XXIII. How Bishop Cedd, having a place for building a monastery
given him by King Etheiwald, consecrated it to the Lord with prayer
and fasting; and concerning his death. [659-664 A. D.]
CHAP. XXIII. How Bishop Cedd, having a place for building a monastery given him
by King Etheiwald, consecrated it to the Lord with prayer and fasting; and
concerning his death. [659-664 A. D.]
THE same man of God, whilst he was bishop among the East Saxons, was also wont
oftentimes to visit his own province, Northumbria, for the purpose of
exhortation. Oidilwald,the son of King Oswald, who reigned among the Deiri,
finding him a holy, wise, and good man, desired him to accept some land whereon
to build a monastery, to which the king himself might frequently resort, to pray
to the Lord and hear the Word, and where he might be buried when he died; for he
believed faithfully that he should receive much benefit from the daily prayers
of those who were to serve the Lord in that place. The king had before with him
a brother of the same bishop, called Caelin, a man no less devoted to God, who,
being a priest, was wont to administer to him and his house the Word and the
Sacraments of the faith; by whose means he chiefly came to know and love the
bishop. So then, complying with the king’s desires, the Bishop chose himself a
place whereon to build a monastery among steep and distant mountains, which
looked more like lurking-places for robbers and dens of wild beasts, than
dwellings of men; to the end that, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, "In the
habitation of dragons, where each lay, might be grass with reeds and rushes;"
that is, that the fruits of good works should spring up, where before beasts
were wont to dwell, or men to live after the manner of beasts.
But the man of God, desiring first to cleanse the place which he had received
for the monastery from stain of former crimes, by prayer and fasting, and so to
lay the foundations there, requested of the king that he would give him
opportunity and leave to abide there for prayer all the time of Lent, which was
at hand. All which days, except Sundays, he prolonged his fast till the evening,
according to custom, and then took no other sustenance than a small piece of
bread, one hen’s egg, and a little milk and water. This, he said, was the custom
of those of whom he had learned the rule of regular discipline, first to
consecrate to the Lord, by prayer and fasting, the places which they had newly
received for building a monastery or a church. When there were ten days of Lent
still remaining, there came a messenger to call him to the king; and he, that
the holy work might not be intermitted, on account of the king’s affairs,
entreated his priest, Cynibill, who was also his own brother, to complete his
pious undertaking. Cynibill readily consented, and when the duty of fasting and
prayer was over, he there built the monastery, which is now called
Laestingaeu,and established therein religious customs according to the use of
Lindisfarne, where he had been trained.
When Cedd had for many years held the office of bishop in the aforesaid
province, and also taken charge of this monastery, over which he placed
provosts,it happened that he came thither at a time when there was plague, and
fell sick and died. He was first buried without the walls; but in the process of
time a church was built of stone in the monastery, in honour of the Blessed
Mother of God, and his body was laid in it, on the right side of the altar.
The bishop left the monastery to be governed after him by his brother Ceadda,who
was afterwards made bishop, as shall be told hereafter. For, as it rarely
happens, the four brothers we have mentioned, Cedd and Cynibill, and Caelin and
Ceadda, were all celebrated priests of the Lord, and two of them also came to be
bishops. When the brethren who were in his monastery, in the province of the
East Saxons,heard that the bishop was dead and buried in the province of the
Northumbrians, about thirty men of that monastery came thither, being desirous
either to live near the body of their father, if it should please God, or to die
and be buried there. Being gladly received by their brethren and fellow soldiers
in Christ, all of them died there struck down by the aforesaid pestilence,
except one little boy, who is known to have been saved from death by the prayers
of his spiritual father. For being alive long after, and giving himself to the
reading of Scripture, he was told that he had not been regenerated by the water
of Baptism, and being then cleansed in the layer of salvation, he was afterwards
promoted to the order of priesthood, and was of service to many in the church. I
do not doubt that he was delivered at the point of death, as I have said, by the
intercession of his father, to whose body he had come for love of him, that so
he might himself avoid eternal death, and by teaching, offer the ministry of
life and salvation to others of the brethren.
