The Gospel to Britain #2
\nChristianity in the first centuries AD in Britain<\/p>\n
From the book “Celt,
\nDruid and Culdee”
\n(1973)<\/p>\n
by<\/p>\n
Isabel Hill Elder<\/p>\n
THE EARLY BRITISH CHURCH<\/p>\n
THE name by which the British Church was first known in these
\nislands was the Culdee Church, the natural result of Christianity
\nhaving been introduced by the Culdich or ‘refugees’. The
\necclesiastics of this Church, composed chiefly of Christianized
\nDruids, became known as the Culdees, and not until the Latin
\naggression, five centuries later, were they referred to as the
\nBritish clergy in contradistinction to the clergy of the Roman
\nChurch. The fact is well established from the testimony of early
\nwriters and councils that through the Culdee church, the National
\nChurch of Britain is the Mother Church of Christendom.<\/p>\n
The Culdees established Christian churches, monasteries and
\ncolleges, chiefly in remote places, where they fled from
\npersecution by the Romans Enlii (i.e. Bardsey), off the coast of
\nWales, once afforded shelter to twenty thousand Christians.
\nLindisfarne, Iona and many of the islands off the west coast of
\nScotland, and inaccessible parts of Ireland, were all inhabited
\nin the early days of Christianity by the Culdees.
\nEurgan, daughter of Caradoc and wife of Salog, Prince of old
\nSarum, founded a college of twelve Christian Druids (Culdee
\ninitiates) at Caer Urgan(1) or Llantwit Major. This college must
\ntherefore have been established in the first century.<\/p>\n
The Culdee Church was ruled by bishops(2) and elders – elder and
\npriest (from presbyteros) being synonymous terms.(3) From an
\nancient authority we learn that the Culdees made no alteration in
\nthe terms used by the Druids; and they retained the white dress
\nof the Druidic priests.(4) A superintendent among the Druids
\nin Britain was a ‘deon,’ i.e. a ‘dean.’<\/p>\n
The clergy of the early Church came into office hereditarily; the
\nprincipal of hereditary succession ran through the whole Celtic
\npolity. The crown was hereditary with certain modifications
\npeculiar to the Celts themselves. The bards were hereditary
\nwithout much reference to qualification. In Ireland there was a
\nhereditary succession in the bishopric of Armagh for fifteen
\ngenerations.<\/p>\n
Giraldus Cambrensis, Bishop of St. David’s, in the twelfth
\ncentury, a strong supporter of the Latin Church, complains of the
\nCeltic Church that ‘the sons after the deaths of their fathers,
\nsucceed to the ecclesiastic benefices, not by election, but by
\nhereditary right.'(5)<\/p>\n
Monasteries, or more correctly, colleges, were attached to the
\nearly British churches;(6) seats of learning were styled Cathair
\nCuldich – the Chair of the Culdees.(7) The mode of life in these
\nmonasteries, however, was very different from that of the
\ngenerality of those institutions that have been called
\nmonasteries in later ages. In each college there were twelve
\nbrethren, and one who was ‘provost’ or ‘abbot’; wherever the
\nCuldees formed a new settlement or college of presbyters, the
\nfixed number of the council was twelve, following the example of
\nthe apostles of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
GILDAS states that in old phraseology – ‘sanctorum speluncae’ –
\nthe monasteries, were the caves of the saints;(8) this makes
\nintelligible the old records of the Culdees that they lived in
\nkells or caves in Britain. Kings and nobility frequently passed
\ntheir declining years in the peace and seclusion of these
\nmonasteries.<\/p>\n
According to Jamieson there is a general tradition in the
\nHighlands of Scotland that the Culdees immediately succeeded the
\nDruids as the ministers of religion.(9) The tradition is
\nsupported by a circumstance of an interesting nature, which has
\nbeen mentioned by several writers, that ‘Clachan’, the name still
\ngiven in the Highlands to a place where a church stands, belonged
\noriginally to a Druidical temple. Hence it is still said, ‘Will
\nyou go to the stones?’ or ‘Have you been to the stones?’; that
\nis, ‘Will you go to church’ or ‘Have you been to church ?’ At the
\nend of the seventeenth century there was in a Highland parish of
\nScotland an old man who, although very regular in his devotions,
\nnever addressed the Supreme Being by any other title than that of
\n‘Archdruid’, accounting every other derogatory to the Divine
\nMajesty.(10)<\/p>\n
Toland states that two Druids acted as tutors to the two
\ndaughters of Laegaire (Leary), the high king of Ireland, in whose
\nreign St.Patrick conducted his great revival; that Ida and Ono,
\nLords of Roscommon, were Druids and that Ono presented his
\nfortress of Inlleach-Ono to St.Patrick who converted it into the
\nreligious house of Elphin, later an episcopal see; this writer
\nalso states that the Druidical college of Derry was converted
\ninto a Culdee monastery.(11)<\/p>\n
Adamnan, the successor and biographer of St.Columba, states that
\nColumba was wont to say of the Lord Jesus, ‘Christ the Son of God
\nis my Druid.'(12)<\/p>\n
Every fragment of such evidence is valuable, inasmuch as it
\nmanifests the true character of the Druids, and indicates the
\nesteem in which even their memory was held long after Druidism
\nhad ceased as the national religion and had become merged in
\nChristianity.<\/p>\n
Arch con Munro, who made a tour of the Western Isles in 1549,
\nbegins his narrative with the Isle of Man ‘which sometimes, as
\nold historiographers say, was wont to be the seat first ordained
\nby Fynan, king of Scotland, to the priests and the philosophers,
\ncalled in Latin “Druids”, in English “Culdees” which were the
\nfirst teachers of religion in Albion.'(13)<\/p>\n
The Culdee, or British Church flourished increasingly from the
\nfirst to the seventh century; kings and rulers of provinces
\nunited in enriching the Church.
\nSir James Dalrymple observes that the common practice of the
\nCuldees was to dedicate their principal churches to the Trinity,
\nand not to the Virgin or any saint.(14) Sometimes, however,
\nchurches were named after their living founders.(15)<\/p>\n
An account of the simplicity of the mode of service in the early
\nChristian Church is found in the writings of Justin Martyr. He
\nsays: ‘We offer up prayers in common for ourselves, for the
\nbaptized person, and for all men. . . . Then there is brought to
\nthe presiding brother a loaf of bread and a cup of water and
\nmixed wine; he takes it and offers praise and glory to the Father
\nof all, through the name of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and
\nreturns thanks to Him at great length for having vouchsafed to
\ngive us these things. When he has made an end of the prayer and
\nthe thanksgiving the people answer “Amen”, which in Hebrew
\nsignifies “So be it.” Then those who we call deacons give to each
\nperson present a portion of the bread, wine and water, over which
\nthe thanksgiving has said; and they also carry away to the
\nabsent. This food we call the Eucharist which no one may receive
\nexcept those who believe in the truth of our doctrines, and who
\nhave also been baptized for the remission of sins and who live
\naccording to the commandments of Christ.’ Later, in a
\ncommunication to the emperor, this ancient writer states: ‘On
\nSunday, as the day is called, the inhabitants of town and country
\nassemble together, and the memoirs of the Apostles and the
\nwritings of the Prophets are read as long as time permits. When
\nthe reader has finished, the presiding brother makes a discourse,
\nexhorting us to an imitation of those worthies. Then we stand up
\nand pray, and when the prayers are done, bread and wine are
\nbrought as I have just described; and he who presides sends up
\nthanksgivings and prayers as well, and the people answer
\n“Amen.”‘(16)<\/p>\n
(I have not a clue as to why Elder brought this in here, for
\nJustin Martyr was a member of what became known as the Roman
\nCatholic Church. Elder is her telling us about what is recorded
\nas how a service in what became the RC church was at the
\nbeginning conducted like. All of this has NO bearing on the
\nsubject at hand…the early church of Britain, and the Culdee
\nchurch services – which was not Roman Catholic at all in those
\nearly centuries in the gatherings of the Culdees. And further
\nmore, it is a recorded historical fact that the Roman Catholic
\nfaith did not come to Britain until about 500 A.D. and when the
\nRC leader arrived, being sent by the then Pope, he found a
\nChristianity that was as he himself sent word back to the Pope,
\n“heretical” for they were “Jewish in practice” – they observed
\nSaturday not Sunday and observed not Easter, but Passover – Keith
\nHunt)<\/p>\n
Writing of the early church, Thomas Fuller 1608-1661) says: ‘Most
\nof these men seem born under a travelling planet, seldom having
\ntheir education in the place of their nativity; oft-times
\ncomposed of Irish infancy, British breeding and French
\npreferment; taking a cowl in one country, a crozier in another,
\nand a grave in a third. Neither bred where born, nor beneficed
\nwhere bred, but wandering in several kingdom.’<\/p>\n
These ‘Wandering Scholars’, as they were often termed, were
\nlearned in the classics as well as in Holy Writ. The Church
\ncontinued to teach the classics; only for the Church the memory
\nof them would have vanished from Europe…. The Church inherited
\nthe Roman respect for eloquence. ‘The Holy writings do not teach
\nthe art of eloquence,’ said Socrates, the historian, ‘and by
\neloquence a man defends the truth.'(17) Clement I insists that
\n‘secular learning is necessary to the right understanding of Holy
\nWrit’.(18) Moses was learned in the wisdom of the Egyptians;
\nIsaiah, the greatest of the prophets, was a gentleman and a
\nscholar; St.Paul, the Apostle par excellence, was as versed in
\nsecular letters as afterwards in spiritual. It is to be
\nremembered, however, that in spite of the greatness of the
\nVulgate its Latin prose is not such a masterpiece as the English
\nof the Authorized Version’.(19)<\/p>\n
Surprise is sometimes expressed that there are so few records of
\nthe early British Church. The savage edicts of Roman Emperors
\nwere directed not alone to the destruction of individuals who
\nconfessed the Christian faith, but also to the literature and
\nrecords of the Church.<\/p>\n
There were ten ‘high power’ persecutions of the Christians under
\nthese tyrants, extending from A.D.66 to A.D.303; the last being
\nthat of Diocletian which began in A.D.290.(20) Bede says: ‘The
\nDiocletian persecution was carried out incessantly for ten years,
\nwith the burning of churches, outlawing of innocent persons and
\nthe slaughter of martyrs. At length it reached Britain in the
\nyear 300, and many persons, with the constancy of martyrs, died
\nin the confession of the Faith.’ The records of the Church had
\nnow to be written not with pen and ink but in blood and the
\nflames of martyrdom. In the edict of Diocletian the Scriptures
\nwere to be carried away or destroyed, being regarded as books of
\nmagic; in this he was following older methods of suppression.<\/p>\n
The British Church at this time lost the following by martyrdom:
\nAmphibalus, Bishop of Llandaff; Alban of Verulam; Aaron and
\nJulian, citizens and presbyters of Chester; Socrates, Bishop of
\nYork; Stephen, Bishop of London; Augulius, his successor;
\nNicholas, Bishop of Penrhyn (Glasgow); Melior, Bishop of
\nCarlisle; and above ten thousand communicants in different
\ngrades of society.(21)<\/p>\n
After the Diocletlan persecution had died out, the churches in
\nBritain were rebuilt,(22) and Christianity flourished to so great
\nan extent that at the Council of Arles, A.D.314, the British
\nChurch was represented by three bishops and a presbyter, and
\nagain at the Council of Sardica and Ardminium in the fourth
\ncentury. It is interesting to note that the three bishops who
\nrepresented the British Church at the Council of Arles came from
\nYork, London and Caerleon-on-Usk,(23) the former seats of the
\nthree Archdruids of Britain.<\/p>\n
Against the British Church no charge of heretical doctrine has at
\nany time been made, though the very prince of heretics, Pelagius,
\nwas one of its most prominent and learned abbots.
\nThe Pelagian heresy, originated by Morien,(24) better known by
\nhis Latin name, Pelagius, twentieth Abbot of Bangor-on-Dee,
\nFlintshire, was nothing more than an attempted revival of
\nDruidism, and of the old Druidic ideas with regard to the nature
\nand free-will of man. The beauty of the Latin compositions of
\nPelagius, his extensive learning and reproachless life,
\nfacilitated the spread of the heresy everywhere; it was quickly
\nsuppressed in Britain.
\nSt.Hilary of Poictiers, in the latter part of the fourth century,
\nwrote to the British Church: ‘I congratulate you on having
\nremained undefiled in the Lord, and untainted by all the
\ncontagion of damnable heresy. Oh, the unshaken steadfastness of
\nyour glorious conscience! Oh, house firm on the foundation of the
\nfaithful rock. Oh, the constancy of your uncontaminated
\nwill.'(26)
\nDuring the storm which the Pelagian heresy caused in Britain, one
\nof the brightest lights of the Culdee Church, St.Patrick, was, in
\nthe providence of God, being prepared for his great work of
\nrevival among the Irish people, Christianity, according to
\nGildas, having been planted in Ireland before the defeat of
\nBoudicca (otherwise spelling – Boadicea – Keith Hunt) A.D.61.
\nMaelgwyn, or Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland and of the Isle of
\nMan, born at Llantwit Major, Glamorganshire, A.D.363,(27) from
\nwhence he was taken prisoner and carried to Ireland, was, by
\ntradition, a Culdee and the son-in-law of a bard;(28) by his own
\nstatement the son of a presbyter,(29) and grandson of a deacon,
\nboth of the British Church, St. Illtyds, Llantwit Major, to which
\nwas attached a college.(30)<\/p>\n
Patrick’s father, Calpurnius (not Patrick himself, as frequently
\nerroneously stated), would appear to have been principal of this
\ncollege, acting at the same time as an official of the Roman
\nEmpire, probably as broveratius, ‘district justiciary and chief’.
\nPatrick would, in such case, have early opportunity of acquiring
\na knowledge of Roman law and British Church government.
\nNiall of the Nine Hostages, so-called because five provinces in
\nIreland and four in Scotia delivered hostages to him, changed the
\nname of North Britain from Albania to Scotia at the request of a
\ncolony of the Dalriada, the Irish colonists who had been led by
\nFergus from Antrim to Argyllshire. Niall, in one of his raids,
\ntook Patrick prisoner from Llantwit Major to Ireland in A.D.379.
\nThe captive escaped to Gaul, returning to Ireland nearly fifty
\nyears later as a missionary revivalist.<\/p>\n
St. Patrick is said to have introduced the use of the Latin
\nlanguage,(31) the previous missionaries having used chiefly
\nGreek.(32) Latin, did not, however, rapidly supplant Greek.
\nProfessor H. Zimmer states: ‘It is almost a truism to say that
\nwhoever knew Greek on the Continent in the days of Charles the
\nBald (tenth century), was an Irishman or was taught by an
\nIrishman.(33)<\/p>\n
Bede does not mention Patrick for the very obvious reason that
\nthe Culdee hierarchy, with its hereditary succession, was
\nobnoxious to Bede as an earnest adherent of the novel Papal
\nChurch introduced in A.D.664, but he speaks of his contemporary,
\nPalladius,(34) a Caledonian and a Culdee, who became like
\nNinian(35) an emissary of the Roman See, which was now resolutely
\nsetting itself to grasp the sceptre of universal dominion in the
\nChristian Church.
\nBaronius states: ‘The bishops of Ireland were all schismatics,
\nseparated from the Church of Rome.'(36)
\nMany saints of the British Church were, at a later date, claimed
\nby the Latin Church, and legends undeserving of the slightest
\ncredence grew around their names. Those who owed nothing to Rome
\nin connection with their conversion, and who long struggled
\nagainst her pretensions, were later claimed by the Latin Church
\nas though they had been her most devoted adherents. This is
\nespecially noticeable in the case of St. Patrick, whose
\nconversion was the result of training in a British home, who was
\nall his all his life a Culdee, yet is now given the greatest
\nprominence in Roman Catholic hagiology.
\nDeliberate confusion was created by the Papal Church between the
\nCuldee St.Patrick of the fifth century and a later Patrick of the
\nninth century, who, according to the ‘Chronicles of Ireland’,
\nwas, in the year 850, Abbot of Ireland, Confessor. For there were
\ntwo Patricks, the first a very learned and godly man, the second
\nan abbot, given to superstition and founder of the fabulous
\nPurgatory, which goes in Ireland under the name of St.Patrick’s
\nPurgatory. During a great rebellion in Ireland, Patrick the Abbot
\nwas compelled to flee the country. He fled into Britain and lies
\nburied at Glastonbury. The Martyrology of Sarum reports that in
\nIreland they kept the feast of Patrick the Abbot on the 24th of
\nAugust.(37) It was to this second Patrick that the Pope sent the
\npallium as a reward or his Romanizing zeal, its first appearance
\nin Ireland.<\/p>\n
The great St.Columba fourth in descent from Niall of the Nine
\nHostages, born A.D.522, about fifty years after the death of St.
\nPatrick, was associated with the Church of Iona for thirty-two
\nyears, where he arrived from Ireland with his twelve disciples on
\nPentecost Eve in the year 565. We are here given another instance
\nof the faithfulness of the Culdees to first foundations in the
\nformation of a new settlement.
\n‘Many of the Continental monasteries owed their foundations to
\nIrish scholars. When St.Columba turned his back on Derry with the
\nlament that is one of the loveliest of the ancient Irish poems,
\nand founded the monastery at Iona, it was but the beginning of a
\nmovement which brought so many scholars to the Irish schools. But
\nthe claim of the Irish schools is not so much in the intricate
\ntreasure of their manuscripts, as in the other pattern which they
\nwove into the history of Europe. Bangor was where Columbanus
\nlearnt his lighter Greek metres and the secret of his exquisite
\nand melancholy prose.'(38)<\/p>\n
The ancient service book of the Abbey of Bangor is still extant
\nin the Ambrosian Library at Milan: it is entitled ‘Antiphonary of
\nBangor’. The primitive church was fundamentally monastic; there
\nwas no papal jurisdiction in the primitive church in Ireland.(39)
\n‘There was episcopacy in the Church but it was not diocesan
\nepiscopacy.'(40)
\nIn ‘The Primitive Church of St. Peter’ a bold attempt has been
\nmade by the author to ‘Vaticanize’ antiquity.(41)<\/p>\n
The island called Inis-pan-Druidneach (Isle of Druids), the
\nnative name for Iona, was the abode of Druids whose predecessors
\nhad fled there from Roman Imperial persecution.(42) That
\neventually St.Columba and his disciples settled down with these
\nDruids is a matter of history. They built a monastery for their
\nown accommodation, and then with his missionary disciples St.
\nColumba turned his attention to Scotland where Culdee
\nmissionaries had already taken the Gospel.
\nOf St.Columba his friends tell of him that ‘he was angelical in
\nlook, brilliant in speech, holy in work, clear in intellect and
\njust in council’
\nSt.Columba did not recommend long fasts (any more than long
\nfaces), but would have the brethren eat every day, that they
\nmight be able to work and pray every day.
\nOne of his disciples and successors, Baithen, was distin-
\nguished not only for his holy life but for his learning . ‘Know’,
\nsaid a learned man of his time, ‘that there is no one on this
\nside of the Alps who is equal to him in knowledge of the
\nScriptures, and in the greatness of his learning.'(43)
\nMontalembert said also: ‘I do not compare the disciple with his
\nmaster. Columba is not to be compared to philosophers and
\nlearned men, but with patriarchs and apostles.'(44)
\n‘He (Columba) established the little kingdom of the Scots and set
\nupon the throne the king – Aidan – whose lineal descendant today
\noccupies the throne of Great Britain. Although only a presbyter,
\nhe reigned supreme over all the churches of his order. His power
\nwas absolute, and for many years after his death the Abbot and
\nCuldees of hyona[Iona] gained so much favor and esteem of the
\npeople that even in their cloistered retreats they were at the
\nhead of all civil as well as ecclesiastical matters.(45)<\/p>\n
Surrounded by the stormy Atlantic a more desolate abode could
\nhardly be imagined than Iona, and were it not for the ruins of
\nthe monastery, and the graves of the Norse kings around it, the
\ntraveller would never guess that it had once been the resort of
\nprinces from distant lands and had echoed to the sound of
\nprayers, psalms and anthems. For two hundred years Iona was the
\nlighthouse for the western nations, whence missionaries went
\nforth in all directions.<\/p>\n
It is known that in Iona in ancient times a great collection of
\nbooks was made, and it is an interesting fact of history that
\nFergus II Scotland, who in his youth assisted Alaric the Goth at
\nthe sack of Rome, A.D.410, brought away as part of the plunder
\nsome valuable ‘geir”(46) and a chest of books which he afterwards
\npresented to the monastery of Iona. This presentation was made
\n164 years before St.Columba’s date – clear evidence that St.
\nColumba’s famous library was founded by the Druids.<\/p>\n
AEnius Silvius, afterwards Pope Pius II, sent a legate to
\nScotland to ascertain if the lost books of Livy should be found
\namong them. At a later date (1525) Master John Campbell,
\nTreasurer to the King, found five old books which then consisted
\nof nothing but broken leaves which were very difficult to read.
\nBoece says that ‘the reading sounded more like the eloquence of
\nSalustius than of Livy.'(47)<\/p>\n
Fergus 11 is not to be confused with Fergus MacEarc, sixth
\ncentury, who with his followers from Reland settled in
\nCalendonia. Fergus 11 (grandson of Ethodius, who was banished
\nfrom Scotland and received by the King of Denmark) succeeded in
\nrecovering his birthright possessions and the crown of
\nScotland.(48)<\/p>\n
An acquaintance with our ecclesiastical history will enable us to
\ndiscover what we should naturally expect to find – that the
\ngovernment of the ancient Church of our land was the same as that
\nof all other churches planted by the apostles, with whom it was
\nin full communion.<\/p>\n
1. Iola MSS., p. 343
\n2. Tertullian terms Bishops “Presidents”, De Corona, Milit. 111,
\n4 (A.D.211).
\n3. Cyprian in Ep. II, applies the term Levite to a Presbyter.
\n(A.D. 230.)
\n4. McCallum, History of Culdees, pp.158,159.
\n5. Book of Llandav, p.279. Topograph. Hebern. Distinct, III, Gap.
\nXXIX.
\n6. Dugdale, Monasticon, Vol. I, p.2. D. McCallum, ‘History of
\nCuldees,’ p.159.
\n7. Jamieson, ‘History of Culdees,’ p.35, note.
\n8. De Ex. Brit., CC. XXXIII-XXXVI.
\n9. James Macpherson, Fingal (Dissertation), p 7. McCallum,
\n‘History of Culdees,’ pp.158,159.
\n10.Jamieson’s ‘Culdees,’ p. 25.
\nI1.’History of the Druids,’ pp.86,91.
\n12.Reeves, ‘Life of Columba,’ p.74. ‘Tare Hill,’ pp.205 208.
\n13.’Miscellanea Scotica,’ Vol. II, p.133.
\n14.’Historic Collections,’ p.121.
\n15.F. E. Warren, ‘Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church,’
\np.55.
\n16.Justin Martyr, ‘Apology for the Christians.’ A.D. 140.
\n17.Soc. History Eccles, III, 16.
\n18.Clement I. Epist. 4, quoted by Gratean. Decret I, 37, C.14.
\n19.See Helen Waddell, ‘The Wandering Scholars,’ XI and XVI.
\n20.Tillemont, Vol. IV, pp.508ff. Allard, ‘La Persecution de
\nDiocletian,’ pp.40,41.
\n21.Haddon and Stubbs, Vol. I, p.32. Zosomen, ‘History Eccles,’
\nVol. I, p.6. Fuller, ‘Ch. History Britain,’ Vol. I, p.20.
\n22.Gildas, ‘De Exced Brit.’ Sect. 10, p.10.
\n23.Mansi Conciliorum Nova et ampliss. Collectio II, p.476 (new
\ned.). Eusebius on Secrates, V, 23. Concelio Compiled (i)
\nJ.Crabbe.
\n24.Iolo MSS., pp.42,43.
\n25.Rev.R.W.Morgan, ‘St. Paul in Britain,’ p.161.
\n26.Hilar Pictav, ‘De Synodis.’
\n27.See Fryer’s ‘Llantwit Major’.
\n28.Tirechan’s ‘St.Patrick.’
\n29.Styled “Presbyter” in ‘Book of Durrow,’ Vit Reeves ed., p.
\n242.
\n30.Cottonian MSS. Vespasian A, XIV, printed in Rees’ ‘Cambro
\nBritish Saints.’
\n31.Scoll, ‘De Eccles Brit. Scotor History Fontibus,’ p.17. Haddan
\nand Stubbs, ‘Councils,’ Vol. I, p.175, note. Tripartite ‘Life of
\nSt. Patrick.’
\n32.Reeves, ‘Adamnan,’ p.354.
\n33.’Celtic Church in Britain and Ireland,’ p.92.
\n34.’Eccles. History,’ Chap. XIII.
\n35.’Vita Ninian’ (Aibred), Cap. II, Bede 11, 4,5.
\n36.’Ecclesiastical Annals.’
\n37.Meredith Hanmer, A.D.1571.
\n38.Helen Waddell, ‘Wandering Scholars,’ p.33.
\n39.See ‘The Celtic Church in Ireland,’ by James Heron, D.D., pp.
\n162,163.
\n40.Skene’s ‘Celtic Scotland,’ Vol. II, Bk. II, Chap. II, p.44.
\n41.Rev. Luke Rivington.
\n42.’Ency. Brit.’ (eleventh edition), Vol. XIV, p.727. Llwyd,
\n‘Isle of Mona,’ p.49.
\n43.Fentan.
\n44.’Monks of the West,’ Vol. III, p.93.
\n45.Fiona McLeod, ‘Hist. of Iona.’
\n46.Celtic for treasure, usually armour or rich clothes.
\n47.Boece, ‘Scotorium Historiae,’ ed. J. Bellenden, 1531, p.252
\n48.Ibid.<\/p>\n
……………<\/p>\n
Next I will bring you the full account in Bede’s “A History of
\nthe English Church and People” on the famous “Synod of Whitby” –
\nwhich show that right up to 664 A.D. the Culdee ot British Church
\nwas observing the Passover (celebration of the Lord’s death) on
\nthe Jewish date and NOT on Easter as the RC church was doing. It
\nis a very interesting part of English “church history.” The
\nBritish church had LOST some of the original truth over the time
\nof six centuries, but the ground of truth can been seen in this
\nSynod of Whitby “church debate” that took place between the
\nChurch of Rome and the British (Culdee) Church.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Gospel to Britain #2 Christianity in the first centuries AD in Britain From the book “Celt, Druid and Culdee” (1973) by Isabel Hill Elder THE EARLY BRITISH CHURCH THE name by which the British Church was first known in these islands was the Culdee Church, the natural result of Christianity having been introduced by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"seo_booster_metabox":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3556,3555,210,3584,3582,3553,3577,3565,3572,3567,3587,3563,3569],"tags":[2843,1537,1469,2960,3268,3269,3423,1095,3262,2872,3263,2989,2988,1904],"class_list":["post-10407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature-celtic-church","category-christian-israel-nationalism","category-christian-israel-tribes-british-theology","category-ecclesiastical","category-legitimist-philosophy","category-literature","category-occ-assemblies","category-order-establishments","category-perpetual-confederation","category-priory-of-salem","category-public-representation","category-templar","category-theology-institute","tag-anglo-israelism","tag-british-israelism","tag-celtic-orthodox-church","tag-celto-saxon-israel","tag-correct-replacement-theology","tag-israel-is-the-church","tag-newsletter2622","tag-orthodox-church-of-the-culdees","tag-replacement-theology","tag-research-tribes-of-israel","tag-scriptures-replacement-theology","tag-study-of-british-israel","tag-the-early-british-church","tag-true-christian-defense-league"],"yoast_head":"\n