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  for Bæda the prayers and masses of the monks, and the enrolment of his name in the books of the monastery. Bæda's other life of Cuthberht, in heroic verse, was equally the result of the request of some of the monks, and in his preface to the prose life he offers to transmit a copy to Eadfrid (ib. iv. 202–7).

In the famous Lindisfarne gospels (Cotton MS. Nero, D. iv.) there occurs a note at the end of the gospel of St. John (f. 258), thus translated by Mr. Skeat: ‘Eadfrith, bishop of the Lindisfarne church, was he who at the first wrote this book in honour of God and St. Cuthberht and all the saints in common that are in the island. And Ethilwaed, bishop of the people of the Lindisfarne island, made it firm on the outside, and covered it as well as he could. And Billfrith, the anchorite, he wrought in smith's work the ornaments on the outside. And Aldred, an unworthy and most miserable priest, glossed it above in English.’ Again, at the beginning of St. Mark's gospel (f. 88 b) is a shorter entry: ‘Thou living God, be mindful of Eadfrid, and Ædilwald, and Billfrid, and Aldred, sinners; these four, with God's help, were employed upon this book.’ This notice, though written in the tenth century by [q. v.], is very strong evidence that the foundation work of this remarkable manuscript is due to Eadfrid. It consists of Jerome's Latin version of the four gospels, with the epistle to Damasus, the Eusebian canons, and similar usual appendages. It is written very beautifully in half-uncial letters on stout vellum. The remarkable beauty of the illuminations proves Eadfrid to have been a consummate artist for his time.

On his death in 721 Eadfrid's bones were placed in the shrine where the uncorrupted body of St. Cuthberht lay, and shared the wanderings of the greater saint, and finally rested with his relics at Durham, where they were discovered on the translation of Cuthberht's remains to the new cathedral erected by Ranulf Flambard in 1104. The ‘Book of St. Cuthberht,’ as the Lindisfarne gospels were commonly called, shared in the same vicissitudes. It was believed at Durham that when in 875 Bishop Eardulf carried the shrine of Cuthberht all over Northumberland to save it from Halfdene and his Danes, the precious manuscript accompanied the flight. In attempting to cross over to Ireland it was lost overboard, and when recovered three days afterwards, on the coast off Whithern, miraculously retained its original freshness and beauty. It was from the eleventh or twelfth century preserved at Durham, where it was described in inventories as ‘the Book of St. Cuthberht which had been sunk in the sea.’ It was ultimately acquired by Sir Robert Cotton, and is now in the British Museum. But though some have detected in the few faint stains on the vellum the marks of sea water, they are so slight that nothing less than a miracle could have saved the book if the tradition above related be true.

The Latin text of Eadfrid's manuscript has been published, along with the Northumbrian glosses of Aldred, by J. Stevenson and G. Waring for the Surtees Society (1854–65), and more accurately in the Cambridge Press, the gospel of St. Matthew being edited by J. M. Kemble and C. Hardwick, the other three by Professor Skeat (1858–78). K. W. Bouterwek, who in 1857 published the gloss in ‘Die vier Evangelien in alt-northumbrischer Sprache,’ printed portions of the text as well in his ‘Screadunga Anglo-Saxonica’ (1858).



EADIE, JOHN, D.D. (1810–1876), theological author, was born at Alva, Stirlingshire, 9 May 1810. His father, when on the verge of seventy, married a second wife, and Eadie was the only child of the marriage who survived infancy. As a boy he was lively and somewhat tricky, and at school showed a turn for languages and a remarkable memory. At one time he knew by heart the whole of ‘Paradise Lost.’ He studied at the university of Glasgow, attaining considerable distinction in several classes; but he had to contend with narrow means, and was thus thrown to a large degree on his own resources. At this time he was much engaged as a temperance lecturer, and obtained considerable fame in that capacity. In his theological classes he evinced a decided preference for studies which afforded some scope for investigation and discovery. Dogmatics, as not falling under this category, were much less interesting than exegetics, which already