The Reckoning of Time

OF BEDE.

...so that they might be read publicly in the churches by the order of the bishops of England. And when, in the recital of homilies, they inscribed the name of the venerable priest Bede, as was the custom of authority, not being able to preach him as anything else while he lived, the title once attributed from the beginning has prevailed to this very day, so that he is called 'Venerable Bede' rather than 'Saint'. For it was not permitted to call him otherwise while he lived (even if he were a saint). There are those who invent other reasons for this 'venerable' title, some dreaming it came from the inscription on his epitaph, others that Bede was blind, but they err, since Bede was neither blind, nor do we know such an epitaph to have been inscribed upon his tomb. And indeed, if I were not concerned with brevity, I could easily refute these delusions. He dies under the Emperor Leo, in the year of the Lord 732, in the 15th Indiction, in the 72nd year of his age, on the day before the Kalends of June.