III. How the same King Oswald, asking a bishop of the Scottish nation,
had Aidan sent him, and granted him an episcopal see in the Isle of
Lindisfarne. [635A.D.]
CHAP. III. How the same King Oswald, asking a bishop of the Scottish nation, had
Aidan sent him, and granted him an episcopal see in the Isle of Lindisfarne.
[635A.D.]
THE same Oswald, as soon as he ascended the throne, being desirous that all the
nation under his rule should be endued with the grace of the Christian faith,
whereof he had found happy experience in vanquishing the barbarians, sent to the
elders of the Scots, among whom himself and his followers, when in banishment,
had received the sacrament of Baptism, desiring that they would send him a
bishop, by whose instruction and ministry the English nation, which he governed,
might learn the privileges and receive the Sacraments of the faith of our Lord.
Nor were they slow in granting his request; for they sent him Bishop Aidan, a
man of singular gentleness, piety, and moderation; having a zeal of God, but not
fully according to knowledge; for he was wont to keep Easter Sunday according to
the custom of his country, which we have before so often mentioned,from the
fourteenth to the twentieth of the moon; the northern province of the Scots, and
all the nation of the Picts, at that time still celebrating Easter after that
manner, and believing that in this observance they followed the writings of the
holy and praiseworthy Father Anatolius. Whether this be true, every instructed
person can easily judge. But the Scots which dwelt in the South of Ireland had
long since, by the admonition of the Bishop of the Apostolic see, learned to
observe Easter according to the canonical custom.
On the arrival of the bishop, the king appointed him his episcopal see in the
island of Lindisfarne,as he desired. Which place, as the tide ebbs and flows, is
twice a day enclosed by the waves of the sea like an island; and again, twice,
when the beach is left dry, becomes contiguous with the land. The king also
humbly and willingly in all things giving ear to his admonitions, industriously
applied himself to build up and extend the Church of Christ in his kingdom;
wherein, when the bishop, who was not perfectly skilled in the English tongue,
preached the Gospel, it was a fair sight to see the king himself interpreting
the Word of God to his ealdormen and thegns, for he had thoroughly learned the
language of the Scots during his long banishment. From that time many came daily
into Britain from the country of the Scots, and with great devotion preached the
Word to those provinces of the English, over which King Oswald reigned, and
those among them that had received priest’s orders administered the grace of
Baptism to the believers.. Churches were built in divers places; the people
joyfully flocked together to hear the Word; lands and other property were given
of the king’s bounty to found monasteries; English children, as well as their
elders, were instructed by their Scottish teachers in study and the observance
of monastic discipline. For most of those who came to preach were monks. Bishop
Aidan was himself a monk, having been sent out from the island called Hii
(Iona)whereof the monastery was for a long time the chief of almost all those of
the northern Scots, and all those of the Picts, and had the direction of their
people. That island belongs to Britain, being divided from it by a small arm of
the sea, but had been long since given by the Picts, who inhabit those parts of
Britain, to the Scottish monks, because they had received the faith of Christ
through their preaching.
