Florian and Sven discuss the lives of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic saints in the history of the Church in Britain, including St. Cuthbert, St. Chad and St. Freya, and how they influenced the development of Christianity in Britain.
00:12:46.720His father had been converted by somebody.
00:12:48.880And then we're told that they lived in the Pallatium Britannicum, which then became the Hospitium Putentiana, which was the first church, basically, at Rome.
00:13:45.640And the whole British nation becomes Christian.
00:13:48.180And we actually learn later on from Bede, after one of these church synods, that in order to make any changes to religion, the British people have to go back and have a unanimous vote from all the British people to make any changes in religion.
00:14:03.160So the fact that King Lucius and all the British people became Christian at that point, that shows you it couldn't have been forced upon them.
00:14:11.580The only way it could have happened is if they'd sat down and looked at what Christianity was and decided that that was preferable to following the Druids.
00:14:20.080And the Druids also recorded as becoming bishops at the time.
00:14:24.580In 179 AD, we get the first church in London, which is called St. Peter's.
00:14:41.660He says the power of God our Saviour is even with them in Britain, who are separated from our world, separated from the Roman world.
00:14:49.860In 320 AD, Eusebius says some of the apostles passed over the ocean to the British Isles, because there are also rumours that Peter and Paul actually came over here.
00:15:00.480There are a lot of rumours that St. Paul came over here, but I don't think there is as much evidence as there is for Joseph of Arimathea.
00:15:07.880350 AD, St. Athanasius testifies to the fidelity of the Britons to the purity of the faith, which shows you that it wasn't Gnosticism or anything like that that the Christians were following.
00:15:18.720It was exactly the same as it was in the East.
00:15:21.700And then in 400 AD, St. John Chrysostom, he says the faith is the same in Britain.
00:15:29.600So we have this rich history of Christianity and a rich history of actually being an important part of Europe.
00:15:37.500When you think that all the aristocracy would come over from Gaul to Britain to be trained and go back again.
00:15:45.240So we had communication with the Middle East, we had communication with Rome, we had a maritime system, and the British people were the first to actually proclaim themselves Christian.
00:15:56.760And that was, I think it was 150 years before Rome actually legalised Christianity.
00:16:04.120And of course, that was down to King Constantine, who was a British king.
00:16:08.040And I've gone into that before, so I won't go into that now.
00:16:10.520I don't know if you want to comment on any of that before we move into some of these things.
00:16:23.360I was just reflecting to someone else the other day that one of the greatest deficits, I think, in any sort of contemporary Christianity is that people are very ignorant of the early history of Christianity, no matter what part of the world it may be in.
00:16:35.580And it really is for shame, because in our contemporary society, we have all of the access to this ancient information, all of this ancient documentary evidence, just for free, at our fingertips.
00:16:50.240And so, this is the thing, even with these early apologists.
00:16:53.580You know, 100 AD, you can read St. Justin Martyr, the philosopher whose feast day was yesterday, you know, giving his discourses in defense of the Christian faith.
00:17:02.640And so, the whole Greco-Roman Mediterranean culture of which Britain was its north or western extremity and had been integrated into for some time, as we saw with the Phoenician trade networks in 1000 BC, was, as we have seen demonstrated, very early exposed to Christianity from the few short years after the death of Christ, which is not unusual.
00:17:28.940I mean, you know, you have mystery religions, Mithraism, and all of these kind of things show up in London, because it's an integral part of the Mediterranean trade network.
00:17:38.120And it's very easy, relatively speaking, to go from Palestine to Britain by ancient standards.
00:17:45.080And so, there's no surprise here that, of course, Britain, as an integral part of the Roman Empire, would be exposed to Christianity as the apostles began to spread.
00:17:55.640And this is mentionable because, Chris, when Christ gives the Great Commission to the apostles, and he says to go to make disciples onto the ends of the earth.
00:18:03.920In the ancient times, you know, the ends of the earth, this was not just a poetic expression.
00:18:08.620There was a sort of sense that there are these kind of, you know, cardinal points of the earth, not in a flat earth sort of sense, but that there are these, like…
00:18:22.860Right, if you think of the Roman Empire as the world and so forth.
00:18:26.360And so, you know, Britain is one of these, you know, ends of the earth.
00:18:30.720And so, it's conceivable, and I would say, you know, probable, that you would have very, very early, at least sporadic and defrayed evangelization of the British islands and the British people by the apostles or some of the 70 disciples, right?
00:18:47.380Aburisto Boulos is very well known as the first disciple of Christ to be in London, either him or Joseph or Mathea, depending on the sources.
00:18:55.960You know, and so, and he was one of the 70 disciples.
00:19:01.760So, and I think that it's also important just to comment, as well, culturally speaking, is that the Celtic civilizations which inhabited Gaul, but especially Britain, because they weren't disrupted by the Germanic invasions, had a very, very high, highly developed metallurgical understanding.
00:19:23.740Their metalworking skills were some of the best in the world, basically between them and the Ganges Valley, or sorry, not the Ganges Valley, the Indus River Valley in India.
00:19:34.180And so, there was lots of, especially early types of steel were exported into Rome, or high quality iron.
00:19:43.840And it was difficult in Rome, it was quite a highly valued commodity.
00:19:48.540At the end, it's one of the things you even see that the tradition of sword making among the Celtic peoples is richer than in Rome, because they have a steadier access to high quality iron and later steel, which is why Rome tends to favor shorter weapons.
00:20:03.400So, all of these things kind of play together.
00:20:04.860It's just to say that Roman Britain, as it existed in the classical era, when it was first converted to Christianity and exposed to it, you know, was quite a developed civilization of its own, although it was, of course, naturally at the hinterlands.
00:20:20.640It's that after the disruption of Western Roman political authority, you know, 200 years later, 300 years later, we see that it begins to rapidly develop its own indigenous culture and infrastructure, both religiously, politically, militarily, civilizationally.
00:20:38.140You know, and it will come to be affected by all of the great civilizational shifts that we read about that have affected Europe since the fall of the Western Roman state and continue to affect us to this day.
00:20:50.520So, and all of these things, it's very important to make this in contradistinction to even a place like Western Germany, just across the Rhine, which was most certainly not part of the civilized world.
00:21:05.640It was very, it was much more of a borderland, much more of a fringe empire.
00:21:09.840And I think that, you know, when we're trying to deal with the Christianity is that in many senses, Christianity became bound up with and embodied within, especially in the Mediterranean environment, the Roman Empire and Romanism and the idea of this Roman sort of uber civilization.
00:21:31.460And all of these, this context is necessary to express that Britain was an integral part of this Roman civilization.
00:21:38.960And so it received its own unique, but indelibly Roman form of Christianity, which is characteristically traditional, as we shall see.
00:21:49.740Now, I think I just, just point out there as well, I mean, when, just after, just after Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, the Judeans were all expelled and Christians as well were persecuted.
00:22:04.680And the one place where Christians could go, where they weren't actually illegal, would have been Britain, because Druidry and Christianity were banned throughout the Roman Empire, but they still continued in Britain right up until, what time was it?
00:22:20.020I've lost my little bit on here, I think it was about 151 AD, when the Romans actually came over the second time, and then they did actually make a treaty with Britain.
00:22:32.140So from 38 AD to 51 AD, Britain would have been a refuge for Christians, rather than going to Germany, which was, you know, a bit too rough and tumble.
00:22:44.560Well, they, it's quite conceivable that Britain is somewhere that they would have headed for.
00:22:48.860So Joseph of Arimathea, if he was, if he was a refugee, this is, this is the place that he would have, that he would have actually headed to.
00:22:57.340And then you ended up with, because it was part of the Roman Empire, you ended up with a persecution under Diocletian.
00:23:05.280And there was, I forget how many, I think it might've been 2000 marches.
00:23:08.520There's actually a place called St. Albans in Cornwall that's named after one of these famous marches after Diocletian.
00:23:15.580And that, and it was after Diocletian fell that you got King Constantine, Constantine the Great,
00:23:21.780who then became the Emperor Constantine and legalized Christianity in Rome.
00:23:27.060And then eventually you had, you had the Romans leaving Britain.
00:23:31.260And I think right about this time as well, all the, all the strong men from Britain and all the warriors,
00:23:38.360they actually followed one of their Kings off onto, into Europe for a big battle,
00:23:43.600leaving Britain without anybody to defend it.
00:23:47.220Because this leader was so charismatic, they followed him off into Europe.
00:23:50.660And then also at the same time, you had a comet that's recorded as hitting and there was a lot of plague.
00:23:56.780So there were a lot, a lot of people dying.
00:23:58.940So then when you get to the time of the Saxons coming over in about 449 AD,
00:24:05.100this is why it was so easy for them to just take over.
00:24:08.440And, and this is why the, the Britons couldn't defend themselves against the Picts because, you know,
00:24:13.720there's, there's a bit of a disparity here.
00:24:15.260You think, well, the Britons were able to defeat Rome at first in 55 BC.
00:24:21.820They were that strong and, and they had Christianity and they had this, you know,
00:24:25.480this civilized center when, when Rome was here.
00:24:27.620So how come these Picts that had always been there,
00:24:30.160how come they found it so easy to just, you know, just maraud across the country?
00:24:34.820And the Britons had to call across to the Saxons for help.
00:24:38.420And, and that was the reason for it because all the best fighters that left Britain,
00:24:42.300and then you had this, this comet and this, and this plague as well.
00:24:46.600And also, I mean, when you're bringing up there about how it's all tied in with Roman Christianity,
00:24:52.040I mean, the first place that really took off as part of Christendom was,
00:24:56.800I forget, I've momentarily forgotten his name, Charles Motel's father, Charlemagne.