Voices and influences
Bede
He wrote England's first history from inside a Northumbrian monastery, and taught the world to count years from the birth of Christ.
Summary
This site quotes Bede 510 times across 28 books, and lists 0 works.
- Lived died 735.
- Quoted here most in Mark: 118 of 510.

Bede
- Lived
- died 735
- Tradition
- Patristic
5 of 510 quotations
Own words
Quoted at 50 words or fewer, because Bede's works are in copyright.
Clothed in flesh, [Christ] descended into the water as "an angel of great counsel," that is, as a herald of the Father's will to Jewish people. By his deeds and his teaching he moved sinners, so that he would be killed—he who, by his bodily …
Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. BSB
The windows of the temple are the holy teachers and all the spiritual people in the church to whom when in divine ecstasy it is granted more specially than to the others to see the hidden mysteries of heaven. And when they reveal publicly to …
1 Kings 6:4 He also had narrow windows framed high in the temple. BSB
King Cyrus also brought forth the vessels of the temple of the Lord, etc. Nebuchadnezzar took the vessels of the Lord from Jerusalem, as any unclean spirit, snatching certain of the faithful from the Church, deprives them of the joy of internal peace. Moreover, he …
Ezra 1:7 King Cyrus also brought out the articles belonging to the house of the LORD that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the temple of his gods. BSB
After these things were completed, etc. The guilt of this transgression is also clearly described and reproved by prophetic authority in the prophet Malachi; because evidently those who returned from Babylonian captivity, both princes and priests and Levites, as well as the rest of the …
Ezra 9:1 After these things had been accomplished, the leaders approached me and said, “The people of Israel, including the priests and Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the surrounding peoples whose abominations are like those of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites. BSB
"And poverty will come upon you like a traveler," etc. For poverty and misery are the ultimate punishment, in which the damned deserve nothing of wealth: they will come like a traveler, because unforeseen and sudden; like an armed man, because they cannot be conquered …
Proverbs 6:11 and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and need like a bandit. BSB
Influence, on the record
This site quotes Bede 510 times across 28 books.
This site’s own count of what it does with the voice
The life, in order
The life told as one accountfrom this site's record
Bede was born about 673 on land belonging to the twin monastery of Wearmouth and Jarrow, in Northumbria. He was handed over to the monks at the age of seven. He never really left. In the last paragraph of his great history he wrote that he had spent his whole life in that monastery, giving his attention to studying the Scriptures, and that amid the observance of the Rule and the daily task of singing in church, it had always been his delight to learn, to teach, or to write. He was ordained deacon at nineteen and priest at thirty. He travelled almost nowhere — a trip to Lindisfarne, a trip to York. The great sweep of his work was done from a library and a scriptorium at the northern edge of the known world. That library was the point. Benedict Biscop, who founded the monastery, had made five journeys to Rome and hauled back books. Bede therefore had access to a collection unlike anything else in northern Europe, and he used every volume of it. He wrote around sixty works. Most of them are biblical commentaries — Genesis, Samuel, Kings, Ezra and Nehemiah, Proverbs, the Song of Songs, Mark, Luke, Acts, the catholic epistles, Revelation — plus homilies, saints' lives, works on grammar, metre, orthography, and the natural world. Two of them changed things permanently. The first is The Reckoning of Time, a technical book about the calendar, the tides, the moon, and the dating of Easter. In it he laid out the anno Domini system — counting years forward from the incarnation — and used it consistently. The idea came from Dionysius Exiguus two centuries earlier, but it was Bede who put it to work in a book everyone read, and that is why the year has the number it has. The second is the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, finished in 731. It is the reason we know anything about Anglo-Saxon England: Augustine's landing in Kent, Edwin's conversion and the sparrow flying through the lighted hall, the Synod of Whitby, Caedmon the cowherd who was given a song in the night, Cuthbert on his island. Bede named his sources, distinguished what he had verified from what he had only heard, and wrote a preface asking readers to correct him. That is a historian's conscience, four hundred years before anyone else in Europe was showing one. He died on 25 May 735, dictating the last sentence of a translation of John's Gospel into English. His pupil Cuthbert wrote the account: the boy taking dictation said the sentence was finished, and Bede said, It is well, you have spoken truth — it is finished. Sources: Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People and The Reckoning of Time; Cuthbert, Letter on the Death of Bede; Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. IV; The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913).
510 quotations across 28 books
Where this voice is quoted
King Cyrus also brought out the articles belonging to the house of the LORD that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the temple of his gods.
“King Cyrus also brought forth the vessels of the temple of the Lord, etc. Nebuchadnezzar took the vessels of the Lord from Jerusalem, as any unclean spirit, snatching certain of the faithful from the Church, deprives them of the joy of internal peace.”
This was the inventory: 30 gold dishes, 1,000 silver dishes, 29 silver utensils,
“And this is their number: thirty golden bowls, etc. Different types of vessels signify different persons or operations of the faithful. Finally, we read in the Apocalypse that the twenty-four elders had golden bowls full of incense (Rev.”
In all, there were 5,400 gold and silver articles. Sheshbazzar brought all these along when the exiles went up from Babylon to Jerusalem.
“Sasabasar took everything, etc. Because surely none of those who are predestined to life can perish forever; but all who belong to the Lord, although they may seem to be led into Babylon, that is, the confusion of sins, for a time, are brought back…”
The following came up from Tel-melah, Tel-harsha, Cherub, Addan, and Immer, but could not prove that their families were descended from Israel:
“And those who came up from Thelmela, etc. In this place, even according to the letter, the grace of God, by which also in the Old Testament the Gentiles were received into salvation, is shown.”
They set up the altar on its foundation and sacrificed burnt offerings on it to the LORD—both the morning and evening burnt offerings—even though they feared the people of the…
“They placed the altar on its bases, etc. For the bases are indeed the hearts of the elect, prepared by the commandments of preceding teachers, like the tools of craftsmen, to receive the sacraments of the faith of the Lord.”
They also celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles in accordance with what is written, and they offered burnt offerings daily based on the number prescribed for each day.
“And they kept the feast of booths, etc. The Feast of Booths, which in the Gospel is called in Greek Skenopegia, that is, the pitching of booths, was a festival of seven days, beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, during which the…”
At the beginning of the reign of Xerxes, an accusation was lodged against the people of Judah and Jerusalem.
“In the year of the reign of Ahasuerus... they wrote an accusation, etc. Josephus (Antiquities XI, 2, 3) believes that this Artaxerxes, who received the letter of accusation from the Samaritans and forbade the construction of Jerusalem and the temple, was Cambyses, the son of…”
The report they sent him read as follows: To King Darius: All peace.
“And it pleased them that the matter should be referred to Darius, etc., until the end of the letter. This letter that Thathannai writes to Darius is very different from the letter that Rehum and Samsai wrote to Artaxerxes.”
Thus King Darius ordered a search of the archives stored in the treasury of Babylon.
“Then King Darius commanded, etc. Josephus (Antiq. XI, 3) mentioned the name of the place where these letters of Cyrus were found thus: And a book was found in Ecbatana in a constructed tower, in the region of Media.”
So the Jewish elders built and prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah son of Iddo.
“And they built and constructed, etc. He says Artaxerxes, who reigned after Darius, during whose time Ezra ascended from Babylon to Jerusalem.”
For seven days they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread with joy, because the LORD had made them joyful and turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them…
“And they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread, etc. The Apostle teaches us how we ought to keep this feast spiritually, saying: "Let us therefore feast not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of…”
Many years later, during the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Ezra son of Seraiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah,
“After these words, in the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, etc. Josephus (Antiq. XIII, 5) considers this Artaxerxes, under whom Ezra ascended from Babylon to Jerusalem, to be Xerxes, the son of Darius, who reigned after him.”
So in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes, he went up to Jerusalem with some of the Israelites, including priests, Levites, singers, gatekeepers, and temple servants.
“And they ascended from the children of Israel, etc. Because on the first day of the first month he began to ascend from Babylon, and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, he says they came to Jerusalem by anticipation.”
You are sent by the king and his seven counselors to evaluate Judah and Jerusalem according to the Law of your God, which is in your hand.
“For you have been sent from the presence of the king and his seven advisors, etc. And in the book of Esther, we read that it was the custom of the Persian kings to use the counsel of seven wise men in all matters to…”
and who has shown me favor before the king, his counselors, and all his powerful officials.
“And I, strengthened by the hand of the Lord my God, etc. He calls the hand of God the power of God, which works all things.”
They also delivered the king’s edicts to the royal satraps and governors of the region west of the Euphrates, who proceeded to assist the people and the house of God.
“They also delivered the king's edicts to the satraps, etc. Another edition has: And they glorified the people and the house of God. Therefore, they uplifted the people by making royal authority, with which Ezra was exalted, honorable to all.”
After these things had been accomplished, the leaders approached me and said, “The people of Israel, including the priests and Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the surrounding peoples…
“After these things were completed, etc. The guilt of this transgression is also clearly described and reproved by prophetic authority in the prophet Malachi; because evidently those who returned from Babylonian captivity, both princes and priests and Levites, as well as the rest of the…”
Then Shecaniah son of Jehiel, an Elamite, said to Ezra: “We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the people of the land, yet in spite…
“And Sechenias responded, etc. Josephus says that this Sechenias was the first of the Jerusalemites, and he himself, as befits a leader, with the greatest authority, soon helped Ezra's intention, both by confessing that the people had sinned together with him, and by advising that…”
So Ezra got up and made the leading priests, Levites, and all Israel take an oath to do what had been said. And they took the oath.
“And Ezra rose before the house of God, etc. Eliasib was the high priest of that time, since after Jesus the son of Jozadak, his son Joachim, and after him his son Eliasib, carried out the rank of high priest, as both the subsequent sections…”
And a proclamation was issued throughout Judah and Jerusalem that all the exiles should gather at Jerusalem.
“And a voice was sent into Judah and Jerusalem, etc. While it is said that the sons of Judah and Benjamin gathered, it is clearly evident that those who were defiled by the marriage of foreign wives were from the first migration, which was from…”
Among the descendants of the priests who had married foreign women were found these descendants of Jeshua son of Jozadak and his brothers:
“And there were found among the sons of the priests those who had taken, etc. The Hebrews apply to this place the prophecy of Zechariah: And the Lord showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at…”
Maaseiah, Eliezer, Jarib, and Gedaliah. They pledged to send their wives away, and for their guilt they presented a ram from the flock as a guilt offering.
“And they gave their hands, to cast out their wives, etc. First, they reject the illicit wives from themselves, and thus they offer a ram for themselves, so that, with the crime removed, they could approach the altar in purity.”
