FLORES Discussion Post #1- Bede's England & Brown's Christendom
Jasmine
"Early medieval Christianity was at its most vigorous in regions which, half a millennium previously,
had been regarded by cultivated Romans as lands beyond the pale of civilization," (Brown, 52).
It was in one of these "lands beyond the pale of civilization," namely England, that we encounter our tour guide into common life in medieval Christendom: the Venerable Bede.
What makes England England in Bede's mind? It is, after all, sectioned into several kingdoms and provinces. At the outskirts are the Irish and the Picts, who often find themselves at odds with the English. Yet, Bede sees England as unified, but not for political reasons. It is not a land unified under a particular ruler, but under the authority and heavenly kingdom of Heaven. Although not entirely subjected to Christ's rule, this is Bede's ideal. It is therefore necessary to bring all of England, from the commoner to the aristocrat, under the divine headship of Christ.
To that end, Bede traces the development and spread of Christianity through England by way of the bishops, popes and saints. They are the main characters, not the Kings, since they are doing the work of a higher Kingdom. The everyday affairs and bureaucratic matters of state are of little to no importance unless they affect the spread of the Gospel. Persecutions, evil kings and the introduction of heresies are seen as diseases needing to be cured immediately lest their infectious nature cripple the entire population. It is of extreme importance, therefore that the spread of the Gospel not end with the example of just one martyr, such as St Alban, (Bede, Book I, Ch. 7).
Bede writes extensively on St. Germanus (Bede, Book I, Ch. 17-21). How Germanus came to fight against and eventually expel the Pelagian heresy (Ch. 17), how he calmed a storm (Ch.17), healed a girl of blindness (Ch. 18), how a fire avoided burning down his hut (Ch. 19) and how he healed a boy of a withered leg (Ch. 21) were all of spiritual import to Bede in that they were signs used to point the heathens to Christ.
Augustine and correspondence with Pope Gregory (Ch. 27) were also recorded in detail that they might serve future churches in the manner of practicing their faith in a uniformly orthodox manner. This uniformity is extremely vital to Bede. It seems as if were one to call himself a Christian, one would have to conform to the conventions set forth by the church leaders - namely the popes and bishops in Rome. He speaks of the differing traditions on Easter Sunday in this way,
"Meanwhile Augustine, making use of the help of King Aethelbeht, summoned the bishops and teachers of the neighboring British kingdom to a conference.... He proceeded to urge them with brotherly admonitions, that they should preserve catholic peace with him and undertake the joint labour of evangelizing the heathen for the Lord's sake. They did not keep Easter Sunday at the proper time, but from teh fourteenth to the twentieth day of the lunar month; this reckoning is based on an 84-year cycle. They did other things too which were not in keeping with the unity of the Church. After a long dispute they were unwilling, in spite of the prayers, exhortations, and rebukes of Augustine and his companions to give their assent, preferring their own traditions to those in which all the churches throughout the world agree with Christ," (Bede, 109).
To Bede, the practice of Easter in keeping with the traditions of the larger catholic church was akin to agreement with Christ. Anything else was in keeping with one's own human tradition and therefore unacceptable. In order for the church to be unified, there had to be uniformity. For this reason, he continues to speak of this disparity with almost heartbreaking intensity.
To Brown, the concept of one church unified in practice is more of a romanticized view of Western Christendom than actual reality. There is no doubt that the early church is marked by certain identifiable features. The belief in sin and salvation, the performances of exorcisms, the preaching of the Gospel and the call to daily sanctification were universally accepted. How these beliefs were put into practice, however, was diverse depending on the community and people group. This in no way detracted from the power of the Gospel nor the increasing authority of the church in Rome particularly after Constantine's conversion. It was just not as Bede would have envisioned it.