De natura rerum (Bede)


De natura rerum is a treatise by the Anglo-Saxon monk Bede, composed in 703 as a companion-piece to his De temporibus. In the view of Eoghan Ahern, 'though it is an early work that does not approach the complexity and innovation of Bede's later thought, DNR provides us with an insight into the cosmological assumptions that undergird his understanding of theology and history'.

Contents

The work comprises fifty-one short chapters with titles such as:
1. De Quadrifario dei opere
2. De mundi formatione
3. Quid sit mundus
4. De elementis
5. De firmamento
6. De varia altitudine cœli
7. De cœlo superiore
8. De aquis cœlestibus
9. De quinque circulis mundi
10. De plagis mundi
11. De stellis
12. De cursu planetarum
13. De ordine eorum
For example, chapter 3, 'Quid sit mundus' runs:
Mundus est universitas omnis, quæ constat ex cœlo et terra, quatuor elementis in speciem orbis absoluti globata: igne, quo sidera lucent; aere, quo cuncta viventia spirant: aquis, quæ terram cingendo et penetrando communiunt: atque ipsa terra, quæ mundi media atque ima, librata volubili circa eam universitate pendet immobilis.

The world is the whole of everything, which is constituted by the sky and the land, the four elements in the form of a completely rounded sphere: fire, by which the stars shine; air, which all living things breathe; waters, which surround the land, encircling and penetrating; and the land itself, which is the middle and core of the world, hanging unmoving, with everything turning in equilibrium around it.

Translations