Bede Beda
monk · historian · Jarrow, Northumbria, England · 672?–735
A monk given to a monastery at seven, who hardly left it all his life and wrote books there. He left a history of how the English came to accept Christianity.
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731 · Given as the words of one of King Edwin's men, asked whether to accept the new faith: a comparison drawn from a feast by the fire on a winter night
A single sparrow comes and flies swiftly through the hall. It comes in by one door and soon goes out by another. While it is inside, the winter storm does not touch it; but after the briefest moment of calm it slips from your sight, returning from winter into winter. So this life of man appears for a little while.
adueniens unus passerum domum citissime peruolauerit; qui cum per unum ostium ingrediens, mox per aliud exierit. Ipso quidem tempore, quo intus est, hiemis tempestate non tangitur, sed tamen paruissimo spatio serenitatis ad momentum excurso, mox de hieme in hiemem regrediens, tuis oculis elabitur. Ita haec uita hominum ad modicum apparetEcclesiastical History of the English People, book 2, chapter 13
1 in 100 Billion · The social network of those who came before us