Bede: On the Nature of Things and On Times

Name: Bede: On the Nature of Things and On Times
Brand: Liverpool University Press
Price: 170.39 EUR
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Bede(Author)

Liverpool University Press

Published on 14. October 2010

Book

Hardback

224 pages

978-1-84631-495-7 (ISBN)

€170.39incl. 7% vat

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Description

The Venerable Bede composed On the Nature of Things (De natura rerum) and On Times (De temporibus) at the outset of his career, about AD 703. Bede fashioned himself as a teacher to his people and his age, and these two short works show him selecting, editing, and clarifying a mass of difficult and sometimes dangerous material. He insisted that his reader understand the mathematical and physical basis of time, and though he was dependent on his textual sources, he also included observations of his own. But Bede was also a Christian exegete who thought deeply and earnestly about how salvation-history connected to natural history and the history of the peoples of the earth. To comprehend his religious mentality, we have to take on board his views on "science" -- and vice versa.

On the Nature of Things is a survey of cosmology. Starting with Creation and the universe as a whole, Bede reads the cosmos downwards from the heavens, through the atmosphere, to the oceans and rivers of earth. This order (recapitulating the four elements or fire, air, water and earth) was derived from his main source, Isidore of Seville's On the Nature of Things. However, Bede separated out Isidore's chapters on time, and dealt with them in On Times. On Times, like its "second, revised and enlarged edition" The Reckoning of Time (De temporum ratione), works upwards from the smallest units of time, through the day and night, the week, month and year, to the world-ages. Bede's innovation is to introduce a practical manual of Easter reckoning, or computus, into this survey. Hidden beneath the matter-of-fact surface of the work is an intense polemic about the correct principles for determining the date of Easter -- principles which in Bede's view are bound up with both the integrity of nature as God's creation, and the theological significance of Christ's death and resurrection. In these works Bede re-united cosmology and time-reckoning to form a unified science of computus that would become the framework for Carolingian and Scholastic basic scientific education.

Reviews / Votes

Accurate, elegant, utterly clear and easily accessible, even for readers who lack expertise in the relevant disciplines. The Commentaries and Appendices shed floods of light on Bede's mental processes and expertise, and will represent a very significant landmark in Bedan studies. The book, in short, will be a wonderful addition to the series of TTH. ... you will find much here that is new and interesting, to make this a valuable addition to your library. * The British Journal for the History of Science, Volume 45/1 * The volume meets the generally high standards of the series to which it belongs. The interlinear references to the page numbers of the Latin edition, that of Charles W. Jones from Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, cxxiii, are very helpful in works such as this (though on p. 109 the reference to /588/ in the Latin seems to have disappeared; it should appear just after the first semicolon in ch. 5). Much work has been expended on these seemingly slight texts and it is to be appreciated. * English Historical Review, vol 127, no 529 * The introduction is a goldmine for manuscript scholars, offering a detailed discussion of the transmission and glossing of the manuscripts of On the Nature of Things and On Time. A wonderful inventory of manuscripts that gathers dispersed information and corrects and updates, it would itself be enough reason for many readers to buy the book * Speculum 87.4 * This new translation promises to introduce a new generation of scholars to Bede and will hence reveal to them something about this fascinating time in the history of ideas. * The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring * The translation itself is extremely well produced: it stays close to the Latin yet employs the best in modern idioms; I could uncover no errors of any kind. Scholars of Bede and the early Middle Ages will read these works with great interest for the light they throw on the organization of Bede's thought and the larger trajectory of his biblical vision; historians of science, meanwhile, will enjoy having in so inviting a volume translations of two early medieval works that had a strong hold on understandings of chronology and cosmology up till modern times.

Scott DeGregorio, ISIS, Volume 103, Number 2

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Content

Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
Date and Purpose of On the Nature of Things (ONT)
and On Times (OT)
Structure and Content of ONT and OT
Unity of Conception of ONT and OT
The Place of ONT and OT in Bede's Thought
Bede's template: Isidore of Seville's De natura rerum (DNR)
Bede's transformation of Isidore's DNR
Bede's Attitude Toward Isidore
The Easter Controversy and the Pedagogy of Computus
The Christian World-Chronicle
Bede's Science: Continuities and New Directions
The Transmission of ONT and OT
The reception of ONT and OT: glosses and excerpts
Principles Governing this Translation
Inventory of Manuscripts and Editions of Bede's ONT and OT
Bede: On the Nature of Things
A Poem of Bede the Priest
The Chapters of On the Nature of Things
1. The Fourfold Work of God
2. The Formation of the World
3. What the World Is
4. The Elements
5. The Firmament
6. The Varied Height of Heaven
7. Upper Heaven
8. The Heavenly Waters
9. The Five Circles of the World
10. The Regions of the World
11. The Stars
12. The Course of the Planets
13. Their Order
14. Their Orbits
15. Why Their Colours Change
16. The Circle of the Zodiac
17. The Twelve Signs
18. The Milky Way
19. The Course and Size of the Sun
20. The Nature and Place of the Moon
21. Method for Determining the Course of the Moon through the Signs of the Zodia
22. The Eclipse of the Sun and the Moon
23. Where there is No Eclipse and Why
24. Comets
25. The Air
26. The Winds
27. The Order of the Winds
28. Thunder
29. Lightning
30. Where Lightning is Not and Why
31. The Rainbow
32. Clouds
33. Rains
34. Hail
35. Snow
36. Signs of Storms or Fair Weather
37. Pestilence
38. On the Dual Nature of the Waters
39. The Ocean's Tide
40. Why the Sea does Not Grow in Size
41. Why It is Bitter
42. The Red Sea
43. The Nile
44. That the Earth is Bound by Waters
45. The Position of the Earth
46. That the Earth is Like a Globe
47. The Circles of the Earth
48. More on the Same Subject: the Art of Using Sundials
49. Earthquake
50. The Fire of Mount Etna
51. The Division of the Earth
Bede: On Times
The Chapters of On Times
1. Moments and Hours
2. The Day
3. The Night
4. The Week
5. The Month
6. The Months of the Romans
7. Solstice and Equinox
8. The Seasons
9. Years
10. The Leap-Year Day
11. The Nineteen-Year Cycle
12. The 'Leap of the Moon'
13. The Contents of the Paschal Cycle
14. The Formulas for the Headings of the Pascal Tables
15. The Sacrament of the Easter Season
16. The Ages of the World
17. The Sequence and Order of Times
18. The Second Age
19. The Third Age
20. The Fourth Age
21. The Fifth Age
22. The Sixth Age
Commentary: On the Nature of Things
Commentary: On Times
Appendix 1: Bede: A Hymn on the Work of the
First Six Days and the Six Ages of the World
Appendix 2: An Excursus on Bede's Mathematical Reasoning
Appendix 3: Bede's Calculation of Tidal Periods and the Purported 'Immaturity' of
On the Nature of Things
Appendix 4: Bede and Lucretius
Select Bibliography
Index of Sources
General Index

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