Historical Works, Vol. II

THE VENERABLE BEDE

apostolic pope, including many vessels of gold and silver. When he arrived in Rome, where Vitalian held the apostolic see at that time, after he revealed the cause of his journey to the aforementioned apostolic pope, not long after he and almost all the companions who had come with him were destroyed by the arrival of the plague.

But the apostolic pope, having held counsel on these matters, sought diligently for someone he might send as archbishop to the churches of the English. Now there was in the monastery of Niridano 1 (which is not far from Naples in Campania) an abbot named Hadrian, a man of African descent, diligently imbued with sacred letters, trained in both monastic and ecclesiastical disciplines, and very skilled in both the Greek and Latin languages. The Pope, having summoned him, ordered him to accept the bishopric and come to Britain. He, responding that he was unworthy of such a rank, said he could show another whose learning and age were more suitable for receiving the bishopric. And when he offered to the pontiff a certain monk from a nearby monastery of virgins, named Andrew, he was judged by all who knew him to be worthy of the bishopric. But the weight of bodily infirmity prevented him from being able to become a bishop. And again, Hadrian was urged to accept the bishopric; he asked for a delay, to see if he could find another in the meantime who could be ordained bishop.

At that same time, there was in Rome a monk known to Hadrian, named Theodore, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, a man instructed in both secular and divine literature, and in Greek

1 For Hiridano, Pl.