THE ORIGINS OF CELTIC CHRISTIANITY
(OR HOW THE CHRISTIAN GOSPEL ACTUALLY CAME TO THE BRITISH ISLES)
AT SCHOOL, certainly in Britain, we were taught that it was St Augustine who brought Christianity to this country in A.D.597. What we are not taught in school, generally speaking, is that St Augustine was actually met and confronted by an already established, constructed and well-structured church amongst the Celtic people of this country.
In order to support that statement let me give you a few quotations.
One of them is from Geoffrey of Monmouth, who was Bishop Elect of St Asaph in Wales, and he states:
“When Augustine came to Britain he found in the province of the Angles seven bishoprics and archbishoprics, all flilled with the most devout prelates and also a great number of abbeys.”
This suggests that Christianity at the time of Augustine was already very well established in this country. Before I go any further there is an important point which I think needs to be made – no matter how illustrious the history of this country, and no matter how far back we can trace Christian ancestry in this country, we have to bear in mind that unless we personally embrace and adopt the Christian faith for ourselves then it is of very little value or consequence to us.
It says in the Scriptures
“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life”.
The Scriptures do not say that whosoever has Christian parents or Christian ancestors, but whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.We determine our eternal destiny by whether or not we personally accept Jesus Christ and the Christian Faith for ourselves, because when we pass from this life eternity begins.
The Pendrith Collection, which was a collection of Welsh manuscripts, indicate to us that Augustine was met on his arrival in Britain (having been sent here by Pope Gregory) by an already established Christian church. In this collection there is a statement by a number of Christian bishops, protesting about the fact that Augustine was attempting to bring the then established Christian church under the authority of the Roman Pope.
“Be it known and declared that we all individually and collectively and in all humility are prepared to defer to the Church of God and the bishop of Rome and to every sincere and godly Christian so far as to love everyone and according to his degree in perfect charity to assist them all by word and deed in becoming the children of God. But, as to any other obedience we know of none that he who you term the Pope or bishop of bishops can demand. The deference we have mentioned we are ready to pay to him as to every other Christian but in all other respects our obedience is due to the jurisdiction of the bishop of Caerleon (a town in Wales) who is alone our ruler under God to keep us right in the ways of Salvation.”
In Britain we can claim to have the very first Christian king, the very first Christian monarch. How do I know that? Well, if you were to journey to London and visit St Peters’ church in Cornhill, London, you would find a very old inscription telling us that there was a Christian king in the land as far back as A.D. 179. That was some 400 years before Augustine came to this land,
“Be it known to all men that the year of our Lord God 179, Lucius the first Christian king of the land then called Britain, founded the first church in London. That is to say the church of St Peter upon Cornhill and he founded there an archbishop’s see or seat and made the church the metropolitan or chief church of the kingdom. So endured the space of 400 years unto the coming of St Augustine the apostle of England: the which was sent into the land by St Gregory the doctor in the church at the time of king Ethelbert”.
Charles Marston wrote a very excellent book The Bible Comes Alive. In it is a great deal of evidence for the support of Scriptural veracity in much of the archaeological work that he did. One of the statements he makes is a very straightforward statement. He says, “Great Britain was the first of all nations to adopt Christianity”. This particular issue was contested on a number of occasions. As Christianity became popular and spread throughout Asia and Europe, other nations wanted to claim that fact that they were the first nations to become Christians, and so the primacy of Britain as the first of all Christian nations was contested quite heatedly.
We have evidence that it was contested at no less than four church councils. The first of these was at Pisa in A.D. 1409, the second at Constance in 1417, the third at Sienna in 1424 and the fourth at Basle in 1434. On each of these occasions it was reaffirmed that Britain was of all countries the first nation to nationally adopt and accept the Christian Faith.
For instance in A.D. 250, the writer Sedulius says this, “Christianity was privately confessed elsewhere”. Of course, the Bible teaches us that, and secular history confirms that Christianity did spread across Europe and across Asia very rapidly in the first century. But, he says, the first nation that proclaimed it as their religion and called it Christian after the name of Christ, was Britain.
The venerable Bede was regarded as being a fairly reliable theologian and historian. He actually entered the monastery at the age of seven, and in The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, this is what he says:
“The Britons preserved their faith which they had received under king Lucius uncorrupted, and continued in peace and tranquillity until the time of Emperor Diocletian in A.D. 284. ”
The forces of the Roman Empire were marshalled against the Christian Faith in order to utterly eradicate it, and there were several distinctly severe persecutions particularly under Nero, Decius and lastly of course Diocletian.
It was not until Diocletian’s reign that we had our first Christian martyr, St Alban. It is ironic that in A.D. 303 St Alban was martyred, but just 10 years later, Constantine the Great of the Roman Empire issued an Edict in A.D. 313. He pronounced Christianity as the recognised religion of the Roman Empire.
The Venerable Bede lived during the seventh century. The fourth century theologian John Chrysostom, in his Theos! Christos states:
“The British Isles, which are beyond the sea, have received the virtue of The Word, churches are there founded and altars are erected”.
Tertullian was Bishop of Carthage and a theologian of the third century and he says:
“Regions in Britain that have never been penetrated by Roman arms have received the religion of Christ.”
Eusebius, of the second century, a fairly reliable theologian and historian says:
“The Apostles passed beyond the ocean to the isles called the Bdtannic Isles”.
Notice that statement: the Apostles passed beyond the ocean. What Apostles? He is referring to the very Apostles of the New Testament, the ones who were originally the first disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Taliesin,who lived from A.D.500 to A.D.540, was one of Britain’s greatest scholars. He was actually a Celtic Arch druid and a Prince Bard, and he wrote:
“Christ the Word from the beginning was from the first our teacher and we never lost His teachings. Christianity was a new thing in Asia but there was never a time when the druids of Britain held not its doctrine.”
Gildas, the Anglo-Saxon historian of A.D. 520, wrote in The Ruin of Britain:
“Ye certainly know that Christ the True Son afforded His light and the knowledge of His Priesthood to our Island in the last years of Tibedus Caesar.”
That must be A.D.37-38, and if what Gildas says is true, then Christianity arrived in this country within a very few years of the Resurrection, Ascension and the Day of Pentecost, those important events that took place in Palestine many, many miles away.
Bishop Usher, stated that
“The British national church was founded A.D.36”.
Now we are getting very close to the events of the close of ministry of Jesus. Gildas says A.D.37-38, and Bishop Usher says A.D. 36.
Metaphrates was a Greek historian, so from another culture comes the same message,
“Peter was not only in these parts but particularly he was a long time in Britain where he converted many nations to the Christian Faith.”
Notice the reference to one of the Apostles of our Lord Himself. Virgil, the Roman writer, stated:
“Britain, partly through Joseph of Arimathea and partly through Pythatis and Demaus, was of all kingdoms the first to receive the gospel”.
Now these are quite significant statements, taken together. Notice the reference to Joseph of Arimathea and notice the fact that it was Britain of all kingdoms the first to receive the gospel. We are finding the same message being given by all these different writers.
Robert Parsons did a lot of work in the research of early Christianity in this country, and he states in his Three Conversions of England:
“The Christian religion began in Britain within 50 years of Christ’s Ascension”
They are all saying the same thing! Why is it that our churches and our schools do not make this message as plain as they should? Why is it we are told that we are a multi-faith country, that we are a pagan country? In actual fact, this country’s Christianity goes back farther than any other Christian nation on the face of the earth.
Henry Spellman, in his Concilia said:
“It is certain that Britain received the faith in the first age from the first sowers of the Word”
Who is he referring to? He is referring, of course, to the Apostles of our Lord Himself. Of all the churches whose origins I have investigated, the church of Glastonbury is the most ancient. We have abundant evidence that Britain received the faith and that from the Disciples of Christ Himself soon after the crucifixion.
Notice the reference there to Glastonbury. Glastonbury is the most ancient of Christian churches.
Theodorus in his Glassia of A.D. 435 refers to the Apostle Paul.
“Paul liberated from the first captivity of Rome”, – Paul, mark you, who was the Saul of Tarsus who so severely persecuted the Christians, – “Preached the Gospel to the Britons and others in the West. Our fishermen and publicans not only persuaded the Romans and the tributaries to acknowledge the Crucified and his laws but the Britons also and the Kumri.” Kumri (Cymru) of course, being the ancient Celtic name for the people of Wales.
Why did this happen? If the Christian church came to this country so very early after the Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord, why did it do so?
I want to suggest to you what was actually happening was a fulfilment of that verse in Scripture, where Jesus said to his Disciples in His very last words before He left this planet:
“Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria and the uttermost part of the earth.”
He was not saying that this is what He would like to happen; He wasn’t saying to His Disciples, please do this, this is what you ought to do. He was saying: this is what will happen, the Holy Ghost is going to come upon you and ye shall be witnesses unto Me.
Look at the order of events, Jerusalem – Day of Pentecost, Acts chapter 2. The evangelists went out into the whole of Judea, and then Philip went to Samaria. So Samaria received the Gospel next, but what about this one, the “uttermost part of the earth”. It is an interesting phrase that Jesus used there. In the Greek it is escatos, which means the farthest known land, in the singular. Not to the uttermost parts of the earth; it is not plural, it is singular. It is referring to the distant Land. At that time the most distant land, in terms of the Roman Empire, was the British Isles, the uttermost part of the earth. The ancient Greeks used to refer to it as Ultima Thule, meaning the Isles of Britain. In later years it became to refer more specifically to the Hebrides and the Western Isles of Scotland, but at that time it referred to the Islands of Britain.
What is Jesus saying? He is saying: you are going to be witnesses to me in this order, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and this uttermost part of the earth, Ultima Thule, in fact the British Isles. Jesus was actually predicting what was going to happen and history, as we have seen, tells us that that is exactly what did happen.
How did it take place? You notice one or two references to the Apostles coming to these islands and to Joseph of Arimathea and also to the town of Glastonbury in Somerset. There was a Roman Catholic historian by the name of Cardinal Baronius, who was a very reliable authority, for this reason: he had access to Vatican manuscripts which have never seen the light of day. Under the heading of A.D. 35 in his Chronicle he identifies Joseph of Arimathea: (Joseph of Arimathea in the Gospels was that wealthy merchant and the Talmud says he was an Uncle of Christ’s Mother), as the person who took the body from the cross and buried it in his own tomb. He would know better than anyone else that Jesus was in fact really dead, and he would be one of the most substantial and authoritative witnesses to the resurrection, would he not?
Baronius tells us how Joseph of Arimathea was particularly hounded and how that in A.D. 35 he and some of the apostles were pushed out from the shores of Palestine into the Mediterranean in a boat. He then tells us that the boat docked at Marseilles but that boat with Joseph and the apostles then went further and followed an ancient trading route to the southern coast of Britain and finished up at Glastonbury.
You may ask how can a boat finish up at Glastonbury? Impossible! It is not impossible, because at that time Glastonbury was what we call a Lake Village and you could access Glastonbury in those days by boat because the estuary of the Bristol Channel came right up as far as Glastonbury. Baronius tells us that what actually happened. Joseph landed at Glastonbury and was responsible for bringing the message of Christian Faith to Glastonbury and establishing a mud and wattle church.
William of Malmesbury says the same thing: Joseph of Arimathea, pushed out in a boat on the Mediterranean, landed at Glastonbury and there preached, taught and converted the Celtic peoples to the Christian Faith. What is particularly interesting with his record is that he also states that the King Caractacus as he was known by the Romans (but Arviragus, as he was known by the Celts) king of the Silures, granted to Joseph twelve Hides of Land.
Now can we in any way find support for that statement? Yes we can, because we find in the Doomsday Book that, those twelve Hides of land are recorded as being given to Glastonbury. I want to refer you now to something that Caesar says about the druids, because we have to somehow explain how it was that the druidic priests so readily and easily accepted the Christian Faith. They became known as the Culdee Church and so swiftly and so easily the Celtic people embraced the Christian Faith to become the very first Christian nation.
Caesar says of the druids:
“They hold aloof from war, they do not pay war taxes, they are excused from military service and exempt from all liabilities. Tempted by these great advantages many young men assemble of their own notion to receive their training, many are sent by parents and relatives”.
The report says
“In the schools of the druids they learn by heart a great number of verses, therefore some persons remain twenty years in training. They do not think it proper to commit these utterances to writing although in almost all other matters their public and private accounts they make use of Greek characters. They also lecture on the stars and their motion the magnitude of the earth and its divisions and on natural history, and the power and government of God and instruct their youth on these subjects.”
Charles Holbert in his Religions of Britain makes interesting reading. In 1825, in his study of the practices of the druids, he says
“So near is the resemblance between the druidical religion of Britain and the patriarchal religion of the Hebrews that we do not hesitate to pronounce their origins the same.”
A very interesting remark isn’t it? Because that would explain how it was that the ancient druids so readily accepted the Christian Faith when it came to these islands.
The Castle History of English states that the druidical rites and ceremonies in Britain were almost identical with the Mosaic ritual. Again suggesting that it would be quite easy for the druids to accept the Christian Faith. We said that Christianity came to this country very early, certainly long before Augustine, in fact within a short time after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. We said that Britain had a Christian king long before all other nations. We said thirdly that Britain was the first Christian nation. We said also that it was the very Apostles themselves of our Lord that brought Christianity to this nation. And then lastly we said the Druidic religion was of such a nature and very similar to the Hebrew religion of the Old Testament that made it readily acceptable ground for the seed of the Gospel.
In fact it could be said Druidic religion was very much a mixture of Paganism and the Hebrew faith. Interestingly, the high places which are referred to in the Book of Kings where the ancient Israelites erected altars to false gods, are also seen in Celtic countries, where they built altars on top of mounds.
In our country there are many mounds that once had Druidic altars on the top of them, such as Glastonbury where St Michael’s tower stands now. Once a Druidic altar stood on the top of these mounds, but after conversion to Christianity and the formation of what was the Culdee Church, the foundation church of the Celtic peoples, Christian churches were then built.
Often when you drive towards what is a typical British town, the first thing you see is the church tower, because it is on a mound or hill top.
Now let me reaffirm this in closing, that it is up to us personally to adopt and embrace the Christian Faith. Remember what Jesus said to Nicodemus, who came to him by night “You must be born again”. No man can enter the Kingdom of God except he be born again. No matter how wonderful it is that God brought Christianity into these islands so providentially, the most wonderful thing is when Jesus can enter our hearts and minds and become King and Lord and Saviour of our lives.
