Article reprinted from CrossWay Issue Summer 1995 No.

57
(C)opyright Church Society; material may be used for non-profit purposes provided that the source is
acknowledged and the text is not altered.

HOW ENGLAND BECAME CHRISTIAN

The year 1997 will see the fourteenth centenary of the planting of a Church by
Augustine of Canterbury. Discussion of plans to celebrate the event have already been
mooted. It is only right that such an event should be acknowledged and celebrated. But
the celebration needs to maintain a strict objectivity lest too much should be claimed for
it and others more deserving, but less well known, should be overshadowed and
forgotten.

Christianity comes to Britain

The exact date that Christianity arrived in the British Isles is not known. There are
several theories such as St Pauls later unrecorded missionary travels. The legend of
Joseph of Arimathea is only a legend although it has its strong advocates. The fact is
that we do not know. What we do know is that Julius Caesar invaded these shores in BC
54 but withdrew. It was not until AD 84 that Britain was administered as a Roman
Province in the reign of the Emperor Domitian.

It is most likely that individual Christians arrived on these shores as traders or even
soldiers. They bore their own quiet witness to the Lord without establishing a mission
or founding a church. The earliest reference to Christianity in Britain is made by
Tertullian who wrote in Ad 208 of, Places among the Britons unapproached by the
Romans but subdued to Christ. The reference is clear but precisely what Tertullian
meant is not easy to interpret. From this time, the Fathers mention British Christianity
regularly.

The first known martyrdom occurred in AD 304 with the death of St Alban. The tide of
persecution was now ebbing and in AD 313 under Constantine, Christianity became the
religion of the Empire. British bishops are recorded as attending the Council of Arles
AD 314 and possibly the important Council of Nicea AD 325. The British bishops were
strictly orthodox during the period of the Arian controversy over the divine nature of
Christ.

By AD 410 the Western Empire was in serious disarray with the attacks from the
barbarians. The Legions were withdrawn to defend Rome and the Romano-British were
left to defend themselves. The Celtic Church was still actively evangelising with a
mission under Ninian to the Southern Picts. The Pelagian heresy introduced by the
monk, Pelagius now began to trouble the Church and twice help was summoned from
Gaul to counter its subversive effects that man unaided is able to turn to God.

The Celtic Mission

About AD 450 the South and East of Britain was invaded by the Germanic tribesmen.
This was a part of the migrations of various Teutonic tribes which had attacked and
captured Rome. The invaders were pagans worshipping their Teutonic gods. The
Romano-British were defeated although it is very unlikely that all the Celtic people that
could not escape were slaughtered. Those that did escape made their way to the west,
Cornwall, Wales and Strathclyde. Christianity was obliterated as the conquered part of
Britain now became the land of the Anglo-Saxons, an in time England.

About this time, in the mystery of providence, a young Briton named Patrick from the
west was captured by pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland. While there, he turned to
Jesus Christ in faith. He returned to Britain determined to go back to Ireland to
evangelise. He laboured in Ulster from the age of thirty dying at the age of nearly
ninety. The hymn, I bind unto myself this day The strong name of the Trinity, is his
composition. From Ireland the newly converted Irish began to return to mainland
Britain to bring the good news of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

One of the best known of the missionaries is Columba of Donegal. Though in many
ways a wild man in his youth, he was converted to Christianity. He settled on the island
of Iona on the southwest corner of the Isle of Mull to evangelise the Scots. Iona in those
dark times became the intellectual light of the west. From there the gospel was taken to
Northumbria. In that kingdom, church and state were closely united like Israel of old.
Oswald the king, who had received his Christian training in Iona, brought Aidan the
missionary from Iona to evangelise Northumbria.

Aidan of Lindisfarne gathered around him a group of devoted young men. Through
preaching and teaching they laid the foundation of the Church in the North. Further
south in the Midlands, Chadd and Cedd evangelised the Mercian kingdom. When Aidan
died on the last day of AD 651, he was followed by Finan who continued his work.
When Finan died he was now a rival to the ancient Celtic traditions.

The Roman Mission

The story of Pope Gregory the Greats comment on the young blond slaves from
England is well known. He determined to send a mission to evangelise the pagan
peoples. His choice fell on Augustine who was prior of St Andrews Monastery in
Rome. Augustine set out in AD 596 and the following year he was received by the
pagan Ethelbert, king of Kent. The mission was given every opportunity to undertake
the work of evangelising the people. A disused Romano-British church building was
granted to them together with land for a monastery. Converts were made and baptised.
It was now time for Augustine to be consecrated bishop and the consecration took place
in Arles.

Now there were two churches amongst the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. What would the
relationship be between the new Roman bishop in Canterbury and the older British
bishops? A meeting was convened on the banks of the Severn in AD 603. Gregory
made it quite clear that he expected the British bishops to submit to him and to
relinquish their traditions in favour of Rome. The British bishops refused and withdrew.
Augustines mission expanded into Rochester and what is now London. In AD 605,
Augustine died.

There was further expansion into the north by Paulinus where there was immediate
success but with the death of the king, Edwin, the mission collapsed and the people
reverted to paganism. It was Oswald and Aidan who revived and restored Christianity
amongst that people.
The Synod of Whitby

Two different traditions co-existed side by side somewhat uncomfortably. No doubt,

Colman claimed the ancient traditions from the East and related this to John the
Apostle. Wilfred claimed superiority by virtue of St Peter as the first bishop of Rome
with the keys of the kingdom. It is an interesting reflection how far Christianity had
declined for an important matter to be settled on such insubstantial grounds. Johns
relationship to the Celtic Church is not documented and it is extremely doubtful if Peter
was the first bishop of Rome. In any event, the keys of the kingdom are held by Christ
alone. It was resolved that the Roman usage would be adopted and Colman and the
British bishops withdrew.

There are two questions which we have tried to answer. The first is which missionaries
opened the way for the light of the gospel to shine into the dark paganism of the Anglo-
Saxons? And the second is why were they successful? Bishop Lightfoot of Durham
wrote that, It was the power of earnest self-denying lives, pleading with a force which
no eloquence of words can command whatever may be the explanation, the fact
remains that Iona succeeded where Rome had failed.

Rome, to be fair, had some limited success in the South but it was the Celtic Church
which evangelised widely and successfully in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Evangelism
was key to the Celtic Churchs work. Fifty years later it came under the institutional
control of the Roman Church under Theodore of Tarsus. It is right and proper to
remember the work of Augustine but that work must be set in context with the work of
the Celtic monks. Montalambert, a Roman writer says:-

Of the eight kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Confederation, that of Kent was exclusively
won and retained by the Roman monks whose first attempts among the East Saxons and
the Northumbrians ended in failure. In Wessex and in East Anglia the Saxons of the
West and the Angles of the East were converted by the combined action of continental
missionaries and Celtic monks. As to the two Northumbrian kingdoms and those of
Essex and Mercia, which comprehended in themselves more than two thirds of the
territory occupied by the German conquerors, these four countries owed their final
conversion exclusively to the peaceful invasion of the Celtic monks

It is right and proper to remember what happened 1400 years ago in Kent but it is also
our responsibility to maintain a right historical perspective. Celtic missionaries were in
the main responsible for bringing the Gospel to England. We owe more to the labours of
Patrick, Columba and Aidan than many appreciate. The Celtic Mission must retain the
honour of first place in how England became Christian.

Revd David Streater is a Vice-President of Church Society