Ecclesiastica Celtica

 



Ecclesiastica Celtica

A compelling account of the primitive Church in Romano-British society. 
 

A few years ago I undertook the task of reading the 16 volume lives of the Saints by Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924). (The edition I read was published in 1898 by John C. Nimmo.)

You might ask ‘why?’ which is understandable. There are several answers to this question, not the least being that my interest in the spiritual life of humanity meant that at some point in time I should at least take a look at it.

In volume 16, there are two lengthy essays concerning the history of the primitive Christian Church in Britain. In these essays Baring-Gould, the author, writes about a period of British history that to me, and to just about everyone I have ever spoken to about this subject, has always been shrouded in mystery. Like so many others I had resigned myself to accept that era to be the typical ‘dark-age’ that would ever be veiled in the mists of time.

Because of this I have always been wary of the two currently accepted theories of the origins of Christianity in these islands. One being that there were but a handful of Christians in Britain until the mid-fourth century when St Patrick, bless him, spread the ‘word’ far and wide from Ireland.

The other being that Augustine, sent by the pope, arrived in Britain in 597, found very few Christians there, and, those he did find were deemed to be in error. In due course he converted them and the heathen Saxons to the true faith of Rome. Thus, happiness was established throughout the land. This depiction never worked for me.

The problem was, as far as I could see, having spent decades reading about such things, the state of affairs in this country was not as simple as many have supposed.

Clearly the modern (post-Enlightenment) perception that the ancient Britons were merely a bunch of half-naked heathen savages covered in tattoos and painted blue (on special occasions), living in mud huts, and forever fighting their neighbours is more based on prejudice that reality.

Baring-Gould points out in his narrative that before the collapse of the Roman Empire; a collapse that precipitated the predatory raids of Irish and Scottish war bands, as well as the invasions of Angles, Jutes and Saxons, Britain was a civilised Romano-British Society which consisted of a mixture of different faiths. One of those faiths being Christianity.

In this context the ancient British Church existed, and typical of the Christian Church in the rest of the Empire, it would have consisted of established communities sharing the same beliefs and rites, the one difference being that Christian communities in Britain worked autonomously under the jurisdiction of independent bishops.

This would have clearly been the case after the Great Persecution authorised by the Emperor Diocletian, which lasted eight year or so (303 – 311AD), and especially following the reforms of Constantine and his successors post 313, which  granted religious freedom to Christians throughout the empire, and returned to them any properties previously confiscated by the state.

In the late 4^th century things changed as the Empire began to collapse. The legions were withdrawn from Britain to the continent and the people of Britain were left to fend for themselves unarmed and unaided.

Concerning this, Gildas, a Briton and a monastic who lived in the first half of the sixth century, relates in his work De Excidio Brittaniae (The oldest surviving record of post-Roman Britain), that following the withdrawal of the Roman legions in the late fourth century, Britain was left without appropriate military defences, and became subject to frequent predatory attacks and raids from the Picts in the North, who raided on land across the northern border and by sea along the East Coast, and from Irish raiders in the West.

At the same time internal civil conflicts that frequently turned into civil war, tore apart the fabric of the Romano-British society, resulting in a state of social anarchy which prevailed for much of the time throughout the fifth and sixth centuries.

This situation was further exacerbated by Anglo-Saxon invaders who from the mid-fifth century onwards accelerated their territorial expansion, and whose depredations upon the indigenous population destabilized the British Church to such an extent that the Church and many of its clergy were driven from eastern and central Britain into the West of Britain, the Highlands of both Scotland and Wales and across the sea to Ireland. Many fled to the region of Gaul we now know as Brittany.

How the ancient British Church (known today as the Celtic Church) and its people survived, against extraordinary and overwhelming odds, over many generations, is a story that Baring-Gould relates better than any writer I have ever come across, including modern ‘state of the art’ writers. He makes sense of a time of ‘myth and legend’, and reminds his audience that the Britons were a race of people struggling to survive against a relentless and merciless enemy hell-bent on genocide.

Baring-Gould's narrative does challenge orthodox opinion, so much so, that he hid them in the Appendix Volume of The Lives of the Saints. Doubtless, avoiding the wrath of the Church Authorities of his time, who would not have approved of one of their priests (which he was) publishing a work that challenged orthodoxy.

How well-researched these essays may, or may not be, is matter for others to decide. But, I find no reason to doubt the integrity of his scholarship. In his life he was known and respected as a thorough and well-read researcher; indeed he still is in many quarters. What readers may discover for themselves is how few inaccuracies exist in his text when cross-referenced against the best of contemporary thinking on the subject.

Therefore, because I am a publisher of esoteric thought and radical spirituality, and Baring-Gould's narrative most definitely fits into the latter, I have been moved to re-publish them because they have something to say, especially to the people of Britain.

I have published them under the title Ecclesiastica Celtia (of the Celtic Church). It consists of three books. The first explores the Celtic Church in Britain, the second explores the migration and development of the Celtic Church in Brittany, and the third consists of a glossary of pre-Augustinian Celtic Saints drawn from both The lives of the Saints (16 vols) and his The Lives of the British Saints (4 vols, published in 1913 by The Hon Society of Cymmrodorion).

You can order a copy
via your local bookshop.

the title is :
Ecclesiastica Celtica

ISBN: 978-0-9573715-1-4
254 pp. 13 b/w illustrations & maps
£15.00

ADDENDUM

EARLY REFERENCES

The following references are supplied to illustrate the distinct presence that Christianity had in Roman Britain from a very early period. It is clear from the many references made by senior and influential members of the pre-Augustinian Church, such as are quoted below, that there was not only a Christian presence in Britain but that the British Church played an active role in the life of the Church at large. It is reasonable to assume that although Britain was not a ‘Christian state’ in the modern sense of the word, Christian communities undoubtedly existed, and that they shared in the varying fortunes of Roman and post-Roman Britain, especially during the fifth and sixth centuries. Good arguments have been put forth to demonstrate that until monasticism was introduced to these islands in the fifth century such communities were generally urban communities, and it was these urban communities that constituted the ancient British Church.

Tertullian of Carthage (c. 160 – c. 225): Converted from paganism and became one of the most influential Christian thinkers of his day. Although never popular with Church leaders he was nonetheless instrumental in shaping Christianity. He wrote a great number of works of which thirty-one are extant. His legacy, which rested not only in his writings but in his rhetorical style, gave Christians the means to engage in debate with hostile representatives of established religion on their own ground, and defeat them. In his work entitled: An Answer to the Jews, Tertullian states:

“For upon whom else have the universal nations believed but upon the Christ who is already come? For whom have the nations believed, – Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and they who inhabit Mesopotamia, Armenia, Phrygia, Cappadocia, and they who dwell in Pontus, and Asia, and Pamphylia, tarriers in Egypt, and inhabiters of the region of Africa which is beyond Cyrene, Romans and sojourners, yes, and in Jerusalem Jews, and all other nations; as for instance, by this time, the varied races of the Gætulians, and the manifold confines of the Moors, all the limits of the Spains, and the diverse nations of the Gauls, and the haunts of the Britons, inaccessible to the Romans, but subjugated to Christ.”

A. Roberts & J. Donaldson, Edit. The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. III. P.158 (Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1963)

Origen of Alexandria (185 – 254), possibly the most learned and influential theologian of his time. Origen’s commentaries, sermons and homilies have been an important source of inspiration to Christian luminaries, saints and theologians for many centuries. His homilies constitute ‘the oldest body of Christian sermons in existence’. In his Homilies on Luke, Origen makes the following statement:

“The power of the Lord and Saviour is with those who are in Britain, separated from our world, and with those who are in Mauretania, and with everyone under the sun who has believed in his name.”

Homilies on Luke, Joseph T. Lienhard S.J. Trans., (The Fathers of The Church Vol. 94, Catholic University of America Press, 1996) Homily 6, Cap. 9, p.27

Eusebius (c. 260-c.340AD) was bishop of Caesarea from c. 315. He is considered by many to be the ‘father of Church history’ and the world owes him a debt of gratitude for the immense range of material he compiled concerning the early Church. His Demonstratio Evangelica, (Proof of the Gospels) is one of the great classics of the Christian Church, and it is in this work that the following quotation is to be found (emphasis added):

“… But to preach to all the Name of Jesus, to teach about His marvellous deeds in country and town, that some of them should take possession of the Roman Empire, and the Queen of Cities itself, and others the Persian, others the Armenian, that others should go to the Parthian race, and yet others to the Scythian, that some already should have reached the very ends of the world, should have reached the land of the Indians, and some have crossed the Ocean and reached the Isles of Britain…”

The Proof Of The Gospel. W. J. Ferrar, trans: Grand Rapids, Michigan. Baker Book House Co., 1981. First published Demonstratio Evangelica 1920, by S.P.C.K., Book 3, ch. 5, cap.112 (d), p. 130.

Gildas (c. 500-570): a British monastic, who lived in the first half of the sixth century. His work De Excidio Brittaniae is the earliest known record of the tumultuous decades of post-Roman Britain and the invasion of the Saxons. Below are excerpts from this work concerning the Christian presence in Britain:

“8. Meanwhile, to the island stiff with frost and cold, and in a far distant corner of the earth, remote from the visible sun, He, the true sun, even Christ, first yields His rays, I mean His precepts. He spread, not only from the temporal firmament, but from the highest arc of heaven beyond all times, his bright gleam to the whole world in the latest days, as we know, of Tiberius Caesar. At that time the religion of Christ was propagated without any hindrance, because the emperor, contrary to the will of the senate, threatened with death informers against the soldiers of that same religion. 

“9. Though these precepts had a lukewarm reception from the inhabitants, nevertheless they continued unimpaired with some, with others less so, until the nine years’ persecution of the tyrant Diocletian. In this persecution churches were ruined throughout the whole world, all copies of the Holy Scriptures that could be found were burnt in the open streets, and the chosen priests of the Lord’s flock butchered with the innocent sheep, so that if it could be brought to pass, not even a trace of the Christian religion would be visible in some of the provinces. What flights there were then, what slaughter, what punishments by different modes of death, what ruins of apostates, what glorious crowns of martyrs, what mad fury on the part of persecutors, and, on the contrary, what patience of the saints, the history of the church narrates. In consequence the whole church, in close array, emulously leaving behind it the darkness of this world, was hastening to the pleasant realms of heaven as to its own proper abode.

“10. God, therefore, as willing that all men should be saved, magnified his mercy unto us, and called sinners no less than those who regard themselves righteous. He of His own free gift, in the above mentioned time of persecution, as we conclude, lest Britain should be completely enveloped in the thick darkness of black night, kindled for us bright lamps of holy martyrs. The graves where their bodies lie, and the places of their suffering, had they not, very many of them, been taken from us the citizens on account of our numerous crimes, through the disastrous division caused by the barbarians, would at the present time inspire the minds of those who gazed at them with a far from feeble glow of divine love. I speak of Saint Alban of Verulam, Aaron and Iulius, citizens of Caerleon, and the rest of both sexes in different places, who stood firm with lofty nobleness of mind in Christ’s battle. 

“11. The former of these, through love, hid a confessor when pursued by his persecutors, and on the point of being seized, imitating in this Christ laying down his life for the sheep. He first concealed him in his house, and afterwards exchanging garments with him, willingly exposed himself to the danger of being pursued in the clothes of the brother mentioned. Being in this way well pleasing to God, during the time between his holy confession and cruel death, in the presence of the impious men, who carried the Roman standard with hateful haughtiness, he was wonderfully adorned with miraculous signs, so that by fervent prayer he opened an unknown way through the bed of the noble river Thames, similar to that dry little-trodden way of the Israelites, when the ark of the covenant stood long on the gravel in the middle of Jordan; accompanied by a thousand men, he walked through with dry foot, the rushing waters on either side hanging like abrupt precipices, and converted first his executioner, as he saw such wonders, from a wolf into a lamb, and caused him together with himself to thirst more deeply for the triumphant palm of martyrdom, and more bravely to seize it. Others, however, were so tortured with diverse torments, and mangled with unheard of tearing of limbs, that without delay they raised trophies of their glorious martyrdom, as if at the beautiful gates of Jerusalem. Those who survived hid themselves in woods, deserts, and secret caves, expecting from God, the righteous ruler of all, to their persecutors, sometime, stern judgment, to themselves protection of life. 

“12 Thus when ten years of the violence referred to had scarcely passed, and when the abominable edicts were disappearing through the death of their authors, all the soldiers of Christ, with gladsome eyes, as if after a wintry and long night, take in the calm and the serene light of the celestial region. They repair the churches, ruined to the ground; they found, construct, and complete basilicae in honour of the holy martyrs, and set them forth in many places as emblems of victory; they celebrate feast days; the sacred offices they perform with clean heart and lip; all exult as children cherished in the bosom of their mother, the church.”

Hugh Williams, Gildas De Excidio Brittanniae, Cap. 8 – 12, pp. 21-31, Facsimile edition Llanerch Press, Cribyn, Lampeter, 2006. Origially published by David Nutt 1901]

The Venerable Bede (c. 673 – c. 735) Bede was a monk of the united Northumbrian monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow. He wrote a great deal on scientific subjects of his time, demonstrating a great breadth of learning, and many of his commentaries on scripture were read publicly in churches. However, it is his work The Ecclesiastical History of the English People that earned him the title ‘The Father of English History’. In chapter six of this work the following quotations may be found(emphasis added):

‘In the year of our Lord’s incarnation 286, Diocletian, the thirty-third from Augustus, and chosen emperor by the army, reigned twenty years, and created Maximian, surnamed Herculius, his colleague in the empire. ….

Diocletian in the east, and Maximian Herculius in the west, commanded the churches to be destroyed, and the Christians to be slain. This persecution was the tenth since the reign of Nero, and was more lasting and bloody than all the others before it; for it was carried on incessantly for the space of ten years, with burning of churches, outlawing of innocent persons, and the slaughter of martyrs. At length, it reached Britain also, and many persons, with the constancy of martyrs, died in the confession of their faith’.’

Bede, The Ecclesiatical History of the English Nation, Everymans Library, J. M. Dent & Sons. London., p. 10-11