Bede sharpening his quill |
Bede the Venerable lived his
life in the darkest of times and was indeed a light shining
in that darkness. We know that he died in the year 735 and
on some unknown day, his parents brought him as a seven
year old boy to the Benedictine Monastery at Wearmouth,
Northumbria, England and placed him under the protection
of the monks there. We assume his parents gave the young
boy over to the monks because they sensed his profound talents
and goodness, and that sadly, they could offer him little
other than the hardship of their daily existence. At any
rate, only God knows how important that simple act of devotion
to their son would be for the history of the world.
Bede lived into his 50s, which was very old
for that day. He served as librarian at the monasteries
of Wearmouth and later at Jarrow for all his life. As the
barbarians in Rome were burning books, Bede was recording
them. He was a genius. He believed that the earth was round;
he calculated time before the invention of clocks, or even
the manufacture of glass.
|
