Heinrich Zimmer, The Celtic Church in Britian and Ireland
CHAPTER I
FIRST PERIOD
THE ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE CELTIC CHURCH IN BRITAIN
- It may safely be concluded from the silence EarUest of Gildas that the British Church of the first half tions. of the sixth century possessed no knowledge or
tradition respecting the introduction of Christianity fable, into Britain.
An apostle to the Saxons had arisen in Augustine of Canterbury (a.d. 597), and the feud between the Celtic Church of Britain and the newly founded Anglo-Roman Church had lasted for a century before we meet with the Lucius fable in Bede.
To quote his own words :
” In the year of our Lord’s incarnation 156, Marcus Antoninus Verus, the fourteenth
from Augustus, was made emperor together with his brother Aurelius Commodus. In their time, whilst Eleutherus, a holy man, presided over the Roman Church, Lucius, king of the Britons, sent a letter to him, entreating that by his command he
might be made a Christian. He soon obtained his pious request, and the Britons preserved the faith which they had received, uncorrupted and entire, in
peace and tranquillity until the time of the Emperor Diocletian.” 1
This legend is repeated in the later Historia Brit-Lucius tonum, and grows in length and detail during the fable. following centuries.
That it cannot lay claim to any authenticity has been generally admitted.
It is highly probable that it was invented towards the end of the seventh century by a representative of Rome, in order to support him in his claims against the Britons.
Contemporary foreign writers, as well as native sources, give us no answer to the questions whence, how, and when Christianity was first brought’ to Britain. Warren in his Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church attributes the introduction of Christianity into Britain chiefly to Greek churches at Lyons and Vienne, and as a consequence of the persecutions under Marcus Aurelius, but his arguments cannot be called convincing.
In view of the total absence of any tradition of definite missionary activity, we must needs conclude that Christianity was brought to Britain by natural intercourse with the other countries, Gaul and the Lower Rhine in the the third place, rather than by any special individual or century, missionary effort.
Tertullian and Origen state that Christianity had already spread in Britain to some
extent during the earlier part of the third century, but the rhetorical tenor of these passages 1 forbids our treating them as safe testimonies.
Thus much, however, we may safely assume, that Christianity made great progress in Britain in the course of the third century.
We learn from Gildas that the persecution under Diocletian produced martyrs in Britain, three of whom he names.
But weighty reasons speak aganst any noteworthy extension of that persecution
into Britain, and Gildas’ statement, based on a sixth–century tradition of the British Church, cannot be regarded as historical evidence.
Certain proof of the existence of Christianity in Britain in the early fourth century is afforded by the presence of three British bishops, one presbyter, and one deacon at the Council of Aries (a.d. 316).
The names of the towns whence came these representatives of British Christianity (York, Lincoln, London), as well as those of the martyrs mentioned by Gildas (St. Albans, Caerleon-on-Usk) show distinctly that Christianity first took a firm footing
in the towns and stations of the Roman high-roads.
The § 2. Sufficient records exist to show that through’ the fourth otit the fourth century there was a well-organised Christian Church in Britain, which stood in constant touch with the Church on the Continent, especially with the Galilean Church, and regarded itself as an active member of that body.
Among the 400 and more Western bishops who assembled at Ariminum (a.d. 359), a considerable portion must have been British, for Sulpicius Severus mentions expressly that, to maintain their independence, all the British bishops, hke those of Gaul, refused to accept the material support offered them by Constantius, with the exception of three only, who accepted it inopid proprii.
The very fact of their taking part in the Council of Ariminum proves that the British, as a member of the Roman Church, was drawn into its doctrinal disputes.
Thus Gildas firmly maintains that Arianism greatly injured the British Church, a statement invalidated, it is true, in the eyes of most by the testimonies of Hilary of Poitiers (about A.D. 358) and Athanasius (A.D. 363).
Mr. F. C. Conybeare has recently adduced some important arguments to show that the British-Welsh Church, even as late as the seventh century, tolerated, if not actual Arianism, yet views far from orthodox regarding the doctrine of the Trinity.
We may add that the Irish Church also, following in the wake of her mother, the British Church, does not lack traces (besides those mentioned by Conybeare) of heterodox views on the Trinity during the sixth and seventh centuries.
In the Life of Gildas, written at Rhuis in Brittany, in which monastery Gildas died in 570, and where they must have had traditions of his work in Ireland during the years 565 and 566, we are struck, in the midst of a highly coloured description of his activity in Ireland, by the special mention of his having instructed the whole clergy in the Catholic Faith to cherish the Holy Trinity}- It is also remarkable that Muirchu maccu Machtheni, author of a Life of St. Patrick, in the second half of the seventh century, lays great stress on the fact that Patrick embarked for Ireland ” in the name of the Holy Trinity,” and that he christened “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
Most remarkable of all, perhaps, is the tradition of a much later time, that Gregory the Great suspected Columba of Hi, who died in 597, of not having thought quite correctly with regard to the Holy Trinity,^ because of his hymn Alius Prosator Vetustus.
It must therefore be admitted that Arian views found their way into the British Church during the second half of the fourth century.
And as in a.d. 384 theworldly power of Rome was on the wane, and the political situation during the two subsequent centuries prevented a strict and complete organisation of the Church, it is conceivable that these views should have lived on, and tradition may possibly still have preserved them as late as the year 600, as Conybeare ssumes, in the baptismal formula.
Fifth § 3. It is certain that Pelagianism appeared in the Pelagian- British Church during the fifth century.
Contemporary witness to this fact is borne by Prosper, who writes pation by as follows in his Chronicle under the year 429 :
“The manuB. Pelagian Agricola, son of the Pelagian bishop Severianus, corrupts the churches of Britain by the teaching of his dogma. But at the instigation of the deacon Palladius, Pope Celestine sends Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, in his stead, who overthrows the heretics, and makes the Britons return to the Catholic faith.”
Further details about Germanus in Britain are given in the Vita Germani, written towards the end of the fifth century, and used by Bede.
From this source we learn that, at the request of a British embassy, Germanus was sent out with Lupus by a Galilean synod, and shortly afterwards went on a second mission, which is said to have led to a complete extirpation of Pelagianism
in the British Church.
At any rate Gildas, writing a century later, does not mention Pelagianism.
Decline of For a whole century after the mission of Germanus Church in nothing is heard of the Celtic Church in Britain.
As Britain, earlv as A.D. 60 Roman Britain had been attacked by on the coming of the Picts from the north and by the Scots from Irebarians. land ; and the installation, towards the end of the fourth century, of a comes litoris Saxonici in the south nd south-east, shows that there were attacks from a third quarter as well.
In A.D. 383 the bulk of the legions stationed in Britain accompanied the usurper
Maximus to Gaul and Northern Italy.
During the first two decades of the fifth century Rome lost its hold upon Britain more and more.
Native Britons who regarded themselves as Romans, such as a certain Constantinus, tried to maintain Christian-Roman civilisation against the inroads of barbarism, but in vain.
During the fifth century the complete transformation of the political conditions of the island by its Anglo-Saxon conquerors went on incessantly.
Christianity disappeared from the East, where it had had its oldest strongholds, such as York, Lincoln, and London, Together with those Britons who kept their independence, it found a refuge in the mountainous districts of the West, where, in the course of the sixth century, it gradually comes to the front again. ~Heinrich Zimmer, The Celtic Church in Britian and Ireland, Page 1-7
