Opera Theologica, Moralia, Historica, Philosophica, Mathematica & Rhetorica, quotquot hucusque haberi pouterunt omnia, in Vetus et Novum Testamentum ... in Tomos VIII [= Works ... in Eight Volumes]

Coloniae Agrippinae [= Cologne]: Ioannem Wilhelmum Friessem, 1688. Later edition. Hardcover. Very Good+. 4 vol. (8 vol. bound in 4). Folio. [8], 2-452, [2]; 1-238 (with a section of these leaves mispaginated); [4], 2-499, [2]; [4], 2-916, [1]; [2], 2-815; [2], 2-851; [4], 2-486, [1]; [4], 2-967, (a lengthy, unpaginated index of words and subjects at the end of the volume plus a blank before the rear endpaper) pp. Contemporary full blind-tooled pigskin, contemporary ink titling on the spines with the volumes numbers; all edges decoratively stained black. Volume one with an engraved title page and its title page printed in red and black, also with several (truncated) in-text woodcuts and charts. The later volumes each have their own title page, all volumes with woodcut initials, head, and tailpieces. Brunet 276. Graesse 321. NCBEL 346. Oxford DNB, J. Campbell, "Bede [St Bede, Bæda, known as the Venerable Bede] (673/4-735)". This edition was first published in Cologne in 1612, these volumes are the second edition printed there. Saint Bede is remembered for his contributions to ecclesiastical and British historical writings. Bede wrote analytically, and was fascinated by time and the creation of life as they were written about in early Christian sources. The sources available to him included Eusebius of Caesarea, Orosius, Eutropius, and the earlier British historian, Gildas. Historians label his Historia Ecclesiastica Anglis Gentorum as the greatest culmination of his writings, and some point out that it helped to create the sense of a national English identity, at a time when the Angles and the Saxons were still forging intertribal unity. His history of Christianity in Britain largely focuses on the years 597-731, after a brief explanation of Christianity in Roman-controlled Britain. Bede wrote in his own autobiography that his life was devoted to "learning and letters", and he was well-beloved in his own time and long after (including by Britain's first king, Alfred), which is largely why most of his work survives today. His translations of various religious histories and lives of the Saints into Latin made these works accessible to his fellow monks, and Bede even did an Old English translation of St. John's Gospel, which, had it survived, would be the earliest lengthy work of prose in English. Bede was an author who was influenced greatly by the writers of Late Antiquity, and his career is one of the most significant among those who wrote during the early Middle Ages. With a small, later bookplate and an 18th century ownership mark (Signet Library) on each front pastedown. No other institutional markings. Boards with a few small spots of wear and yellowing, overall a lovely set. (Inventory #: 000011508)