A.D. 381 heretics, pagans, and the dawn of the monotheistic state ( PDFDrive )

formula in his calculation of the ‘correct’ date for Easter. His Latin is
sophisticated for his period, although he admits that the only secular work he
allows himself to use is a grammar purged of any reference to paganism. The
restrictions imposed by his sources and his beliefs ensure that his famous
Ecclesiastical History of the English People concentrates on only one major
issue: the progress of Christianity in England. The narrative is shaped by Bede’s
conviction that his own people, the Northumbrians, had been called to bring
salvation. Thus he plays up the role of the Germanic newcomers and is actively
hostile to the Britons, who deserve, as we have seen, to be massacred if they do
not accept the Christian faith. He has none of the acute moral sensitivities of the
great classical writers such as Thucydides and Tacitus, with their detached
assessments of how those in power exploit their position to destroy the weak.
Neither of these historians could have written approvingly that, after
Aethelfrith’s massacres of pagan priests, ‘the prophecy of the holy Bishop
Augustine was fulfilled... namely that those heretics would also suffer the
vengeance of temporal death because they had despised the offer of everlasting
salvation’. 17 There are so few surviving sources from this period that it is
difficult to assess Bede’s accuracy as a historian, but a comparison with another
surviving work, Stephen of Ripon’s biography of the Northumbrian bishop
Wilfrid, suggests, in the words of one scholar, that Bede is ‘highly selective and
discreet’ in his own version of events. 18 There is certainly nothing of the breadth
and tolerance for ‘foreign’ cultures shown by that great father of history,
Herodotus, 1,100 years earlier. So much had intellectual horizons narrowed.
The rise in the use of relics for religious, economic and political purposes
suggests that the mass of the population had become more credulous. But this
would be an inappropriate conclusion. Those seeking healing in classical times
would sleep at the Temple of Asclepius in the hope of a cure in much the same
way as Christian pilgrims would flock to a church some centuries later. In fact
many Christian shrines had formerly been pagan ones. Pope Gregory, a man who
was always pragmatic and moderate, told his missionaries to England that they
should not try to destroy ancient shrines but sprinkle them with holy water and
then allow them to continue as centres for Christian worship. (Note the contrast
with the destructive fanatics of the east.) What is different is that the educated
elite now accepted miracles when in earlier times they would have ridiculed
them. One can see the transition in Augustine. In his early works, after his
conversion, he acknowledged the miracles of Jesus in the New Testament but