An Epistle from Bede to Bishop Egbert, Concerning Ecclesiastic Discipline
Bede, the Servant of Christ, to his most Beloved the
Right Reverend Bishop Egbert, Health!
1. I rememser hearing you say last year, when I spent a few days in your monastery for purposes of study, that you would wish, this year also, when you should arrive at the same place, to have me near you to converse with, for the same purposes of study, common to us both. If this wish could, by God’s favour, be accomplished, there would be no need of my communicating with you at present by letter, since I could then more freely in private conversation say to you, face to face, whatever I wished or deemed expedient. But since the state of my health has, as you know, become such as to prevent this from coming to pass, I have yet, with brotherly devotion, in return for your affection, sent you by letter what I was not able to communicate in person. And I pray you by the Lord, not to consider the point of this letter to be fraught with arrogance and vanity, but as the true submission of humility and pious affection.
2. I therefore exhort your Holiness, my beloved Bishop in Christ, to confirm both by holy life and by holy teaching, the sacred dignity which God, the Author of dignities and Giver of spiritual gifts, hath bestowed upon you. For neither of these is complete without the other: if the bishop whose life is pure, omits the duty of teaching, or the good teacher neglects to practise what is right. But he who faithfully does both, is that servant who shall with joy await the coming of the Lord, hoping soon to hear Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” But if any one, which God forbid, shall receive the rank of bishop, and shall take no pains, either by a righteous life, to save himself from evil, or his people by punishing and admonishing them; what shall happen to him when the Lord comes at an hour that he knew not of, is declared plainly in that Gospel sentence, addressed to the unprofitable servant, Cast him into outer darkness: where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
3. In particular, I advise your fatherly sanctity to abstain in your pontifical dignity from idle confabulations, and revilings, and other pollutions of the unrestrained tongue; and to occupy your tongue and mind in divine preachings and meditations on Scripture, and particularly in reading the epistles of the Apostle St. Paul to Timothy and Titus, and mn the words of the blessed Pope Gregory, wherein he hath spoken much and curiously of the life and the faults of rulers, in his book of the Pastoral Rule, and in his homilies on the Gospel, that your language should always be seasoned with the salt of wisdom, elevated above the common diction, and more worthy of the Divine ear. For, as it is unbecoming that the holy vessels of the altar should ever be profaned by vulgar use and vile services, so is it in every respect untoward and lamentable, that he who is ordained to consecrate the Lord’s sacraments upon the altar, should at one moment stand ministering to the Lord at such ceremonies, and then, leaving the church, with the same mouth and the same hands, with which he had before been handling sacred things, should suddenly tall of trifles or do what will give the Lord offence.
4. Purity of tongue, as well as of conduct, is best preserved, not only by sacred reading, but also by intercourse with those who are devout servants of our Lord; so that if my tongue begins to run wild, or evil deeds suggest themselves to me, I may be sustained by the hands of my faithful brethren and preserved from falling. If this be expedient to all God’s children, how much more so to men of that rank, who have not only the care of their own salvation, but also that of the church committed to their charge? as we find it written, “besides 28 those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches. Who is made weak, and I am not made weak? Who is scandalized, and I burn not?” I do not say this from any suspicion that you act otherwise; but because it is noised abroad concerning some bishops, that they have no men of religion or continence near them; but rather such as indulge in laughter and jests, revellings, and drunkenness and other temptations of an idle life, and who rather feed their bodies with carnal food than their minds on the heavenly sacrifice. Such, if you should meet with any, I would wish you to correct by your holy authority, and advise them to have such witnesses of their conversation, both by night and day, as may suffice to benefit the people, by actions worthy of the Lord, and by suitable exhortations, and so further the spiritual labours of the bishops themselves. For read the Acts of the Apostles, and you will see by the narrative of Saint Luke, what companions Paul and Barnabas had with them, and what works they “themselves wrought, wherever they went. For as soon as they entered a city or a synagogue, they sought to preach the word of God, and to disseminate it on every side. This, I would wish you also, beloved friend, to make your aim; for to this duty you were elected, to this you were consecrated, that with great virtues you should preach the Gospel, by the aid of him who is the Prince of all virtue, Jesus Christ our Lord. You will accomplish this, if, wherever you arrive, you gather together the inhabitants, lay before them the words of exhortation, and in the character of leader of the celestial warfare, set an example of life together with all who may have come with you.