Historical Setting: Jarrow, 793 C.E.
I came to Jarrow looking for the hate words I thought Bede had planted in the written history of Lindisfarne.
Those who gathered for the reading of Alcuin’s letter to Bishop Higbald were talking among themselves in search of the sins of Lindisfarne. Alcuin’s letter offered some sin options: greed and drunkenness. And there was that matter of the sinner buried among the saints.
Then Bede’s history re-issued the misguided, narrow view of the ways of the Irish founders of Lindisfarne. Blame words for the disobedience to the pope’s edict requiring a certain date for Easter and what Bede called ecclesiastical matters, were referring to Roman rule. Whatever the sin, the tragedy of Lindisfarne set a devastated community searching itself for its own need for repentance.
Sin needs to be acknowledged when a Viking invasion is understood as a doomsday kind of judgment against the community. Blaming the victim seems harsh, but finding something repent-worthy also empowers the victim to turn around and make it better. Never mind the crimes of the marauders, by changing from sin to repentance there comes the possibility for the community to control the holy judgment.
The conversation of the visitors over the unsalted porridge blessed Lindisfarne with an abundance of sin. There were plenty of opportunities for repentance.
This writer of the history, Bede, was a monk here at St. Paul’s of Jarrow, having lived his life in the deep and abiding love of the brothers. As a place that values learning, he was not only immersed in the book collection that started this library, he also used his opportunity to listen to others, particularly those who traveled to Rome, to draw his expressed conclusions on the power of the papacy.
Wilbert knew Bede as a mentor and a friend. So now the stories of Bede’s life and work allowed me empathy for Bede, when I had clearly come with a dispute. Now my argument is soothed with wider words to be a lingering difference of opinion; Bede described it as “a great and active controversy.”
Over the centuries I’ve seen this. Those who follow the Irish tradition call it a difference of Rule. But those from the Roman tradition put righteous truth on one side, against the so-called wrong-headed Irish. It is still political, though I say I came looking for the holy.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 