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THE year
after that in which Caedwalla died at Rome, that is, 690 after the Incarnation
of our Lord, Archbishop Theodore, of blessed memory, departed this life, being
old and full of days, for he was eighty-eight years of age; which number of
years he had been wont long before to foretell to his friends that he should
live, the same having been revealed to him in a dream. He held the bishopric
twenty-two years, and was buried in St. Peter’s church, where all the bodies of
the bishops of Canterbury are buried. Of whom, as well as of his fellows of the
same degree, it may rightly and truly be said, that their bodies are buried in
peace, and their names shall live to all generations. For to say all in few
words, the English Churches gained more spiritual increase while he was
archbishop, than ever before. His character, life, age, and death, are plainly
and manifestly described to all that resort thither, by the epitaph on his
tomb, in thirty-four heroic verses. The first whereof are these:
"Here
in the tomb rests the body of the holy prelate, called now in the Greek tongue
Theodore. Chief pontiff, blest high priest, pure doctrine he set forth to his
disciples."
The last
are as follows:
"For
September had reached its nineteenth day, when his spirit went forth from the
prison-bars of the flesh. Mounting in bliss to the gracious fellowship of the
new life, he was united to the angelic citizens in the heights of Heaven."
Bertwald
succeeded Theodore in the archbishopric, being abbot of the monastery called
Racuulfe, which stands at the northern mouth of the river Genlade. He was a man
learned in the Scriptures, and perfectly instructed in ecclesiastical and
monastic teaching, yet in no wise to be compared to his predecessor. He was
chosen bishop in the year of our Lord 692, on the first day of July, when
Wictred and Suaebhard were kings in Kent; but he was ordained the next year, on
Sunday the 29th of June, by Godwin, metropolitan bishop of Gaul, and was
enthroned on Sunday the 31st of August. Among the many bishops whom he ordained
was Tobias, a man instructed in the Latin, Greek, and Saxon tongues, and
otherwise of manifold learning, whom he consecrated in the stead of Gedmund,
bishop of the Church of Rochester, who had died.
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