The 5th Century was one of fast and rapid change throughout the lands which had been dominated by the western Roman Empire for centuries. The events which Constantine the Great anticipated a century earlier, when he moved the Imperial capital from Rome to Constantinople, finally came to fruition. The Germanic tribes, in their quest for new lands, finally conquered the Roman armies; the symbol of their victory and the humiliation of the Empire was the sacking of Rome by the Visigoths in 410 AD. These Germanic tribes extended themselves throughout Western Europe forming the basis of the nations which we recognise today.

Prior to the sacking of Rome, the Empire chose to abandon Britannia by pulling back the troops into the continent where their presence was required. Therefore Roman Britain was left exposed, a successful and prosperous society – but now without the military and governmental structures which made it a cohesive unit. What worried the Roman Britons particularly were the Caledonian Picts, who challenged from the north, and the Dalriada, a kingdom which stretched across the Irish Sea, including a section of Ulster and south west Scotland, which threatened from the west.

THE PAGAN ANGLO-SAXONS INVADE CHRISTIAN BRITAIN

Britannia soon suffered another more decisive incursion of Angles, Saxons and Jutes, however, an invasion which was welcomed at first as it offered security. It was it be a double-edged sword.  These Germanic tribes who settled among the Roman Britons were fierce and warlike, keeping the Celts at bay, while establishing themselves as the dominant people. They became known as the Anglo-Saxons, with the Angles providing a name for the territory, the people and the language that would eventually dominate one-third of the world; England and Englishness was born.  Indeed Green in his History of the English People begins his story not in Britain, but in the lands we today call Germany.

While the Anglo-Saxon settlements became dominant south of Hadrian’s wall, the Celtic way of life continued in the extremities of our islands; Ireland, Scotland, Northumberland, Cumbria, Wales and Cornwall. But the Christian faith was petering out during the 5th and 6th Centuries as the pagan Anglo-Saxon invasion swarmed ever westwards.

BRITISH CHRISTIANITY DEGENERATES

As Philip Schaff simply records, “For a century-and- a-half we hear nothing of the British churches, till the silence is broken by Gildas, who informs us of the degeneracy of the clergy, the decay of religion…” This is an indicator that the primitive paganism of the settlers eclipsed and probably persecuted the faith of Roman Christian Britain virtually out of existence. Indeed, 15 years after St. Augustine arrived in England on his Papal mission in 597 AD, there are reliable reports that an English army slew hundreds of students at the theological college at Bangor-is-y-Coed in Flintshire.

THE RISE OF THE SCOTO-IRISH CHURCH

Christianity did not disappear completely during this period, however, but flourished among the Celts in Ireland and Scotland.  This tradition of Christianity has had various names including the ‘Celtic Church’ and the ‘Scoto-Irish Church’.  Archbishop James Ussher, in his controversies with the Jesuit counter reformation in 17^th Century Ireland, was keen to prove that this ancient tradition of Christianity was not dependent upon the authority of Roman pontiff.  19th Century historian Rev Thomas Hamilton, quoting from Celtic authorities in his generation, wrote that “the Scoto-Irish Church is the oldest of all Protestant Churches represented in modern Christendom”.  Schaff supports this hypothesis; “The Celtic church existed in England, Ireland, and Scotland, independently of Rome, long before the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons by the Roman mission of Augustine…It took its origin probably from Gaul, and afterwards from Italy also. The legend traces it to St. Paul and other apostolic founders.”

IRELAND LEADS EVANGELISM IN EUROPE

The progress of this movement, which kept the Gospel flame alive in dark and turbulent times, was centred in Ireland. It is a remarkable story, which elevated Ireland into one of the leading centres of learning and evangelism in the whole of Europe. Ireland is noted for its rich literary, artistic and musical tradition, even in pagan times, which has contributed to its many ancient stories and legends. The arrival of Christianity, however, took this talent and converted it into a Gospel use which benefited the world; a land of saints and scholars.

The greatest of these scholar saints is Patrick, whose father and grandfather were both Christian ministers. Such was his influence over Irish culture that his name appears in place names all over the Emerald Isle.  There is literary evidence of his life also in The Book of Armagh, which is thought to date from the 9th Century.  This ancient volume contains two pieces of writing from Patrick’s own pen, his Confession and his Letter to Coroticus, an appeal to a Welsh prince to tolerate Christianity.  There is also some biographical material written at a later date.  Patrick’s ministry took place during the first half of the turbulent 5th Century; as the Roman Empire was imploding, he was at work dismantling the paganism of our Celtic ancestors, creating a new Christian order.

A MARAUDING GANG TAKES PATRICK TO IRELAND

Born, it is believed, into a Roman Christian family in the Dumbarton area, the young teenage Patricius was captured by one of the marauding gangs which pillaged the coast and taken to a farm in Co. Antrim, where he kept sheep as a slave, in an area around the hill known as Slemish.  In his writings, he explains that he came to Ireland without faith – but it was during this season of captivity that he turned to the Lord God.  As explained in the first article, Christianity had already been developing in Ireland, which helps us appreciate the ease with which the young boy came under the influence of the Gospel.  Eventually Patrick made good his escape and was reunited with his heartbroken family.  It is believed that, by this time, his family had moved either to either Wales or France.  Patrick’s later arrival in Ireland on the south-east coast is certainly consistent with this geography.  The reason why he returned is attributed to a call from God, strikingly similar to St Paul’s Macedonian vision.  Patrick saw a man called Victorious who conveyed the voice of the Irish, beseeching the holy youth to walk among them.  He would spend the remainder of his life travelling throughout the island through which, according to his own testimony, clergy were ordained and many were born again.  

The progress which this spiritual movement made in the centuries following Patrick mirrors the decline experienced by the European church, which was rapidly developing into the apostate Christendom we today call Roman Catholicism. 

THE GOSPEL SPREADS FROM IONA

The literary brilliance of the Celtic Christians is perhaps best exemplified by Adman, who spent his entire ministry in the Scottish Island Iona.  One winter he entertained a cleric from Europe, who was much better travelled.  This guest spent the long dark nights describing his visit to the Holy Land.  As a consequence, Adman published a work on places in Palestine.  Adman also wrote a work on the life of Columba, the founder both of Iona and Scottish Christianity within 100 years of Columba’s death. 

Columba’s life illustrates the missionary zeal of the Celtic Christians.  Having served for decades in north-west Ulster, in modern Co Donegal, Columba was forced into exile – having been implicated in causing strife within the Irish Church, a division which led to civil war and bloodshed.  With a small group of followers, he established a community and church across the Irish Sea in Iona.  The Celtic monastic settlements were unlike the orders established later under the Papal See.  They were communities of Christians who farmed, worshipped, studied, prayed and evangelised together, bearing witness to their faith among a wider society.  The settlement at Iona thrust the Gospel forth among the Picts in the 6th Century, establishing Christianity in the very area that the Romans struggled to conquer.  Columba established churches and influenced Kings; the first recorded use of the Stone of Scone was when he crowned Aidan as King of the Dalriada in Iona.

Columba was by no means the only Irish missionary. Columbanus was the Irishman abroad who left his native homeland to minister in Europe, his travels taking him in the 7th Century to France, Switzerland and Italy. His old Celtic language could take him anywhere in Western Europe; his straightforward sermons and condemnation of the corruptions creeping into Christianity made him most controversial, hence his frequent relocations. He famously wrote to Pope Gregory the Great, probably the first to occupy the Papal See in the modern sense, describing himself as a ‘living dog’ – with the Pontiff in all his opulence as nothing more than a ‘dead lion’.

Aidan is another example of an Irish missionary who remained closer to home, evangelising among the Anglo-Saxons in Northumbria from his island base at Lindisfarne in the 7th Century.  The Venerable Bede, the ‘Father of English History’, recounts his story through which Christianity was reborn in England.

IRISH CHURCHES WERE BRIGHT DESPITE THE COMING OF THE ‘DARK AGES’

The Celtic Church has left us beautiful of examples of their industry, their zeal, their talent and their faith.  There are numerous old ruins and Celtic crosses scattered across our countryside in places where men of God once laboured for the common good.  The exquisite nature of their work in preserving the Scriptures, as seen in the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels, are their enduring legacy.

Eventually the blackness of the dark ages would extinguish even this bright and shining light.  It was in Ireland, though, that the sun took longest to set.  The Irish churches earnestly protected their independence from the Roman See – in a protracted struggle that was not finally lost until Henry II, with Papal Authority, planted the English flag for the first time in Irish soil in the 12th Century.  James Seaton Reid described the Irish Church as “the last of the churches in the West which preserved its independence”.  It is surely one of the ironies of history that the last place in Europe to succumb to apostate Christianity, where the light was last extinguished, should be the very place from where Rome would launch her Counter-Reformation against Protestant England in the 17th Century.  How we long and pray for the fire and light of the old Celtic flame to be rekindled across our islands – which are sinking once again into darkness!

RESOURCES USED:

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff

Ireland and the Celtic Church, George T. Stokes

A History of Britain; At the Edge of the World, Simon Schama

History of the English People, John Richard Green

History of Irish Presbyterian Church, Thomas Hamilton