40 FOUKTH PEEIOD. A.D. 590 TO 1049.
and Ireland, while Caledonia was saved, as the pious inhabitants believed, by the intercession of St. Columba.
The fusion of English Christians was completed in the age of Theodoras, archbishop of Canterbury (669 to 690), and Beda Venerabilis (b. 673, d. 735), presbyter and monk of Wearmouth. About the same time Anglo-Saxon literature was born, and laid the foundation for the development of the national genius which ultimately broke loose from Rome.
THEODORE was a native of Tarsus, where Paul was born, edu cated in Athens, and, of course, acquainted with Greek and Latin learning. He received his appointment and consecration to the primacy of England from Pope Yitalian. He arrived at Can terbury May 27, 669, visited the whole of England, established the Roman rule of Easter, and settled bishops in all the sees except London. He unjustly deposed bishop Wilfrid of York, who was equally devoted to Rome, but in his later years be came involved in sacerdotal jealousies and strifes. He intro duced order into the distracted church and some degree of education among the clergy. He was a man of autocratic tem per, great executive ability, and, having been directly sent from Rome, he carried with him double authority. "He was the first archbishop," says Bede, "to whom the whole church of England submitted." During his administration the first Anglo- Saxon mission to the mother-country of the Saxons and Friesians was attempted by Egbert, Yictberct, and Willibrord (689 to 692). His chief work is a " Penitential " with minute directions for a moral and religious life, and punishments for drunkenness, licentiousness, and other prevalent vices.1
The YENERABLE BEDE was the first native English scholar, the father of English theology and church history. He spent his humble and peaceful life in the acquisition and cultivation of
1 The works of Theodore (Pcenitenticde, etc.) in Migne's Patrol, Tom. 99, p. 902. Comp. also Bede, IV. 2, Bright, p. 223, and especially Haddan and Stubbs, III. 114-227, where his Penitential is given in full. It was probably no direct work of Theodore, but drawn up under his eye and published by his authority. It presupposes a very bad state of morals among the clergy of that age.
I 13. CONFORMITY TO HOME ESTABLISHED. 41
ecclesiastical and secular learning, wrote Latin in prose and verse, and translated portions of the Bible into Anglo-Saxon. His chief work is his — the only reliable — Church History of old England. He guides us with a gentle hand and in truly Chris tian spirit, though colored by lloman views, from court to court, from monastery to monastery, and bishopric to bishopric, through the missionary labyrinth of the miniature kingdoms of his native island. He takes the llomaii side in the controversies with the British churches.1
Before Bede cultivated Saxon prose, Credmon (about 680), first a swine-herd, then a monk at Whitby, sung, as by inspira tion, the wonders of creation and redemption, and became the father of Saxon (and Christian German) poetry. His poetry brought the Bible history home to the 'imagination of the Saxon people, and was a faint prophecy of the "Divina Comedia" and the " Paradise Lost.'72 We have a remarkable parallel to this association of Bede and Csedmon in the association of "Wiclif, the first translator of the whole Bible into English (1380), and the contemporary of Chaucer, the father of English poetry, both forerunners of the British Reformation, and sustaining a relation to Protestant England somewhat similar to the relation which Bede and Caxlmon sustain to mediaeval Catholic England.
The conversion of England was nominal and ritual, rather than intellectual and moral. Education was confined to the clergy and monks, and consisted in the knowledge of the Deca logue, the Creed and the Pater Foster, a little Latin without any Greek or Hebrew. The Anglo-Saxon clergy were only less ignorant than the British. The ultimate triumph of the Roman
1 Sec Karl Werner (R C.), Ecda und seine Ze.it, 187"). Bright, /. c., pp. 326 sqq.
2 Beda, Hist. Eccl. AngL, IV. 24. Cccdmnnis monnchi Paraphraste poetica Gcnescos ac praxipuarum sacrce pagince Historiarum, ed. F. Junius, Amst., 1655; mo dern editions by B. Thorpe, Lond., 1832, and C. W. M. Groin, Gutting., 1857. Bonterwek, Cwlmon's rfaj An-fjclmchtn biblischc Dichtnn<fcn, Elberfeld, 1849-54, 2 Parts. F. Hammerieh, JEltrxtc chri*tliche Epik dcr Anyclsnchscn, DeutAchrn und Norcttand&r. Transl. from the Danish by Michelsen, 1874. Coinp. also the literature on the German Heliand, \ 27.