The Christian Church in These Islands before the Coming of Augustine

But it is of course impossible here to enter upon the evidence of the monumental inscriptions. They deserve courses of lectures to 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, cum multitudinem fratrum;” “Carausius lies here, in hoc congeries lapidum.” 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.”

The question of the inscriptions is complicated 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 two50. 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 people51. 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 effect52, 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 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.

It is time to draw towards a conclusion of this hasty scramble over a full field.

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 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.”

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 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.

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. 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

Just one or two remarks on peculiarities of the Church in Britain.

I have spoken of the writings of Fastidius 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.

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. 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.

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.

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 were, the prayer at giving the stole to deacons, the delivering the Gospels to deacons, the investing the priests with the stole.

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.

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 Masses53 in 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 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.

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.

It may be as well to state approximately the dates at which differences of practice disappeared in the several parts of our own island.

The English of Northumbria abandoned the insular Easter in 664.

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.”

Pictish Scotland, and also Iona, adopted the Catholic rites between 710 and 717.

The Britons of North Wales did not conform to the usages adopted by the Anglo-Saxon Church till 768; those of South Wales till 777.

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 referred54. 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.

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 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?

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 was held in the highest quarters that those were the fearful sights and great signs heralding the end of the world.

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.”

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 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.

The man who in the providence of God touched the spring, was Gregory, the Bishop of Rome. Let God be thanked for him.

1

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.

2

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.

3

See page 96.

4

Ecclesiastical History of the Franks, ix. 37.

5

Page 120.

6

Daily Chronicle, June 30, 1893.

7

Standard, May 30, 1893.

8

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (late Canterbury copy). Green, Making of England, p. 111.

9

There is a very interesting discussion in a recent book, The History of St. Martin’s Church, Canterbury, 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.

10

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.

11

Known as the Goidelic branch of the Celtic race.

12

The names Galatae and Celtae are not improbably the same word, the latter name being pronounced with a short vowel between the l and the t, as though spelled Celătae or Celŭtae. It is in fact so pronounced to this day in many parts of the island.

13

Known as the Brythonic branch of the race.

14

As has been already remarked, they are now generally described as the Brythonic and Goidelic branches of the Celtic race.

15

Or with ab, as Bevan and Baddam, that is, ab Evan and ab Adam. Map and mab, ap and ab, stand for “son.”

16

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.”

17

Archdeacon Prescott informs me that in an early deed in the MS. Register of Lanercost Priory there is mention made of a capella de virgis, a chapel of wattle-work, at Treverman (Triermain). Divine Service was celebrated there by consent of Egelwin, the last Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Durham.