BOOK II. CHURCH AND CULTURE. CHAPTER I. THE CHURCHES IN THE WEST. notices of Church. 110 IN endeavouring to form a just conception of the history and Early characteristics of the early Celtic Churches of the British the British Isles, it is necessary at the very outset to discriminate between three consecutive periods, which are strongly contrasted. The first is that period which preceded the withdrawal of the Roman troops from Britain and the termination of the civil government of the Roman province there in the beginning of the fifth century; the second, the period of isolation which followed, when the invasion of the Roman provinces in Gaul and Britain by the Barbarians interposed a barrier of paganism between the churches of Britain and the Continent, and for the time cut off all communication between them; and the third, that which followed the renewal of that intercourse, when they again came into contact in the end of the sixth century. During the Roman occupation of Britain the Christian religion had unquestionably made its way under their auspices into the island, and the Roman province in Britain was, in this respect, no exception to the other provinces of the empire. It can hardly be doubted that, as early as the second century of their occupation, a Christian Church had been established within its limits, and there were even VOL. II. A Church of Saint reports that it had penetrated to regions beyond it. It is unnecessary for the purpose of this work, and it would be out of place here, to enter into any inquiry as to the actual period and history of the introduction of the Christian Church into the British province, a subject which has been fully discussed by other writers. Our more immediate concern is with the churches founded beyond its limits, among those tribes termed by the Roman writers Barbarians, in opposition to the provincial Britons. Suffice it to say that during the Roman occupation the Christian Church in Britain was a part of the Church of the empire. It was more immediately connected with that of Gaul, but it acknowledged Rome as its head, from whom its mission was considered to be derived, and it presented no features of difference from the Roman Church in the other western provinces. Towards the end of the Roman occupation the Christian Church seems to have penetrated in two directions beyond the limits of the province, but in other respects to have possessed the same character. During that troublous time. when the province was assailed by the barbarians on the north and west, and its actual boundary had been drawn back from its nominal limits, a Christian Church was established in the district extending along the north shore of the Solway Firth, where Ptolemy had placed the tribe of the Novantæ, its principal seat being at one of their towns situated on the west side of Wigtown Bay, and termed by him 'Leukopibia.' The fact is reported by Bede as one well known to have taken place. The missionary was Ninian, a bishop of the nation of the Britons, who had been trained at 1 There is a very able paper in the recently published volume of the remains of the late A. W. Haddan, which originally appeared in the Christian Remembrancer, on 'The Churches of British Confession.' It contains an admirable résume of this question, and the deductions of the writer are unquestionably sound. With the views in this paper the author entirely concurs. Rome in the doctrine and discipline of the western Church, and who built at Leukopibia a church of stone, which was vulgarly called Candida Casa, and dedicated to St. Martin of Tours. This is the earliest account we have of him, and shows very plainly both his relation to Rome as the source of his mission and his connection with the Church of Gaul. It is probable that Ailred of Rievaulx, in his Life of Ninian, written in the twelfth century, but derived from older materials, repeats a true fact when he says that Ninian heard of the death of Martin while he was erecting this church; and this fixes the date of its foundation at the year 397. From Bede's statement we learn that the object of his mission seems to have been the conversion of the Pictish nation, with the view probably of arresting, or at least mitigating, their attacks upon the provincial Britons. He founded his church of Candida Casa among the people occupying the district on the north side of the Solway Firth, extending from the Nith to the Irish Channel, who afterwards appear as the Picts of Galloway; and we are told that through his preaching the Southern Picts, extending as far north as the great mountain range of the Grampians, abandoned their idolatrous worship and received the true faith. While the Christian Church had thus been extended into the southern province of the Pictish nation, it appears to have by this time penetrated also to the Scots of Ireland. If the old Irish Life of Ninian can be trusted, he is said to have left Britain and spent the last years of his life in Ireland, where he founded a church in Leinster called Cluain Conaire, and it is certain that he was commemorated there on the 16th of September under the name of Monenn.3 The 2 Bede, Hist. Ec., B. iii. c. iv. 3 An extract from this Life is given by Usher, Brit. Ecc. Ant., and an abstract of it in Bollandus, Acta Sanct., Sept. 16. In the Felire of Angus the Culdee we have, at 16 Sept., Moinend nuall cech genai, 'Monenn the shout of every mouth; and the gloss is Moinend Cluana Conaire Tomain hi tuaiscert h. Faelan, Monenn of Cluan Conaire Toman in north Hy-Faelan, date of Ninian's death is not recorded. It has been almost uniformly stated by modern writers to have taken place on the 16th September in the year 432, and has been given by some on the authority of Bede, by others on that of Ailred; but no such date is to be found in either writer, and this supposed year of his death rests upon no authority whatever. The Roman dominion in Britain came to an end in 410, when the troops were withdrawn from the province and the provincial cities left to protect themselves. Roman Britain thus ceased, to all intents and purposes, to form part of the empire; her intercourse with the Continent was almost entirely cut off by the incursions of the barbarian tribes into Roman Gaul; and, with the exception of a few contemporary notices of the Church during some years after the termination of the Roman dominion, all is silence for a century and a half, till it is broken in the succeeding century by the querulous voice of Gildas. The few facts which we learn. from contemporary sources are these: that in the year 429 the churches of Britain had been corrupted by the ‘Pelagian Agricola, son of the Pelagian bishop Severianus,' who had introduced the Pelagian heresy among them to some extent; that the orthodox clergy communicated the fact to the Gallican bishops, by whom a synod was held, when it was resolved to send Germanus bishop of Auxerre, and Lupus bishop of Troyes, to Britain; and that, at the instance of Palladius the deacon, Germanus received a mission from Celestine, bishop of Rome, to bring back to the Catholic faith the Britons tainted with this heresy.5 Two 4 years after, in 431, according to the same chronicler, Pope Celestine ordained Palladius a bishop, and sent him to the Christian Scots of Ireland as their first bishop; and thus, 'having ordained a bishop to the Scots, while he endeavoured to preserve Roman Britain as Catholic, he made the barbarian island Christian,'6 in this sense at least that he had formed into a regular church those of its inhabitants who had already become Christian. Whether the Christian religion had been introduced into Ireland by the preaching of Ninian, or whether it had existed there from even an earlier period, there are now no materials to indicate; but the mission of Palladius seems to imply that Ninian was at this time dead. Such are the few facts which we have from contemporary sources at this time; and all other accounts which we possess of the church among the barbarians are derived from tradition or legend, which will be dealt with in its proper place. These few isolated statements show us a church in Roman Britain, which had been extended, in one direction, into the districts north of the Roman wall, till arrested by the great mountain barrier separating the northern from the southern Picts, and, in another, to the island of Ireland, then the only country inhabited by the people called Scots. We find it in close connection with the Gallican Church, and regarding the Patriarch of Rome as the head of the Western sua mittit, et deturbatis hæreticis Britannos ad Catholicam fidem dirigit.-Prosper, Chron. 401. Prosper wrote two chronicles about the year 455. The share taken in the mission by the Gallican bishops is reported by Constantius in his Life of Germanus written some thirty years after. The two accounts are not inconsistent. See Haddan and Stubbs' Councils, vol. i. p. 17, note. 6 Basso et Antiocho Coss. (A.D. 431) ad Scotos in Christum credentes ordinatus a papa Coelestino Pal ladius primus episcopus mittitur.'Prosper, Chron. 'Et ordinato Scotis Episcopo, dum Romanam insulam studet servare Catholicam, fecit etiam barbaram Christianam.'- Prosper, Cont. Collat. xxi. (A.D. 432). There can be now no question that the Scots to whom he was sent were those of Ireland. 7 See Dr. Todd's Life of Saint Patrick, p. 189, for a critical examination of the facts which seem to imply an earlier Christianity in Ireland. |