By Dr. Joseph Morecraft
Christianity likely reached the British Isles before the end of the first century with the coming of parties connected with the Roman Empire, of which Britain was a colony. This included soldiers, administrators, merchants, their families and slaves, many of whom were Christians. By the second century, merchant ships from Asia Minor, Greece, Egypt, and Rome frequently sailed to the British Isles to carry on commerce. Some of these merchants must have been Christians as well. The great church historian, J. H. Merle D’Aubigne, observed:
It is certain that the tidings of the Son of Man, crucified and raised again during the reign of Emperor Tiberius, later spread through these islands more rapidly than the dominion of the emperors, and that before the end of the second century, many churches worshipped Christ beyond the walls of [H]adrian.
Moreover, about A.D. 200, Tertullian noted that “parts of Britain which were unconquerable and unapproachable by the Roman armies [have] yielded...to Christ.”
Toward the end of the third century, during the savage persecution of Christians by Emperor Diocletian, we know of several British martyrs, such as Alban, Aaron, and Julius.
In the fourth century, representatives of the church in Britain attended early church councils on the continent of Europe, and it is fairly certain that the British Christians accepted the Athanasian Creed.
Patrick’s Testimony and Influence
At the end of the fourth century, when the Picts and Scots were ravaging the countryside, we know of the conversion of Succat (Patrick) in A.D. 385, after he was taken captive by these pagans in ancient Ireland. Through Patrick’s preaching, many Celts and Britons were converted to Christ.
Patrick’s testimony of his conversion is as follows:
I was sixteen years old and knew not the true God; but in that strange land [Ireland] the Lord opened my unbelieving eyes, and, although late, I called my sins to mind, and was converted with my whole heart to the Lord my God, who regarded my low estate, had pity on my youth and ignorance, and consoled me as a father consoles his children.
D’Aubigne makes this observation of Patrick’s testimony:
Such words as these from the lips of a swineherd in the green pastures of Ireland set clearly before us the Christianity which in the fourth and fifth centuries converted many souls in the British Isles. In after-years, Rome established the dominion of the priest and salvation by forms, independently of the dispositions of the heart; but the primitive religion of these celebrated islands was that living Christianity whose substance is the grace of Jesus Christ, and whose power is the grace of the Holy Ghost. The herdsman from the banks of the Clyde was then understanding those experiences which so many evangelical Christians in Britain have subsequently undergone. “The love of God increased more and more in me,” said he, “with faith and the fear of His name. The Spirit urged me to such a degree that I poured forth as many as a hundred prayers in one day. And even during the night, in the forests and on the mountains where I kept my herd, the rain, and snow, and frost, and sufferings which I endured, excited me to seek after God. At that time, I felt not the indifference which now I feel: the Spirit fermented in my heart.” Evangelical faith even then existed in the British islands in the person of this slave, and of some few Christians born again, like him, from on high.
Two of Patrick’s hymns are well worth quoting and memorizing:
“The Hymn of the Deer’s Cry”
Today I arise, through God’s strength to guide me!
God’s might shall uphold me,
God’s wisdom shall lead me;
God’s eye looks before me;
God’s ear shall hear for me,
God’s word shall speak through me;
God’s hand shall protect me.
For Christ is now with me, before and behind me;
Christ is within me, and beneath and above me.
Christ is on my right, and Christ is on my left
Christ is where I sit; and Christ is where I sleep.
Christ is where I rise, each day I get up.
Christ is in the hearts of all who recall me.
Christ is in the mouth of all who address me.
Christ is in the ear of all who do hear me.
“Patrick’s Hymn of Praise”
Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art;
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
Riches I heed not, or man’s empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance, now and always;
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of heaven, my treasure Thou art.
High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heav’n’s joy, O bright heav’n’s Sun.
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O ruler of all.
Shortly after the conversion of Patrick, a Briton named Pelagius who had visited Italy began to preach against the Augustinian doctrines of the sovereignty of God, the depravity of man, and the necessity, provenience, and irresistibility of God’s grace. The British church refused to receive his doctrine, holding generally to the doctrines of Augustine.
In A.D. 449, the Anglo-Saxons were invited by the Celts and Britons to protect them from the cruel ravages of the Picts and Scots, but they soon turned their swords against the people they came to protect. Christianity was driven back, with the Britons, into the mountains of Wales and the wild moors of Cumberland and Cornwall. Anglo-Saxon paganism spread throughout the isles, and yet strong Celtic Christianity was not annihilated.
Columba: Founder of the Iona Mission
In the sixth century, God raised up a preacher and Irish warrior-prince by the name of Columba to preach His word among the Picts and Scots. He was born on December 7, 521 in Gartin, Ireland. He was the great grandson of Connall Gulban, who was the son of Nial Naighiallach, King of Ireland from 379-405. Columba’s father was Fedhlimidh, a chieftain of the clan O’Donnal. He died on Iona on June 9, 597, at the age of seventy-five.
Adamnan(679-704), an abbot on Iona, relates an interesting incident in Columba’s life in his biography of him:
At another time also, when the blessed man was sojourning for some days in the province of the Picts, he was obliged to cross the river Nesa (the Ness); and when he had come to the bank, he sees some of the inhabitants burying an unfortunate fellow whom, as those who were burying him related, a little while before some aquatic monster seized and savagely bit while he was swimming, and whose hapless body some men, coming up though too late in a boat, rescued by means of hooks which they threw out. The blessed man, however, hearing these things, orders one of his companions to swim out and bring him from over the water to a coble that was beached on the other bank. And hearing and obeying the command of the holy and illustrious man, Lucne Mocumin, without delay takes off his clothes, except his tunic, and casts himself into the water. But the monster, which was lying in the river bed, and whose appetite was rather whetted for more prey than sated with what it already had, perceiving the surface of the water disturbed by the swimmer, suddenly comes up and moves towards the man as he swam in mid stream, and with a great roar rushes on him with open mouth, while all who were there, barbarians as well as Brethren, were greatly terror-struck. The blessed man seeing it, after making the Salutary Sign of the Cross in the empty air with his holy hand upraised, and invoking the Name of God, commanded the ferocious monster, saying: “Go thou no further, nor touch the man; go back at once.” Then, on hearing this word of the Saint, the monster was terrified, and fled away again more publicly than if it had been dragged off by ropes, though it had approached Lugne as he swam so closely that between man and monster there was no more than the length of one punt pole. Then the Brethren greatly marveling seeing the monster had gone back, and their comrade Lugne had returned to them in the boat, untouched and unharmed, glorified God in the blessed man.
By his death, Columba’s achievements were monumental. This servant of God established several abbeys and mission outposts in Ireland and northern Britain, one of the most important of which was the Christian center and school of theology on the isle of Iona, or Icolmkill, in A.D. 563. Iona is three miles long and one mile wide, a rocky and windswept island off the southwest coast of the island of Mull, which is located off the southwest coast of Scotland.
Why did Columba choose this remote and bare island for his Christian center? It may have been self-exile because of guilt, as he was the cause of a great battle in 561 between Diarmait, King of Ireland, and Columba’s relatives, the Clan Neil at Culdreimhne (now Cooladrummon). Allegedly, Columba mustered the Clan Neil for the war for the purpose of avenging two grievances against King Diarmait. One grievance was that Diarmait had slain Columba’s clansman, the young Prince Curnan, who had taken sanctuary with him after having caused the death of a playfellow during the sports at Tara. The other was a decision which Columba considered unjust given against him by Diarmait in the matter of the ownership of a book.
The latter incident is related by Rev. John Golden as follows:
In St. Columba’s thirty-ninth year, while visiting at Clonard, he secretly made a copy of a beautiful book of Psalms kept by the Abbot Finian in the church. The abbot soon discovered the fact, and demanded the copy as his right. The book had cost Columba many a sleepless night, and he stoutly refused to surrender it. Unable to agree, the disputants appealed to Diarmait, the chief King of Ireland. “To every cow belongeth her calf” was the judgment of Tara’s king. Sorely grieved at the loss of his copy, which he was obliged to surrender to his old master, he boldly exclaimed: “This is an unjust decision, O Diarmait, and I will be avenged.” It has been claimed that this very manuscript, a psalter enclosed in a shrine, is that known as the Cathach, or ‘Battle,’ venerated for more than a thousand years by the Clan O’Donnell (Columba’s clan), who carried it into their battles as a sure pledge of victory. It is now in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy. But whether the story of Columba’s secret copying of the Abbot’s psalter be true or not, and whether the Cathach be that identical copy or not, the story is but one of many which prove the passionate love of Columba and of the early Irish ecclesiastics for fine manuscripts. Columba is said to have written out more than three hundred copies of the Vulgate and of the Psalter with his own hand. In St. Adamnan’s narrative we often find him described as writing in his cell.
D’Aubigne observes:
Although subject to the same passions as ourselves, he wrestled against his weakness, and would not have one moment lost for the glory of God. He prayed and read, he wrote and taught, he preached and redeemed the time. With indefatigable activity he went from house to house, and from kingdom to kingdom. The king of the Picts was converted as were many of his people; precious manuscripts were conveyed to Iona; a school of theology was founded there, in which the Word was studied; and many received through faith the salvation which is in Christ Jesus.
Iona’s Far-reaching Impact
Iona sent missionaries throughout Europe, to the Mediterranean Sea, to the equator, through the travels of Brendan, to Iceland, and to North America, so that this little island became known as “the light of the western world.” And it was from this base that “the Irish saved civilization.” D’Aubigne observed:
The missionary fire, which [Columba] the grandson of Fergis had kindled in a solitary island, soon spread over Great Britain. Not in Iona alone, but at Bangor [County Down] and other places, the spirit of evangelization burst out. A fondness for traveling had already become a second nature in this people. Men of God, burning with zeal, resolved to carry the evangelical torch to the continent—to the vast wilderness sprinkled here and there with barbarous and heathen tribes. They did not set forth as antagonists of Rome, for at that epoch there was no place for such antagonism; but Iona and Bangor, less illustrious than Rome in the history of nations, possessed a more lively faith than the city of the Caesars; and that faith — unerring sign of the presence of Jesus Christ — gave those whom it inspired a right to evangelize the world...
The extent of the influence of these Celtic Christians and of their missionary activity is astonishing. By the end of the ninth century, they had founded bases of missionary operation in Scotland, England, Ireland, Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy. This led James W. Thompson to write that “the weight of the Irish influence on the continent is incalculable.”
Celtic Christianity: The Fight for the True Gospel
These preachers and missionaries from Iona knew nothing of the sacerdotalism and transubstantiation of Rome. They were “pre-protestant” in many ways. These ancient ministers confessed:
The Holy Scriptures are the only rule of faith. Throw aside all merit of works, and look for salvation to the grace of God alone. Beware of a religion that consists of outward observances: it is better to keep your heart pure before God than to abstain from meats. One alone is your head, Jesus Christ. Bishops and presbyters are equal; they should be the husbands of one wife, and have their children in subjection.
The early church of the British Isles did more for the conversion of northern and central Europe than the Roman Church. However, these early British Christians refused to preach the gospel to their Anglo-Saxon oppressors. They made some attempts to convert them, but they considered their conquerors as enemies of God and man and shuddered when they pronounced their names, while the Saxons refused to listen to their Celtic and British slaves. This failure of evangelism led to a heavy yoke of oppression and tyranny by a foreign power. Tyranny always takes root in unevangelized soil, because only Christ can set people free!
In the middle of the seventh century, at the monastery at Whitby, Yorkshire, England, much of the Celtic-British church was forced into submission to the Roman pope by ridicule, intimidation, and the use of Anglo-Saxon swords. At one point in their history, most of twelve hundred unarmed British Christians were slaughtered by the Anglo-Saxon king Aethelfrith and his army, after which they burned a leading center of British Christianity, probably at the instigation of Rome. Iona held out for a long time, being “the last citadel of liberty in the western world, and popery was filled with anger at that miserable band which in its remote corner refused to bend before it.”
Thus, by the beginning of the eighth century, the British church had become subservient to Rome, but an internal struggle was commencing which did not cease until the period of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. Many faithful believers in ancient Celtic-Scottish-British (and in some measure Pictish) Christianity remained in the mountains of Scotland, which “long concealed the hidden fire which after many ages burst forth with such power and might. Here and there a few independent spirits were to be found who testified against the tyranny of Rome.” It was upon the work of these “Culdees”(i.e., cultores Dei, Celtic for “worshippers of God”) — who flourished in the third and fourth centuries, and who the seventh, eleventh, and fifteenth centuries — that the Wycliffite Lollards built much of their ministry in the fourteenth century and beyond. It was these Lollards that God used to pave the way for the Scottish Reformation in the sixteenth century. And that Reformed Church of Scotland had a major role in shaping early America.
By the early eighth century, many of the uncompromising Celtic and Scottish Christians were saddened by the backsliding of the Celtic church into the arms of Rome who surrendered the authority of Christ over the church to the authority of man. This induced them to leave their homeland for the very heart of Europe to fight in defense of the gospel and Christian liberty which was dying out among themselves under the influence of Rome.
Clement of Scotland: A Defender of the Faith
One such man was Clement of Scotland, who believed that the work of God’s grace is the essence of the gospel and that this work must be defended against all the encroachments of man. D’Aubigne observes:
To human traditionalism he opposed the sole authority of the Word of God; to clerical materialism, a church which is the assembly of saints; and to Pelagianism, the sovereignty of grace. He was a man of decided character and firm faith, but without fanaticism; his heart was open to the holiest emotions of our nature; he was a husband and a father. He quitted Scotland and travelled among the Franks, everywhere scattering the seeds of the faith.
Clement was called of God to defend the true faith against an equally talented man named Winifrid or Bonaface of Wessex (680-754), who was working to establish Romanism in the same area. Boniface was a champion of Rome supported by the pope, Gregory II, and by Charles Martel, ruler of the Franks. “The Englishman and the Scotsman, representatives of two great systems, were about to engage in deadly combat in the heart of Europe — in a combat whose consequences might be incalculable.”
The debate between them is instructive. Boniface began by confronting Clement with the laws of the Roman Catholic Church. Clement denied the authority of these church canons and refuted them. Then Boniface set forth the decisions of various church councils; but Clement replied that if the decrees of the ecumenical councils were contrary to the Bible, they therefore had no authority over Christians. Boniface was astonished at Clement’s audacity. He then quoted the fathers of the Latin church; but Clement told him that, instead of submitting to the opinions of men, he should obey the Bible alone, because it is the complete Word of God. By this time, Boniface was enraged and thus introduced the united authority of the priests, bishops, archbishops, and pope as the one, true church. Clement, to Boniface’s surprise, maintained that the one, true church is where the Holy Spirit lives and is active. This body alone is the bride of Christ. Boniface was horrified, but Clement would not be swayed. Clement’s main point was that the Roman church had replaced the authority of God with the authority of man, and that was the source of all the errors of Rome. D’Aubigne notes:
Thus then did a Scotsman, the representative of the ancient faith of his country, withstand almost unaided in the center of Europe the invasion of the Romans. But he was not long alone; the nobility especially, more enlightened than the common people, thronged around him. If Clement had succeeded, a Christian church would have been founded on the continent independent of the papacy.
Frustrated, Boniface turned to Charles Martel and his sons, Pepin and Carloman, to obtain permission to call a church council to summon Clement for heresy. This council met at Soissons on March 2, 744. Boniface made his charges of treason against the church, one of which was against Clement’s marriage.
Boniface then excommunicated Clement and threw him into prison with the approval of the pope and the king of the France. Later, because of the people’s support of Clement, Carloman released him. Clement continued to protest courageously against the authority of man in issues of faith. For him, the only rule of faith and practice was the written Word of God. Boniface beseeched the pope to condemn Clement as a heretic. The pope, having been bought by Boniface with a silver cup and a garment of expensive and soft texture, decided that if Clement did not retract his errors, he would deliver him over to eternal condemnation. He instructed Boniface to send Clement to Rome under armed guard. “We here lose all traces of the Scotsman, but it is easy to conjecture what must have been his fate.”
Iona’s Legacy: A Testimony to Remember
The influence and purity of Celtic Christianity eventually waned due to the ravages of Viking raids, the surrender to Roman Catholicism, and the lack of zeal among many Celtic Christians to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons. Yet the global advancement of Christ’s kingdom that these Ionan missionaries helped to bring about transformed the world, and their amazing story is one that we should joyfully proclaim throughout the generations:
Great is the LORD, and highly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise Thy works to another, and shall declare Thy mighty acts. On the glorious splendor of Thy majesty, and on Thy wonderful works, I will meditate. And men shall speak of the power of Thy awesome acts; and I will tell of Thy mighty acts.(Psalm 145:3-6)