He was ordained deacon (691-2) and priest (702-3) of the monastery, where his whole life was spent in devotion, choral singing, study, teaching, discussion, and writing. Besides Latin he knew Greek and possibly Hebrew.Bede's theological works were chiefly commentaries, mostly allegorical in method, based with acknowledgment on Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, Gregory, and others, but bearing his own personality. In another class were works on grammar and one on natural phenomena; special interest in the vexed question of Easter led him to write about the calendar and chronology. But his most admired production is his Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation. Here a clear and simple style united with descriptive powers to produce an elegant work, and the facts diligently collected from good sources make it a valuable account.Historical also are his Lives of the Abbots of his monastery, the less successful accounts (in verse and prose) of Cuthbert, and the Letter to Egbert his pupil (November 734), so important for our knowledge about the Church in Northumbria.The Loeb Classical Library edition of Bede's historical works is in two volumes.

    It went into three editions (the last of them in 1931), and has now been completely revised and re-arranged by Mr. Brophy. It consists of an informative and entertaining introduction; a collection of songs, ribald sentimental, satiric, made up by unknown soldiers and a fascinating glossary of soldiers slang. The authors, 1914 volunteers, were both infantryman and they started on this book while they were still close to the First World War. There is an authentic ring of first-hand experience int heir work as well as scholarship. No one who set out to compile such a book today could come anywhere near it, while at the same time the re-writing for this edition gives us the benefit of a long view as well as a sense of being there.It was astonishing to discover the extent to which attitudes have changed in the last twenty-five years about what is printable and what is not. The number of words (besides the obvious ones) for which, in the early thirties, dashes had to be substituted made some of the songs look almost as though they had been transcribed in morse code. In this edition the words have been restored, an Mr Brophy, in his Introduction has put the whole matter of soldiers' language into a modern perspective. Both the songs and (especially) the glossary are of great value to students of language , but the book appeals to a far wider audience. Imaginations have turned back to the war of 1914-18 (witness the success of Oh What A Lovely War ) .and here is the essence of its most moving aspect: the courage, gaiety and astringent cynicism with which men armed themselves against the horrors of trench warfare. (Description as appears in the 1965 editions dust jacket flaps).