Ours was a sorry plight Until at last we sailed unto the land Over the troubled main. Help came to us That brought us to the haven of salvation, That we might know e'en from the vessel's deck Our ocean steeds, old stallions of the wave. CYNEWULF touched with a sure hand the notes of personal piety, of manliness, and of praise, both in The Crist and in the Sequel to St. Guthlac, the Descent into Hell and the Elene. Other works of his school are the Fates of the Apostles, and the Andreas, a picturesque version of the career of St. Andrew. The fine poems entitled The Phoenix, and The Dream of the Rood, are more freely Christian. The last named is the noblest extant example of Old English religious poetry. It is unnamed but is regarded by many as the work of CYNEWULF-"his last poem, his farewell." The Cross tells its own story in his dream. I was hewed down in the holt, and wrought into shape, and set on a hill, and the Lord of all folk hastened to mount on me, the Hero who would save the world. Nails pierced me; I was drenched with the Hero's blood, and all Creation wept around me. Then His foes and mine took Almighty God from me, and men made His grave, and sang over Him a sorrowful lay. In southern England whence all memories of the old British Church had disappeared, THEODORE of Tarsus, 602690, laid new foundations on which the English Church has ever since rested. His one remaining book a Penitential, preserves a number of disciplinary canons. The outshining and abiding glory of those days, too soon to be overshadowed by the Danish invasions, was BEDE, 673-735, a Northumbrian, who never left the monastery of Jarrow where his constant pleasure lay in learning, teaching, and writing. BEDE was the first great English scholar, the father of English learning, the founder of mediaeval history, and the first English historian. Forty-five works bear witness to his untiring industry. His Sermons are modelled on monastic patterns with quotations from the Fathers and especially from GREGORY THE GREAT. His Expositions were gathered from earlier authorities "as from the pleasant meadows of far-flowing Paradise." In his Histories of Saints he "seems to have been the originator of a new type of martyrologium, in which the number of entries was much reduced but brief historical details were added concerning the saints who were commemorated." He wrote The Lives of the Holy Abbots of Weremouth and Jarrow, and The Life and Miracles of St. Cuthbert; the latter was executed in both prose and verse and is a monument of credulity. Every chapter has its marvel: He presently fell upon some shepherds' huts, which were now deserted and ruinous. Into one of these he entered . . . . He then turned his thoughts to prayer, but suddenly, as he was singing a psalm, he saw his horse lift up his head and pull out some straw from the roof, and among the straw there fell down a linen cloth folded up, with something in it. When he had ended his prayers, wishing to see what this was, he came and opened the cloth, and found in it half a loaf of bread, still hot, and some meat, enough of both to serve him for a single meal (chap. v.). The poetical side of BEDE'S nature found expression in Hymns of which nearly a dozen remain. It is however his Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation that gives him his place among the classics of all time. "The Ecclesiastical Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. XI., p. 57. History would be a treasure-house did it contain nothing but the charming tales of Alban and Augustine, of Edwin, Paulinus, Coifi, Caedmon, Cuthbert, Cedd and Aidan. But it holds far more than this. It presents the whole dramatic situation, not only in England, but in the civilized world. We contemplate the cosmopolitan power of the Church Catholic, pouring her riches with generous largesse into the little island of the North." After Caedwalla had possessed himself of the kingdom of the Gewissae, he also took the Isle of Wight, which till then was entirely given over to idolatry, and by cruel slaughter endeavoured to destroy all the inhabitants thereof, and to place in their stead people from his own province; having bound himself by a vow, though he was not yet, as is reported, regenerated in Christ, to give the fourth part of the land, and of the booty, to our Lord, if he took the island, which he performed by giving the same for our Lord to the use of Bishop Wilfrid, who happened at the time to have accidentally come thither out of his own nation. Here I think it ought not to be omitted that the first fruits of the natives of that island who, by believing, secured their salvation, were two royal youths, brothers to Atwald, king of the island, who were honoured by the particular grace of God (chap. xvi.). (Dent's Everyman's 9 Vida D. Scudder, Intro. to the Eccles. History Library), p. viii. CHAPTER XIX THE MENACE OF THE MOSLEMS Scarcely two centuries had elapsed since Attila's successes when an even worse invasion threatened the Christian world. After Muhammad, 568-633, decided to use the sword as an instrument of conversion, the spread of the Moslem power was amazingly swift. In 634 Bostra, the stronghold of Roman Arabia, fell to the arms of Islam; then followed in rapid succession, Jerusalem 637, Syria 641, and Alexandria 643. Africa was occupied in 647, Armenia in 654, Carthage in 698, and thus the whole southern seaboard of the Mediterranean came under the sway of the Crescent, Damascus became the capital of an Empire which stretched from India to Spain under the Umayyad rule, 661750. It dominated the Christian populations of Syria, Persia and Egypt, and even though Christians could attain to responsible offices, yet the progress of the Faith was retarded and Christian culture declined. Christian literature continued to be written wherever the milder rule of the victors tolerated the existence of the Church. A certain PAULUS, who became bishop of Sidon after it had been captured by the Saracens, defended Christianity against the arguments of the victors in A Letter to a certain Muhammadan on what the Christians Think of Muhammad and of the Truth of the Christian Religion. He also wrote An Epitome of Theology, The Coming of Messiah to the Jews, and The Trinity and the Incarnation. A more notable figure is GEORGE of Pisidia, fl. 610-640. Part of his work is historical, and his historical temper shows itself in a Hymn to the Virgin Mary, 626, thanking her for the victory gained over the Avars. His religious writings consist of Sermons and Poems. "He is a court poet, writing with an eye to his patrons, and profuse in his praises of them." His most elaborate piece is the Hexaemeron, a poem of the Creation in nineteen hundred lines. The Vanity of Life is a short moral poem; in a work called Against Severus he contests the heresy of the Monophysites as it was held by the bishop of Antioch. The Sermons are for the greater part fulsome and extravagant eulogies of the Virgin Mary; they reveal tendencies that were developed in the works of ANDREW of Crete, 660732, who holds his place in literary history as the inventor of the Canons. Eight of these forms of Christian song are attributed to him, the most celebrated being the Great Penitential Canon, an ode of prodigious length and considerable beauty. In it the soul reviews various characters of the Bible, compares itself with the sinners and contrasts its own unworthiness with the virtues of the saints. He also wrote a Canon on Lazarus, a Triode for Palm Sunday, and various Idiomela. The Hymn for times of temptation has become universally popular in the version of J. M. Neale. Christian, dost thou see them on the holy ground, Forty of the Homilies of ANDREW are extant; seventeen of them are especially interesting as indications of the growth of the cultus of Mary. They contain some of the earliest examples of the extravagant titles which became so familiar in later years-"Diadem of Beauty," "Rod of Aaron." "Sceptre of David," "Refuge of all Christians," "Queen of our Race," "Temple of Christ." GERMANUS of Cyzicus, 635-733, carried on his work |