ON SAINT EADBERT
BISHOP OF LINDISFARNE IN ENGLAND.
YEAR DCXCVIII.
CommentaryEadbertus, Bishop of Lindisfarne in England (S.)
G. H.
Among the more illustrious Saints of England rightly to be reckoned S. Cuthbert Bishop of Lindisfarne, we said on his Life, related on day XX of March, on which he died in the year DCLXXXVII. His death and burial when Bede had related in book 4 of the Ecclesiastical History of the English nation chapter 29, S. Eadbert succeeds S. Cuthbert after a year, he adds these: Which when it had been done, the Bishopric of that Church for one year was kept by the venerable Bishop Wilfrid, until one was elected, who in place of Cuthbert ought to be ordained Bishop. Was ordained however after this Eadbert, a man in knowledge of the divine Scriptures and at the same time in observance of the heavenly precepts, and especially in the operation of alms distinguished, excelling in doctrine and almsgiving. so that according to the law every year the tenth, not only of quadrupeds, but also of all fruits and apples, also of garments a part to the poor he gave. So there Bede, who in the Life of S. Cuthbert chapter 11 num. 61 the same Eadbert, a man of great virtues, and in the Scriptures notably learned to have been, asserts: and then in chapter 12 describes, how the body of S. Cuthbert was elevated, with cooperating S. Eadbert, and how he concluded life with a blessed end: which are repeated thence as follows.
[2] But the divine dispensation, wishing to show more broadly how great in glory the holy man after death lived, whose before death sublime life, allows the body of S. Cuthbert to be elevated, with frequent also miracles' indications was clear; with eleven years having elapsed of his burial, sent into the minds of the Brothers, that they should take up his bones (which according to the manner of the dead, with the rest of the body now consumed and reduced to dust, they thought would be found dry) and laid in a light ark, in the same place indeed, but above the pavement for the sake of worthy veneration place. Which when they reported as having pleased them, to Eadbert their Bishop, in the middle almost of the Lenten time; he assented to their counsel, and ordered that on the day of his deposition, which is the thirteenth of the Kalends of April, they remember to do this. They did so: and opening the sepulcher, they found the whole body, as if still living, intact; and with flexible joints of limbs, much more like a sleeper than a dead man. But also all the garments, with which he was clothed, not only inviolate, but also appeared with pristine novelty and admirable brightness. Which when the Brothers saw, they were soon struck with great fear and trembling, so that scarcely could they speak anything, scarcely dared to look at the miracle, which was open; scarcely they themselves knew what to do.
[3] But the outermost part of his garments, for showing the sign of incorruption, taking (for those which were near to his flesh, they entirely feared to touch) they hastened to refer to the Bishop, and during Lent solitary, what they had found: who was then by chance in a place more remote from the monastery
place, encircled on every side by the flowing waves of the sea, dwelt solitary. In this indeed always the time of Lent he was accustomed to spend; in this for forty days before the Lord's nativity, in great continence, prayer and tears of devotion, to lead: in which also his venerable predecessor Cuthbert, before he sought Farne, as we have also taught above, for some time had served the Lord in secret. Receives part of his garment, But they brought also part of the garments, which had encompassed the holy body. Which when he received both as gifts gladly, and the miracles gladly heard (for the very garments, as if still surrounding the body of the Father, with wonderful affection he kissed) "New," he says, "garments place around the body in place of those which you have brought; and so place it in the case, which you have prepared. I know however most certainly, that not long will the place remain empty, which is consecrated by such virtue of a heavenly miracle. And blessed is he much, to whom in it a seat of resting the Lord, author of true blessedness and giver, deigns to grant." And he added in wonder, what once in verses I have said, and he said:
Who shall expound the heavenly gifts of the Lord by words? Or what ear contains the riches of paradise? While the pious one, having broken the weight of hostile death, and praises virtue, Shall give to live always in the starry citadel; He who now adorns dead members with such honor, And gives the beautiful pledges of perpetual aid. And how blessed is the house, which under such a Guest shines, Knowing no spot, joyful with light shines. Nor difficult to thee, Almighty, to entrust under the soil, Lest the devouring corruption consume the deposited corpses, You who for three days preserve the Prophet under the entrails of the whale, Opening for him the path of light from the mouth of death: Who in the midst of fires guard innocent limbs; Lest the Chaldean flame harm the Hebrew glory: Forty times you renew through cold the people's clothing, Which fleeing the Pharian, untraveled keeps the soil: Who form the light ash into reborn limbs, When the world shall tremble at the Angelic trumpets from heaven.
These and many similar things when, with many tears and great compunction, the Pontiff with trembling tongue completed; the Brothers did, as he had ordered: and the body wrapped in a new covering, and placed in a light case, above the pavement of the sanctuary they composed.
[4] Meanwhile the bishop beloved of God, Eadbert, by a bitter disease is seized: dies, May 6, and with the heat of languor growing through the days and much worsening, not long after, that is on the day before the Nones of May, he himself also migrated to the Lord; having obtained from him the gift, which he had most diligently asked; namely that not by sudden death, but by long worn out illness, he should pass from the body. Whose body in the sepulcher of the blessed Father Cuthbert placing, they placed above the case, in which the incorrupt members of the same Father they had placed: where now still, and is famous for miracles, if the faith of the petitioners requires, signs of miracles do not cease to be made. But also the garments, which the most holy body of his either alive or buried had clothed, do not lack the grace of healing. These miracles of S. Eadbert by the same S. Bede, in the Life of S. Cuthbert written in verse, are thus expounded:
The marks of diseases flee, the impious fury of the dark Demon stands off; and as alive he was wont before, To show the splendor of signs, so even now everywhere Is spread, and through dead limbs wonderful virtue.
He was made Bishop in the year DCLXXXVIII, died in the year DCCXVIII, buried in the Church of Lindisfarne, which S. Finanus there the Bishop (testifying the same Bede in book 3 chapter 25) in the manner of the Scots, not of stone, but of cut oak composed, buried in the church covered by him with lead. and covered with reeds. But also the Bishop of that place Eadbert, having taken away the reeds, with sheets of lead the whole both the roof and even the walls of it took care to cover. The Life of S. Finanus we illustrated on day XVII of February.
[5] In the History of the Church of Durham (which under the name of Simeon of Durham edited we have vindicated to Turgot, on the Life of S. Cuthbert) book 2 chapter 6, on the second devastation of the Danes, is said in the year DCCCLXXV the body of S. Cuthbert taken up, sacred bones to various places, and the venerable bones of his successors the venerable Priests, namely Eadbert, Eadfrid, and Ethelwold. These taking, from places to places, going and returning they wandered for seven years, testifying Richard of Durham book 2 chapter 1. Then to the village, named Creca, coming, there four months they sat. At length returning to the village Kunkacestra, now Cestram they call, they came: and there with the Relics they rested, and at length translated to Durham. from the year namely DCCCLXXXIII up to the year DCCCXCV. Afterwards in the year DCCCCXCV translated were the same holy bodies into the Ripon monastery: thence, after three or four months, to Durham. Finally in the year MLIV, on day XXIV of August, the said bones were found in the same coffin with the holy body of S. Cuthbert, and from this removed separately were preserved, as all these things are read in the History of the Translation of S. Cuthbert into the new tomb num. 6, and on February XII in the Life of the above-indicated Bishop Ethelwold.
[6] Memory in the Fasti. The sacred memory of S. Eadbert celebrate Greven and Molanus, in the Additions to Usuard, with MS. Florarium and today's Roman and Anglican Martyrology: likewise Maurolycus, Canisius, Menardus, Mihew, Bucelinus and others. Gelenius also refers: but he judges him to be the same with S. Egbert the Presbyter, who died on the island of Hy: whose Acts we gave on April XXIV.