Homilies on the Gospels, Vol. 2: Lent to the Dedication of the Church (Cistercian Studies Series #111)

'I have spent al my life in this monastery', wrote Bede from his isolated Northumbrian cell, 'applying myself entirely to the study of the Scriptures...I have made it my business, for my own benefit and that of my brothers, to make brief extracts from the works of the Venerable fathers on the holy Scripture, or to add notes of my own to clarify their sense and interpretation.'

From the eighth to the fifteenth centuries, Bede's authority as a scriptural exegete was second only to that of…