CELTIC CHURCH IN BRITAIN #1

The Celtic Church in Britain #1

The Introduction

by Leslie Hardinge (1972)

PREFACE

Studies in the Celtic Church are attaining increasing importance,

not only among scholars, archaeologists, theologians, historians,

and linguists, but also among general readers. The books on

Celtic topics, both popular and technical, multiply year by year.

The anniversary of the landing of Columba fourteen centuries ago,

celebrated in so many ways in 1963, has aroused great interest.

The purpose of this work is twofold: to investigate the sources

so as to discover what Celtic Christians actually believed and

practised; and to arrange the available facts so as to present a

systematic picture of this aspect of Christianity. Due emphasis

will be placed on those points which are unique.

The expression "Celtic Church", as used in this work, connotes

that group of Christians which lived in the British Isles before

the coming of the Italian mission of Augustine (A.D. 597), and

continued for about a century, or a little more, in an

independent state. The term "church" is a handy title for this

body of believers, and has no suggestion that they constituted

anything of an organization with a centralized government or an

acknowledged head. "Britain" is employed as a simple designation

of the entire British Isles, as, during the period under review,

Ireland was known as "lesser Britain."

Certain appellations are used with special meanings. The names

of countries, such as England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Germany,

and France, and of counties, such as Cornwall, Somerset, and

Devon, indicate the localities suggested by their

twentieth-century meanings. This is done for clarity. In original

quotations, in which, for example, the Irish are called Scots,

the context will reveal the correct significance. "Old-Irish",

always hyphenated, points to works written before about eight

hundred. "Glossator", "commentator" and "theologian", connected

with the glosses preserved in the Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, are

general titles for the clerics who wrote them. They are used

interchangeably for variety. Although these glosses were written

by two or three hands, they all come within the Old-Irish period.

They are regarded as containing what might for convenience be

called the consensus of Celtic opinion on topics theological. In

the context of Christian studies, "Celtic" invariably means

"Celtic Christian". The word "beliefs" is a simple heading for

the doctrinal and moral concepts which were the dynamics of the

conduct of Celtic Christians, while "practices" indicates their

outward religious acts, both in worship and behaviour which grew

out of such beliefs.

The Celtic Church began at a date unknown. In this investigation

the starting-point is the mission of Patrick some time towards

the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth century. The

investigation of the beliefs and practices of the Christianity

which he professed, and which he probably gained from his father

and grandfather who were both clergymen, will have as its

starting-point the usages and doctrines of the mid-fourth

century. During the larger portions of the fifth and practically

the entire sixth century the Celtic Church was apparently cut off

from Western Christianity, and developed points of view which

were different from those of the broad stream of believers in

Mediterranean lands. Subsequent to their contact with continental

Christianity at the very end of the sixth century the Celts

continued their independence until they were, section by section,

gradually absorbed by the Church of the Romans.

The end of the independence of the segments of the Celtic Church

took place at different times. Southern Ireland was the first to

throw in its lot with the representatives of the Italian mission.

If a date is to be set, perhaps 632 would be suitable.

Northumbria, through its king and leaders, gave up Celtic usages

following the Council of Whitby, 664. Northern Ireland

surrendered to the eloquent appeals of Adamnan and accepted Roman

customs at the very end of the seventh century, 695. The

Christians in Scotland, with their headquarters at Iona, felt the

heavy hand of King Nectan, who in 717 banished the Columbate

brethren from their island retreat and established at Iona those

who followed Roman traditions. But there were still remnants of

these independent Christians in Scotland when Margaret became

queen in the second quarter of the twelfth century, at which time

they threw in their lot with Canterbury. Some time about 768 the

Celts of South Wales, that is, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall,

appear to have joined forces with the Anglo-Roman Church, while

North Wales (modern Wales), accepted Catholic views about 777.

When the Celts assumed Roman usages, they surrendered their

independence. The Celtic Church was no longer purely "Celtic",

but became Anglo-Roman-Celtic. Its uniqueness receded with the

passing years. It is the purpose of this study to seek for those

beliefs and practices which these Celtic believers professed

before they were modified by seventh and eighth-century

traditions from continental Europe.

That they held special doctrines and usages, differing in several

respects from those of Italian Christianity, is vouched for by

the sources.

The weight of this evidence tends to underline the fact that

there existed fundamental and far-reaching differences between

the Celtic and Roman Churches. Rome was ignorant of these

discrepancies until the opening decade of the seventh century. It

seems reasonable to conclude that the Celts were, for their part,

also unaware of the beliefs and usages of the Roman Christians.

The purpose of the historian is to discover what those

differences were.

A vast literature has sprung up during the past century on

various aspects of the Celtic Church. Monumental bibliographies

have been compiled, among which J. F. Kenney, "The Sources of the

Early History of Ireland; Ecclesiasticali," and Wilfrid Bonser,

"An Anglo-Saxon and Celtic Bibliography," 450-1087 deserve

special mention. They greatly aid the historian who is kept up to

date with the help of the bibliographies published annually in

the journal of the "Irish Historical Society," under the

inspiration of Ludwig Bieler.

But among the almost twenty-five thousand books and articles

listed the present investigator has not been able to find a

single volume devoted solely to a consideration of the beliefs

and practices of the Celtic Christians. Passing allusions to, and

studies of, concepts and acts of worship and conduct there are,

but the only work even nearly touching the plan of this book is

F. E. Warren, "The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church," and

it was written over eighty-five years ago. But, as its title

suggests, it deals with only one important phase, which is

actually outside the scope of this book. It is hoped that the

following pages will be a first step in filling the need for a

brief, comprehensive handbook on the topic of the beliefs and

practices of the Celtic Church. It should be emphasized that this

study excludes the liturgy and the institutions of the Celts

which constitute a phase too vast to be touched in this work, and

must be left to another investigation.

The sources for this study may be listed under seven heads.

Histories and geographies, by Patrick, Gildas, Nennius, Bede and

Adamnan, Dicuil and Giraldus Cambrensis, while not specifically

such in the modern sense, reveal insights into the thinking and

acting of the Christians during the times of these authors.

Narratives, which were but oral traditions written down later,

are replete with clues. Comminatory stories, containing

anachronisms, nevertheless reveal what the writers believed were

the actual facts of the case. Reflecting traditional memories of

the clerical scribes, they are often very useful contributions to

an understanding of early conditions and backgrounds. The

critical historian must try cautiously to demythologize these

accounts.

The Lives of saints, a large number of which have been preserved,

also often full of anachronisms and propaganda, reveal

conditions, not always of the saint's age, but of the times of

the writers. These biographies are occasionally in the form of

homilies. They were probably read long ago, by the light of

sputtering candles, to monks relaxed over their suppers, and

present points which the historian is able to weave into the

tapestry he is preparing.

Scattered over the pages of Celtic Christian literature many

poems and verses may be found, containing religious ideas which

are illuminating. The ancient Annals are indispensable mines of

information. Although they are more accurate for the compiler's

own age, they also show, here and there, what the Celtic

Christians believed and practised. Legislation, both civil and

ecclesiastical, the Liber ex Lege Moisi, laws, penitentials, and

rules, also are vital sources.

Glosses, crowding between the lines of Old-Irish biblical texts

and commentaries on the Scriptures, being suggestions for

sermonic development, are the finest indexes for the theological

views of these ancient Christians. Written in Old-Irish,

preserved inviolate in continental libraries, they crystallize

the concepts of the Celtic Church.

A word of thanks is also due to my artist friends, Clyde

Provonsha and C. M. Hubert Cowen, for the line drawings and

initial letters and chapter headings which add so much interest

to the opening pages of each chapter.

LESLIE HARDINGE

     

     

     

INTRODUCTION

The RISE of the CELTIC church m BRITAIN

Christianity tiptoed into Britain. It left no written records of

its entry, but here and there its footprints may be traced in the

soil of these islands.

Archaeological evidence of Christianity in Roman Britain is

meagre. A fragment, containing a Christian cryptogram, attests

the witness of Christians before the peace of Constantine. The

foundations of what were probably two small churches of this

period have so far been discovered at Silchester and Caerwent.

The chirho monogram has been found in several places: worked into

mosaics; carved on building stones, rings, and lamps; and painted

on the walls of houses. It is found most frequently in southern

England. Excavations since 1947 in London, and from 1949 at the

Roman villa of Lullingstone, on the Darent, have revealed other

possible Celtic Christian remains. Christian symbols found at

Lullingstone house chapel are the earliest in any building in

Britain. Similar house chapels have been unearthed in Gaul.

The purpose of this chapter is to consider briefly the evidences

bearing on the origin of Celtic Christianity so as to form a

framework for the study of its beliefs and practices.

Among the precious remains in Scotland are the three Kirkmandrine

gravestones. Excavations at the east end of the church at

Whithorn have revealed what might well be a fifth-century place

of worship. Three possible Celtic Christian artifacts were

unearthed at Traprain Law in East Lothian. But these fragments of

archaeological evidence tell only of the presence of Christians

before the fifth century, they do not establish that an organized

Church existed, nor do they show any particular place of origin

for Celtic Christianity.

Written records of the presence of early Christians are extremely

meagre. The earliest statements are merely passing illusions by a

few church fathers. The first hint of a group of organized (314),

convened by the Emperor Constantine. Three bishops, a presbyter,

and a deacon are recorded as having come from Britain, but even

this statement is open to question. It should be stressed that

this council met independently of the bishop of Rome, who was not

present. A copy of its decisions was sent "fratri Sylvestro."

British clerics were also present at the Council of Rimini (359).

Three of them were so poor that they accepted financial aid from

the Emperor.

Gildas lamented that British Christians were plagued by Arianism,

while Germanus and Lupus are believed to have come to their aid

against Pelagianism. Germanus is believed to have returned with

Severus (444-5) at the request of British Christians, possibly to

help in their combat with Pelagianism, or perhaps to encourage

them to bear up under the blows of the Picts and Scots. Who

authorized these visits has yet to be established. But from the

middle of the fifth century nothing further was heard of British

Christians until the arrival of Augustine one hundred and fifty

years later. That Christians were in Britain during the fourth

and fifth centuries is known, but when or whence they came cannot

yet be established.

(The author lacked the knowledge or research into the early

arrival of Christianity into Britain, which has been established

by other authors and researchers, reproduced on this website -

Keith Hunt)

Scarcely had the tramp of the feet of the departing Romans died

away than the Picts and Scots surged into northern England. The

people fled, their farms ravaged, their homes in ashes. Decades

of fluctuating war and peace followed. About the middle of the

fifth century the desperate British leaders solicited help from

the pagan Saxons. Soon the guests from the Continent had become

the masters of England. When Augustine landed in Britain in 597

the country was virtually heathen. What Christians there were had

fled to the far west.

(Again the author was short on correct research into early

Christianity in Britain - Keith Hunt)

But even traces of these Christian settlements in Wales before

the coming of Augustine are slight and scattered. On the lonely

moors of Cornwall Christian settlers have left traces of their

existence in several caves. The Picts of southern Scotland

probably received the faith through the preaching of Ninian.

Ninian's name is embedded in several place-names scattered over

Scotland and the Western Isles.

The presence of Christians in Scotland during the fifth century

is also vouched for by Patrick's complaint to Coroticus that his

soldiers were "apostate." About a century after Ninian's death

Kentigern laboured in the region now known as Glasgow. He is even

more of a shadowy figure than Ninian. Jocelyn, his biographer,

confessed that he had found some things "contrary to sound

doctrine and the Catholic faith" in the old biography of

Kentigern. Being "grieved and indignant that the life of so

priceless a prelate ... should be tainted with heretical

passages", he rewrote his story, seasoning "the barbarous

composition with Roman salt." Ailred recorded that he had used

similar methods in his "Life of Ninian." This tendency of later

bagiographers must be kept in mind when seeking for the beliefs

and practices followed by early saints. The faith and works of a

sixth-century Celtic saint evidently appeared "contrary to sound

doctrine and the Catholic faith" to a pious writer of the twelth

century. What these "heretical passages" might indicate will be

considered later. When Columba arrived there were few, if any,

Christians still surviving in Scotland. It would appear that it

was from Ireland that the faith was successfully reintroduced

into Scotland.

But how Christianity came to Ireland in the first place is not

known. By the end of the fourth century a few representatives of

the faith had apparently reached its shores. The old Irish

writers had little doubt that there had been Christians in

Ireland before Patrick began his missionary work. Tirechan, in a

homily on the life of Patrick, mentioned archaeological remains

of liturgical objects, glass chalices under a stone altar. There

are also notices, in the Book of Armagh, of Christian clerics in

Ireland before the saint's arrival who later pledged the support

of their churches to Patrick. Patrick himself recorded that he

had laboured "to confirm the people". This might well mean those

previously baptized by others. He also noted that he had

travelled into pagan regions in which no Christian had previously

preached.

(Once more I state that the coming of Christianity into Britian

very early - during the first century AD can be found in

historical material, but most will not acknowledge it. It would

seem this author was one of them, if she even knew where to look

for such proof - Keith Hunt)

At the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth centuries

conditions on the Continent seem to have forced numbers to flee

westward. Kuno Meyer rightly pointed out that among these

refugees there were probably Christians. Virgilius Maro recorded

that Huns invaded the Goths with the result that the depopulation

of the entire Empire commenced. This was completed by the Huns

and Vandals and Goths and Alans, "owing to whose devastation all

the learned men on this side of the sea fled away, and in

transmarine parts, i.e. in Hiberial and wherever they betook

themselves, brought about a very great advance of learning to the

inhabitants of those regions" Ecclesiastical loan words modified

in Irish would attest such intercourse.

During the fifth and sixth centuries, while the Continent and

even Britain were ravaged by sporadic wars, Ireland in its

seclusion appears to have been the bastion of learning and

Christianity. During these troubled years many British students

received a kindly welcome and hospitable entertainment from the

Irish schools. The lot of Christians in Ireland was improved by

the coming of Patrick, a Briton, born of three generations of

clergy about 388. Patrick's grandfather was ordained a priest

about 325. The Christianity practised by Patrick's ancestors and

by the saint himself would reflect no further modifications in

faith and works than would be held by Christians generally,

during the early fourth century.

When Palladius, ordained and authorized by Celestine, came to

Ireland (c. 431), he "baptized a few in that place" and founded

three churches." But the "Irish already believing in Christ" did

not rally about Palladius, who withdrew from the island and died

during the following year. It seems that the attitude of the

Celtic Christians in Ireland towards the emissary of Pope

Celestine, was similar to that shown by the Celtic Christians of

England a century and a half later towards Augustine.

The churches which Patrick established in Ireland continued after

his death, but were apparently not many in number. Wilfrid

taunted Colman and his friends, saying: "Do you imagine that

they, a few men in a corner of a remote island, are to be

preferred before the universal Church?" And the letter of Pope

Honorius addressed to the Irish "earnestly warned them not to

imagine that their little community, isolated at the uttermost

ends of the earth, had a monopoly of wisdom over all the ancient

and new churches throughout the world" When the clerics at the

court of Alfred were trying to convert Adamnan to the Roman

practices, Adamnan "was earnestly advised by many who were more

learned than himself not to presume to act contrary to the

universal customs of the church, whether in the keeping of Easter

or in many other observances, seeing that his following was very

small and situated in a remote corner of the world. In his letter

to his superior at Iona, Cummian gave his reasons for deserting

the usage of the Celts in favour of that of Rome. He discussed

the unity of Catholic countries and contrasted them with "the

little party formed by the Britons and Scots, who are almost at

the very end of the world, and but a mere eruption, so to speak,

on its surface."

These charges could easily have been countered had the Celtic

Church had a large following. The picture that seems to emerge

from the sources is of a comparatively small band of enthusiastic

missionaries wielding an influence greatly disproportionate to

their numbers, doing a work quite out of keeping with their size,

and maintaining their zeal for an impressively long period.

The time during which British Christianity is lost sight of (450-

597), was an important one for the development of Western

Christian thinking. Many changes took place. It does not seem

likely that the recommendations of Nicea or the definitions of

Augustine and other great councils and teachers were known to

Patrick and the Christian communities he established. L. Gougaud

might well be right in thinking that there was no such thing as a

Celtic Church with a unified system of beliefs and practices.

Christianity in the far west of Europe during the unsettled

decades of the fifth and sixth centuries would concern itself

only with providing principles for a simple and helpful way of

life. With little centralized control communities would develop

their own emphases and views, and ecclecticism and pragmatism

would mark the early beliefs and practices of Celtic Christians.

As teachers developed, they interpreted the Scriptures as they

felt best.

..........

NOTE:

The author, and many others, did not research enough, or

deliberately refused what they saw in recorded history to prove

there was a large and vast Christian religion in the British

Isles centuries before the coming of the Roman church in 597 AD.

That history you can find in other studies on this website.

Keith Hunt

To be continued