Letter 3

From: Bede, monk of Wearmouth-Jarrow and scholar To: Acca, Bishop of Hexham Date: ~716 AD Context: The dedicatory letter for Bede's Commentary on Luke, sent to his friend and patron Bishop Acca of Hexham — one of Bede's most significant supporters and correspondents. Bede, servant of Christ, to the most beloved and most holy Bishop Acca, greetings. The commentary on Luke that I am sending you is not the work I wished it to be — it is larger and less polished than I intended, and there are passages where I was working at the edge of my competence and I think it shows. But you asked for it, and you have the learning and the charity to make allowances for its deficiencies. I want to explain my method, so that you know what I was trying to do and can judge whether I succeeded. I have tried to gather the best of what the Fathers have said about each passage — Augustine, Ambrose, Gregory, Jerome — and to present it in a form accessible to readers who do not have access to those Fathers directly. The scholarship of Northumbria is good, but our libraries are not inexhaustible, and a commentary that brings together the tradition's wisdom on the text has practical value even for scholars who could in principle go to the originals. Where I offer my own interpretations, I have tried to mark them as such, so that the reader knows when they are reading the tradition and when they are reading Bede. The work on Mark is in progress. I hope it will be better. Your devoted friend and servant, Bede