Introduction
In a Sermon for All Saints Day, St Bede, a monk of Jarrow in early eighth-century Northumbria, has been speaking of the Christian life as a spiritual warfare against the dark Enemy of mankind his unseen servants. The warefare does not last long, he tells us: soon we are released from it, and the warriors who have fought on to the end are gathered safely into a heavenly citadel.
WITH how joyous a breast the heavenly city receives those that return from the fight! How happily she meets them that bear the trophies of the conquered enemy. With triumphant men, women also come who rose superior both to this world and to their sex,* doubling the glory of their warfare; virgins with youths who surpassed their tender years by their virtues. Yet not they alone, but the rest of the multitude of the faithful shall also enter the palace of that eternal court, who in peaceful union have observed the heavenly commandments, and have maintained the purity of the faith.
Now, therefore, brethren, let us enter the way of life let us return to the celestial city,* in which we are citizens, enrolled and inscribed. For we are no more strangers and foreigners,* but fellow-citizens of the saints and of the household of God — heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.* The gates of this city are opened to us by fortitude;* and faith will afford us a broad entrance.*
* Presumably a reference to 1 Peter 3:7, where St Peter calls wives ‘the weaker vessel’ and bids husbands handle with care. Of course, if the vessel is comparatively breakable that does not make the contents (or the vessel) inferior: see Galatians 3:28, 2 Corinthians 12:10 and Daniel Defoe on The Weakness of Women. Bede himself made his admiration for women such as St Ebbe and St Hild quite plain, and he had no ideological problem with them as teachers and governors of men — nor did St Paul, who after all was taught by St Priscilla and took St Phoebe of Cenchrae for a Patron, though judging by 1 Timothy 2:11-14 he had to stop some runaway trains. At any rate, according to Genesis 3:16 women have been under the thumb of men ever since Eve’s expulsion from Eden, and rising superior to such circumstances does indeed seem doubly praiseworthy.
* See Revelation 21:1-4.
* See Ephesians 2:19.
* See Romans 8:17.
* A reference perhaps to Luke 11, Jesus’s lesson in persistent prayer, and especially Luke 11:9: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”
* A reference perhaps to Mathew 7:13-14: “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” Bede implies that those with strong faith will find that the narrow way seems broader, and the strait gate wider.
Précis
In a sermon for All Saints, St Bede pictured warriors returning to heaven from the spiritual warfare of earthly life, men and women, young and old; and he reminded his listeners in the monastery at Jarrow that heaven should not seem to be in any way alien, but a homeland in which they already held citizenship together. (57 / 60 words)
In a sermon for All Saints, St Bede pictured warriors returning to heaven from the spiritual warfare of earthly life, men and women, young and old; and he reminded his listeners in the monastery at Jarrow that heaven should not seem to be in any way alien, but a homeland in which they already held citizenship together.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 60 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 50 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: because, besides, despite, if, may, must, ought, who.
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