884).
In the writings thus covered with the name of Bede there is much showing a scientific spirit, which might have come to something of permanent value had it not been hampered by the supposed necessity of conforming to the letter of Scripture.

It is as startling as it is refreshing to hear one of these medieval theorists burst out as follows against those who are content to explain everything by the power of God: "What is more pitiable than to say that a thing IS, because God is able to do it, and not to show any reason why it is so, nor any purpose for which it is so; just as if God did everything that he is able to do! You talk like one who says that God is able to make a calf out of a log.

But DID he ever do it?
Either, then, show a reason why a thing is so, or a purpose wherefore it is so, or else cease to declare it so."(206) (206) For this remonstrance, see the Elementa philosophiae, in Bede's Opera (Migne, Patr.Lat., vol xc, p.

1139).

This treatise, which has also been printed, under the title of De philosophia mundi, among the works of Honorius of Autun, is believed by modern scholars (Haureau, Werner, Poole) to be the production of William of Conches.
The most permanent contribution of Bede to scientific thought in this field was his revival of the view that the firmament is made of ice; and he supported this from the words in the twenty-sixth chapter of Job, "He bindeth up the waters in his thick cloud, and the cloud is not rent under them." About the beginning of the ninth century appeared the third in that triumvirate of churchmen who were the oracles of sacred science throughout the early Middle Ages--Rabanus Maurus, Abbot of Fulda and Archbishop of Mayence.