BEDE

With Gods help, I, Bede have assembled these facts about the history of the Church in Britain from the traditions of our forebears, and from my own personal knowledge Written in AD 731, Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People is the first account of Anglo-Saxon England ever written, and remains our single most valuable source for this period. It begins with Julius Caesars invasion in the first century BC and goes on to tell of the kings and bishops, monks and nuns who helped to develop government and convert the people to Christianity during these crucial formative years. Relating the deeds of great men and women but also describing landscape, customs and ordinary lives, this is a rich, vivid portrait of an emerging church and nation by the Father of English History. Leo Sherley-Prices translation from the Latin brings us an accurate and readable version of Bedes History. This edition includes Bedes Letter to Egbert, denouncing false monasteries; and The Death of Bede, an admirable eye-witness account by Cuthbert, monk and later Abbot of Jarrow, both translated by D. H. Farmer.

The church fathers displayed considerable interest in the early chapters of Genesis, and often wrote detailed commentaries or preached series of homilies on the Hexameron--the Six Days of Creation--among them Eustathius of Antioch, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Ambrose, John Chrysostom and Augustine.This volume of Ancient Christian Texts offers a first-time English translation of Severian of Gabalas In cosmogoniam and a fresh translation of a portion of Bede the Venerables Libri quatuor in principium Genesis. Severian, bishop of Gabala in Syria, who early on was a friend of John Chrysostom, later turned against him and opposed him at the Synod of Oak in 403. Though displaying his own strengths, weaknesses and idiosyncrasies, Severian still represents the so-called Antiochene school with its preference for literal over allegorical interpretation of texts. The text derives from the six homilies found in Migne?s Patrologia graeca, volume 56, together with a seventh homily found only in the 1613 Eton edition of John Chrysostom?s works, edited by Henry Savile, and falsely attributed to Chrysostom. These homilies have been ably translated with explanatory notes by Robert C. Hill.The commentary from Bede the Venerable derives from Book I of his four-book commentary on Genesis from the account of creation to the casting out of Ishmael. Bede was a polymath--teacher, computist, exegete, historian--and one of the foremost scholars from Anglo-Saxon England. As a teacher, Bede strove to hand on the tradition of the church in a form easily understood by those who might not be well educated. These early chapters in Genesis provided teaching on creation, human origins, sin and redemption. The text deriving from Corpus Christianorum Latina is ably translated with explanatory notes by Carmen Hardin.Ancient Christian Texts are new English translations of full-length commentaries or sermon series from ancient Christian authors that allow you to study key writings of the early church fathers in a fresh way.