Complete Works of Bede

by Bede

  Ceterum tonsuram eam, quam magum ferunt habuisse Simonem, quis, rogo, fidelium non statim cum ipsa magia primo detestetur et merito exsufflet aspectu? Quae in frontis quidem superficie coronae uidetur speciem praeferre; sed ubi ad ceruicem considerando perueneris, decurtatam eam, quam te uidere putabas, inuenies coronam; ut merito talem simoniacis et non Christianis habitum conuenire cognoscas; qui in praesenti quidem uita a deceptis hominibus putabantur digni perpetuae gloria coronae; sed in ea, quae hanc sequitur uitam, non solum omni spe coronae priuati, sed aeterna insuper sunt poena damnati.

  ‘Neque uero me haec ita prosecutum aestimes, quasi eos, qui hanc tonsuram habent, condemnandos iudicem, si fide et operibus unitati catholicae fauerint; immo confidenter profiteor plurimos ex eis sanctos ac Deo dignos extitisse, ex quibus est Adamnan, abbas et sacerdos Columbiensium egregius, qui cum legatus suae gentis ad Aldfridum regem missus, nostrum quoque monasterium uidere uoluisset, miramque in moribus ac uerbis prudentiam, humilitatem, religionem ostenderet, dixi illi inter alia conloquens: “Obsecro, sancte frater, qui ad coronam te uitae, quae terminum nesciat, tendere credis, quid contrario tuae fidei habitu terminatam in capite coronae imaginem portas? et si beati Petri consortium quaeris, cur eius, quem ille anathematizauit, tonsurae imaginem imitaris? et non potius eius, cum quo in aeternum beatus uiuere cupis, etiam nunc habitum te, quantum potes, diligere monstras?” Respondit ille: “Scias pro certo, frater mi dilecte, quia etsi Simonis tonsuram ex consuetudine patria habeam, simoniacam tamen perfidiam tota mente detestor ac respuo; beatissimi autem apostolorum principis, quantum mea paruitas sufficit, uestigia sequi desidero.”

  At ego: “Credo,” inquam, “uere, quod ita sit; sed tamen indicio fit, quod ea, quae apostoli Petri sunt, in abdito cordis amplectimini, si quae eius esse nostis, etiam in facie tenetis. Namque prudentiam tuam facillime diiudicare reor, quod aptius multo sit, eius, quem corde toto abominaris, cuiusque horrendam faciem uidere refugis, habitum uultus a tuo uultu Deo iam dicato separare; et econtra eius, quem apud Deum habere patronum quaeris, sicut facta uel monita cupis sequi, sic etiam morem habitus te imitari condeceat.”

  ‘Haec tunc Adamnano dixi, qui quidem quantum conspectis ecclesiarum nostrarum statutis profecisset, probauit, cum reuersus ad Scottiam, multas postea gentis eiusdem turbas ad catholicam temporis paschalis obseruantiam sua praedicatione correxit; tametsi eos, qui in Hii insula morabantur, monachos, quibusque speciali rectoris iure praeerat, necdum ad uiam statuti melioris reducere ualebat. Tonsuram quoque, si tantum sibi auctoritatis subesset, emendare meminisset.

  ‘Sed et tuam nunc prudentiam, rex, admoneo, ut ea, quae unitati catholicae et apostolicae ecclesiae concinnant, una cum gente, cui te Rex regum et Dominus dominorum praefecit, in omnibus seruare contendas. Sic enim fit, ut post acceptam temporalis regni potentiam ipse beatissimus apostolorum princeps caelestis quoque regni tibi tuisque cum ceteris electis libens pandat introitum. Gratia te Regis aeterni longiori tempore regnantem ad nostram omnium pacem custodiat incolumem, dilectissime in Christo fili.’

  Haec epistula cum praesente rege Naitono multisque uiris doctioribus esset lecta, ac diligenter ab his, qui intellegere poterant, in linguam eius propriam interpretata, multum de eius exhortatione gauisus esse perhibetur; ita ut exsurgens de medio optimatum suorum consessu, genua flecteret in terram, Deo gratias agens, quod tale munusculum de terra Anglorum mereretur accipere. ‘Et quidem et antea noui,’ inquit, ‘quia haec erat uera paschae celebratio, sed in tantum modo rationem huius temporis obseruandi cognosco, ut parum mihi omnimodis uidear de his antea intellexisse. Unde palam profiteor uobisque, qui adsidetis, praesentibus protestor, quia hoc obseruare tempus paschae cum uniuersa mea gente perpetuo uolo; hanc accipere debere tonsuram, quam plenam esse rationis audimus, omnes, qui in meo regno sunt, clericos decerno.’ Nec mora, quae dixerat, regia auctoritate perfecit. Statim namque iussu puplico mittebantur ad transcribendum, discendum, obseruandum, per uniuersas Pictorum prouincias circuli paschae decennouenales, oblitteratis per omnia erroneis LXXX et IIII annorum circulis. Adtondebantur omnes in coronam ministri altaris ac monachi; et quasi nouo se discipulatui beatissimi apostolorum principis Petri subditam, eiusque tutandam patrocinio gens correcta gaudebat.

  Chap. XXI.

  How the Abbot Ceolfrid sent master-builders to the King of the Picts to build a church, and with them an epistle concerning the Catholic Easter and the Tonsure. [710 a.d.]

  At that time, Naiton, King of the Picts, who inhabit the northern parts of Britain, taught by frequent meditation on the ecclesiastical writings, renounced the error whereby he and his nation had been holden till then, touching the observance of Easter, and brought himself and all his people to celebrate the catholic time of our Lord’s Resurrection. To the end that he might bring this to pass with the more ease and greater authority, he sought aid from the English, whom he knew to have long since framed their religion after the example of the holy Roman Apostolic Church. Accordingly, he sent messengers to the venerable Ceolfrid, abbot of the monastery of the blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul, which stands at the mouth of the river Wear, and near the river Tyne, at the place called Ingyruum, which he gloriously governed after Benedict, of whom we have before spoken; desiring, that he would send him a letter of exhortation, by the help of which he might the better confute those that presumed to keep Easter out of the due time; as also concerning the form and manner of tonsure whereby the clergy should be distinguished, notwithstanding that he himself had no small knowledge of these things. He also prayed to have master-builders sent him to build a church of stone in his nation after the Roman manner, promising to dedicate the same in honour of the blessed chief of the Apostles. Moreover, he and all his people, he said, would always follow the custom of the holy Roman Apostolic Church, in so far as men so distant from the speech and nation of the Romans could learn it. The most reverend Abbot Ceolfrid favourably receiving his godly desires and requests, sent the builders he desired, and likewise the following letter:

  “To the most excellent lord, and glorious King Naiton, Abbot Ceolfrid, greeting in the Lord. We most readily and willingly endeavour, according to your desire, to make known to you the catholic observance of holy Easter, according to what we have learned of the Apostolic see, even as you, most devout king, in your godly zeal, have requested of us. For we know, that whensoever the lords of this world labour to learn, and to teach and to guard the truth, it is a gift of God to his Holy Church. For a certain profane writer has most truly said, that the world would be most happy if either kings were philosophers, or philosophers were kings. Now if a man of this world could judge truly of the philosophy of this world, and form a right choice concerning the state of this world, how much more is it to be desired, and most earnestly to be prayed for by such as are citizens of the heavenly country, and strangers and pilgrims in this world, that the more powerful any are in the world the more they may strive to hearken to the commands of Him who is the Supreme Judge, and by their example and authority may teach those that are committed to their charge, to keep the same, together with themselves.

  “There are then three rules given in the Sacred Writings, whereby the time of keeping Easter has been appointed for us and may in no wise be changed by any authority of man; two whereof are divinely established in the law of Moses; the third is added in the Gospel by reason of the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord. For the law enjoined, that the Passover should be kept in the first month of the year, and the third week of that month, that is, from the fifteenth day to the one-and-twentieth. It is added, by Apostolic institution, from the Gospel, that we are to wait for the Lord’s day in that third week, and to keep the beginning of the Paschal season on the same. Which threefold rule whosoever shall rightly observe, will never err in fixing the Paschal feast. But if you desire to be more plainly and fully informed in all these particulars, it is written in Exodus, where the people of Israel, being about to be delivered out of Egypt, are commanded to keep the first Passover, that the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, saying, ‘This month shal
l be unto you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house.’ And a little after, ‘And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.’ By which words it most plainly appears, that in the Paschal observance, though mention is made of the fourteenth day, yet it is not commanded that the Passover be kept on that day; but on the evening of the fourteenth day, that is, when the fifteenth moon, which is the beginning of the third week, appears in the sky, it is commanded that the lamb be killed; and that it was the night of the fifteenth moon, when the Egyptians were smitten and Israel was redeemed from long captivity. He says, ‘Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread.’ By which words all the third week of that same first month is appointed to be a solemn feast. But lest we should think that those same seven days were to be reckoned from the fourteenth to the twentieth, He forthwith adds, ‘Even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses; for whosoever eateth leavened bread, from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel;’ and so on, till he says, ‘For in this selfsame day I will bring your army out of the land of Egypt.’

  “Thus he calls that the first day of unleavened bread, in which he was to bring their army out of Egypt. Now it is evident, that they were not brought out of Egypt on the fourteenth day, in the evening whereof the lamb was killed, and which is properly called the Passover or Phase, but on the fifteenth day, as is most plainly written in the book of Numbers: ‘and they departed from Rameses on the fifteenth day of the first month, on the morrow after the Passover the Israelites went out with an high hand.’ Thus the seven days of unleavened bread, on the first whereof the people of the Lord were brought out of Egypt, are to be reckoned from the beginning of the third week, as has been said, that is, from the fifteenth day of the first month, till the end of the one-and-twentieth of the same month. But the fourteenth day is named apart from this number, by the title of the Passover, as is plainly shown by that which follows in Exodus: where, after it is said, ‘For in this self-same day I will bring your army out of the land of Egypt;’ it is forthwith added, ‘And ye shall observe this day in your generations by an ordinance for ever. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one-and-twentieth day of the month at even. Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses.’ Now, who is there that does not perceive, that there are not only seven days, but rather eight, from the fourteenth to the one-and-twentieth, if the fourteenth be also reckoned in the number? But if, as appears by diligent study of the truth of the Scriptures, we reckon from the evening of the fourteenth day to the evening of the one-and-twentieth, we shall certainly find, that, while the Paschal feast begins on the evening of the fourteenth day, yet the whole sacred solemnity contains no more than only seven nights and as many days. Wherefore the rule which we laid down is proved to be true, when we said that the Paschal season is to be celebrated in the first month of the year, and the third week of the same. For it is in truth the third week, because it begins on the evening of the fourteenth day, and ends on the evening of the one-and-twentieth.

  “But since Christ our Passover is sacrificed, and has made the Lord’s day, which among the ancients was called the first day of the week, a solemn day to us for the joy of His Resurrection, the Apostolic tradition has included it in the Paschal festival; yet has decreed that the time of the legal Passover be in no wise anticipated or diminished; but rather ordains, that according to the precept of the law, that same first month of the year, and the fourteenth day of the same, and the evening thereof be awaited. And when this day should chance to fall on a Saturday, every man should take to him a lamb, according to the house of his fathers, a lamb for an house, and he should kill it in the evening, that is, that all the Churches throughout the world, making one Catholic Church, should provide Bread and Wine for the Mystery of the Flesh and Blood of the spotless Lamb ‘that hath taken away the sins of the world;’ and after a fitting solemn service of lessons and prayers and Paschal ceremonies, they should offer up these to the Lord, in hope of redemption to come. For this is that same night in which the people of Israel were delivered out of Egypt by the blood of the lamb; this is the same in which all the people of God were, by Christ’s Resurrection, set free from eternal death. Then, in the morning, when the Lord’s day dawns, they should celebrate the first day of the Paschal festival; for that is the day on which our Lord made known the glory of His Resurrection to His disciples, to their manifold joy at the merciful revelation. The same is the first day of unleavened bread, concerning which it is plainly written in Leviticus, ‘In the fourteenth day of the first month, at even, is the Lord’s Passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the Lord; seven days ye must eat unleavened bread. In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation.’

  “If therefore it could be that the Lord’s day should always happen on the fifteenth day of the first month, that is, on the fifteenth moon, we might always celebrate the Passover at one and the same time with the ancient people of God, though the nature of the mystery be different, as we do it with one and the same faith. But inasmuch as the day of the week does not keep pace exactly with the moon, the Apostolic tradition, which was preached at Rome by the blessed Peter, and confirmed at Alexandria by Mark the Evangelist, his interpreter, appointed that when the first month was come, and in it the evening of the fourteenth day, we should also wait for the Lord’s day, between the fifteenth and the one-and-twentieth day of the same month. For on whichever of those days it shall fall, Easter will be rightly kept on the same; seeing that it is one of those seven days on which the feast of unleavened bread is commanded to be kept. Thus it comes to pass that our Easter never falls either before or after the third week of the first month, but has for its observance either the whole of it, to wit, the seven days of unleavened bread appointed by the law, or at least some of them. For though it comprises but one of them, that is, the seventh, which the Scripture so highly commends, saying, ‘But the seventh day shall be a more holy convocation, ye shall do no servile work therein,’ none can lay it to our charge, that we do not rightly keep Easter Sunday, which we received from the Gospel, in the third week of the first month, as the Law prescribes.

  “The catholic reason of this observance being thus explained, the unreasonable error, on the other hand, of those who, without any necessity, presume either to anticipate, or to go beyond the term appointed in the Law, is manifest. For they that think Easter Sunday is to be observed from the fourteenth day of the first month till the twentieth moon, anticipate the time prescribed in the law, without any necessary reason; for when they begin to celebrate the vigil of the holy night from the evening of the thirteenth day, it is plain that they make that day the beginning of their Easter, whereof they find no mention in the commandment of the Law; and when they avoid celebrating our Lord’s Easter on the one-and-twentieth day of the month, it is surely manifest that they wholly exclude that day from their solemnity, which the Law many times commends to be observed as a greater festival than the rest; and thus, perverting the proper order, they sometimes keep Easter Day entirely in the second week, and never place it on the seventh day of the third week. And again, they who think that Easter is to be kept from the sixteenth day of the said month till the two-and-twentieth no less erroneously, though on the other side, deviate from the right way of truth, and as it were avoiding shipwreck on Scylla, they fall into the whirlpool of Charybdis to be drowned. For when they teach that Easter is to be begun at the rising of the sixteenth moon of the first month, that is, from the evening of the fifteenth day, it is certain that they altogether exclude from their solemnity the fourteenth day of the same month, which the Law first and chiefly commends; so tha
t they scarce touch the evening of the fifteenth day, on which the people of God were redeemed from Egyptian bondage, and on which our Lord, by His Blood, rescued the world from the darkness of sin, and on which being also buried, He gave us the hope of a blessed rest after death.

  “And these men, receiving in themselves the recompense of their error, when they place Easter Sunday on the twenty-second day of the month, openly transgress and do violence to the term of Easter appointed by the Law, seeing that they begin Easter on the evening of that day in which the Law commanded it to be completed and brought to an end; and appoint that to be the first day of Easter, whereof no mention is any where found in the Law, to wit, the first of the fourth week. And both sorts are mistaken, not only in fixing and computing the moon’s age, but also sometimes in finding the first month; but this controversy is longer than can be or ought to be contained in this letter. I will only say thus much, that by the vernal equinox, it may always be found, without the chance of an error, which must be the first month of the year, according to the lunar computation, and which the last. But the equinox, according to the opinion of all the Eastern nations, and particularly of the Egyptians, who surpass all other learned men in calculation, falls on the twenty-first day of March, as we also prove by horological observation. Whatsoever moon therefore is at the full before the equinox, being on the fourteenth or fifteenth day, the same belongs to the last month of the foregoing year, and consequently is not meet for the celebration of Easter; but that moon which is full after the equinox, or at the very time of the equinox, belongs to the first month, and on that day, without a doubt, we must understand that the ancients were wont to celebrate the Passover; and that we also ought to keep Easter when the Sunday comes. And that this must be so, there is this cogent reason. It is written in Genesis, ‘And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night.’ Or, as another edition has it, ‘The greater light to begin the day, and the lesser to begin the night.’ As, therefore, the sun, coming forth from the midst of the east, fixed the vernal equinox by his rising, and afterwards the moon at the full, when the sun set in the evening, followed from the midst of the east; so every year the same first lunar month must be observed in the like order, so that its full moon must not be before the equinox; but either on the very day of the equinox, as it was in the beginning, or after it is past. But if the full moon shall happen to be but one day before the time of the equinox, the aforesaid reason proves that such moon is not to be assigned to the first month of the new year, but rather to the last of the preceding, and that it is therefore not meet for the celebration of the Paschal festival.