Inside Durham Cathedral, and Beyond

This is the cathedral of Bede’s burial, and St. Oswald, of St. Cuthbert, of the Lindisfarne Gospels, of Lightfoot, and Westcott, and Moule, and yes Tom Wright too. It’s always a blessing to visit this sanctuary. Here is the tomb of Bede, and two of his famous writings. Bede’s most famous work, The Ecclesiastical History of England, is actually what determined for the West the date when it was assumed Christ was born, the dividing line between B.C. and A.D. Bede was following the calculations of Dionysius the Short, another monk from a much earlier period, and sadly… he was off by 4-6 years, since Jesus was born before Herod the Great died. But I digress. Bede set the calendar for all of us. The chapel where Bede is buried was added to the cathedral later than the original structure, for here is the great West door, on the other side of this chapel, which used to be the front door. Also in the same west chapel is this wonderful modern work of art representing the last supper, and here is a description.

We have not even mentioned the main portion of the cathedral yet…!
Or the Lego replica in the gift shop!
Or the fabulous Norman arches… Or the Celtic crosses… Or the beautiful tomb of J.B. Lightfoot, the greatest NT scholar of the 19th century. Or poor St. Oswald, carrying his head around under his arm….

And I could wax eloquent for a long time about all this. Instead, I will leave you with the city square in Durham…
now surrounded by about five coffee shops!

And we will end where we began these Durham posts, with C.K. Barrett. Here was the one major parish church he pastored during WWII, Bondgate Methodist, in Darlington. From there he went to teach at Durham U. thinking it might be a temporary thing, and he would soon return to the parish. It was not to be… and from my point of view, thank goodness, or I’d have never been to Durham, and we would never have had all his wonderful books and lectures. Sola Deo Gloria.