THE EARLY BRITISH CHURCH
UK
Even the Roman Church acknowledges the fact that the Christian Church was established in the British Isles in the first century AD, long before Augustine ever landed on the shores of Kent. In 1931, Pope Pius XI stated that Christianity was first introduced into England by St. Paul. His address to some visiting members of the Friends of Italy Society, among whom were the Mayors of Bath, Colchester and Dorchester, was reported in The Morning Post of 27th March 1931, and he put forward the view that it was St. Paul, and not St. Gregory or St. Augustine who introduced Christianity into Britain.
Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, who was born between 260 and 270 AD in Palestine, has been called the “Father of Church History”. A small extract is given here from his De Demonstratione Evangelii. Speaking of the dispersion of the Disciples to preach in the then known world, he said:
“...some have crossed the ocean and reached the Isles of Britain, all this I for my part will not admit to be the work of mere men, far less of poor and ignorant men… ” also : “… the apostles passed beyond the ocean to the isles called the Britannic Isles”.
 In 1596 Baronius, a church historian became librarian to the Vatican, and he wrote of the finding of an ancient manuscript in which the tradition of the voyage of Joseph of Arimathea and several companions, friends of Our Lord, who landed on the southern coast of France and began to teach as they travelled. The region of Provence abounds in traditions of these early saints founding churches along the way. They would have followed the Rhone and other established trade routes of the day, for in Those times the Pax Romana held, and travelling was safe throughout the Roman Empire. This demonstrates God’s provision for his people. It was said of Baronius that he was a wholly reliable historian, and one critic wrote: “never suspect Baronius of bad faith, for no one who knew him could accuse him of disloyalty to the truth”.n
 Baronius was not the only church historian who spoke of the antiquity of the British Church. Hugh Paulinus de Cressy, a monk, wrote in the seventeenth century that Joseph of Arimathea died in AD. 82, and added:
“Now the most eminent of the primitive disciples, and who contributed most to this heavenly building, was St. Joseph of Arimathea, and eleven of his companions with him, among whom is reckoned his son of his own name…. Britain received the beams of the Sun of Righteousnes before many other countries “
Cressy also quoted the Jesuit, Michael Alford, who had written a church history prior to his own. He said: “The Christian religion began in Britain within fifty years of Christ’s Ascension”.
The ancient traditions of Glastonbury, in Somerset, tell that the Lord Jesus came to Somerset and Cornwall with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathaea, who was a prosperous tin merchant. It is well known that there was extensive trade between Britain and the Continent, including the Mediterranean lands, during the Bronze and early Iron Ages, and that tin was needed for the alloy of copper and tin, which was bronze. The Phoenicians were amongst the most active traders, and we believe them to have had a strong admixture of the sea-faring tribes of Israel; so Joseph’s trading interests may have stemmed from his ancestors. As the Lord’s childhood and young manhood are not mentioned in the New Testament, there is a gap between His disputation with the learned Elders in the Temple at Jerusalem at the age of twelve, and the beginning of His ministry at the age of thirty or so. It is written that He worked as a carpenter with His step-father, Joseph, but He could also have joined His uncle on some of his voyages, perhaps after his stepÂ- father’s death. It is also believed that He worked in the tin trade for a time, and it is possible that He spent a few years or months here, preparing himself for His future work, away from the unrestful conditions of the Holy Land.
This is the theme of William Blake’s poem “And did those feet in ancient time…” which is still a great favourite in Sir Hubert Parry’s setting of “Jerusalem”, and it is sung with great joy and gusto at the last night of the “Proms.” Some have even suggested that it might replace our National Anthem, without having the remotest idea of its real significance. It is sung at Socialist gatherings, also in ignorance of its true meaning, due to its aspirations to” …build Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land”. This will not come about through Socialism, or any other “ism”, but by the British people returning to their roots, and the great Book of their roots, the Holy Bible. At present we are in a time of apostasy and ignorance, and Satan is accelerating his campaign to have the memories of our history expunged from the national consciousness. The more we can learn about the Scriptures and about our past and the more we instruct the young people in this lore, the nearer we shall become to the people which we were intended to be by God.
After the Resurrection it is the tradition that Joseph of Arimathea and many other Apostles came to these islands via the established trade routes, and that the British Royal Family was converted and baptised. This was a good few centuries before St. Augustine baptised King Ethelbert of Kent. That the British Royal family played a great part in early Christianity is a well established fact, and many were martyred in the Roman persecutions. A wattle Church at Glastonbury was said to have been built by the Lord Jesus’s own hands while He was here, and Glastonbury Abbey, now ruined, was built upon its foundations.
Some members of the British Royal family are mentioned in the New Testament. Paul mentions Pudens, Linus and Claudia sending their greetings to Timothy:
Do thy diligence to come before winter. Eubulus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia and all the brethren – (II Timothy 4:21)
Paul wrote this letter from Rome in A.D. 67, after Nero had Made the Christians the scapegoats for Rome’s destruction by fire in A.D. 64 Paul was in prison at the time.
There is an ancient stone in Chichester, Sussex, now incorporated in the wall of a building in St. Martin’s Street. It was a dedication for a Roman temple to Neptune and Minerva, and mentioned Pudens, son of Pudentinus, who donated the plot. This Pudens was a Senator of Rome, Aulus Rufus Pudens. He is referred to again by St. Paul in his letter to the Romans:
 Salute Rufus chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine. – (Romans 16:13)
This could be taken to mean that St. Paul and the Roman Senator shared the same mother, which could be possible, seeing Paul’s claim to Roman citizenship and his early privileged treatment by the Romans, in spite of his heretical views, but it is only surmise. She could have been a “mother in Christ”, but it is obvious that St. Paul was well-known to the British royals in exile in Rome, and that he held them in affection and esteem.
Rufus Pudens was married to Claudia, the daughter of the famous British king Caradoc, or, to use his Romanised name, Caractacus. You will remember how this noble British captive stirred the stony hearts of the Romans by his famous speech in Rome. He and his family remained as exiles in Rome, but in a privileged capacity, and the beautiful Claudia, named after the Emperor Claudius, who adopted her, was beloved of the Roman poets, notably Martial. Linus was her brother, later to become Bishop of Rome. Their children were all early Christian martyrs, and their homes became churches. Apparently her aunt, Caradoc’s sister, was living in Rome as well. She was named Gladys, surnamed “Graecina”, due to her scholarship in Greek. From this we can see that the British Celts were not the “woad-painted savages” of the history books, but very cultured people, at least, those of the ruling classes.
It is not, therefore, surprising to us, given these links with the Royal family of Celtic Britain and St. Paul, that there should be all these traditions about the early Church in Britain. St. Joseph of Arimathea came to preach very early on in the infant church’s history, and his daughter, Anna, is reputed to have married a British Prince.
St. Paul stated his desire to go to the west, and it is not actually recorded in the Bible whether he achieved his ambition, but we do know that he intended to go to Spain:
 Whensoever I take my journey into Spain, I will come to you: for I trust to see you in my journey, and to be brought on my way thitherward by you, if first I be somewhat filled with your company. – (Romans 15:24)
As Spain was on the ancient sea trade route, it could have been that Paul made a journey there, and onwards to Britain. Given his connections, this would have been a possibility. Certainly, there are traditions that he came here and preached on Ludgate Hill, where St. Paul’s Cathedral now stands. There is no smoke without fire!
The early British Church went from strength to strength. So many of the early records in this country were desfroyed, but many of the Welsh records have been preserved, and a great many of the Welsh churches are of ancient foundation. A number of places associated with the Celtic church were called Bangor, which means “High Choir”, and the tradition is that these were founded as choir schools by members of the British Royal Family, where praises were sung continually to God, as in the Old Testament Temple. These choir schools were probably also centres Of learning and theological teaching, the universities of their day.
St. Lucius is said to have founded the first church at Llandaff, now a cathedral. Lucius was a member of the British Royal Family, and related to Caractacus, or Caradoc, the heroic king who was taken captive to Rome. There is also St. Peter’s upon Cornhill, a church of very ancient foundation in the City of London, and St. Martin’s Church at Canterbury, among many others.
The quotations could be amplified further, but there is not enough space here. To name a few other Christian fathers who have believed in this early establishment of the Church in Britain, there are lrenaeus, born in Asia Minor in about AD 120, a pupil of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, who had been a pupil of St. John. He spoke of the Apostles planting churches among the Celts.
In the ninth century in Lisieux, Normandy, a French bishop, Frecuiphus, said that St. Philip went to France, and from there he sent twelve men to preach in Britain, of whom St. Joseph of Arimathea was the leader. St. Joseph was St. Philip’s “dearest friend”, according to Frecuiphus.
The writer Tertullian was born around AD 60 in Carthage, and he stated that the land of Britain had received the religion of Christ, even the inaccessible regions .
Origen was born in Alexandria around AD 185, and he stated that Britain was a Christian country. He could not have written this later than AD 250.
The Culdees
Thus, in the first century AD, the Gospel was established in these islands, and the Celtic or Culdee Church was established. Archaeologists have discovered many “Chi-Rho” symbols in Romano-British buildings – well prior to St. Augustine’s visit to these islands! These symbols are the monogram of the two Greek letters which begin the word “Christos”, and they were spread over a wide area, whereas St. Augustine landed in Kent and his evangelising was concentrated in a fairly small area.
Missionaries went from Wales and Ireland to the Continent, and in Switzerland, at Unterseen on Lake Thun, there is a cave used as a cell by the British missionary Beatus, who died there in AD 96.
The origin of the Culdees prior to Columba is somewhat obscure, but it is obvious from their beliefs that they were the direct descendants of the early Church established in these islands by Joseph of Arimathea and his co-workers. One of the many attempts to analyse the origin of the name defines it as meaning “certain strangers”, or refugees, which is what the followers of Joseph were, of course. The name was applied to the converted Druids. The Church was founded on Apostolic lines and continued Eastern usages for many centuries. The first Church in Britain was that established at Glastonbury, and it was known as the “Ealde Chirche”, meaning the Old Church. The Christian king, Lucius, a descendant of Caradoc, built the first minster at Winchester in AD 156. It was on the site of a Druidic Cor (Choir). Lucius established Christianity as the state religion. Another Cor which was converted was at Amesbury in Wiltshire. Here they practised 24-hour praise and worship, as established by the Princess Eurgain.
Where the Culdees had to flee to escape Roman persecution, they established churches, especially on islands, such as Iona, Lindisfarne and many others.
The Culdee Church was ruled by bishops and elders or presbyters. Bishops were succeeded by their sons, so the benefices were hereditary. The early British churches had colleges attached, and they always consisted of twelve brethren. These became known as monasteries, but they were not organised on the same lines as those of the Roman Church. Each monk had his own cell. The Culdees flourished from the first to the seventh century, when the Roman Church eventually predominated .
St. Augustine
St. Augustine and his followers came here in AD 597. He baptised the still heathen king of Kent, but he did not establish the early church here . He sought, in fact, to impose the Church of Rome upon the native Church, and this was resisted for a long time, until the Norman Conquest drove the Celtic church into the remoter parts of Wales, Scotland and Ireland.The History of the conquest of England by the Normans, by Augustin Thierry (1795-1856), states:
Augustin , by an express message, conveyed to the clergy of the conquered Britons, the order to acknowledge him archbishop of the whole island, and that of the Anglo-Saxon kings. For the purpose of demonstrating to the Cambrian priests and monks of his pretension, he invited them to a conference… On their approach, the Roman did not deign to rise from his seat,’ and this token of pride at once wounded them. ” We will never admit the pretended rights of Roman ambition” , said their spokesman , “any more than those of Saxon tyranny. In the bond of love and charity, we are all subjects and servants of the church of God, yea , to the pope of Rome and every good Christian, to help them forward, both in deed and word, to be the children of God,’ but for the submission of obedience, we owe that only to God, and after God, to our venerable head, the bishop of Caerleon on Usk. Besides, we would ask why those who glorify themselves upon having converted the Saxons, have never reprimanded them for their acts of violence towards us and their spoilation of us?”
 “The only answer made by Augustin was a formal summons to the Welsh priests to acknbwledge him as archbishop, and to aid him in converting the Germans of the island of Britain. The Welshmen unanimously replied that they would not unite in friendship with the invaders of their country, until these had restored all which they had unjustly wrested from them ”And as for the man“ added they, ” who does not rise and pay us respect when he is only our equal, how much greater the contempt he would manifest for us, if we admitted him superior”
 This proves that the British Church was strong and well-organised long before Augustine’s time, and the faith had been kept purer by isolation from the Continental forms of religion and politics. The Celts had also evangelised their brethren on the Continent, as we noted earlier, in the case of Beatus.
This bid for power by the Roman Church’s representatives succeeded in the end, in spite of the courageous stand by the Celtic Church, but the Reformation sought to restore that independence and purity of faith. We have relaxed our vigilance today, and churchmen are seduced by Ecumenical ideas. We should watch and pray earnestly that the primitive faith of these islands may be maintained. We should place our reliance upon the Word of God, rather than that of archbishops and Popes As has happened throughout history, the precious Truth is kept alive by a few faithful servants of the Lord, who believe the pure Word of God, and who try not to let the traditions of men obscure their understanding. Only by constant study of the Word of God, and by earnest prayer, can we resist the plots of Satan, who in these last days, is redoubling his efforts to destroy God’s people.
 Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. – (Matthew 26:41)
 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. – (Revelation 18:4)
From these quotations we may see that the claim that the British Church’s foundation was prior to that of the official Church of Rome is not without authenticity. Admittedly there had been “underground churches” in Rome very early in the first century AD., but the foundation in Britain was shortly after Our Lord’s Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension.
We should celebrate 2,000 years of Christianity in these islands on the two thousandth anniversary of the Supreme Sacrifice by our Saviour, and not in the year 2,000 A D. We wonder if, by That time, there will still be an Established Church in Britain, and if so, whether the double Millennium will be celebrated then. It is to be hoped so, if the Lord delays His return for that length of time, but looking at the sorry state of affairs in our beloved land nowadays, it seems rather doubtful that it will be celebrated, unless there is a miracle of revival and understanding of God’s Word.
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