From the book "Celt, Druid
and Culdee"
(1973)
by
Isabel Hill Elder
Of Palladius, a Culdee of the fifth century who had visited Rome
and had become a Romanizing bishop, Fordun says: 'Before whose
coming the Scots had, as teachers of the faith and administers of
the Sacraments, presbyters only and monks, following the order of
the primitive Church.'(31)
Kentigern (St.Mungo), A.D.514, is numbered among those who
adorned the name of Culdee: for many years he was the disciple
of St.Servan at Culross who taught and preached there as a
Christian missionary, according to the system of the ancient
British Church.
The Culdees or British clergy were, from Augustine's day, in
constant collision with the, Raman clergy; the Culdees seem to
have been too much in love with simple Bible truth to find favour
with those who aimed at wealth and power. Even the Venerable Bede
could not escape the prejudices of his 'modern' times, saying:
'The Culdees followed uncertain rules in the observance of the
great festival (Easter) practising only such works of piety and
chastity as they could learn from the prophetical, evangelical
and apostolical writings.'(32)
It is of consequence to note that in the early accounts which we
have of the state of the Church, the final appeal in all
doctrinal questions is to the Scriptures. It was remarked by
Polydore Vergil that Gildas, in his long letter on the state of
the Britons, quoted no book but the Bible,(33) and certainly his
quotations from it show on the part of the British historian a
very thorough acquaintance with the Word of God. At this period
of
the Church (fifth century) the Scriptures were very generally
disseminated,(34) and men used such translations of the sacred
text as commended themselves to their own judgment. The
withholding of the Bible from the people and the exclusion of
every translation from use but the Latin translation, even among
the ministers of the Church, belonged to the ecclesiastical
legislation of a later and more corrupt age; an age when
ecclesiastical power came to be based not on the intelligence but
on the ignorance of the people.(35)
The Culdee or British Church had pervaded Britain with the
knowledge of the Gospel, and for centuries after the domination
of Rome the Culdees continued to hold services frequently in the
same Church with Roman priests.
The catalogues of their books show beyond a doubt that the
ancient British ecclesiastics were not destitute of literary
culture.(36) Corruption was powerfully retarded by the firmness
of the hierarchy of the Culdees; they were looked up to as the
depositaries of the original national faith, and were most highly
respected for sanctity and learning. They acquired great
missionary zeal and great numbers of them went forth as
missionaries and Christianized the whole of Europe from Iceland
to the Danube.(37) This is a fact of history which has been
diligently suppressed, but it is a fact which cannot be denied.
It is remarkable that while the Church of Rome was sending her
emissaries to "Christianize" the Saxons, the Celtic Church was
sending her missionaries to convey the Gospel of salvation to
France.(38)
Dr.Wylie says: 'It was the Culdee lamp that burned at Constance,
at Basle, at Ypres, at Worms and Mainz. Boniface, the emissary of
Rome, came afterwards to put out these lights. The real apostle
of the provinces was the Culdee Church.'
A study of the history of the Culdee Church shows that wherever
the influence of Rome prevailed its clergy were removed; not,
however, without resistance. But the struggle was a hopeless one.
The Charter of David of Scotland (1084-1155), who was an adherent
of the Latin Church, runs thus: 'David rex Scotorum, etc. Be it
known, that we have granted to the Canons of St.Andrews the
Canonical Order; and if the Culdees who shall be found there,
remain with them, living according to rule, they may continue to
do so in peace; but if any one of them resist, we order hereby
that he be ejected from the island.'
In this high-handed manner was the property of the Church
transferred to the Roman hierarchy. Only a century earlier
Macbeth and his queen are recorded in the register of this same
Priory of St.Andrews as the liberal benefactors of the Culdee
monastery at Loch Leven.(39)
The property which the Culdees held in their own right was
gradually confiscated by the Latin hierarchy until the day came
when they were dispossessed of everything, including their
ancient privileges, and were absorbed into the Cathedral Chapters
of the Roman Church.(40)
Ledwich, the Irish antiquarian, says: 'The Culdees did not adopt
the corruptions and superstitions which had contaminated
Christianity for centuries. They preserved their countrymen from
the baleful contagion and, at length, fell a sacrifice in defence
of the ancient faith. Superstition found in them her most
determined foes. The Culdees continued until a new race of monks
arose, as inferior to them in learning and piety as they
surpassed them in wealth and ceremonies, by which they captivated
the eyes and infatuated the hearts of men. The conduct of the
Romanizers towards the Culdees was uniformly persecuting; and by
force, cunning and seduction of every kind, by degrees bereft
them of their privileges and institutions.'(41)
The monks of the papal Church were almost wholly employed in
metaphysical or chronological disputes, legends, miracles and
martyrologies - a sad contrast to the pure Scriptural teaching
disseminated by the Culdees.
The history of the Culdee Church in Ireland is largely the
history of that church in England, Scotland and Wales, except
that in the case of Ireland she did not come, national, under the
domination of rome until 1172, five centuries later than in
England.
From this fact may be accounted the theory held by many
historians that the Culdee and Irish Church were synonymous
terms, and that from it the Culdees spread to other parts of
Britain and, further, it accounts for the strength of that Church
in Ireland centuries after its submission to papal claims in
England and elsewhere.
O'Driscoll, a noted Roman Catholic writer, states 'The ancient
Order of the Culdees existed in Ireland previous to Patrick; and
all their institutions proved that they were derived from a
different origin from that of Rome.'(42) This celebrated Order
gave many eminent men to the Irish Church, and to Scotland and to
other parts of the world, among whom Columbkill has still a name
in Ireland as venerable and revered as that of Patrick himself.
The Church discipline of the Culdees seems to have afforded the
model for the modern Presbyterian establishment of Scotland.'(43)
The mission of Palladius in A.D.421 signally failed. His effort
to introduce papal Christianity in Wicklow met with firm
resistance, and shortly afterwards he left the country.(44)
The following year, St.Patrick, who belonged to the Culdee
Church, began his work as a missionary revivalist. Christianity,
according to Gildas, had been introduced to Ireland three and a
half centuries earlier and, according to tradition, about the
same date by Caradoc, the Silurian king. Caradoc, is said, while
a prisoner at Rome, was converted to Christianity by St.Paul, and
it is to his children, Linus and Claudia, and his son-in-law
Pudens that St.Paul sends a greetings in his second letter
to Timothy.
From the days of St. Patrick to the reign of Henry II the Church
in Ireland was renowned, not only for its learning but for its
missionary zeal. Its evangelists spread the light of Truth
wherever they travelled in Britain and to many places on the
Continent, where the monasteries (afterwards Romanized) were set
up on Culdee foundations. To these, many of the Culdee monks fled
for refuge in the ninth and tenth centuries when Ireland was so
sorely ravaged by the Danes. They took with them, for safety,
many of their precious manuscripts, which may, in a future day,
should they be discovered, throw valuable light on the early
Christian Church in these Islands.
O'Driscoll presents a true picture of the early Irish Church when
he says: 'The Christian Church of that country, as founded by St.
Patrick, existed for many centuries free and unshackled. For
about seven hundred years this Church maintained its
independence. It had no connection with England, and differed on
points of importance from Rome. The first work of Henry II was to
reduce the Church of Ireland into obedience to the Roman Pontiff.
Accordingly he procured a Council of Irish Clergy to be held in
Cashel in 1172, and the combined influence and intrigues of Henry
and the Pope prevailed. This Council put an end to the ancient
Church of Ireland; she submitted to the yoke of Rome. This
ominous apostasy has been followed by a series of calamities
hardly to be equalled in the world. From the days of Patrick to
the Council of Cashel was a bright and glorious career for
Ireland. From the sitting of the Council to our own times the lot
of Ireland has been unmixed evil and all her history a tale of
woe.'(45)
The following letter tells a curious story. It is from the Bishop
of Mentz to Shane O'Neill, the Irish chief and rebel, dated from
Rome, April 28th, 1528, in the name of the Pope and Cardinals:
'My dear Son O'Neill - Thou and thy fathers are all along
faithful to the Mother Church of Rome. His Holiness Paul
III, now Pope, and the Council of the Holy Fathers there,
have lately found a prophecy of one St.Lazerianus, an Irish
Bishop of Cashel, wherein he saith that the Mother Church of
Rome falleth, when in Ireland the Catholic faith is
overcome. Therefore, for the glory of the Mother Church, the
honour of St.Peter, and your own secureness, suppress heresy
and His Holiness's enemies, for when the Roman faith there
perisheth, the See of Rome falleth also. Therefore, the
Council of Cardinals have thought fit to encourage your
Country of Ireland as a Sacred Island; being certified,
whilst the Mother Church hath a son of worth as yourself,
and those that shall succour you and join therein, that she
will never fall, but have more or less hold in Britain, in
spite of fate.'(46)
This letter was written in the reign of Henry VIII when the first
indications were received with alarm by the Roman hierarchy, of
the approaching end of papal domination and of the mighty change
about to take place in these realms.
1. Oxford Icelandic Dictionary.
2. See Prelim. Dissert. Laing's 'Heimskrongla,' p.86.
3. See H. Munro Chadwick, 'The Origin of the English,' p.32
4. Oxford Icelandic Dictionary.
5. Rollaston, Mazzaroth, III, 23.
6. Bruce Hannay, 'European and Other Race Origins,' p.456.
7. 'Annals of England,' Vol. I, p.164.
8. Geoffrey of Monmouth, Bk. XI, Chap. X.
9. Palgrave, 'History of the Anglo-Saxons,' p.44.
10.Geoffrey of Monmouth, Bk. XI, Chap. XII.
11.Brit. MSS. quoted in the second volume of the Horae
Britannicae, p.267. Spelman's 'Concilia,' p.108.
12.Bede, E. H., Chap. II, 2. Haddan and Stubbs, 'Councils,'
III, 38 'Hist. of Wales' (1911), p.173.
13.Bacon, 'Government of England,' p.13.
14.'Laws of England,' Vol.IV, p.105.
15.Hengwst MSS. Geoffrey of Monmouth, Bk. XI, Chap. XII. Humphrey
Lloyd, 'Sebright' MSS.
16.Caerwys, MSS.
17.Paton, 'Brit. History and Papal Claims,' p.4.
18.Bede, 'Eccles.History,' Bk. III, Chap. 4.
19.Paper in the 'Ecclesiastic' for April 1864 on Dr. Todd's 'St.
Patrick.' Concilia Constantiano Theodore-Martin (Lovar), 1517.
20.McCallum, 'History of the Culdees,' pp.60,61.
21.Ban-gor, 'Magnus Circulus.'
22.MS. in the Mostyn Collection.
23.'Annals Cambraiae,' CLVII.
24.D'Aubigne, 'History Reform,' Vol. V. Milman, 'History of Latin
Christianity,' Vol. II, p.234. 'Annales Cambraiae,' VLXIX.
25.Malmes, History of the Kings, p.308.
26.Malmes, 'History of the Kings,' p.308.
27.Haddon & Stubbs, III, pp.256 ff.
28.Montalembert, 'Monks of the West,' Vol. IV, p.79.
29.Adelmi opp., ed. Giles, pp.24 ff. Monumenta Germ. History
Tom, III, pp.231 ff.
30.'Monks of the West,' Vol. IV, p.233.
31.Scotichron, Lib. III, Chap. VIII.
32.'Eccles. History,' III, Chap. IV.
33. 'De Excid. Britt.'
34.Williams, 'Early Christianity in Britain,' p.447. Ulphilos,
Bishop of the Goths (A.D.38), MS. in the Library of Upsal
Naseau, VIII, 40.
35.'Vide' Ussher's 'Historia Dogmatica.'
36.Keith Bish. App., p.5871. 'Regist Priorat,' St.Andree,
p. 17.
37.Dasent, Introduction to 'Burnt-Nyal,' p. vii. 'De Mensura
Orbis,' written by Dicuil an Irish monk, in the year A.D.835.
38.D'Aubigne, 'Hist. of the Reformation,' Vol. IV. McLauchlan
'The Early Scottish Church,' p.216: 'There was a Continental
mission scheme in Scotland as early at 588.'
39.Registrum Prioralus St. Andree, p.188, Keith Catalogue of
Scottish Bishops, p.9.
40.Alexander, 'Ter-Centenary of the Scottish Reformation' (Edin.
860), pp.13,17.
41.Ledwich's 'Antiquities.'
42.'Vide' Reeve's 'Culdees,' p.25.
43.'Hist. of Ireland,' pp.26,27.
44.Bury, 'Life of St. Patrick,' pp.44,45.
45.'Views of Ireland,' Vol. II, p.84.
46.Mant's, 'History of the Irish Church,' p.140.
.................
This ends our studies of Early Britain, as presented to us
through the exquisit research and scholarship of Isabel Hill
Elder.
THREE other books I recommend on the people of God who lived
while the Roman Catholic Church ruled the Beast of the Holy Roman
Empire are:
THE CELTIC CHURCH IN BRITAIN by Leslie Hardinge
TRUTH TRIUMPHANT by B.G. Wilkinson, Ph.D.
Both the above books are published by TEACH Services, Inc.
Route 1, Box 182, Brushton, New York
SABBATH ROOTS - THE AFRICAN CONNECTION by Charles E. Bradford
Available from: Bible Sabbath Association,
The above three books I believe are also available from:
www.giveshare.org
Entered on Keith Hunt's Website, August 2003
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