Nicolas De Maeyer: Augustinus egit, Beda compegit. The value of Beda Venerabilis’ Augustinian florilegium for the edition of Augustine’s writings.

One of the most influential exegetes at the forefront of the Carolingian Renaissance was Beda Venerabilis, whose Scriptural commentaries were heavily influenced by the writings of the Church Fathers and functioned as an important mediator between Patristic and Medieval exegesis. One of Bede’s most exemplary commentaries in this respect is the Collectio ex opusculis sancti Augustini in epistulas Pauli apostoli, a compilation of fragments from Augustine’s works rearranged to form a Pauline commentary.            Together with the florilegia of Eugippius and Florus, Bede’s Collectio is a key-text in the Late Antique/Early Medieval indirect transmission of Augustine’s writings and, as such, has been often relied on by editors of Augustine’s works. Due to the lack of a critical edition, however, these editors usually consulted only one or a few witnesses of the commentary, mainly Saint-Omer, Bibl. Mun. 91, the critical value of which is limited. Based on the edition of the Collectio I am preparing for the CCSL, I will evaluate, in this paper, the use of the commentary made by earlier editors of Augustine’s works and assess the general value of Bede’s florilegium for the edition of the Church Father’s oeuvre. Particular attention will be given to the Collectio’s paratextual material, namely its titles and book/chapter numbers. This analysis will further provide insight into which Augustinian works were available to Bede during the compilation of his exegetical commentaries and via which textual channels (direct transmission/other florilegia…) he knew these works.

Susan Cremin: Bede and the Book of Tobit

In the condensed biography at the close of his Ecclesiastical History, the Venerable Bede(c. 673-735), monk of the twin monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow in Northumbria, characterised his priestly life of scholarship as making extracts, for his own benefit and that of his brother monks, from the writings of the uenerabilium patrum. My paper explores Bede’s commentary On Tobit in the light of employment and citation of this work in Patristic tradition. Virtuous themes in the Book of Tobit such as alms-giving and love of neighbour are especially signalled in the Fathers’ references to this text. In Bede’s commentary we encounter a significant Christological and ecclesial thrust which he signals at the beginning of the work when he states that the Book of Tobit contains ‘the greatest mysteries of Christ and the Church’. Bede’s interpretative practice and theological values are given focus in our exploration of his commentary along with reference to Tobit in his other work. The paper considers how On Tobit reflects Bede’s inheritance and assimilation of Patristic learning, yet it is a work which demonstrates a confident and creative exegesis.

Joan Hart-Hasler: Bede’s Use of Textual Criticism in his Exegesis: The Retractatio in Actus Apostolorum

Late in life, following the lead of St Augustine, Bede wrote his second commentary on Acts, calling it the ‘Retraction’.  Bede’s  Retractatio in Actus Apostolorum is a work of exegesis, but not of the kind one usually encounters in a medieval interpretation of a biblical book.  In its preface, Bede, alluding to his earlier commentary, says “I will now write on the same volume [Acts] a little book of reconsideration, desiring especially to add to what had been less well said or to correct what seems to have been improperly said.  I have also taken care to note certain things in the Greek which have been set down differently, or with more or fewer words.”  The Retractatio’s avowed intention is to correct errors in the biblical text and misunderstandings of its meaning that Bede had discovered while working with various texts of Bibles, both Latin and Greek. Bede’s work, however, is not a list of errata but a commentary, endeavoring to uncover through the specific differences of words the genuine and full meaning of the early experience of the Apostles. My paper will illustrate how Bede utilizes the variations in different biblical texts, both Latin and Greek, to develop an exegesis of Acts that relies on a form of internal textual criticism for its understanding of the text it interprets.

Susan Cremin: Bede's interpretative practice in his Homilies on the Gospels

Scholars have asserted that as a biblical commentator, Bede did not practise the fourfold method of scriptural exegesis systematically and for the most part his evaluation of Scripture concentrated on two meanings, the literal sense and a spiritual designation. Nevertheless, there is evidence in Bede’s Homeliarum evangelii of a more formulated intention with regard to the different senses of scriptural interpretation than has been previously recognized. My communication puts forward that Bede’s preaching in his homiliary reflects the different schemes for understanding the biblical text recommended by him in his treatise De schematibus et tropis. I examine how in his sermons different senses of Scripture are implicitly enfolded within the homiletic format and comprise of an expository interplay of historical, allegorical, tropological and anagogical significances based on the gospel reading.  Also considered is how the gospel homilies illustrate that Bede’s Christology was central to his theological outlook and informed his exegetical method and mentality. Bede’s preaching on Christ and the economy of salvation articulates a perspective regarding the New Testament that was linked to his belief in what allegory revealed as part of the fourfold technique of interpreting Scripture.

Nicolas De Maeyer: Bede as a compiler. The Collectio ex opusculis sancti Augustini in epistulas Pauli apostoli and the Venerable Bede’s presentation of Augustine’s Pauline exegesis.

During the Middle Ages many compilations, extracting fragments from the works of Augustine of Hippo, played a major role in the diffusion of the exegesis of the Church Father. One of the oldest preserved examples of such a compilation is Bede’s Collectio ex opusculis sancti Augustini in epistulas Pauli apostoli, an exegetical commentary on Paul’s Epistles, which consists of 457 fragments taken from Augustine’s works. Despite the importance of Bede’s Collectio for the diffusion of Augustine’s Pauline exegesis in the Early Middle Ages and for the study of the transmission of Augustine’s works in Anglo-Saxon England, the commentary has never attracted wide attention and even lacks a critical edition, thus making it the last of Bede’s works without a critical text. In this paper, I intend to give an overview of the textual transmission of Bede’sCollectio, focussing on both direct and indirect witnesses of the text, the latter of which include some well-known Carolingian scholars, such as Florus of Lyon. Furthermore, I will analyse the way in which Bede constructs his commentary, to gain insight in his method of extracting fragments from Augustine’s oeuvre and rearranging them into his own commentary. As the art of compiling is highly personal, Bede constructs in a way his own ‘Augustine’, by selecting or ignoring certain Augustinian passages, thus stressing or eclipsing specific parts of Augustine’s Pauline exegesis. To illustrate Bede’s role as a compiler, I will present a case study, which will shed light on Bede’s adaptation of Augustine’s Pauline exegesis.

Conor O'Brien: Bede's Views on Circumcision and His Sources

The Venerable Bede (d. 735) declared in no uncertain terms that what baptism was for Christians under the new dispensation, circumcision had been for Jews under the old - a genuine sacramental means to remove original sin. This paper will examine how he drew together the scattered comments of Fathers such as Augustine and Gregory on the topic to make increasingly clear statements about the grace-giving qualities of ancient circumcision. Bede developed the ideas of earlier writers to suggest that Old Testament Jewish religion had been not simply a prefiguration of Christian truth, but itself a grace-giving part of the City of God.