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, tall in stature, with light eyes and reddish hair, and belonged to that branch of the Aryan race which, from the valleys of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Rhine, in the last millennium before Christ, had come to settle in Gaul known as Celtic, whence it had pushed branches into Upper Italy, Spain, and the great islands of the North Sea. In these islands the Celts arrived in two waves: the first, of Gaels and Goidels, reached them between the 10th and 5th centuries B.C. Pushed northward into Scotland (*Caledonia*) and Ireland (*Hibernia*) by the second wave, that of the Britons (perhaps from *brython* = tattoo), who between the 4th and 2nd centuries B.C. settled in the southern part of the British island. Allied with the Celts of Gaul, the Britons aided them in their struggle against the Romans. Julius Caesar took this as a pretext to invade the island and conquer its southern part (55 B.C.). Occupation was secured and extended by the emperors of the Julian and Flavian houses. Hadrian built his famous wall to protect Roman B. from the assaults of the Caledonians of barbarian B. Antoninus Pius added another wall further north. Roman B. 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 could not assimilate them. Though their serious and reflective nature and the civilizing work of Rome made the Britons receptive to Christian preaching, they nevertheless opposed it with their rigid racial particularism, which fragmented them into autonomous and hostile *clans* and into a naturalistic religion sustained by the powerful organization of the Druids.II. CHRISTIAN ORIGINS
We do not know when or how Christianity entered B. Nor do the accounts collected by Eusebius, Theodorus, and other ancient ecclesiastical writers about a visit to the island by St. Paul or St. Peter, Simon the Zealot, St. James, Aristobulus, and St. John deserve any attention. More credence was given to the legend of the preaching of Joseph of Arimathea, who is said to have brought there some drops of Christ’s blood; from this legend there later developed that of the Holy Grail (*sanguis realis*). Some have sought to argue for the presence of Christianity in B. already in the first century on the grounds that Pomponia Graecina, wife of Aulus Plautius, commander of the Roman legions stationed in the island, and Claudia, wife of the senator Pudens, born in B., were probably Christians. Even if this were certain, it could only be inferred that there were some Christians among the Romans occupying and governing the island, but not yet among the Britons. Bede (*Hist. eccl.*, I, 4) draws from the *Liber Pontificalis* (I, p. cii) the report that a British king named Lucius, toward the end of the 2nd century, requested missionaries from Pope Eleutherius (175–89). This too is a legend, for at that time there was no independent king in Roman B., and if there had been, he would not have borne the Roman name Lucius. In any case, by the end of that century Christianity had already taken root in the island. The first missionaries came from Gaul. They may have been Christians fleeing the persecution of 177. Tertullian (*Adv. Iudaeos*, 8) lists among the countries that, though inaccessible to the Romans, had nevertheless been subjected to Christ. The rhetorician may have been carried away by his usual enthusiasm. The same cannot be said, however, of Origen, who less than fifty years later, in his writings, alludes three times to the evangelization of B. (*Homil. IV in Ezech.*: PG 13, 695; *Homil. VI in Lucam*, 8; *ibid.*, 1813 sg.; *Commentari. Series, in Mt.*: *ibid.*, 1655). By the end of the 3rd century there already existed several Christian communities. This is evident 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 Adelfius of Lincoln, as well as a priest and deacon Arminius, perhaps representing a fourth church, so that at that Council the representatives of the four provinces of Roman B. would have been present.III. ASPECTS OF THE ANCIENT BRITISH CHURCH. Did the four Churches represented at Arles constitute the internal hierarchy of the British Church, and was this dependent solely on the bishop of York, or were they the metropolitan sees of four ecclesiastical provinces grouping numerous episcopal sees? The sources are scarce, and nothing certain can be said. 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) infers the presence at that Council of at least 8 or 10 British bishops. The supposition is not entirely certain; it is however certain that the ancient British Church strongly felt its Catholic unity: its episcopate condemned Donatism at the Council of Arles; subscribed in 347 to the rehabilitation of Athanasius; rejected in 347 the formula of Sirmium; and after some hesitation finally accepted the Nicene faith, and in 303 sent a letter to Athanasius definitively adhering to the *homoousios*. In all the controversies of the 4th century, the episcopate beyond the Channel followed the developments of the Gallican episcopate. The influence of the Gallican Church on the British Church is undeniable, both in doctrine and in liturgy. 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 some controversies that had arisen among them. In the following century, St. Germanus of Auxerre visited the island twice (429–31 and 447) to combat the heresy of the Briton Pelagius, supported by the two bishops Severinus and Fastidius. It is vain to attempt to prove the Eastern origin of the British Church and its original independence from Rome. Irrefutable testimonies guarantee its close link 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 quite another to say that until 410 it was constituted solely of Roman elements. Proof of the spread of Christianity among the Celtic population proper is found in: 1) the names of the few British martyrs and bishops we know; 2) the fact that the 130 Christian inscriptions preserved (though later than the 4th century) have been found everywhere and not only where Roman influence was strongest; 3) the existence of numerous churches (cf. Gildas, *De excidio et conquestu Britanniae*, 24: PL 69, 346), etc. Zimmer (*The Celtic Church*, 1902, pp. 57 ff.) proved that by around 400 the majority of the Britons were Christian. Otherwise, it would be hard to understand how that Church did not disappear with the end of Roman administration (410).