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tonsure whereby the clergy should be distinguished, notwithstanding that he himself had no small
knowledge of these things. He also prayed to have master-builders sent him to build a church of
stone in his nation after the Roman manner, promising to dedicate the same in honour of the blessed
chief of the Apostles. Moreover, he and all his people, he said, would always follow the custom of
the holy Roman Apostolic Church, in so far as men so distant from the speech and nation of the
Romans could learn it. The most reverend Abbot Ceolfrid favourably receiving his godly desires
and requests, sent the builders he desired, and likewise the following letter:
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"To the most excellent lord, and glorious King Naiton, Abbot Ceolfrid, greeting in the Lord.
We most readily and willingly endeavour, according to your desire, to make known to you the
catholic observance of holy Easter, according to what we have learned of the Apostolic see, even
as you, most devout king, in your godly zeal, have requested of us. For we know, that whensoever
the lords of this world labour to learn, and to teach and to guard the truth, it is a gift of God to his
Holy Church. For a certain profane writer has most truly said, that the world would be most happy
if either kings were philosophers, or philosophers were kings. Now if a man of this world could
judge truly of the philosophy of this world, and form a right choice concerning the state of this
world, how much more is it to be desired, and most earnestly to be prayed for by such as are citizens
of the heavenly country, and strangers and pilgrims in this world, that the more powerful any are
in the world the more they may strive to hearken to the commands of Him who is the Supreme
Judge, and by their example and authority may teach those that are committed to their charge, to
keep the same, tqgether with themselves.
"There are then three rules given in the Sacred Writings, whereby the time of keeping Easter
has been appointed for us and may in no wise be changed by any authority of man; two whereof
are divinely established in the law of Moses; the third is added in the Gospel by reason of the
Passion and Resurrection of our Lord. For the law enjoined, that the Passover should be kept in the
first month of the year, and the third week of that month, that is, from the fifteenth day to the
one-and-twentieth. It is added, by Apostolic institution, from the Gospel, that we are to wait for
the Lord s day in that third week, and to keep the beginning of the Paschal season on the same.
Which threefold rule whosoever shall rightly observe, will never err in fixing the Paschal feast.
But if you desire to be more plainly and fully informed in all these particulars, it is written in
Exodus, where the people of Israel, being about to be delivered out of Egypt, are commanded to
keep the first Passover, that the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, saying,  This month shall be
unto you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto all
the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man
a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house. And a little after,  And ye
shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the
congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. By which words it most plainly appears, that in
the Paschal observance, though mention is made of the fourteenth day, yet it is not commanded
that the Passover be kept on that day; but on the evening of the fourteenth day, that is, when the
fifteenth moon, which is the beginning of the third week, appears in the sky, it is commanded that
the lamb be killed; and that it was the night of the fifteenth moon, when the Egyptians were smitten
and Israel was redeemed from long captivity. He says,  Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread.
By which words all the third week of that same first month is appointed to be a solemn feast. But
lest we should think that those same seven days were to be reckoned from the fourteenth to the
twentieth, He forthwith adds,  Even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses; for
whosoever eateth leavened bread, from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off
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Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England The Venerable Bede
from Israel; and so on, till he says,  For in this selfsame day I will bring your army out of the land
of Egypt.
"Thus he calls that the first day of unleavened bread, in which he was to bring their army out
of Egypt. Now it is evident, that they were not brought out of Egypt on the fourteenth day, in the
evening whereof the lamb was killed, and which is properly called the Passover or Phase, but on
the fifteenth day, as is most plainly written in the book of Numbers:  and they departed from
Rameses on the fifteenth day of the first month, on the morrow after the Passover the Israelites
went out with an high hand. Thus the seven days of unleavened bread, on the first whereof the
people of the Lord were brought out of Egypt, are to be reckoned from the  beginning of the third
week, as has been said, that is, from the fifteenth day of the first month, till the end of the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]