CELTIC CHURCH IN BRITAIN #2

The Celtic Church in Britain #2

Missionary Work

by Leslie Hardinge (1972)

 MISSIONARY OUTREACH OF CELTIC CHRISTIANITY

Bede's story of the Church in Britain brings his readers face to

face with the Celtic attitude toward evangelism. He records that

Augustine began his approach to the indigenous British Christians

"by urging them to establish brotherly relations with him in

Catholic unity, and to join with him in God's work of preaching

the Gospel to the heathen". But the Celts refused. This has been

interpreted as indicating their lack of zeal for the conversion

of the pagan Saxons. But conquerors have seldom been eager to

accept the religion of the conquered. The records suggest that

Celtic Christians at large were eager to propagate their faith.

This may be established from Bede's own records. And one of the

canons attributed to Patrick stressed that "one's country is

first to be taught, after the example of Christ; and afterwards

if it does not make progress, it is to be abandoned".

After his second attempt to persuade the Celtic Christian leaders

to co-operate with him proved futile. Augustine laid down his

ultimatum. Here is his final statement as Bede has preserved it,

and Bede's own comment on its result. Augustine invited the

British Christians "to join with us in preaching the word of God

to the English. But the bishops refused these things, nor would

they recognize Augustine as their archbishop". The last sentence

is the crux of the matter. The British Christian leaders would

not submit to Augustine. It was a matter of authority and not

merely of a lack of zeal for evangelism. To have complied with

the request for the former they evidently felt would have

amounted to submission to the latter.

Notwithstanding all this, one of the main characteristics of

Celtic Christians during the seventh century was the stress they

laid upon missionary activity. Far and wide the "pilgrims for

God" ranged the islands of the western seas, lashed by storms.

Their frail coracles bore them from Ireland to the land of the

pagans of North Britain, untamed in heathenism. Across into the

Continent ravaged by war, the representatives of the Celtic

Church carried the gospel. For the British evangelist "to voyage

over the seas, and to pace over broad tracts of land was not so

much a weariness as a delight", Gildas recorded. They often

embarked in the smallest of currachs, allowing the winds and

currents to bear them where they would. Some must have found

unmarked graves in the rough waters of the north Atlantic. With

no assistance from a missionary base at home, into lands unknown,

the pilgrim evangelists journeyed. They lived where they were

able to find shelter; they ate what they received from hospitable

strangers. Here is a story, although of a later date, which is

typical of any point during the period of Celtic missionary

activity:

     Three Scots came to king Alfred in a boat without any oars,

     from Ireland, whence they had stolen away, because they

     desired, for the love of God, to be in a state of

     pilgrimage, they necked not where. The boat in which they

     came was wrought of two hides and a half, and they took with

     them food sufficient for seven nights; and on the seventh

     night they came to land in Cornwall, and then went

     straightways to king Alfred.

And so Celtic Christians, in gratitude for the faith they had

received, travelled from their homes, "propter nomen Domini,

making always peregrinatio pro Dei amore."

Interest in this type of evangelism probably started in Ireland

through the influence of Patrick's example. His words must have

stirred the hearts of his people: "Who was it that called me,

fool though I be? ... that ... I should faithfully be of service

to the nation to whom the love of Christ conveyed me ..." This

labour, he affirmed, he had "learnt from Christ my Lord". He

looked back after his eventful life and testified that his only

reason for returning to Ireland was the gospel and God's

promises.

Those who revered Patrick's memory followed his lead. Later

Celtic preachers used arguments taken from biblical precedents

when advocating missionary enterprise. The "Old-Irish Life of

Columba" sketched the saint's career in the form of a sermon

probably read on the occasion of his festival. The speaker

introduced his theme by discussing the call of Abraham to go from

Ur to the Promised Land. He presented three reasons why similar

pilgrimages should be made in his time. God's grace might call

men to service in foreign lands; other missionaries might make

appeals; a "soul-friend" might suggest such a trip. To these,

three further reasons might be added: the ascetic urge to find

the "desert"; the Celt's love of adventure; or the expulsion of

those who maintained the old usages in face of the gradual

Romanization of the Celtic Church. These motives, singly or in

combination, scattered hundreds of pilgrim-missionaries into

distant lands. The movement probably started with Columba in 563.

Place names, and dedications of churches across Europe and its

islands demonstrate the extent to which these evangelists

travelled.

Columba's contribution towards the conversion of Scotland and the

accomplishment of his followers in Christianizing their Anglo-

Saxon neighbours is, from the viewpoint of world history, the

most momentous achievement of the Irish section of the Celtic

Church. In 563, at the age of forty-one, Columba left Ireland for

Iona with a dozen helpers.

King Bruide is credited with having given Iona to Columba as a

missionary base. From it Columba's followers and successors

spread their settlements into remote parts of Scotland, and out

to the western islands. And so the long task of bringing the

northern heathen tribes into the Christian fold began. But not

only did the Columban church reach out to evangelize Scotland, 

it also spread its influence into England. By 632 Augustine's

disciple Paulinus, after founding an outpost of Christianity in

Northumbria, was forced by a rise of paganism and war to flee

south, leaving Hames the deacon to try to maintain the faith.

After the departure of Paulinus the Christianity in the north of

England passed into another phase. While Oswald had been in 

exile at Iona, the brethren had instructed him carefully in "the

teachings of the Scottish church".  When he became king, he

apparently disregarded whatever remnants of Kentish Roman

Christianity might still have remained, and sent to his old

friends at Iona for a missioner to instruct the Northumbrians in

the Celtic Christian faith. The first Celtic preacher to respond

was too exacting and met with little success before he returned

home disgruntled. The brethren at Iona held a council to discuss

their next move. One of their number made the point that the

spread of the gospel among pagans would be hastened by tact 

and patience. The others noted his insight into the situation and

decided that he would be a suitable missionary. So Aidan was

immediately ordained and sent to Northumbria.

It was probably about 635 AD that Aidan arrived. As had Columba

before him, Aidan picked an island off the coast as his base. It was 

from Lindisfarne that light penetrated pagan Northumbria. On

occasion King Oswald himself acted as Aidan's interpreter in the

work of evangelizing his subjects. From the north, Celtic

Christian beliefs spread into the kingdom of the Middle Angles,

and thence into Essex. Here Fursey from Ireland had pioneered

Christianity. The brethren of Lindisfarne spread the knowledge of

the cross from the Forth to the Thames. There were, however,

large areas of Britain which remained rough and pagan.

On the day Aidan died in 651, the young lad Cuthbert requested

entrance into the Christian community at Melrose. He was destined

to become the most illustrious missionary of that celebrated

settlement. Sometimes on horseback, more often on foot, Cuthbert

sought out distant villages and everywhere preached the gospel"'

leaving behind him "a fame which no Churchman north of the 

Humber has surpassed or even rivalled". When the initial success 

of Augustine and his followers failed to fulfil its promise, it was

the group of missionaries from Iona, establishing their base on

"the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, the true cradle of English

Christianity" that gave the faith a precarious foothold up into

Scotland and down into England.

Celtic missionaries also laboured on the Continent. About the

time Columba established Iona, Columbanus was born in what is

today Leinster. His first schooling was under Sinell on the

island of Clauin, in Lough Erne. He moved on to the Christian

school of Bangor on Belfast Lough, about 580, for further study

with Comgall. After he had been many years in the cloister he

longed to go into strange lands and with twelve companions

crossed England and reached Gaul. Preaching and teaching as he

and his friends were able, living and toiling with any who shared

hospitality with them, the Celtic clerics entered Burgundy the

next year. King Sigibert, grandson of Clovis, welcomed 

Columbanus and gave the ruins of the ancient Roman castle 

of Anegray (Anagrates) in the Vosges, as a site for the first Celtic

monastery on the Continent. Austere to severe, the regulations

which Columbanus drew up bound his fellows to rigid lives of

stern discipline. Their food was simple, their labours exhausting, 

their devotions long sustained. Either refraction or forgetfulness 

was immediately punished.

From this Christian household the salutary principles of religion

and education, the blessings of mercy and tolerance, the

disciplines of justice and righteousness flowed gently into the

turgid stream of Gallic life. Multitudes journeyed to listen to

the Irish teacher and stayed to believe. But opposition from

angry pagans and jealous Roman clerics drove them eventually

through the region which is today called Switzerland and on into

Italy. King Agilulf donated Bobbio to Columbanus. Here the

Irishmen built up a Christian settlement and laid the foundations

of what was to become the most famous Celtic house in Italy.

But not only did the missionaries from Ireland travel across

Scotland and down into England and on into the Continent, they

also turned their eyes northward. To the isles of the western

seas as far away as Iceland and beyond they sailed their tiny

craft. Maol Rubha, born into the same clan as Columba, crossed

into Scotland in 671 and established a settlement at Applecross

in the region known today as Ross-shire, between Loch Garron and

Loch Torridon. He preached both in Scotland and also in Skye and

other islands of the Hebrides. Dying in his eightieth year, Maol

Rubha left a reputation almost as glowing as that of the great

Columba himself.

Celtic pilgrims soon occupied islands lying to the extreme north

of Scotland. The ancient Norwegian chronicler noted that "these

islands were at first inhabited by the Picts and papae", and "the

papae have been named from their white robes, which they wore

like priests; whence priests are all called papae in the Teutonic

tongue. An island is still called after them Papey. But, as is

observed from their habit and the writings of their books

abandoned there, they were Africans, adhering to Judaism." Here

is a very early record of Celtic Christian settlers who were

accused of "adhering to Judaism". This expression is used to

indicate observers of the Jewish Sabbath. This evidence suggests

that early Celtic Christians followed this custom. These pioneers

were Christians who tenaciously held to their ancient beliefs and

had been banished by tyrants such as King Nectan.

(Ah yes indeed, the true Christianity brought to Britain in the

first century AD was a Christianity of … 7th day Sabbath observing,

hence Rome accused them of Judaism and of being heretics - it is

recorded in history, the facts are there for those who will see

with their eyes - Keith Hunt)

From the outer Hebrides or from the northern Orkneys, or it might

even have been from Ireland itself, the Irish missionary-

settler-hermit-adventurers sailed up into the Atlantic looking

for a "desert" in which to fulfil their pilgrimage. The Irish

geographer Dicuil wrote (c. 825) that a priest had told him that

"for nearly a hundred years hermits dwelt, [in the Faroes] from

our Scottia (Ireland) ... But the Norsemen had slain every one of

them." So it was believed that as early as 725 Celtic settlers

had lived on the Faroes.

But not satisfied with these outposts in the ocean, more daring

pilgrims travelled on to Iceland:

     But before Iceland was inhabited (by settlers) from Norway,

     there were there the men whom the Norwegians call Parpar;

     these were Christian men, and it is believed that they had

     come from the west beyond the sea, because Irish books, and

     bells, and croziers, were found (left) behind them, and many

     other things besides, so that one might know they were

     Westmen.

Olaf's Saga added "that they were Christian men, and had come

from the west beyond the sea". Theodoric observed in his

"Historia" that they were "very few" in number. The Norwegian

chronicler noted as of the date 872:

     And then the land (which is now called Iceland) began to be

     inhabited for the first time, except that a very few men

     from the island of Ireland, that is lesser Britain, are

     believed to have been there in ancient times, from certain

     indications found; namely their books, and certain utensils.

While these Celtic pilgrims were not missionaries in the

strictest sense, even in death their books testified to

succeeding pagan peoples of the Christian faith which they had

professed.

The Celtic predilection for change occasionally was a source of

difficulty. The penitential of Cummean ruled against "any

wandering and unstable man", and decreed that he "shall be healed

by permanent residence in one place". There are records of trips

even to the Holy Land and Rome in later centuries. But these were

not always viewed with favour, as this quatrain in Old-Irish

suggests:

     Going to Rome? Going to Rome? 'Twill bring no profit, only

     trouble. The King thou there wouldst quest Not found shall

     be, if he go not in thy breast.

A similar sentiment was expressed on the virtue of long journeys

in order to find God: "Since God is near to all who call upon

Him, no necessity is laid on us to cross the sea. For one can

approach the kingdom of heaven from every land." These sentiments

seem to reflect a swing away from a regard of pilgrimages,

especially to Rome, as ways for deepening devotion. There were

those who contentedly sighed:

     All alone in my little cell without a single soul in my

     company. Beloved pilgrimage before going to the tryst with

     Death.

And it was for this that Cormac, son of Culennan, made his

choice, singing for many of his friends:

     Shall I choose, O King of the mysteries, 

     After the delight of downy pillows and music, 

     To go upon the rampart of the sea,

     Turning my back upon my native land? 

     Shall I be in poverty in the battle

     Through the grace of the King, a King without decay, 

     Without great honour, without my chariot, 

     Without gold, or silver, or horse?

(Finian of Clonard was told by God's angel when desiring to go to

Rome "What would be given thee at Rome", saith he, "will be given

to thee here. Go and renew faith and belief in Ireland after

Patrick" (LSBL, 224). Does this mean that there had taken place

some sort of apostasy in Ireland after the passing of Patrick?

(See Todd, Patrick, 503) Gildas, David, and Cadoc are supposed to

have helped establish the second order of Irish saints)

     Shall I launch my dusky little coracle 

     On the broad-bosomed glorious ocean? 

     Shall I go, O King of bright Heaven, 

     Of my own will upon the brine?

     Whether it be roomy or narrow,

     Whether it be severed by crowds or hosts -

     God, wilt Thou stand by me

     When it comes upon the angry sea?

Individual response to a divinely placed inner drive to spread

the faith, singly or in groups, impelled Celtic missionaries to

go forth. Without credentials or material support, self-reliant

and trusting in God they accomplished more than their numbers

would warrant. Spontaneity, lack of traditionalism, and

individuality were the features of this movement.

With the gradual Christianizing of the peoples of the Continent

the motives for making journeys outside Celtic lands changed. 

As Roman Christianity spread during the seventh and succeeding

centuries, Celtic missionary pilgrims encountered more and more

representatives of the Church of Rome, and after initial suspicion, 

and sometimes hostility, many eventually joined with them.

But not only did this missionary and pilgrim travel in itself

indicate an important phase of the practice of Celtic Christians,

it also provided opportunity for a comparison to be made between

their beliefs and those of Roman Christian communities.

..........

To be continued