History, Hagiography and Biblical Exegesis: Essays on Bede, Adomnán and Thomas Becket

Description

When she died in 2016, Dr Jennifer O’Reilly left behind a body of published and unpublished work in three areas of medieval studies: the iconography of the Gospel Books produced in early medieval Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England; the writings of Bede and his older Irish contemporary, Adomnán of Iona; and the early lives of Thomas Becket. In these three areas she explored the connections between historical texts, artistic images and biblical exegesis. This volume is a collection of 16 essays, old and new, relating history and exegesis in the writings of Bede and Adomnán, and in the lives of Thomas Becket. The first part consists of seven studies of Bede’s writings, notably his biblical commentaries and his Ecclesiastical History. Two of the essays are published here for the first time. The five studies in the second part, devoted to Adomnán, discuss his life of Saint Columba (the Vita Columbae) and his guide to the Holy Places (De locis sanctis). One essay (‘The Bible as Map’), published posthumously, compares his presentation of a major theme, the earthly and heavenly Jerusalem, with the approach adopted by Bede. The third section consists of two essays on the lives of Thomas Becket that were composed shortly after his death. They examine, in the context of patristic exegesis, the biblical images invoked in the texts in order to show how the saint’s biographers understood the complex relationship between hagiography and history. With the exception of the Jarrow Lecture on Bede and the essays on Becket, the studies in both parts were published originally in edited books, some of them now hard to come by. Cover Series Page Half Title Title Copyright CONTENTS List of illustrations Preface Introduction Bede 1 Introduction to Bede. On the Temple 2 Islands and idols at the ends of the earth: exegesis and conversion in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica 3 Bede on seeing the God of gods in Zion 4 The multitude of isles and the cornerstone: topography, exegesis and the identity of the Angli in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica 5 St Paul and the sign of Jonah. Theology and Scripture in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum 6 Bede and monothelitism 7 Bede and the dating of Easter Adomnán 8 Reading the Scriptures in the Life of Columba 9 The wisdom of the scribe and the fear of the Lord in the  Life of St Columba 10 Adomnán and the art of teaching spiritual sons 11 Columba at Clonmacnoise 12 The Bible as map, on seeing God and finding the way: pilgrimage and exegesis in Adomnán and Bede Thomas Becket 13 Candidus et rubicundus: an image of martyrdom in the Lives of Thomas Becket 14 The double martyrdom of Thomas Becket: hagiography or history Index