In about 679, Bede, a boy of seven, was presented by his family as an oblate to the monastery of Wearmouth, Northumbria. He spent the rest of his life as a monk, first at Wearmouth, and later at Jarrow, five miles away. Using the monastic library he became 'the most learned man in Western Europe', and one of the most influential on future generations. He read, and wrote, in a wide variety of fields--natural science, mathematics, and astronomy, grammar, rhetoric, geography, history, hagiography, theology, and above all interpretation of Holy Scripture. Bede combined his great learning with sanctity and a personal charm which still shines through his writings. His command of the Fathers of the Church and profane knowledge belie the name commonly given his age; despite invasions, privations, and limitations, Bede demonstrates that one corner of the European north was far from dark.

Bede's commentary on the Book of Acts is one of his earliest exegetical works (usually dated between 709 and 710) and one of his most popular and influential. None of the Latin Fathers of the Church had written a commentary on this book, and those which existed in Greek were unlikely to have been known in the West. Bede became the authority on Acts for countless subsequent students of Scripture. The breadth of Bede's mind, the diversity of his interests, and the thoroughness of his research are all mirrored in this work. Allegory is freely interspersed with practical commentary, textual analysis with mystical interpretation. Far from being a quaint relic of outdated exegesis, the commentary can be of practical use to modern Christians who read it in the spirit in which it was written: meditation on the workings of God.