Bede's Ecclesiastical History of EnglandBede, the Venerable, Saint
History
Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England
Bede, the Venerable, Saint
England -- Church history -- 449-1066
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,(552) 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,(553) 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,(554) 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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