strikes or who strips another bare [6:29], accurately describes Luke 6:20–30, the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. Again, what is labelled as chap. 21 in the Amiatinus ought to have been labelled chap. 22, as it is in four of the six early Bede manuscripts.
However, recognizing these two obvious mistakes in the Amiatinus reveals a new problem. Both the Amiatinus and five of the six manuscripts of Bede agree that chap. 25 begins at Luke 7:11. This leaves room for two chapters between Luke 6:31 and 7:11. Where do (or should) these chapters begin, and what verses do they include? The Amiatinus inserts three chapters into this space: chap. 22 (Luke 6:31–36), chap. 23 (Luke 6:37–49), and chap. 24 (Luke 7:1–10). Only two chapter summaries (summaries 23 and 24) are available to describe them. The summary for chap. 24,
He heals the slave of a centurion, when the elders and his friends entreat on the centurion's behalf, specifically describes Luke 7:2–10, and the Amiatinus, therefore, seems to be correct in labelling these verses as chap. 24. No summary exists that would support Luke 6:31–36 as a separate chapter. Either the chapter division at Luke 6:31 or the division at 6:37 must be an error.
The summary for chap. 23, He tells the parable [6:39] of the mote and the beam [6:41] as well as of the good and the evil tree [6:43], and of how a house ought to be built [6:49], applies, strictly speaking, only to Luke 6:39–49. However, the parables mentioned in summary 23 conclude the Sermon on the Mount and reinforce the lessons that come before them. Summary 23, therefore, could arguably
INTRODUCTION
extend back to cover either Luke 6:31–49 or 6:37–49, just as by the same logic summary 22 could extend forward to cover Luke 6:20–37.
That Bede did not follow the Amiatinus numbering for these chapters is certain, but what he finally intended remains problematic. The conflicting solutions found in the early manuscripts suggest that he may have made a revision after the first publication of the treatise. All six witnesses agree in marking the beginning of chap. 21 at Luke 6:12. After that they differ in the following ways:
(1) Paris 11681 (B) does not provide numbers for chaps 22–24.
(2) Karlsruhe 64 (K) and St Gall 85 (G) put chap. 22 at Luke 6:20; chap. 23 at Luke 6:31; and chap. 24 at Luke 6:37.56
(3) Paris 12281 (D) exhibits the same chapter divisions as K and G, but adopts the numbering of the Amiatinus at Luke 6:31(chap. 22) and 6:37 (chap. 23; it does not have a chap. 24).
(4) Wolfenbüttel 20 (W) agrees with K, G, and D in putting chap. 22 at Luke 6:20, but then goes to Luke 6:41 for chap. 23, and Luke 7:2 for chap. 24. Luke 6:41 would be a more logical starting point than
Luke 6:37 for a chapter described by summary 23, and Luke 7:2 would be a good starting point for a chapter described by summary
24.
(5) Paris 17451 (E), like the Amiatinus, puts a chapter numbered 22 at Luke 6:31 and at Luke 6:37, where the Amiatinus places chap. 23, a chapter number is erased. There are also erasures at Luke 6:41 and 7:2, where W begins chapters 23 and 24.
Bede cannot have meant to label Luke 6:37–7:10 as chap. 24, because 6:37–49 is described by chapter summary 23, and only 7:1–10 by summary
24. Despite the fact that none of the six manuscripts begins a chapter at Luke 7:1, there can be no doubt that he would have intended, like the Amiatinus, to begin chap. 24 there (or at Luke 7:2, as attested by W and possibly E). Whether he finally took Luke 6:20–30 as chap. 22 and Luke
6:31–49 as chap. 23, or Luke 6:20–36 as chap. 22 and Luke 6:37–49 as chap. 23, remains an open question. We call attention to these alternative solutions by labelling the chapter division at Luke 6:31 as chap. 23(a) and the one at Luke 6:37 as chap. 23(b).
56 Gorman, 'Source Marks and Chapter Divisions', Appendix 3, records the same divisions as K and G. He does not say on what basis he reached this conclusion.
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
One final problem arises from the fact that the Codex Amiatinus erroneously begins chap. 51 at Luke 11:45. Chapter summary 50 demonstrates that Luke 11:45–54 belongs to chap. 50:
When he was invited to dine with a Pharisee [11:37], he notices that the Pharisee is thinking of the Jewish ritual of washing [11:38], and saying 'woe' six times [11:42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 52] to the Pharisees, he exposes their many sins.
None of the six early Bede manuscripts enters a number for chap. 51.
However, chapter summary 51, He commands his disciples both to beware of the leaven of hypocrisy [12:1] and not to fear those who kill the body; and not to think what they will say in a time of persecution, clearly establishes that chap. 51 should begin at Luke 12:1.
How these discrepancies, if they existed in the text or texts of the Vulgate that he was using, could have escaped Bede's notice, or how they could have entered into the manuscript tradition of On Luke, remains a puzzle. Later copyists were certainly confused by omissions as well as misplacements of marginal numbers.
2.4 Eusebian canon sections and numbers An independent system of division which Jerome incorporated in the Vulgate is what is known as the Eusebian canons. This was a system developed by Eusebius of Caesarea for cross-referencing parallel events in the Gospels.57 Each Gospel was divided into consecutively numbered sections. Matthew was assigned 355 sections, Mark, 232, Luke, 342, and John, 232. The section numbers of parallel events were set side by side in canon tables. There were ten tables in all. Canon table 1 recorded incidents found in all four Gospels. Canon tables 2, 3, and 4 compared incidents found in three of the four evangelists (there was no table for Mark/Luke/
John). Incidents common to two Gospels were given in canon tables 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 (there was no table for Mark/John). Canon table 10 (actually four tables, one for each of the gospels) displayed the numbered sections in each successive gospel that were unique to that gospel. The Eusebian
57 See Chazelle, The Codex Amiatinus and its 'Sister Bibles', 182–86, for a detailed account of the development of the system and the arcaded canon tables that were designed to frame the numbered sections of each Gospel in parallel columns.
INTRODUCTION
canons enabled exegetes to identify and comment on, or 'harmonize', events in Jesus's life that were reported by all, or some, or only one of the evangelists.58
On the evidence of six early manuscripts of On Luke, as Appendix 2 demonstrates, Bede intended canon section numbers to be inserted in his text. Other early manuscripts with section numbers include Milan D
23 inf., a manuscript written in the second quarter of the ninth century in central France,59 and the fragments New Haven 441, from the second half of the eight century, written in Anglo-Saxon minuscule,60 Munich
29440(1, written during the first half of the ninth century at Polling Abbey in Bavaria, and Munich 29440(2, also of the ninth-century and Bavarian.
In the Codex Amiatinus, the ten canon tables, sandwiched between Jerome's two prefaces to the Gospels, are arranged vertically within arcades that mimic architecture.61 Columns resting on solid bases and topped by plain capitals support both small semi-circular arches and larger arches above them that form double or triple arcades. Within the arcades and in each canon table the canon section numbers for the respective gospels are arranged vertically in side-by-side columns. The section numbers in the left-most column are always in numerical order. All this information – the section number, the canon table number, and the corresponding section numbers of the other gospels – is also inserted in the margin beside the gospel text.
There are no canon tables in On Luke, and Bede probably did not add table numbers to the section numbers.62 But he must have expected readers of On Luke to have access to such tables. Accordingly, we insert canon
58 For a comprehensive overview of the canons and their reception, see Crawford, The Eusebian Canon Tables.
59 See Gorman, 'Source Marks and Chapter Divisions', plate 7.
60 New Haven 441 puts canon section number 60 in the margin at Luke 6:43; section number 61, at Luke 6:44b; and section number 63, at Luke 6:46. The online digital image does not reveal whether there is a section number 62 at Luke 6:45.
61 See Neuman de Vegvar, 'Remembering Jerusalem', passim.
62 A Roman numeral 5 accompanies canon numbers 54 and 60 in Paris 12281 (D), fols 56v and 58v. Both canons are found in canon table 5. Canon section number 10 with canon table number 5 and a cross reference to Matthew section number 12 appear in Munich 29440(2).
A puzzling Roman numeral 10 capped with a w-shaped squiggle that appears above canon number 117 in Paris 11681, fol. 100v (see Gorman, 'Source Marks and Chapter Divisions', plate 4), should probably not be interpreted as a table number (even though canon 117 is found in table 10), because similarly capped Roman numerals 11 and 12, which cannot be table numbers and are not adjacent to canon numbers, follow sequentially on fol. 101r.
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
section numbers and, for the convenience of the reader, table numbers in their appropriate places in this translation, and provide cross references to their equivalents in Matthew, Mark, and John in Appendix 3.63
2.5 Source marks As we mentioned above, a substantial portion of On Luke is made up of verbatim quotations from the works of four Latin Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries – Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory. Bede adapted a method for identifying these passages and their authors by source references placed in the margins. In his reply to Acca, quoted above, he describes the system of source marks64 that he introduced into his text. Bede's system anticipates the modern employment of quotation marks to mark the beginning and end of borrowed passages and the use of footnotes or an apparatus fontium to identify their authorship and the extent of the passage quoted.
In the earliest manuscripts of On Luke, quotations from the four named authorities are signified by the first two letters (or in the case of Jerome by the first two consonants) of their names: AM = Ambrose; AV = Augustine,
GR = Gregory, and HR = Jerome (Hieronymus). The first letter is set in the margin next to the beginning of the quotation, and the second letter next to its end. Bede subsequently employed this same device in his commentary on the Gospel of Mark, but not in his other biblical commentaries. And although his words suggest that other authorities might be treated in the same way, neither he nor later copyists chose to do so. Partly on the basis of his use of this device in his two gospel commentaries, Bede is credited with establishing Ambrose,
Augustine, Gregory, and Jerome as the four Latin Doctors of the Church.65
Years later, in the preface to his commentary on Mark, Bede appealed to his readers to preserve this system:66
And I humbly pray the reader that, if he should deem these works of ours worthy of copying, he should also carefully preserve in the transcribing the 63 Complete canon tables may be found in Weber/Gryson, 1516–26.
64 See Laistner, 'Source-Marks in Bede Manuscripts', 350–54, and Gorman, 'Source
Marks and Chapter Divisions', 258–61.
65 Kaczynski, 'Bede's Commentaries on Luke and Mark', 17–26; Gorman, 'Source Marks and Chapter Divisions', 261; Brown, A Companion to Bede, 33 and 60, and the references therein.
66 Bede did not invent marginal references; they were used and described by Cassiodorus in his commentary on the Psalms. However, he did improve the system to indicate the beginning and end of the cited passage, and created the two-letter abbreviations for the major
Church Fathers: see Gorman, 'Source Marks and Chapter Divisions', 260.
INTRODUCTION
notation of those names which have been placed above in the margin, just as was admittedly done for the commentary on St Luke that we, with the help of God's grace, composed many years ago.67
Despite his plea, scribes evidently failed to understand Bede's intentions, and source marks and chapter and canon section numbers faded from the manuscript record.68
Since Bede's objective was to inform his readers of the authorship and extent of all quotations from Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory, and Jerome, we feel that the critical apparatus – the combination of the use of italics and footnotes – of the present translation can reasonably substitute for the placement of the initials A/M, A/V, G/R, and H/R in the margins on the basis of imperfect and fragmentary manuscript evidence. We have, however, inserted these initials in the Bibliography of Primary Works after the titles of works whose authorship is identified by source marks in one or more manuscripts.
3. BEDE'S EXPOSITORY STRATEGIES
3.1 'First I gathered together from here and there the most illustrious works of the Fathers …'
As Bede explains to Acca, his first step as an exegete was to find out what the Fathers said about Luke so that he could incorporate their words, or at least their ideas, into his own exposition. For the reasons by now evident,
Bede had become more sensitive to the process of creating a commentary from a mosaic of quotations than he had been when he composed his earlier works.69 He now felt obliged to identify his sources, but also to proclaim their impeccable orthodoxy and authority.
In the context of his description of his working methods, the four source marks which Bede placed in the margins of his quotations from Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory, and Jerome produce the impression that 67 Bede, In Marci Euangelium exposition, ed. Hurst (CCSL 120:432.45–51); trans. Laistner,
'Source-Marks', 350.
68 Bede's sources marks inspired Hrabanus Maurus to adopt the same system in the ninth century and, while the manuscripts of Hrabanus's works also show sporadic transmission of the source marks, they signal an important stage in the evolution of later medieval reference systems, notably in the Glossa Ordinaria: see Smith, The Glossa Ordinaria, 61.
69 See Wallis, trans., Bede: Commentary on Revelation, Introduction, 25–28.
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Bede used mainly these four authors, and that they constituted authorities of particular dignity. The marginal notes played a significant role, for they pointed 'to the authority of the person who wrote, not the authority of the written work'.70 Bede even suggests that On Luke is a kind of index to the thinking of the great Fathers. Commenting on Luke 16:18, he says:
If anyone wishes to find out more about the exposition of this testimony, he should examine not my writings, but those of our elders. Indeed, the blessed
Fathers, first of all Augustine in his book of the Lord's Sermon on the Mount, Jerome and Ambrose in their commentaries on the evangelists Matthew and Luke, but also how very many others, have each said enough and more about it in their works.
But these four are not the only authorities Bede called upon. Ironically, the less well-known authors of quotations (Paulinus, Josephus …) are named explicitly within the text,71 while vast swaths of Augustine or Jerome depend on the marginal flags for identification. Bede evidently hoped that these flags would be so striking and visible that his overwhelming dependence on the four Fathers would be in no doubt.72 But, as we shall see, not every borrowing from the four is acknowledged, and neither are all
Bede's debts to other authors.73
The flagged quotations from the four Fathers are passages quoted in extenso. Ambrose is represented exclusively by his own commentary on Luke, which (pace Acca) Bede readily exploits.74 Jerome's principal contri bution is his commentary on Matthew; overlapping material between the two synoptic evangelists allows this work to function as a shadow commentary on Luke. The same is true for Augustine's Questions on Matthew and On the Lord's Sermon – indeed, the latter is the substance of most of 70 Kaczynski, 'Bede's Commentaries on Luke and Mark', 20, 24.
71 An exception is Sedulius, who is merely referred to as 'someone' in the quotation from the Carmen paschale at the end of the commentary on Luke 11:27, though he is identified by name in Luke 23:33.
72 Kaczynski, 'Bede's Commentaries on Luke and Mark', 24.
73 James Siemens has argued that Bede may have used the Laterculus Malalianus associated with Theodore of Tarsus/Canterbury to supplement the rather jejune patristic sources on the Lucan Nativity narrative; however, the parallels, as Siemens admits, are fairly indistinct, and certainly not verbal: 'Another Book for Jarrow's Library?', 15–34.
74 Ambrose's writings did not enjoy wide diffusion in Anglo-Saxon England. The commentary on Luke in particular circulated mainly in the form of extracts, so Bede's commentary may have been the principal vehicle for this work: Bankert et al., Ambrose in Anglo-Saxon England, 32–34.
INTRODUCTION
Bede's exposition of the Sermon on the Mount (especially Luke 6:28–42).
Augustine is also represented by his Harmony of the Gospels, which proved an invaluable resource for handling apparent discrepancies between Luke and other writers, and by the Enchiridion, a treasury of moral doctrine (e.g., the meaning of 'alms' in Luke 11:41–42). Many of Gregory's Homilies on the Gospels were on Lucan pericopes. They provide Bede with most of his material on the preaching of John the Baptist, on Christ's praise of the Baptist (Luke 7:23–27), on the dinner in the house of Simon the Pharisee
(Luke 7:36 sqq.), and on most of the parables in Luke 14–16, to cite only a few examples. Sermon-like passages such as the exegesis of Luke 9:23–27
(Christ's charge to his disciples) are lifted from the Homilies, as are Christ's mission instructions to the seventy-two disciples (Luke 10:4–7b) and the parable-injunction to keep constant watch (Luke 12:36–40). But Gregory's
Homilies on Ezekiel and his Moralia on Job are also cited frequently.
That being said, Bede is not merely 'cutting and pasting' whole pages of patristic commentary;75 rather, he also fashions readings from smaller patristic borrowings, layering them to produce a composite explanation.
For example, in expounding Luke 12:22–29 (on not being anxious about material needs), Bede interweaves sentences from Jerome on Matthew with segments of Augustine on the Sermon on the Mount, one upon another; his explanation of Luke 16:13c ('You cannot serve God and mammon') performs a similar feat using these two sources, but adding in Augustine's
Questions on the Gospels. Bede's use of his patristic sources could be very allusive and subtle, and even sometimes manipulative. For example, in his discussion of the Transfiguration, Bede is not quoting from any source in extenso and yet his exposition is shot through and through with verbal allusions to Ambrose on Luke and Jerome on Matthew. Ambrose is clearly visible in only two places, but there are echoes throughout 'as if Ambrose's terms were still in Bede's mind, even though he had gone on to write on a different topic'.76 Joan Hart-Hasler points to Bede's treatment of Luke
9:32: 'But Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep. And waking, they saw his majesty, and the two men who stood with him', as a case in point.77 Ambrose's comment on this verse is:
Peter saw this grace, and they who were with him also saw it, even though they were heavy with sleep. For the incomprehensible splendor of divinity
75 This charge was laid by Sharpe, 'The Varieties of Bede's Prose', 342.
76 Hart-Hasler, 'Bede's Use of Patristic Sources', 199.
77 Hart-Hasler, 'Bede's Use of Patristic Sources', 199–200.
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overwhelms the senses of our body. Indeed, if the bodily keenness of our eyes can not endure a ray of sunlight when they look directly into it, how will the corruption of human limbs bear the glory of God? And for that purpose, the substance of the body is made more pure and refined in the resurrection when the accretion of vices has been removed. And perhaps they were heavy with sleep so that they might see the appearance of the resurrection after resting
[ut resurrectionis speciem uiderent post quietem]. And so, when they awoke, they saw His Majesty [uiderunt maiestatem eius]; for no one sees the glory of Christ unless awake.78
Bede's comment on the same verse is:
The disciples were heavy with sleep not by chance, but for an allegorical reason,79 namely that they should see the appearance of the resurrection after the body's rest [ut resurrectionis speciem uiderent post corporis quietem].
The saints, when they are raised up in glory, will see the majesty of the Lord [maiestatem domini uidebunt] the more truly, because they will also rejoice in the immortality of his flesh through which they had conquered death.
Bede draws on Ambrose, but also alters the sense of Ambrose's exegesis.
Ambrose states that the glory of the godhead is too great for human eyes to bear, and adds that only the wakened will see the resurrection.
Bede passes over the first point and shifts the force of the second to an anagogical reading: the sleeping disciples are the saints who are in heaven after death (the Seventh Age) and who will rise at the end of time to behold his glory in the Eighth Age.80 This tactic of borrowing Ambrose's phrases but shifting their meaning can also be found in Bede's comment on Luke
9:28, and this time the result is to replace Ambrose's sense with a moral reading.81 Jerome's commentary on Matthew is handled in much the same way in Bede's reflections on Luke 9:24 and 9:34.82 In sum, Bede's memory is indeed steeped in the Fathers, even their very words; yet he charts his own interpretative course, one that can depart from the Fathers' express meaning.
78 Ambrose, Expos. Lucam 7.17 (ed. Adriaen, CCSL 14:220.187–97); trans. Hart-Hasler,
'Bede's Use of Patristic Sources', 200.
79 Literally, 'by reason of a mystery' (mysterii ratione). Bede uses mysterium as a general term for any of the spiritual/allegorical meanings hidden in the text of the Bible, and more specifically for reference to the truths of salvation and the sacraments of the Church. See
Kendall, 'The Responsibility of Auctoritas', 106–07.
80 Hart-Hasler, 'Bede's Use of Patristic Sources', 200.
81 Hart-Hasler, 'Bede's Use of Patristic Sources', 200–01.
82 Hart-Hasler, 'Bede's Use of Patristic Sources', 201–02.
INTRODUCTION
Hart-Hasler suggests Bede did not make use of Gregory's or Augustine's readings of the Transfiguration because they were not saying anything substantially different from Ambrose or Jerome.83 But Bede can also decide not to use an available patristic source on critical grounds.
For example, the exposition of the parable of the Sower (Luke 8:4–5) opens with a quotation from Gregory's homily on this passage, but then
Bede takes off on his own, picking up Gregory again only at Luke 8:14.
At Luke 8:15 he gives his own reading first place ('The good ground, as I said above … '), and consigns Gregory's to 'another interpretation'.84
Commenting on Luke 10:10–11 ('But into whatever city you enter, and they receive you not, going forth into its streets, say: Even the dust of the city that clings to us, we wipe off against you'), he puts Augustine's rather prosaic explanation in first position, followed by 'another interpretation' by Bede himself, bringing to the fore his favourite theme of the duties and difficulties of teachers. Sometimes Bede is following one author for the bulk of an episode, but feels impelled to include 'another interpre tation' from a different author. For example, most of his exposition of Christ's dispute with the Jewish leaders about casting out demons comes from Augustine, Sermones 71. However, when it comes to Luke 11:19
('Now if I cast out devils by Beelzebub, by whom do your children cast them out?'), he seems hesitant about Augustine's interpretation of 'your children' as the disciples, so he adds 'another interpretation' from Jerome's commentary on Matthew, to the effect that 'your children' are Jewish exorcists. In the next sentence (Luke 11:20) he inverts the order, putting in first place Jerome's explanation of the 'finger of God' as the Holy Spirit, with the Son as the 'hand and arm of God'; even though the parts differ, they are all members of one body. He follows this with 'another interpre tation' from Augustine's Questions on the Gospels. The finger of God is the Holy Spirit, because the Spirit is the source of diverse gifts, and 'in none of our limbs does division appear more than in our fingers'. Jerome and Augustine are saying the same thing – the finger of God is the Holy
Spirit – but it leads them in apparently opposite directions – unity in the case of Jerome, diversity in the case of Augustine. Yet both are authori tative readings, diverse but not divergent.
There is at least one substantial borrowing from an author whom Bede does not acknowledge: Origen. At Luke 21:5–6, Bede's argument that the 83 Hart-Hasler, 'Bede's Use of Patristic Sources', 203.
84 See also the similar instance at Luke 12:20.
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Jerusalem Temple had to be destroyed lest its rituals seduce future believers comes from Origen's tenth Homily on Leviticus in the Latin translation of Rufinus.85 It is the earliest verbatim quotation from Origen in any work by Bede. Later, Bede would acknowledge Origen's contribution to his exposition of Noah's ark in On Genesis, but in the Luke commentary this quotation is silent.86
Finally, it is quite possible that Bede made use of Hiberno-Latin exegetical works, and notably the Expositio euangeliorum erroneously ascribed to Jerome.87 This commentary, or, more exactly, set of exegetical notes, was very influential not only in Insular circles but on the continent: more than forty early medieval manuscripts survive.88 Some otherwise untraceable interpretations in Bede's commentary have parallels in the Expositio and in at least one case the parallel is verbally quite close.
Commenting on the woman who had been crippled for eighteen years (Luke 13:10–11), Bede says:
It is fitting that she had been bent over for eighteen years, a number which is formed by three multiplied by six, because it shows (ostendit) that she was faint through infirm works (per infirma opera) in the testimony of the Law, in the prediction of prophecy, and in the revelation of grace (in testimonio legis in uiticinio prophetiae et in reuelatione gratiae).
This echoes ps.-Jerome: 'per tres senos, ostendit, quod infirma fuit ante legem, sub lege, sub gratia'. Both Bede and ps.-Jerome might be drawing on a lost or unidentified common source, but the numerous other parallels signalled in our footnotes to the translation increase the likelihood that Bede had access to this work.
However, Bede's concern to represent patristic tradition in his commentary went well beyond assembling, aligning, and editing extracts.
85 See below, Book 6, n. 9.
86 O'Brien, 'A Quotation from Origen's Homilies on Leviticus', 185. Bede, In Genesim 2, ed. Jones (CCSL 118A:111.1341–46); trans. Kendall, Bede: On Genesis, 181, names Origen as the source of one explication of the function of the lower and upper storeys of the ark.
Bede made explicit and more ample use of Origen in his later exegesis, e.g., on I Samuel
(DeGregorio and Love, eds, Bede: On First Samuel, Introduction, 17).
87 PL 30.531–588; Bischoff, 'Turning-Points in the History of Latin Exegesis', in McNamara, ed., Biblical Studies: The Medieval Irish Contribution, cat. 11A, 108–09;
C.D. Wright, 'Hiberno-Latin and Irish-Influenced Biblical Commentaries'. Not listed in Lapidge, The Anglo-Saxon Library. On the notable presence of Irish scholarship in Bede's milieu, see Love, 'The Library of the Venerable Bede', 607, 610–12.
88 O'Reilly, 'Patristic and Insular Iconography', 85.
INTRODUCTION
The Fathers' approach to exegesis was profoundly shaped by a particularly Christian intertextuality – the conviction that the Bible was a unity, and that its every word referred to a single subject matter (hypothesis), namely
Christ; hence the Bible was always talking to itself and interpreting itself.89
This intertextuality shaped Bede's approach to his exegetical task in commenting on Luke, and merits closer examination.
3.2 Intertextual exegesis In his Old Testament commentaries Bede's preferred method of interpre tation was allegorical. After explicating the surface content (the literal level), he might go on to show how it foreshadows a corresponding reference in the New Testament (the typological level), how it offers a moral lesson for the individual Christian (the tropological level), or how it reveals the joys of the promised heavenly kingdom (the anagogical level).90
Although allegory remains an integral component of Bede's interpretative procedure in On Luke,91 as will become abundantly clear in the remarks that follow, it is ancillary to several interpretative methods more or less common to his patristic sources that might be collectively described as 'intertextual exegesis'. Intertextual exegesis is grounded on the assumption that the language of the Bible was divinely inspired. Bede, like his predecessors, of course knew that the Latin Vulgate had been translated from Hebrew and Greek originals, but, as Augustine argued with respect to the Septuagint, inspiration extended to translation. The words of the texts of both Testaments called up other texts or related compounds, their meanings harmonized, their etymologies signified, their interrelationships enriched the whole. As Arthur Holder observes:
Bede employed all the exegetical techniques he had learned from the Church Fathers: the etymology of words (especially from the Hebrew and Greek), number symbolism, the interpretation of images drawn from nature and history, and elucidation according to the principal of 'concordance' by which a particular verse is linked to other biblical verses.92
89 On the patristic roots of intertextual exegesis, and its debt to ancient literary criticism, see Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture.
90 See Kendall, Bede: On Genesis, Introduction, 4–14.
91 See Holder, 'Bede and the New Testament', 143–44.
92 Holder, 'Bede and the New Testament', 148. Our preferred term 'intertextual exegesis' aims to encompass both what other scholars call 'exegesis by concordance' (a phrase in the Scriptural texts 'triggers' recollection of that phrase in another Scriptural text, suggesting a
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Gregory was adept at intertextual exegesis. Bede frequently chooses to pass on Gregory's analysis without adding anything of his own. So, his commentary on Luke 7:27 ('This is he of whom it is written: Behold, I send my angel before your face, who will prepare your way before you') is drawn from Gregory's Homilies on the Gospels:
What is called 'angel' [angelus] in Greek, is called 'messenger' [nuntius] in Latin. Rightly, therefore, he who is sent to announce [nuntiare] the divine judgement is called an angel so that he might maintain in name the grandeur which he fulfils in the work.
Having introduced the bilingual pairing of angelus/nuntius, Gregory proceeds to enrich his lesson by recalling the words of an Old Testament prophet about the angelic nature of the priesthood and by ringing the changes on compounds of the Latin nuntius:
[A]ll who are enrolled under the name of the priesthood are called 'angels', as witnesses the prophet, who says [Mal. 2:7]: 'The lips of the priest will keep knowledge, and they will seek the law at his mouth, because he is the angel of the Lord of hosts'. And likewise each one of the faithful is successful insofar as he receives the grace of divine inspiration, for if he takes care to encourage good works, if he proclaims [denuntiat] the eternal kingdom and punishment to the one straying, when he distributes words of holy prophecy [adnuntia tionis], then truly an angel appears.
The biblical text generates the vocabulary for its explication.
Meaningful wordplay is a fundamental component of intertextual exegesis. Among the significant types of wordplay in the Christian Latin rhetoric of the early Middle Ages may be classed the metaphorical, the allegorical, and the etymological.93 A striking example of metaphorical wordplay, which exhibits Bede's sensitivity to root meanings, occurs in his paraphrase of Christ's direction to his disciples at Luke 9:44c: 'Lay up in your hearts these words'. 'Lay up' implies, Bede says: 'store away in your minds also the euentum [the e-vent, the out-come, the spilling out] of my precious blood'. The everyday meaning of euentum, in Latin as in its English line of interpretation – in other words 'scripture interprets scripture') and other features such as wordplay, number symbolism, and etymology. See, importantly, the remarks of Joyce Hill on 'the intertextual complexity of Bede's commentaries on Luke and Mark' within a 'dense intertextual tradition': 'Carolingian Perspectives', 246–48. On 'exegesis by concordance' see DeGregorio and Love, eds, Bede: On First Samuel, Introduction, 24–26.
93 See Kendall, 'Let Us Now Praise a Famous City', 512–16. For an introduction to various types of wordplay in Bede, see Major, 'Words, Wit, and Wordplay', 185–219.
INTRODUCTION
derivative, is a metaphoric extension of its buried, literal root meaning. The event is the spilling out of the blood. Bede's usage here appears to be unique.
Sometimes Bede employs a word in two senses. In his commentary on Luke 2:41 the related compounds refert, 'refers to', and transfert, 'transfers', link the births of John the Baptist and Jesus: 'He [Luke] refers to the birth of the Baptist there, and immediately turns his attention to the Lord and transfers him there after his nativity with a sacrifice'. Transfert is used in a double sense: (a) Luke transfers/turns his attention from John to Jesus, and (b) in his narrative transfers Jesus from Bethlehem to Jerusalem.
Two senses may arise out of etymological wordplay, as with transgressio, which Bede in his commentary on Luke 3:38 uses in its root sense of 'a passing beyond' when he states: 'eleven signifies the transgression of ten'
(= eleven is one more than ten), and then in its metaphorical Christian– Latin sense of 'sin' or 'fault' when he proclaims: 'the transgression of ten signifies the sin of desiring out of pride to have something more'.
The verbal richness of intertextual exegesis is always at risk of being lost in translation. The key word that triggers Bede's commentary on Luke
4:18–19 is the Latin verb mitto, mittere, misi, missus, 'to send'. In these verses Luke is quoting the prophet Isaiah:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he has sent [misit] me to preach deliverance to the captives, and sight to the blind, to release into forgiveness those who are broken, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of reward.
The verb is followed almost immediately by a noun compounded from it: 'he has sent me to preach deliverance [remissionem] to the captives'.
And the same noun, as well as another verb compounded from mitto, is repeated: 'To release [dimittere] into forgiveness [remissionem] those who are broken'. In English we are tempted to translate remissio in two different ways: concretely with respect to captives and metaphorically with respect to the humble. For Bede, reading the Vulgate Latin, both senses (and perhaps others) hover about the word. And so he comments:
And for that reason, he says that he was sent [missum] and anointed to heal those broken or bruised of heart … . And indeed he came to release [dimittere] into forgiveness [remissionem] those who had been depressed by the heavy and insupportable weight of the Law, and to admit [admittere] them into the forgiveness [remissionem] of spiritual grace.
Bede then goes on to take up 'the acceptable year of the Lord', which he understands to be the year of jubilee as defined in Leviticus 25:10. With the
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
exception of the last sentence in which it is repeated that the Lord says he is sent [missum], there are no further occurrences of the key word in any of its forms. But this is what Bede found in the Vulgate text of Leviticus: 'And you shall sanctify the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty [remissionem] to all the inhabitants of your land; for it is the year of jubilee.' The echo may have led Bede to make the connection.
In another instance, Bede employs intertextual exegesis to resolve a theological dilemma that seemingly arises in one of Jesus's parables, in which, to the man asking [Luke 13:23], 'are they few that are saved?', Jesus replies [Luke 13:25b]:
'But when the master of the house goes in and shuts the door, you will begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying: Lord, open to us. And he answering will say to you: I do not know [nescio] you where you are from'.
In his commentary on these verses Bede affirms that 'the master of the house' is Christ. How can it be that there is anything that Christ does not 'know'? Gregory points the way forward. He observes that there are two senses of the verb 'to know': it can mean either 'to know thoroughly'
[cognoscere], or 'to approve' [approbare]. Bede takes Gregory's proposed solution and runs with it:
How is it that he does not know [nescit] where they are from, when the Psalm says: 'The Lord knows [(g)nouit] the thoughts of men, that they are vain'
[Ps. 93:11], and elsewhere it is written: 'He knows [(g)nouit] the deceiver, and him who is deceived' [Job 12:16], unless [quoting from Gregory's Moralia in Iob]
'God is said to know [scire], sometimes in the sense of "to know thoroughly"
[cognoscere], and sometimes in the sense of "to approve" [approbare]'. 'For the Lord knows [(g)nouit] the way of the just' [Ps. 1:6], 'but he who does not know [ignorant] will not be known [ignorabitur]' [1 Cor. 14:38]. And therefore he knows [scit] the reprobates [reprobos] whom he judges by knowing them thoroughly [cognoscendo], for he would not have judged those whom he did not know thoroughly [cognosceret] at all, and nevertheless in a certain way he does not know [nescit] where they are from, in the sense that he does not approve [approbat] the character of their faith and love for himself.
These verbal echoes allow Bede to weave in apparently unrelated texts from both Testaments in support of his argument.
In his explication of Luke 4:22b: 'And they said: Is not this the son of Joseph?' we might have expected Bede to confront head-on and at length the controversial theological issue that the Nazarenes' question raises. But he seems to brush it aside with a remark about the Nazarenes' 'blindness',
INTRODUCTION
and takes up instead for discussion the fact that Matthew and Mark call Jesus 'a faber' or 'the son of a faber'. This odd deflection from the text of Luke is justified only, but crucially, by the underlying verbal formula,
'Jesus is the son of X', which is common to the three synoptic Gospels.
The Latin word faber is the term that Bede found in the Vulgate text of the Bible. It (or the Greek term that lies behind it) is routinely Englished as 'carpenter' (e.g., D/R, KJV, NRSV). But, according to OLD, faber is the word for (1a) 'a craftsman, workman, artisan', and specifically (1b) 'a metal worker, smith', or (1c) 'a builder, building worker' (faber is the basis for such English words as 'fabric', 'fabrication', 'fabricate', 'fabricator', etc.).
The range of meanings outlined by OLD proves to be precisely how Bede understands the word. He may have seen Isidore of Seville's statement that Joseph was a smith (faber ferrarius).94
That the dominant sense of faber in the passage is 'a metal worker, smith' (1b) becomes apparent as we read through it. But, first, its general sense (1a) inspires Bede to see in Jesus and Joseph's occupation and (quasi-) father–son relationship a reflection of Christ's divine status as the Son of the God 'who was the maker (fabricator) of everything', in accordance with Genesis 1:1: 'In the beginning God created heaven and earth'. As maker, Bede declares, God works with fire and the Spirit (Spiritus), which brings the sense 'smith' to the fore. Spiritus of course is the word for the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, but it is also in origin the Latin word for 'breath' or 'wind' or 'air'. A smith works with fire and air blown with bellows. Hence when John the Baptist says that Christ 'will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire' he is making, Bede suggests, an unconscious allusion to Jesus's occupation.
The allegorically charged notion of the smith and the smithy controls the remainder of the passage, eliciting another complementary text from the Old Testament. Like a smith, the Lord 'forges' (fabricat) vessels, and converts 'vessels of wrath' (Rom. 9:22) to 'vessels of mercy' (Rom. 9:23)
'by the softening fire of the spirit' ('spirit' operating in several senses), which thought reminds Bede of the verse from Malachi 3:3: 'And he will sit smelting and purifying the silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and he will smelt them like gold and like silver'. The Latin verb, which we have translated as 'smelt', is conflare, literally 'to blow air on'. Fire and air (spirit) again. That Jesus was a smith or the son of a smith is shown to be anagog ically appropriate to his divine mission, but this spiritual understanding is
94 Isidore, Regula monachorum (PL 83: 873).
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precisely what the Nazarenes fail to grasp when they utter their version of the bridging formula, 'Is not this the son of Joseph?'.
The allegorical imagery of the smith that informs Bede's analysis of Luke 4:22 hovers between the typical and the anagogical, between figure and fulfilment. The anagogical sense crops up again in Bede's comment on Luke 3:21:
Jesus being baptized and praying, heaven, it says, was opened, since when the Lord entered the waters of the Jordan with the humility of his body, he opened the gates of heaven to us by the power of his divinity. And when his innocent flesh is bathed in frigid waters, the flaming sword set as a barrier is quenched by the water that was once so injurious.
Bede's thought is more than usually compressed. The innocent flesh is Christ's; the waters are both the river Jordan and the waters of baptism; the flaming sword is the sword that blocks the way back to the tree of life in the garden of Eden. The waters were once injurious (you could drown in the Jordan), but are now life-giving (the power of baptismal waters), and they are frigid for the sake of the submerged metaphor of the smith's technique of tempering iron (this probably tells us more about Bede's experience of the waters of the Tyne than it does about the likely temperatures of the Jordan). The act of tempering anagogically opens the gates of heaven.
In Bede's hands, allegory is flexible and multi-faceted. In regard to Mary's visit to Elizabeth, Luke remarks (Luke 1:38b–39): 'And the angel departed from her. And Mary, rising up in those days, went into the hill country with haste into a city of Juda.' Bede's comment is:
Having received the Virgin's consent, the angel went directly back to heaven and Mary went into the hill country. She hastens to visit Elizabeth … . At the same time she provides a typological example [typicum exemplum] to show that every soul that has conceived the word of God in his mind may immediately ascend the loftiest peaks of the virtues with the steps of love to enter the city of Juda, that is, of confession and praise, to penetrate the citadel, and to abide in it, as it were, for three months, right up to the perfection of faith, hope, and love.
Bede's words suggest perhaps that Mary is on the borderline between figure and example. She is both before and after Christ. She has not yet conceived, yet with the angel's promise of a son (Luke 1:31) she points forward in time and is in some sense a type of Christ, who will be the pattern for all later saints to imitate and to become in turn examples for others to imitate. Bede makes this point about Christ explicitly in his later comment on Luke 4:20,
INTRODUCTION
when he says that Christ offers 'allegorically a model [exemplum mystice] for imitation, that each preacher of the word be also a doer of the same'.95
Mary going into the hill country (montana) prefigures the potential of the soul to ascend to the peaks of the virtues. With an unacknowledged assist from Jerome,96 Bede explains that etymologically speaking the city of Juda is the citadel of confession and praise. Mary will remain in Juda with Elizabeth for three months (Luke 1:56). Bede interprets the three months as a numerical allegory for the three supreme virtues of faith, hope, and love (1 Cor. 13:13).
Above all, Bede leans towards tropological, or moral (even moralizing), interpretations. For instance, at Luke 10:17–18, when the disciples return from their mission and report that they cast out demons in Jesus's name,
Bede claims they are boasting of their own powers, and Christ's response ('I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven') is not an exclamation of triumph but a rebuke to their pride.
3.3 '… notes of my own to clarify their sense and interpretation'
Some parts of the commentary on Luke are more 'original' than others, e.g., the first four chapters of Book 2, encompassing Luke 4:14 to 5:12, which have relatively few extended quotations. Even when he is writing in his own voice, though, Bede is constantly mindful of patristic exegetical practice and seeks to model his own work on this practice. One recurrent tactic, comparable in a sense to intertextual exegesis, is the use of biblical testimonia to back up his opinions, a move typical of Gregory:97 for example, commenting on Luke
12:33 (the injunction to sell all one possesses and give alms), Bede says:
For when one has scorned all possessions for the Lord's sake, it is appropriate that one nevertheless afterwards labour with the work of one's hands so as to be able both to support oneself and to give alms. Hence the Apostle boasts, saying: I have not coveted any man's silver, or gold, or apparel, as you yourselves know. For such things as were needful for me and those who are with me, these hands have furnished. I have showed you all things, how that so labouring you ought to support the weak. [Acts 20:33–35]
Bede's account of Christ stilling the storm on the lake (Luke 8:22 sqq.) is a highly original allegory, where the sea is 'the dark and bitter commotion of 95 See Kendall, 'Imitation and the Venerable Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica', 166–68.
96 Cf. Jerome, Hebr. nom. (CCSL 72:67.19).
97 Hart-Hasler, 'Bede's Use of Patristic Sources', 202.
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the present age' and the ship is the cross, on which Christ 'slept' in death and 'awoke' at the Resurrection. Bede adds a short 'literal level' interpre tation at the end (from Jerome) that the Creator of the world commands all his creation. He then indulges in a lengthy series of parallels from other seaside episodes such as the miraculous draught of fish.
Earlier, we discussed how Bede structured his commentary into six books to reflect his understanding of the architecture of Luke's Gospel.
Within this framework, however, Bede varies his exegetical strategies along lines dictated by the rhythm of the Gospel. Book 1 is dominated by historical narration, beginning with the annunciation of John the Baptist's birth to his father Zechariah, so Bede's exposition focuses on explaining the details of that narrative.98 There is opportunity for doctrinal exposition, notably on the nature of the Incarnation and Virgin Birth or the theology of circumcision. But the text does not give him many opportunities to address moral exhortations; an interesting exception is the address to 'shepherds of the Church' in his discussion of the annunciation to the shepherds. And only at the end of Book 1 does he launch into an extended moral disquisition.
Beginning with Book 2, however, Luke's Gospel shifts from a temporally sequential narrative to a more episodic mode of exposition. Accounts of miracles are layered between records of sermons and parables, dialogues with disciples and other individuals, and confrontations with those who refuse to accept Christ's message. Each type of episode prompts a different exegetical strategy. When the text recounts Christ's hostile encounters with the Pharisees and others, the exposition amplifies the theme of Jewish pride and stubbornness.
Christ's miracles stimulate a rather distinctive response. On many occasions, Bede displays concern that the wording of the Gospel text might suggest that Christ was not omnipotent or omniscient, or that Luke himself was not divinely inspired. For example, in the account of the healing of the centurion's slave (Luke 7:2), Bede is anxious that an alert reader could be troubled by the evangelist's statement that the slave was going to die, when in fact the slave did not die. He evades this problem by claiming that Luke knew that the slave would die if Christ did not heal him, or that he would eventually die someday, just as the prophet Isaiah told
King Hezekiah that he was about to die, even though the king received a reprieve. At Luke 7:6 Bede faces another problem: why did Christ actually
98 See above, section 2.2.
INTRODUCTION
go to the centurion's house, when he could have healed the slave with a word? 'Surely', says Bede, he did this so that his powers would not be thought impotent because he travelled physically, but rather, for the sake of an example of humility. On another occasion he did not wish to come to cure the son of the ruler (John
4:46–50) lest he seem to honour wealth. Here, he consented to go immediately to the slave of the centurion, lest he seem to despise the servile condition.
When Jesus 'marvels' at the faith of the centurion (Luke 7:9) Bede rushes to assure the reader, in the words of Augustine (De Genesi contra
Manicheos), that this is not a sign of mental confusion, but a lesson to us that we should be awe-struck. Examples of this anxiety to preserve
Christ's divine powers against even the smallest doubt could be multiplied.
Sometimes the explanation seems strained (e.g., Christ did not have to ask the demon expelled from the Gerasene man what his name was, but he did so to enhance the audience's appreciation of his power). Elsewhere Bede deflects anticipated criticism that Christ seems to lose his temper (Luke
9:41), or that the disciples are stupid (Luke 9:45, 18:34).
These instances related to miracles are part of a larger pattern of 'asides' in which Bede addresses questions from a hypothetical reader, prefacing his remarks with 'perhaps someone will ask …' or a similar turn of phrase.
Sometimes the issues are semantic (for example, on the different meanings of 'adore' in Luke 4:8) or historical (is the woman with the alabaster jar
[Luke 7:36–37] identical with the one who anoints Christ in Bethany in John's Gospel?), but at other times they impinge on Christ's identity and nature. 'If anyone is bothered' that Christ commanded the leper whom he had cured to obey the Mosaic law (Luke 5:14), Augustine can clear up the problem. At Luke 5:15 he enlists Gregory to explain why Christ commanded the leper not to reveal who healed him, when he surely knew that the leper would disobey (lest we conclude that Christ desired something he could not attain). Did Christ break a commandment by refusing to obey the summons of his mother (Luke 8:19)? Did he ignore his own teaching about not casting pearls before swine (20:34)? And why are the Jews only responsible for the martyrdom of the righteous from Abel to Zechariah (Luke 11:51)? One imagines Bede's brethren, or indeed Bede himself, puzzling over this one and, without a patristic source to assist, Bede ventures an explanation of his own:
Why from the blood of Abel, who first suffered martyrdom, is not to be wondered at, but it must be asked, why up to the blood of Zechariah, when
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
not only are there many who were killed after him up to the birth of Christ, but also immediately after Christ's birth the innocent children in Bethlehem were killed by this generation. Perhaps because Abel was a shepherd of sheep, and Zechariah a priest, and the one was slain in the field, and the other in the courtyard of the temple, he wanted to make known under their name martyrs of both kinds, that is to say, both the laity and those dedicated to the office of the altar.
Returning to the treatment of miracles, we find Bede is also interested in drawing out the symbolism of the condition that Christ repairs through the miracle. For example, his raising of the dead man, the only son of his mother, who was being carried to his funeral through the city gates (Luke
7:11–18), prompts this elaborate allegory, which closes with a homiletic apostrophe:
This dead man, who was carried out of the gate of the city in the sight of many, signifies that man is rendered senseless by the deadly destruction of his offences, and in addition that he is not hiding the death of his spirit upon the bed of the heart, but disclosing it by word and deed to the sight of many, as it were through the gates of his own city. He is well said to have been the only son of his mother, because, although formed from many persons, mother
Church is one perfect and immaculate virgin, and yet all the faithful very properly confess themselves to be sons of the universal Church. For any of the elect, when instructed in the faith, is a son; when he instructs others, he is a mother … . I think that the gate of the city, where the dead man was carried out, stands for any one of the corporeal senses. For he who sows discord among brothers, who speaks injustice on high, is carried dead through the gate of the mouth. Whoever will look at a woman to lust after her [Matt. 5:19], reveals the signs of his death through the gate of his eyes. Whoever willingly opens his ear to idle tales and lewd songs or slanders, makes this gate of the soul the gate of his death, and whoever does not guard his other senses, himself surrenders the gates of death to himself. I pray, Lord Jesus, that you make all the gates of my city gates of justice, that I may go in to them and give praise to your name [Ps. 117:19/118:19], and that the stench of the corpse carried in not reach your majesty, who frequently visits it with your celestial ministers, but that salvation may take possession of its walls, and praise, its gates.
Here Bede seems to be modelling his exposition on the point-by-point allegoresis of Augustine on the miracle of the Gerasene swine (Luke
8:32–36, 38–39: references in the translation below).
Bede also ties each of the three miracles of resurrection from the dead (the widow's son, the daughter of Jairus, and Lazarus) together with a moral interpretation (Luke 8:55b):
INTRODUCTION
For according to the moral sense, those three dead people whom the Saviour raised up in their bodies signify three kinds of resurrection of souls. For some by giving consent to wicked delight but concealing the thought of sin inflict death upon themselves. But the Saviour shows that he restores such people to life by reviving the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, who had not yet been carried outside, but was dead inside the house, hiding vice as it were in her secret heart. Others, not only by consenting to wicked delight, but also by performing the evil they took delight in, bring on their own death outside the gates. And showing that he brings these to life again, if they repent, he raises up the young son of the widow who had been brought outside the gates, and restored him to his mother, because he restored the soul recovering from the darkness of sin to the unity of the Church, as we have previously taught. But some, not only by thinking or doing illicit things, but also by the very habit of sinning, corrupt themselves by burying themselves as it were. And truly the power and grace of the Saviour is not diminished in raising these people up, even though anxious thoughts are present, which keep watch over their salvation like sisters devoted to Christ. For to proclaim this, he raised Lazarus from the dead, who had been four days already in the grave [John 11:17], and whose sister attested that he was already stinking [John 11:39], because the worst infamy is accustomed to accompany wicked deeds.99
The more grievous the level of sin symbolized by the dead person, the more words Jesus uses to effect the miracle and the larger the crowd of witnesses.
Finally, Bede supplements Luke by bringing in material from the other gospels. He views Luke as a historian both of the life of Christ and of the primitive Church,100 and implies that he was using the other evangelists as sources: e.g., Luke 7:10, 'But it is the custom of the blessed Luke to abridge things that he saw were fully expounded by the other evangelists, or even deliberately to omit them. On the other hand, things that he knew were omitted by them, or touched on briefly, he usually elucidates very skilfully'. Bede therefore feels free to use Matthew and Mark to flesh out
Jesus's explanation of the parable of the Sower (Luke 8:12) or to supply from Matthew the explanation of the parable of the expulsion of the demon
(Luke 11:26b) missing from Luke. Comparison with the other gospels 99 A reference to the three resurrections in Luke's Gospel and the significance of their respective locations (although without Bede's moral interpretation) is also found in the 7th c.
Hiberno-Insular Expositio euangeliorum (PL 30. 571C): see above, 28.
100 Bede stands out in this respect, as well as in his sensitivity to the evangelist's methods:
Kelly, 'Bede's Exegesis of Luke's Infancy Narrative', 68.
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raises the issue of their occasional discrepancy. A casual reader of Luke's narrative (Luke 3:22b) would probably assume that John the Baptist was already in prison and that Jesus was alone when he heard the voice of God.
But Matthew and Mark put the story of John's imprisonment well after this, which takes place in John's presence. The number of petitions in the Lord's
Prayer differs among the synoptics (Luke 11:2–4): Bede uses Augustine's Enchiridion to reconcile them. The disagreement of the three synoptics over the disease afflicting the demoniac boy (Luke 9:39) is subsumed by allegory of Bede's own devising: the disease is foolishness, and fools are never consistent. Bede's scrupulous efforts to iron out these differences
(ably assisted in many instances by Augustine's Harmony of the Gospels) is spurred by his memories of recent controversies, 'for it was impossible for any evangelist to write a falsehood' (Luke 6:2).
3.4 A preacher's strategies Sometime in the 720s Bede assembled a volume of fifty homilies on the Gospels. Fourteen of these homilies are on passages from Luke and of these all but two (Luke 2:20 on the Nativity of John the Baptist and Luke
2:25 for the dedication of a church) share material with the commentary on Luke. These sermons are difficult to date, and hence it is not possible to determine whether in any particular case the homily was reworked for the commentary or the commentary for the homily. In some cases, the similarity is very striking: Bede's sermon for the Purification (1.18) contains a section that matches the commentary almost verbatim; on the other hand, the sermon 1.19 for the post-Epiphany period takes Luke 2:42–52 as its pericope, but shares only phrases and verbal echoes with the commentary.
We have signalled these parallels in our notes.101
Del Giacco's detailed comparison of the commentary and the corresponding homilies shows that, even when Bede is using much the same material in both texts, he is alert to the fact that they each have a distinctive purpose and perhaps a different audience. Following the example of Augustine and other fathers, Bede adopts a more animated and less literary style when he is composing a sermon.102 He also avoids discussing discrepancies between the gospels, and edits his extracts from the Fathers
101 In identifying and analysing these parallels we lean heavily on the work of Del Giacco,
'Exegesis and Sermon', 9–29.
102 Del Giacco, 'Exegesis and Sermon', 13.
INTRODUCTION
to eliminate recondite material.103 Bede seems to avoid complex theological explanations when he is writing a sermon. For example, when treating the 'overshadowing' of Mary by the power of God (1:35), Bede offers the same interpretation in both his homily and his commentary: like a tree or a cloud that shades a person from the blazing sun, Christ's humanity shaded the temporal womb of Mary so that it could contain Christ's divinity. However, the commentary stresses Christ's dual nature in a rather abstract discussion, while the homily shifts the balance to the human side.104
Was Bede writing a commentary for a restricted audience of monks and a sermon for a broader and less homogeneous one? In the Ecclesiastical
History autobiography discussed above, Bede says that he wrote his commentaries for his brethren. But Conor O'Brien argues that the commen taries were directed not only to monks but to a clerical audience with pastoral duties to whom Bede would furnish both materials for preaching and moral encouragement to action. Small details in the Luke commentary show how conscious Bede was of a wider readership. For example, he comments on Luke 18:40–41 by reproducing a passage from Gregory's Homilies on the Gospels, but drops Gregory's apostrophe to his 'dearest brothers', which identifies the audience as monks.105 On the other hand, Bede cannot resist following Ambrose's lead in singling out virgins as the particular audience of comments on the virtues of the Virgin Mary (Luke 1:40).106 In a similar vein, the commentary's lengthy allegory of the 'turtledove or two young pigeons' offered at Christ's circumcision (Luke 2:24) focuses on the distinction between the contemplative and active lives (a suitable theme for monks), while the corresponding treatment in Homily 1.18 gives a moral reading: the turtledove symbolizes chastity; the pigeon, simplicity.107 And, in his commentary on Luke 17:34b, Bede identifies the one who will be 'left
103 Del Giacco, 'Exegesis and Sermon', 14–16; for examples, see our notes on Luke 1:26–7,
24:36 below.
104 Del Giacco, 'Exegesis and Sermon', 20.
105 O'Brien, Bede's Temple, 33. This view is also held by McClure, 'Bede's Notes on Genesis', 17–30. DeGregorio, 'The Venerable Bede and Gregory the Great', 43–60, contrasts
Gregory's predilection for mystical interpretation with Bede's more tropological bent. See also Holder, 'Bede and the Tradition of Patristic Exegesis', 399–411.
106 Ambrose addresses virgins (plural) and Bede a singular 'virgin', but Bede was probably not thinking of a particular individual.
107 Hom. 1.18, in Bede, Opera homiletica, ed. Hurst (CCSL 122:129.52–130.65); trans.
Martin and Hurst, Bede the Venerable: Homilies on the Gospels 1:181. See Martin, 'Bede and Preaching', 166–67.
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
behind' at the Second Coming as the person who disrupts 'monastic life'.
This would support Del Giacco's position that Bede's commentary was directed to dedicated religious, while his sermons envisaged an audience more engaged in the world. For example, Bede's sermon 1.6 on the Nativity and the corresponding section of the commentary (Luke 2:8 sqq.) both link the shepherds to teachers and preachers, but treat contemplation differently.
While both digress upon 'The Word made flesh', it is the commentary which holds up for admiration the fact that the shepherds wish to see not the child, but rather the Word itself. This focus upon the Word is heightened in the commentary where it speaks of a vision of the divine achieved through long contemplation. In like manner, the ecclesiastical pastors of the commentary, through divine revelation, are lifted to a state of contemplation. For the homily audience this contemplation is more a gift delayed: they should hurry to see and embrace the words of the angels, with love and faith, that they may in the future (that is, after death and resurrection) comprehend with a vision of perfect recognition.108
It should be noted that only the commentary (2:18) compares the shepherds to Moses seeing God in the Burning Bush.109
Support for this view comes from Bede's comment on Luke 5:16: 'And [Jesus] retired into the desert and prayed'. Bede begins with a passage from Gregory's Moralia that argues for a balance between action and contem plation: to love God should not hinder love of neighbour, or vice versa.
But he follows this with his own remarks that give unequivocal priority to contemplation:
Indeed, to leave behind the preoccupations of disabling thoughts and to pray on the mountain with one's whole heart, is to hasten to the eternal joys of divine contemplation. To retire into the desert and pray is to repress the turmoil, surging up from within, of earthly desires, and to seek for oneself something hidden with the Lord, where one may speak with him silently about one's inner longings, with all external uproar hushed.
In evaluating the audience of the commentary, it is important to recall that this was (to the best of our knowledge) the first work that Bede composed for an audience of any kind outside Wearmouth-Jarrow. As his career unfolded and his thinking about the role of spirituales magistri and sancti praedicatores evolved, so his views about the audience for 108 Del Giacco, 'Exegesis and Sermon', 17.
109 Del Giacco, 'Exegesis and Sermon', 19.
INTRODUCTION
his commentaries may have evolved; moreover, we need not take his claims about his audience in the Ecclesiastical History entirely literally.
In the Luke commentary, however, he still seems to be imagining a monastic reader as his principal audience. Hence when he composed a sermon on the same theme (whether he did so before or after completing the commentary), he edited out the more expressly monastic references and emphasized the more pastoral themes suggestive of a mixed clerical audience.110
It is also important to recall that the commentary on Luke draws a significant amount of its patristic material from homiletic sources, especially Ambrose's commentary (initially delivered as sermons),
Gregory's homilies on the Gospel and on Ezekiel, but also his homilet ically structured Moralia, and Augustine's sermons. The commentary is particularly apt to read like a homily in passages from Luke where Christ himself is pronouncing a sermon. For example, much of Bede's exposition of the Sermon on the Mount is derived from Augustine's On the Lord's
Sermon (which itself is homiletic in character). When Bede speaks in his own voice, though, he occasionally employs second-person forms of address that are suggestive of a sermon. Commenting on Luke 6:39 ('Can the blind lead the blind?'), Bede says:
If, it says, anger has blinded you against someone who has committed violence and avarice against someone who asks, will you be able to tend to his defect, when your mind is defective? Or is only he who did the wrong to be considered guilty, and not you also who were unable to bear it? But if his wickedness finds you mild and of a peaceful spirit, not only will he be stirred to repentance, but you will be presented with the reward of patience, because with a seeing eye, that is, with a serene heart, you took care to lead one who was blind to the light.
In sum, the boundary between commentary and sermon is highly porous.
3.5 A historian's strategies So also is the boundary between history and commentary. In On the Temple Bede speaks of reading the Bible 'in the historical sense' [iuxta historicum sensum] and then defines this as the sense that displays
110 See, for example, the discussion of the reason for the persistence of the stigmata
(Luke 24:40) and the corresponding homily, which is more hortatory and insistent that the resurrection be preached and that neglect to do so will be punished: Del Giacco, 'Exegesis and Sermon', 17–18.
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
'for our imitation the actions of the righteous' [iustorum nobis actus in exemplum].111 The prologue to the Ecclesiastical History famously defines the mission of history-writing as providing good examples for the reader to imitate.112 That being said, there are aspects of the commentary that relate specifically to Bede's understanding of the scope and methods of the historian.
The first of these is proclaimed in his comment on Luke 1:1–4. Bede is persuaded that the four Gospels are actually one single account;
Luke was aware of what the other evangelists had written, and chose on occasion to abbreviate or exclude material the others had 'already' dealt with (e.g., the explanation of the parable of the Sower discussed above).
This commits Bede to addressing and resolving differences between their accounts: consensus evangeliorum is, in short, a historical method.113
Bede is following the Fathers here. We have already mentioned how he uses Jerome's commentary on Matthew as a surrogate commentary on Luke; but Jerome himself sometimes used Luke to gloss Matthew. For instance, in the quotation from Luke 8:24–25, Jerome's commentary on Matthew 8:26 speaks of Jesus commanding and rebuking the storm on the Lake of Galilee. Matthew does not speak of 'rebuking', but Luke does, so Jerome is gesturing towards the third Gospel in his commentary on the first.
The second is conveyed in a famous passage where Bede comments on Luke 2:33: 'And his father and mother were wondering at those things which were spoken concerning him'.
He calls Joseph the father of the Saviour, not because he truly was his father, as the Photinians would have it, but because he was held by all to be his father to preserve Mary's reputation. Neither was the evangelist forgetful, since he reported that she had conceived from the Holy Spirit and had given birth as a virgin, but, expressing the belief of the common people, which is the true law of history, he calls Joseph the father of Christ.
'The true law of history' is a phrase that reappears in the preface to the Ecclesiastical History. There Bede is discussing his source material and, in particular, the personal testimonies and memories on which he was obliged to rely when written documents were absent or scanty. He chose
111 Bede, De templo 2, ed. Hurst (CCSL 119A:229.1470, 1487); trans. Connolly, Bede: On the Temple, 112; see O'Brien, Bede's Temple, 171.
112 Colgrave and Mynors, eds, Bede's Ecclesiastical History, 2–3.
113 Ray, 'Bede, the Exegete, as Historian', 128–32.
INTRODUCTION
his material 'not from any one source but from the faithful testimony' of 'innumerable' and 'reliable' witnesses.
So I humbly beg the reader, if he finds anything other than the truth set down in what I have written, not to impute it to me. For, in accordance with the principles of true history (quae uera historiae lex est) I have simply sought to commit to writing what I have collected from common report, for the instruction of posterity.114
As usual, Bede is following the footsteps of the fathers here: in this case, Jerome's Against Helvetius. The issue Jerome is addressing is precisely this passage in Luke 2:33: Jerome avers that when the evangelists refer to Joseph as the father of Jesus they are simply relating common opinion.115
A number of scholars have interpreted uera lex historiae to mean that, in matters of human history, what is commonly understood as true can be accepted as true regardless of strict factuality, if the author's intention is either to make a moral point or to avoid distracting or irritating the reader with pedantic details or unresolvable questions.116 In an important article
Roger Ray refined this view, arguing that uera lex historiae for Jerome was not a core principle of historiography but a rhetorical exception, 'a brief strategic departure from the normal goal of factual truth' in the interests of a greater good – in this case, the Virgin Mary's public reputation, particularly within the narrative context of Luke 2:33.117 In the Ecclesiastical History
Bede uses the phrase in a rather different way, but with a similar rhetorical purpose, namely to excuse any lapses from factuality on the grounds that he was obliged to use sources he could not always verify. In neither case, though, is it the true law of history, but at best only a true law of history.118
Walter Goffart critiqued Ray's interpretation, arguing that Bede's uera lex historiae is indeed a historiographical issue, and that it refers to the deficiencies of human history in the light of theological truth. The 'true law' in fact marked 'the inherent limitation of historical discourse' to grasp
114 Colgrave and Mynors, eds, Bede's Ecclesiastical History, 6–7.
115 See Jones, Saints' Lives and Chronicles, 83.
116 E.g., Brown, A Companion to Bede, 105. For example, in his commentary on Acts, Bede excuses Stephen's historical errors in his defence before the Council on the grounds that he was relating what his accusers believed, and did not wish to distract from his main point:
Expositio actuum apostolorum, ed. Laistner (CCSL 121:32.31–33.2); trans. Martin, Bede:
Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, 71–72.
117 Ray, 'Bede's Vera Lex Historiae', 5; see 'Bede, the Exegete', 130.
118 Ray, 'Bede's Vera Lex Historiae', 2; see Holder, 'Bede and the New Testament', 154;
Thacker, 'Bede and History', 175.
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revealed truth, 'the limitation that made the Evangelist speak of the son of Joseph and keep the immaculate conception to himself'.119
We would propose that closer inspection of the Luke commentary suggests a different approach to this problem. Bede follows the passage cited above by a quotation from Augustine's Harmony of the Gospels. And here Augustine argues that Luke was not at all mistaken, let alone telling a lie, by calling Joseph the father of Jesus. Joseph is just as much Jesus's father as he is Mary's husband. He did not have intercourse with Mary, but the two were truly man and wife, indeed more truly than they would have been if they had been married in the more conventional way; likewise,
Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus, but has every right to be called his father because he adopted Jesus as his son. In sum, there is no gap between 'the true law of history' and theological truth, nor does this
'true law' condone relating falsehoods or errors. What is an error on the surface of the text is a fact to those who read with spiritual knowledge; moreover, 'common belief' can, albeit unwittingly, convey theological meaning. Commenting on Luke 1:1–4, Bede says that the authors of pseudo-gospels merely 'set forth a narration in order' and did not convey
'the truth of history' (historiae ueritatem): that is, its theological meaning –one might say its identity with theological verity.
Bede's commentary on Luke also reveals his interest in the data of history. He is particularly invested in the historical context in Judaea and the Roman Empire, e.g., filling in the background on King Herod (Luke
1:5), or quoting Josephus on the biography of Quirinius, governor of Syria (Luke 2:23), or the taxation arrangements in the province (20:20). Bede's interest in the history, architecture, rites, and priestly hierarchy of the Jerusalem Temple is pervasive, and plays the role of a guiding theme in the commentary; hence we will discuss it separately below. In addressing discrepancies between Luke and the other evangelists, Bede shows a distinctive focus on questions of chronology. His preface to Book 2 is especially telling. John the Evangelist, says Bede, was the last to compose a gospel. For when he read the synoptics, he realized that they all began
Christ's mission after John the Baptist had been thrown into prison. John the Evangelist therefore set out to fill in details about Christ's activities before this event. Bede signals this lapse of time as follows:
At the beginning of this, that is, my second book on Luke, I have given advance warning by means of this historical record [his memoratae historiae dictis],
119 Goffart, 'Bede's uera lex historiae Explained', 115.
INTRODUCTION
in order that readers should not think that what is going to be explained in what follows happened immediately after the fasting of forty days; rather they should understand that the miracles performed by the Lord, whether in Judea or in Galilee, followed sometime later.
Bede's close attention to chronology also surfaces in an off-hand remark in his discussion of Christ's circumcision (Luke 2:21). Bede asks why
Moses did not carry out circumcision on any of the Israelites in the desert, 'neglecting for forty uninterrupted years a manifestly divinely ordained practice which had been observed for four hundred and six years'. This chronological detail is offered without comment (it is not pertinent to the question he is addressing), but raises an interesting question. How did Bede arrive at the figure of 406 years between the birth of Isaac when Abraham was 100 years old, and the Exodus when Moses was eighty? In the brief
Chronicle in On Times Bede states that Isaac was sixty when he begat Jacob; that Jacob was ninety when he begat Joseph; that Joseph lived for 110 years; and that the servitude of the Hebrews in Egypt lasted 147 years for a total of 407 years.120 Later in his Greater Chronicle in The Reckoning of Time 66 (composed in 725) Bede puts the birth of Isaac at A.M. 2048 and the departure from Egypt at A.M. 2453, a period of 405 years.121 However these slight discrepancies might be explained (407 years in On Times; 406 in On Luke; 405 in The Reckoning of Time), they clearly indicate Bede's abiding interest in chronology.122 Certainly Bede's response to the question of why Moses did not circumcise the Israelites would not have suffered had this detail been omitted.
3.6 A scholar's and scientist's strategies Bede also brings to his project of commenting on Luke's gospel a distinctive array of erudition that can, with all due qualification, be called scientific.
The core of Bede's science was computus – the body of data, precept and mathematical procedure required to maintain the Christian calendar, notably in relation to determining the date of Easter. The data were, on 120 Bede, De temporibus 19; trans. Kendall and Wallis, On Times, 120.
121 Bede, DTR 66; trans. Wallis, The Reckoning of Time, 165–66.
122 If Bede were counting inclusively in The Reckoning of Time, the period from A.M. 2048 to 2453 could be said to equal 406 years. But he explains that the period of 430 years mentioned in Exod. 12:40–41 and Gal. 3:17 extends from A.M. 2023 to 2453, where he is certainly counting exclusively.
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the one hand, historical and biblical and, on the other, astronomical and cosmological. This determined the structure and contents of Bede's early treatises On the Nature of Things and On Times, which he later merged and greatly enlarged as The Reckoning of Time.123
Bede's intense interest in time reckoning leaks into his commentary on numerous occasions. For example, he draws attention to the relationship between the dates of the conception and birth of John the Baptist and of Jesus. John the Baptist was conceived on 24 September (nine months before the feast of his nativity on 24 June), at the autumnal equinox. Hence
John the Baptist says of Christ, 'He must increase but I must decrease (John 3:30)': that is, John's conception coincides with the point in the solar year when the night begins to be longer than the day. But Bede is concerned that 24 September is not, in fact, the astronomically correct date of the autumnal equinox. It was the traditional date in the Roman calendar, but by the fourth century astronomers and some computists in the eastern church had corrected the date of the vernal equinox – a critical marker for Easter – to 21 March. By implication, the date of the autumnal equinox should also be set at 21 September, and the solstices at the 21st day of December and June. This, however, would upset the symbolism of the dates of the conception and birth of Jesus and John. Commenting on Gabriel's annunciation to the Virgin Mary 'in the sixth month' (Luke
1:26), Bede finesses the issue:
You should understand that the sixth month is March, on the twenty-fifth day of which our Lord is said both to have been conceived and to have suffered, just as he was born on the twenty-fifth day of the month of December. If we believe both that the vernal equinox occurred on the former day, as many think, and that the winter solstice occurred on the latter, it is fitting that the one who enlightens every man that comes into this world [John 1:9] be conceived and born with an increase of light. But if anyone should prove that light either increases or overcomes the dark before the time of the Lord's birth and conception, we still say both that John was then preaching, before his coming, the kingdom of heaven [Acts 13:24], and also that the command is now given to preachers: Make a way for him who ascends upon the west.124
And the reason why John was conceived around [circa] the autumnal equinox and born around the summer solstice, he himself teaches, who speaks either of himself or of the Old Testament (as many believe): He must increase, but I must decrease.
123 See Wallis, 'Si Naturam Quaeras', 61–94 and 'Bede and Science', 113–26.
124 Ps. 67:5 (68:4).
INTRODUCTION
It makes no difference to the spiritual meaning of the passage whether one believes that the vernal equinox is on 25 March 'as many think' or not; for, even if it falls before that date, the theological significance is retained. Note as well that John is said to be conceived 'around' the equinox.125
Perhaps the most striking computistical passage is one announced by Bede himself (Luke 19:48b): 'Meanwhile I should like to notice briefly how beautifully the shadow of the Paschal feast of the Law agrees with our true
Paschal feast in which Christ is sacrificed … '. Bede then unpacks the Old Testament regulations for timing the choice and slaughter of the Passover lamb, to show how every detail of the ritual matches an event in the passion narrative. The day on which the lamb is brought into the house was the day of Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem:
And five days before the Paschal feast, that is, from the tenth day of the moon to the fourteenth day, they kept the lamb or goat they were going to sacrifice, because although even then they thirsted for his blood, nevertheless no man laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come (John 7:30; 8:20) … .
But at the end of the fourteenth day, that is, when the day had declined into evening, after he delivered to his disciples the sacraments to be celebrated of his body and blood, with those coming to bind him after he had been seized, what follows began to be fulfilled: And the whole multitude of the children of Israel will sacrifice it in the evening (Exodus 12:6). For not only the impious who mocked his death, but also the saints who mourned, stood by the cross of Jesus. I wanted to go over these matters briefly, in order to teach the reader that everything which follows in succession up to the passion of the Lord relates to the figure of the lamb kept in the house and prepared for slaughter.
In fact, what we see here is a preliminary sketch of what would become chapters 62 and 63 in The Reckoning of Time, on the allegorical meaning of the Paschal computus in relation to the Jewish laws concerning Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.126
Closely connected to Bede's concern with the symbolism of astronomy and cosmology is his deep fascination with number symbolism, and with manipulating that symbolism through arithmetical operations. In this he is drawing inspiration particularly from Augustine, but also from Irish
125 Del Giacco, 'Exegesis and Sermon', 16, remarks on the similarity of this passage in the commentary to The Reckoning of Time, notably chapter 30 (ed. Jones, 371–76; trans. Wallis,
86–89).
126 Ed. Jones, 454–9; trans. Wallis, 149–55, and commentary, 349–52.
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exegetes and computists.127 For example, much of the elaborate passage on the symbolism of forty-two, seventy-seven, and thirty (Jesus's age at his baptism) in Bede's commentary on Luke 3:38b comes from Augustine's
Harmony of the Gospels.
But Bede's interest in measurement tout court and in mathematical operations as a form of exegesis seems to go beyond patristic models. Bede is interested in all kinds of measurement, including money and coinage.
On Luke 12:6 he remarks that 'The tuppence for which five sparrows are sold … is a kind of very lightweight coin made up of two pennies.' The mechanics of Roman finger-reckoning come up repeatedly, particularly in relation to the 'perfection' of the number 100, where the calculator shifts from his left hand to his right (e.g., Luke 2:21).128
Bede also practises what might be called 'exegetical arithmetic' – the use of mathematical operations upon symbolic numbers to draw out their spiritual meaning. Here he is following in Augustine's footsteps, or at least learning from his example. Commenting on Luke 3:38b, Bede begins with a long quotation from Augustine on the significance of Luke's count of seventy-seven generations between Adam and Christ, starting from the observation that seventy-seven is the product of eleven and seven. Eleven is the number of sin (excess over the perfection of ten) and seven the number of humanity (the four parts of the body and the three powers of the soul).
Bede then follows this up with his own exegetical arithmetic of the number of generations in Matthew, namely forty-two.
Elsewhere, Bede is more independent. Speaking of the age of the prophetess Anna (Luke 2:35–36), he observes that her eighty-four years are the product of seven (which was the number of years she was married) and twelve:
Seven pertains to the course of this world, which stretches out over seven days; but twelve to the perfection of apostolic teaching. Therefore, either the universal Church or the individual faithful soul which has a care to give over the whole span of its life to apostolic teachings is praised for multiplying as it were seven by twelve and for serving the Lord for eighty-four figurative years.
127 In his computistical writing, Bede never lets number symbolism hijack his commitment to exact data; however, he will seize the opportunity afforded by the symbolism of a number when it arises to dilate on theological meanings: see Wallis, '"Number Mystique" in Early
Medieval Computus Texts', 181–99.
128 Bede describes this system of finger-calculation in The Reckoning of Time 1; see also
Wallis's commentary on this chapter, The Reckoning of Time, 254–63.
INTRODUCTION
Christ's visit to the Temple at the age of twelve (Luke 2:42–43) is handled in a similar way:
We can say this, because just as the number seven can signify the complete number or perfection, either of things or of times, so also can the number twelve, which consists of the parts of seven multiplied by themselves [i.e., 7 =
3 +4, 12 = 3 x 4]. Accordingly, where it is fitting that all places and times be filled, the beginning may dawn from the number twelve.
A special application of exegetical arithmetic is gematria. Gematria is based on the fact that letters in the Greek alphabet also function as numbers.
It involves calculating the numerical value of the letters in a name and then providing a symbolic interpretation of the result. In his Commentary on Revelation, Bede expressed scepticism at Primasius's gematrical interpre tation of the name of the beast '666',129 but in his own exegesis of Luke 2:21, on the naming of Jesus, he is more enthusiastic:
Not only the etymology of this sacred name, but also the very number that it contains in its letters is redolent of the mysteries of our eternal salvation. In fact, among the Greeks it is written IHCOYC with six letters, namely I and H and C and O and Y and C, the numerical values of which are ten, eight, two hundred, seventy, four hundred, and two hundred which together add up to eight hundred eighty-eight …. So we can also say that the name of the Saviour is made up of the perfect number eight, because he exhibited in himself the model of resurrection for mortals by rising again on the eighth day. It is made up also of eight multiplied by ten, because the Ten Commandments of the Law instructed us and likewise aided us to know how the number eight ought to be completed in a symbol of his resurrection.
He reinforces this in his remarks on the eighteen people killed by the collapse of the tower at Siloam (13:4–5):
The number eighteen [in Latin 'ten and eight'] is not an accident. Among the Greeks the number is expressed by I [iota = 10] and H [eta = 8], that is, by the same letters with which the name Jesus begins. They indicate that the Jews especially deserved to be damned, because, having heard the name of the Saviour, they preferred to reject it rather than to accept it.
Bede goes so far as to argue that 'exegetical arithmetic' is justified, even commanded, by Scripture itself. Commenting on the fact that Jesus was baptized at the age of thirty (Luke 3:23), he claims that this number
129 Ed. Gryson, 416–17; trans. Wallis, 205–06. Bede explains Greek letter-numerals and alludes to their usefulness as a code in The Reckoning of Time 1, trans. Wallis, 12, and commentary, 261–63.
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can reveal the symbolism of our baptism in accordance with the faith of the holy Trinity and the workings of the Decalogue of the Law. Of course, the Decalogue is understood the more sublimely and fulfilled the more devotedly by the revelation of the grace of faith. For he who said: Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit, taught that those who are going to be baptized have as it were a certain consecrated period of three years. It is as if he ordered this same time of three years to be multiplied by ten when he added: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.
3.7 Bede's 'monastic encyclopedia'
Exegesis and computus were facets of a single programme of Christian erudition that might be termed the 'monastic encyclopedia'. Its framework was laid out by Augustine, notably in On Christian Learning, but 'operation alized' by monastic practices of instruction, reading, and meditation.
It is not a discrete body of knowledge, 'but a web of reference points in Scripture, liturgy, doctrine, and discipline, onto which elements of profane learning … could be hung'.130
The threads of this web visible in Bede's commentary on Luke include philology in the form of interpretation of Hebrew names for people and places (Jerome's works being heavily mined here), but also details about the Hebrew language itself – e.g., 'Boanerges' should be 'Banereem'
(Luke 6:14b–15) and Hebrew has no letter 'P'. It broadens out to include geographical details: for example, Bede cites Isidore's account of the character and dimensions of the sea of Galilee (Luke 5:1), even though he does not allegorize either. The realia of the Bible also triggered curiosity in, for example, the nature of alabaster (Luke 7:36–37) or the eagle-stone
(Luke 17:36–37), for which Bede consulted Pliny, or biblical weights and measures (Luke 16:5–7, 19:13), for which he turned to Isidore.
The point of the monastic encyclopedia, though, was not the display of learning or lore but the derivation of religious teaching from natural similitudes. A striking example is provided by Bede's exegesis of Luke 8:1, where Christ's preaching tour in the company of his disciples is likened to an eagle's training of its young:
Just like, [Moses] says, the eagle enticing her chicks to fly, and hovering over them, he spread his wings, and has taken him and carried him on his shoulders
130 Wallis, 'Caedmon's Created World and the Monastic Encyclopedia', 99–100.
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[Deut. 32:11]. For just as chicks recently hatched cannot conquer the air by flying until they are fledged, so each and every one of the faithful, in order to be capable of flying to heaven, must first clothe themselves with the plumage of the virtues in the nest of faith. So, the teachers of the faithful, the apostles, inasmuch as they can also be set over others to instruct them, themselves ascend step by step to the heights. Indeed, the Lord at first teaches in synagogues, performs miracles, spreads his fame everywhere, receives the multitudes coming together to him, heals, and instructs. After this he appoints disciples, provides for them in the wedding of the bridegroom, leads them through the crops, and defends them from the false accusations of the Pharisees, as the eagle defends her tender chicks from snakebites by introducing [into the nest] a precious eagle-stone.
Bede's audience surely could intuitively grasp the analogy of eagle chicks learning to fly and the disciples learning to preach. The reference to the eagle-stone (aetitis) is more obscure, and Bede provides no explanation; it seems to be a case where the 'web' of references set trembling by the idea of 'eagle' turned up an element that Bede immediately recognized, but possibly might have escaped his readers. In this respect, the monastic encyclopedia is an adjunct to intertextual exegesis.
Finally, Bede's monastic encyclopedia made considerable space for medical learning.131 Commenting on Christ's statement that faith the size of a mustard seed could uproot a mulberry tree (Luke 17:6), he inserts a remedy (probably from Marcellus Empiricus) for 'purging' the head with a gargle made of mustard seed and honey. He allegorizes not only the ingredients but also the process of preparing the recipe:
Thus certainly faith which is put to the test by the pestle of temptations, skimmed by the sieve of discretion from all superficiality of trivial thoughts, and sweetened with the honey of perfect love, not only empties all the filthy waters of sins from the heart, which is the head of our inner man, in the present, but also prevents them from being able to congregate together again in the future.
In his commentary on Luke 11:27 Bede offers a theory of human reproduction to support the dogma of the two natures – human and divine
131 This is a subject that merits further research. Apart from the sources discussed here, one could point to Bede's use of Cassius Felix's De medicina in his Retractio in Actus
Apostolorum (ed. Laistner, 145, lines 15–25); his accounts of the miracle of John of Beverley in the Historia Ecclesiastica 5.3 indicate a familiarity with technical literature on bloodletting: see Wallis, Medieval Medicine: A Reader, 59–62.
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– of Christ. The cue is the outburst of the woman in the crowd: 'Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you have sucked'. Bede sees her as inspired by insight into the nature of the Incarnation, for if Christ had not derived his human flesh from the Virgin Mary there would be no point to blessing her womb or her breasts. For, according to natural philos ophers (phisicos), both seminal fluid and breast milk derive from same source; hence if Mary did not furnish the material for Christ's body, neither could she feed him from her breasts.132
Behind this statement lies a rather tangled ancient debate about male and female contributions to conception. Bede is clearly arguing, on the authority of the 'philosophers', that Mary must have provided her own female seminal fluid to make Christ's human body. Embryological texts derived from the Hippocratic tradition held that both men and women produce seed, and the union of these seeds results in conception. This view was readily accessible to Bede through Isidore of Seville, Etymologies
11.1.77. Isidore does not, however, claim that female seminal fluid and breast milk are connected, let alone that they derive from the same source.
Rather, '[milk] becomes what it is through the transformation of blood, for after birth, if any blood is not consumed as nourishment in the womb, it flows along a natural passageway to the breasts and, whitened due to their special property, it takes on the quality of milk'.133 The missing link that needs to be established is between female seed, blood, and breast milk.
The key figure here is Aristotle, who disputed the Hippocratic two-seed model of embryogenesis. Aristotle argued that only the male produced seed, which was the vehicle of form. The female could not produce seed, as she lacked the requisite vital heat; instead she provided the corresponding matter in the form of menstrual blood, the residue of undigested nutriment. Falling upon this menstrual blood, the semen consolidated it the way rennet consol idates milk into curd, thus initiating the organization of the foetal body
(Generation of Animals 1.19–20). It is this menstrual blood, the material 132 Bede also invokes the views of 'writers on natural history' [naturalium scriptores] concerning embryology in his homily on John 2:18–21, where he draws on Augustine's De diversis quaestionibus octaginta tribus to demonstrate that the forty-two years that it took to construct the temple (John 2:20) correspond to the forty-two days required to form the fetus in the uterus. Interestingly, milk appears here as well, but only as an analogy for the initial appearance of the conceptus: 'During the first six days after conception <the conceptus> has a likeness to milk … ' (Hom. 2.1, ed. Hurst, 189; trans. Martin and Hurst, Homilies on the Gospels 2:8).
133 Isidore, Etym. 11.1.77; trans. Barney et al., 236 (emphasis added).
INTRODUCTION
from which the infant body is formed, that Isidore is alluding to as the source of breast milk. But Isidore does not specify that the blood in question is menstrual blood, not does he link this blood with the female seed.
One text that does is the Gynaecia of Helvidius Vindicianus Afer. Vindicianus was a fourth-century North African well known to St Augustine, and the author of short summaries of medical theory. One of these, the Letter to Pentadium, was definitely available to Bede, as he cites it in chapter 35 of The Reckoning of Time.134 The Gynaecia is an introduction to anatomy combined with a short account of embryology, and it enjoyed considerable popularity in the early medieval period. The surviving manuscripts date from the eighth to the eleventh century, and some show evidence of interpolations from Isidore – a sure indication of active reading and use.135 In ch. 18, Vindicianus starts by explaining the origin of male seed in the brain. It descends through the spinal marrow and 'congeals in the form of semen in the kidneys'. It is then ejaculated into the female 'with a certain degree of heat of the internal organs and the menstrual blood and from the phlegm which resides in the kidneys, and from this condition blood evolves and becomes (female) seed'.136 Vindicianus is explicit that women have 'testes' (i.e., ovaries).137 Finally, in ch. 24 he clearly states that the fetus is formed by a mixture of 'paternal and maternal seed', which explains inherited characteristics.138
In sum, we feel confident in proposing that Bede stitched together his argument that Luke 11:27 supports the doctrine that Christ's humanity derived from the flesh of his mother Mary from two fisici, namely Isidore of Seville (the two-seed theory; the production of breast milk from blood) and Vindicianus (the two-seed theory; the formation of the foetus from menstrual blood that is the female seed). In Christ's case, the Holy Spirit substituted for the paternal seed, and thus Christ inherited both natures.
134 Ed. Jones, 373; trans. Wallis, 101.
135 Cilliers, 'Vindicianus's Gynaecia', 153–236; see particularly her comments on the manuscripts and text tradition, 154–60. On interpolation as an index of active engagement with medical texts, see Wallis, 'The Experience of the Book', 101–26.
136 Trans. Cilliers, 178–79 (emphasis added). As Cilliers observes (216–17, 221), this passage is quite confused and problematic. It conflates two ancient theories about the origin of sperm, namely the encephalogenic model (seed originates in the brain of the male) and the haematogenous theory (male seed evolves in the blood), as explained by Aristotle
(Generation of Animals 726b1–15).
137 Vindicianus (ed. Cilliers), 178–79.
138 Vindicianus (ed. Cilliers), 184–85.
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4. KEY THEMES IN ON LUKE
4.1 The temple Bede himself tells his readers that the temple is a dominant theme in On Luke. The gospel opens in the temple, where the priest Zechariah receives the angel's message about the impending birth of John the Baptist, and its final verse relates how, after Jesus's ascension, the disciples returned to Jerusalem and 'were always in the temple, praising and blessing God'
(Luke 24:52–53). Bede comments:
Among the four heavenly animals, the evangelist Luke is understood as symbolized by the calf, by the sacrifice of which those who were chosen for the priesthood were ordered to be consecrated, because more than the others, he undertook to expound the priesthood of Christ. In a beautiful manner he began his gospel with the service of the temple by the priesthood of Zechariah, and he completed it with the consecration of the temple, when he showed that in that place the apostles were going to be the ministers, so to speak, of the new priesthood, not with the blood of sacrificial victims, but with the praise and blessing of God.
These words resonate with the prologue-letter to Acca, where Bede quotes Augustine's Harmony of the Gospels:
Moreover, that Luke was symbolized by the calf on account of the greatest Victim of the priest neither side has doubted. For there the account of the narrator begins with the priest Zechariah, there the kinship of Mary and Elizabeth is mentioned, there the sacred mysteries of the first priesthood are said to have been fulfilled in the infant Christ, and various other things can be carefully observed, by which it becomes apparent that Luke's purpose had to do with the role of the priest.
The immediate aim of this quotation from Augustine is to prove that Bede was not 'introducing novelties' in his commentary on Revelation when he identified Matthew with the lion and Mark with the man; hence Bede's closing words of the commentary serve to cement his claim to orthodoxy.
But there is much more at stake here. On Luke marks the first full articulation of what would become a core theme in Bede's theology: what Conor O'Brien calls the 'temple image'. This temple image
'combined the static architecture of the temple with the dynamic ritual of its priests, thus allowing Bede to speak about both the eternal reality of the Church and the lived experience of its members through a single
INTRODUCTION
divinely sanctioned building'.139 It would bear fruit later in Bede's career in two very original works, On the Temple and On the Tabernacle (the historical predecessor and allegorical counterpart of the temple), and in his ambitious commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah. But its seed was planted in the Luke commentary140 and fertilized by the Codex Amiatinus that was being completed at Wearmouth-Jarrow even as Bede was writing. As we discussed above, the Codex Amiatinus prefaces the Old Testament with a schematic representation of the Mosaic Tabernacle, and the New Testament with a maiestas Domini – an image of Christ in glory, surrounded by the four evangelists and their animal symbols, a visual echo of both Ezekiel's vision of the Lord enthroned on his chariot and the Heavenly Court of Revelation 4. Both images are linked to the temple as symbol of the created cosmos, of the Church of the Jews and the Gentiles, and most significantly, of Christ himself. O'Brien argues that this imagery deeply shaped Bede's evolving thought as he composed the commentary on Luke.141
The image of the temple pervades On Luke to an almost intrusive degree. In his exegesis of Luke 2:31, Bede even shifts the scenes of the Visitation and the birth of John the Baptist to the precincts of the temple:
You see that it is not without reason that this evangelist is compared to the calf among the four animals. In his narrative, being as it were the animal destined for sacrifices, he dwells particularly on the Temple and on Jerusalem. For he starts with a priest praying at the altar, and the multitude of the people in the courtyard of the temple, and sends Mary to Jerusalem immediately after the Lord has been conceived, and puts her into the house of the chief-priest. He refers to the birth of the Baptist there, and immediately turns his attention to the Lord and transfers him there after his nativity with a sacrifice. He brings him to that place with his parents year after year, and situates him at the age of twelve in the temple with a group of doctors … . And after other such things, he closes at the end of his Gospel with the disciples praising God in the temple.
His rather spare treatment of the baptism of Christ ignites a lengthy meditation on the symbolism of the 'bronze sea', the monumental vessel for purifying visitors to the temple. The link is the number three:
139 O'Brien, Bede's Temple, 5. See also the thoughtful analysis of the 'conceptual temple' in Jennifer O'Reilly, 'Introduction', in Connolly, Bede: On the Temple.
140 It can be said that the seed was being readied even earlier, since Bede uses the temple as a 'case study' of allegory in De schematibus et tropis 2.12, ed. Kendall (CCSL 123A:168.262–
169.273); trans. Kendall, The Figures of Rhetoric, 207.
141 O'Brien, Bede's Temple, passim, esp. 7, 92–97, 183–84.
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It is said to be enclosed with a thin cord of thirty cubits on the outside, and to be able to contain three thousand measures, since with the heart we believe for the sake of justice, but with the mouth confession is made for the sake of salvation … . And since the bronze sea comes to mind, it is agreeable as well to inquire how it is suited in other ways to the measure of baptism. From brim to brim, it says, of ten cubits, because we must not be constricted by earthly anxiety, but expanded by the expectation of the heavenly denarius. Its brim was like the brim of a cup or the leaf of a crisped lily, of which the cup of the Lord's passion is represented by the first, and the unveiled splendour of his resurrection by the other … . Its thickness of three inches is in order that all the power of those who baptize may be strengthened by the perfection of faith, hope, and love. It was five cubits in height, because whatever thing is offended by sight, hearing, taste, smell, or touch is washed wholly clean by the water of regeneration. The [twelve cast bronze] oxen that support [the 'sea'] look by threes towards the separate quarters of the sky, in order that the entire world may be baptized in the faith of the holy Trinity. And the bronze sea stood on the right side of the sanctuary of the priests over against the east southward, because when the grace of the New Testament breathed forth, it was given by the Orient from on high, (who) has visited us.
Almost any detail in the gospel seems to trigger a reference to the temple in Bede's mind: for example, the number of people miraculously fed by Christ on two occasions, namely 5,000 and 4,000 (Luke 9:14):
I think for the sake of signifying mystically the difference that five gilded columns indeed were ordered in the entrance of the tabernacle, but four were ordered before the sanctuary, that is, the holy of holies [cf. Exod. 26:32–37].
Because, of course, beginners are restrained from sinning by the Law, but the perfected are admonished by grace to live more devoutly in God.
Christ's reference to 'preaching from the housetops' (Luke 12:3) prompts Bede to explain that Palestinian houses have flat roofs, not 'peaked roofs after our fashion':
Hence the Law ordered that whoever built a new house should put a wall for the roof around the entire edge, lest innocent blood be shed there by anyone slipping and falling headlong [cf. Deut. 22:8]. And in the construction of the temple we read: And he covered the house with roofs of cedar. And he built a floor over all the house five cubits in height [3 Kings 6:9–10].
Bede is particularly captivated by the details of temple worship and by the organization of the priesthood. Interestingly, he cites Origen's claim
(Luke 21:5–6) that a principal reason why the temple had to be destroyed was
INTRODUCTION
lest perchance anyone still a suckling infant in the faith, if he saw those things enduring, should be snatched away by the very sight of the various forms while dazzled in amazement at the ritual of sacrifice and at the arrangement of the services. But God, foreseeing our weakness and wishing his Church to be multiplied, caused all those things to be overthrown and completely removed, so that when those things had beyond any doubt ceased to exist, we might believe these things to which those types had pointed the way to be true.
Bede felt the seductive pull of the temple and its liturgy at a deep level.142
Against the backdrop of this almost obsessive fascination, O'Brien argues that Bede's use of the temple image follows several interpretative pathways, two of which are represented in On Luke. First, the temple is not only a historical structure but a figure of history itself: 'Thinking about the temple image forced Bede to consider the relationship between the Jewish past and the Christian present, and even, when the temple was read as symbolic (rather than simply a part) of history, the relationship between the past, present, and future'.143 The 'present Church' of the Sixth Age is in continuity with the worship of the temple; at the same time, the eternal
Church of the world to come would see the generations of the faithful from among the Jews and the Gentiles form a heavenly temple, which is Christ himself.144 For example, when Christ instructs the leper whom he has just healed to show himself to the priest and offer the sacrifice demanded in the Law (Luke 5:14b), Bede feels impelled to address those who object to the Lord approving the very sacrifices which the Church rejects. First, he calls on Augustine to explain that, prior to Christ's passion, the sacrifices of the Old Law remained in effect. Then Bede adds his own comment:
Indeed, because this man signifies allegorically the human race enfeebled by sins … . And those who were despised and long cut off from the stronghold of the people of God, now at last may be able to return to the temple and to be offered to the priest, namely to him to whom it is truly said: You are a priest forever [Ps. 109:4 (110:4)], and to hear from the Apostle: For the temple of God is holy, which you are [I Cor. 3:17]. And they may make an offering for their
142 O'Brien, Bede's Temple, 56; Jennifer O'Reilly comments that Bede is reluctant to provide details about the architecture and liturgy of papal Rome, and that in rewriting Adomnán's De locis sanctis he removed the first-person narrations of the pilgrim Arculf, perhaps reflecting his concern with the dangers of pious material curiosity: 'Bede on Seeing the God of Gods in Zion', 3–29, esp. 3–6.
143 O'Brien, Bede's Temple, 47.
144 O'Brien, Bede's Temple, 70.
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cleansing as Moses commanded, that is, that they present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God [Rom. 12:1].
In sum, the rites of the temple remain valid and good, but in the present age are enacted on a spiritual level.
Perhaps the most striking expression of this theme is the prologue to Book Six, which covers the Passion and Resurrection. Bede emphasizes that these events constitute the hinge of human history, the great turning point when all that had been foreshadowed in the Old Testament would be fulfilled and superseded by the new dispensation. He does so by invoking the image of Solomon's temple, 'built … as an image of Christ and the Church', drawing attention to the passage in 3 Kings 7:45–46 that describes how the bronze vessels were made using casts of clay models, which were afterwards discarded.
Therefore, it is as though the sacred rites of the Law come first like a clay mould, so that the gifts of gospel truth may follow like vessels of fine brass.
Let the common earthenware pot fashioned for the occasion wear away, so that the splendour of the permanent ornamental vessel which lay hidden may be exposed to view … . With the passage of time, when the sea of brass in whose vivifying wave all those about to enter the Church would be baptized, and when the twin columns of the Law bearing lilies on their capitals [cf. 3 Kings
7:19] would strengthen on this side and that the gate of the sheep devoted to Christ, and when the twice-five hand-basins of our works were prepared for the cleansing of the sacrificial victims [cf. 3 Kings 7:38–39], the earthenware which concealed these things for a long time in the plains is broken apart so that thereafter countless thousands of vessels of election might be brought to the Temple mount. That is, with the impending proclamation of the Lord's passion, by which the sacraments of the Church were revealed which were formerly hidden by the covering of the letter, the clay earth little by little is loosened, and that shadow that concealed heavenly secrets now begins to be destroyed.
Not all of the interpretative motifs that would later coalesce in On the Temple are present in On Luke, but O'Brien argues that the connection of the bronze 'sea' to baptism (both here and in the passage discussed above) is distinctive and original.145
145 O'Brien, Bede's Temple, 183–84. It also appears in Bede's commentary on the Song of Songs, In Cantica canticorum, ed. Hurst (CCSL 119B:322.285–92), which Arthur Holder argues was also composed prior to 716: 'The Anti-Pelagian Character of Bede's Commentary on the Song of Songs', 91–103.
INTRODUCTION
Secondly, the temple is Christ himself. This is a note that Bede strikes early on, when he compares the womb of the Virgin Mary to the temple as it appeared in the vision of Ezekiel (Luke 2:23). But it features most prominently in the account of the passion, where Bede uses the unconven tional phrase 'the altar of the cross' (Luke 22:15, 23:38). Commenting on the denouement of the parable of the vineyard, where the tenants expel the son of the owner from the vineyard and kill him (Luke 20:15), Bede draws the obvious parallel with the Crucifixion, but uses the detail of the expulsion to tie it to the tabernacle/temple:
In a prefiguration of this Moses put the altar of holocaust on which the blood of victims was poured out, not within the tabernacle, but at its entry, teaching allegorically not only that the altar of the Lord's cross should be placed outside the gate of Jerusalem, but also that Christ himself, the true sacrifice of the Father, should not be received by the inmost heart of the house of the Jews, which he had approached in order to sanctify it, but that he should be bathed in his own blood out of doors.
In sum, the image of the temple is present at every turn in On Luke, and proclaimed by Bede himself as a key to the meaning of the text – Christ himself, and God's plan for salvation.
4.2 Heretics and Jews In the introduction to Book One, Bede claims that Luke wrote primarily to 'to refute the audacity of those who wrote falsehoods about [Jesus]', lest 'the weak be exposed to error'. The first sentence of the commentary proper reinforces Bede's conviction that Luke's principal aim was 'in order that there not be an opportunity for false evangelists to preach falsehoods'.
These 'false evangelists' have attempted 'to bring forth heresies'. This sets the stage for a commentary that will focus almost obsessively on heresy.
The tendency to find an argument against heresy beneath every verse of the gospel is certainly abetted by Bede's sources. His quotations from Jerome's commentary on Matthew in relation to Luke 6:1 and Luke 8:2 include that Father's swipes at the Ebionites and the Manicheans; in his reflections on Luke 11:47 he is paraphrasing Ambrose: 'And if the same wisdom of God sent the prophets which sent the apostles, let the heretics cease to attribute Christ's origins to the Virgin,146 let them leave
146 Cf. Ambrose, Expos. Lucam 1.25 (CCSL 14:19.391–92).
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off preaching that there is one God of the Law and the prophets, and another God of the New Testament … '.147 But Bede seems to be intent on displaying his detailed knowledge of and contempt for particular heresies and their doctrines: the Arians (e.g. Luke 1:16–17, 1:76; 2:50–51 5:13, 5:21 etc.), Cerinthians (14:15), Marcionites (Luke 18:31–33), Nestorians (Luke
1:32, 1:35b; etc.), Manicheans (Luke 1:16–17; 2:52; 11:40 etc.), Novatians (e.g. Luke 7:13), Apollinarians (Luke 2:52), Pelagians (Luke 8:46; 15:19),
Photinians (Luke 2:22–24 etc.), 'Marcion and … Tatian, the leader of the Encratites' (Luke 17.27), and the followers of Helvidius (Luke 2:6–7).148 His tone is distinctly combative and defiant, often articulating his opposition as a challenge to the heretics to abjure their error: 'But if Christ is, or rather, because Christ is the Lord God of Israel, let the Arians cease to deny that Christ is the Lord God; let the Photinians blush to attribute Christ's origins to the Virgin, let the Manicheans stop believing that there is one God of the people of Israel and another of the Christians'.149 The heretic is imagined as an individual whom Bede taunts: 'What do you say here, O Nestorian, you who strive to impugn the obvious truth, denying that the blessed Mary is the mother of God?' (Luke 1:35b).
Bede's fixation with heresy is curious, for, as many scholars have noted, heresy – even Pelagianism – was not a serious problem in eighth-century
Britain. He clearly derived his knowledge of particular heresies from his patristic reading. So what explains his concern? Arthur G. Holder argues that Bede's obsession with heresy is more characteristic of his writings before 716, including On Luke and On the Song of Songs. This was the period prior to the conversion of Iona and its familia to the Roman style of Easter reckoning, and for Bede the resistance of Iona represented the stubbornness and separatism that is characteristic of heresy. Indeed, in the Ecclesiastical History and in The Reckoning of Time Bede identifies the errant computus with Pelagianism. Once the Paschal controversy was resolved, Bede's references to heresy declined.150 Alan Thacker broadly accepts Holder's thesis, but adds that heresy did not cease to trouble Bede after 716; rather, his concerns shifted from doctrinal error to the moral
147 Cf. Ambrose, Expos. Lucam 1.2 (CCSL 14:7.30–31). Bede also quotes Ambrose against the Manicheans at Luke 5:13.
148 See also Brown, A Companion to Bede, 61, n. 126.
149 Luke 1:16–17; see also, e.g., Luke 1:32, 1:76 etc.
150 Holder, 'Hunting Snakes in the Grass', 104–14; 'The Anti-Pelagian Character of Bede's
Commentary on the Song of Songs', esp. 101–03.
INTRODUCTION
dimensions of heresy, notably faithlessness (perfidia) and sowing of discord.151 Recent research on Bede's commentary on Proverbs notes that heresy in this work is linked to an internal problem within the church, namely intellectual vanity and exclusivity.152 By the time he completed On Genesis (c. 722–725), as Kendall has shown, Bede had conflated heresy and the Jews with the Saracens and developed an elaborate schema tracing the peoples of the world to the three sons of Noah – Shem, Ham, and Japheth
– and, allegorically, tracing the heirs of the Old Covenant – the Jews and the Saracens – to Abraham's elder son, Ishmael, and the heirs of the New
Covenant – the Christians – to Abraham's younger son, Isaac.153 But there is no hint of this in On Luke. It is not surprising that Saracens are not mentioned in it. Saracens were just beginning to enter Bede's awareness in the second decade of the eighth century, and to the end of his life he never conceived of Saracens as 'Muslims', or as bearers of a new faith.154 But it is perhaps surprising that there is also no reference to Shem, or Ham, or Japheth, or Ishmael. It reminds us how tightly focused Bede is on the New
Testament in On Luke, and how much his attention to the books of the Old Testament enriched his later thought.
On Luke is a pivotal work, composed at a time when the Paschal controversy was still simmering; but it picks up on the themes of treachery signalled by Thacker and of exclusivity noted by Wallis. Both 'treachery' and 'exclusivity' encourage Bede to 'telescope' Jews with heretics, even when he contrasts their specific views.155 For example, commenting on how the demons possessing the Gerasene man recognized Jesus (Luke 8:28),
Bede proclaims:
How great was the madness of Arius to believe Jesus a created being and not God, whom the demons believe to be the Son of the most high God, and tremble! What sacrilege of the Jews to say that he cast out demons by the 151 Thacker, 'Why Did Heresy Matter to Bede?', 47–66.
152 Wallis, 'Rectores at Risk', 129–44. Monotheletism constitutes something of a special case, in that it was a 'novel' heresy in Bede's day, not one the Fathers addressed. Bede treats it fully in Ecclesiastical History 4.17–18 and 5.19. Interestingly, though Bede recycled a good deal of his Luke commentary when he composed his commentary on Mark (c. 725–731), he expanded his criticism of Eutyches to 'telescope' Monotheletism and Monophysitism.
There is one reference to Eutyches in On Luke (Luke 11:27). See O'Reilly, 'Bede and Monotheletism', 105–28.
153 Kendall, Bede: On Genesis, Introduction, 21–27.
154 See Kendall, 'Bede and Islam', 93–114.
155 Thacker, 'Bede and the Ordering of Understanding', 55–56.
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prince of the demons [Matt. 9:34], whom the demons themselves claim to have nothing in common with!
And later (Luke 11:27):
For just as the Jews, by blaspheming the works of the Holy Spirit, denied that the Son of God was the true God and consubstantial with the Father at that time, so in after times heretics, by denying that Mary, ever virgin, had furnished the material of her own flesh for the only-begotten God who was to be born from human limbs by the operative power of the Holy Spirit, said that the Son of man ought not to claim to be both the true God and consubstantial with his mother.
The Jews as they are represented in the gospel are, inevitably, criticized for stubbornly refusing to recognize Christ as the Messiah. Bede reproduces all the Patristic tropes about blindness and carnality, and couches them in occasionally quite offensive language. He says of Luke 5:39 [And no man drinking old wine has immediately a desire for new; for he says, 'The old is better']: 'This signifies the Jews, tainted by the spittle of the old life, who deemed the precepts of the new grace unworthy; besmirched by the traditions of their elders, they were entirely unable to perceive the sweet taste of spiritual words'. But what brings the Jews closer to the image of heretical perfidia is the theme of Jewish envy of Gentiles and desire to persecute the Church. Christ would work no miracles in Nazareth (Luke
4:27) not because he lacked the power to do so but on account of their envy, and by this final example that the whole race had been forsaken by him, not because it was not loved, but because it did not love that it was loved, with its teachers, of course, scattered from thence over the whole world for the salvation of the Gentiles.
Envy of the Gentiles reappears in the account of the calling of Matthew (5:30):
Because if the faith of the Gentiles is signified by the choice of Matthew, who formerly longed for the wealth of the world, but now refreshes the body of Christ with zealous devotion, certainly the arrogance of the Pharisees hints at the envy of the Jews which turns them away from the salvation of the Gentiles.
Elsewhere (Luke 19:7), Bede is even more blunt: 'It is clear that the Jews always hated the salvation of the Gentiles.' This image of the Jews as 'dogs in the manger' who refuse to allow non-Jews to partake of their spiritual blessings recalls Bede's hostile attitude towards the Britons, who withheld the Gospel from the English incomers. The Britons were 'false brethren',
INTRODUCTION
guilty of perfidia, and to be classed with Jews and heretics.156 Even worse, the Jews would actively attack and persecute the Church. The barren fig-tree (Luke 13:8) represents 'the nation, which lost its land together with its kingdom by a just judgement, [and which] did not fear to persecute the citizens of heaven because they loved heaven, and to kill the very king of heaven and earth … '. The pitting of mother against daughter and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law at the End Times (Luke 12:53b–c) represents the Synagogue as 'persecutor of the faith', 'because the carnal
Synagogue does not cease to persecute the believers both circumcised and uncircumcised'. The Jews (Luke 19:14) 'not only hated [Jesus] in person up to his death on the cross, but also after his resurrection they inflicted persecution on his apostles and scorned the preaching of the heavenly kingdom'.
Like the 'unchosen' Britons, destined by God to be replaced by the English, the Jews were doomed to be replaced as God's people by the Church. Bede quotes Ambrose (Luke 4:33) that 'the devil had entered in[to the synagogue] when Christ had gone out'. The Jewish priesthood at the time of Christ's birth was ignorant, and the faith was corrupted by the Pharisees, just as the kingdom had passed into the hands of a 'low-born foreigner', Herod (Luke 1:24b–25). He cites Gregory's view that the naming of a single Roman governor and multiple Jewish priests signifies the unity of the emerging Gentile Church and the scattering of the Jews because of their faithlessness (Luke 3:2).
However, the commentary on Luke also reveals Bede working through a significant theological issue in connection with the Jews, one that takes us back to his image of the temple. Just as the Church is the continuation as well as the successor of the Jewish temple, so the Church is the union of Jews and Gentiles. In expounding the parable of the two debtors (Luke
7:50), Bede argues that the two men signify both peoples, namely the people of the Jews and the people of the Gentiles, who owed to one creditor, that is, to their Creator, not material money, but the coin of their own salvation. For indeed our Creator created them in his own image and likeness, as if he promoted them with a denarius lent for their salvation … . But the people to whom the Ten Commandments of the Law were given by the servant owe less. And the people to whom the grace of eternal life was entrusted by the Son owe more … . But because neither of us, Jew
156 Thacker, 'Bede, the Britons and the Book of Samuel', 129–47; 'Bede and the Ordering of Understanding', 57; Murray, 'Bede and the Unchosen Race', 52–67.
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or Gentile, is saved by our efforts, but by his grace through faith … . Because whether you take this to mean the advantages of perfecting the knowledge which we have received or of avoiding the folly which we have met up with, surely much more is given to the Church than to the Synagogue. The Church was also once corrupted by the fouler filth of idolatry, seeing that no teacher forbade it, but where sin abounded, grace abounded more [Rom. 5:20], and now it is uplifted by the greater proclamation of the perfection of the Gospel.157
The symmetry of Jew and Gentile is also represented by the ox and ass of Luke 13:15. Moreover, the Jews were destined to be converted at the end of time (Luke 8:40, 13:10–11).158
There seems to be two Bedes: the one who hated the Jews, and the one who loved them, and there is no hint in On Luke that he saw this as contradictory.159 His 'discriminate understanding of the Jews' (in Andrew
Scheil's phrase) allowed him to have it both ways: the Jews who opposed Christ were reprehensible, but Jews and Christians formed a single edifice, united by the 'corner stone' of Christ.160 Bede's overwhelming concern with unity lent particular power to this architectural image, which will culminate in On the Tabernacle and On the Temple. Moreover, Bede's more hostile expressions about the Jews may also reflect his own intense awareness of himself and his people as Gentiles: being Gentile was, as Paul Hilliard argues, an important element in Bede's Christian identity.161
Finally, as Conor O'Brien observes, it is important to remember that Bede's thinking evolved throughout his career, and that On Luke was a relatively early work. O'Brien argues that Bede became more positive towards the material Temple and to Jewish worship as time passed, more interested in parallels between Temple and Church than replacement theories.162
157 Bede reiterates (Luke 8:40) that, though the Synagogue may reject Christ, at least it is free from idolatry. Cf. his quotation from Augustine's Quaestiones euang. in the exposition of the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:29), where the elder son represents Jews who did not become Christians, but who nonetheless reject idolatry.
158 On the importance of this theme in Bede's evolving understanding of salvation history see Darby, Bede and the End of Time, 105–09.
159 See Scheil, The Footsteps of Israel, esp. ch. 1, 'Bede and Hate', and ch. 2, 'Bede and Love'. Scheil does not discuss On Luke specifically.
160 Scheil discusses the use of the 'biblical cornerstone' as a metaphor: The Footsteps of Israel, 77–78.
161 Hilliard, 'The Venerable Bede as Scholar', 106–07.
162 'It seems unlikely that Bede's interest in emphasizing the election of his own people declined in the second half of his career; rather he found that continuity instead of rupture could be turned to this purpose. Something seems to have changed between Bede beginning
INTRODUCTION
The temple image carried with it an ecclesiology that stressed continuity between the Jews of the old dispensation and the Church of the new. But it is also interesting to note in this context that On Luke was the last commentary on a New Testament work that Bede would compose. Even as he was completing On Luke in the early years of the second decade of the eighth century, he was turning towards the Old Testament – On the Song of Songs,
On First Samuel, On Genesis. While he would later write a commentary on Mark's Gospel this was in significant measure a repackaging of the Luke commentary, while the Retractations is an addenda et corrigenda to his commentary on Acts. In short, after finishing On Luke, Bede read his theology through the Jewish scriptures. In consequence, the balance shifted towards love, so that he could imagine that his own people – the Christian people and the English people – 'have been admitted among the descendants of the Israelites, since, although according to the flesh we have our origin from other nations, nevertheless by the faith of truth and by purity of the body and mind, we follow in the footsteps of Israel'.163
4.3 Preachers and teachers On Luke may indeed be a relatively early work, but Bede's later concerns with reforming the clergy and church of Northumbria are already present.
The key figure was the individual he called rector, praedicator, doctor164 Book Six of On Luke with an overwhelming emphasis on the temple as a fleeting figure to be destroyed when replaced and his completion of On the Temple, which, while entirely devoted to exploring the image's figural meaning, only makes one vague comment about the necessity of the temple's destruction'. O'Brien, Bede's Temple, 59; see also his 'Bede on the Jewish Church', 63–73, esp. 70–71.
163 Hom. 1.17, ed. Hurst CCSL 122:124.177–80; trans. Martin and Hurst, Homilies on the Gospels 1:172; cf. Scheil, The Footsteps of Israel, 96.
164 'For Bede, the doctor was essentially the initiate who had penetrated beyond the veil of the literal sense of Scripture to the arcana beneath. He (or indeed she) had to combine the active pursuit of learning with contemplative prayer and exemplary living in order to infuse the active pastorate not just with basic understanding but with right doctrine and true ideals.
The doctores formed, so to speak, the intellectual powerhouse which inspired and instructed the practical preachers (praedicatores) who were to carry out the evangelizing work on the ground': Thacker, 'Bede and the Ordering of Understanding', 43. Thacker notes sixty-three references to doctores in On Luke (54, n. 59). However, the term 'doctor' is ambiguous: it can denote the Jewish leaders (e.g., Luke 2:46, 8:50) and even 'doctors of secular laws' (Luke
8:43b), but is also coupled with 'pastors' (Luke 11:33). The fishermen called as apostles are the 'doctors of the Church' (Luke 5:2b).
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or magister – the one who instructs the faithful in word, but also models right behaviour in deed and shows pastoral leadership. In the first instance, these would be bishops and other ordained clergy, but Bede seems to have envisioned monks and clerics of lower rank engaged in this crucial work. Christ in the synagogue (Luke 4:32) or expounding a parable to his disciples (Luke 12:42) is the model for teachers, but so are the Nativity shepherds (Luke 2:15 sqq.). To teach is an exalted calling (Luke 12:33–34):
The difference between the rewards given to good pupils and those given to good teachers is as great as the difference of their merits. For when the Lord at his coming finds the former keeping watch, he will make them sit down to eat, and 'coming by' will minister to them. But when the Lord finds the latter faithfully and wisely dispensing the nourishment of Scripture to a household devoted to himself, he will set them over all he possesses, that is, over all the joys of the heavenly kingdom, not, of course, in order that they may have sole possession of them, but so that they may enjoy eternal possession of them more abundantly than other holy people. For those who are learned will shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who instruct many to justice, like stars for all eternity (Dan. 12:3). And the Apostle says: Let the priests who rule well be esteemed worthy of double honour, especially those who labour in word and doctrine (I Tim. 5:17).
Opposed to good teachers are 'wicked prelates' (Luke 12:45), or those whose deeds belie their words (Luke 4:32), or one who shrinks from the task for carnal reasons (Luke 8:16). The parable of the talents expressly targets teachers, and the servant, who had been commanded to trade, but who laid up in a handkerchief the Lord's money which he received, represents those who are capable of preaching, but when the Lord prescribes the duty of preaching by the Church, either refuse to undertake it, or if they do undertake it, fail to do so in a worthy fashion. (Luke 19:21–22) He is consequently an 'evil Catholic' (Luke 19:27).
This concern with teachers who refused to teach would remain constant throughout Bede's career, though other abuses, such as episcopal indolence and a more pervasive sense of decline and danger, would come to dominate his exegetical works.165
165 Bede's shifting concerns about reform are analyzed by DeGregorio, '"Nostrorum socordiam temporum"', 107–22 ; see especially 113–14 on the Luke commentary's focus on sloth and ignorance.
INTRODUCTION
4.4 An anomalous episode: exorcism, the incubus, and 'sacramental healing'
In the midst of this edifice of recurring themes, Bede's account of contem porary exorcism rituals stands out as an anomaly. The passage in question is Luke 8:30, where Jesus asks the demon tormenting the Gadarene man,
'What is your name? But he said: Legion, because many demons had entered into him'. As is his wont, Bede hastens to assure the reader that Christ already knew the demon's name; he only posed to the question to enhance the revelation of his power. But then Bede continues:
But even the priests of our time, who know how to drive out demons by the grace of exorcism, are accustomed to say that sufferers cannot be healed unless they reveal openly by confession, as far as they can know, all that they suffered, waking or sleeping, from the unclean spirits through sight, hearing, taste, touch, or whatever other sense of body or soul. And especially when, appearing either to men in the shape of a woman or to women in the guise of a man, by an abominable miracle, incorporeal spirits, demons whom the Gauls call Dusii,166 pretend that they desire and perform sexual intercourse with the human body. And the priests order that the name of the demon by which he said he was called be made known as well as the terms of the oath by which they concluded either contract of love.
The reference to the Dusii ultimately comes from Augustine's City of God 15.23, but it is more likely that Bede was using Isidore here, because he neglects to mention Augustine's other examples of demons who copulate with human women (e.g., the classical Silvani and Pans). Moreover,
Augustine is convinced that sexual intercourse really takes place, but Bede is a little bit more cautious: the demons 'pretend' desire and even coitus, and their victim is made to enter into a contract. Unlike Augustine (whose focus is the factuality of the passage from Genesis 6:2 on the coupling of angels with human women), Bede is concerned with the necessity for full disclosure on the part of the victim for exorcism to be successful.167 He recounts, with a show of reluctance, a remarkable local occurrence:
An affair very like a fable, but still true, and which is very well known by the testimony of many, is that a certain priest close to me reported that he began
166 Augustine, De ciuitate Dei 15.23 (CCSL 48:489.18–19) (= Isidore, Etym. 8.11.103).
167 In his own commentary on Genesis 6:2 (ed. Jones, 100–01; trans. Kendall, 170–71),
Bede avoids any reference to incubi, and prefers the Vulgate 'sons of God' to the Septuagint
'angels'.
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to heal a nun from a demon, but that as long as the matter was concealed, he was able to make no progress with her. However, he said that once she had acknowledged the apparition by which she was molested, he immediately put it to flight with the necessary prayers and other kinds of purifications, and that he had healed the body of the same woman of the ulcers she had contracted from the touch of the demon by means of blessed medicinal salt which he applied with care. But he said that when he could not by any means close one of the ulcers which he found had pierced the upper part of her side without it immediately opening, he received the advice by which she was healed from the very woman that he wanted to heal. 'If', she said,
'you sprinkle the holy oil for the sick as the same remedy, and so anoint me, I will immediately be restored. For in the spirit, I once saw a girl in a certain faraway city, which I never saw with my own eyes, labouring under the same adversity, and she was healed in this way by a priest'. He did as she had suggested, and immediately the ulcer consented to accept the remedy, which it had before rejected.
Bede seems a little embarrassed at this digression, and says: 'I have taken care to explain these things briefly in opposition to the deceits of the demons, in order for you to understand how purposefully the Lord asked the name of the spirit he was going to expel'. But this passage cannot fail to stand out: it would seem to belong more in the Ecclesiastical History or one of Bede's saints' lives, or even in a homily, than in this commentary, which is so firmly focused on teaching teachers to teach. The thread that links it to Luke 8:30 is highly tenuous: from the need to make the demon speak his name in the Bible text, Bede has shifted to the need from those seeking exorcism or spiritual healing to reveal the nature of their relationship with the demon.
Intriguingly, women are the protagonists in both the incubus passage and the account of the sacramental healing, and it is precisely this that gave this unusual aside a significant after-life. Bede's commentaries were copied and studied on the continent in the Carolingian period, notably by Hincmar, archbishop of Reims (806–882). Hincmar's On the Divorce of King Lothar and Queen Theutberga (860) makes particularly heavy use of Bede's On Luke, including the anomalous passage discussed above. The issue at stake was the effort by Lothar II to repudiate his queen, Theutberga, so that he could marry his mistress. The queen was accused and condemned by a synod in Aachen, but Hincmar argued that the process was flawed on legal and theological grounds. In particular, he raised the possibility that the king's mistress may have used magic to deceive him and bring about the queen's downfall. It is at this juncture that Hincmar quotes the entire
INTRODUCTION
passage discussed above as an example of women's ambivalent vulnera bility to demonic magic.168
5. BEDE'S STYLE AND VOCABULARY
Bede was thoroughly acquainted with patristic Christian authors who deployed a variety of Latin prose styles from plain to highly sophisticated, depending on their audience. Bertram Colgrave has noted, with respect to the Ecclesiastical History, that '[m]any scholars have praised Bede's Latin style for its straightforwardness and simplicity … '.169 This generalization is misleading, as Colgrave shows. Bede selected from a range of styles to suit the needs or prejudices of his audience. On Luke is hardly straight forward or simple.
The exchange of letters between Bishop Acca and Bede that constitutes the Prologue of On Luke is carried on in a self-consciously artificial high style. The two men exchange greetings with lofty verbal gestures. Acca addresses 'his most reverend brother in Christ and fellow priest, the presbyter Bede', and Bede replies, doubling the superlatives, to 'his most blessed and exceedingly best beloved Acca'. Acca invokes the modesty topos on Bede's behalf and trots out an elegiac couplet, proclaiming his familiarity with classical rhetoric and poetics.
Acca's chief argument in support of Bede's writing a new commentary on Luke, although Ambrose had previously composed one, is that there are certain things in the blessed Ambrose's commentary on Luke at once so florid and lofty … that they can only be understood by learned men. They are considered to be, so to speak, too lofty to be investigated or too bold to be scrutinized by those readers who are ignorant and hard to please (you will find many such in the present age) because it is difficult to understand flowery language or to grasp profundities.
Bede, therefore, should write on Luke 'in order that those who because of the weakness of their faculties are unable to grasp profound or difficult things intellectually may comprehend them more easily when they are explained in a simpler style'. This is just what Bede does not do. Either
168 Nelson, 'Hincmar of Reims meets Bede', 334–36.
169 Colgrave and Mynors, eds, Bede's Ecclesiastical History, xxxvi. For a study of the rhetoric of the Ecclesiastical History, see Kendall, 'Bede's Historia ecclesiastica: The Rhetoric of Faith', esp. 147–63.
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he quotes Ambrose (and Jerome, Gregory, and Augustine) verbatim, or he adds new interpretations in a style that is at least as elevated as, and if anything more hypotactic than, anything in the prose of the four patristic
Fathers.
Bede's vocabulary, apart from his sources, is extensive and remarkably classical. Very occasionally he resorts to what appears to be a rare word or a neologism. We note that he employs the word parabolatim, 'allegor ically', three times in On Luke (CCSL 120: 29.418, 172.259, and 326.1222) and nowhere else in his writings. Othlo of St Emmeram (eleventh century) is the only author we have found who uses the word independently of Bede. It may be Bede's coinage. Consideratu, 'in respect of' (CCSL 120:
362.2660) seems to be a neologism that Bede might have come upon in Julian of Eclano. Nectura (CCSL 120: 166.3), 'thread', is a rare word that Bede probably encountered in the Codex Amiatinus or one of its companion volumes (re: Ecclus. 6:31). The word informositas (CCSL 120: 248.678),
'disfigurement', in place of Augustine's informitas, is apparently Bede's coinage, and one that did not catch on.
Bede's preface to Book 6 exhibits an unexpected cluster of neologisms: umbratice (CCSL 120: 363.4–5), 'in a shadowy manner'; incomparandi
(CCSL 120: 363.7–8), 'incomparable'; permansibilis (CCSL 120: 363.24), 'permanent'; and occultatrix (CCSL 120: 364.36), 'that concealed'. Bede must have been aware of what he was doing, but it is difficult to imagine what effect he intended. Could he have meant the newly minted forms to highlight the momentous shift from the wavering shadows of the Old
Testament to the revealed truths of the New?
6. THE MANUSCRIPTS AND THE TRANSMISSION OF
THE TEXT Bede's works were in demand from an early date.170 They were sent forth from the scriptorium at Jarrow to other scriptoria in England, like Hexham in the north and Canterbury in the south, to be copied. Anglo-Saxon missionaries to Germany added to the demand. Pre-Conquest English manuscripts have almost entirely disappeared; they are known at second hand from evidence found in Bede's writings, and from other letters, catalogues, and inferences from continental manuscripts.
170 See Laistner, Hand-List, 1–14.
INTRODUCTION
The earliest extant manuscripts of On Luke, which date from the second half of the eighth century, suggest the main lines of continental diffusion – one stream flowing to Germany, the other south and east through France.
Hannover 3983a+New Haven 441, which survives only in fragments, is written in Anglo-Saxon minuscule, and could have been copied in England or in an Anglo-Saxon centre in Germany. Two other late eighth-century manuscripts, Paris 11681 and Brussels 8654–8672+St-Omer 72, were produced in scriptoria in northern France, Paris 11681 at the abbey of Corbie, and Brussels+St-Omer at the abbey of St-Bertin. St-Bertin was located near the present township of St-Omer not far from the narrowest point of the English Channel directly across from Canterbury. Corbie was a short distance south of St-Bertin. It is reasonable to conjecture that their exemplars were copied at, or passed through, Canterbury, and that from and through northern French abbeys like these On Luke spread south and east in the ninth century to monastic centres in France. Within about a century from the time of Bede's death, if not sooner, it had crossed the Pyrenees into Catalunya (San Felix 146).
As we noted above, On Luke was widely read in the Carolingian and post-Carolingian period, both on the continent171 and in the Insular sphere.
For the latter, a detailed survey of extracts, quotations, and references in booklists is furnished by the editors of the Bede volumes of Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture.172 As their work demonstrated, extracts from the commentary were incorporated as lectiones into liturgical manuscripts, but the single most significant vehicle for disseminating On Luke was the abundant extracts in the Homiliary of Paul the Deacon. This was the source from which Ælfric derived many, but not all of his borrowings. On Luke is echoed in works as diverse as the Old English Orosius and Byrhtferth's
Vita Ecgwini, and, on the continent, turns up in the sermons and commen taries of Hrabanus Maurus, Smaragdus, and Haymo of Auxerre.
Of the thirty-four manuscripts of On Luke that date from the ninth century, twenty-one were certainly or probably produced in France, and seven in Germany. Italy proves to be a key intermediary in the transmission of On Luke to the high Middle Ages. This may in part be owing to the fact that Paul the Deacon, whom Charlemagne commissioned to prepare a 171 More Carolingian manuscripts of the Commentary on Luke survive than of any of Bede's other works: see Westgard, 'Bede and the Continent in the Carolingian Age and Beyond', 207.
172 Brown and Biggs, Bede 2:84–127.
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
homiliary for use in the churches of his kingdom, was a monk from Monte Cassino. Paul drew extensively from On Luke as well as Bede's other commentaries and homilies.173 On Luke was copied there early in the ninth century (Monte Cassino 37) and more copies survive from the eleventh century. Even more suggestive is the number of manuscripts of extracts from On Luke for homiliary use that were made at Monte Cassino or its dependent houses.174
By the turn of the millennium there was a considerable bank of material extracted from On Luke available in other formats. But Bede's commentary continued to be copied and read as a whole, notably by the creators of the Glossa ordinaria, whose gloss on Luke leans heavily on Bede.175 After a falloff in the chaotic tenth century, interest in On Luke as measured by the number of surviving manuscripts begins to pick up in the eleventh, particularly in Italy. In the British Isles access to Bede was crucially dependent on the reimportation of his works after the devastations of the Viking incursions. This reimportation is witnessed by Oxford, Bodley 218, and in the second half of the eleventh century by Cambridge, Pembroke
College 83.176 The highpoint of interest in the commentary is reached in the twelfth century, from which period thirty-seven manuscripts have come down to us. As many as ten of these may have been produced in England, witnessing both the general reinvigoration of intellectual life there as elsewhere in western Europe in the twelfth century, and specifically Bede's renown as a scriptural scholar.177
173 See Smetana, 'Paul the Deacon's Patristic Anthology', 76, 79–80; Hill, 'Carolingian
Perspectives', 231–32.
174 See below, Introduction 7(B), Extracts.
175 Smith, The Glossa Ordinaria, esp. 43, 52, and 55; on how the compilers of the Glossa edited Bede for brevity and clarity, see 80–83.
176 Lapidge, The Anglo-Saxon Library, 168, 171; Westgard, 'Bede and the Continent',
209–10.
177 See Westgard, 'Bede and the Continent', Table 1 (p. 211), for an overview of the '[s]urviving manuscripts of Bede's works, by date of origin'. Additional manuscripts of various of these works, including On Luke, have come to light since the table was compiled, but the relative figures remain suggestive.
INTRODUCTION
7. LIST OF (A) FULL MANUSCRIPTS
AND (B) MANUSCRIPTS OF EXTRACTS OF
BEDE'S COMMENTARY ON LUKE
The list of MSS is based on Laistner, Hand-List, 44–50 [= Laistner]; updated by Hurst, ed., CCSL 120:v–vii [= Hurst]; and Gorman, 'Source Marks',
Appendix 4 [= Gorman]; supplemented and corrected by information drawn from other sources as specified. Documentation provided by Laistner, Hurst, and Gorman is not repeated here.
Pressmarks of MSS also containing Bede's Commentary on Mark are flagged with a dagger, thus: †AVRANCHES, Bibliothèque municipale 107; or, if containing only extracts from both works, with a double-dagger, thus:
‡VATICAN CITY, BAV, Vat. lat. 4222.
(A) Manuscripts 1. ADMONT, Stiftsbibliothek 109, 150 fols, s. xii.
Laistner; Manuscripta.at.
2. ALENÇON, Bibliothèque municipale 7, s. xii, St Évroult.
Laistner; BVMM.
3. AMIENS, Bibliothèque municipale 75, fols 1–142v, s. xii, Corbie.
Laistner.
4. ANGERS, Bibliothèque municipale 63, 209 fols, s. ix, St-Aubin. The Letter from Acca to Bede is missing. Domino beatissimo … quo eis benediceret (CCSL 120:6.79–424.2422).
Laistner; Hurst. Hurst's A.
5. ARRAS, Bibliothèque municipale, Médiathèque 879 (698), fols 2–145, 147, s. ix2/4, St-Vaast.
Laistner; Gorman; Bischoff, Katalog 1:92; Mirabile.
6. †AVRANCHES, Bibliothèque municipale 107, s. ximed, Mont-StMichel(?); prov. Mont-St-Michel.
Laistner; BVMM; Mirabile.
7. BAMBERG, Staatsbibliothek 115 (B.IV.2), fols 1r–111v, s. ix2/4, central France; prov. Bamberg Cathedral. From preface of Book 4 through Book 6 (a few lines missing at end).
Laistner; Gorman; Bischoff, Katalog 1:197; Mirabile. Online: MDZ.
8. BAMBERG, Staatsbibliothek 116 (B.IV.1), fols 1r–182v, 1123/1140, Michelsberg; prov. Michelsberg.
Laistner; Mirabile.
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
9. BRUSSELS, Bibliothèque Royale 8654–8672 + ST OMER, Bibliothèque municipale 72 (frag.), 3 bifolios, s. viii2/ix1, St-Bertin.
CLA 10:1542; CLA Suppl.:1542. Bischoff, Katalog 1:156.
10. CAMBRAI, Médiathèque (Bibliothèque) municipale 295 (277), fols 7r–171bisr, before 817, Cambrai.
Laistner; Gorman; Bischoff, Katalog 1:778; Mirabile. Hurst's C.
11. CAMBRIDGE, Pembroke College 83, fols 2r–229v, s. ix1, St-Denis; prov. Bury St Edmunds, s. xi2.
Laistner; Gorman; Bischoff, Katalog 1:831; Lapidge, The Anglo-Saxon Library, 168; Mirabile.
12. CAMBRIDGE, Trinity College 46, fols 1r–237v, s. xii, Christ Church, Canterbury.
Laistner.
13. CAMBRIDGE, University Library Dd i 29, 179 fols, s. xii, Louth Park.
Laistner.
14. CAMBRIDGE, University Library, Addit. 3108, fols 6r–166v, s. xiiex, England(?).
Hurst; Mirabile.
15. CAMBRIDGE (Mass.), Harvard University, Ms. Typ. 202H (formerly Phillipps 1092; London, Chester Beatty 31; New York, Philip Hofer
19), fols 1v–182r, s. xii2/4, Germany(?); prov. St Vitus, Gladbach.
Laistner; Hurst; Mirabile.
16. CAMBRIDGE (Mass.), Harvard University, Houghton Library, Riant 36, 31 fols, s. xii, France. A patristic miscellany.
Schoenberg Database.
17. CHARLEVILLE, Bibliothèque municipale 169, s. xii, Signy.
Laistner.
18. *CHARTRES, Bibliothèque municipale 83, s. xii, St Père. Destroyed in World War II.
19. CHELTENHAM (?), Phillipps 467, s. xii.
Hurst.
20. COIMBRA, Monasterium S. Crucis LVIII, Est. 15, Caixa 18, fol. 140 ff. Fragment: ending lost after … sua luce fruerentur (CCSL
120:406.1719).
Laistner.
21. DIJON, Bibliothèque municipale 76, 142 fols, s. x, St-Bénigne.
Laistner.
22. DIJON, Bibliothèque municipale 77, fols 4r–207v, s. xii, from a Cistercian monastery.
Laistner; Hurst. Online: Gallica.
INTRODUCTION
23. DOUAI, Bibliothèque municipale 331, s. xvex, English College.
Laistner.
24. DÜSSELDORF, Universitätsund Landesbibliothek B. 18, s. xii2/4, Altenberg.
Mirabile.
25. DÜSSELDORF, Universitätsund Landesbibliothek B. 18, 1511, Düsseldorf.
Mirabile.
26. ETON, Coll. 196, 7 fols, s. xiiex.
Hurst.
27. ÉVREUX, Bibliothèque municipale 90, fols 6v–192v, s. xii.
Laistner.
28. FLORENCE, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Conv. Soppr. 266, prov. S. Maria (Vallombrosa).
Mirabile.
29. FLORENCE, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. 16.06, fols 1r–262v, s. xv.
Laistner. Online: Biblioteca Firenze.
30. †FLORENCE, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. 16.10, fols 64r–198v, s. xi, Moscheta. The text is unbroken, but in two hands on different parchment. First hand, to … et amato gaudio
(CCSL 120:382.772): 64r–178v; second hand (on whiter parchment):
179r–198v.
Laistner. Online: Biblioteca Firenze.
31. FULDA, Landesbibliothek Aa 13, fols 121v–298v, s. xin, St Gall.
Laistner; Gorman; Bischoff, Katalog 1:1323; Mirabile.
32. GERONA, Sancti Felicis 146.
Hurst.
33. GHENT, Bibliothèque de l'université 175, 175 fols, s. ix3/3, near Reims.
Source marks.
Laistner; Gorman; Bischoff, Katalog 1:1360.
34. †GOTHA, Öffentliche Bibliothek 80 (Mbr. I, 44).
Laistner.
35. HANNOVER, Kestner-Museum Nr. 3983a (Cul. I 72–393)/Nr. 3983b (Cul. I 71–394), s. viiiex, England, or Anglo-Saxon centre in Germany.
Fragment: see New Haven, Beinecke 441.
36. HEILIGENKREUZ, Zisterzienserstift 169, fols 1ra–154vb, s. xiimed, Heiligenkreuz.
Laistner; Manuscripta.at.
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
37. IPSWICH, Central Library 2, s. xii and xiii.
Laistner.
38. KARLSRUHE, Badische Landesbibliothek, Augiensis 64, fols 1r–298v, s. ix1/3, St-Denis; prov. Reichenau. Source marks.
Chapter numbers; canon section numbers.
Laistner; Gorman; Bischoff, Katalog 1:1606; Mirabile. Online: BLB.
39. KARLSRUHE, Landesbibliothek, Aug. 237, fols 104v–144v, s. ix/x, Reichenau. An abbreviated version of the Commentary on Luke combined with glosses.
Laistner.
40. KLOSTERNEUBURG, Bibliothek des Augustiner Chorherrenstiftes 242, fols 1ra–159va, s. xii2, Klosterneuburg.
Laistner; Mirabile.
41. LISBON, Biblioteca Nacional, Alc. 53, s. xiii.
Laistner.
42. LISBON, Biblioteca Nacional, Alc. 423, fols 1r–199v, s. xiiex.
Online: BNP.
43. LONDON, British Library, Addit. 10947, s. xv.
Laistner.
44. LONDON, British Library, Addit. 17980, fols 1r–52v, s. ixmed, Lorsch.
Less than a quarter of the commentary remains. No source marks; no canon section numbers.
Laistner; Gorman; Bischoff, Katalog 2:2375. Online: Virtual Monastic Library of Lorsch.
45. LONDON, British Library, Addit. 22767, fol. 64b, s. xii and xv.
Thompson, Index to the Catalogue of Additions, 146.
46. LONDON, British Library, Addit. 26715, s. xii.
Laistner.
47. LONDON, British Library, Egerton 2204, fols 2r–184r, s. xii2/4 or 3/4, southern England; prov. Abbey of St Mary in Reading.
Laistner. Online: The British Library MS Viewer.
48. LONDON, Kensington Palace 47, s. xv. Untraced.
Laistner.
49. LONS-LE-SAUNIER, Archives départementales du Jura 1 (12 F 1), fols 2v–230v, 804–815, St-Oyen (St-Claude, Jura, in the abbacy of Authelmus [804–815], Lindsay).
Laistner; Gorman; Lindsay, Notae Latinae 462; Bischoff, Katalog 2:2509; Mirabile.
INTRODUCTION
50. LUCCA, Biblioteca Statale 1376 (L 88), fols 1r–103v, s. xii.
Laistner; Mirabile.
51. MADRID, Biblioteca Nacional 492 (A 77), s. xii.
Laistner.
52. MADRID, Biblioteca Nacional 522 (A 75), fols 2r–218v, s. xii, prov.
Messina.
Laistner; Inventario General 2:25; Mirabile.
53. *METZ, Bibliothèque municipale 39, s. x, St Arnulf. Destroyed in World War II.
54. MILAN, Biblioteca Ambrosiana C 127 inf., fols 116r–240v, ca. 825, near St-Denis; prov. Bobbio. Copied for Dungal. Source marks.
Gorman, 'Source Marks', Appendix 1, includes five references to Hilary of Poitiers' De trinitate among his list of source marks in this manuscript. He does not say what letters constitute the source marks, nor does he attempt to explain this anomaly. See Bede's commentary on Luke 22:43b–22:46. These are Bede's only quotations from Hilary in On Luke.
Laistner; Gorman; Vezin, 'Observations sur l'origine des manuscrits légués par Dungal à Bobbio', 134–35; Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries, 110, n. 89; Bischoff, Katalog 2:2608.
55. MILAN, Biblioteca Ambrosiana D 23 inf., s. ix2/4, Central France.
Partly by a scribe from Auxerre. Canon section numbers.
Laistner; Gorman; Bischoff, Katalog 2:2614.
56. MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 36, s. xi.
Laistner; Hurst.
57. MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 37, pp. 1–180, s. ixin, Monte Cassino.
Laistner; Hurst; Gorman; Mirabile.
58. MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 98, pp. 521–32, c. 1071–1087, Monte Cassino.
Mirabile.
59. MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 111/1, c. 1060, Monte Cassino.
Mirabile.
60. MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 271, s. ximed, Cesamo.
Mirabile.
61. MUNICH, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek CLM 18088, s.xv4/4 (1478), Tegernsee.
Laistner.
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
62. MUNICH, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek CLM 29440(1 (29162), fols 1r–4v, s. ix1, Polling Abbey. Fragments. 1r–v: uirtutibus turbae deum laudant … undique et ad terram (CCSL 120:345.1970–
347.2042); 2r–v: [tradi]tionum et obseruationum … fratribus condescendat (CCSL 120:358.2479–359.2547 (with gaps)); 3r–v: deserant [am]monentur … saluatur in perpetuum et apud d[ominum]
(CCSL 120:365.88–367.157); 4r–v: et omnis populus manicabat … non seditio[nem] (CCSL 120:372.378–374.440 (with gaps)). Source marks; canon section numbers.
Hurst; Hauke, Katalog 2:419–20. Online: MDZ.
63. MUNICH, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek CLM 29440(2 (29055a), fol. 1r–v, s. ix, St Emmeram. Fragment: ueniret quid igitur inter homines … secernuntur et ita in agro (CCSL 120:80.2410–82.2487).
Source mark; canon section number (xi), with canon table number (v) and cross reference to Matthew section number (xii).
Hauke, Katalog 2:420. Online: MDZ.
64. MUNICH, Universitätsbibliothek, fragment.
Hurst.
65. NEW HAVEN, Yale University, Beinecke 441 (Wilfred Merton Collection 42), 1 fol., s. viiiex, England or Anglo-Saxon centre in Germany. Fragment: Non est enim arbor [CCSL 120:149.1933] …
Ac si aliis uerbis ita dicere[t] [CCSL 120:151.2000]. Canon section number lx in margin at Luke 6:43; section number lxi, at Luke
6:44b; section number lxiii, at Luke 6:46 (the online digital image does not reveal whether there is a section number 62 at Luke 6:45).
Anglo-Saxon minuscule; biblical lemmata in red. Another fragment from same MS is Hannover Kestner-Museum Nr. 3983a.
Laistner; Hurst; CLA 2.220; Shailor. Online: Beinecke Medieval MSS.
66. NEW YORK CITY, Columbia University, Plimpton 56, 1 fol., s. x, French? Fragment from a binding.
Laistner.
67. ORLÉANS, Médiathèque 72, pp. 1–463, s. ix1, Orléans; prov. Fleury.
Sewardus, scribe.
Laistner; Gorman; Bischoff, Katalog 2.3678; Mirabile.
68. OSNABRÜCK, Gymnasium Carolinum 11, fol. I, s. xviin.
Mirabile.
69. OXFORD, Bodleian Library, Bodl. 218, fols 1r–166v, c. 820, Tours; prov. English (s. x).
Laistner; Gorman; Bischoff, Katalog 2.3783; Michael Lapidge, The Anglo-Saxon Library, 171; Mirabile. Hurst's J.
INTRODUCTION
70. †OXFORD, Bodleian Library, Bodl. 729, fols 3–76, s. xii2, Missenden and Windsor.
Laistner; Madan and Craster, A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts 2.1:505.
71. †OXFORD, Bodleian Library, Bodl. 732, s. xii2, French.
Laistner.
72. OXFORD, Bodleian Library, Lat. theol. c.20, 2 fols, s. x, Germany; prov. C.L. Ricketts, Chicago. Containing Bede on Luke 24:40–52.
Laistner; Schoenberg Database; Bodley Checklist.
73. OXFORD, Merton College K.3.3, s. xv.
Laistner.
74. OXFORD, Merton College 176 (O.3.4), fols 180r–353r, s. xiiiin.
Laistner; Mirabile.
75. †OXFORD, University College 168, s. xv.
Laistner.
76. †PARIS, Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal 294, s. xii, Fontenay. Source marks.
Laistner.
77. †PARIS, Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal 320, s. xi. Source marks.
Laistner.
78. PARIS, Bibliothèque nationale, Baluze 270, fols 124–31, s. ix2/4, north-eastern France(?).
Hurst; Mirabile.
79. PARIS, BN lat. 1744, s. xiii. Apparently, only Acca's letter to Bede and Bede's reply.
Laistner; Hurst.
80. PARIS, BN lat. 2354, 203 fols, s. ix.
Laistner; Hurst; Schoenberg Database.
81. PARIS, BN lat. 2355, 240 fols, s. ix1, north-eastern France(?); prov.
St-Denis.
Laistner; Hurst; Gorman; Bischoff, Katalog 3:4173; Mirabile.
82. †PARIS, BN lat. 2356, s. xii, Carmelites.
Laistner; Hurst.
83. PARIS, BN lat. 2357, s. xiiex.
Laistner; Hurst.
84. PARIS, BN lat. 2358, 193 fols, s. xii/xiii, prov. La Noe Abbey.
Hurst; Schoenberg Database.
85. †PARIS, BN lat. 2371, s. xiii/xiv, S. French.
Laistner.
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
86. PARIS, BN lat. 5288, fols 34v–41v, s. ix2/4. Fragment: all lost after … cuius nimirum gratia geritur (CCSL 120:20.52). No source marks; no canon section numbers.
Laistner; Bischoff, Katalog 3:4357; Mirabile. Online: Gallica.
87. PARIS, BN lat. 6113/1, fols 1, 2, s. ix1/2, France. Ch. 5.30–34; 6.6–10.
Bischoff, Katalog 3:4395; Mirabile.
88. PARIS, BN lat. 9571, fols 1r–259v, s. ix3/4, West Germany. Source marks; no canon section numbers.
Laistner; Gorman; Bischoff, Katalog 3:4607; Mirabile. Online:
Gallica.
89. PARIS, BN lat. 9572, fols 2r–180v, s. xi; prov. St-Martial, Limoges.
Omits Acca's letter to Bede. Renumbers capitula by books.
Laistner. Online: Gallica.
90. PARIS, BN lat. 11681, fols 4r–196v, s. viii2, Corbie. Written in the Corbie ab script. The oldest ms of Bede's Commentary on Luke.
Source marks; chapter numbers; canon section numbers.
Laistner; Hurst; Gorman; Bischoff, Katalog 3:4701a; Mirabile. Online:
Gallica. Hurst's B.
91. PARIS, BN lat. 12281, fols 1r–163v, s. ix1, Burgundy; prov.
St-Germain. A composite text, incomplete at beginning and end. Text 1 (fols 1r–94v): Sic ergo incipit … dicit gratiae praedicator (CCSL
120:19.10–243.480); text 2 (fols 95r–163v): Verum tamen quod … domus oboedientiae dicitur (CCSL 120:241.419–423.2401). The exemplar of these texts was probably in Insular script. Source marks; chapter numbers; canon section numbers.
Laistner; Hurst; Gorman; Bischoff, Katalog 3:4815; Mirabile. Online:
Gallica. Hurst's D.
92. PARIS, BN lat. 12282, 183 fols, s. ix2/4, Paris; prov. St-Germain.
Fols. 1–14 and 180–183 are in a twelfth-century hand. Source marks.
Laistner; Gorman; Bischoff, Katalog 3:4816; Mirabile.
93. PARIS, BN lat. 17451, fols 9r–200v, s. ix1, Corbie; prov. Compiègne.
Text (beginning and ending missing): a beato Augustino … ad praesidem accedere (CCSL 120:8.127–408.1799). Source marks; chapter numbers; canon section numbers.
Laistner; Hurst; Gorman; Bischoff, Katalog 3:5020. Online: Gallica.
Hurst's E.
94. PARIS, BN, n.a. lat. 2388, fols 4–5, s. ix3/4, western Germany(?).
Fragment.
Bischoff Katalog 3:5129; Mirabile.
INTRODUCTION
95. †PERUGIA, Bibliothèque Capitolare di San Lorenzo 41, fols 244r–339v; 244ra–339vb [??], s. xi2, Perugia.
Mirabile.
96. PORTO, Biblioteca Pública Municipal, Santa Cruz de Coimbra 58 (836), s. xii2 (1139?), Avignon; prov. Coimbra.
Mirabile.
97. ROME, Biblioteca Casanatense 1880, fols 1r–142v, s. xi, prov. Siena.
Mirabile.
98. ST GALL, Stiftsbibliothek 85, pp. 1–471, c. 820/840, St Gall. Finely written by the monk Wolfcoz with few abbreviations. Biblical citations usually in capitals. Chapter numbers in red beginning with chap. 3 (chap. 9 omitted). Source marks; canon section numbers in black beginning with section 6.
Laistner; Gorman. Online: e-codices. Hurst's G.
99. ST OMER, Bibliothèque municipale 17, fols 1v–177r, s. xii4, Clairmarais. Renumbers capitula by books. No source marks; no canon section numbers.
Laistner. Online: Gallica.
100. ST OMER, Bibliothèque municipale 72: see BRUSSELS, Bibliothèque Royale 8654–8672.
101. SALISBURY, Chapter library 37, fols 5–164, s. xi/xii.
Laistner.
102. SALZBURG, St Peter A X 3, s. ix, St-Amand(?). Source marks.
Laistner; Gorman; Bischoff, Katalog 3:5439; Mirabile.
103. SAN FELIX, Condado de Orgello [Urgell] 146, before 839.
Laistner; Rudolf Beer, Handschriftenschätze Spaniens, p. 227
(referencing a testament, dated 839, of Sisebut II, bishop of Urgell (833–840), stating that he gave Bede on Luke to the monastery).
104. SÉES [Sagiensis, Hurst].
Hurst.
105. SIENA, Private library, 'Domenico Maffei', frag. 4, s. xii, Italy.
Mirabile.
106. SOPRON, Állami Levéltára, R317 (Madas 239), fols 1vb, 2ra, s. xivmed. Fragments.
Mirabile.
107. SOPRON, Evangélikus Egyházközség, Le 87 (Madas 216), fol. 1r–v.
Fragment.
Mirabile.
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
108. STUTTGART, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, HB I.163, s. xii/ xiii, prov. Ottobeuren.
Mirabile.
109. SUBIACO, Biblioteca del Monumento Nazionale del Monastero di Santa Scolastica 16, XV, s. xi.
Hurst; Mirabile.
110. TOULOUSE, Bibliothèque municipale 188, fols 2r–207r, 1298, Toulouse. Complete text to … et eritis mihi testes (CCSL
120:423.2381). These words are followed by: Hunc librum fecit scribi dns B de castaneto dei gta eps albiensis. Anno dni MCCXCVIII, indicating that the manuscript was commissioned in the year 1298 by Bernard de Castanet, bishop of Albi (1276–1308). The chapter summaries for each book are separately numbered and placed before the book they refer to. No source marks; no canon section numbers.
Laistner. Online: Gallica.
111. TRIER, Stadtbibliothek 187/1208 4°, fols 1–184, s. xv2, Trier; prov.
Eberhardsklausen.
Laistner; Mirabile.
112. TROYES, Bibliothèque municipale 230, s. xii2, Clairvaux.
Laistner.
113. TURIN, Biblioteca nazionale 215.
Laistner.
114. UPPSALA, Universitetsbibliotek (Carolina), C 397, s. xiv, Szczecin (Stettin); prov. Szczecin (Stettin).
Mirabile.
115. UTRECHT, Universiteitsbibliotheek 75, 1468, Carthusians near Utrecht. Note on fol. 176v reads: scriptum et completum per manus fratris Campi Karthusiensis anno domini 1468 domus Traiecti inferioris.
Laistner.
116. †VALENCIENNES, Bibliothèque municipale 77, fols 1–129v, s. xii, St-Amand; prov. St-Amand.
Laistner; Mirabile.
117. VATICAN CITY, BAV, Pal. lat. 608, s. xv. The prefatory letters only.
Laistner.
118. VATICAN CITY, BAV, Rossi 611, s. xiiex/xiiiin, central Italy.
Mirabile.
119. VATICAN CITY, BAV, Regin. lat. 307, fols (double columns [a/b]) 3rb–3va, 4rb–4va, 4(bis)ra; 5va, 6rb–6va, 7rb–7va, 8rb–8va,
INTRODUCTION
9rab–9vab, 10rb–10va, 11rb–11va, 12rab–12vab, 13rab–13vab, 14rb–14va, 15rb–15va, 16rab–16vab, 17rb–17va, 18rab–18vab,
19rb–19va, 20rb–20va, 21rab–21vab, 22rb–22va, 23rab–23va(b is blank), 24rab–24vab, 25ra(b is blank), 26rb–26va, 27va, 28rb–28va,
29rab–29vab, 30rb–30va, 31rab–31vab, 32rb–32va, 33rb–33va, 34rab–34vab, 35rb–35va, 36rab–36vab, 37rb–37va, 38rb–38va,
40rb–40va, 41rb–41va, 42rb–42va, 43rb–43va, 44rab–44vab, 45rb–45va, 46rab–46vab, 47rb–47va, 48rb–48va, 49rab–49vab,
50rab–50vab, 51rb–51va, 52rb–52va, 53rb–53va, 54rab–54vab, 55rb–55va, 56rab–56vab, 57rab–57vab, 58va, 59rb–59va, 60rb–60va,
61rab–61vab, 62rb–62va, 63rab–63vab, 64rab–64vab, 65rb–65va, 66rb–66va, 67rab–67vab, 68rb–68va, 69rab–69vab, 70rb–70va,
71rab–71vab, 72rab–72vab, 73rb–73va, 74rb–74va, 75rb–75va, 76rb–76va, 77rab–77vab, 78rab–78vab, 79rb–79va, 80rab–80vab,
81rb–81va, 82rb–82va, 83rb–83va, 84rab–84vab, 85rab–85vab, 86rb–86va, 87rb–87va, 88rb–88va, 89rab–89vab, 90rb–90va,
91rb–91va, 92rab–92vab, 93rb–93va, 94rab–94vab, 95rb–95va, 96rb–96va, s. ixin.
An abridgement of Bede's commentary accompanied on facing columns by the text of Luke, which begins on fol. 7ra (a synopsis
[elenchus] of the contents of Luke precedes it). Despite being abridged, the commentary still far exceeds Luke in length; accordingly, both columns on recto and verso are sometimes given over to Bede. Very occasionally, however, Luke fills both columns. When Luke and Bede appear on facing columns, the format is always the same: recto Luke column a, Bede column b; verso Bede column a, Luke column b.
Hurst. Online: DVL.
120. VATICAN CITY, BAV, Urb. lat. 102, s. xv.
Laistner.
121. VATICAN CITY, BAV, Vat. lat. 378, s. x.
122. VATICAN CITY, BAV, Vat. lat. 638, fols 1r–171r, s. xi.
Laistner. Online: DVL.
123. VERCELLI, Biblioteca Capitolare Eusebiana 95 (119), s. ix2.
Hurst; Mirabile.
124. VIENNA, Nationalbibliothek 657, 188 fols, 800–820, northern France(?); prov. Paris.
Laistner; Manuscripta.at.
125. VIENNA, Nationalbibliothek 915, 164 fols, s. xiii2, Krain(?).
Laistner; Manuscripta.at.
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
126. †WOLFENBÜTTEL, Herzogliche Bibliothek, Gud. Lat. 2° 102, fols 86–133v, s. xiv2.
Laistner.
127. WOLFENBÜTTEL, Herzogliche Bibliothek, Guelf. 20-Weiss., fols 2r–208v, s. ix1, Weissenburg. Source marks; chapter numbers; canon section numbers.
Online: WDB.
128. ZÜRICH, Zentralbibliothek XIV 26, s. x/xi. Fragments from different works. Frag. 9 is from a codex of Bede on Luke.
Laistner.
(B) Extracts 1. ‡AUGSBURG, Staatsund Stadtbibliothek 2° Cod. 186, s. xv2/3.
Homiliary: extracts.
Spilling, Die Handschriftenkataloge 3:136–39.
2. AVRANCHES, Bibliothèque municipale 106, s. xiii, Mont-StMichel(?). Extracts.
Laistner.
3. BENEVENTO, Biblioteca Capitolare 6/1, fols 91r–93r; 101r–105v, s. x/ xi, Benevento(?). Homiliary: extracts, fols 91r–93r; 101r–105v.
Mirabile.
4. BENEVENTO, Biblioteca Capitolare 8, s. xex, Benevento(?).
Homiliary: extracts, fols 114v–116r; 123r–124r; 124r–126r; 146v–147v.
Mirabile.
5. BENEVENTO, Biblioteca Capitolare 10, s. x/xi, Benevento(?).
Homiliary: extracts, fols 190r–192v; 104v–107r; 136r–138r; 222r–224v.
Mirabile.
6. BENEVENTO, Biblioteca Capitolare 11, s. x/xi, Benevento(?).
Homiliary: extracts, fols 31r–33r; 157v–172v.
Mirabile.
7. BENEVENTO, Biblioteca Capitolare 12, s. xiiin. Homiliary: extracts, fols 165r–176r; 54r–57r; 57r–59v; 69v–71r; 104v–106v.
Mirabile.
8. BENEVENTO, Biblioteca Capitolare 13, s. x/xi, Benevento(?).
Homiliary: extract, fols 77v–81v.
Mirabile.
INTRODUCTION
9. BENEVENTO, Biblioteca Capitolare 18, s. x/xi and xii, Benevento(?).
Homiliary: extracts, fols 169r–171r; 203r–203v.
Mirabile.
10. CIVIDALE DEL FRIULI, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Biblioteca Capitolare 11, s. xiv, prov. Cividale del Friuli. Homiliary: extract, fols 8v–10v.
Mirabile.
11. CIVIDALE DEL FRIULI, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Biblioteca Capitolare 13, s. xiv2/4, prov. Cividale del Friuli. Homiliary: extract, fols 16r–17r.
Mirabile.
12. ‡CIVIDALE DEL FRIULI, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Biblioteca Capitolare 62, s. xiii. Homiliary: extracts, fols 68ra–70rb;
122va–127va; 127va–131ra; 133vb–136ra.
Mirabile.
13. ‡CIVIDALE DEL FRIULI, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Biblioteca Capitolare 63, s. xiii. Homiliary: extracts, fols 15va–18vb;
140ra–142vb; 142vb–144vb; 185rb–187vb; 187vb–191ra; 212vb–215ra.
Mirabile.
14. ‡CIVIDALE DEL FRIULI, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Biblioteca Capitolare 64, s. xiii/xiv. Homiliary: extracts, fols 2vb–3vb;
30ra–32ra; 33vb–36va; 180va–183rb; 233va–235ra; 31ra–33vb; 172va–177ra; 3vb–4va; 12vb–16ra; 22va–25va; 77va–79rb; 16ra–18vb;
29va–30ra; 63va–64vb.
Mirabile.
15. ‡CIVIDALE DEL FRIULI, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Biblioteca Capitolare 65, s. xiii. Homiliary: extracts, fols 35ra–37va;
44ra–46va; 155vb–158rb; 14va–15vb; 22vb–25vb; 28va–30rb; 34vb–39vb; 141va–142va; 25va–28rb; 28rb–28va; 92va–93vb;
181rb–183va.
Mirabile.
16. ‡CIVIDALE DEL FRIULI, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Biblioteca Capitolare 66, s. xiiiin. Homiliary: extracts, fols 110rb–112va; 152va–155vb.
Mirabile.
17. ‡CIVIDALE DEL FRIULI, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Biblioteca Capitolare 67, s. xiimed. Homiliary: extracts, fols 68ra–74vb;
76ra–81vb.
Mirabile.
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
18. GRAZ, Universitätsbibliothek 697, s. xi2, Millstatt. Homiliary, prepared by Paul the Deacon by order of Charlemagne: extracts, fols 25v–29v (3.11), 84r–85r (2.5), 138r–139v (2.5), 160r–v (5.18),
161r–162v (3.10), 227v–228r (5.20), and 228v–231v (3.8).
UB-Graz – Handschriftenkatalog.
19. GREIFSWALD, Bibliothek des Geistlichen Ministeriums XXVI.E.103, fols 213va–214ra, s. xvin, Greifswald. Extract: Book
IV.xi.33.
Mirabile.
20. ‡MADRID, Biblioteca Nacional 194, s. x, Monte Cassino. Homiliary: extracts, fols 278r–v; 185r–186v; 204r–205r; 209v–210v; 187r–188r;
85r–86v; 89r–90v.
Mirabile.
21. MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 100, s. xiin. Homiliary, extracts, pp. 7–12; 159–62; 162–68; 288–90; 168–71; 262–65; 279–82;
290–93; 230–33; 248–53; 262–65; 265–79; 279–82; 234–38; 314–19.
Mirabile.
22. MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 102, s. xiin. Homiliary, extracts, pp. 37–42; 199–203; 212–15; 235–38; 330–33; 338–43;
431–36; 448–52; 475–77; 488–92; 525–33; 665–67.
Mirabile.
23. ‡MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 103, s. xiin. Homiliary, extract, pp. 347–60.
Mirabile.
24. MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 104, c. 1035–1071, Monte Cassino. Homiliary: extracts, pp. 285–89; 254–57; Grimoaldus
Casinensis, scribe.
Mirabile.
25. ‡MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 105/1, c. 1071–1087.
Homiliary: extracts, pp. 257–66; 371–76; 497–531.
Mirabile.
26. ‡MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 106/2, c. 1058–1071, Monte Cassino. Homiliary: extract, pp. 612–17; Grimoaldus
Casinensis, scribe.
Mirabile.
27. ‡MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 107, post 1080, Monte Cassino. Homiliary: extract, pp. 207–11.
Mirabile.
INTRODUCTION
28. MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 108, c. 1070, Monte Cassino. Homiliary: extract, pp. 47–59.
Mirabile.
29. MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 109/1, s. xi, Monte Cassino. Homiliary: extracts, pp. 325–29; 140–43; 27–31; 383–89;
338–40; 349–52; 288–92; 318–20; Grimoaldus Casinensis, scribe.
Mirabile.
30. MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 112, c. 1087–1105, Monte Cassino. Homiliary: extracts, pp. 138–51; 210–13; 320–29.
Mirabile.
31. MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 113, s. xiin, Monte Cassino.
Homiliary: extracts, pp. 160–64; 154–60; 423–39.
Mirabile.
32. ‡MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 114, s. xiex, Monte Cassino. Homiliary: extract, pp. 223–24.
Mirabile.
33. MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 305, c. 1025–1055, Albaneta. Homiliary: extracts, pp. 225–29; 238–42; 295–299; 481–85;
505–08; 519–22; 551–58.
Mirabile.
34. MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 310, s. xi2, Albaneta.
Homiliary: extracts, pp. 161–66; 417–20.
Mirabile.
35. MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 462. Homiliary: extract, pp. 181–85.
Mirabile.
36. ‡MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 534, post 1058, Monte Cassino. Homiliary: extracts, pp. 318–22; 358–60; 392–96.
Mirabile.
37. MONTE CASSINO, Archivio dell'Abbazia 543, s. xiin, prov. Cesamo.
Extract, pp. 428–31, Iohannes, scribe.
Mirabile.
38. MUNICH, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek CLM 4533, s. ix–x/xi, southern Germany; prov. Benediktbeurn. Homiliary: extract, fols 198r–201v.
Mirabile.
39. ‡MUNICH, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek CLM 4534, s. ix/x, prov.
Benediktbeurn. Homiliary: extracts, fols 99v–101r; 142r–143v;
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
154v–156v; 156v–157v; 203v–204v; 164r–v; 175v–176v; 169r–171r; 176v–178r; 181v–183r; 246r–247v; 232r–233r; 276v–278r; 178v–180v;
186v–187v; 146v–149r.
Mirabile.
40. NEW HAVEN, Yale University, Beinecke 481.25, fol. 16, s. xi2, southern Germany. Homiliary: extract: CCSL 120:231.31ff.
Mirabile; Orbis.
41. OXFORD, Bodleian Library, Lat. theol. d.20, s. xiex, Normandy(?).
Extract, fols 163v–164r.
Mirabile; Bodley Checklist.
42. PARIS, BN lat. 103. Extracts?
43. PARIS, BN lat. 3719. Extracts?
44. ‡ROME, Biblioteca Vallicelliana A.7, s. xi. Homiliary: extracts, fols 9r–10r; 12r–v; 13r–v; 15r–17r; 10r–v; 137v–139r; 148v–150v;
150v–152v; 209r–211v; 5v–7v; 242v–244r; 263r–264r; 115r–118r; 257r–260v.
Mirabile.
45. ‡ROME, Biblioteca Vallicelliana A.10, s. xii. Homiliary: extract, fols 209r–211v.
Mirabile.
46. ‡ROME, Biblioteca Vallicelliana A.16, s. xiex. Homiliary: extracts, fols 5v–7v; 242v–244v; 263r–264r; 115r–118r; 257r–260v.
Mirabile.
47. SALERNO, Museo del Duomo, s.n. 'Homeliarium'. Homiliary: extract, fols 142v–144v.
Mirabile.
48. VATICAN CITY, BAV, Pal. lat. 563, fol. 44ra–b, s. xii. Extract: CCSL 120:380.682–706.
BAV: Manuscripts Catalogue 49. ‡VATICAN CITY, BAV, Vat. lat. 4222, s. xi. Homiliary: extracts, fols 5r–5v; 106v–107v; 122r; 123v–124v.
Mirabile.
Excluded: MSS Listed or Mentioned by Laistner, Hurst, or Others CHICAGO, Library of C.L. Ricketts 23: see OXFORD, Bodleian Library,
Lat. theol. c.20.
LONDON, Library of Chester Beatty 31: see CAMBRIDGE (Mass.), Harvard University, Ms. Typ. 202H.
INTRODUCTION
LONDON, Wilfred Merton Collection 42: see NEW HAVEN, Yale University, Beinecke 441.
MELK, Stiftsbibliothek. Mentioned by Laistner as 'doubtful'. Laistner, Hand-List, 49, states that the 'catalogue of 1483 records this work with the press-mark B 78 23'. The MS now at Melk with a former pressmark 'B 78' contains works of Raimundus de Pennaforte.
Not listed in Melk catalogues of 1889 (Vinzenz Staufer) and 2000 (Christine Glaßner).
MUNICH, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek CLM 19901. Fragment: Gregory, Homiliae in Evangelia, Homily 39 on Luke 19:42–47, PL 76:1294.
Bischoff, Die südostdeutschen Schreibschulen und Bibliotheken 1:165; CLA 9.1323 (Lowe's attribution, 'Bedae in Lucam Commentarii
Abbreviato', is mistaken).
NEW YORK CITY, Library of Philip Hofer 19 = CAMBRIDGE (Mass.), Harvard University, Ms. Typ. 202H.
VIENNA, Nationalbibliothek 997.
Does not contain Bede on Luke. Bischoff, 'Wendepunkte', 245, 263–64.
8. EDITIONS OF BEDE'S COMMENTARY ON LUKE
BADE (Paris, 1521). The edition princeps, in vol. 2 of a projected three-volume collection of Bede's biblical commentaries, published by Josse Bade (Iodocus Badius Ascensius) under the title Secundus
Operum Venerablilis Bedae Presbyteri Tomus … in Euangelium Lucae Lib. VI … .178
DE ROIGNY (Paris, 1544–1545). A reprint of the three vols of Bade's collection.
HERVAGIUS (Basel, 1563; repr. Cologne, 1612, 1688). The first collection of the complete works of Bede, in eight volumes, under the title
Opera Bedae Venerabilis presbyteri, Anglosaxonis: viri in divinis atque humanis literis exercitatissimi, edited by Ioannes Hervagius
(Johann Herwagen, the Younger). In vol. 5, columns 175–515. In a marginal note (col. 178) to Bede's Prologue, Hervagius expresses his disappointment in not finding source marks even in the oldest of the manuscripts he examined.
178 Gorman, 'Source Marks and Chapter Divisions', plate 1.
BEDE: COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
Online: MDZ.
GILES (London, 1844). The Complete Works of Venerable Bede, in 12 vols (1843–1844), ed. J.A. Giles. In Lucae Evangelium Expositio appears (with Bede's Commentary on Mark) in vols 10–11 (1844). A reprint, with corrections, of Hervagius.
MIGNE (Paris, 1862). In PL 92, ed. J.-P. Migne. A reprint of Hervagius.
HURST (Turnhout, 1960). In CCSL 120:1–425.
9. PRINCIPLES GOVERNING THE
PRESENT TRANSLATION
Our translation, the first into English, is based on the Latin text edited in 1960 for the Corpus Christianorum by David Hurst (page references to the Latin text are inserted into the translation between virgules). Hurst's text is not wholly satisfactory, and we have not hesitated to let alternative readings, which seem to give better sense, inform our translation. See
Appendix 1. We base our translations of biblical texts for the most part on the Douay-Rheims translation of the Vulgate, as revised by Bishop
Challoner. However, in addition to eliminating archaisms, we have not hesitated to depart from Douay-Rheims to bring our translation into line with Bede's text and to clarify his meaning.
Although Bede refers on a number of occasions in On Luke to the 'laws' or 'rules' of allegory, he never spells out what these might be. The specifics of 'fourfold allegory' that he describes in The Figures of Rhetoric perhaps came to seem more useful when he moved on to composing commentaries on books of the Old Testament. Still, in this work, in addition to allegorice
('allegorically'), he deploys a variety of adverbs and adverbial phrases, such as typice, mystice, tropice, parabolatim, per significationem, etc., to introduce spiritual/allegorical interpretations of the literal text, but he does not use them in any consistent or technical sense. Accordingly, we translate any one of these terms simply as 'allegorical(ly)' (or, occasionally,
'mystical(ly)').