Venerable Bede Translating John

 A Painting by J. D. Penrose

 Image: The Prayer Foundation logo (with white Celtic cross on a green shield).

Photo: "Skellig Michael" Copyright Irish Tourist Board.

Image: portion of illuminated manuscript page from "The Book of Kells."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

"Even on the day of his death (the vigil of the Ascension, 735) the saint was still busy dictating a translation of the Gospel of St. John.  In the evening the boy Wilbert, who was writing it, said to him: 'There is still one sentence, dear master, which is not written down.'  And when this had been supplied, and the boy had told him it was finished, 'Thou hast spoken truth,' Bede answered, 'it is finished. Take my head in thy hands for it much delights me to sit opposite any holy place where I used to pray, that so sitting I may call upon my Father.'  And thus upon the floor of his cell singing, 'Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost' and the rest, he peacefully breathed his last breath."  

-Cuthbert, a disciple of the Venerable Bede 

(Note: not Cuthbert of Lindisfarne)

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"The Venerable Bede Translates John" is a painting by J. D. Penrose in An Outline of Christianity: The Story of Our Civilization, Vol. II (New York: Bethlehem Publishers, Inc., 1926), p. 204.

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 Skellig Michael Photo © Irish Tourist Board.