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diff --git a/31872-h/31872-h.htm b/31872-h/31872-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..953a1ec --- /dev/null +++ b/31872-h/31872-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3675 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Christian Church in These Islands before the Coming of Augustine, by G. F. Browne. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + + hr {width: 33%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body {margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right; font-style: normal;} + + .blockquot {margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%;} + + .poem {margin-left:15%; margin-right:15%;} + + .right {text-align: right;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + a:link {color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:#6633cc; text-decoration:none} + + ins.correction {text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin solid gray;} + + .adverts {margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Christian Church in These Islands +before the Coming of Augustine, by George Forrest Browne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Christian Church in These Islands before the Coming of Augustine + Three Lectures Delivered at St. Paul's in January 1894 + +Author: George Forrest Browne + +Release Date: April 3, 2010 [EBook #31872] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THESE ISLANDS *** + + + + +Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<h1>THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THESE<br /> +ISLANDS BEFORE THE COMING<br /> +OF AUGUSTINE.</h1> +<p> </p> +<h3><i>Three Lectures delivered at St. Paul’s in January 1894</i></h3> +<p> </p> +<h4>BY THE</h4> +<h3>REV. G. F. BROWNE, B.D., D.C.L.,</h3> +<p> </p> +<h4>CANON OF ST. PAUL’S,<br />AND FORMERLY DISNEY PROFESSOR OF ARCHÆOLOGY IN THE<br />UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.</h4> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h4>PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE.</h4> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h5>LONDON:<br /> +SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,<br /> +NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C.; 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.<br /> +NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO.<br /> +1894.</h5> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<table width="75%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="Table of Contents"> +<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#LECTURE_I">LECTURE I.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td align="center"><span class="smcap">page</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Importance of the anniversaries connected with the years +1894-1897.—Christianity in Kent immediately before +Augustine.—Dates of Bishop Luidhard and Queen Bertha.— +Romano-British Churches in Canterbury.—Who were the +Britons.—Traditional origin of British Christianity.— +St. Paul.—Joseph of Arimathea.—Glastonbury.—Roman +references to Britain</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#LECTURE_II">LECTURE II.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Early mentions of Christianity in Britain.—King +Lucius.—Origin and spread of Christianity in Gaul.— +British Bishops at Councils.—Pelagianism.—British +Bishops of London.—Fastidius</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#LECTURE_III">LECTURE III.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Early Christianity in other parts of these islands.— +Ninian in the south-west of Scotland.—Palladius and +Patrick in Ireland.—Columba in Scotland.—Kentigern +in Cumbria.—Wales—Cornwall.—The fate of the several +Churches.—Special rites &c. of the British Church.— +General conclusion</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td></tr></table> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> +<h1><i>The Christian Church in these<br />Islands before the coming<br />of Augustine.</i></h1> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h2><a name="LECTURE_I" id="LECTURE_I"></a>LECTURE I.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Importance of the anniversaries connected with the years +1894-1897.—Christianity in Kent immediately before Augustine.—Dates +of Bishop Luidhard and Queen Bertha.—Romano-British Churches in +Canterbury.—Who were the Britons.—Traditional origin of British +Christianity.—St. Paul.—Joseph of Arimathea.—Glastonbury.—Roman +references to Britain.</p></div> + +<p>We are approaching an anniversary of the highest interest to all English +people: to English Churchmen first, for it is the thirteen-hundredth +anniversary of the planting of the Church of England; but also to all who +are proud of English civilisation, for the planting of a Christian Church +is the surest means of civilisation, and English civilisation owes +everything to the English Church. In 1897 those who are still here will +celebrate the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> thirteen-hundredth anniversary of the conversion of +Ethelbert, king of the Kentish people, by Augustine and the band of +missionaries sent by our great benefactor Gregory, the sixty-fourth bishop +of Rome. I am sorry that the limitation of my present subject prevents me +from enlarging upon the merits of that great man, and upon our debt to +him. Englishmen must always remember that it was Gregory who gave to the +Italian Mission whatever force it had; it was Gregory who gave it courage, +when the dangers of a journey through France were sufficient to keep it +for months shivering with fear under the shadow of the Alps; it was +Gregory who gave it such measure of wisdom and common sense as it had, +qualities which its leader sadly lacked. Coming nearer to the present +year, there will be in 1896 the final departure of Augustine from Rome to +commemorate, on July 23, and his arrival here in the late autumn. In 1895 +there will be to commemorate the first departure from Rome of Augustine +and his Mission, by way of Lérins and Marseilles to Aix, and the return of +Augustine to Rome, when his companions, in fear of the dangers of the way, +refused to go further. An ill-omened beginning, prophetic and prolific of +like results. The history<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> of the Italian Mission is a history of failure +to face danger. Mellitus fled from London, and got himself safe to Gaul; +Justus fled from Rochester, and got himself safe to Gaul; Laurentius was +packed up to fly from Canterbury and follow them<small><a name="f1.1" id="f1.1" href="#f1">[1]</a></small>; Paulinus fled from +York. In 1894 we have, as I believe, to commemorate the final abandonment +of earlier and independent plans for the conversion of the English in +Kent, from which abandonment the Mission of Augustine came to be.</p> + +<p>It is a very interesting fact that just when we are preparing to +commemorate the thirteen-hundredth anniversary of the introduction of +Christianity into England, and are drawing special attention to the fact +that Christianity had existed in this island, among the Britons, for at +least four hundred years before its introduction to the English, our +neighbours in France are similarly engaged. They are preparing to +celebrate in 1896 the fourteen-hundredth anniversary of “the introduction +of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> Christianity into France,” as the newspapers put it. This means that +in 496, Clovis, king of the Franks, became a Christian; as, in 597, +Ethelbert, king of the Kentish-men, became a Christian<small><a name="f2.1" id="f2.1" href="#f2">[2]</a></small>. As we have to +keep very clear in our minds the distinction between the introduction of +Christianity among the English, from whom the country is called England, +and its introduction long before into Britain; so our continental +neighbours have to keep very clear the difference between the introduction +of Christianity among the Franks, from whom the country is called France, +and its introduction long before into Gaul. The Archbishop of Rheims, +whose predecessor Remigius baptized Clovis in 496, is arranging a solemn +celebration of their great anniversary; and the Pope has accorded a six +months’ jubilee in honour of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>the occasion. No doubt the Archbishop of +Canterbury, whose predecessor Augustine baptized Ethelbert, will in like +manner make arrangements for a solemn celebration of our great +anniversary. It would be an interesting and fitting thing, to hold a +thanksgiving service within the walls of Richborough, which is generally +accepted as the scene of Augustine’s first interview with King Ethelbert, +and has now been secured and put into the hands of trustees<small><a name="f3.1" id="f3.1" href="#f3">[3]</a></small>. The two +commemorations, at Rheims and at Canterbury, are linked together in a +special way by the fact that Clotilde, the Christian wife of Clovis, was +the great-grandmother of Bertha, the Christian wife of Ethelbert.</p> + +<p>In the year 594, two years before the arrival of Augustine, there was, and +I believe had long been, a Christian queen in pagan Kent; there was, and I +believe had long been, a Christian bishop in pagan Canterbury, sent there +to minister to the Christian queen. An excellent opening this for the +conversion of the king and people, an opening intentionally created by +those who made the marriage on the queen’s side. But, however hopeful the +opening, the immediate result was disappointing. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>If more of missionary +help had been sent from Gaul, from whence this bishop came, the conversion +of the king and people might have come in the natural way, by an inflow of +Christianity from the neighbouring country. But such help, though +pressingly asked for, was not given; and as I read such signs as there +are, this year 594, of which we now inaugurate the thirteen-hundredth +anniversary, was the year in which it came home to those chiefly concerned +that the conversion was not to be effected by the means adopted. Beyond +some very limited area of Christianity, only the queen and some few of her +people, and the religious services maintained for them, the bishop’s work +was to be barren. The limited work which he did was that for which +ostensibly he had come; but I think we are meant to understand that his +Christian ambition was larger than this, his Christian hope higher. I +shall make no apology for dwelling a little upon the circumstances of this +Christian work, immediately before the coming of Augustine. It may seem a +little discursive; but it forms, I think, a convenient introduction to our +general subject.</p> + +<p>Who Bishop Luidhard was, is a difficult question. That he came from Gaul +is certain,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> but his name is clearly Teutonic; whence, perhaps, his +acceptability as a visitor to the English. He has been described as Bishop +of Soissons; but the lists of bishops there make no mention of him, nor do +the learned authors and compilers of <i>Gallia Christiana</i>. This assignment +of Luidhard to the bishopric of Soissons may perhaps be explained by an +interesting story.</p> + +<p>The Bishop of Soissons, a full generation earlier than the time of which +we are speaking, was Bandaridus. He was charged before King Clotaire, that +one of the four sons of the first Clovis who succeeded to the kingdom +called “of Soissons,” with many offences of many kinds; and he was +banished. He crossed over to England—for so Britain is described in the +old account—and there lived in a monastery for seven years, performing +the humble functions of a kitchen-gardener. Whether the story is +sufficiently historical to enable us to claim the continuance of Christian +monasteries of the British among the barbarian Saxons so late as 540, I am +not clear. There was a little Irish monastery at Bosham, among the pagan +South-Saxons, a hundred and forty years later. It is easy, I think, to +overrate the hostility of the early English to Christianity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> Penda of +Mercia has the character of being murderously hostile; but it was land, +not creed, that he cared for. He was quite broad and undenominational in +his slaughters.</p> + +<p>About <span class="smcap">a. d.</span> 545, a great plague raged at Soissons, and the people begged +for the return of their bishop. He went back to his old charge, and there +is no suggestion that he ever left it again. This legend of a Bishop of +Soissons coming to our island, may well have given rise to the tradition +that Bishop Luidhard, who certainly was living in the time of Bandaridus, +had been Bishop of Soissons. In any case, the incidental hint the story +gives us of the skill of our neighbours on the continent in the +cultivation of vegetables, even at that early time, makes the story worth +reproduction. The Bishop of Soissons, at the time of which we are +speaking, was Droctigisilus (variously spelled, as might perhaps be +expected). Of him Gregory of Tours tells that he lost his senses through +over-drinking. Gregory adds a moral reflection—if we can so describe +it—which does not give us a very high idea of the practical Christianity +of the times. It is this:—“Though he was a voracious eater, and drank +immoderately, exceeding the bounds which priestly caution should impose, +no one ever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> accused him +of adultery<small><a name="f4.1" id="f4.1" href="#f4">[4]</a></small>.” If we must choose a bishop of +Soissons to be represented by Luidhard, we may fairly prefer the +vegetable-gardener to the immoderate drinker.</p> + +<p>We read, again, in fairly early times, that our first Christian bishop in +England had been bishop of Senlis. The authors and compilers of <i>Gallia +Christiana</i> insert the name of Lethardus, or Letaldus, among the bishops +of Senlis, quoting Sprot and Thorn. He was said to have come over with +Bertha as early as 566, and they insert him accordingly after a bishop who +subscribed at the third Council of Paris in 557. Jacques du Perron, bishop +of Angoulême, almoner to Queen Henrietta Maria, took this view of his +predecessor, the almoner of Queen Bertha, that he had been Bishop of +Senlis. The parallel which he drew between the two cases of the first +Christian queen and her almoner, and the first Romanist queen after the +final rupture and her almoner, was much in point. “Gaul it was that sent +to the English their first Christian queen. The clergy of Gaul it was that +sent them their first bishop, her almoner.” But the sacramentary of +Senlis, the calendar of commemorations, and the list of bishops, all are +silent as to this Bishop<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> Lethardus. Let me note for future use that these +places, Soissons and Senlis, were in Belgic Gaul, that part of the +continent which was directly opposite to the south-eastern parts of +Britain.</p> + +<p>I have said more about the diocese to which Luidhard may have belonged +than I think the question deserves. This is done out of respect to my +predecessors in the enquiry. The idea that a bishop must have had a see is +natural enough to us, but is not according to knowledge. A hundred and +fifty years later than this, there were so many wandering bishops in Gaul, +that a synod held in this very diocese of Soissons declared that wandering +bishops must not ordain priests; but that if any priests thus ordained +were good priests, they should be reordained. And a great Council of all +the bishops of Gaul, held at Verneuil in 755, declared that wandering +bishops, who had not dioceses, should be incapable of performing any +function without permission of the diocesan bishop. There is no suggestion +that these were foreign bishops; and it was before the time when the +invasions of Ireland by the Danes drove into England and on to the +continent a perfect plague of Irish ecclesiastics calling themselves +bishops. I think it is on the whole fair to say that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> more you study +the early history of episcopacy in these parts of Europe, the less need +you feel to find a see for Bishop Luidhard.</p> + +<p>There is one very interesting fact, which deserves to be noted in +connection with this mysterious Gallican bishop. The Italian Mission paid +very special honour to his memory and his remains. There is in the first +volume of Dugdale’s <i>Monasticon</i><small><a name="f5.1" id="f5.1" href="#f5">[5]</a></small> a copy of an ancient drawing of St. +Augustine’s, Canterbury. This is not, of course, the Cathedral Church, +which was an old church of the British times restored by Augustine and +dedicated to the Saviour; “Christ Church” it still remains. St. +Augustine’s was the church and monastery begun in Augustine’s lifetime, +and dedicated soon after his death to St. Peter and St. Paul, as Bede (i. +33) and various documents tell us precisely. This fact, that the church +was dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, was represented last June, when +“the renewal of the dedication of England to St. Mary and St. Peter” took +place<small><a name="f6.1" id="f6.1" href="#f6">[6]</a></small>, by the statement that “the first great abbey church of +Canterbury was dedicated to St. Peter.” In the preparatory pastoral, +signed by Cardinal Vaughan and fourteen other Roman Catholic <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>Bishops, +dated May 20, 1893, the statement took this form<small><a name="f7.1" id="f7.1" href="#f7">[7]</a></small>:—“The second +monastery of Canterbury was dedicated to St. Peter himself.” Not only is +that not so, but I cannot find evidence that Augustine dedicated any +church anywhere “to St. Peter himself.” Of the two Apostles, St. Peter and +St. Paul, who were united in the earliest of all Saints’ days, and still +are so united in the Calendar of the Roman Church, though we have given to +them two separate days, of the two, if we must choose one of them, St. +Paul, not St. Peter, was made by Augustine the Apostle of England. To St. +Paul was dedicated the first church in England dedicated to either of the +two “himself,” that is, alone; and that, too, this church, the first and +cathedral church of the greater of the two places assigned by Gregory as +the two Metropolitical sees of England, London and York.</p> + +<p>The “dedication of England to St. Mary” has a similar difficulty to face. +There is no evidence that Augustine assigned any dedication to the Blessed +Virgin. The first church mentioned with that dedication was built by +Laurentius and dedicated by Mellitus. But if twenty churches had been +dedicated by Augustine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> to the Virgin and to St. Peter, England would have +been the richer by twenty churches, and that would have been all.</p> + +<p>The ancient drawing to which I am referring was made after 1325, when St. +Ethelbert was added to the Apostles Peter and Paul and St. Augustine in +the dedication of the high altar. It was copied for Sir William Dugdale’s +purposes in 1652, at which time it had passed into the safe hands of one +of the Cambridge Colleges, Trinity Hall. The altar is shewn as deeply +recessed into a structural reredos. A large number of shrines are shewn, +ranged in semi-circles behind the reredos. On either side of the altar +there is a door, as in our reredos at St. Paul’s. They are marked “north +door” and “south door,” “to the bodies of the saints.” On the shrines, +shewn in the apse to which these doors lead, are written the names of +those whose relics they contained, and the roll of names is illustrious. +In the centre, at the extreme east, is Augustine, with Laurentius and +Mellitus north and south of him: then, on the north, Justus, Deusdedit, +Mildred, Nothelm, and Lambert; on the south, Honorius, Theodore, Abbat +Hadrian, Berhtwald, and Tatwin. Besides these shrines in the apse, behind +the reredos, there is shewn immediately above<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> the altar itself a +prominent shrine, marked Scs. Ethelbertus, the relics of the first +Christian king. Then, behind that, a number of books—manuscripts, of +course—with a Latin description stating that they are “books sent by +Gregory to Augustine”—one or two of which are still in existence. Above +these, on either side of a great vesica enclosing a representation of our +Lord, are two shrines, one marked “Relics,” the other, which stands on the +side of greater honour, is marked Scs. Letald(us). Thus the Canterbury +monks at St. Augustine’s, the great treasure-house of early Canterbury +saints, put in the places of highest honour the relics of Bertha’s husband +and of Bertha’s Gallican bishop. It is a pleasant thought in these days of +ecclesiastical jealousies—and when were there days, before Christ or +since, without ecclesiastical jealousies?—it is a very pleasant thought +that the successors of Augustine paid such honour to Augustine’s Gallican +precursor, whose work they might almost have been expected, considering +the temper of the times, to be inclined to ignore. The shrine with +Luidhard’s relics no doubt represents the golden chest in which—as we +know—they used to carry his relics round Canterbury on Rogation Days.</p> + +<p>It is not easy, indeed it is not possible, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> make sure of the dates +connected with Luidhard’s work among the English at Canterbury—to give +them the general name of “English.” It is of some importance to make the +attempt. The indications seem to me to point to a ministry of some +considerable duration; but I am aware that among the many views expressed +incidentally in the books, some names of great weight appear on the other +side. When Ethelbert died in 616, Bede tells us that he had reigned +gloriously for fifty-six years; that is, he began to reign in 560, a date +earlier than that assigned by the Chronicle. Matthew of Westminster thinks +Bede and the rest were wrong. With the Chronicle, he puts Ethelbert’s +accession later, as late as 566; but he keeps to Bede’s fifty-six years’ +reign, and so makes him die in 622, much too late. If, as is said<small><a name="f8.1" id="f8.1" href="#f8">[8]</a></small>, he +was born in 552, he was eight years old at his accession—rather an early +age for an English sovereign in those times—and sixty-four at his death. +His wife Bertha, whose marriage dates the arrival of Luidhard, was the +daughter of Charibert, king of that part of the domains of his grandfather +Clovis which gave to its sovereign the title of King of Paris. Her mother +was Ingoberga; <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>and if the statement of Gregory of Tours, that king +Charibert married Ingoberga, is to be taken strictly, i.e. if he married +her after his accession, Bertha was born about 561. But I much doubt +whether Charibert had time for all his many marital wickednesses in his +short reign, and I am inclined to think that he married a good deal +earlier. He was the eldest son of his father Clotaire, who died in 561, +and the known dates of Clovis make it probable that Charibert was of +marriageable age a good many years before he succeeded his father.</p> + +<p>So far as these considerations go, Bertha may have been of much the same +age as her husband Ethelbert, and their marriage may have taken place +about the year 575. I find nothing in the notices of Gregory of Tours +inconsistent with this. Indeed, it may fairly be said that Gregory’s facts +indicate a date quite as early as that I have suggested. Ingoberga put +herself under Gregory’s own special charge. He describes her admirable +manner of life in her widowhood, passed in a religious life, without any +hint that her daughter was with her; and when she died in 589, Gregory +guessed her age at seventy.</p> + +<p>The chief reason for assigning a later date to the marriage is that King +Edwin of Northumbria married Ethelberga, Bertha’s daughter, in 625.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> Edwin +was then a middle-aged widower, but that does not quite decide for us what +sort of age he was likely to look for in a second wife. If Ethelberga was +thirty when she married Edwin, Bertha would be about forty, or a little +more, when her daughter was born.</p> + +<p>There is one argument in favour of Bertha’s marriage having been long +before the coming of Augustine, which has, I think, generally escaped +notice. In the letter which Gregory sent from Rome to Bertha, +congratulating her on the conversion of her husband, Gregory urges her, +now that, the time is fit, to repair what has been neglected; he remarks +that she ought some time ago, or long ago, to have bent her husband’s mind +in this direction; and he tells her that the Romans have earnestly prayed +for her life. All this, especially the “some time ago,” or “long ago,” +looks unlike a recent marriage. It is interesting to notice, in view of +recent assertions and claims, that Gregory does not make reference to St. +Peter in this letter, as Boniface did in writing to Bertha’s daughter. In +his letter to Ethelbert, Gregory remarks at the end that he is sending him +some small presents, which will not be small to him, as they come from the +benediction of the blessed Peter the Apostle. Boniface, his fifth +successor, considerably developed the Petrine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> position. Writing to Edwin +of Northumbria, curiously enough while he was still a pagan, he says:—“We +have sent to you a benediction of your protector the blessed Peter, prince +of the Apostles, that is to say, a chemise embroidered with gold, and a +garment of Ancyra.” Probably Boniface did not know how nearly related the +Galatian workers of the garment of Ancyra were to the Gallo-Britons whom +Edwin’s ancestors had expelled. And his letter to Ethelberga ended in the +same way:—“We have sent to you a blessing of your protector the blessed +Peter, prince of the Apostles, that is to say, a silver mirror and an +ivory comb inlaid with gold.” It is a significant note on this difference +of language, that in the ordinary lists, where a distinction, more or less +arbitrary, is made between bishops and popes, the break comes between +Gregory and Boniface.</p> + +<p>On the whole, then, I believe that Ethelbert and Bertha had been married +many years when Augustine came, and, by consequence, that Luidhard had +been living among the English many years. Though his work was in the end +barren, there had been times when it was distinctly promising. His +experiment had so far succeeded, that only more help was wanted to bring +the heathen people to Christ. That help<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> he had sought; perhaps especially +when he felt old age coming upon him. Gregory distinctly states, in more +than one of his letters, that the English people were very ready, were +desirous, to be converted, and that applications for missionary help had +been made, but made in vain, to the neighbouring priests. The tone and +address of the letters imply that this meant the clergy of the +neighbouring parts of Gaul. There certainly would be no response if they +applied to the very nearest part they could reach by the ordinary route, +namely, their landing-place, Boulogne. We Londoners are accustomed to say, +no doubt with due contrition, but at the same time with some lurking sense +of consequence, as having been actors in a striking episode, that after a +few years of Christianity we went off into paganism again in a not +undramatic manner, and from 616 to 654 repudiated Christianity. This fact +is indicated by an eloquent void on our alabaster tablets of bishops of +London in the south aisle of this church. At the time of which I am +speaking, 594 or thereabouts, the Gauls of Boulogne were having the +experience which the English of London were so soon to have. In London we +turned out our first Italian bishop, our first bishop, that is, of the +second series of bishops of London, after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> the restoration of Christianity +on this site. In Boulogne and Terouenne, where the first bishop they ever +had was sent to them after the year 500, they relapsed into paganism in +about fifty years’ time, and in 594 they had been pagans for many years. +Pagans they remained till 630, when Dagobert got St. Omer to win them +back. St. Omer died in 667, the year after Cedd died, who won us back. It +is clear, then, that the appeals from the English to the Gauls for +conversion, at any date consistent with the facts, must have gone beyond +Boulogne.</p> + +<p>It has been thought that the appeal was made to the British priests, who +had retired to the mountainous parts of the island, beyond the reach of +the slaying Saxon; but there would be no point in Gregory’s remarks to his +Gallican correspondents if that were so. And how Gregory was to know that +appeals had been made by the English to the Britons for instruction in +Christianity, appeals most improbable from the nature of the case, no one +can say. On the other hand, he was distinctly in a position to know of +such application to the Gauls, for his presbyter Candidus had gone to +Gaul, and there was to purchase some pagan English boys of seventeen or +eighteen to be brought up in monasteries. This had taken place a very +short time before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> the mission set out, as is clear from Gregory’s letter +to the Patrician of Gaul.</p> + +<p>The facts suggest that Luidhard was now quite an old man, and had failed +to get any Gallican bishop to take up the work he could no longer carry +on. And accordingly, tradition makes him die a month or two after +Augustine’s arrival. If we look to the language of Bede, we shall see, I +think, that Luidhard had become incapable of carrying on his work when +Augustine and his companions arrived. For they at once entered upon the +use of his church. “There was on the east side of the city a church +erected of old in honour of St. Martin<small><a name="f9.1" id="f9.1" href="#f9">[9]</a></small>, when the Romans were still +inhabiting Britain, where the queen used to pray. In this church they met +at first, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>to sing, pray, celebrate masses, preach, and baptise; till the +king, on his conversion, gave them larger licence, to preach anywhere, and +to build and restore churches.”</p> + +<p>Now, quite apart from Luidhard’s long and faithful work, we have seen that +there was in Canterbury the fabric of a Christian church remaining from +the time before the English came; and that there was in Canterbury the +fabric of another church, out of which they made their Cathedral church.</p> + +<p>There was a church in existence at Canterbury when our bishop Mellitus was +archbishop there, between 619 and 624, dedicated to the Four Crowned +Martyrs of Diocletian’s persecution, the Quattro Santi Incoronati, whose +church is one of the most interesting in Rome. But this Canterbury church +may have been built by the Italians.</p> + +<p>Again, there is very unmistakable and interesting Roman work at St. +Pancras, in Canterbury; and this was, according to tradition, the temple +which Ethelbert had appropriated for the worship of his idols, and now +gave for Christian purposes. The tradition further says that it had once +been a Christian church, before the pagan English came; and the remains of +the Roman building still visible are believed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> to point in that direction. +The church of St. Pancras at Rome was built about 500. In connection with +this idea of a pagan temple being used by the Christian clergy for a +church, we may remember that the Pantheon at Rome was turned into a church +seven or eight years after this, the dedication being changed from “all +the Gods” to “St. Mary of the Martyrs,” and this was the origin of the +Festival of All Saints<small><a name="f10.1" id="f10.1" href="#f10">[10]</a></small>. +Bede adds an important fact, that <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>Ethelbert +gave the Italians a general licence to restore churches.</p> + +<p>How did it come about that when the Italians came to heathen England, they +found here these remains of Christian churches, needing only repair? Who +built them? Was it an accidental colony of Christians, that had been +settled in Canterbury, or had there been what we may call a British +Church, a Christian church in Britain, long before the Saxons came, longer +still by far before the Italians? The answer to those questions is not a +short or a simple one, when we once get beyond the bare “yes” and “no.” +Many other questions rise up on all sides, when we are looking for an +answer to the original questions. It is my aim to take those who care to +come with me over some parts of the field of inquiry; rather courting than +avoiding incidental illustrations and digressions; for I think that in +that informal way we pick up a good deal of interesting information, and +get perhaps to feel more at home in a period than by pursuing a more +formal and stilted course. Indeed a good deal of what I have said already +has evidently been said with that object.</p> + +<p>The first question I propose for our consideration is this:—Who were the +people who built<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> the churches? It is not a very explanatory answer, to +say “The Britons.” There is a good deal left to the imagination in that +answer, with most of us. With the help of the best qualified students, but +without any hope that we could harmonise all the diverse views if we went +far into detail, let us look into the matter a little. It may be well for +all of us to remember in this enquiry that our foundations are not very +solid; we are on thin ice. Nor is the way very smooth; it is easy to trip.</p> + +<p>We need not go back to the time of the cavemen, interesting and indeed +artistic as the evidence of their remains shews them to have been. Their +reign was over before Britain became an island, before a channel separated +it from the continent. It is enough for our present purpose to realise, +that when the great geological changes had taken place which produced +something like the present geographical arrangements, but still in +prehistoric times, times long before the beginning of history so far as +these islands are concerned, our islands were occupied by a race which +existed also in the north-west and extreme west of Europe. Herodotus knew +nothing of the existence of our islands; but he tells us that in his time +the people furthest to the west, nearer to the setting sun than even<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> the +Celtae, were called Kynesii, or Kynetes. Archaeological investigations +shew that, though he did not know it, his statement covered our islands. +The people of whom he wrote were certainly here as well as on the western +parts of the continent. As some of us may have some of their blood in our +veins, we may leave others to discuss the question whether the names +Kynesii, Kynetes, mean “dog-men,” and if so, what that implies. St. Jerome +in the course of his travels, say about 370 years after Christ, saw a body +of savage soldiers in the Roman army, brought from a part of what is now +Scotland—if an Englishman dare say such a thing; they were fed, he tells +us, on human flesh. The locality from which they came indicates that they +were possibly representatives of these earlier “dog-men,” if that is the +meaning of Kynetes. Secular historians, long before Jerome, have an +uncomfortable way of saying that the inhabitants of the interior of +Britain were cannibals, and their matrimonial arrangements resembled those +of herds of cattle. As we in London had relations with the centre of the +country, we may argue—and I think rightly—that by “the interior” the +historians did not mean what we call the Midlands, but meant the parts +furthest removed from the ports<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> of access in the south-east, that is, the +far west and the far north.</p> + +<p>Next, and again before the history of our islands begins, an immigration +of Celts<small><a name="f11.1" id="f11.1" href="#f11">[11]</a></small> took place, a people belonging—unlike the earlier race of +whom I have spoken—to the same Indo-European family of nations to which +the Latins, and the Teutons, and the Greeks, and the speakers of Sanskrit, +belonged. Of their various cousin-nations, these Celts were nearest in +language to the Latins, we are told, and, after the Latins, to the +Teutons. They came to this island, it is understood, from the country +which we call France.</p> + +<p>Thirdly, the Gauls, who on the continent had both that name and the name +of the older Celts<small><a name="f12.1" id="f12.1" href="#f12">[12]</a></small>, and must be regarded as the dominant sub-division +of their race, impelled in their turn by pressure from the south and east, +came over into these islands, and here were called Britons<small><a name="f13.1" id="f13.1" href="#f13">[13]</a></small>. They +squeezed out the earlier occupants from most part of the larger island, +driving them <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>north and west and south-west, as the Celtic inhabitants +long before had driven the earlier race. When the Romans came, fifty years +before Christ, these Britons occupied the land practically from the south +coast to the further side of the Firth of Forth. There had been for some +time before Caesar’s arrival a steady inflow of Belgic Gauls, people from +the eastward parts of what we call France; and these people, the most +recent comers among the Britons, were found chiefly on the coasts, but in +parts had extended to considerable distances inland. The Celts, to +distinguish the preceding immigrants by that name, though in fact it does +not properly convey the distinction, occupied Devon and Cornwall, South +Wales, the north-west corner of North Wales, Cumberland, and the +south-west of what we now call Scotland, that is, Wigton, Kirkcudbright, +Dumfries, and part of Ayr. They occupied also a belt of Caledonia north of +Stirling. They occupied at least the eastern parts of Ireland. Anglesey +and Man were in their hands. The parts of Scotland north of Perthshire and +Forfar may be regarded as the principal refuge of the remnant of the +people whom we have described as the earlier race, before the Celts; and +there were traces of them left in almost all the parts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> occupied by their +immediate successors the Celts. The name by which we ought probably to +call these latter, the Celts, in whatever part of the islands they might +be, has been familiarly used in a sense so limited that it might cause +confusion to use it now in its larger sense. I mean Gael, and Gaelic.</p> + +<p>Now we gather from the records that before the Jutes and the Angles and +the Saxons came, and in their turn drove the Britons north and west, the +religion of Christ had spread to all parts of the territory occupied by +the Britons, that is, to the towns in all parts. It may very well have +been that in the country parts there were many pagans left even to the +last, perhaps in towns too. Putting the commencement of the driving out of +the Britons at about the year 450 after Christ, we know that less than a +hundred years before that time the pagans were so numerous in Gaul, that +when Martin became Bishop of Tours, the pagans were everywhere, and to +work for their conversion would have been sufficient work for him. As for +the towns in Gaul, Hilary, the Bishop of Poitiers, was a leading official +in that town, and only became a Christian in the year 350, when he was +about thirty-five years of age. Martin of Tours, too, was born a heathen. +We may be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> sure that in Britain, so remote from the centres of influence, +and so inaccessible by reason of its insular position, that state of +things continued to prevail a good deal longer than in the civilised parts +of Gaul. We must not credit our British predecessors with anything like a +universal knowledge and acceptance of Christianity.</p> + +<p>It is not necessary to dwell on the familiar fact of the intermixture of +the Romans and the Britons. In the more important towns there was much +blending of the two races, and the luxurious arts of Rome produced their +effect in softening the British spirit. The Briton gave up more than he +gained in the mixed marriages, and it seems clear that the Romano-Britons +who were left to face the barbarous Picts and Scots, and the hardy Angles +and Saxons, were by comparison an enervated race. In the parts further +remote from commercial and municipal centres, and from the military lines, +it is probable that the invaders found much tougher work. It is only fair +to the later Romano-Britons, to remember that all the flower of the youth +of Britain had been carried away by one general and emperor after another, +to fight the battles of Rome, or to support the claims of a usurper of the +imperial purple, in Gaul and Spain and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> Italy; and when the imperial +troops were finally withdrawn, the older men and the less hardy of the +youths of Britain were left to cope with enemies who had baffled the Roman +arms.</p> + +<p>So much for the Britons. As for the Celts, we have sufficient evidence +that the message of Christ was taken to them and welcomed by them in the +later parts of the period ending with 450. During the years of the +struggle between the Britons and their Teutonic invaders, say from 450 to +590, this Christianising went on among the Celts. About the end of that +period it reached even to the furthest parts of the north, the parts +which, in the early times of the Roman occupation, were probably held by +descendants of the earlier race, and it more or less covered Ireland.</p> + +<p>Thus the knowledge of the Christian faith had, before the English came, +extended over the whole of that part of this island which the English +invaders in their furthest reach ever occupied. It had covered—and it +continued to cover, and has never ceased to cover—very much that they +never even touched. To convert the early English to Christ, which was the +task undertaken by Augustine, a very small part of it being accomplished +by him or his mission from first to last, was to restore Christianity to +those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> parts from which the English had driven it out. It was to remove +the barrier of heathendom which the English invaders had formed between +the Church universal and the Celtic and British church or churches. It +proved in the end that the undertaking was much beyond the powers of the +Italian missionaries; and then the earlier church stepped in from its +confines in the West and did the work. It was so that the great English +province of Northumbria—meaning vastly more than Northumberland, even all +the land from Humber to Forth—was evangelized. It was so that the great +English province of Mercia—the whole of the middle of the +island—received the message of Christ. It was so that Christianity was +given back to Essex and to us in London, by the labours of our Bishop +Cedd, consecrated, as the crown of his long and faithful labours among our +heathen predecessors, by the Celtic Bishop Finan of Lindisfarne. Cedd is +an admirable example of the careful methods of the Celtic Church. He was +not a Celt himself, he was an Angle. When the English branch of the Celtic +Church, settled at Lindisfarne and evangelizing Northumbria, had succeeded +in converting the son of the Mercian king, they sent him four priests as +missionaries to his people, a people who were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> in large part Angles. Of +these four priests, trained and sent by the Celtic Church for the +conversion of the English, only one was a Celt; the other three, including +Cedd, were themselves Angles. To send Anglian priests to convert Anglian +people was indeed a wise and broad policy; and it was, as it deserved to +be, eminently successful. It is a striking contradiction of the prevalent +idea that the Celtic Church was isolated, narrow, bigoted; unable and +unwilling to work with any but those of its own blood.</p> + +<p>There are, then, these two main divisions before us, of the people who +occupied these islands when the Romans came, and still occupied them when +the English came, the Britons and the Celts<small><a name="f14.1" id="f14.1" href="#f14">[14]</a></small>. We are not to suppose +that this is nothing more than a mere dead piece of archaeology. It is a +very living fact. A large proportion of those who are here to-day have +to-day—possibly some of them not knowing it—kept alive the distinction +between Briton and Celt. Every one who has spoken the name Mackenzie, or +Macpherson, or any other Mac, has used the Celtic speech in its most +characteristic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> feature. Every one who has spoken the name Price, that is, +ap Rhys, or any other name formed with ap<small><a name="f15.1" id="f15.1" href="#f15">[15]</a></small>, has taken the Briton’s side +on this characteristic point. When you speak of Pen(maen)maur and the king +Malcolm Ceanmor you are saying the same words; but in Penmaenmaur you take +the Briton’s side, in speaking of Ceanmor you take the Celt’s. You will +not find a better example than that which we owe to our dear Bede. The +wall of Antonine abuts on the river Forth at Kinnell, a name which does +not seem to have much to do with the end of a wall. But Bede tells us that +the Picts of his day called it Penfahel, that is, head of the wall, +“fahel” being only “wall” pronounced as some of our northern neighbours +would pronounce it, the interesting people who say “fat” for “what.” He +adds that the English, his own people, called it Penel, cutting the +Penfahel short. The Britons called it Penguaul. The modern name Kinnell is +the Celtic form of Penel.</p> + +<p>Those being the people, and that the extent to which Christianity had in +the end spread among them, how did Christianity find its way here?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>The various suggestions that have from time to time been made, in the +course of the early centuries, as to the introduction of Christianity to +this island, were collected and commented on in a searching manner +twenty-five years ago by two men of great learning and judgement. One of +them was taken away from historical investigations, and from his canonry +of St. Paul’s, to the laborious and absorbing work of a bishop. The other +was lost to historical study by death. I need scarcely name Dr. Stubbs and +Mr. Haddan. Their work has made darkness almost light.</p> + +<p>We cannot wonder that the marvellous apostolic journeys and missionary +work of St. Paul so vividly impressed the minds of the early Christian +writers, that they attributed to him even more than he actually performed. +Clement of Rome, of whom I suppose the great majority of students of the +Scripture and of Church History believe that he actually knew St. Paul, +says that Paul preached both in the West and in the East, and taught the +whole world, even to the limits of the West. Chrysostom says that from +Illyricum Paul went to the very ends of the earth. These are the strongest +statements which can be advanced by those who think that St. Paul himself +may have visited Britain. He may have reached<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> Spain. There does not +appear to be any evidence that he ever reached Gaul; still less Britain. +One of the Greek historians, Eusebius, writing about 315, appears to say +that Britain was Christianised by some of the disciples; and another, +Theodoret, about 423, names the Britons among those who were persuaded to +receive the laws of the Crucified, by “our fishermen and publicans.” This +is evidence, and very interesting evidence, of the general belief that +Britain was Christianised early in the history of Christianity, but it +practically amounts to nothing more definite than that<small><a name="f16.1" id="f16.1" href="#f16">[16]</a></small>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>But a very curious connection may be made out, between the Britons and the +great apostle of the Gentiles.</p> + +<p>In speaking of the relations, real or fairly imaginable, between Soissons +or Senlis and the English in the parts of the island which lie opposite to +that part of Gaul, I asked you to note that this was Belgic Gaul. We have +seen that for some time before Julius Caesar’s invasion a change had been +going on in the population of those parts of Britain to which I now refer. +The Belgae had been crossing the narrow sea and settling here, presumably +driving away the inhabitants whom they found. They so specially occupied +the parts where now Hampshire is, that the capital city, Went, was named +from them by the Latins Venta Belgarum, Belgian Venta; to return in later +times to its old name of Caer Went, this is, Went Castle, Winchester. +Indeed, the Belgae are credited with the occupation of territory up to the +borders of Devon. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>The British tribe of the Atrebates, again, were the +same people as the Gauls in the district of Arras; and they occupied a +large tract of country stretching away from the immediate west of London. +Caesar remarks on this fact that the immigrant Gauls retained the names of +their continental districts and cities. The Parisii on the east coast, +north of the Humber, afford another illustration.</p> + +<p>Now when Jerome, about the year 367, was at Trèves, the capital of Gaul, +situate in Belgic Gaul, he learned the native tongue of the Belgic Gauls; +and when later in his life he travelled through Galatia, in Asia Minor, he +found the people there speaking practically the same language as the Gauls +about Trèves. Thus we are entitled to claim the Galatians as of kin to the +Belgic division of the Gauls, and therefore as the same people with those +who from before Caesar’s time flowed steadily over from Belgic Gaul to +Britain. That the Galatians were Gauls is of course a well-known fact in +history; the point I wish to note is that they were Belgic Gauls. We may +therefore see in St. Paul’s epistle to the Galatian churches a description +of the national character of the Britons of these parts of the island. +Fickleness, superstition, and quarrelsomeness, are the characteristics on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +which he remarks. The very first words of the Epistle, after the preface, +strike a clear and forcible note:—“I marvel that ye are so quickly moved +to abandon the gospel of him that called you, for another gospel.” Again, +“O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you!” “Ye were in bondage to them +which are by nature no gods;... how turn ye back again to the weak and +beggarly rudiments, whereunto ye desire to be in bondage over again!” “If +ye bite and devour one another.” Without at all saying that these national +characteristics are traceable in any parts of our islands now, it is +evident that they are in close accord with what we hear of the early +inhabitants. As also is another remark made in early times, “the Gauls +begin their fights with more than the strength of men, they finish them +with less than the strength of women.”</p> + +<p>The line taken by a recent writer, Professor W. M. Ramsay, in his most +interesting and able book, “The Church in the Roman Empire,” traverses +this argument about the Galatian Epistle. In opposition to the great +divine who for eight years spoke from this pulpit, and made this Epistle a +special study for a great part of his life, Professor Ramsay maintains, by +arguments drawn from geographical and epigraphical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> facts not known thirty +years ago, when Dr. Lightfoot first wrote, that the Epistle was addressed +to the people in the southern part of the Roman province called Galatia, +who were not Galatians at all; and was not addressed to those in the +northern part, who were Galatians proper, and occupied the whole of the +country named from them Galatia. But I use the illustration, +notwithstanding this. The controversy is not quite ended yet; and I do not +feel sure that the difficulties of the Epistle itself, from Professor +Ramsay’s point of view, are very much less considerable than those which +Dr. Lightfoot’s view undoubtedly has to face. In any case the Galatians +proper were of close kin with the more civilised of our British +predecessors—ancestors we may perhaps say—and this at least gives us a +personal interest in what at first sight would seem to be a very far-off +controversy.</p> + +<p>The tradition which used to find most favour was that Joseph of Arimathea +came over with twelve companions, and received from a British king in the +south-west a portion of land for each of his companions, and founded the +ecclesiastical establishment of Glastonbury. There is certainly some very +ancient history connected with the “twelve hides” of Glastonbury. Go as +far back as we will in the records, we never come to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> beginning of the +“xii. hidæ.” The Domesday Survey tells us, eight hundred years ago, that +the twelve hides “never have been taxed.” Clearly they take us back to +some very early donation; and I see no reason—beyond the obvious +difficulty of its geographical remoteness—against the tradition that here +was the earliest Christian establishment in Britain. At the Council of +Basle, in 1431, when the Western Church was holding councils with a view +to reforming from within the enormous abuses of the Roman Court, a prelude +to the “Reformation” into which we were driven a hundred years later, the +precedence of churches was determined by the date of their foundation. The +English Church claimed and received precedence as founded in Apostolic +times by Joseph of Arimathea. Those were not very critical days, so far as +historical evidence was concerned, and I should not have mentioned this +legend, or should only have mentioned it and passed on, but for a recent +illustration of a part of the story. The more we look into early local +legends, the more disinclined we become to say that there is nothing +substantial in them. The story has from early times gone, that the first +British Christians erected at Glastonbury a church made of twigs, of +wattle-work. This wattle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> church survived the violent changes which swept +over the face of the land. Indeed, it is said, and with so much of +probability that Mr. Freeman was willing to accept it as a fact, that +Glastonbury was the one place outside the fastnesses to which the British +Christians fled, where Christian worship was not interrupted when the +English came. This wattle church survived till after the Norman invasion, +when it was burned by accident<small><a name="f17.1" id="f17.1" href="#f17">[17]</a></small>. Wattle-work is a very perishable +material; and of all things of the kind the least likely would seem to be, +that we, in this nineteenth century, should, in confirmation of the story, +discover at Glastonbury an almost endless amount of British wattle-work. +Yet that is exactly what has happened. In the low ground, now occupying +the place of the impenetrable marshes which gave the name of the Isle of +Avalon to the higher ground, the eye of a local antiquary had long marked +a mass of dome-shaped hillocks, some of them of very considerable +diameter, and about seventy in number, clustered together in what is now +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>a large field, a mile and a quarter from Glastonbury. The year before +last he began to dig. Peat had formed itself in the long course of time, +and its preservative qualities had kept safe for our eyes that which it +enclosed and covered. The hillocks proved to be the remains of British +houses burned with fire. They were set on ground made solid in the midst +of waters, with causeways for approach from the land. The faces of the +solid ground and the sides of the causeways are revetted with wattle-work. +There is wattle-work all over, strong and very well made. It clearly was +the main stand-by of the Britons, whose fortress this was, and their skill +in making it and applying it was great. The wattle when first uncovered is +as good to all appearance as the day it was made. The huts are oval and +circular, and some are of large dimensions. The largest of all are not yet +opened, but already a hut covering about 450 square feet has been found. +All have a circular area of white stones in the middle, carried from far, +for a hearth, &c., and all have been destroyed by fire. But though the +fire has destroyed the huts completely, it has preserved for us the +account of the material of which they were made, as clearly as if it were +inscribed on the brick cylinders of an Assyrian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> king. It has baked the +clay with which the huts were covered, and the baked clay shews the +impress of wattle-work. The houses of the Britons at Glastonbury were, as +a matter of fact, as long tradition tells us their church was, made of +wattles<small><a name="f18.1" id="f18.1" href="#f18">[18]</a></small>.</p> + +<p>Julius Caesar speaks more than once of the skill of the British in this +respect. He tells us of the plaiting together of the branches of growing +trees to form barriers in the woods, which his soldiers found unpleasantly +effective. We read also of the wattle-work erections of various shapes in +which human victims were <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>enclosed to be burned. And, from a more peaceful +side, we learn that the tables of ladies in Rome were not completely in +the fashion if they had no examples of British baskets. “Basket,” as you +know, is one of the best examples of the survival of a British word among +us, a word used also by the Romans<small><a name="f19.1" id="f19.1" href="#f19">[19]</a></small>, their word <i>bascauda</i> and our +“basket” representing the Welsh <i>basgawd</i> and <i>basget</i>.</p> + +<p>There is abundance of evidence of the interest taken by the Romans in +Britain and its people, and of the esteem in which Britons were held at +Rome. Martial, who settled in Rome in the year <span class="smcap">a. d.</span> 66, perhaps one year +or two years before St. Paul’s death, speaks of a British lady in Rome, +Claudia, the newly-married wife of Pudens. Of her he says<small><a name="f20.1" id="f20.1" href="#f20">[20]</a></small>, in terms as +he believed of the highest personal praise—</p> + +<p class="poem">Though Claudia from the sea-green Britons came,<br /> +She wears the aspect of a Roman dame.</p> + +<p>And, again, he mentions, not without pride, that he was read in Britain: +‘Britain, too, is said to sing my verse.’ It is a little difficult to +resist the tendency to see in this Pudens and Claudia the Pudens and +Claudia of the last <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>sentence before the final blessing in the last letter +of St. Paul, where their names are linked together by that of Linus, the +first Bishop of Rome. We are told, however, that the severe historian +ought to resist this tendency of the natural man.</p> + +<p>Again, Seneca, the brother of Gallio, whom we meet in the Acts, had a +great deal of money invested in Britain. Juvenal brings a British king +into his verse, and Richborough oysters. Josephus<small><a name="f21.1" id="f21.1" href="#f21">[21]</a></small> tells us that Titus +made use of the Britons, as a telling illustration in his final speech to +the desperate Jews:—“Pray what greater obstacle is there than the wall of +the Ocean, with which the Britons are encompassed? And yet they bow before +the arms of the Romans.”</p> + +<p>Those are probably sufficient indications of the kind of evidence we have. +We know, too, that the Roman troops came and went; and we may be sure that +they made Britain and the strange things they had seen here a frequent +subject of conversation. We cannot doubt that St. Paul, in his enforced +intercourse with the soldiery at Rome, learned all he could about the +distant parts of the world, which only the Roman armies had visited. Nay, +we in London may <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>go further than that. Seeing that Nero recalled from +Britain the victorious Suetonius in 61, and that St. Paul lived with Roman +soldiers in all probability from 61 to 63, we may imagine that some +soldier or other described to St. Paul that terrible day on which +Suetonius made up his mind that he must leave London to its fate. You +remember the account of Tacitus<small><a name="f22.1" id="f22.1" href="#f22">[22]</a></small>, so telling in its studied brevity. It +is, I think, the first definite appearance of London on the stage of +history. The occasion was the revolt of Boadicea, to retain the familiar +incorrectness of the name. Colchester had fallen, all the Romans there +being slaughtered. The ninth legion had been attacked and routed by the +Britons, and all the infantry killed. Many a gallant fight no doubt in the +thick woods, like that which Wilson and his comrades fought last +month<small><a name="f23.1" id="f23.1" href="#f23">[23]</a></small>. The governor of the province fled to Gaul. Verulam fell, with +great slaughter. There was no taking captive, no selling into slavery. The +Britons made sure work; they burned, they tortured, they crucified. One +man of the Romans kept his head, or all would have been massacred. With a +constancy which made <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>men marvel, Suetonius marched through the midst of +foes to the relief of London—London not then illustrious as a colony, but +more famous than any other city in the land for the number of its +merchants and the abundance of its merchandise. Should he make London his +centre of defence? He looked at the small number of his soldiers: he +thought of the destruction of the ninth legion. He determined to leave +London to its fate. Tears and prayers could not move him. He gave the +signal to march. Those of the citizens who accompanied him his soldiers +protected. All who remained behind, unable or unwilling to leave their +homes, all were overwhelmed in one great slaughter. The Romans calculated +that at Colchester, Verulam, and London, from seventy to eighty thousand +of Romans and their allies were slain by the enraged Britons<small><a name="f24.1" id="f24.1" href="#f24">[24]</a></small>. We may +imagine how St. Paul would listen to that tale of woe, then quite fresh, +the most tragic event of the time; and how he would long for an +opportunity of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>softening the disposition of the Britons by the gentle +doctrines of Christ.</p> + +<p>To no such source as that, however, are we to look for the beginnings of +the faith among us. There is no sign of any one great effort, by any one +great man, to introduce Christianity into our land. It came, we cannot +doubt, in the natural way, simply and quietly, through the nearest +continental neighbours of the Britons and their nearest kinsfolk, the +people of Gaul. That will form the main subject of my next lecture.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="LECTURE_II" id="LECTURE_II"></a>LECTURE II.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Early mentions of Christianity in Britain.—King Lucius.—Origin and +spread of Christianity in Gaul.—British Bishops at +Councils.—Pelagianism.—British Bishops of London.—Fastidius.</p></div> + +<p>We are to consider this evening the Christian Church in Britain, from the +earliest times at which we have any definite notice of it, to the time of +its expulsion from what had become England. It may be well to take notice +first of one or two statements of early writers about the existence of +Christianity here, at dates precisely known.</p> + +<p>Tertullian, writing in or about the year 208, at a time when a revolt +against Severus in the north of this island gave special point to his +remark, thus describes the wide spread of the Gospel. “In all parts of +Spain, among the various nations of Gaul, in districts of Britain +inaccessible to the Romans but subdued to Christ, in all these the kingdom +and name of Christ are venerated.” Origen, in 239, speaking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> of +polytheism, asks, “When, before the coming of Christ, did the land of +Britain hold the belief in the one God?” And again:—“The power of the +Saviour is felt even among those who are divided from our world, in +Britain.” At the same time Origen gives us a timely warning against taking +his remarks to mean anything like the complete Christianisation of the +island; he tells us that among the Britons, and six other nations whom he +names, “very many have not yet heard the word of the Gospel.”</p> + +<p>The Greek historian Sozomen speaks of Constantine living in Gaul and +Britain, and there, as, he says, was universally admitted, becoming a +Christian. Both Eusebius, writing about 320, and Sozomen, about 443, tell +of an experiment made in the palace by Constantine’s father Constantius, +when he governed Gaul and Britain, which shews the spread of the gospel +and the high places it had by that time reached. It has this special +interest for Britain, that York was one of the two cities at one of which +it must have taken place, Trèves being the other; for those were the two +capitals and seats of government of the whole province of the Gauls, the +one for the continental the other for the insular department of the +province.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> A persecution of the Christians was ordered by his three +colleagues in the empire, about the year 303. Constantius, though not +himself a Christian, did not allow much severity in his own government; a +contemporary writer, Lactantius, declares that from east to west three +savage beasts raged; everywhere but in the Gauls, that is, Gaul and +Britain. The experiment was this. He told the officers of his court, who +are spoken of as if all were Christians, though he himself was not, that +those of them who would sacrifice to demons should remain with him and +enjoy their honours: those who would not, should be banished from his +presence. He gave them time to think the matter over. They came to him +again, each with his mind made up; and some said they would sacrifice, and +some said they would not. When all had declared their intention, he told +those who would sacrifice, that if they were ready to be false to their +God, he did not see how he could trust them to be true to him. To the +others he said that such worthy servants of their God would be faithful to +their king too. The story reminds us of the sturdy old pagan king of +Mercia, Penda, who said he was quite willing that the Lindisfarne +missionaries should convert his people to Christianity, if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> they could; +but he gave full warning that he would not have people calling themselves +Christians and not living up to their high profession.</p> + +<p>This story of Constantius, the father of Constantine, which I prefer to +place at York, the favourite residence of Constantius, introduces us of +course to the one well-known result of the persecution, so far as Britain +was concerned, the death of Alban at Verulam, about 305. When you go to +St. Albans, you see the local truth of the traditional details. Standing +on the narrow bridge across the little stream, you realise the blocking of +the bridge by the crowd of spectators nearly 1,600 years ago: and you can +see Alban, in his eagerness to win his martyr’s crown, pushing his way +through the shallow water, rather than be delayed by the crowd on the +bridge. There is an interesting coincidence, in connection with the story +of St. Alban, which I have not seen noticed. The Gauls of Galatia, as we +have seen, were of kin to the Britons; and while the Britons were being +almost entirely saved from harm by Constantius, their Galatian cousins +were passing through a very fiery trial. The persecution of Diocletian +raged furiously in Galatia. As St. Alban is, I believe, the earliest +example of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> a name attached to a Christian site in this island, so the +earliest existing church in Ancyra, the capital of Gaulish Galatia, owes +its name to St. Clement, the martyr bishop of Ancyra, St. Alban’s +contemporary in martyrdom.</p> + +<p>It is unnecessary to say more on the evidence of Christianity in our +island at least from 200 onwards. But, as I have said before, there is an +entire dearth of information as to any special introduction of the new +faith. It came. It grew. How it came; who planted it; who watered it; all +is blank.</p> + +<p>You are, of course, familiar with the story that Lucius, a British king, +requested Eleutherus, or Eleutherius, Bishop of Rome 171 to 185, to send +some one to teach his people Christianity, of which he had himself some +knowledge. The documents which profess to be the letters connected with +this request are unskilful forgeries. A note is appended to the name of +Eleutherus in the <i>Catalogue of Roman Pontiffs</i> to the effect that “he +received a letter from Lucius, a British king, requesting that he might be +made a Christian.” But this is a later addition, for it does not exist in +the earlier catalogue, which was itself written nearly 200 years after the +supposed event. It is an addition of the kind of which we have,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> alas! so +many examples at Rome and elsewhere, but especially and above all at Rome: +a statement inserted in later times for the sake of magnifying the claims +to ecclesiastical authority, and affording evidence, in an uncritical age, +of their recognition by former generations. The credit of this fallacious +insertion has rather unkindly, but perhaps not unjustly, been assigned to +Prosper of Aquitaine, of whom we shall hear again<small><a name="f25.1" id="f25.1" href="#f25">[25]</a></small>. It is quite in his +style.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60-61]</a></span>It is natural to say, and many of us no doubt have said it, that there is +no improbability in the statement that such an application was made. I +used to think so, but each further <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>investigation makes the improbability +seem more real. Neither if we look to the Church of Rome, at the time, nor +if we look to the state of Gaul, shall we find encouragement for a story, +which in itself it would be very pleasant to believe of our British +predecessors. It might be thought not unlikely that some Christian, +escaping from the terrible persecutions just then enacted at Lyons and +Vienne, had fled northwards through lands all pagan, and had reached pagan +Britain. But if that were so, he would scarcely tell Lucius to send to +Rome. There were Christians in Southern Gaul: send to them. The man’s +allegiance to a centre would be to Asia Minor, not to Rome. The Bishops of +Rome, too, were not particularly strong men in early times, nor men of +much distinction. The really great men were in the East; were in Africa; +anywhere but Rome. The secular world was still ruled from the pagan city +of Rome; but ecclesiastical Rome was not in a large way as yet: it did not +as yet live up to its natural position. Rome was marked out by its supreme +secular position to be the centre of the Western Church; and it had, +besides, the great ecclesiastical claim of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>its origin. It was the most +ancient of the Churches of the West. It alone could stand the test, stated +so convincingly by Tertullian, of Apostolical foundation; for it, and it +alone in the West, had a letter that could be read in its churches from +the Apostle who founded it. Rome, as Tertullian says, had a letter written +by its founder, equal in this supreme respect, as he puts it, to Corinth, +Philippi, Thessalonica, Ephesus. It had also the exceptional happiness, as +Tertullian justly describes it, of being the scene of the martyrdom of its +founder, St. Paul; and of that other great Apostle who found a grave +there, St. Peter; to which Tertullian adds the miracle of St. John at the +Latin gate. The force of the claim which its secular position gave to it +was fully and justly recognised by the Second General Council, in terms +which are a permanent stumbling-block to the mediaeval claims of Rome. The +Fathers, assembled in 381, declared that the see of Constantinople should +rank next in precedence to the see of Rome, on the ground that +Constantinople, now the seat of empire, was ‘new Rome;’ taking +ecclesiastical rank from its secular position, as Rome itself had done. In +the early times of which we are now speaking, we do not find even the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> +germ of the mediaeval theory of Roman supremacy; and the men who filled +the office of Bishop of Rome were not men of mark enough to work any +approach to such a theory, or to fix upon them the eyes of a far-off +barbarian chief. It was either this Eleutherus, or his successor Victor, +who was all but taken in to recognise Montanism, as indeed Zosimus was +taken in, 250 years later, by the superior subtlety of our countryman, the +Briton Pelagius. Eleutherus, or Victor, was only saved from this grave +mistake by the advice of an Oriental heretic.</p> + +<p>But apart from all such considerations, which I mention historically and +not polemically, I see no reason why Britons should go so far afield if +they wished to learn of Christ. With Gaul so close at hand, its people so +near of kin, its government so identical with theirs, the Britons would +hear of Christianity, would learn Christianity, from and through Gaul, and +would look to Gaul, not Italy. But if we look to the state of Gaul in the +time to which this British king is assigned, we shall see that it was in +the very highest degree improbable that he should aim at making his people +Christians. It was a time of terrible trial, with everything to be lost by +becoming Christian. What sort of Christian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> hero was this, in the year 175 +or 180, who desired to lead his nation to a change in their religion, that +they might court the barbarous tortures inflicted by their kinsfolk on all +of the Christian name at this exact conjuncture?</p> + +<p>The new faith was planted in the south of Gaul comparatively early, but it +spread northwards very slowly. The first congregations, those of Lyons and +Vienne, were formed by Christians from Asia Minor, where some of them had +known Polycarp, who was a pupil of St. John. Soon after the foundation of +this infant Church, the great persecution of its members took place, about +the year 175, when Eleutherus was bishop of Rome. The details of the +persecution are so well known, through the letter which the survivors +wrote—not to Rome, but to their parent Church and personal friends in +Asia and Phrygia,—a letter preserved to us by the Greek historian +Eusebius, that I think they have given a wrong impression as to the extent +of the Christian Church in Gaul towards the end of the second century<small><a name="f26.1" id="f26.1" href="#f26">[26]</a></small>. +The <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>Christians at Lyons and Vienne were a small and isolated flock, not +however isolated as foreigners speaking a strange tongue, for Irenaeus, +who was one of them, mentions his daily use of the Gallic language. They +seem to have been almost the only Christians known in Gaul. The ignorance +of the practices of Christianity was so great among the Gauls, that they +were accused of crimes such as they did not believe any man +committed,—banquets of Thyestes, incests of Oedipus. That was in the year +175. Lyons was a wonderful water-centre. An examination of a good map will +surprise even those who know France fairly well. North, south, east, and +west, there were water-ways. Even Eusebius, writing far away in the East, +remarked on this; and you know how tantalisingly silent early historians +are as a rule about such things. And yet Christianity spread exceedingly +slowly. Gregory of Tours, whose inclination would not be to make little of +the early Church in Gaul, seeing that he was a Gallo-Roman of lofty +lineage, and not a newfangled Frank, quotes with complete assent the +statement that a great missionary effort had to be made in Gaul about the +year 250 to spread Christianity; and that so late as that, missionary +bishops had to be sent—neither he nor his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> authority says by whom—to +seven cities and districts, in most of which, we should otherwise have +supposed, Christianity in its full form had for many years existed. These +were Tours, Arles, Narbonne, Toulouse, Paris, Auvergne, and Limoges<small><a name="f27.1" id="f27.1" href="#f27">[27]</a></small>. +With the exception of Paris, that does not carry us very far towards +Britain, even in the middle of the third century. There is not any +evidence, and without evidence it would be unreasonable to imagine so +improbable a thing, that far-away Britain was in advance of Gaul by +decades of Christian years. Gregory of Tours, however, was not completely +informed. We may probably accept, as having some historical foundation, +the story that some of those who escaped from the persecution at Lyons did +push up northwards and teach Christianity at Autun, Dijon, and Langres. +The last-named town was well up on one of the routes to Britain. It was +the death-place of Abbot Ceolfrid on his journey towards Rome in 716.</p> + +<p>If we look to the traditional dates of the establishment of bishoprics in +the parts of Gaul which face the Britannic isles, we shall find that even +tradition does not assign to them any <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>very early origin. Beginning with +the archdiocese of Rouen, and bearing in mind that it is not the way of +ecclesiastical traditions to err on the side of lateness, the first dated +bishops in the several dioceses are as follows. The third bishop of Rouen, +or, as some count, the second, was at Arles in 314. The third bishop of +Bayeux dates 458-65. The second bishop of Avranches, 511. The second +bishop of Evreux, 450-90. The fifth bishop of Séez, 500. The first bishop +of Lisieux whose name is recorded, 538. The first bishop of Coutances, +about 475. As three British bishops were at Arles in 314, when only one of +these seven bishoprics was in existence, the antiquity and completeness of +our island Church compares very favourably with that of the archdiocese of +Rouen. Passing to the archdiocese of Cambray, the first bishop of Cambray +died in 540; the first bishop of Tournay is dated 297; the other +bishoprics are late. In the archdiocese of Rheims, the two first bishops +of Rheims, paired together, are assigned to 290; the two first bishops of +Soissons were the same pair as those of Rheims; the first bishop of Lâon +was at Orleans in 549; Beauvais, 250; Châlons about 280; the second bishop +of Amiens, 346; the ninth of Senlis, 511; the second of Boulogne, 552.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> +Here, again, our three bishops at Arles in 314 compare favourably with +this great archdiocese, which was in the most accessible part of Gaul for +the insular Britons.</p> + +<p>Unless we are prepared to believe that our island was Christianised by +some influence apart from Gaul, and reaching us through some route other +than that of Gaul—and I do not see any evidence for anything of the +kind—we must, I think, take it that our position was that of younger +sister to the Church in Gaul. All the indications point in that direction. +It is most cruel that the British history has all been blotted out, by the +severity of the English conquest and the barbarity of the bordering +tribes. In Gaul, the history was not blotted out by the successful +invasion of the Franks. Gregory of Tours died in the year 594, of which we +have said so much. He was a Gallo-Roman, one of the race overrun by the +Franks; and yet he writes the history of the Franks, putting on record an +immense amount of information about the earlier Gaulish times—not very +trustworthy, it is true. But for the sack of London by the East Saxons, of +which I shall have to speak later, we might have had a history that would +solve all our doubts, from a Brito-Roman Bishop of London, exactly +contemporary with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> Gregory of Tours. Failing all such record, we must read +the signs for ourselves, and they point in the direction I have described. +They make us a younger sister, not very much younger, of the Church of +Gaul—a Church founded from Ephesus—Oriental in its origin, not Western. +I may, perhaps, have time to indicate in my concluding lecture some points +which shew the non-Western connection of the British Church.</p> + +<p>The probability is that from Tertullian’s time onwards the faith spread +and grew here quietly. The Christian Church certainly took to itself an +outward form. Bishops were appointed in central places. By the year +314—that is, in one century of growth—it appears that we had in Britain +a Christian Church as fully equipped as any corresponding area of the +Continent at that time was. What is the evidence for this?</p> + +<p>At the Council of Arles, <span class="smcap">a. d.</span> 314, three British bishops were present. Two +of them are described as of the province of Britain; the third is not so +described. All are included among the bishops of the Galliae, that is, of +the province of the Roman Empire so called. Three may not sound a large +number, but as a question of proportion it is in fact large<small><a name="f28.1" id="f28.1" href="#f28">[28]</a></small>. +Thirty-two or <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>thirty-three bishops, in all, signed the decrees of the +Council. Of these, seven were from Italy and the islands, ten from Africa, +eleven from what we call France, three from Britain, and two from +elsewhere. The large number of bishops from Africa will surprise no one +who knows the prominence of the African Church in the early times, the +large number of its bishoprics, the area which it covered. It was the +birthplace and home of Latin Christianity, while the Roman Church was +still practically a Greek Church. In Africa, not in Italy, the Latin +version of the Scriptures was first made.</p> + +<p>The principal French bishoprics represented <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>at Arles were Marseilles, +Vienne, Lyons, Bordeaux, Trèves, Rheims, and Rouen. In such company it is +quite sufficient for us to find York and London, and a see which is +understood to be Caerleon; the three bishops thus representing the whole +of the island except Caledonia, and occupying what may well have been +regarded as the three metropolitical sees, north, south, and west. This +coincided fairly well with the re-arrangement of the Roman province of +Britain shortly before this time. I venture to suggest that the dates I +gave just now, of the foundation of bishoprics in Belgic Gaul, appear to +shew some considerable advance in the years about 280, and that from 260 +to 280 may have seen the commencement of British episcopacy.</p> + +<p>The records of the signatures at the Council of Nicaea in 325 are, as is +well known, not in such a state as to enable us to say that British +bishops were present. But considering their presence at Arles, the first +of the Councils, and the interest of Constantine in Britain and his +intimate local knowledge of its circumstances; considering, too, the very +wide sweep of his invitations to the Council; it is practically certain +that we were represented there. At the Council of Sardica, in 347, only +the names of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> the bishops are given, not their sees. But fortunately the +names of the bishops are grouped in provinces. The province of the +Gauls—that is, Gaul and Britain—had thirty-three bishops present. I +think that any one who has studied the dates of the foundation of the +French bishoprics will allow that to make up thirty-three bishops in 347, +several British bishops must have been included. At the Council of Rimini, +in 359, there were so many British bishops present that three were singled +out from the rest of their countrymen as being so poor that they accepted +the Emperor’s bounty for their daily support, declining a collection made +for their expenses among their brother bishops. The others, who could do +without the Imperial allowance, refused it as unbecoming.</p> + +<p>In the year 358 or 359, in preparation for this Council of Rimini, a +treatise of great importance was addressed to the bishops of the British +provinces, among others. This was the treatise of Hilary, bishop of +Poitiers, on the Synods of the Catholic Faith and against the Arians. He +wrote at a very anxious time, when he was himself in exile for the faith, +and when he earnestly desired that his orthodox colleagues should take a +broad view, so as not to keep out of their communion any who could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +properly be included. He addressed his treatise to the bishops of Germany, +Gaul, and the British provinces. He wrote as to men thoroughly familiar +with the very subtle heresy that was dividing the world, men who were +thoroughly sound on the point in dispute, but inclined perhaps to be +rather unflinching on a point on which he desired to make some +concession—concession in terms, not in substance. He specially urged them +not to press as vital one single phrase, not to reject as fatal another. +For, as he pointed out, each phrase could be used with a sound meaning, +either could be used unsoundly. Again, he reminded them of the difficulty +inherent in attempts to express exactly in one language a difficult +technical phrase from another. Hilary, as the first person in Gaul to +write ecclesiastical and religious treatises in Latin, instead of the then +more familiar Greek, felt this difficulty keenly; as our own Bede did when +he tried to put Caedmon’s Creation song into Latin. And he warned them +against misconceiving the views of others; pointing out that while they +suspected the Oriental bishops of doubting the coequality of the Son of +God with the Father, the Oriental bishops suspected them of doubting the +distinction between the Father and the Son. Hilary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> had been, before his +conversion to Christianity, a highly-trained and cultured official of his +Gallo-Roman city, and he wrote this treatise with force and insight on +very difficult subjects. It was a compliment to the bishops of any church +that such a document should be addressed to them. We learn in the sequel +that Hilary’s views of comprehension prevailed; but we have no means of +determining what was the share of the British in this result. I need +probably not go further in the records of British connection with +ecclesiastical events on the continent.</p> + +<p>It may have seemed to you rather barren, this talk of Councils. But it is +in reality far from being barren talk. It shews us the representatives of +the British Church in the full swim of ecclesiastical affairs; summoned as +a matter of course to the greatest councils; addressed as a matter of +course by the greatest writer of their quarter of the world; taking their +share in the settlement of the most subtle and vital points of Christian +faith and practice. At Arles, they dealt with the question, so practical +after Diocletian’s recent persecution, how men were to be re-admitted to +the Church, who in time of persecution had fallen away. They decided, +further, one of the gravest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> questions they could have had to decide, +whether baptism in the name of the blessed Trinity was valid baptism, even +though a schismatic had administered the rite. Their decision was against +re-baptism in such cases, a fact of which I may have time to remind you +when I speak of some of the practices of the British Church; admission by +the laying on of hands was to suffice. They also determined that Easter +must be kept everywhere on one and the same day, again a fact which +reappears very prominently in their later history. At Nicaea, they dealt +with the greatest question that ever stirred the Church of Christ, the +question of the coequal deity, the oneness of nature, of the Son with the +Father; and they laid down a rule for observing Easter, from which their +descendants 350 years later accused the Roman Church of having departed. +At Sardica they asserted the innocence of St. Athanasius; and gave +authority to Julius, Bishop of Rome, to receive appeals from a province, +if a bishop was dissatisfied with a decision of his synod. Their +descendants were too busy with the inroads of barbarians and the +subtleties of heretics, to pay much heed to the amusing exposure by the +African Church of the Popes Zosimus, Boniface, and Celestine, 417-432, for +quoting this Sardican Canon as a Canon of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> Nicaea, with “Julius” altered +to “Sylvester” to make the name fit the forged date. The difference +between calling it a Nicene Canon and calling it Sardican may seem little +more than a question of a right name and a wrong. But its effect was +tremendous. It added the greater part of the known world to the sphere of +influence of the Bishop of Rome. For the Sardican Canons were passed by +the Western bishops, after the Easterns had left Sardica, and could bind +at most only the West. The Canons of Nicaea were binding on the whole of +the Christian world. The sarcastic comments of the African Church, in +their letter to Celestine, at the close of the controversy, should have +had more effect in checking such proceedings than it had. At Rimini the +British upheld the coequal deity of the Son; and when the Arian Emperor +compelled the signature of a heterodox creed, the bishops of the provinces +of Gaul gathered themselves together on their way home, and re-asserted +their Catholic belief. Time after time, from Constantine onwards, the +unswerving orthodoxy of the British was the subject of special and +favourable comment. They were, as I began by saying, in the full swim of +ecclesiastical affairs; and they held a position of recognised importance +with dignity and effect.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>Nor was the journeying of British Christians limited to attending +Councils. A historian writing in 420, of the time before 410, says that +from East and West people were flocking on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, +from Persia and from Britain. And Theodoret, writing of the years about +423, says that many went to the Holy Land from the extreme West, +Spaniards, and Britons, and the Galatae who dwelled between them.</p> + +<p>We now come to a time when two natives of these islands played a large +part—one of them, a very large part, in the origin the principal part—in +the great theological controversy of the Western Church, a controversy +which touched the East too, but less pointedly. Pelagius and Coelestius +enunciated the views on the nature of man, and the operation of the grace +of God, which were combated with vehemence by two of the leading men of +the West, Augustine and Jerome. From that day to this the controversy has +never died out. When the first beginnings of the theory of +transubstantiation were heard, this Pelagian controversy divided those who +opposed the new idea. Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, in their turn, +differed on this point, as Pelagius and Augustine did. The Franciscans and +the Dominicans took respectively the views<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> of those two great schoolmen. +The Jesuits and the Jansenists of Louis XV’s time shewed a like cleavage. +Wherever you find Calvinistic views held and combated, there you have in +fact the controversy which was started by our countrymen. Calvin declared +that every man is predestined to life or to death, from before the +foundation of the world. Pelagius maintained the freedom of will and +action of every man; his power by nature to turn and come to God; his +natural independence, so to speak.</p> + +<p>One of the two great opponents of Pelagius, Augustine of Hippo, says that +Pelagius was a Briton. The name is Greek, and means “of the sea,” +“belonging to the sea,” and hence his native name has been supposed to be +Morgan, sea-born: that, however, is only a guess. The other writers who +were his contemporaries call him a Briton. His second principal opponent, +Jerome, says that he was by birth one of the Scots, neighbours of the +Britons. This meant in those times, and for some centuries after, a native +of Ireland, whether living in Ireland or settled in the northern parts of +Britain, if any Scots were settled there so early as 370, which was about +the date of his birth. It is, however, quite as likely that Jerome is +speaking not of Pelagius, but of his companion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> Coelestius, whom all allow +to have been an Irishman. Whichever he means, he is not civil, as he +seldom was in controversy. He describes his opponent as “a huge fellow, +stuffed to repletion with Scotch porridge,” a most disrespectful way of +speaking of porridge. Pelagius was a layman, and a monk. About 400 he went +to Rome, and he remained there till the shadow of Alaric’s siege began to +fall upon the city. In those eight years he lived an exemplary life. He +urged upon others the necessity of so living, and the uselessness of +religious observance combined with laxity of life. It is easy to see how +this admirable line of teaching might be diverted, by the pressure of +controversion, into a declaration that all men could, if they pleased, so +live; that it was a matter of will, not of grace, a man’s turning to God +and living as a believer should live. This was quite different from the +controversy between faith and works, which some have believed to exist +between St. Paul and St. James. It was the controversy between the +necessity of the grace of God for a man to live as he should, and the +comparative subordination of grace to the sufficient power of the will of +man. Pelagius held that if the will was not free, man was a mere puppet: +if the will was not free, man was not responsible.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> From this position, +which is one side of a great truth, he passed to the denial of the need +for God’s grace, that is, he denied the other side of the same great +truth; or he so defined grace as to make it a mere matter of suitable +circumstances.</p> + +<p>A great controversy on a great subject can scarcely stop short at its +first limits. Other points rise, unexpected results follow. I venture to +say that it is impossible to go on pressing one side of this great and +lasting controversy on the freedom of the will, to the disregard of the +other side, without arriving at results which shock the reverent common +sense of the devout Christian.</p> + +<p>It is clear, for example, that when Pelagius asserted the freedom of man’s +will to turn to God, he denied the Catholic doctrine of original sin, and +denying that, he denied so far the need for baptism. Indeed he taught +directly, it was in fact the key of his position, that when man sinned he +sinned after the example which Adam had set, not because he had received +the taint of sin by his descent from Adam. When pressed on this question +of the need of baptism, he allowed that there was the need, but he put it +on a different basis from that which his opponents took. It was not +necessary for salvation, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> maintained; but for those who desired to +reach the full Christian heaven, a state different from that of ordinary +salvation, for them it was necessary. Entrance to that higher order of the +heavenly life was not to be obtained without baptism. When pressed again, +on the question of the need for the operation of the grace of God, he +allowed that there was that need. But he explained that when he said God’s +grace must be given in order that a man might turn to God, he meant that +the man must be set in a position and under conditions and with +surroundings which rendered it natural and likely that he should so turn. +It seems clear, further, that the Pelagian view of the position and nature +of man in respect to God is inconsistent with the doctrine of the +Redemption wrought by Christ. That great sacrifice is rendered +unnecessary, if the views of Pelagius are accepted. Men could, so to +speak, turn to God and be saved without the Atonement. It is only fair to +say that the extreme view on the opposite side seems to be equally +inconsistent with this vital doctrine. If it be true that each man is +predestined absolutely to life or to death, whether before the fall of +Adam or as the immediate consequence of that fall, it would appear that +not all the Atonement of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> Christ can add one single soul to them that +shall be saved.</p> + +<p>My object is to speak of Church History, not of doctrine. But this +Pelagian question is the most important fact in the history of the British +Church; and unless these few words were said to bring out the extreme +gravity of the matter in dispute, the episode would not appear to fill the +important place it does in fact fill.</p> + +<p>With Pelagius himself we have but little to do. He spent his life far from +his native shores; he propounded his views in Rome and Carthage and +Palestine, not in London and York and Bangor. But the history of what +happened to him and his views in those distant parts is so curious—if one +may say so, so comical—and the evidence it affords of the importance of +the controversy is so great, that I must say a little about it. We shall +find in it, I think, an explanation of the course taken by the British +Church.</p> + +<p>At Rome Pelagius met Coelestius, a Scot—that is, a native of Ireland—and +Coelestius became a devoted champion of his views, publishing them in a +more definite form than Pelagius himself adopted. These views were +condemned at a Council held at Carthage in 412. A Council at Jerusalem in +415 heard the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> explanations of Pelagius and did not condemn him. A Council +at Lydda in the same year fully accepted his explanations, to the great +wrath of Jerome. Carthage then took the matter up again, and requested +that Pelagius should be summoned to return to Rome, and the whole matter +be fully inquired into there, the controversy being one affecting the West +and not the East. To enable the Bishop to form an opinion on the views of +Pelagius, they sent him a copy of one of his books, with the worst +passages marked. Innocent, the Bishop of Rome, gladly received this +request, treating it as a request for his authoritative verdict, which it +was not. He replied in three letters dated January 27, 417. He began each +with a strong assertion of the supreme authority of his see, and many +expressions of his satisfaction that the controversy had been referred to +him for final decision. The Bishop was clearly not to the manner born. +These were not the sayings of unconscious dignity, of unquestionable +authority. He did protest too much. The book of Pelagius forwarded to him +he pronounced unhesitatingly to be blasphemous and dangerous; and he gave +his judgement that Pelagius, Coelestius, and all abettors of their views, +ought to be excommunicated.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>Nothing could be more clear. But, unfortunately for the consistency of +official infallibility, Innocent died six weeks after writing these +letters, and Zosimus succeeded him. Coelestius and Pelagius between them +were too much for Zosimus. Coelestius came to Rome. He argued with Zosimus +that the points in dispute lay outside the limits of necessary articles of +faith, and declared his adherence to the Catholic faith in all points. +Pelagius did not come, but he wrote to Zosimus. Zosimus declared the +letter and creed of Pelagius to be thoroughly Catholic, and free from all +ambiguity; and the Pelagians to be men of unimpeachable faith, who had +been wrongly defamed. Augustine appears to imply that in his opinion +Zosimus had allowed himself to be deceived by the specious and subtle +admissions of the heretics.</p> + +<p>Zosimus did not rest satisfied with that. He wrote to the African bishops, +vehemently upbraiding them with their readiness to condemn, and declaring +that Pelagius and his followers had never really been estranged from +Catholic truth. Far from accepting his decision or his rebukes, the +Africans, who enjoyed a successful tussle with a Pope, sent a subdeacon +with a long reply. Zosimus, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> acknowledging their letter, wrote in +extravagant terms of the dignity of his own position as the supreme judge +of religious appeals, and, quaintly enough, hinted at the possibility of +reconsidering his decision. The Africans did not wait. They met in synod, +214 bishops or more, and passed nine canons, anathematizing the Pelagian +views. The Emperors Honorius and Theodosius banished Pelagius and +Coelestius from Rome. What was Pope Zosimus to do, under these singularly +trying circumstances? These men, thus banished from Rome, he had declared +to be men of unimpeachable faith, wrongly defamed, never estranged from +Catholic truth. He dealt with the matter in this way. He wrote a circular +letter, declaring that the Popes inherit from St. Peter a divine authority +equal to that of St. Peter, derived from the power which our Lord bestowed +on him; so that no one can question the Pope’s decision. He then proceeded +to censure, as contrary to the Catholic faith, the tenets of Pelagius and +Coelestius, specially censuring some of Pelagius’s comments on St. Paul +which had been laid before him since his former decision. He ordered all +bishops, in the churches acknowledging his authority, to subscribe to the +terms of his letter on pain of deprivation. In Italy itself, Rome’s own +Italy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> eighteen bishops protested against this change of front, and were +deprived of their sees under the authority of the civil power.</p> + +<p>Of course all men, however exalted their position, are liable to these +sudden changes, whether pressed by external circumstances or impelled by +inward conviction. And men who have themselves known what it is to be +tried in any such way, on however humble a scale, are inclined rather to +feel with them than sharply to condemn them; especially when, as in this +case, their second thoughts are best. But if they are to be treated thus, +with kindly judgement not unmixed with sympathy, they must not herald +their change of view with statements that they have a divine authority, +equal to that of St. Peter, and that no one can question their +contradictory decisions.</p> + +<p>To come nearer home after this long digression, which yet is not really a +digression from the British point of view. The views of Pelagius had +considerable success in Gaul, and gave a good deal of trouble there. In +Britain their success was alarmingly great. The bishops and clergy were +unable to make head against the wave of heresy. Whether there was +anything, in the independence of the position claimed by Pelagius for man, +which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> specially appealed to the nature of the Britons and their Celtic +congeners; anything in the claim of each individual to be good enough in +himself, if he pleases to be good enough; which harmonised with the +opinion those races had—dare I say have?—of themselves; these are +questions to which I cannot venture to give an answer. There the fact +remains, that Pelagianism did appeal very strongly to the temperament of +those who then dwelt in our land. And coupled with this is the fact, that, +however orthodox the clergy and bishops might be, and however well versed +in the great controversy in which in the previous century they had played +their part, the subtleties of this new controversy, initiated as it was by +one of their own or kindred race, springing up from their own nature and +appealing to the nature of their people, were too much for them—as indeed +they had been for Pope Zosimus. Agricola was the name of the man who acted +as the apostle of the Pelagians in the home regions, the son, we are told, +of a bishop of Pelagian views.</p> + +<p>What our predecessors may have lacked in subtlety, they more than made up +in practical common sense. If they could not grapple with the heresy +themselves, they sent for those who could. They applied to their nearest +ecclesiastical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> neighbour, the Church of Gaul, to which no doubt they +looked partly as their mother and partly as their elder sister. The +account of their application and the response it met with comes to us from +a life of Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, the person chiefly concerned, +written by special request forty years after his death by an eminent +person, and published on the request of the then Bishop of Auxerre. When +the application reached the heads of the Gallican Church, a numerous synod +was called together, and Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, and Lupus, Bishop of +Troyes, were appointed to visit Britain. The manner of treating the heresy +had been forced upon the attention of the Gallican prelates by their own +experiences. At that very time semi-Pelagianism was rife in the south of +Gaul, about Marseilles, and it continued in force there for a long time, +another fellow-countryman of ours, Faustus the Briton, imbuing even the +famous monastery of Lérins with this modified form of the heresy. To +concert measures for dealing with the south of Gaul, Prosper of Aquitaine, +a monk and probably a layman, afterwards secretary to Pope Leo the Great, +went to Rome about two years after this to consult the Pope, and from +Celestine he no doubt heard what he repeated or embellished<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> twenty-five +years later. He tells us that the Pope took pains to keep the “Roman +island” Catholic, referring of course to the long occupation of Britain by +the Roman troops, at this time abandoned. In another passage, whose +genuineness has been questioned, Prosper says that Celestine sent Germanus +in his own stead to Britain. Prosper was certainly in a position to +receive from the best-informed source an account of what was done; but the +Gallican Church appears to have known nothing of this sending of Germanus +by Celestine. Prosper’s inclination to magnify the importance of the Popes +has been referred to already<small><a name="f29.1" id="f29.1" href="#f29">[29]</a></small>; and we may take it as certain that if +such an unparalleled step as going himself or sending some one in his +stead, a forecast of Gregory’s action, had been attempted or taken by the +Pope, we should have heard of it in the records of Gaul or in the life of +Germanus. The successor of Germanus would have known of it. That Celestine +had known at the time what was going on, and that he felt and probably +expressed warm approval, we may regard as certain too. I must defer, to an +opportunity in my third lecture, remarks which I wish to make on what may +seem an <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>ungenerous questioning of these assertions of benefits conferred +by Rome.</p> + +<p>In 429, then, the Gallican prelates came to Britain. They had a very rough +crossing, and a story, rejected with scorn by quite modern writers, is +told of a miracle wrought by Germanus. He stilled the storm by pouring oil +upon the sea in the name of the Trinity. We now know that if they had oil +on board, and knew how to use it, the stilling of the waves was done; +without miracle, but with not the less earnest trust in the watchful care +of God<small><a name="f30.1" id="f30.1" href="#f30">[30]</a></small>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>It was on this journey to Britain that Germanus and Lupus saw at Nanterre +a little girl aged seven, and prophesied great things of her. Her name was +Genofeva, and she became the famous Ste. Geneviève. In these days when +people coquet with the principles of revolution and shut their eyes to its +realities, it may be well to add that her coffin of silver and gold was +sold in 1793, and her body burned on the Place de Grève, by public decree.</p> + +<p>When they got to work in Britain, they proceeded on a definite plan. Some +sixty or <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>seventy years before, Hilary, the Bishop of Poitiers, dealing in +Gaul with the great heresy which preceded this, had found it of great +service to go about from place to place and collect in different parts +small assemblies of the bishops, for free discussion and mutual +explanation. He found that misunderstandings were in this way, better than +in any other, got rid of, and differences of opinion were reduced to a +minimum. Germanus and Lupus dealt with the people of Britain as their +predecessor had dealt with the bishops of Gaul. They went all over, +discussing the great question with the people whom they found. They +preached in the churches, they addressed the people on the highroads, they +sought for them in the fields, and followed them up bypaths. It is clear +that the visitors from Gaul could speak to the people, both in town and in +country, in their own tongue, or in a tongue well understood by them. No +doubt the native speech of Gaul and that of Britain were still so closely +akin that no serious difficulty was felt in this respect. They met with +success so great that the leaders on the other side were forced to take +action. They felt, so the biographer tells us, not that his is likely to +be convincing evidence as to their feelings, that they must run the risk +of defeat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> rather than seem by silence to give up the cause. They +undertook to dispute with the Gallicans in public. The biographer is not +an impartial chronicler. The Pelagians came to the disputation with many +outward signs of pomp and wealth, richly dressed, and attended by a crowd +of supporters. Why should the biographer thus indicate that the Pelagian +heresy was specially rife among great and wealthy and popular people? +Perhaps it may be the case, that, with imperfectly civilised people, a +position of wealth and distinction tends to make men less humble in their +view of the need of the grace of God. Besides the principals, we are told +that immense numbers of people came to hear the dispute, bringing with +them their wives and children; coming, in the important phrase of the +biographer, to play the part of spectator and judge. That is the first +note we have of the function of the laity in religious disputes in this +land of ours. It is a pregnant hint. The disputants were now face to face. +On one side divine authority, on the other human presumption; on one side +faith, on the other perfidy; on one side Christ, on the other Pelagius. +The description is Constantius’s, not mine. The bishops set the Pelagians +to begin, and a weary business the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> Pelagians made of it. Then their turn +came. They poured forth torrents of eloquence, apostolical and evangelical +thunders. They quoted the scriptures. The opponents had nothing to say. +The people, to whose arbitration it was put, scarce could keep their hands +off them; the decision was given by acclamation, against the Pelagians.</p> + +<p>Where did this take place? Certainly not far from Verulam, for Constantius +goes on to say that the bishops hastened to the shrine of St. Alban, which +at the request of Germanus was opened, that he might deposit there some +relics which he had brought with him. He took away, in exchange, some +earth from the actual spot of the martyrdom. Presumably the disputation +took place somewhere near London, on the road to St. Albans; perhaps at +Verulam itself.</p> + +<p>The British Church was thus saved from enemies within; but enemies without +soon had it by the throat. There were no Roman troops to guard the +northern wall, to guard the Saxon shore. The Roman troops had gone, and +with them the flower of the British youth<small><a name="f31.1" id="f31.1" href="#f31">[31]</a></small>. +From <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>north and east the +barbarians poured in upon the Britons, pell mell. Gildas, crying bitter +tears, and using bitter ink, in his Welsh monastery, tells us of the +weakness and the follies of the British and their kings, of the cruelties +of the barbarous folk. We see in his pages the smoke of burned churches, +the blood of murdered Christians. Matthew of Westminster tells us that the +churches that were burned had the happier fate. In thirty cases churches +were saved and made into heathen temples, the altars polluted with pagan +sacrifice. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>But the Saxons and Angles made way so slowly that it is +certain they met with a much sturdier opposition than Gildas credits his +countrymen with. Strive as they would, however, and did, the Britons +gradually gave way. Thus, and thus only, can we fill the dreary void in +British history, which we know as the first hundred and fifty years of the +Making of England.</p> + +<p>This brings us very near to the end of our period. Not of our subject; for +in my concluding lecture I have to deal—with sad scantness—with the +Christian Church in other parts of these islands, before and at the coming +of Augustine.</p> + +<p>In the twenty years immediately preceding the arrival of Augustine, the +long line of British Bishops of London came to an end. It has been a +subject of remark, and of moralising, that Theonus, the last bishop, lost +heart and fled just when the chance was coming for which it is presumed +that he had been waiting, the actual beginning of the conversion of the +English. But remarks of this character are misplaced; they disregard—or +are ignorant of—the political facts of the time. Theonus of London was a +British bishop in a British city. London had not fallen. Most difficult of +access in the then state of land and water, of marsh<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> and mud, whether +from north or south or east or west, it held out to the last. The earliest +date that can be assigned to its fall is about the year 568, and a date so +early as that is only given to account for Ethelbert’s being able to take +his army from Kent to Wimbledon without interruption from London. But for +that, and there may be other explanations of it, it is quite possible to +put the taking of London by the East Saxons a few years later. But it is +not necessary for our purpose. The date of the flight of Theonus has been +said to be 586. It is probable that this is about the date of Ethelbert’s +vigorous action northwards, by which he made himself over-lord of his East +Saxon neighbours and of London their most recent conquest, which they +appear not to have occupied for some years after its fall. The political +and administrative changes, due to this expansion of the power of Kent, +may well have made ruined London no longer a possible place of residence, +and of work, for a Christian Briton so prominent in position and office as +the Bishop of London must always have been. It seems probable that Matthew +of Westminster was not far wrong when he wrote that in 586 Theonus took +with him the relics of the saints, and such of the ordained clergy as had +survived<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> the perils, and retired to Wales. Others, he says, fled further, +to the continental Britain. Thadioc of York, he adds, went at the same +time. In some parts, as for instance about Glastonbury, the British +Christians remained undisturbed by the English for sixty or seventy years +longer<small><a name="f32.1" id="f32.1" href="#f32">[32]</a></small>.</p> + +<p>A year or two ago, when we set up the list of Bishops of London in the +south aisle here, there was at first an inclination in some quarters to +criticise the decision at which we arrived as to the bishops of the +British period. But the explanations kindly given by those who approved +our action soon put a stop to that. There is a list of Archbishops of +London before Augustine’s time, beginning about the year 180 and ending +with Theonus, whose date may be put about 580. In those four centuries, +sixteen names are given, a number clearly insufficient for 400 years. The +names are specially insufficient in the later part of the time, only four +being given between 314 and 580. This is rather in favour of the four +names being real; for it is evident that if people were inventing <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>names, +they might as well have invented twenty, while they were about it, instead +of only four, for 260 years<small><a name="f33.1" id="f33.1" href="#f33">[33]</a></small>.</p> + +<p>The traditions of York do not supply any long list of bishops, continuous +or not. Eborius, at Arles in 314, is the first named. And there are only +three others, each of whom has a date with Matthew of Westminster, Sampson +507, Piran 522, Thadioc 586. York probably fell as early as the date +assigned to Sampson; who, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>by the way, was created Archbishop of York by +the forgers of the twelfth century, to back up an ecclesiastical claim on +the continent.</p> + +<p>The decision at which we arrived in respect of the London list was to give +one name only, that of Restitutus, putting a row of dots above him and +below him, to shew that there were British bishops before him, probably +very few, and British bishops after him, certainly many. Restitutus signed +the decrees of the Council of Arles, as Bishop of London, in the year 314. +That is sure ground; and in a list of bishops, set up officially in the +Cathedral Church, nothing less solid than sure ground should be taken.</p> + +<p>As to the British Bishops of London being styled archbishops, there is no +evidence for it. Our famous Dean Ralph (<span class="smcap">a. d.</span> 1181), no mean historian, +left on record his view that there were three archbishoprics<small><a name="f34.1" id="f34.1" href="#f34">[34]</a></small> in +Britain—London, York, and Caerleon—which last, he said, corresponded to +St. David’s. Whether Gregory had some information that has since been +lost, respecting the ecclesiastical arrangements which had existed here, +we cannot say; but it is a curious coincidence, explicable perhaps by the +mere <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>importance of the two places, that he directed Augustine to make +arrangements for a metropolitan at London, with twelve suffragans, and a +metropolitan at York with twelve suffragans. The complete arrangements, as +set out by Gregory when he sent an additional supply of missionaries to +Augustine, of whom Mellitus was one, were as follows. Augustine was told +to ordain in various places twelve bishops, to be subject to his control, +so that London should for the future be a metropolitan see; and it appears +that Gregory contemplated Augustine’s occupying as a matter of course the +position of Bishop of London<small><a name="f35.1" id="f35.1" href="#f35">[35]</a></small>. He was to ordain and send to York a +suitable bishop, who should in like manner ordain twelve bishops and +become the metropolitan. The northern metropolitan was to be under +Augustine’s jurisdiction; but after Augustine’s death he was to be +independent of London, and for the future the metropolitan who was senior +in consecration was to have precedence<small><a name="f36.1" id="f36.1" href="#f36">[36]</a></small>. This takes no account of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>bishops existing in what we call Wales and Cornwall. Gregory specially +declared that those bishops, then at least seven in number, were subject +to Augustine. It is impossible that these seven were to be included among +the twelve suffragans of London, for with Rochester and Canterbury that +would leave only three bishops for the whole of the rest of the south of +England. That the tradition of British times, and a part of the scheme +actually laid down by Gregory, should be carried out in our time, would be +I think an excellent thing. An Archbishop of London, with some half-dozen +suffragans, with dioceses and diocesan rank, in districts of this great +wilderness of houses, would be a solution of some very difficult problems.</p> + +<p>There were two names in the traditional list which it was thought we might +at least have included along with Restitutus. One was that of the last on +the list, Theonus. But the evidence for him, though quite sufficient for +ordinary purposes, was not of the highest order. The other was that of +Fastidius, the last but two on the list. His date—for he was a real and +well-known man—was much earlier than that position would indicate, for he +was described, among illustrious men, by a writer who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> lived a full +century before Theonus, the last on the list. This writer, Gennadius of +Marseilles, informs us that Fastidius was a British bishop. One important +manuscript has, in place of this, “Fastidius a Briton,” as if his being a +bishop was not certain. In any case there is nothing to connect him with +the bishopric of London, or with London, beyond the natural assignment to +the most important position of a man not specially assigned by the +earliest historian. His date is probably about 430 to 450.</p> + +<p>This Fastidius is the only writer of the British Church, besides Pelagius +if we can properly reckon him as one, whose work has come down to us. I do +not know that the early British Christians produced any writers other than +Fastidius and Pelagius. Had their records not been destroyed, it might +well have been that many a manuscript work of British bishops would have +remained till the middle ages and been now in print. Fastidius and Gildas +are sufficient evidence of the literary tendencies of the British mind. +Indeed, we may credit the Britons of the time of Gildas with having been +laborious students, those, at least, who were settled in Wales. Their +Celtic cousins had a passion for writing.</p> + +<p>We find Gennadius of Marseilles testifying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> to the soundness of the +doctrine of Fastidius, and its worthiness of God. But who shall testify to +the soundness of Gennadius? He was a semi-Pelagian; and so it appears was +Fastidius, for whose soundness he vouches. Fastidius distinctly quotes +from Pelagius, though without mentioning him by name. He uses the phrase +which is the keynote of Pelagianism, man sinned “after the example of +Adam;” and he describes the manner in which saints should pray, in words +which cannot be independent of Pelagius’s words on that subject.</p> + +<p>Apart from their heretical tendency, the works or work of Fastidius may be +taken as containing excellent teaching. He naturally presses most the +practical side, the necessity of a good life. “Our Lord said,” he shrewdly +reminds the reader, “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments; +He did not say keep faith only. For if faith is all that is required, it +is too much to say that the commandments must be kept. Far be it from me +to suppose, that my Lord said too much on any point.” One interesting +allusion to the state of the country in his time, the Christian +settlements here and there in the midst of a heathen population, it may be +the Romano-Briton among the unmixed Britons, occurs in a passage<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> full of +practical teaching:—“It is the will of God that His people should be +holy, and free from all stain of unrighteousness; so righteous, so +merciful, so pure, so unspotted from the world, so single-hearted, that +the heathen should find in them no fault, but should say in wonder, +Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom He hath +chosen for His own inheritance.”</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="LECTURE_III" id="LECTURE_III"></a>LECTURE III.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Early Christianity in other parts of these islands.—Ninian in the +south-west of Scotland.—Palladius and Patrick in Ireland.—Columba +in Scotland—Kentigern in Cumbria.—Wales.—Cornwall.—The fate of +the several Churches.—Special rites &c. of the British +Church.—General conclusion.</p></div> + +<p>We are to consider this evening the early existence of Christianity in +other parts of these islands, in order that we may have some idea of the +actual extent to which Christianity prevailed in England, Wales, Scotland, +and Ireland, at the time when Augustine came to Kent.</p> + +<p>The Italians appear to have blamed the British Church for its want of +missionary zeal. But that only applied to missions to the Angles and +Saxons; and I have never quite been able to see how the Britons could be +expected to go to their sanguinary and conquering foes with any message, +least of all to tell them that their religion was hopelessly false. The +expulsion of the Britons from the land of their fathers was too recent for +that; the retort of the Saxons too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> apposite, that at least their gods had +shewn themselves stronger than the God of the Britons.</p> + +<p>It is a curious fact that we know more of the work of the British Church +beyond its borders than at home; and what we know of it is very much to +its credit. Somewhere about the year 395, when the inroads of barbarians +from the north had become a grave danger, and the territory between the +walls had been abandoned by the Romano-Britons, one of the British nation, +who had studied at Rome the doctrine and discipline of the Western Church, +and had studied among the Gauls at Tours, established himself among the +Picts of Galloway and built there a church of stone. The story is that he +heard of the death of his friend Martin of Tours when he was building his +church, and that he dedicated it to him. This, which after all is a late +story in its present form, but is, as I think, to be fully accepted, gives +us the date 397; the only sure date in Ninian’s history. From this +south-west corner of Scotland he spread the faith, we are told, throughout +the southern Picts, that is, as far north as the Grampians.</p> + +<p>This Christianising of the Picts may not have been very lasting. Patrick +more than once speaks of them<small><a name="f37.1" id="f37.1" href="#f37">[37]</a></small> as the +apostate Picts. It did <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>not +prevent their ravaging Christian Britain, denuded of the Roman troops. But +it had a great influence in another way. The monastery of Whithorn, which +Ninian founded, was for some considerable time the training place of +Christian priests and bishops and monks, both for Britain, and, +especially, for Ireland. The Irish traditions make Ninian retire from +Britain and live the later part of his life in Ireland, where he is +certainly commemorated under the name Monenn,—“Mo” being the affectionate +prefix “my,” and Monenn meaning “my Ninian.”</p> + +<p>Ninian lived and worked, we are told, for many years, dying in 432, a date +for which there is no known authority. That period covers the second, +third, and fourth withdrawal of the Roman troops from the northern +frontier and from Britain<small><a name="f38.1" id="f38.1" href="#f38">[38]</a></small>; a time when British Christians might well +have said they had more than enough to do at home. Ninian’s work has left +for us memorials such as no other part of these islands can shew. There +are three great upright stones, one at Whithorn itself, and two at +Kirkmadrine, that in all human certainty come from his time. They are in +complete accordance with what we know of sepulchral monuments <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>in Roman +Gaul. Each has a cross in a circle deeply incised, with the member of an R +attached to one limb, so as to form the Chi Rho monogram. The Chi Rho is +found as early as 312 in Rome and 377 in Gaul, with Alpha and Omega, 355 +in Rome and 400 in Gaul. <i>Hic iacet</i> is found in 365. The stone at +Whithorn itself has <i>Petri Apustoli</i> rather rudely carved on it. The two +at Kirkmadrine have Latin inscriptions<small><a name="f39.1" id="f39.1" href="#f39">[39]</a></small> well cut, running apparently +from one to the other, as though they had stood at the head and foot of a +grave in which the four priests were buried:—“here lie the chief +priests”—some say that at that time <i>sacerdotes</i> meant bishops—“that is, +Viventius and Mavorius” “[Piu]s and Florentius.” One of these latter +stones has at the top, above the circle, the Alpha and Omega<small><a name="f40.1" id="f40.1" href="#f40">[40]</a></small>. I ought +to say “had,” for some years ago a carriage was seen from a distance to +drive up to the end of the lane leading to the desolate burying-place, a +man got out, went to the stone, knocked <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>off with a hammer the corner +which bore the Omega, and made off with it. They are since then scheduled +as ancient monuments. There was formerly a third stone, which bore the +very unusual Latin equivalent of Alpha and Omega, <i>initium et finis</i>, “the +beginning and the end.” These remains in a solitary place may indicate the +wealth of very early monuments we must once have had in this island, long +ago broken up by men who saw nothing in them but stones. Time would fail +if I were to begin to tell of the recent exploration of the cave known by +immemorial tradition as Ninian’s cave, and of the sculptured treasures of +early Christianity found there. There is in this same territory between +the walls, but nearer the northern wall, another memorial of the later +British times. It is a huge stone a few miles north-west of Edinburgh, +with a rude Latin inscription<small><a name="f41.1" id="f41.1" href="#f41">[41]</a></small>, <i>In this tumulus lies Vetta, son of +Victis</i>. It takes us to the time when, along with the Picts and Scots who +ravaged Britain, we hear for the first time of allies of the ravagers +called Saxons. We are accustomed to think of the Saxons as coming <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>first +from the south-east and east; but we hear of them first in this region of +which we are speaking. As Vetta and Victis correspond to the names of the +father and grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, it is difficult to resist the +suggestion that in this great Cat Stane, that is, Battle Stone, we have +the monument set up by the Romano-Britons, in triumph over the fallen +chief of the Saxon marauders. If this is so, the sons of Vetta found the +south of the island better quarters than their father found the north, +though Horsa, it is true, was killed soon. A great monument bearing his +name was to be seen in Bede’s time in Kent, and this fact serves to +confirm the assignment of the Cat Stane to another generation of his +family.</p> + +<p>Ninian affords one of the many evidences of a close connection between +Britain and Gaul. We should have been surprised if there had not been this +close connection; but somehow or other it has been a good deal overlooked. +He dedicated his church to his friend St. Martin of Tours. In the +Romano-British times a church at the other end of the island, in +Canterbury, had a like dedication; and these are the only Romano-British +dedications of which we are sure, so far as I know.</p> + +<p>In these dedications we may find an interesting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> illustration of what took +place in Gaul, especially in the parts near Britain. There are eighty-six +dioceses in modern France, and there are in all no less than 3,668 +churches dedicated to St. Martin. There are eight of the eighty-six +dioceses which have more than 100 churches thus dedicated, and all of +these eight are in the regions opposite to the shores of Britain. Amiens +has 148; Arras 157; Bayeux 107; Beauvais 110; Cambray 122; Coutances 103; +Rouen 112; Soissons 158. Here again is an instance which shows Soissons +prominent in a British connection<small><a name="f42.1" id="f42.1" href="#f42">[42]</a></small>. No other diocese has more than +eighty-four; and only five others have more than seventy. The Christian +poet of the sixth century, writing at Poitiers of St. Martin, declares +that the Spaniard, the Moor, the Persian, the Briton, loved him. This +order of countries is due only to the exigencies of metre. Gaul is not +named, because it was the centre of the cult of St. Martin, and there +Fortunatus wrote.</p> + +<p>Next in order of time, we must turn to the main home of the Celtic or +Gaelic Church, the main centre of its many activities, Ireland. As is very +well known, Ireland never formed part of the Roman empire; never came +under that <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>iron hand, which left such clear-cut traces of its fingers +wherever it fastened its grip. Agricola used to talk of taking possession, +about the year 80 <span class="smcap">a. d.</span>, but he never went. He had looked into the +question, and he thought the enterprise not at all a serious one, from a +military point of view; while, as a matter of policy, he was strongly +inclined to it. His son-in-law Tacitus tells us this<small><a name="f43.1" id="f43.1" href="#f43">[43]</a></small>, in one of those +little bursts of confidential talk which obliterate the eighteen centuries +that intervene, and make us hear rather than read what he says. “I have +often heard Agricola say that with one legion, and a fair amount of +auxiliaries, Ireland could be conquered and held; and that it would be a +great help, in governing Britain, if the Roman arms were seen in all +parts, and freedom were put out of sight.” If this means that Ireland +could be seen from the parts of Britain of which he was speaking, we must +understand that he spoke of the Britons north of the Solway; and we know +that after his operations against Anglesey he passed on to subdue the +parts of Wigton and Dumfries, and, two years later, Cantyre and Argyll. +Those are the parts of this island from which Ireland is easily visible.</p> + +<p>Of course we all know that St. Patrick was <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>the Apostle of Ireland. That +puts the introduction of Christianity rather late; the date of Patrick’s +death, which best suits at once the national traditions and the arguments +from contemporary events, being <span class="smcap">a. d.</span> 493. Those who feel bound to give him +a mission from Pope Celestine put his death in 460, rather than face the +difficulty of making him live to be 120—or, as some say, 132.</p> + +<p>The story of St. Patrick’s life is told by many people in many different +ways, both in modern times and in ancient. In one of the accounts, known +as the Tripartite Life, written in early Irish, we find mention of the +existence of Christianity in Ireland before his time. He and his +attendants were about to perform divine service in the land of the Ui +Oiliolls, when it was found that the sacred vessels were wanting. Patrick, +thereupon, divinely instructed, pointed out a cave in which they must dig +with great care, lest the glass vessels be broken. They dug up an altar, +having at its corners four chalices of glass. Even in the Book of Armagh +we find that Patrick shewed to his presbyter a wonderful stone altar on a +mountain in this region. This may seem a slight basis on which to found +the existence of Christianity before Patrick, but its incidental character +gives it importance;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> and traditions of early times support the +conclusion. The whole of an elaborate story of Patrick finding bishops in +Munster, and coming to a compromise with them, is a late invention, forged +for an ecclesiastical purpose.</p> + +<p>There is certainly evidence of an intention to preach Christianity in +Ireland before Patrick’s time, and this evidence itself affords evidence +of a still earlier teaching. In speaking of the visit of Germanus to +Britain to put down Pelagianism, the first of two visits as tradition +says, I intentionally said nothing about the visit of Germanus’s deacon +Palladius to Rome. Some writers would not allow the phrases “Germanus’s +deacon,” and “visit to Rome.” They say that Palladius was a deacon of +Rome; from that he is made archdeacon of the Pope; and from that again a +cardinal and Nuncio apostolical. But I shall take him to be the deacon of +Germanus, a Gaul by birth and education, though some believe that he must +have been himself an Irishman.</p> + +<p>The Chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine, of which we have heard before<small><a name="f44.1" id="f44.1" href="#f44">[44]</a></small>, +has in the less corrupt of the two editions the statement that in 431 +“Palladius was consecrated by Pope Celestine, and sent to the Scots +believing in <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>Christ, as their first bishop.” The Scots, of course, then +and for some centuries later, were the Irish. It is interesting to us to +find Pope Leo XIII, in his Bull restoring the Scottish hierarchy in 1878, +gravely taking Prosper to mean that Celestine sent Palladius as the +apostle of the Scots in the modern sense of the word, that is, the people +of what we call Scotland. Fordun, the chronicler of Scotland, came upon +the same rock, and was driven by consequence into wild declarations about +the work of Palladius in North Britain. Fordun, however, had the +disadvantage of not being infallible.</p> + +<p>Prosper of Aquitaine is not a person to be implicitly followed, when the +subject is the claims and the great deeds of bishops of Rome. There is a +fair suspicion that it was he who credited Eleutherus with the mission to +Lucius<small><a name="f45.1" id="f45.1" href="#f45">[45]</a></small>. His very title, Prosper of Aquitaine, reminds us that +Aquitaine includes Gascony. He is suspected of being a romancer. With him, +as indeed with many of the evidences of the importance of the action of +Rome in early times, great caution is necessary.</p> + +<p>Remarks of this kind I do not make from choice; they are forced upon me. +It is <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>a pleasure of a very real kind to feel grateful; but when people +base upon benefits conferred very large demands and claims, one’s feelings +of gratitude rapidly and permanently take a very different character. A +proverb tells us not to look a gift horse in the mouth. But when there is +grave doubt whether the horse ever existed, and when an immense price is +afterwards demanded for the gift, proverbs of that kind do not appeal to +us very strongly. The claims upon us of mediaeval Rome, mischievous as +they were absurd, were based on evidence much of which was so fictitious, +that we are more than justified in scanning closely the beginnings of any +of the evidence. Time after time one is reminded, in looking into these +claims, of the retort of a lay ruler, referring to the forged donation by +the first Christian Emperor to the bishops of Rome. Asked by the Pope for +his authority for the independent position he maintained, “you will find +it,” he said, “written on the back of the donation of Constantine.”</p> + +<p>Nor, again, would it disturb me in the least, if convincing evidence were +discovered, in favour of much which I think at best doubtful on the +evidence as now known. Benefits conferred lay the foundation of gratitude, +not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> of subservience. The descendants, and representatives, of those who +conferred them, have in our eyes all the interest attaching to descendants +of benefactors. But when the Popes—say of the Plantagenet times—on the +strength of the past or of the supposed past, lorded it over the English +people, and carried out of England, every year, to be spent in no very +excellent way in Italy, sums of money that would seem fabulous if it were +not that no one at the time contested their accuracy, the English people +found them, and frankly told them so, an intolerable nuisance. The demands +of the Popes were so ludicrous in their shamelessness, that when one of +them was read to the assembled peers, the peers roared with laughter. We +might perhaps forget such episodes as these. We might forget the +abominations which at times have steeped the Papacy and the infallible +Popes in earth’s vilest vilenesses. We might dream, some of us did dream, +as young men, of drawing nearer to communion with the old centre of the +Western Church, while maintaining our doctrinal position. It was always +the fault of the Roman more than the Englishman that we had to part. And +now, late in time, in our own generation, the Roman has cut himself off +from us by an impassable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> barrier, the declaration of the divine +infallibility of the man who is the head of his Church. It is to me one of +the saddest sights on the face of the earth, a thoroughly estimable and +loveable old man, whom one cannot but venerate, made the mouthpiece of +ecclesiastics who are pulling the wires of policy, and declared to be the +medium of divinely infallible judgement.</p> + +<p>It may well have been that Palladius came to Britain with Germanus, and +here heard—probably from the Britons of the West—of sparse congregations +of Christians scattered about in Ireland; and that he sought authority to +visit them, and confirm them in the faith, from some source which the +Irish people would not suspect or regard with jealousy. That he had the +assent of Germanus we may fairly suppose; that he had the consent and +authorisation of Pope Celestine I am quite ready to believe. Pope +Celestine, we may remember, was one of the Popes who got into trouble with +Africa for persisting in quoting a Sardican Canon as a Canon of Nicaea. He +was not likely to hesitate on ecclesiastical grounds when action such as +this was proposed to him.</p> + +<p>Palladius went, then, about 432, to visit the scattered Irish Christians. +There is not a word of his mission being of the same character as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> that of +Germanus to Britain, namely, to attack Pelagianism. He landed in Ireland; +and then the several accounts proceed to contradict one another in a very +Celtic manner. The two earliest accounts, dating probably not later than +700, agree that the pagan people received him with much hostility. One of +the two accounts martyrs him in Ireland; the other says that he did not +wish to spend time in a country not his own, and so crossed over to +Britain to journey homewards by land, but died in the land of the Britons. +Another ancient Irish account says that he founded some churches in +Ireland, but was not well received and had to take to the sea; he was +driven to North Britain, where he founded the Church of Fordun, “and Pledi +is his name there.” I found, when visiting Fordun to examine some curious +remains there, that its name among the people was “Paldy Parish.”</p> + +<p>The Scottish accounts make Palladius the founder of Christianity among the +Picts in the east of Scotland, Forfarshire and Kincardineshire and +thereabouts, Meigle being their capital for a long time. They are silent +as to any connection with Ireland. They are without exception late and +unauthentic, whatever may be the historical value of the matter which has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> +been imported into them. But all, Scottish and Irish, agree in assigning +to the work of Palladius in Ireland either no existence in fact, or at +most a short period and a small result. The way was thus left clear for +another mission. The man who took up the work made a very different mark +upon it.</p> + +<p>I shall not discuss the asserted mission from Rome of St. Patrick, for we +have his own statements about himself. Palladius was called also Patrick, +and to him, not to the greater Patrick, the story of the mission from Rome +applies.</p> + +<p>Some time after the death of Celestine and the termination of Palladius’s +work in Ireland, Patrick commenced his missionary labours; and when he +died in or about 493, he left Christianity permanently established over a +considerable part of the island. That is the great fact for our present +purpose, and I shall go into no details. It is a very interesting +coincidence that exactly at the period when Christianity was being +obliterated in Britain, it was being planted in large areas of Ireland; +and that, too, by a Briton. For after all has been said that can be said +against the British origin of Patrick, the story remains practically +undisturbed.</p> + +<p>It is, I think, of great importance to note and bear in mind the fact that +Ireland was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> Christianised just at the time when it was cut off from +communication with the civilised world and the Christian Church in Europe. +Britain, become a mere arena of internecine strife, the Picts and Scots +from the north, and the Jutes and Saxons and Angles from the east and +south, obliterating civilisation and Christianity,—Britain, thus +barbarously tortured, was a complete barrier between the infant Church in +Ireland and the wholesome lessons and developments which intercourse with +the Church on the continent would have naturally given. Patrick, if we are +to accept his own statements, was not a man of culture; he was probably +very provincial in his knowledge of Christian practices and rites; a rude +form of Christian worship and order was likely to be the result of his +mission. He was indeed the son of a member of the town council, who was +also a deacon,—it sounds very Scotch: he was the grandson of a priest; +his father had a small farm. But he was a native of a rude part of the +island. And his bringing up was rude. He was carried off captive to +Ireland at the age of sixteen, and kept sheep there for six years, when he +escaped to Britain. After some years he determined to take the lessons of +Christianity to the people who had made him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> their slave. The people whom +he Christianised were themselves rude; not likely to raise their +ecclesiastical conceptions higher than the standard their apostle set; +more likely to fall short of that standard. In isolation the infant Church +passed on towards fuller growth; developing itself on the lines laid down; +accentuating the rudeness of its earliest years; with no example but its +own.</p> + +<p>And not only was the Irish Church isolated as a Church, its several +members were isolated one from another. It was a series of camps of +Christianity in a pagan land, of centres of Christian morals in a land of +the wildest social disorder. The camps were centred each in itself, like a +city closely invested. The monastic life, in the extremest rigour of +isolation, was the only life possible for the Christian, under the social +and religious conditions of the time. And each monastic establishment must +be complete in itself, with its one chief ruler, its churches, its +priests, and the means of keeping up its supply of priests. There was no +diocesan bishop, to whom men could be sent to be ordained, or who could be +asked to come and ordain. They kept a bishop on the spot in each +considerable establishment; to ordain as their circumstances might +require; under the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> rule of the abbat, as all the members were. Very +likely in great establishments they had several bishops. The groups of +bishops in sevens, named in the Annals, the groups of churches in sevens, +as by the sweeping Shannon at Clonmacnois or in the lovely vale of +Glendalough, these, we may surmise, matched one another. We read of +hundreds of bishops in existence at one time in Ireland, and people put it +down to “Irish exaggeration.” But given this principle, that an Irish +monastery, in a land not as yet divided into dioceses, not possessing +district bishops, must have its own bishop, the not unnatural or unfounded +explanation of “Irish exaggeration” is not wanted. In some cases, no +doubt, a bishop did settle himself at the headquarters of a district, and +had a body of priests under his charge, living the monastic life with him +under his rule, and exercising ministrations in the district. But in the +large number of cases the bishops were only necessary adjuncts to +monasteries over which they did not themselves rule. A presbyter or a +layman ruled the ordinary monastery, including the bishop or bishops whom +the monastery possessed.</p> + +<p>I have dwelt upon this because it is a point often lost sight of, and it +explains a good deal. And there is a good deal to explain. When<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> +Columbanus and his twelve companions from Ireland burst suddenly upon Gaul +in the year 590, they formed a very strange apparition. Dressed in a +strange garb, tonsured in a strange manner, speaking a strange tongue, but +able to converse fluently enough in Latin with those who knew that +language, it was found that some of their ecclesiastical customs were as +strange as their appearance and their tongue; so strange that the Franks +and Burgundians had to call a council to consider how they should be +treated. Columbanus was characteristically sure that he was right on all +points. He wrote to Boniface IV, about the time when our first St. Paul’s +was being built, to claim that he should be let alone, should be treated +as if he were still in his own Ireland, and not be required to accept the +customs of these Gauls. When Irish missionaries began to pass into this +island, on its emergence from the darkness that had settled upon it when +the pagan barbarians came, their work was of the most self-denying and +laborious character. But contact with the Christianity of the Italian +mission, or with that of travelled individual churchmen such as Benedict +and Wilfrid, revealed the existence of great differences between the +insular and the continental type. We rather gather from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> ordinary +books that these differences came to a head, so far as these islands were +concerned, at the synod of Whitby, and that the Irish church not long +after accepted the continental forms and practices, and the differences +disappeared. But that is not the effect produced by a more extended +enquiry. In times a little later than the synod of Whitby, Irish +bishops—I say it with great respect—were a standing nuisance. One +council after another had to take active steps to abate the nuisance. The +Danish invasions of Ireland drove them out in swarms, without letters +commendatory, for there was no one to give due commendation. Ordination by +such persons was time after time declared to be no ordination, on the +ground that no one knew whether they had been rightly consecrated. There +was in this feeling some misapprehension, it may be, arising from the fact +of the government of bishops in a monastery by the presbyter abbat, but no +doubt the feeling had a good deal of solid substance to go upon. It was +reciprocated, warmly, hotly. Indeed, if I may cast my thought into a form +that would be recognised by the people of whom I speak, the reciprocators +were the first to begin. Adamnan tells us that when Columba had to deal +with an unusually abominable fellow-countryman, he sent him off<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> to do +penance in tears and lamentations for twelve years among the Britons. +There is the curious—almost pathetic—letter of Laurentius and Mellitus, +the one Augustine’s immediate successor, the other our first bishop of +English London, addressed to the bishops and abbats of all Scotia. “They +had felt,” they said, “great respect for the Britons and the Scots, on +account of their sanctity. But,” they pointedly remark, evidently smarting +under some rather trying recollections, “when they came to know the +Britons, they supposed the Scots must be superior. Unfortunately, +experience had dissipated that hope. Dagan in Britain, and Columban in +Gaul, had shewn them that the Scots did not differ from the Britons in +their habits. Dagan, a Scotic bishop, had visited Canterbury, and not only +would he not take food with them, he would not even eat in the same +house.”</p> + +<p>It is very interesting to find that we can, in these happy days of the +careful examination of ancient manuscripts, put a friendlier face upon the +relations between the two churches in times not much later than these, and +in connection with the very persons here named. In the earliest missal of +the Irish church known to be in existence, the famous Stowe Missal, +written<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> probably eleven hundred years ago, and for the last eight hundred +years contained in the silver case made for it by order of a son of Brian +Boroimhe, there is of course a list—it is a very long list—of those for +whom intercessory prayers were offered. In the earliest part of the list +there are entered the names of Laurentius, Mellitus, and Justus, the +second, third, and fourth archbishops of Canterbury, and then, with only +one name between, comes Dagan. The presence of these Italian names in the +list does great credit to the kindliness of the Celtic monks, as the +marked absence of Augustine’s name testifies to their appreciation of his +character. Many criticisms on his conduct have appeared; I do not know of +any that can compare in first-hand interest, and discriminating severity, +with this omission of his name and inclusion of his successors’ names in +the earliest Irish missal which we possess. It is so early that it +contains a prayer that the chieftain who had built them their church might +be converted from idolatry. Dagan, who had refused to sit at table with +Laurentius and Mellitus, reposed along with them on the Holy Table for +many centuries in this forgiving list.</p> + +<p>Of a similar feeling on the part of the Britons,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> when isolated in Wales, +Aldhelm of Malmesbury had a piteous tale to tell, soon after 700. “The +people on the other side the Severn had such a horror of communication +with the West Saxon Christians that they would not pray in the same church +with them or sit at the same table. If a Saxon left anything at a meal, +the Briton threw it to dogs and swine. Before a Briton would condescend to +use a dish or a bottle that had been used by a Saxon, it must be rubbed +with sand or purified with fire. The Briton would not give the Saxon the +salutation or the kiss of peace. If a Saxon went to live across the +Severn, the Britons would hold no communication with him till he had been +made to endure a penance of forty days.” There is quite a modern air about +this pitiful tale of love lost between the Celt and the Saxon<small><a name="f46.1" id="f46.1" href="#f46">[46]</a></small>. Matthew +of Westminster, writing in the fourteenth century, carries the hostility +down to his time, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>in words which leave us in no doubt as to their +sincerity. “Those who fled to Wales have never to this day ceased their +hatred of the Angles. They sally forth from their mountains like mice from +caverns, and will take no ransom from a captive save his head.”</p> + +<p>Another result of the consideration, which I have suggested, of the date +and manner of the Christianising of Ireland, is the probability that the +Irish Church and the remains of the British Church had some not +inconsiderable differences of practice. This is a point which it would be +well worth while to examine closely, but we cannot do it now. Laurentius +and Mellitus at first supposed that the Britons and the Scots were the +same in their habits; then they supposed that they must be different; then +they found they were the same. But this was the habit of hostility to the +Italian mission in England, and that can scarcely be classed among +religious practices. It is too much assumed that the British Church and +the Celtic Church were the same in their differences from the Church of +the continent. To take one most important point, while they differed from +the Church Catholic in their computation of Easter, they differed from +each other in the basis of their computation. The British Church<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> used the +cycle of years<small><a name="f47.1" id="f47.1" href="#f47">[47]</a></small> arranged by Sulpicius Severus, the disciple of Martin +of Tours, about 410, no doubt introduced to Britain by Germanus; the Irish +Church used the earlier cycle of Anatolius, a Bishop of Laodicea in the +third century. The Council of Arles, in 314, had found that the West, +Britain included, was unanimous in its computation of Easter, and Nicaea, +in 325, settled the question in the same sense. Then came the cycle of +410, of which the British were aware, and not the Irish. Then came +another, in this way. Hilary, Archdeacon and afterwards Bishop of Rome, +wrote in 457 to Victorius of Aquitaine to consult him about the Paschal +cycle. The result was the calculation of a new cycle, which was authorised +by the Council of Orleans in 541. It was this newer cycle of which the +British Church was found to be ignorant, and their ignorance of it is +eloquent proof of the isolation into which the ravages of the invading +English had driven them. One of the indications of difference between the +Irish and the British Church is rather amusing. When the Irish had +conformed <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>to Roman customs, well on in the seventh century, they solemnly +rebuked the Britons of Wales for cutting themselves off from the Western +Church.</p> + +<p>We are not to suppose that the only intercourse with Ireland was through +Britain by way of the English Channel. The south of Ireland, at least, was +in direct communication with the north-western part of France by sea. When +a province of the Third Lyonese was formed, with Tours as its capital, in +394, its area including Britany and the parts south of that, Martin was +still Bishop of Tours, and he became the metropolitan. He at once sent +into Britany the monasticism which he had founded in Gaul, and it passed +thence direct to the south-west corner of Wales. Thence it passed to +Ireland. We hear of a ship at Nantes, ready to sail to Ireland. And in +Columba’s time, when the Saint was telling them of an accident that was at +that moment happening in Istria, he assured them that in the course of +time Gallican sailors would come and bring the news<small><a name="f48.1" id="f48.1" href="#f48">[48]</a></small>. This double +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>contact must be kept in mind, when we find the south of Ireland different +in Christian tone and temper from the north. It would seem that there were +race-differences too, but on that I must not enter.</p> + +<p>I am not clear that the Irish Church, as such, had anything to do with +missionary enterprise among our pagan English ancestors. Columbanus merely +passed through Britain, on his way to do a much more widely-extended +missionary work in Gaul than Augustine, his contemporary, did in England. +But it is a very different matter when we come to the great off-shoot from +the Irish Church, the vigorous Church whose centre was the island of Hii, +its moving spirit St. Columba. Iona—to adopt the familiar blunder which +makes a <i>u</i> into an <i>n</i> in a name all vowels—Iona did indeed pay back +with a generous hand all and more than all that Ireland had owed to +Britain.</p> + +<p>It was in 563 that St. Columba crossed over from Ireland to north Britain, +with the wonted twelve companions. He established himself in the island of +Hii, the Iouan island, now called Iona. In 565 he went to the mainland, +crossed the central ridge of mountains, and made his way to the residence +of the king of the northern Picts, near “the long lake of the river Ness,” +not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> far from Inverness. Here he found much the same kind of paganism as +Patrick had found in Ireland. The king’s priests and wise men, here as in +Ireland, went by the name of Druids, <i>Magi</i> in Latin, and professed to +have influence with the powers of nature. Here he worked for some nine or +ten years with great success, beginning with the defeat of the Druids in +their attempt to prevent his coming, followed soon after by the baptism of +the king, who appears to have been a monarch of great power and wide rule. +Then Columba devoted himself to his island monastery; and it grew under +his hands and those of his immediate successors, till its fame reached all +lands. Columba died in 597, the very year in which Ethelbert was converted +to Christianity. Thirty-seven years after Columba’s death, his successors +did that for the Northumbrian Angles which the successors of Augustine had +failed to do.</p> + +<p>We shall make a very great mistake if we ridicule or under-rate the power +of the pagan priests, to whom these stories make reference. Classical +mythology treats the gods of Greece and Rome as intensely important +beings: and their priests were dominant. We must assign a like position to +the gods and the priests of our pagan predecessors. When Apollo was +consulted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> in Diocletian’s presence, an answer was given in a hollow +voice, not by the priest, but by Apollo himself, that the oracles were +restrained from answering truly; and the priests said this pointed to the +Christians. And when the entrails of victims were examined in augury on +another of Diocletian’s expeditions, and found not to present the wonted +marks, the chief soothsayer declared that the presence of Christians +caused the failure. Just such scenes were enacted, with at least as much +of tragic earnestness, when Patrick worsted the Druid Lochra in the hall +of Tara, or when Columba baffled the devices of Broichan, the arch-Druid +of Brude, the Pictish king.</p> + +<p>While Columba was doing his great work, Christianity was re-established by +a British king in a part of Britain where it had been obliterated by pagan +Britons, that is, in the territory called Cumbria, extending southwards +from Dumbarton on the Clyde and including our Cumberland. The king was a +Christian; and the question whether Cumbria should be Christian or pagan +was brought to the arbitration of battle. The great fight of Ardderyd, a +few miles north of Carlisle, gave it for Christianity in 573, twenty years +before the period to which our attention is mainly drawn. Kentigern,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> a +native of the territory between the walls, became the apostle of Cumbria. +His mother was Teneu, or Tenoc, and in these railway days she has +re-appeared in a strange guise. From St. Tenoc she has become St. Enoch, +and has given that name to the great railway station in Glasgow, much to +the puzzlement of travellers, who ask when the Old Testament Enoch was +sainted by the Scotch<small><a name="f49.1" id="f49.1" href="#f49">[49]</a></small>. The establishment of Christianity in this +kingdom of Cumbria is said by the Welsh records to have had a great +result. They claim that the first conversion of the northern section of +the Northumbrian Angles, before their relapse, was due to a missionary who +was of the royal family of Cumbria; indeed they appear to assert that +Edwin of Northumbria himself was baptised by this missionary, Rum, or Run, +son of Urbgen or Urien.</p> + +<p>It seems probable that the districts of Britain which we call Wales had in +Romano-British times only one bishopric, that of Caerleon-on-Usk, near +Newport, in Monmouthshire. But as soon as light is seen in the country +again, after the darkness which followed the departure of the Romans, we +find a number of diocesan sees. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>The influx of bishops and their flocks +from the east of the island no doubt had something to do with this, as had +also the territorial re-arrangements under British princes. The secular +divisions probably decided the ecclesiastical. Bangor, St. Asaph, St. +David’s, Llanbadarn, Llandaff, and Llanafanfawr, are the sees of which we +have mention, founded by Daniel, Asaph, David, Paternus, Dubricius, and +Afan. The deaths of these founders date from 584 to 601, so far as the +dates are known. Llanafanfawr was merged in Llanbadarn, and that again in +St. David’s. These dates correspond well with the traditional dates of the +final flight of Christian Britons to Wales, under the pressure of Saxon +conquest. We may, I think, fairly regard this as the remodelling of the +British Church, which once had covered the greater part of the island, in +the narrow corner into which it had now been driven. It is to Bangor, St. +Asaph, St. David’s, and Llandaff, that we are to look, if we wish to see +the ecclesiastical descendants of Restitutus and Eborius and Adelfius, who +in 314 ruled the British Church in those parts of the island which we call +England and Wales, with their seats or sees at London, York, and Caerleon.</p> + +<p>When we come to consider the flight of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> Christian Britons before the +Saxon invaders, it is worth while to consider how far Christianity really +had occupied the land generally, even at the date of its highest +development. The Britons were rather sturdy in their paganism. Their +Galatian kinsfolk were pagans still in the fourth century, to a large +extent. Their kinsfolk in Gaul were pagans to a large extent as late as +350. It seems to me not improbable that a good many of the Britons stayed +behind when the Christian Britons fled before the heathen Saxons; and that +the flocks whom British bishops led to places of safety, in Britany and +the mountains of Britain, may have been not very numerous. If on the whole +the fugitives were chiefly from the municipal centres, places so +completely destroyed as their ruins prove them to have been, the few +Christians left in the country places would easily relapse. But they would +retain the Christian tradition; and from them or their children would come +such information as that which enabled Wilfrid to identify, and recover +for Christ, the sacred places of British Christianity.</p> + +<p>We should, I think, make a serious mistake if we supposed that the British +Church in Cornwall and Devon was originally formed by fugitives from other +parts of the island. The monuments<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> seem to shew that Christianity was +established there as well as in other parts of Britain in Romano-British +times. Such monuments as we find there and in Wales do not exist in other +parts of the island where the British Church existed; and it is an +interesting and important question, is that because these parts were +unlike the other parts, or is it because in other parts the processes of +agriculture and building have broken up the old stones with their rude +inscriptions? We now and then come across a warning that the total absence +of monumental remains in a place may not mean that there never were any. +Many of you would say with confidence that we certainly have not +monumental remains from the original cathedral church of St. Paul’s, built +in the first years of Christianity and burned after the Conquest. But we +have. They found some years ago a Danish headstone, with a runic +inscription of the date of Canute, twenty feet below the present surface +of the churchyard. You can see it in the Guildhall Library, or a cast of +it in our library here. I have no doubt there are many such, if we could +dig.</p> + +<p>But it is of course impossible here to enter upon the evidence of the +monumental inscriptions. They deserve courses of lectures to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> themselves. +I may say that the language of the inscriptions connected with the British +Church is Latin, while in Ireland the vernacular is used, quite simply at +the great monastic centres of Clonmacnois and Monasterboice; markedly +Latinised at Lismore, the place of study of the south. In Cornwall the +inscriptions are mostly very curt, just “A, son of B,” all in the genitive +case, meaning “the monument of A, who was son of B.” In Wales they are +many of them much longer, and some of them in exceedingly bad Latin, +certainly not ecclesiastical Latin, almost certainly Latin such as the +Romano-Britons may have talked: “Senacus the presbyter lies here, <i>cum +multitudinem fratrum</i>;” “Carausius lies here, <i>in hoc congeries lapidum</i>.” +One of the British inscriptions in Wales is charmingly characteristic of +the modesty of the race: “Cataman the king lies here, the wisest and most +thought-of of all kings.” Cataman, by the way, is identified with Cadfan, +and Cadfan in his lifetime told the Abbat of Bangor his mind in very +Celtic style as follows (evidently he made a point of living up to his +epitaph): “If the Cymry believe all that Rome believes, that is as strong +a reason for Rome obeying us, as for us obeying Rome.”</p> + +<p>The question of the inscriptions is complicated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> by a very remarkable +phenomenon. There are in South Wales, at its western part, a large number +of what are called Ogam inscriptions, and in Devon there are one or +two<small><a name="f50.1" id="f50.1" href="#f50">[50]</a></small>. In the south of Ireland there are large numbers. Outside these +islands no such thing is known in the whole world. The language is early +Gaelic, that is, the monuments belong to the Celtic, not to the British +people<small><a name="f51.1" id="f51.1" href="#f51">[51]</a></small>. The formula is “(the monument) of A, son of B.” In Wales the +Ogam is frequently accompanied by a boldly cut Latin inscription to the +same effect<small><a name="f52.1" id="f52.1" href="#f52">[52]</a></small>, with just such differences as help to shew us how the +Ogam cutters pronounced their letters. My own explanation of the Ogam +system is that it represents the signs made with the fingers in cryptic +speech, used as very simple for cutting on stone when the need for mystery +was at an end, that is to say, in all probability, when Druidism was just +dying out, and the practice of committing nothing to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>writing had ceased +to be a religious observance. I merely mention these things to add another +to the many varied and interesting problems which are forced upon us by a +consideration of our fore-elder, the British Church.</p> + +<p>It is time to draw towards a conclusion of this hasty scramble over a full +field.</p> + +<p>If any one asks, where is the old Irish Church now? Dr. Todd, in his Life +of St. Patrick (1864), gives in effect the following answer: ‘The Danish +bishops of Waterford and Dublin in the eleventh century entirely ignored +the Irish Church and the successors of St. Patrick; they received +consecration from the see of Canterbury; and from that time there were two +Churches in Ireland. Then, the Anglo-Norman settlers of the twelfth +century ignored the native bishops, on very high authority. Pope Adrian +the Fourth, who was himself an Englishman, claimed possession of Ireland +under the supposed donation of Constantine, as being an island. He gave it +to Henry the Second, charging him to convert to the true Christian faith +the ignorant and uncivilised tribes who inhabited it, and to exterminate +the nurseries of vices, and—with an eye to business—to pay to St. Peter +a penny in every year for every house in the country. It is clear that +there was to be no recognition of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> the old Irish Church. In 1367 the Irish +Parliament at Kilkenny enacted the famous Statute of Kilkenny. It was made +penal to present any Irishman to an ecclesiastical benefice, and penal for +any religious house within the English pale to receive any Irishman to +their profession. Three archbishops and five bishops were to excommunicate +all who violated the act. These prelates were all appointed by papal +provision; some were consecrated at Avignon; their names tell the old +story, Galatian biting Galatian, Celt devouring Celt. There were among the +excommunicators an O’Carroll, an O’Grada, and an O’Cormacan. And so it +came that when the Anglo-Irish Church accepted the Reformation, the old +Irish Church was extinct.’ My next sentence is quoted exactly from Dr. +Todd. “Missionary bishops and priests, therefore, ordained abroad, were +sent into Ireland to support the interests of Rome; and from them is +derived a third Church, in close communion with the see of Rome, which has +now assumed the forms and dimensions of a national established religion.”</p> + +<p>If any one asks, where is the old Scottish Church now? Dr. Skene in his +Celtic Scotland gives in effect the following answer. ‘The old Scottish +Church was a monastic system. It worked well as long as the ecclesiastical +character<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> of the monasteries was preserved. But the assimilation to Rome +introduced secular clergy, side by side with the monastic clergy, and this +ended in the establishment of a parochial system and a diocesan +episcopacy, which still further isolated the old church in its +monasteries. Then the monasteries themselves fell into the hands of lay +abbats, who held them as hereditary property, and they ceased to be +ecclesiastical establishments. These changes occupied the earlier part of +the twelfth century. About the middle of that century the Culdees, the +sole remaining representatives of the old order of clergy, were absorbed +into the cathedral chapters by being made regular canons; and thus the +last remains of the old Scottish Church disappeared.’ This was chiefly +done in David’s reign.</p> + +<p>The old Cumbrian Church, that is, the Church of the Britons of +Strathclyde, of which we have spoken under Ninian and Kentigern, had all +but disappeared in the times of confusion and revolution which began with +the Danish invasions. The same David who as king brought the old Scottish +Church to an end, as earl had reconstituted Kentigern’s diocese. The +Culdees who had once formed the chapter had quite disappeared, and +absorption was unnecessary.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> Glasgow had given to it in 1147 the decanal +constitution of Salisbury, by Bishop Herbert, consecrated by the Pope at +Auxerre. About 1133 Whithorn was reconstituted a bishopric, as suffragan +to York; and Carlisle was made a bishopric, as suffragan to York. Other +parts had gone before. Thus all vestiges of the old British Church of +Cumbria had entirely disappeared before 1150.</p> + +<p>The old British Church in Cornwall and Devon came to an end in this way. +In 884 King Alfred formed in Devonshire a West-Saxon see, and made Asser +the Saxon Bishop. Cornwall was made to undergo several changes, and at +last, in 1050, was merged in the see of Exeter. It is a matter of very +great difficulty to approach to a determination as to where the British +see of Cornwall, or of Cornwall and Devon, really was,—or the sees, if +there were more than one. All record has perished.</p> + +<p>If any one asks, where is the old British Church of what is now England? +the answer is very different. The old Church is living still. The Bishops +of the four dioceses of Wales rule it still. There is a curious irony in +the historical contrast between 594 and 1894, in calling attention to +which I make and mean no political remark. Political remarks in this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> +place, on this occasion, from one who could not if he would, and would not +if he could, dissociate himself from membership of a corporate body, with +the reticence which that position sometimes enjoins, and who hopes that +his audience is very far from being composed of persons of one set of +political views only, political remarks would be merely offensive. The +contrast is this. In 594, the Christian bishops of Britain had fled before +the pagan English and established themselves in Wales, where they +gradually gathered endowments for their holy purposes. In 1894, it is a +question of the day whether the Christian English will disestablish them +and assign their endowments to purposes less holy.</p> + +<p>The old British Church of what is now Wales of course exists still in +Wales, with a history quite unbroken from the earliest centuries. If we +must specially localise it, St. David’s probably is its most direct +representative. But it is not possible to draw any clear line between the +representatives of the Church in Wales before the English occupation of +Britain, and the present representatives of those who fled to Wales to +escape from the pagan English.</p> + +<p>Just one or two remarks on peculiarities of the Church in Britain.</p> + +<p>I have spoken of the writings of Fastidius<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> and Gildas, and have accepted +as genuine the writings ascribed to St. Patrick. In all of these we find +quotations from the Scripture, and they tell us what is very interesting +about the version from which they quote. A hundred or a thousand years +hence it will be quite easy for those who read—say—the sermon delivered +at St. Paul’s last Sunday afternoon, to determine whether the preacher +used the Authorised or the Revised Version. So we can tell with ease +whether a writer about 430, or 470, or 570, used Jerome’s Vulgate Version, +or the earlier and ruder Latin Version which preceded it. Of that ruder +version there were many differing editions—so to call them. Jerome got a +number of copies of it, before setting to work, and he found almost as +many differing revisions as there were copies.</p> + +<p>Now Fastidius, writing about 430, in the time when intercourse with Gaul +and Italy was still full, affords clear evidence that he knew, and on +occasion used, the Vulgate. But the Vulgate was very new then, and he much +more frequently quoted from the older version. Patrick, fifty years later, +has indications that he had some slight knowledge of the Vulgate, if +indeed these indications be not due to copyists. Instead of advance in +knowledge, Patrick’s writing shews isolation from the sources of new +knowledge.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> Gildas, on the other hand, 100 years later, but while Britain +was all under the heel of the pagan Saxon, and cut off from the Christian +world, shews a very clear advance in the use of the newer version, as +might be expected from one of the leading men in the great seminary of +South Wales. It seems to me that this strengthens the belief that from and +after the time of Martin of Tours, South Wales had means of access to +continental scholarship by way of Britany, and not through Britain only.</p> + +<p>The point of special interest that comes out in all this investigation of +the details of differences in quotations, is, that the edition, or +recension, of the Old Version, used by British writers, was unlike any now +known. It was, so far as we can ascertain, peculiar to themselves.</p> + +<p>We learn from Gildas that the British Church had one rite at least +peculiar to itself, that of anointing the hands at ordination. The lessons +from Holy Scripture, too, used at ordination, were different both from the +Gallican and from the Roman use. In the early Anglo-Saxon Church this +anointing the hands of deacons, priests, and bishops, was retained; hence +it seems probable that other rites at ordination in the early Anglo-Saxon +Church, which we cannot trace to any other source, were British. Such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> +were, the prayer at giving the stole to deacons, the delivering the +Gospels to deacons, the investing the priests with the stole.</p> + +<p>And what of the administration of the Two Sacraments? To their manner of +administering the Holy Communion, Augustine did not raise objection. To +their Baptism, he did. What, in detail, the objection was, we do not know. +It is a very curious fact that the actual words to be used in baptising +are omitted in the Stowe Missal, where full directions as to various rites +connected with Baptism are given. If we may judge from some correspondence +of Gregory at this date with Spain, it was probably a question between +single immersion and immersion three times. Gregory, with a freedom of +concession in which he more than any one in like position allowed himself, +advised the retention of single immersion in Spain, because of the +peculiar position of Spain with respect to Arianism. There was, curiously +enough, a British bishopric in Spain at that very time.</p> + +<p>To speak of the Holy Eucharist, a course of lectures, instead of a +sentence in one lecture, might afford space not wholly inadequate. +Augustine wrote to Gregory to ask what he was to do, as he found the +custom of Masses<small><a name="f53.1" id="f53.1" href="#f53">[53]</a></small> in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>the Church of the Gauls (Galliarum) different +from the Roman. Gregory replied that whatever seemed to Augustine the most +suitable, whether in the Roman use or in that of the Gauls, or in the use +of any other Church, that he should adopt; and having thus made a +collection of all that seemed best, he should form it into one whole, and +establish that among the English. Gregory actually himself added words to +the Roman Canon of the Mass, so free did he feel himself to deal with such +points. Augustine went so far in this direction of recognising other +liturgies, that he told the Britons if they would agree with him about +Easter and Baptism, and help him to convert the English, he on his part +would tolerate all their other customs, though contrary to his own. +Gildas, thirty years before, stated directly that the Britons were +contrary to the whole world, and hostile to the Roman custom, both in the +Mass and in the tonsure. A very early Irish statement, usually accepted as +historical, shews that the British custom of the Mass was different from +that which the Irish had from St. Patrick: that this British <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>custom was +introduced into Ireland by Bishop David, Gildas, and Docus, the Britons, +say about 560; and that from that time till 666 there were different +Masses used in Ireland.</p> + +<p>The South of Ireland accepted the Roman Easter in 634, and the North in +692; so this date 666 is not unlikely. But it was centuries before the old +national rites really died out in Ireland. Malachy, the great Romaniser, +Bishop of Armagh 1134-1148, was the first Irish bishop to wear the Roman +pallium. He established in all his churches the customs of the Roman +Church.</p> + +<p>It may be as well to state approximately the dates at which differences of +practice disappeared in the several parts of our own island.</p> + +<p>The English of Northumbria abandoned the insular Easter in 664.</p> + +<p>The Britons of Strathclyde conformed to the English usages in 688; the +first British bishop to conform in that district was present at a Council +at Rome in 721, where he signs himself “Sedulius, a bishop of Britain, by +race a Scot.”</p> + +<p>Pictish Scotland, and also Iona, adopted the Catholic rites between 710 +and 717.</p> + +<p>The Britons of North Wales did not conform to the usages adopted by the +Anglo-Saxon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> Church till 768; those of South Wales till 777.</p> + +<p>My object in these last cursory remarks has not been, I really need not +say, to convey information in detail on the difficult and intricate points +to which I have referred<small><a name="f54.1" id="f54.1" href="#f54">[54]</a></small>. It has been simply this, to shew how very +real, and substantial, and fully equipped, and independent, was the Church +existing in all parts of these islands, save only the parts of Britain +occupied by the pagan Jutes and Saxons and Angles, at the time when +Augustine came; came with his monks from Rome, his interpreters from Gaul. +I do not say that there were no pagans left then in parts of Scotland and +of Ireland and perhaps of Wales, but the knowledge of the Lord covered the +earth, save where the English were.</p> + +<p>The impression left on my mind by a study of the face of our islands in +the year 594, thirteen hundred years ago, is that of the pause, the hush, +which precedes the launch of a great ship. The ship is the Church of +England. In the providence of God, all was prepared; Christian forces all +around were ready to play their <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>part; unconsciously ready, but ready; +passively ready, needing to be called into play. There were obstacles +enough, but obstacles removable; obstacles that would be removed. The +English had been the first to act. They desired to move. They had called +across the narrow sea to the Gauls to come over and help them. But there +was no voice, nor any that answered. Once in motion, its own momentum +would soon carry the ship beyond the need of the aids that helped it move. +Who should touch the spring, and give the initiation of motion?</p> + +<p>Far away, in Rome, there was a man with eagle eye, who saw that the moment +had come. In wretched health, tried continually by severe physical pain, +his own surroundings enough to break down the spirit of any but the +strongest of men; with all his sore trials, he was never weary of well +doing. He was called upon to rule the Church of Rome at one of the very +darkest of its many times of trial. Pestilence was rife; it had carried +off his predecessor. Italy was overrun by enemies. The celibate life had +for long found so many adherents, that defenders of the country were few; +children were not born to fill the gaps of pestilence and war. Husbandry +was abandoned. The distress was so great, so universal, that the +conviction<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> was held in the highest quarters that those were the fearful +sights and great signs heralding the end of the world.</p> + +<p>And even more than by these secular troubles was he that then ruled the +Roman Church tried by ecclesiastical difficulties. Arianism, so far from +being at an end, dominant or threatening wherever the Goths and the +Lombards were; and where were they not? Donatism once again raising its +head in Africa, and lifting its hands of violence; controversies a hundred +and fifty years old, about Nestorianism, breaking into fresh life, +threatening fresh divisions of the seamless robe of Christ. He thus +described the church he ruled:—“an old and shattered ship; leaking on all +sides; its timbers rotten; shaken by daily storms; sounding of wreck.”</p> + +<p>He it was that in the midst of trials much as these, his own ship on the +point of foundering, touched the spring that launched the English Church. +Moving very slowly at first; seriously checked now and again; brought up +shivering once and more than once; the forces round it not playing their +part with a will; some of them even opposing; it still went on and +gathered way. As time went on, it took on board one source of strength +that most had stood aloof; for many centuries the British<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> Church has +formed part of the ship’s company. And still the ship goes gallantly on, +gathering way; the Grace of God, we hopefully and humbly believe, +sustaining and guiding it; guiding it, through unquiet seas, to the +destined haven of eternal peace and rest.</p> + +<p>The man who in the providence of God touched the spring, was Gregory, the +Bishop of Rome. Let God be thanked for him.</p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h4>OXFORD: HORACE HART. PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY</h4> + + +<p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="adverts"> +<h2>PUBLICATIONS</h2> +<h3>OF THE</h3> +<h2><span class="smcap">Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge</span>.</h2> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>HISTORY OF INDIA.</i></p> + +<p>From the Earliest Times to the Present Day. By Captain <span class="smcap">L. J. Trotter</span>. With +eight full-page Woodcuts on toned paper, and numerous smaller Woodcuts. Post 8vo. Cloth boards, 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>SCENES IN THE EAST.</i></p> + +<p>Consisting of twelve Coloured Photographic Views of Places mentioned in +the Bible, beautifully executed, with Descriptive Letterpress. By the Rev. +<span class="smcap">Canon Tristram</span>, Author of “Bible Places,” “The Land of Israel,” &c. 4to. +Cloth, bevelled boards, gilt edges, 6<i>s.</i></p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>SINAI AND JERUSALEM; OR, SCENES FROM BIBLE LANDS.</i></p> + +<p>Consisting of Coloured Photographic Views of Places mentioned in the +Bible, including a Panoramic View of Jerusalem with Descriptive +Letterpress. By the Rev. <span class="smcap">F. W. Holland</span>, M.A., Demy 4to. Cloth, bevelled +boards, gilt edges, 6<i>s.</i></p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>BIBLE PLACES; OR, THE TOPOGRAPHY OF THE HOLY LAND.</i></p> + +<p>A succinct account of all the Places, Rivers, and Mountains of the Land of +Israel mentioned in the Bible, so far as they have been identified; +together with their modern names and historical references. By the Rev. +<span class="smcap">Canon Tristram</span>. With Map. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 4<i>s.</i></p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>THE LAND OF ISRAEL.</i></p> + +<p>A Journal of Travel in Palestine, undertaken with special reference to its +Physical Character. By the Rev. <span class="smcap">Canon Tristram</span>. Fourth edition, revised. +With Maps and numerous Illustrations. Large post 8vo. Cloth boards, 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>NARRATIVE OF A MODERN PILGRIMAGE THROUGH PALESTINE ON HORSEBACK, AND WITH +TENTS.</i></p> + +<p>By the Rev. <span class="smcap">Alfred Charles Smith</span>, M.A., Rector of Yatesbury, Wilts, Author +of “The Attractions of the Nile,” &c. Numerous Illustrations and four Coloured Plates. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 5<i>s.</i></p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BIBLE.</i></p> + +<p>By the Rev. <span class="smcap">Canon Tristram</span>, Author of “Bible Places,” &c. With numerous +Woodcuts. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>A HISTORY OF THE JEWISH NATION.</i></p> + +<p>From the Earliest Times to the Present Day. By the late <span class="smcap">E. H. Palmer</span>, +M.A., Author of “The Desert of the Exodus,” &c. With Map of Palestine and +numerous Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 4<i>s.</i></p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>THE ART TEACHING OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH.</i></p> + +<p>With an Index of Subjects, Historical and Emblematic. By the Rev. <span class="smcap">R. St. John Tyrwhitt</span>. Cloth boards, 5<i>s.</i></p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>AUSTRALIA’S HEROES.</i></p> + +<p>Being a slight Sketch of the most prominent amongst the band of gallant +men who devoted their lives and energies to the cause of Science, and the +development of the Fifth Continent. By <span class="smcap">C. H. Eden</span>, Esq., Author of +“Fortunes of the Fletchers,” &c. With Map. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 5<i>s.</i></p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>SOME HEROES OF TRAVEL;<br />OR,<br /> +CHAPTERS FROM THE HISTORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY AND ENTERPRISE.</i></p> + +<p>Compiled and re-written by <span class="smcap">W. H. Davenport Adams</span>, Author of “Great English +Churchmen,” &c. With Map. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 5<i>s.</i></p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>CHRISTIANS UNDER THE CRESCENT IN ASIA.</i></p> + +<p>By the Rev. <span class="smcap">Edward L. Cutts</span>, B.A., Author of “Turning Points of Church +History,” &c. With numerous Illustrations. Post 8vo. Cloth boards, 5<i>s.</i></p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>HEROES OF THE ARCTIC AND THEIR ADVENTURES.</i></p> + +<p>By <span class="smcap">Frederick Whymper</span>, Esq., Author of “Travels in Alaska.” With Map, Eight +full-page and numerous small Woodcuts. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>CHINA.</i></p> + +<p>By Professor <span class="smcap">Robert K. Douglas</span>, of the British Museum. With Map, and eight +full-page Illustrations on toned paper, and several Vignettes. Post 8vo. Cloth boards, 5<i>s.</i></p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>RUSSIA: PAST AND PRESENT.</i></p> + +<p>Adapted from the German of Lankenau and Oelnitz. By Mrs. <span class="smcap">Chester</span>. With +Map, and three full-page Woodcuts and Vignettes. Post 8vo. Cloth boards, 5<i>s.</i></p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">Depositories:<br /> +LONDON: NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C.<br /> +43, <span class="smcap">Queen Victoria Street</span>, E.C.<br /> +BRIGHTON: 135, <span class="smcap">North Street</span>.</p></div> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><b>Footnotes:</b></p> + +<p><a name="f1" id="f1" href="#f1.1">[1]</a> Laurentius, Mellitus, and Justus agreed that it was better for them to +go back to their own country, and there serve God with minds at rest, than +to live fruitlessly among barbarians who had revolted from the faith +(Bede, ii. 5). It was in pursuance of this resolution that Mellitus and +Justus crossed the Channel, and Laurentius prepared to follow them.</p> + +<p><a name="f2" id="f2" href="#f2.1">[2]</a> The last decade of the century usually played an important part in the +period which our present consideration covers. From 190 to 200, +Christianity made such progress in Britain as to justify the remark of +Tertullian quoted on page 54. From 290 to 300, Constantius secured his +position. From 390 to 400, the last great stand against the barbarian +invaders on the north was made by the help of Roman arms. From 490 to 500, +the great victory of the Britons under Ambrosius Aurelianus over the +Saxons rolled back for many years the English advance. From 590 to 600, +the Christianising of the English began to be a fact.</p> + +<p><a name="f3" id="f3" href="#f3.1">[3]</a> See page 96.</p> + +<p><a name="f4" id="f4" href="#f4.1">[4]</a> Ecclesiastical History of the Franks, ix. 37.</p> + +<p><a name="f5" id="f5" href="#f5.1">[5]</a> Page 120.</p> + +<p><a name="f6" id="f6" href="#f6.1">[6]</a> <i>Daily Chronicle</i>, June 30, 1893.</p> + +<p><a name="f7" id="f7" href="#f7.1">[7]</a> <i>Standard</i>, May 30, 1893.</p> + +<p><a name="f8" id="f8" href="#f8.1">[8]</a> <i>Anglo-Saxon Chronicle</i> (late Canterbury copy). Green, <i>Making of +England</i>, p. 111.</p> + +<p><a name="f9" id="f9" href="#f9.1">[9]</a> There is a very interesting discussion in a recent book, <i>The History +of St. Martin’s Church, Canterbury</i>, by the Rev. C. F. Routledge, Honorary +Canon of Canterbury, on the meaning of this statement (pages 120, &c.). It +seems to me clear that Bede believed the church in question to have been +dedicated to St. Martin while the Romans were still in the land. As Martin +was living up to 397, and the Roman empire in Britain ended in 407, there +is not much time for a dedication to this particular Martin. But our ideas +of dedications are very different from those which guided the nomenclature +of churches in the earliest centuries of Christianity here. If Martin +himself ever lived at Canterbury, and had this church, the difficulty +would disappear.</p> + +<p><a name="f10" id="f10" href="#f10.1">[10]</a> The contradictory instructions given by Gregory on the question of +using heathen temples for Christian worship are rather puzzling. They are +found in a letter to Mellitus, dated June 15, 601, and in a letter to +Augustine, dated June 22, 601. The surmise of Messrs. Haddan and Stubbs +that the former date is wrong, and that the letter to Mellitus was later +than that to Augustine, is reasonable, and solves the puzzle. On this +view, Gregory wrote to Augustine, on June 22, 601, to the effect that the +idol-temples must be destroyed. This letter, as we know, he gave to +Mellitus, who was in Rome, to be brought by him to England. Then, a few +days later, perhaps on June 27, he sent a short letter to Mellitus, to say +that he had carefully considered the matter, and had decided that if an +idol-temple was well built, it should be cleansed, and consecrated to the +service of Christ. It is an interesting fact that the earliest historical +testimony to the existence and martyrdom of St. George, who was recognised +for so many centuries as the Patron of England, is found in an inscription +in a church in southern Syria, dating from about the year 346, stating +that the church had been a heathen temple, and was dedicated as a church +in honour of the “great martyr” St. George.</p> + +<p><a name="f11" id="f11" href="#f11.1">[11]</a> Known as the Goidelic branch of the Celtic race.</p> + +<p><a name="f12" id="f12" href="#f12.1">[12]</a> The names Galatae and Celtae are not improbably the same word, the +latter name being pronounced with a short vowel between the <i>l</i> and the +<i>t</i>, as though spelled Celătae or Celŭtae. It is in fact so +pronounced to this day in many parts of the island.</p> + +<p><a name="f13" id="f13" href="#f13.1">[13]</a> Known as the Brythonic branch of the race.</p> + +<p><a name="f14" id="f14" href="#f14.1">[14]</a> As has been already remarked, they are now generally described as the +Brythonic and Goidelic branches of the Celtic race.</p> + +<p><a name="f15" id="f15" href="#f15.1">[15]</a> Or with ab, as Bevan and Baddam, that is, ab Evan and ab Adam. Map +and mab, ap and ab, stand for “son.”</p> + +<p><a name="f16" id="f16" href="#f16.1">[16]</a> St. Peter is now being claimed as one of the Apostles of Britain; but +it is impossible to deal seriously with such a proposition. A pamphlet +with this view was issued in 1893, by the Reverend W. Fleming, M. R. +Cardinal Baronius, holding the view that St. Peter lived long in Rome, +felt the difficulty which any one with the historic sense must feel, that +St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans makes no mention of St. Peter as +being then in Rome, nor does the history in the last chapters of the Acts. +The explanation given is that St. Peter, though permanently resident in +Rome, was away from home on these occasions. As there is no trace of him +in any known country at the time, Britain is taken as the place of his +sojourn during some of the later years of St. Paul, probably as the +country where traces of his sojourn were least likely to be found on +record. Mr. Fleming quotes a passage from a book written in 1609 by the +second “Vicar Apostolic of England and Scotland,” which is only too +typical an example of a style of assertion and argument of which we might +have hoped that we had seen the last. “I assure the indifferent reader, +that St. Peter’s preaching to the ancient Britons, on the one side is +affirmed both by Latins and Greeks, by ancient and modern, by foreign and +domestic, by Catholic writers..., by Protestant antiquaries...; and on the +other side, denied by no one ancient writer, Greek or Latin, foreign or +domestic, Catholic or other.”</p> + +<p><a name="f17" id="f17" href="#f17.1">[17]</a> Archdeacon Prescott informs me that in an early deed in the MS. +Register of Lanercost Priory there is mention made of a <i>capella de +virgis</i>, a chapel of wattle-work, at Treverman (Triermain). Divine Service +was celebrated there by consent of Egelwin, the last Anglo-Saxon Bishop of +Durham.</p> + +<p><a name="f18" id="f18" href="#f18.1">[18]</a> Some writers, not aware of the extent to which wattle-work can be +used and has been used, have said that <i>virgea</i> must in this connection +mean “made of boards,” not of wattle. There seems to be no sufficient +reason for putting this interpretation upon a well-known word. And even if +it had that meaning, we should find in the recently revealed British +marsh-fortress an equally good illustration of their skill in working +boards. The principal causeway is faced with oak boards on its two +vertical sides. These are kept in their place by carefully squared oak +posts, driven deep into the ground below, so that their tops are level +with the surface of the causeway. The tops of the posts are morticed, and +a bar of oak, across the causeway, is let into the tops of the two posts +opposite to one another, and is fastened there with oak pegs. Thus the +boards which face the vertical sides of the causeway are clamped tight in +their places. The work is done throughout with extreme neatness of fit and +finish.</p> + +<p><a name="f19" id="f19" href="#f19.1">[19]</a> Juvenal, <i>Satires</i>, xii. 46; Martial, <i>Epigrams</i>, xiv. 99.</p> + +<p><a name="f20" id="f20" href="#f20.1">[20]</a> <i>Ep.</i> xi. 53.</p> + +<p><a name="f21" id="f21" href="#f21.1">[21]</a> <i>Wars of the Jews</i>, vi. 6.</p> + +<p><a name="f22" id="f22" href="#f22.1">[22]</a> <i>Annals</i>, xiv. 32, 33.</p> + +<p><a name="f23" id="f23" href="#f23.1">[23]</a> That is, in December 1893, in the war with the Matabele.</p> + +<p><a name="f24" id="f24" href="#f24.1">[24]</a> It is added that in the eventual revenge of the Romans, some eighty +thousand of the Britons were killed. These numbers seem at first sight +very large, too large to be historical. But we may bear in mind that +Caesar a hundred years before had noted with surprise the populousness of +Britain—<i>hominum infinita multitudo</i>, countless swarms of men.</p> + +<p><a name="f25" id="f25" href="#f25.1">[25]</a> See p. 117. As I have found myself obliged by historical +considerations to abandon the interesting old tradition of King Lucius, I +may as well give in a note some details of the story which have special +interest for us in London. It may be mentioned as a preliminary, that +Gildas (about <span class="smcap">a. d.</span> 560) makes no reference to the story. Bede, who usually +follows Gildas, gets his information about Lucius from the Roman +Chronicle, as enlarged in the time of Prosper. But he gives two different +dates, in one place (i. 4) <span class="smcap">a. d.</span> 156, which is inconsistent with the names +of the reigning emperors as given by him, and in another place (the +summary at the end of book v) after <span class="smcap">a. d.</span> 167. The earliest British +testimony to the story is that of Nennius, in the ninth century. He tells +us that Lucius was called Lleur maur, the great light, because of this +event.</p> + +<p>The fully developed story is quoted by Dugdale (<i>History of St. Paul’s</i>, +p. 2) from a MS. in the possession of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s +before the fire of 1666, as follows:—‘In the year 185 Pope Eleutherius +sent hither into Britain, at the instance of King Lucius, two eminent +doctors, Faganus and Damianus, to the end that they might instruct him and +his subjects in the principles of Christian religion, and consecrate such +churches as had been dedicated to divers false gods, unto the honour of +the true God: whereupon these holy men consecrated three metropolitical +sees in the three chief cities of the island, unto which they subjected +divers bishopricks: the first at London, whereunto all England, from the +banks of Humber southwards, and Severn eastward, belonged: the second, +York, which contained all beyond Humber northwards, together with +Scotland: the third, Caerleon (upon Uske) whereunto all westward of +Severn, with Wales totally, were subject. All which continued so till +Augustine (who was sent by Pope Gregory) in the year 604 after the birth +of our Saviour, having translated the primacy to Canterbury, constituted +Mellitus the first bishop of London.’</p> + +<p>The Church of St. Peter upon Cornhill claims to have been the Cathedral +Church of London, as founded by Lucius. There was a brass plate hanging +‘in the revestrie of Saint Paules at London’ (Hollinshed, <span class="smcap">a. d.</span> 1574), with +a statement to that effect, probably dating from the time of Edward IV. +The old brass plate, now preserved in the vestry of St. Peter’s, Cornhill, +is ‘the old one revived’: except in some of the details it agrees with the +following copy of the plate formerly in the vestry of St. Paul’s as given +by Weever before the fire (<i>Funeral Monuments</i>, <span class="smcap">a. d.</span> 1631, p. 413).</p> + +<p>‘Be hit known to al Men that the yeerys of owr Lord God An. clxxix, +Lucius, the fyrst christen king of this lond, then callyd Brytayne, +fowndyd the fyrst Chyrch in London, that is to sey, the Chyrch of Sent +Peter upon Cornhyl; and he fowndyd ther an Archbishoppys See, and made +that Chirch the Metropolitant and cheef Chirch of this Kindom, and so +enduryd the space of cccc yeerys and more, unto the commyng of Sent +Austen, an Apostyl of Englond, the whych was sent into the lond by Sent +Gregory, the Doctor of the Chirch, in the tym of King Ethelbert, and then +was the Archbyshoppys See and Pol removyd from the aforeseyd Chirch of +Sent Peters apon Cornhyl unto Derebernaum, that now ys callyd Canterbury, +and ther yt remeynyth to this dey.</p> + +<p>‘And Millet Monk, whych came into this lond wyth Sent Austen, was made the +fyrst Bishop of London, and hys See was made in Powllys Chyrch. And this +Lucius, Kyng, was the fyrst Fowndyr of Peters Chyrch apon Cornhyl; and he +regnyd King in this Ilond after Brut mccxlv yeerys. And the yeerys of owr +Lord God a cxxiiii Lucius was crownyd Kyng, and the yeerys of hys reygne +lxxvii yeerys, and he was beryd aftyr sum cronekil at London, and aftyr +sum cronekil he was beryd at Glowcester, at that plase wher the ordyr of +Sent Francys standyth.’</p> + +<p>The records of the Corporation of London shew that in 1399 and 1417 the +Rector of St. Peter’s, Cornhill, had precedence over all Rectors in the +City on this account. ‘An apostolic contention oftentimes arose between +the Rectors of the churches of St. Peter, Cornhill, St. Magnus the Martyr, +and St. Nicholas, Cold Abbey, which of them would seem to be the greater +and by reason of such dignity should occupy the last place in the +procession in the week of Pentecost.’ The Mayor and Aldermen decided that +the Rector of St. Peter’s, ‘of right, and for the honour of that most +sacred Basilica of St. Peter (which was the first church founded in +London, namely, in the year of our Lord 199, by King Lucius, and in which +was the metropolitan see for four hundred years and more) shall go alone +after all the other Rectors of the same City ... as being priors or abbots +over them.’ [From an account of the Church of St. Peter upon Cornhill, by +the Rev. R. Whittington, now Prebendary of St. Paul’s, 1872.]</p> + +<p><a name="f26" id="f26" href="#f26.1">[26]</a> On this important point we may expect some detailed discussion before +long. The interesting publication, recently commenced, of the <i>Supplément +aux Bollandistes pour des vies de Saints de l’époque Mérovingienne</i> +(Dupont, 4 Rue du Bouloi, Paris), will contain a treatise <i>sur +l’évangélisation de l’Angleterre par les soins du roi Lucius</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="f27" id="f27" href="#f27.1">[27]</a> The French ecclesiastics claim the foundation of bishoprics at some +of these places in the first century.</p> + +<p><a name="f28" id="f28" href="#f28.1">[28]</a> The language of the traditions would suggest that only the holders of +the principal sees went from Britain, there being other bishops who stayed +at home, in smaller places. Bishoprics rapidly increased in number in the +early Anglo-Saxon Church; indeed, the number of bishoprics in England +remained almost stationary from Bede’s time to Henry VIII. In the time of +Archbishop Tatwine, who was contemporary with the last years of Bede, +there were seventeen bishoprics, counting Whithorn, and at the beginning +of Henry VIII’s reign there were eighteen, counting Man; the Welsh +bishoprics are not included in these numbers. Dunwich and Elmham, +Sherborne, Selsey, Lindisfarne, Lindsey, in Tatwine’s time, were +represented respectively by Norwich, Salisbury, Chichester, Durham, +Lincoln, in Henry VIII’s time. Leicester, Hexham, Whithorn, had +disappeared, and Bath, Carlisle, Ely, Exeter, Man, had come into +existence.</p> + +<p><a name="f29" id="f29" href="#f29.1">[29]</a> See page 59.</p> + +<p><a name="f30" id="f30" href="#f30.1">[30]</a> Any one writing of these early times has to exercise great +self-restraint, if he is not to overload his subject with interesting +illustrations. I cannot refrain from quoting here two paragraphs from Bede +(iii. 15) which shew that there was a curious knowledge of the property of +oil in England in the seventh century, about 651 <span class="smcap">a. d.</span></p> + +<p>A certain priest, whose name was Utta, a man of great gravity and +sincerity, and on that account honoured by all men, even the princes of +the world, being ordered to Kent, to bring from thence, as wife for King +Oswy, Eanfleda, the daughter of King Edwin, who had been carried thither +when her father was killed; and intending to go thither by land, but to +return with the virgin by sea; repaired to Bishop Aldan, entreating him to +offer up his prayers to our Lord for him and his company, who were then to +set out on their journey. He, blessing and recommending them to our Lord, +at the same time gave them some holy oil, saying, “I know that when you go +aboard, you will meet with a storm and contrary wind; but do you remember +to cast this oil I give you into the sea, and the wind shall cease +immediately, you will have pleasant calm weather, and return home safe.”</p> + +<p>All which fell out as the bishop had predicted. For in the first place, +the winds raging, the sailors endeavoured to ride it out at anchor, but +all to no purpose; for the sea breaking in on all sides, and the ship +beginning to be filled with water, they all concluded that certain death +was at hand. The priest at last remembering the bishop’s words, laid hold +of the phial and cast some of the oil into the sea, which, as had been +foretold, became presently calm. Thus it came to pass that the man of God, +by the spirit of prophecy, foretold the storm that was to happen, and by +virtue of the same spirit, though absent, appeased the same. Which miracle +was not told me by a person of little credit, but by Cynemund, a most +faithful priest of our church, who declared that it was related to him by +Utta, the priest, on and by whom the same was wrought.</p> + +<p><a name="f31" id="f31" href="#f31.1">[31]</a> The dates of the departures and restorations of the Roman troops may +be stated as follows:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">a. d.</span> 387. Withdrawal of the Roman troops from Britain.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">a. d.</span> 396. A legion sent to guard the Wall.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">a. d.</span> 402. The legion withdrawn.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">a. d.</span> 406. The Roman army restored.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">a. d.</span> 407. Constantine the usurper again withdraws the army.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">a. d.</span> 409. Termination of the Roman empire in Britain.</p></div> + +<p>The last troops no doubt sailed from Richborough, the massive Roman walls +of which have defied the ravages of time. Since these lectures were +delivered, an interesting token of the presence of the Romans has been +found there, a gold coin of Honorius, who was emperor of the West at the +time of the final withdrawal. It has evidently not been in circulation for +more than at most a very short time. Richborough has now been purchased at +the instance of the Archbishop of Canterbury and placed under trustees, +and all treasures found there will be carefully preserved. The great bulk +of the coins and other relics found in recent years was acquired some time +ago for the Liverpool Museum.</p> + +<p><a name="f32" id="f32" href="#f32.1">[32]</a> Haddan and Stubbs, i. 121. The British were not driven from these +parts much before 652-658. Hence, perhaps, the preservation of the old +wattle church, the conquerors being now Christians.</p> + +<p><a name="f33" id="f33" href="#f33.1">[33]</a> The list of sixteen Archbishops is given by Sir T. D. Hardy in his +edition (1854) of Le Neve’s <i>Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae</i>, on the ground +that he did not wish to omit a list given by Godwin; he adds that Wharton +(<i>de episcopis Londin</i>.) believed Restitutus and Fastidius to be the only +names of Bishops of London contained in the list. The names of the +so-called Archbishops are:—1. Theanus; 2. Eluanus; 3. Cadar; 4. Obinus; +5. Conanus; 6. Palladius; 7. Stephanus; 8. Iltutus; 9. Theodwinus, or +Dewynus; 10. Theodredus; 11. Hilarius; 12. Restitutus; 13. Guitelinus; 14. +Fastidius; 15. Vodinus; 16. Theonus. The first on the list is said to have +been made archbishop by King Lucius. The date of the twelfth is of course +314. The fifteenth is said to have been murdered by Hengist for protesting +against the unlawful marriage of Vortigern with Hengist’s daughter Rowena, +about 455; this date of the last but one on the list is consistent with a +view held by some chroniclers that there were no bishops of London between +the beginning of the Saxon invasion and the coming of Augustine.</p> + +<p>It is evident that when the masquerading dress of Latin is taken off the +names, some of them are British.</p> + +<p><a name="f34" id="f34" href="#f34.1">[34]</a> It is unnecessary to say that some writers in the past have assumed +that a metropolitan bishop in early times was of course an archbishop. It +was not so.</p> + +<p><a name="f35" id="f35" href="#f35.1">[35]</a> Augustine does not appear to have been called Archbishop of +Canterbury in his lifetime. He was called Bishop of the English, and +sometimes Archbishop. His epitaph, as given by Bede (ii. 3), described him +as <i>dominus Augustinus Dorovernensis Archiepiscopus primus</i>, “the Lord +Augustine, first Archbishop of Dorovernium” (Canterbury).</p> + +<p><a name="f36" id="f36" href="#f36.1">[36]</a> Bede, i. 29.</p> + +<p><a name="f37" id="f37" href="#f37.1">[37]</a> If, indeed, he is certainly speaking of the same Picts.</p> + +<p><a name="f38" id="f38" href="#f38.1">[38]</a> See page 96.</p> + +<p><a name="f39" id="f39" href="#f39.1">[39]</a> On one stone,—Α et Ω, hic iacent sancti et +praecipui sacerdotes id est Viventius et Mavorius; on the other,—[Piu]s +et Florentius.</p> + +<p><a name="f40" id="f40" href="#f40.1">[40]</a> It has been said confidently that the Alpha and Omega is not found in +Ireland. I found, however, an early stone in the churchyard at Kells with +the Alpha and Omega, the Chi Rho, and the I H S. This is the only case in +which I have seen all three on one monument.</p> + +<p><a name="f41" id="f41" href="#f41.1">[41]</a> In a field near the Almond, at Kirkliston. The inscription is In oc +tumulo iacit Vetta f Victi ... If we take the form used by Bede (i. 15) +<i>Victi</i> would stand for Victigilsi.</p> + +<p><a name="f42" id="f42" href="#f42.1">[42]</a> See page 11.</p> + +<p><a name="f43" id="f43" href="#f43.1">[43]</a> Tacitus, <i>Life of Julius Agricola</i>, ch. 24.</p> + +<p><a name="f44" id="f44" href="#f44.1">[44]</a> See page 59.</p> + +<p><a name="f45" id="f45" href="#f45.1">[45]</a> See page 58.</p> + +<p><a name="f46" id="f46" href="#f46.1">[46]</a> Almost the same details, however, appear in the treatment of Wilfrid +by his fellow-Anglians (Eddi, ch. 49). His opponents so entirely execrated +his fellowship, that if any abbat or priest of his party, bidden by a +faithful layman, made the sign of the cross over the meat, it was cast out +as a thing offered to idols; and any vessel they used was washed before +one of the other side would touch it. Theological differences are a +competent substitute for difference of race.</p> + +<p><a name="f47" id="f47" href="#f47.1">[47]</a> The general idea of the “cycle of years” is that after such-and-such +a number of years the sun and moon and earth return to the same relative +positions. This is fairly true of nineteen years; more closely true of +ninety-five.</p> + +<p><a name="f48" id="f48" href="#f48.1">[48]</a> Adamnan, who tells us this, tells us also that the prophecy was +fulfilled. Lugbe Mocummin was at Cantyre with the Saint some months after, +and found there a ship whose captain told them of the destruction of the +city (now called Citta Nuova). <i>Life of Columba</i>, i. 22.</p> + +<p><a name="f49" id="f49" href="#f49.1">[49]</a> St. Oliver, formed from Santo Liverio (St. Liberius, the Swiss St. +Livres), and San Todo, from St. Odo, are similar cases.</p> + +<p><a name="f50" id="f50" href="#f50.1">[50]</a> One has recently been found at Silchester, much further east than any +other known example.</p> + +<p><a name="f51" id="f51" href="#f51.1">[51]</a> In modern phrase, the Goidelic, not the <ins class="correction" title="original reads 'Bythonic'">Brythonic</ins> branch of the +Celtic race.</p> + +<p><a name="f52" id="f52" href="#f52.1">[52]</a> Thus on the famous stone at St. Dogmael’s, near Cardigan, the first +bilingual inscription of this kind found, the Ogam is <i>sagramni maqi +cunatami</i>, the Latin, <i>sagrani fili cunotami</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="f53" id="f53" href="#f53.1">[53]</a> It is unnecessary to explain that <i>Missa</i>, the Latin equivalent of +Mass, was of course used in Augustine’s time. It was not for centuries +after this that a narrow meaning came to be attached to the words Missa +and Mass, by the introduction and prevalence of the doctrine of +Transubstantiation.</p> + +<p><a name="f54" id="f54" href="#f54.1">[54]</a> Those who desire information on these points will find it in the Rev. +F. E. Warren’s <i>Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church</i>.</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Christian Church in These Islands +before the Coming of Augustine, by George Forrest Browne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THESE ISLANDS *** + +***** This file should be named 31872-h.htm or 31872-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/8/7/31872/ + +Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. 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