Bergeron Post 2: Bede's One-Way vs. Brown's Two-Way View of Christendom
Cara Bergeron
Bede’s England is a subset of his view of Christendom. Because it is his native land, Christian “England” is therefore his subject; but, as a catholic, he would argue that fellow monk-historians throughout catholic Christendom should have been writing their own peoples' providential histories concurrent with his own. In other words, Bede’s “island country,” (neither a solitary island, including, as it does, Ireland and parts of Francia, nor a unified country in that it consists of separately governed Angle-Saxon-Jutish-Irish-Pictish-Frankish kingdoms) lies sheltered within the heart of Christendom, despite its location at the uttermost end of Roman civilization. Bede gives three reasons, reinforced and climaxing particularly in chapters II and III of EH, for England’s full membership in Christendom: right belief, right observance, and missionary activity. Peter Brown acknowledges primarily the first (common beliefs and imagination) and last of these (common activities) as the notable marks of Christendom, but he disagrees with Bede about the exclusivity of the direction which Christianity missionary activity took in England and elsewhere.
In his account of Augustine’s ultimatum to the Briton Christians, Bede sets forth his three distinguishing marks of catholic Christianity: “to keep Easter at the proper time; to perform the sacrament of baptism, whereby we are born again to God, according to the rites of the holy Roman and apostolic Church; and to preach the word of the Lord to the English people in fellowship with us” (Bede, 73). With respect to the first and second of these, he argues clearly throughout EH that keeping Easter at the proper time (right practice) stems from correct interpretation of the scriptures and Church tradition (right belief). Therefore, the first mark of a Christian is that he would put off former sins and idolatrous imaginations and put on the illumination of Jesus Christ as taught by the catholic church. Only then would his practice (baptism, celebration of Easter) be acceptable in the sight of God. For Bede, there were no politically pragmatic conversions such as are posited by modern historians. Or, if there were, he treats them with contempt as “ill-omened and fateful to all good men” (Bede, 110). The inward change hoped for is summarized well in Pope Boniface’s letter to Edwin’s Christian wife, Aethelburh: “Inflame his cold heart by teaching him about the Holy Spirit, so that he may lose that numbness which an evil religion produces and so that the warmth of divine faith may, through your frequent exhortations, kindle his understanding” (Bede, 90). Bede’s Christendom is characterized by such genuine faith, belief, and imagination--the movement of the mind from the realm of superstition to the realm of truth and all that it could offer, both eternally and temporally.
In Chapter III, this change of belief and practice actually comes to pass in Edwin’s life, and the conversion is a climax of Bede’s History, but not only because Edwin and his thegns and kingdom “publicly accepted the gospel which Paulinus preached, renounced idolatry, and confessed faith in Christ” (Bede, 96). The story is also a climax because the conversion is catalyzed by Bede’s third mark of catholic orthodoxy: missionary activity, characterized by what he later calls “the grace of discretion, which is the mother of all virtues” (Bede, 118). For, as he had instructed Edwin, “Paulinus saw how difficult it was for the king’s proud mind to turn humbly to the way of salvation and accept the mystery of the life-giving cross; yet he continued to labor for the salvation of the king and also the people he ruled,” (Bede, 91) As he labored, Paulinus remained sensitized to the leading of the Spirit, who provided insight into Edwin’s private visions and vows. He preached the Gospel and exhorted the kingdom, but he was also content to wait for crucial moments in which to share his “imagination”--as Peter Brown characterizes the combination of insight and faith-- with Edwin. Paulinus’ was a missionary activity carried out with tactfulness and diplomacy (again, right practice, stemming from orthodox belief), which is one of the reasons that, despite his Roman birth, he nevertheless succeeded with a “barbarian” Northumbrian king and his kingdom.
In The Rise of Western Christendom, Peter Brown points out that Romans may have brought catholic Christianity to England, but Christian belief was permanently changed by its contact with the pagan Irish and Frankish imaginations. Bede would have agreed that, when two opposing forces met, one would change, but he would not have agreed that it could be Christendom. To Bede, Christianity was on a trajectory only to send out clerical lights to enlighten the minds of those caught in darkness; it could not be tainted or changed by contact with barbarian ideals. Therefore, Gregory’s Roman priests became bishops in England, converting first the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, but continuing to experience success amongst the Irish through Adamnan, and even, finally, the Picts, under Ceolfrith’s leadership. Then, after Irish beliefs and practices regarding Easter and the tonsure had been washed in the font of catholicism, that nation was again free to send missionaries to catholicize the monastery of Iona—the monastery which had originally sent Aidan to Christianize the Britons! Christianity comes full circle in Bede’s History, but the direction of knowledge, belief, and practice is ever higher, never lower. For Bede, belief and imagination move, but only from a state of inferiority to superiority (catholicism) by means of the one who can claim superior belief, knowledge, and practice. Yet Brown’s accounts of the Irish code of honor and Frankish gift exchanges make clear that pagan cultural pathways did mark the catholic church permanently—and not always for the better, not always in defense of scriptural orthodoxy. The Irish warrior beliefs regarding “shit on the enech/face” (dishonor), revenge, and “cleaning the enech/face” (reparations) created an environment where sin and penitence took on minute concrete implementations which would mark the western church indelibly (Brown, 245). Additionally, the Frankish aristocracy, controlling vast tracts of land and wealth, had come to see investment capital as something that could be exchanged for spiritual capital. It was in this milieu that Christians throughout the west, laymen especially, came to need and support monasteries as “powerhouses of prayer” and a source of spiritual guidance. This included the dead saints, whose relics could not only cure sin and its effects, but who could also make intercession before God for their souls if left in Purgatory, a Roman imagination of Gregory the Great. It is ironic that we see this pattern of dependence upon monastic orders, saint veneration, and “saving face” through penitence and monetary gifts very clearly in Bede. Three cultural imaginations—one via Ireland, one via Francia, and one via Rome—fused to create a “blockbuster” imagination, which then required an entirely new social system for its practice. The all-encompassing monastery—accompanied by prestige, powerful administrations, penitential systems (from the Irish), reciprocal gift-giving (from the Franks), and, yes, some genuine religiosity, was the result. Brown acknowledges that missionary activity and a similar mind, similar beliefs (the western Christian imagination) were the primary characteristics of Christendom, but he demonstrates that the exchange went both ways as opposed to Bede’s one-way system.
Jasmine
Brian & Cara Bergeron
Sent from my iPad
Cara, I like this line a lot: "Bede’s Christendom is characterized by such genuine faith, belief, and imagination--the movement of the mind from the realm of superstition to the realm of truth and all that it could offer, both eternally and temporally." Very well said. Can you elaborate on your use of the word "imagination"?
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Cara Bergeron
Chris Schlect
Cara Bergeron
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