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Christianity
Sermon 5: The Celtic Churches.
In the last two sermons we looked at the migration of the Anglo-Saxons to Britain and their soon
conversion to Christianity, together with the tremendous impact that their conversion
had on their politics, laws, culture and society. By the 8th century the English as a nation
in several kingdoms had already begun to evangelise or gospel their brethren in Frisia and in
Germany beyond the Rhine. By the 10th century there was one English
kingdom and a well-endowed English Church. The English had absorbed much that was worthy
in the Christian traditions of both the continent and of the Celtic ‘fringe’.
That must now bring us to another story.
Christianity had come to Britain before the coming of the English.
The English or Anglo-Saxon migration had begun in earnest about the mid-5th century AD whilst
the Roman imperial power still held sway over much of Western Europe, though soon to evaporate.
But Christianity had come to the Britons, that is to the Celtic or British-speaking
dwellers south of the Forth and Clyde, almost as soon as the Roman legions came here to
conquer and to stay; during the reign of one Claudius, who, as first citizen of Rome, the
Princeps, had authorised the conquest of the Britons in part to bolster up his imperial
claims to the throne of Rome. This invasion by so great an imperial power,
one of the world’s empires, was not long after the crucifixion and the rising again
from the dead of Christ. It is beyond question that some of the Roman
legionaries would have been Christian or would have at least heard of the cult of Christ.
The Roman Empire was one empire, well connected by roads; and news travelled quickly.
It is to this story of British Christianity that we must now turn, for it was the Britons
who were the first Christians in what was once their country.
It is not altogether a straightforward story, however, and ultimately it is not confined
to the Britons either; they were, in the closing stages of the Roman world, to pass their Christianity
on to others, whilst they were losing their own country; and they were to pass it on to
their Celtic neighbours to the west and then to the north.
The Celtic Church is a story in its own right; and an important part of the modern British
heritage and identity.
Christianity rapidly spread within the Roman Empire.
On the first day of the New Testament Church, as related in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter
2, on the day of Pentecost, the first Jews who believed on Christ, beyond the original
120 disciples who met in the upper room, included Jews from almost every nation under heaven
of the known world at that time (see Acts 2: 9-11).
They included Jews from as far west as Rome, from as far north as Pontus, from as far to
the east as Persia and from as far south as Arabia.
The God of all history had prepared this for the spread of the word of His well beloved
Son, who He bruised for our transgressions and whom He raised from the dead.
When the mission of Barnabas and Paul began from Syrian Antioch in about 43 AD, precisely
when the Romans invaded Britain, the Church was already well-established in Palestine
and thereabouts, such as in northern Syria, where Antioch was; and was about to spread
rapidly and deeply over the whole of the eastern and middle provinces of the empire.
There was a well-established church in Rome by the time of Paul’s visit there and the
writings from its first presiding overseer, Clement of Rome, survive down for us today,
and are dated variously as either the mid-first century or the latter part of the first century.
The church at Rome was at that time a largely Greek-speaking church and abode so for three
centuries - Rome was inundated with ‘Greeks’ (Greek-speakers) - and it was a church so
well-established that its elders or bishops were able to admonish other churches, such
as the one at Corinth, with brotherly advice and admonition.
Both Corinth and Rome were, in their churches, Greek-speaking and were well-connected to
one another by sea, culture and trade. But the empire throughout was well-connected
by roads. This was part of Roman military strategy and
political policy, to keep the empire one and well-defended.
It was through such well-connectedness that, amongst other things, the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ spread to all the nations or ethnic groups within the empire.
Soon the gods, and goddesses - the demons and idols of heathendom - were falling before
the Maker of Heaven and Earth who in the Person of His well-Beloved Son had died for the sins
of the whole world (1 John 1: 2: 2). Not only was redemption for the chosen of
the Jews but for the chosen, or elect, of all nations under heaven whereunto it had
come (Roms 1: 5; 16: Roms 16: 26). We must call to mind that God’s calling
of the Jews through Abraham was precisely to bring a blessing to all nations (Gen 12:
3). The fullness of time had now come!
And the coming of the Christ was a fulfilment of that long ago behest (promise) and a bringing in of that
blessing long ago fore-spoken.
The Britons of the Roman province of Britain were soon responsive to the glad tiding of
Christ. How do we know?
Well in 200 AD the African Church Father, Tertullian - Africa being the Roman province
in North Africa roughly equivalent to modern Tunisia - refers to the establishment of churches,
that is, congregations of Christians in Britain. In 240 AD Origen of Alexandria adverts to
the fact that the new faith was a unifying element amongst the Romano-Britons.
From about this time, plate of a Christian provenance or origin, has been found recently,
in 1975 to be precise, in excavations of the Nene Valley in what is now eastern England.
This plate was clearly from a settled, not a travelling, church.
In the late 3rd century the British Christian, Alban, was martyred in Verulamium, now St
Albans. Earlier one Julius and Aaron had been martyred
between 249 and 251 AD. In 314 AD three British bishops attended the
Church Council of Arles in Gaul. British bishops also attended the Council
of Rimini in Italy in 359 AD. Despite the distances involved Brythonic/Brittonic
Christians and their Church were involved in and represented among the Catholic or orthodox
churches of the ancient world. That is a tremendous achievement for a people
on the far rim of the empire. It was important to have been noticed by the
bigger Churches elsewhere.
Some historians have doubted whether the church was strongly established in Roman Britain
in the second century, and well organised by the third century, in the light of the
fact that there is not much archaeological evidence for it.
But this ignores the fact that the church is not a building but a congregation (2 Cor
6: 16); that the church was often a community of faith rapidly expanding amongst the poor
(1 Cor 1: 26) and dispossessed (Jas 2: 5), as the New Testament bears witness; that churches
often met in private houses (1 Cor 16: 19); and that it was only much later that they
could take public buildings to themselves. Archaeological evidence would not be able
to distinguish a private dwelling being used as a meeting house for a church from any other
private dwelling. So that puts pay to that bit of scepticism
from someone, I suspect, with an anti-Christian agenda!
Certainly it is admitted that the Christian Church in Britain became strong, even dominant,
with the conversion of Constantine in the early 4th century.
However, the fate of this strong British Church was sealed with the fate of the British themselves
as the invading hordes of Angles and Saxons came across the waters and up the long, slow,
winding estuaries of Britain; to make their settlements over what once had been Celtic
lands. But to the West, and as the English march
continued, British Christianity survived. Britain now entered a dark tunnel where, at
the start of it in about 459AD, with the coming of the first main wave of invaders, we have
a Celtic Britain and at the end of it, at about 597AD with the coming of Augustine of
Rome, we have a clearly demarcated Anglo-Saxon England.
The period, in between, has not left many written historical sources.
All we have is the accounts in Germany of the leaving of great numbers of Saxons and
many Angles for Britain, and in Britain, we have the record of Bede as to the ‘Coming
of the English’ and from the Celtic sources (Welsh and Breton) we hear of the ‘woes
of the Britons’.
But we are interested in the Christianity of this period and it is clear that it was
suffering along with the woes of the Britons. The Anglo-Saxon re-introduced heathen worship
and cremated burial sites which demark their progress as covering much of England up until
the late 7th century when they began to be converted to Christianity.
Roughly this covers a line from just north of the Humber across southern Britain to just
east of Devon.
The Anglo-Saxon advance had not yet included all, of the west Midlands or much of the north-west;
nor had it yet pushed into Borders and Lothian from their beachhead in Northumberland.
Their advance did represent, however, a massive loss to the Christian churches which had grown-up
amongst the Britons. But Christ said that He would build His Church
and that the gates of Hell would not prevail against it.
Whilst lands were being lost in the east of the country providence would have it that
out of evil would come good, just as Samson had proven that out of strength would come
forth sweetness.
The woes of the Britons, as well as including the coming of the Saxons, also included the
raids of the Scots (the Gaels) from Ireland, and of the Picts from north of the wall, what
is now largely Scotland. One Briton, Patrick (389-461), born and dwelling
in what is now England, was captured and carried off to the emerald island by a raiding band
of Gaels. As Christianity retreated in the east it would
now spread to lands in the west which had never been subjected to the Roman imperial
standard. Patrick was mightily used by God for the conversion
of the emerald isle to the religion of Christ; and this while Britain was itself beginning
to fall to the Saxons and Angles. God moves in mysterious ways His wonders to
perform. Patrick was doubtless a British patriot and
would have done all he could to save his own homeland from invasion, if the situation he
found himself in would have allowed it. But in his case it did not.
We must do what we can in the situation that God has placed us.
If we can influence the historical situation then we must try to do so; but it is not always
the case that we can. Patrick could not.
Rather than become an Arthur to fight the Anglo-Saxons he became an Apostle to convert
the Irish. And that was a mighty conversion.
Patrick could not save the Britons but he could and did convert the Gaels.
Thus as much of Britain fell to the Anglo-Saxons, Celtic Christianity was given a new refuge
and home among the Irish. And it was from Ireland that it would spread
to the north of modern Britain, what we now call Scotland.
The conversion of Caledonia, to give the land of the Picts its Roman name, was due to the
mission of Columba (521-615). He left Hibernia (Ireland) in 563 and established
on Iona, in what is now Scotland, a mission base.
This was situated to facilitate missionary work amongst the incoming Scots and to reach
and evangelise the incoming Angles of Northumbria. The Celtic Church in its Irish form was thus
the first church to make large inroads amongst the Anglo-Saxons.
It was maybe too much to expect the Britons to gospel their displacers - although some
did, such as Owen of Ely - but the Gaelic Christians who did gospel them had themselves
been evangelised by, amongst others, the British Christian, Patrick.
The Celtic Church thus survived. It was as original as the Roman, the Gallic
and the Iberian Churches to the south of what was now the English Channel.
Its own local brand of ritual and ceremonial was practised in the north and west of the
British Isles and amongst the northern English. But it differed from the more standardised
forms of continental Christianity, which had become so through the focus on unity given
by early ecumenical Councils to the Patriarch of the West, the Bishop of Rome.
Ultimately, it would be that standardised form of ritual that would prevail amongst
both the English and the Celts.
At the Synod of Streonshahl (later Whitby) in 664 AD the English King of Northumbria,
Oswiu, chose the more standardised practises of the continent over the local variation
of rituals, as practised by the Celts, for the fixing of the date of ‘Easter’ and
for certain forms of wear. This brought the whole of the Christianity
of the British Isles, both Anglo-Saxon and Celtic, more in line with the rest of Christianity
in the West; the East remaining just as original, even more so in many respects, but also more
fragmented. And thus we have the story of the Celtic Church.
It is a great story of great progress in troubled and discouraging times.
But to it we owe the first conversions of the Anglo-Saxons and then the tremendous part
that they played, under the influence of Celtic enthusiasm and ardour, in the conversion of
the continental Germans. God is the God of all history and He brings
good out of evil; but that is not to say that we should allow evil to triumph or to have
its sway. No: we must oppose it wherever we find it.
But if we cannot be an Arthur, then let us be a Patrick.
© The Revd RMB West