The Celtic Church In The British


Christianity was probably planted in the British Isles during the second

century; as to its growth in the ante-Nicene period little is definitely

known. Representatives of the British Church were at Arles in 314. The

Church was in close connection with the Church on the Continent during the

fourth century and in the fifth during the Pelagian controversy. The

Christianity thus established was completely overthrown or driven into
>
Wales by the invasion of the pagan Angles, Jutes, and Saxons circa

449-500. (For the conversion of the newcomers, v. infra, § 100.) Early

in the fifth century the conversion of Ireland took place by missionaries

from Britain. In this conversion St. Patrick traditionally plays an

important part.





Additional source material: Bede, Hist. Ec., Eng. trans. by

Giles, London, 1894; by A. M. Sellar, London, 1907 (for Latin

text, v. infra, a); Adamnani, Vita S. Columbae, ed. J. T.

Fowler, 1894 (with valuable introduction and translation); St.

Patrick, Genuine Writings, ed. G. T. Stokes and C. H. H. Wright,

Dublin, 1887; J. D. Newport White, The Writings of St. Patrick,

1904. For bibliography of sources, see Gross, The Sources and

Literature of English History, 1900, pp. 221 f.





(a) Bede, Hist. Ec. Gentis Anglorum, I, 13. (MSL, 95:40.)





The Venerable Bede (672 or 673-735), monk at Jarrow, the most

learned theologian of the Anglo-Saxon Church, was also the first

historian of England. For the earliest period he used what written

sources were available. His work becomes of independent value with

the account of the coming of Augustine of Canterbury, 597 (I, 23).

The history extends to A. D. 731. The best critical edition is

that of C. Plummer, 1896, which has a valuable introduction,

copious historical and critical notes, and careful discrimination

of the sources. Wm. Bright's Chapters on Early English Church

History is an elaborate commentary on Bede's work as far as 709,

the death of Wilfrid. Translation of Bede's History by J. A.

Giles, may be found in Bohn's Antiquarian Library, and better by

A. M. Sellar, 1907.





In the following passage we have the only reference made by Bede

to the conversion of Ireland, and his failure to mention Patrick

has given rise to much controversy, see J. B. Bury, The Life of

St. Patrick and his Place in History, 1905. This passage,

referring to Palladius, is a quotation from the Chronica of

Prosper of Aquitaine (403-463) ann. 431 (MSL, 51, critical edition

in MGH, Auct. antiquiss, 9:1); from Gildas, De excidio

Britanniae liber querulus (MSL, 69:327, critical edition in MGH,

Auct. antiquiss, 13. A translation by J. A. Giles in Six Old

English Chronicles, in Bohn's Antiquarian Library), is the

reference to the letter written to the Romans; from the Chronica

of Marcellinus Comes (MSL, 51:913; critical edition in MGH, Auct.

antiquiss, 11) is the reference to Blaeda and Attila.





In the year of the Lord's incarnation, 423, Theodosius the younger

received the empire after Honorius and, being the forty-fifth from

Augustus, retained it twenty-six years. In the eighth year of his reign,

Palladius was sent by Celestinus, the pontiff of the Roman Church, to the

Scots(212) that believed in Christ to be their first bishop. In the

twenty-third year of his reign (446), Aetius, the illustrious, who was

also patrician, discharged his third consulate with Symmachus as his

colleague. To him the wretched remnants of the Britons sent a letter

beginning: "To Aetius, thrice consul, the groans of the Britons." And in

the course of the letter they thus express their calamities: "The

barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea drives us back to the barbarians;

between them there have arisen two sorts of death; we are either slain or

drowned." Yet neither could all this procure any assistance from him, as

he was then engaged in a most dangerous war with Blaeda and Attila, kings

of the Huns. And though the year next before this, Blaeda had been murdered

by the treachery of his brother Attila, yet Attila himself remained so

intolerable an enemy to the republic that he ravaged almost all Europe,

invading and destroying cities and castles.





(b) Patrick, Confessio, chs. 1, 10. (MSL, 53:801.)





The call of St. Patrick to be a missionary.





There is much dispute and uncertainty about the life and work of

St. Patrick. Of the works of Patrick, two appear to be genuine,

his Confessio and his Epistola ad Coroticum. The other works

attributed to him are very probably spurious. The genuine works

may be found in Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical

Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, vol. II, pt. ii,

296 ff.





I, Patrick, a sinner, the most ignorant and least of all the faithful, and

the most contemptible among many, had for my father Calpornius the deacon,

son of the presbyter Potitus, the son of Odissus, who was of the village

of Bannavis Tabernia; he had near by a little estate where I was taken

captive. I was then nearly sixteen years old. But I was ignorant of the

true God(213) and I was taken into captivity unto Ireland, with so many

thousand men, according to our deserts, because we had forsaken God and

not kept His commandments and had not been obedient to our priests who

warned us of our salvation. And the Lord brought upon us the fury of His

wrath and scattered us among many nations, even to the end of the earth,

where now my meanness appears to be among strangers. And there the Lord

opened the senses of my unbelief, that I might remember my sin, and that I

might be converted with my whole heart to my Lord God, who looked upon my

humbleness and had mercy upon my youth and ignorance, and guarded me

before I knew Him, and before I knew and distinguished between good and

evil, and protected me and comforted me as a father a son.



And again after a few years(214) I was with my relatives in Britain, who

received me as a son, and earnestly besought me that I should never leave

them after having endured so many great tribulations. And there I saw in a

vision by night a man coming to me as from Ireland, and his name was

Victorinus, and he had innumerable epistles; and he gave me one of them

and I read the beginning of the epistle as follows: "The voice of the

Irish." And while I was reading the epistle, I think that it was at the

very moment, I heard the voice of those who were near the wood of

Fochlad,(215) which is near the Western Sea. And thus they cried out with

one voice: We beseech thee, holy youth, to come here and dwell among us.

And I was greatly smitten in heart, and could read no further and so I

awoke. Thanks be to God, because after many years the Lord granted them

according to their cry.





(c) Bede, Hist. Ec., III, 4. (MSL, 95:121.)





St. Ninian and St. Columba in Scotland.





In the year of our Lord 565, when Justin the younger, the successor of

Justinian, took the government of the Roman Empire, there came into

Britain a priest and abbot, distinguished in habit and monastic life,

Columba by name, to preach the word of God to the provinces of the

northern Picts, that is, to those who are separated from the southern

parts by steep and rugged mountains. For the southern Picts, who had their

homes within those mountains, had long before, as is reported, forsaken

the error of idolatry, and embraced the true faith, by the preaching of

the word to them by Ninian,(216) a most reverend bishop and holy man of

the British nation, who had been regularly instructed at Rome in the faith

and mysteries of the truth, whose episcopal see was named after St.

Martin, the bishop, and was famous for its church, wherein he and many

other saints rest in the body, and which the English nation still

possesses. The place belongs to the province of Bernicia, and is commonly

called Candida Casa,(217) because he there built a church of stone, which

was not usual among the Britons.



Columba came to Britain in the ninth year of the reign of Bridius, the son

of Meilochon, the very powerful king of the Picts, and he converted by

work and example that nation to the faith of Christ; whereupon he also

received the aforesaid island [Iona] for a monastery. It is not large, but

contains about five families, according to English reckoning. His

successors hold it to this day, and there also he was buried, when he was

seventy-seven, about thirty-two years after he came into Britain to

preach. Before he came into Britain he had built a noble monastery in

Ireland, which from the great number of oaks is called in the Scottish

tongue(218) Dearmach, that is, the Field of Oaks. From both of these

monasteries many others had their origin through his disciples both in

Britain and Ireland; but the island monastery where his body lies holds

the rule.



That island always has for its ruler an abbot, who is a priest, to whose

direction all the province and even bishops themselves are subject by an

unusual form of organization, according to the example of their first

teacher, who was not a bishop, but a priest and monk; of whose life and

discourses some writings are said to have been preserved by his disciples.

But whatever he was himself, this we regard as certain concerning him,

that he left successors renowned for their great continency, their love of

God, and their monastic rules. However, they followed uncertain

cycles(219) in their observance of the great festival [Easter], for no one

brought them the synodal decrees for the observance of Easter, because

they were placed so far away from the rest of the world; they only

practised such works of piety and chastity as they could learn from the

prophetical, evangelical, and apostolical writings. This manner of keeping

Easter continued among them for a long time, that is, for the space of one

hundred and fifty years, or until the year of our Lord's incarnation 715.



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