When he had spoken thus much and more to the same end, and they, having received his blessing, had gone away in great sorrow, he who had heard the heavenly song returned alone, and prostrating himself on the ground, said, “I beseech you, father, may I be permitted to ask a question?”—“Ask what you will,” answered the bishop. Then he said, “I beseech you to tell me what was that song which I heard as of a joyful company coming from heaven upon this oratory, and after some time returning to heaven?” The bishop answered: “If you heard the singing, and know of the coming of the heavenly company, I command you, in the Name of the Lord, that you tell it not to any before my death. But in truth they were angelic spirits, who came to call me to my heavenly reward, which I have always loved and longed after, and they promised that they would return seven days hence, and take me away with them.” Which was indeed fulfilled, as had been said to him; for being presently seized with bodily infirmity, and the same daily increasing, on the seventh day, as had been promised to him, when he had prepared for death by receiving the Body and Blood of our Lord, his saintly soul being delivered from the prison of the body, led, as may justly be believed, by the attendant angels, he departed to the joys of Heaven.

It is no wonder that he joyfully beheld the day of his death, or rather the day of the Lord, the coming whereof he had always been mindful to await with earnest expectation. For with all his merits of continence, humility, teaching, prayer, voluntary poverty, and other virtues, he was so filled with the fear of the Lord, so mindful of his latter end in all his actions, that, as I was wont to hear from one of the brothers who instructed me in the Scriptures, and who had been bred in his monastery, and under his direction, whose name was Trumbert, if it happened that there blew a sudden strong gust of wind, when he was reading or doing any other thing, he forthwith called upon the Lord for mercy, and begged that it might be granted to all mankind. If the wind grew stronger, he closed his book, and fell on his face, praying still more earnestly. But, if a violent storm of wind or rain came on, or if the earth and air were filled with the terror of thunder and lightning, he would go to the church, and anxiously devote himself with all his heart to prayers and psalms till the weather became calm. Being asked by his brethren why he did so, he answered, “Have not you read—‘The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice. Yea, he sent out his arrows and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them.’⁹ For the Lord moves the air, raises the winds, hurls lightning, and thunders from heaven, to rouse the inhabitants of the earth to fear him; to put them in mind of judgement to come; to dispel their pride, and confound their boldness, by recalling to their thoughts that dread time, when the heavens and the earth being on fire, He will come in the clouds, with great power and majesty, to judge the quick and the dead. Wherefore,” said he, “it behoves us to respond to His heavenly admonition with due fear and love; that, as often as the air is moved and He puts forth His hand threatening to strike, but does not yet let it fall, we may immediately implore His mercy; and searching the recesses of our hearts, and casting out the dregs of our sins, we may carefully so act that we may never deserve to be struck down.”

With this revelation and narrative of the aforesaid brother, concerning the death of this prelate, agrees the account of the most reverend Father Egbert, above spoken of,¹⁰ who long and zealously led a monastic life with the same Ceadda, when both were youths, in Ireland, in prayer and self-denial and meditation on the Holy Scriptures. But whereas Ceadda afterwards returned into his own country, Egbert continued to live abroad for the Lord’s sake till the end of his life. A long time after, Hygbald, a man of great holiness and continence, who was an abbot in the province of Lindsey,¹¹ came from Britain to visit him, and whilst, as became holy men, they were discoursing of the life of the former fathers, and rejoicing to imitate the same, mention was made of the most reverend prelate, Ceadda; whereupon Egbert said, “I know a man in this island, still in the flesh, who, when Ceadda passed away from this world, saw the soul of his brother Cedd, with a company of angels, descending from heaven, who, having taken Ceadda’s soul along with them, returned again to the heavenly kingdom.” Whether he said this of himself, or some other, we do not certainly know; but because it was said by so great a man, there can be no doubt of the truth thereof.

Ceadda died on the 2nd of March,¹² and was first buried by St. Mary’s Church, but afterwards, when the church of the most blessed chief of the Apostles, Peter, was built in the same place, his bones were translated into it. In both which places, as a testimony of his virtue, frequent miracles of healing are wont to be wrought. And of late, a certain man that had a frenzy, wandering about everywhere, arrived there in the evening, unperceived or disregarded by the keepers of the place, and having rested there the whole of the night, came forth in his right mind the next morning, to the surprise and joy of all, and told what a cure had been wrought on him through the goodness of God. The place of the sepulchre is a wooden monument, made like a little house, covered, having a hole in the wall, through which those that go thither for devotion are wont to put in their hand and take out some of the dust. This they put into water and give to sick cattle or men to drink, whereupon they are presently eased of their infirmity, and restored to their desired health.

In his place, Theodore ordained Wynfrid,¹³ a man of good and sober life, to preside, like his predecessors, over the bishoprics of the Mercians, the Midland Angles, and Lindsey, of all which, Wulfhere, who was still living, was king. Wynfrid was one of the clergy of the prelate he succeeded, and had for no small time filled the office of deacon under him.

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← IV.2 How Theodore visited all places; how the Churches of the English began to be instructed in the study of Holy Scripture, and in the Catholic truth; and how Putta was made bishop of the Church of Rochester in the room of Damianus. [669 a.d.] · Contents · [[BEH IV.04|IV.4 How Bishop Colman, having left Britain, built two monasteries in the country of the Scots; the one for the Scots, the other for the English whom he had taken along with him. [667 a.d.] →]]

Footnotes

1. III, 24, 30. He had probably died two years before Chad’s appointment, i.e., in 667, and the see had been vacant in the interval, for Wilfrid, then in retirement at Ripon, is said (by Eddius) to have discharged episcopal functions for the Mercians. ↩

2. Lastingham. Cf. Preface, p. 3; III, 23, 28. ↩

3. Lindsey at this time belonged to Mercia. Cf. c. 12, p. 243, note 5. ↩

4. Smith believed this place to be Barton-on-Humber. It is now generally identified with Barrow in Lincolnshire. For the preposition, cf. II, 14, p. 119, note 5. ↩

5. It had not previously been an episcopal see, though Wulfhere had wished to establish Wilfrid there during the vacancy in the Mercian bishopric (p. 218, note 4). When the bishopric of Mercia and Lindsey was subdivided by Theodore in 679, Lichfield remained the see of the bishopric of Mercia proper. In 787, under Offa, King of Mercia, with the consent of Pope Hadrian, it was raised into a separate archbishopric for Mercia and East Anglia, but in 802 Canterbury was re-established as the sole archbishopric for the Southern Province. The popular derivation of the name, Lichfield (“Field of the Dead”) is from lic = a corpse, and the place is traditionally connected with the martyrdom of a great number of British Christians. Another derivation, however (from leccian = to irrigate), points to the meaning “the watered field.” ↩

6. Eccl., iii. 5. ↩

7. A stone which is believed to have formed part of Owini’s tomb was found at the end of the eighteenth century at Haddenham, near Ely, and is now in Ely Cathedral. It bears the inscription, “Lucem tuam Ovino da Deus et requiem. Amen” (Mayor and Lumley). ↩

8. Cf. c. 19. ↩

9. Ps. xviii, 13, 14. ↩

10. III, 4, 27. ↩

11. He is said to have been Abbot of Bardney. ↩

12. In 672. The original Church of St. Mary at Lichfield, said to have been built by Oswy in 656-657, was replaced about 1140 by the new Cathedral, and Ceadda’s relics were soon after removed to it. ↩

13. Cf. III, 24, ad fin., note. ↩