INTRODUCTION

It was during the Roman occupation of what they called Britannia (after the tribes of Celtic people they found here), that the Gospel first reached the shores of Britain. As far as we know, it was not brought formally by some pioneer missionaries but more likely, by traders coming from the eastern end of the Mediterranean, by returning ex-prisoners and slaves, and maybe, even some of the Roman soldiers. According to the Roman historian, Tertullian (c.160-220CE), there were even Christians beyond Hadrian's wall!

Hadrian's Wall, Northhumberland

Towards the end of the Roman occupation there was a man named Calpurnius, the son of a priest, who was a deacon of the church, and an official of Bannaven, a village somewhere on the eastern shore of the Irish sea. Calpurnius had a son, Succat, born about 385CE, who must have grieved his father by his lack of interest in things spiritual. Succat and two of his sisters were kidnapped by Irish pirates and carried away to become slaves. As he worked as a herdsman, on Slemish mountain, Succat had plenty of time to recall all that his parents had tried to teach him. He later wrote, in Latin, 'I was sixteen years old and knew not the true God; but in a strange land 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'.

He was eventually able to return to his home home, but he was so concerned for his former captors that he chose to return to them with the message of the Gospel. He received some sort of training before embarking on his mission, most of which was carried out in Ulster, where he set up his see at Armagh, c.435CE. In this way Christianity reached Ireland. Succat's full name was Patricius Magonus Succatus, but he is better known as St Patrick.

Slemish Mountain, Ulster

During St Patrick's earlier years another man was actively preaching the Gospel among the Pictish tribes in the extreme south west of Scotland. This was St Ninian, a native of Cumbria, who had studied in Rome before taking up his self-appointed task. On the Isle of Whithorn, the ruins of a tiny chapel, presumed to have been built by him, can still be seen. Very little else is known about him.

Although these men were, at least in part, Celtic by race, they were members of what is best described as the Romano-British Church -a church still linked to the Christian church of mainland Europe. It existed alongside the worship of various pagan deities, probably the cults which had been in Britain in pre-Roman times as well as the cults which had arrived with the Romans: but it was no longer persecuted and it was sufficiently well-ordered to have bishops. There were British bishops at the Council of Arles, 314CE.

SEEDS AND SHOOTS

However, things were about to change. Rome was having problems of its own. Its great days were gone. The Empire was under attack, and the legions which defended its borders, were slowly withdrawn to defend the heart. About the year AD 407 the last legion set sail from Brittannia. It left behind a civilised, well-ordered, but defenceless society which considered itself 'Roman'.

This society was, itself, already under attack by pirate bands all along the east coast. When they saw how little resistance there was, the marauders no longer attacked and retreated, but remained. They slowly encroached further and further, until the helpless inhabitants were either reduced to slavery, killed, or fled to the mountains and moorlands of the west, from the Clyde in Scotland, to the south coast of England. Some even went as far as northern France, giving their name to the area where they settled -Brittany.

Those who stayed in the islands of Britain settled among those of their own race, who in the more remote regions, had endured the Roman rule, without losing their identity. After a time the refugees ceased to call themselves Romans and largely abandoned Latin in favour of their old Celtic language which had been kept alive, probably in domestic and rural settings. They and the people among whom they had settled referred to each other as cymry -comrades.

Most of what is called England was now in the hands of the pagan Angles, Saxons and Jutes, and, at the same time, much of Romano-Gallic France -Gaul, had passed to the Germanic Franks. The Comrades were now isolated from the rest of romanised Europe and it could be said that this marked the beginning of the independent development of the Celtic Church. The conquering tribes had no interest in the religion of their vanquished neighbours, and these, in turn, had no wish to share the benefits of their faith with those who had supplanted them!

A high cross, Ulster

Nevertheless, in the lands that remained to them, they held fast to their beliefs, and across the Irish sea, the Good News spread rapidly. Some accounts suggest that when an Irish king converted, the members of the druidical college associated with him, found it most convenient to convert at the same time. The alternative would have been to lose their position of power vis-a-vis the king. There have always been people who found it expedient to adjust their precepts according to the political climate. Still, there can be no doubt that there were many genuine conversions. There was an abundance of missionary zeal. Irish monks travelled to the region of their roots in mainland Europe, to the Low countries, to France, to Switzerland and to Germany.

Nor was travel easy. We forget there were no neatly metalled roads except what remained of those built by the Romans. It is not likely that there were signposts. Much of the uncultivated countryside was covered by forest in which wild animals, including wolves, roamed at will; and there would hardly be a series of hostelries providing oases of shelter, warmth and food for the traveller!

ALL THE SAINTS

It should be understood that Celtic monastic foundations were not like the great medieval establishments. They were usually double foundations (ie for men and women), and they consisted of a groups of small and roughly built 'cells', in each of which, a single monk or nun lived and worked, and one or two communal buildings, including the church. the relationship between the monastic orders and the episcopate was also different. Written records of the British Celtic Church are scarce, although the names of their 'set apart', 'holy' people are preserved. Sometimes drastically changed from the original, in place names, especially in Cornwall, England and in the dedications of old churches.

Columba's church. Garten, Donegal, Ireland

O God, give me of Thy wisdom,
O God, give me of Thy mercy,
O God, give me of Thy fullness
And of thy guidance in the face of every strait.
O God, give me of Thy holiness,
O, God, give me of They shielding,
O God, give me of Thy surrounding,
And of Thy peace in the knot of my death.
O give me of Thy surrounding,
And of Thy peace at the hour of my death.

Carmina Gadelica III, 375 Alexander Carmichael collected orally in the Scottish highlands.