SOURCE: Joel T. Rosenthal, "Bede's Use of Miracles in Ecclesiastical History," in Traditio, Vol. XXXI, 1975, pp. 328-35.

[In the following essay, Rosenthal examines Bede's descriptions of miracles … in the Ecclesiastical History, contending that Bede used them carefully and for specific purposes, often to honor particular individuals.]

Bede believed in miracles. They were basic to him, both as a practicing Christian and as a working historian. Without accepting this we can understand him neither as a man of the seventh and eighth centuries nor as the author who carefully constructed the Ecclesiastical History.

One of Bede's warmest admirers, the late Bertram Colgrave, was rather embarrassed by what seemed to be the naïveté of his hero. To rescue Bede from the charge of being either overly credulous or simply simple-minded, Colgrave did a useful study of the use of miracle stories in Bede's works, particularly in the Ecclesiastical History.¹ And yet, despite himself, he always remained a little uneasy. His comments to the British Academy reflect a continuing ambivalence, and his last words on the subject were still apologetic in tone.²

Colgrave need not have worried about this rationalist dilemma. It no longer seems a serious problem. Largely through the recent labors of such scholars as Colgrave himself, Laistner, Levison, and Jones we quickly come to feel more at home in the world of early English Christianity than were readers of a generation or two ago.³ Accordingly we can readily digest episodes which once gave pause to even the most sympathetic reader. From students of myth we have learned to take many strange utterances with a new seriousness, and if we cannot 'get behind' the miracles we can at least stop wondering at their inclusion and proceed to an analysis of their use or role.

When examining the use of miracle tales in the Ecclesiastical History there are two points worthy of elaboration. One is that in a very large number of instances Bede gives us the specific source for his knowledge of the miracle when he recounts it. The other is that though miracles appear frequently on his pages, Bede's presentation of the conversion—perhaps the basic motif of the history—is accomplished almost wholly without the use of or the resort to miracles. These are two significant characteristics of the History. They reinforce our ideas about the skill of Bede's workmanship. They also reveal the degree to which his religion was a combination of sobriety and sensitivity, of unquestioning faith and of sharp-minded realism. Do these two points make it possible to argue that Bede carefully separated the rational and the miraculous? Or, perversely, do they make it possible to uphold the contrary view?

Colgrave says, with slight exaggeration, that 'a miracle occurs on almost every page' of the Ecclesiastical History.⁴ Actually there are about 51 different accounts of miracles and the miraculous: cures, visions, dreams, the calming of storms, the quenching of fires, the fore-knowledge of death, etc. These 51 accounts reflect many more than that number of miracles, for in many instances a number of tales, usually about the same hero, are strung together and Bede simply says that now 'it is not irrelevant to narrate one of the many miracles which have taken place.'⁵ The story then chosen, Bede assures us, is but one of the many he could relate if he were so inclined or if he thought it useful for his larger purpose.

The overwhelming majority of the miracle tales come from the later pages of the Ecclesiastical History. It is only with the beginning of Book 4, set after the synod of Whitby and the conversion of virtually all the English people, that the miracle tales begin to appear in real profusion. Now Bede 'has in a sense taken a step backward,' if we feel that the miracles represent a lower standard of history or of rational treatment of the world.⁶ We can say that the last two books of the History comprise about one-third of its total length but that they contain about 28 of the 51 miracles tales, or 55 per cent of the total number. There are several reasons for this change, which was an important one in both narrative style and in theological approach. They are bound up with Bede's whole purpose in writing as well as with his view of what miracles were for and about. They were not to prove God's dispensation. They were rather to enrich it, to revitalize it for those who had already received it. As Bede says, after relating a marvelous tale: through this 'many … were inspired to greater faith and devotion, to prayer and alms giving, and to the offering up of sacrifice … for the deliverance of their kinfolk.'⁷

Since this was the role assigned to the miraculous, we can see why Bede waited until he got to Book 4, when all were believers, to begin using the supernatural with great frequency. Now he could relax and tell 'in group' stories around the fire to an audience which would share his confidence in the great theme that had just been unfolded. The tension between the demons of paganism, heresy, and schism on the one hand and the true faith on the other was finally over. It was time to reward the hearers (and readers) with an elevating form of gossip.⁸

When Bede wrote the Ecclesiastical History the synod of Whitby was still on the edges of living memory. The tales of miracles from more recent days were probably seen by all as being distinct from those of the time of St. Alban or Germanus of Auxerre. Bede knew that his own audience was no longer living in the days of battle-line Christianity. The miracles of more recent days were granted by divine providence in order to show that while the heroic days may have been over, there was still a need for Christian heroism. Recent miracles must not be allowed to degenerate into vulgar bits of rural folklore. They were to be as serious as, if different from, those of the great days which were gone; current faith was no less valuable than the faith of the seventh century. The faith that one imbibed from Christian parents must be shown as no whit inferior to that newly acquired by recent converts.

It was in keeping with this scope accorded the later miracles that Bede took care to identify the source for so many of the recent marvels. It was not that his veracity would be doubted by his audience, but rather fear lest the unique dispensation of each separate miracle be forgot and the suspension of the natural law be taken for granted. This had not been a danger when he was recounting great tales of the 'good old days,' since no one would take the wonders of 200 years before as a matter of course. But it could happen with an extraordinary event of a mere generation ago. So Bede, believer and psychologist, added a special dimension to most of his more recent miracles tales, i.e., an identification of the source. Of the 23 miraculous tales recorded in Books 1-3 of the Ecclesiastical History, only seven (or 30 per cent of the total) have a source mentioned in the text. Of the 28 miracles which appear in Books 4 and 5, 19 (or 67 percent) have a source given with greater or lesser precision.

When Bede did give a source, the style of the identification was much the same for the earlier and later books. Nor is there any qualitative difference between miracles recounted with a source and those without. Only the chronological boundary posed by the synod of Whitby (in 664) seems to make a difference. The earliest miracle Bede fully cites with a source reference was unexceptional. It concerned the way in which Earcongota, daughter of Earconbert of Kent and his wife Sexberga, learned of her own imminent death while abbess of the house at Brie in France.⁹ In a similar fashion some of king Oswald's miracles had become known to Bede. The monk Fursa, who had the wondrous vision of the rewards of the just and the punishments of the wicked, told about Oswald to all and sundry, and so it reached the author: 'an aged brother is still living in our monastery who is wont to relate that a most truthful and pious [veracem ac religiosum] man told him that he had seen Fursa himself … and had heard these visions from his own mouth.'¹⁰

But if these mid-seventh-century miracles were passed on with a proper citation, this was not the case for many of the earlier ones. After Whitby such identification of the chain of (usually oral) transmission became Bede's customary modus operandi, and more often than not he includes a phrase to the effect of: 'This brother's acount … agrees with the story of a vision related by the most reverend father Egbert … who had lived the monastic life with Chad.'¹¹ Some accounts of miracles did reach Bede through sources, though these were few in number compared to those he chose to pick out of the grab-bag of oral tradition.¹²

It is often said that to the early medieval mind the line between the natural and the supernatural was a fuzzy one. For Bede at least it was a clear and fast one, judging by the distinction we have been discussing. Bede may have believed in miracles as surely as he knew his own name, in the sense that when he was told they had happened and his source was reliable he was metaphysically and theologically convinced, but he never confused them with ordinary happenings.¹³ There was no reason why God could not work both within the ordinary rules and beyond them as well when He chose. Bede himself never claims to have seen a suspension of the natural law, nor was he ever personally touched by a direct dispensation. He knew how unusual these occurences were, and he accepted that their frequency would continue to diminish. One miracle he singles out as being like those of the good old days, now passing from this earth.¹⁴ But if men of holy life and good repute told him of wonderful happenings, he had no hesitation in including such tales in his major piece of historical synthesis.

Bede did not identify his sources simply to protect himself against charges of credulity or outright falsehood. The Ecclesiastical History is generally replete with references to and quotations from the sources. This was a standard part of the author's methodology. Bede worked in keeping with the best professional canons of the day: 'he checked and sifted his witnesses, but he did not criticize the evidence they produced and the stories they related.'¹⁵ In his preface he not only lists his resource men for the different kingdoms of the English, but he explicitly says that for the north he pulled many threads together: 'What happened in the Church in various parts of the kingdom of Northumbria … apart from those matters of which I had personal knowledge, I have learned not from any one source but from the faithful testimony of innumerable witnesses, who either knew or remembered these things.'¹⁶

The Anonymous Life of St. Cuthbert, which Bede knew and used for his own life of Cuthbert before he wrote the Ecclesiastical History, was well steeped in this same methodological tradition.¹⁷ While many hagiographic works began with a brief mention of their sources,¹⁸ the Anonymous Life gave citations for many of the miracles as they were related through the course of the text. By way of contrast the Life of Wilfrid only identifies the sources of the innumerable miracles on a few occasions, e.g., the woman cured of mortal palsy.¹⁹ But Eddius Stephanus did include the text of various documents in his work, so if he was less scrupulous or acute as an historian, he was not a completely casual hagiographer.²⁰ Gregory the Great's Dialogues did give sources, much as Bede did: 'That which I intend now to tell you, I learned by the relation of one of my fellow bishops, who lived in monk's weeds many years in the city of Ancona, and led there a good and religious life. Many also of mine own friends, who be now of good years and live in the same parts, affirm it to be most true.'²¹ So Bede had different examples before him when he worked, and he chose to follow the most exacting practice. The citation of the sources represents a deliberate decision, and its results are seen with such frequency on the pages of the last two books of the History.

The other striking point about Bede's use of miracle tales is a negative one. It is that almost none of his accounts of conversion were dependent upon the occurence of a miracle. Bede recognized a sharp cleavage between God suspending natural law so as to honor a holy man or to testify to his special merit and the performance of religious prestidigitation in order to win over the hearts and minds of men. Conversion was for Bede a rational or a spiritual process, whereas miracles were wonders to be savored by those who had already joined the élite. Though there are exceptions or qualification to this, it is valid if we look at the bulk of those episodes which relate the process or experience of conversion from paganism.

There are approximately 24 different accounts of conversion in the Ecclesiastical History. They are the main points of the book, and if they do not occupy the majority of the pages, without their witness there would be neither Church nor body of believers in England to receive the miracles. Only in a few of the earliest accounts of conversion are miracles seen as representing an instrumental part of the process. In the story of St. Alban the saint's miraculous effect upon the stream seems to have been crucial in winning over a large number of the spectators to Christianity. Even here, however, the wording of the text is ambiguous.²² And this was the proto-miracle of the British Church; traditional lore, not malleable in Bede's hands. A century later the work of Germanus of Auxerre against the island's Pelagians was accomplished first by words and only subsequently, when the Pelagians had already been discredited, by a miracle. The heretics were already on the road to defeat before the blind daughter was cured: 'falsehood was overcome, deceit unmasked.'²³ This sequential order is indicative of Bede's sense of priorities. It was best for Christianity to prevail in 'torrents of eloquence,' not in tricks, even if they were worked with direct divine aid.²⁴

The most important conversion in the history of the English Church was that of Ethelbert of Kent. It is almost anticlimactic as laconically related by Bede. Softened by his queen's faith, Ethelbert was won over by the words and, even more importantly, by the example of the missionaries: 'at last the king, as well as others, believed and was baptized, being attracted by the pure life of the saints and by their most precious promises, whose truth they confirmed by performing many miracles.'²⁵ The miracles were in confirmation, i.e., to verify what the missionaries had already exemplified; to use the terminology of the social sciences they were no more than a 'dependant variable.' Through the course of the seventh century other conversions related by Bede were wrought in this same low-key fashion. King Edward came over to the faith after a victory, but it was not a victory like those of Constantine or Clovis where divine help was called for upon conditional terms.²⁶ Edward's celestial visions certainly helped bring him over to Christ, but even after he was personally convinced his council had the right of free discussion.²⁷ If Edward had been moved by his own spiritual light he did not expect that by itself to be sufficient to determine the fate of his kingdom. Public debate and assent (if only by the great men) had a role, and as the miracles had just been visited upon the ruler they were not directly responsible for the conversion of Edward's people.

The Anglo-Saxon missionaries as portrayed by Bede were primarily teachers, rather than priests or magicians. Paulinus 'spent 36 days there occupied in the task of catechizing and baptizing.'²⁸ Edward himself 'persuaded' Eorpwold of the East Saxons to accept the new faith.²⁹ Paulinus 'preached' the good news.³⁰ It was by 'instruction' and 'ministry' that the faith was carried, time after time.³¹ The East Saxons were saved from damnation by Fursey in this same fashion: 'he converted many both by the example of his virtue and the persuasiveness of his teaching.'³² These are but typical examples of Bede's accounts of conversion.

In some instances the use of miracles was introduced after the actual conversion, showing quite clearly the order of the factors. After Oswald's people had become Christian, then miracles occurred at Heavenfield, where they had prayed before joining battle with the pagan enemy.³³ Bishop Wilfrid was successful with the South Saxons and then the rain came down: 'on the very day on which the people received the baptism of faith a gentle but ample rain fell.'³⁴ And when the missionaries tried to carry the faith back to the Germanic peoples on the continent before the time was ripe, miracles attested to their personal holiness but offered them no help in their abortive efforts toward conversion. God recognized their efforts and blessed them for their zeal, but He did not intervene to give them success.³⁵

In these references to episodes of conversion, drawn almost at random from the Ecclesiastical History, we can see how carefully Bede controlled his use of miracle tales. They were an integral part of his great work, but they were neither a literary seasoning to be scattered indiscriminately for their novel flavor, nor were they mechanical levers to be tripped whenever a heavy spiritual task had to be performed. Miracles were specialized and focused. They usually came to honor the individual who worked them or upon whom they centered, as when 'the divine providence wished to show still further in what glory St. Cuthbert lived after his death.'³⁶ They were the specific indications of divine pleasure.

Conversely, the absence of miracles was not to be seen as indicating any absence of divine favor, whether toward individuals or their endeavors. The closest Bede ever came to having a personal hero (except for the northern saints) was Pope Gregory. Yet in his account of Gregory's life there are no miracle tales. The closest Gregory came to enjoying such a direct dispensation was through the large measure of success his mission to England enjoyed almost immediately. But even here the manifest indication of divine favor was confined to events explicable through the natural laws of causation. Gregory, like Bede, knew little of miracles from personal experience, at least insofar as Bede portrayed him. Both men were soldiers of the Church who had to draw their personal comfort from the words with which Gregory himself exhorted Augustine of Canterbury not to glory overmuch in his miracles, 'for not all the elect work miracles, but nevertheless all their names are written in heaven.'³⁷

Notes

1. Bertram Colgrave, 'Bede's Miracle Stories' in A. Hamilton Thompson, ed., Bede. His Life, Times, and Writings (Oxford 1935) 201-29.
2. B. Colgrave, 'The Earliest Saints' Lives Written in England,' Proceedings of the British Academy, 44 (1958) 35-60. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, editors, Bede's Ecclesiastical History (Oxford 1969) xxxiv-xxxvi. The editors ask 'How is it that one who is supposed to be our greatest medieval historian can spend so much time telling wonder stories?' (xxxv). David Knowles is also defensive about Bede's 'manifest belief in the miraculous,' p. x of the Everyman Library edition of the Ecclesiastical History. The concern is not only with Bede, for in B. Colgrave's edition of The Life of Bishop Wilfrid, by Eddius Stephanus (Cambridge 1927) xi-xii, the editor is again concerned with whether the author is 'credulous' as well as partisan.
3. Among the works that elucidate the thought and faith of early medieval Europe, the following are particularly relevant: B. Colgrave, Two Lives of St. Cuthbert (Cambridge 1940); C. W. Jones, Saints' Lives and Chronicles in Early England (Ithaca 1947); M. L. W. Laistner, Thought and Letters in Western Europe, 500-900 revised edition (London 1957); W. Levision, England and the Continent in the Eighth Century (Oxford 1946). A recent book with a good bibliography is P. H. Blair, The World of Bede (London 1970).
4. A. H. Thompson, Bede, 201.
5. Ec. History, 3. 2 (216). The emphasis is mine.
6. Colgrave, 'Earliest Saints' Lives,' 59. The tales are a methodological and intellectual regression, since Bede had reached the 'realm of pure history' in his introduction to the History.
7. Ec. History, 4.22 (409).
8. Thompson, Bede, 226-27.
9. Ec. History, 3. 8 (238).
10. Ec. History, 3. 19 (274).
11. Ec. History, 4. 3 (344). Other examples are readily found: Ec. History, 4.10 (364); 4.19 (390-96), etc.
12. Ec. History, 4.7 (356): 'many signs and miracles were performed which were set down by those acquainted with them as an edifying memorial for succeeding generations and copies are in possession of many people.'
13. Colgrave, 'Earliest Saints' Lives,' 40.
14. Ec. History, 5. 12 (488). A Northumbrian rose from the dead, 'a memorable miracle … like those of ancient days' (antiquorum simile). Colgrave, 'Earliest Saints' Lives,' 41: Along with Gregory Nazianzen, John Chrysostom, Augustine, and Pope Gregory, Bede accepted that miracles belonged to a 'past dispensation.'
15. Knowles, op. cit. x, and Jones, op. cit. 76, for the distinction in Bede between 'historical truth' and 'ethical truth.' The latter, naturally, depended in large part on the piety and character of the transmitter of the information.
16. Ec. History, Praefatio (7).
17. Colgrave, ed., Two Lives of St. Cuthbert 65, for an incident of Cuthbert's youth which came to the author from Bishop Tumma, 'of holy memory, who learnt from St. Cuthbert's own lips … and Elias also, a priest of our church. These tell the story thus …' There are numerous other source-identifications of this type.
18. For a piece of hagiography which names the sources in the prefatory bit but not miracle-by-miracle, see B. Colgrave, editor, Felix's Life of St. Guthlac (Cambridge 1956). The introduction professes great methodological concern: 62-63, 'just as I learned it from the words of competent witnesses whom you know …' and, 65, 'I would not write anything about so great a man without an exact inquiry into the facts.'
19. Life of Bishop Wilfrid, 77: A woman was cured of palsy, and now, 'like Peter's wife's mother, she ministered to our holy bishop in all honour; she is still living and is now a holy abbess named Aebbe, and is wont to tell this story with tears' (cum lacrimis hoc narrare consuevit). There are other examples on 129 and 147, where a story 'is proved by the witness of many' (quod multorum testimonio comprobatur).…
20. Op. cit. 61-67, 89, 105, 117.
21. The quotation is from Edmund Gardner, translator, Gregory the Great's Dialogues (London 1911) 23-24. The text is found in Gregorii Magni Dialogi, libri v, edited U. Moricca, Fonti per la Storia d'Italia 57 (Rome 1924) 39: (21). 'Cuiusdam coepiscopi mei didici relatione quod narro, qui in Anchonitanam orbem per annos multos in monachio habitu deguit, ibique vitam non mediocriter religiosam duxit; cui etiam quidam nostri iam provectioris aetatis, qui ex eisdem sunt partibus adtestantur.…' There is another such citation on page 38: 'Ea etiam quae subiungo praedicti venerabilis viri Fortunati, qui valde mihi aetate, opere et simplicitate placet, relatione cognovi.'
22. Ec. History, 1. 7 (33). The persecution does not seem to have ceased because of the miracle, Ec. History, 1. 7 (35): 'iudex, tanta miraculorum caelestium novitate perculsus, cessari mox a persecutione praecepit.' But Alban's own conversion was the result of his desire to emulate a confessor whose purity of life had greatly impressed him: page 11.
23. Ec. History, 1.18 (58-60). Bede concluded this episode by saying, 61: 'After these incidents a countless number of men turned to the Lord on the same day.' But his 'quibus ita gestis' does not quite force us to conclude that the miracles were responsible.
24. Ec. History, 1. 17 (58).
25. Ec. History, 1. 26 (76).
26. Ec. History, 2. 9 (80). For Constantine's conversion, see J. Culfon and H. Lawler, editors, Eusebius: The Ecclesiastical History (London 1932) 2. 359-65, and Norman Baynes, 'Constantine the Great and the Christian Church,' Proceedings of the British Academy 15 (1929) 341-442. For Clovis' decision to come over, O. M. Dalton, trans., Gregory of Tours: History of the Franks (Oxford 1927) 67-70. It was almost a commonplace that miracles and conversion went together: E. A. Thompson, The Visigoths in the Time of Ulfila (Oxford 1966) 80.
27. Ec. History, 2. 12 (174-82), and 2. 13 (182-86).
28. Ec. History, 2. 14 (188).
29. Ec. History, 2. 15 (188).
30. Ec. History, 2. 16, 17 (190).
31. Ec. History, 3. 3 (218-20): '… preaching the word of faith with great devotion …,' 'administering the grace of baptism to those who believed …,' 'people flocked together with joy to hear the word,' 'monks who came to preach.…'
32. Ec. History, 3. 19 (268).
33. Ec. History, 3. 2 (p. 216).
34. Ec. History, 4. 13 (374). The bishop showed men how to improve their fishing techniques, and this is referred to as a 'good turn' (beneficio) rather than as a repetition of the miracle of the loaves and fishes. It seems like a deliberate attempt to play down the marvelous aspects of the incident.
35. Ec. History, 5. 9 (480).
36. Ec. History, 4. 30 (442).
37. Ec. History, 1. 31 (110). Colgrave, 'Earliest Saints' Lives,' 49: The author of the Anonymous Life of St. Gregory 'points out how the gift of performing miracles, as Gregory himself taught, is sometimes of less importance than the gift of teaching.'