XVII. How a prop of the church on which Bishop Aidan was
leaning when he died, could not be consumed when the
rest of the Church was on fire; and concerning his inward life. [651 A. D.]
CHAP. XVII. How a prop of the church on which Bishop Aidan was leaning when he
died, could not be consumed when the rest of the Church was on fire; and
concerning his inward life. [651 A. D.]
AIDAN was in the king’s township, not far from the city of which we have spoken
above, at the time when death caused him to quit the body, after he had been
bishop sixteen years; for having a church and a chamber in that place, he was
wont often to go and stay there, and to make excursions from it to preach in the
country round about, which he likewise did at other of the king’s townships,
having nothing of his own besides his church and a few fields about it. When he
was sick they set up a tent for him against the wall at the west end of the
church, and so it happened that he breathed his last, leaning against a buttress
that was on the outside of the church to strengthen the wall. He died in the
seventeenth year of his episcopate, on the 31st of August. His body was. thence
presently translated to the isle of Lindisfarne, and buried in the cemetery of
the brethren. Some time after, when a larger church was built there and
dedicated in honour of the blessed prince of the Apostles, his bones were
translated thither, and laid on the right side of the altar, with the respect
due to so great a prelate.
Finan,who had likewise been sent thither from Hii, the island monastery of the
Scots, succeeded him, and continued no small time in the bishopric. It happened
some years after, that Penda, king of the Mercians, coming into these parts with
a hostile army, destroyed all he could with fire and sword, and the village
where the bishop died, along with the church above mentioned, was burnt down;
but it fell out in a wonderful manner that the buttress against which he had
been leaning when he died, could not be consumed by the fire which devoured all
about it. This miracle being noised abroad, the church was soon rebuilt in the
same place, and that same buttress was set up on the outside, as it had been
before, to strengthen the wall. It happened again, some time after, that the
village and likewise the church were carelessly burned down the second time.
Then again, the fire could not touch the buttress; and, miraculously, though the
fire broke through the very holes of the nails wherewith it was fixed to the
building, yet it could do no hurt to the buttress itself. When therefore the
church was built there the third time, they did not, as before, place that
buttress on the outside as a support of the building, but within the church, as
a memorial of the miracle; where the people coming in might kneel, and implore
the Divine mercy. And it is well known that since then many have found grace and
been healed in that same place, as also that by means of splinters cut off from
the buttress, and put into water, many more have obtained a remedy for their own
infirmities and those of their friends
I have written thus much concerning the character and works of the aforesaid
Aidan, in no way commending or approving his lack of wisdom with regard to the
observance of Easter; nay, heartily detesting it, as I have most manifestly
proved in the book I have written, "De Temporibus"; but, like an impartial
historian, unreservedly relating what was done by or through him, and commending
such things as are praiseworthy in his actions, and preserving the memory
thereof for the benefit of the readers; to wit, his love of peace and charity;
of continence and humility; his mind superior to anger and avarice, and
despising pride and vainglory; his industry in keeping and teaching the Divine
commandments, his power of study and keeping vigil; his priestly authority in
reproving the haughty and powerful, and at the same time his tenderness in
comforting the afflicted, and relieving or defending the poor. To be brief, so
far as I have learnt from those that knew him, he took care to neglect none of
those things which he found in the Gospels and the writings of Apostles and
prophets, but to the utmost of his power endeavoured to fulfil them all in his
deeds.
These things I greatly admire and love in the aforesaid bishop, because I do not
doubt that they were pleasing to God; but I do not approve or praise his
observance of Easter at the wrong time, either through ignorance of the
canonical time appointed, or, if he knew it, being prevailed on by the authority
of his nation not to adopt it. Yet this I approve in him, that in the
celebration of his Easter, the object which he had at heart and reverenced and
preached was the same as ours, to wit, the redemption of mankind, through the
Passion, Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven of the Man Christ Jesus, who is
the mediator between God and man. And therefore he always celebrated Easter, not
as some falsely imagine, on the fourteenth of the moon, like the Jews, on any
day of the week, but on the Lord’s day, from the fourteenth to the twentieth of
the moon; and this he did from his belief that the Resurrection of our Lord
happened on the first day of the week, and for the hope of our resurrection,
which also he, with the holy Church, believed would truly happen on that same
first day/ of the week, now called the Lord’s day.
