Britain, Evangelization of

BRITAIN, Evangelization of. - The southern part (south of the 55th parallel) of present-day England and Scotland began to be called B. when the Britons settled there.

I. THE BRITONS

They were Celts, of tall stature, with light eyes and reddish hair, and belonged to that branch of the Aryan stock which, from the valleys of the Danube, the Elbe and the Rhine, in the last millennium before Christ, had come to settle in the Gaul called Celtic, whence it had pushed offshoots into upper Italy, into Spain and into the great islands of the North Sea. Into these the Celts came in two waves: the first, of the Gaels and Goidels, reached them between the 10th and the 4th century before Christ. It was driven northward into Scotland (Caledonia) and into Ireland (Hibernia) by the second wave, that of the Britons (perhaps from brython = tattoo), who between the 4th and the 2nd century B.C. settled in the southern part of the British island. Related to the Celts of Gaul, the Britons aided them in the struggle against the Romans. Julius Caesar took this as a pretext for invading the island and conquering its southern part (55 B.C.). The occupation was secured and extended by the emperors of the Julian and Flavian houses. Hadrian erected for the protection of Roman Britain, against the assaults of the Caledonians of barbarian Britain, the famous wall. Antoninus added another farther north. Roman Britain was divided under Diocletian into four provinces. Theodosius added a fifth. Rome succeeded in unifying, pacifying and reconciling to its government those proud and warlike peoples: but it could not assimilate them. If, by their serious and meditative nature and thanks to the civilizing work of Rome, the Britons offered a hold to Christian preaching, they nevertheless opposed an obstacle through their rigid racial particularism, which fragmented them into autonomous and hostile clans, and through the naturalistic religion, upheld by the powerful organization of the Druids.

II. CHRISTIAN ORIGINS

We do not know when and how Christianity entered Britain. The reports gathered by Eusebius, Theodoret and other ancient ecclesiastical writers of a coming to the island of St. Paul or of St. Peter, of Simon the Zealot, St. James, Aristobulus and St. John do not even deserve attention. The legend of the preaching of Joseph of Arimathea, who would have brought there some drops of the blood of Christ, found more favor, a legend from which the other of the Holy Grail (sanguis realis) later developed. Some believed they could maintain the presence of Christianity in Britain already in the first century on the ground that Pomponia Graecina, wife of the proconsul Plautus, commander of the Roman legions stationed in the island, and Claudia, wife of the senator Pudens, born in Britain, were probably Christians. Even if the matter were certain, nothing else could be inferred from it than the presence of some Christian among the Romans who occupied and governed the island; but not yet among the Britons. Bede (Hist. eccl., I, 4) draws from the Lib. Pontif. (I, p. cII) the report that a British king named Lucius, toward the end of the 2nd century, asked Pope Eleutherius (175-89) for missionaries. This too is a legend, because there was then no independent king in Roman Britain and, if there had been one, he would not have had the Roman name of Lucius. In any case, toward the end of that century, Christianity had already set foot in the island. The first missionaries had come from Gaul. They were perhaps Christians who had escaped the persecution of 177. Tertullian (Adv. Iudaeos, 8) numbers Britain among the countries which, inaccessible to the Romans, had nonetheless been subjected to Christ. Probably the African rhetorician lets himself be carried away by his usual enthusiasm. It does not seem, on the other hand, that the same should be said of Origen who, less than fifty years later, no fewer than three times, in his writings, alludes to the evangelization of Britain (Homil. IV in Ezech.; PG 13, 695; Homil. VI in Lucam: ibid., 1813 ff.; Commentarior. Series, in Mt.: ibid., 1655). Toward the end of the 3rd century several Christian communities already existed. This is inferred from the martyrdom of St. Alban (v.) at Verulamium and of Aaron and Julius at Caerleon (Legionum Urbs) and from the presence at the Council of Arles (314) of the three British bishops Restitutus of London, Eborius of York and Adelphius of Lincoln, and furthermore of a priest and of the deacon Arminius, perhaps representing a fourth church, so that, at that Council, the representatives of the four provinces of Roman Britain would have been present.

III. ASPECT OF THE ANCIENT BRETON CHURCH

Did the four Churches represented at Arles constitute the entire British hierarchy, and did this depend solely on the bishop of York, or were they the metropolises of four ecclesiastical provinces, in which numerous episcopal sees were grouped? The sources are scarce and nothing can be said with certainty. At the Council of Rimini in 359 the British bishops, like those of Gaul, refused, with the exception of three, the subsidies offered by the emperor Constantius (Sulpicius Severus, Chronicon, II, 41). F. Cabrol (L'Angleterre chrétienne, p. 26) argues for the presence at that Council of at least 8 or 10 British bishops. The supposition is not entirely certain; on the other hand it is certain that the ancient British Church keenly felt Catholic unity: its episcopate condemned Donatism at the Council of Arles; it subscribed at Sardica (343) to the rehabilitation of Athanasius; it rejected in 347 the formula of Sirmium and, after some hesitation, ended by accepting the Nicene faith and in 363, with a letter to Athanasius, definitively adhered to the ὁμοούσιος. In all the controversies of the 4th century the episcopate beyond the Channel followed the evolutions of that of Gaul. The influence of the Gallican Church on the British one is undeniable, both in the doctrinal field and in the liturgical one. Toward the end of the 4th century Victricius of Rouen, a friend of St. Martin of Tours, was asked by the British bishops to settle certain controversies that had arisen among them. In the following century St. Germanus of Auxerre visited the island twice (429-31 and 447) to combat there the heresy of the Briton Pelagius, upheld by the two bishops Severinus and Fastidius. Vain is the effort to prove the Eastern origin of the British Church and its original independence from Rome. Irrefutable testimonies guarantee the close bond with the Roman see: the use of the Vetus latina and, after the 6th century, of the Vulgate; the acceptance of the Roman paschal cycle (314); the ordination of the bishop Palladius by Celestine I (431); the acceptance of Roman doctrine in the great controversies of the 4th century, etc. It is one thing to admit the Roman character of the ancient British Church and another to say that it, until 410, was made up only of Roman elements. The following prove the spread of Christianity among the properly so-called Celtic population: 1) the names of the few British martyrs and bishops that we know; 2) the fact that the 130 Christian inscriptions preserved to us (though later than the 4th century) have been found here and there and not only where Roman influence was most felt; 3) the existence of numerous churches (cf. Gildas, De excidio et conquestu Britanniae, 24: PL 69, 346), etc. Zimmer (The Celtic Church, 1902, p. 57 ff.) proved that around 400 the majority of the Britons was Christian. Otherwise we would find it hard to understand how that Church did not disappear with the cessation of the Roman administration (410).

Ireneo Daniele