Mysterium Fasces - The Celtic Saints Of Britain (5) - Saints Cuthbert & Chad – w_ Florian Geyer & Sven Longshanks

00:00:00.000 Transcribed by ESO, translated by —

00:00:30.000 hello and welcome to the fifth and final episode of the celtic saints of britain you're listening

00:00:42.920 to me sven longshanks and of course i'm joined today by my co-host florian gaia florian how you

00:00:49.640 doing we've reached the fifth and uh and final episode have you enjoyed it so far i think it's

00:00:54.860 just been wonderful it's been a great blessing to be back on to do this uh series with you it's

00:00:59.100 and i think our listeners are going to enjoy it very much yeah it's been uh great to speak with

00:01:05.400 you again i think it's been i can't can't think how long it's been probably at least half a year

00:01:10.120 too long yeah way too long well today we're going to be talking about saint cuthbert

00:01:14.760 and he united the danes and the saxons remember we were saying earlier about how christianity united

00:01:22.000 these these disparate tribes cuthbert was born perhaps it says into a noble family i would

00:01:28.580 suggest probably since most of them were in dunbar now in east lothian in the mid 630s

00:01:35.080 some 10 years after the conversion of king edwin of northumbria to christianity in 627 which was

00:01:42.020 slowly followed by that of the rest of his people the politics of the kingdom were violent and there

00:01:47.780 were later episodes of pagan rule while spreading understanding of christianity through the kingdom

00:01:53.740 was a task that lasted throughout cuthbert's lifetime edwin had been baptized by paulinus

00:02:00.240 of york an italian who had come with the gregorian mission from rome but his successor oswald also

00:02:06.700 invited irish monks from iona to found the monastery at lindisfarne where cuthbert was to spend much of his

00:02:12.680 life this was around 635 about the time cuthbert was born the tension between roman and irish traditions

00:02:22.000 often exacerbated by cuthbert's near contemporary wilfrid an intransigent and quarrelsome supporter

00:02:28.960 of roman ways was to be a major feature of cuthbert's lifetime cuthbert himself though educated in the

00:02:35.920 celtic tradition followed his mentor iata in accepting the roman forms apparently without

00:02:41.900 difficulty after the synod of whitby in 664 the earliest biographies concentrate on the many

00:02:48.260 miracles that accompanied even his early life but he was evidently indefatigable as a traveling priest

00:02:54.520 spreading the christian message to remote villages and also well able to impress royalty and nobility

00:03:00.840 unlike wilfrid his style of life was austere and when he could he lived the life of a hermit

00:03:07.500 though still receiving many visitors have you heard of this uh saint wilfrid before florian uh

00:03:14.840 saint wilfrid certainly by by reputation but i've never done any deep research into his

00:03:20.220 to his life why don't you tell us about him uh swan well i i heard that uh he was he was you know i

00:03:26.100 always thought he was he was saint wilfrid apparently he uh taught people how to fish

00:03:30.680 i think uh in the south of england and then reading in bead you learn that um he was actually he

00:03:37.900 wasn't very well liked and he was as it says here he was an intransigent and quarrelsome supporter of

00:03:44.280 roman ways and i think there was one instance where the people actually rejected him and said no we

00:03:50.040 don't want wilfrid we want one of these celtic uh celtic priests to come and be a missionary to us 1.00

00:03:55.940 um and and it must have been about this time because he does turn up quite a lot actually

00:04:01.080 you've heard of cuthbert haven't you yeah of course well this was the sort of jumping off our

00:04:06.080 whole story was yeah we were talking that's what i was thinking yeah that's when i first first read

00:04:11.260 about him one night while still a boy employed as a shepherd he had a vision of the soul of aiden

00:04:17.260 being carried to heaven by angels and later found out that aiden had died that night he appears to

00:04:23.900 have undergone military service but at some point he joined the very new monastery at melrose under the

00:04:29.900 prior boisel upon boisel's death in 661 cuthbert succeeded him as prior cuthbert was possibly a second

00:04:37.440 cousin of king aldfrith of northumbria and that's according to irish genealogies which may explain his

00:04:44.100 later proposal that aldfrith should be crowned as monarch cuthbert's fame for piety diligence and

00:04:51.040 obedience quickly grew and he spent much time among the people ministering to their spiritual needs

00:04:56.940 carrying out missionary journeys preaching and performing miracles after the synod of whitby cuthbert

00:05:03.360 seems to have accepted the roman customs and his old abbot iata called on him to introduce them

00:05:09.040 at lindisfarne as prior there his asceticism was complemented by his charm and generosity to the

00:05:15.380 poor and his reputation for gifts of healing and insight led many people to consult him gaining him

00:05:21.460 the name of the wonder worker of britain this reference here to um uh the synod of whitby i'm

00:05:29.860 wondering if that was the time when uh the celtic church said okay we'll we'll do the baptism thing we'll

00:05:35.800 do the easter thing but we do have to go back and check it with our people first so saying that

00:05:40.860 that's the proof that they needed the unanimous consent of their people to make any changes in

00:05:45.560 religion which proves that christianity in the first place could never have been forced upon them

00:05:50.340 because that um that tradition went back went back to the druids if you wanted to make any changes in

00:05:56.360 religion you had to have unanimous consent that that was one of the the most ancient laws of britain

00:06:03.240 which shows you that this this was an evolution of religion right absolutely clear development and

00:06:09.920 so that's exactly what the synod of whitby was where there you there was these discrepancies between

00:06:14.400 the roman and the celtic forms of christianity which were considered to be very important at the time

00:06:18.700 although not issues of of dogma or the faith um but people took them very very seriously and so

00:06:26.280 what happened is that the major section of celtic christianity dissenters especially in

00:06:33.020 northern britain where they had the most contact with the more romanized south came to a point of

00:06:40.260 reconciliation with the romans where they basically just decided well you know um it's not a problem to

00:06:48.260 adopt the roman dating for easter or even the roman style monastic tonsure and um certain sacramental

00:06:55.720 forms because well the romans the same faith as us legacy of the apostles of course and the

00:07:01.920 impeccable orthodoxy in this time period but it was as you see a very conciliar synodal communal process

00:07:08.880 um which was heavily disputed by some sections of uh celtic christianity some monks were completely

00:07:16.580 intransigent and so it was the efforts of saint cliff birth and uh people who would come after him

00:07:22.760 like saint chad and these kind of celtic germanic um um apostles who kind of synthesized the two

00:07:31.680 traditions and really began to form um uh something some not something new but really something uh a

00:07:39.860 development you know a real like british sort of um english if you want to use the term but even

00:07:46.460 these are a little um anachronistic but as you could say you know british christianity which was

00:07:52.960 um incorporated all of the elements which had developed in that land up until the point so

00:08:01.060 but the thing is they could be very very um intense about these issues where i can't remember if it's

00:08:10.540 saint cuthbert or saint chad though he had a reputation for intense uh kindliness and generosity

00:08:16.800 uh and there was certainly a synodal understanding after the synod of whitby when it had been decided

00:08:23.380 that they were going to adopt especially the date to easter the the roman date of easter over the

00:08:29.040 the anatolian the jonah and date of easter um he he instructed his spiritual children not to have

00:08:36.540 any association with people that kept to the the other date of easter because it was a departure

00:08:42.860 from the communal understanding the catholicity of the church and that you had to be united especially

00:08:50.240 when it came to the keeping of the lord's resurrection and your initiation into the monastic

00:08:54.960 life you had to be united with the body of the church as that had been locally developed and accepted

00:09:01.180 and understood uh in these places in northeastern britain what was the difference in the in the

00:09:07.820 tonsure then because i mean what they're talking about here is shaving their heads basically they

00:09:11.660 were the first skinheads right so i can't i'm not an expert in the in the rite of tonsure so i can't

00:09:18.200 give you specific details and i wouldn't want to to mislead anybody um so i'm not 100 sure as far as

00:09:24.240 the actual formal differences i think it has to do with um just just because the monastic traditions

00:09:31.300 are are so different where what is coming in from rome is a very um you know certainly like an orthodox

00:09:40.920 traditional form of monasticism but the latin benedictine style of of cenobitic monasticism uh you

00:09:48.020 know has its own kind of tightly uh regimented uh modes of monastic tonsure which are fairly

00:09:55.520 similar to byzantium there's minor differences you know how much hair you take and all of this kind

00:10:00.220 of thing i think it's quite different from nazarenes isn't it i mean they they would not cut their hair

00:10:05.980 at all they would not cut their hair for a certain amount of years well so in it yeah again it would

00:10:11.940 really depend on the time period and on the style right um because you know some monks would shave the top

00:10:17.860 of their head to maintain their tonsure someone shaved four corners of their head to maintain

00:10:21.520 their tonsure some like in the east what happens is that you do have the four corners of your head

00:10:26.880 there is some hair cut away uh and then they don't cut their hair after that um such similar to the

00:10:35.340 nazareno so these sort of different things but it's the thing is that the tonsuring it's not so much

00:10:41.140 because of you know like a haircut people that go well it's you know they're arguing over haircuts

00:10:44.940 these christians but it's because um monastic tonsuring was considered to be almost like a

00:10:51.560 sacrament it was almost like a mystery of the church um and that you were being initiated into

00:10:57.000 this mystical path of of the saints of your of your church of your tradition and it really isn't even in

00:11:04.760 orthodoxy it's considered to be you know there's a fluidity of the mysteries that the mysteries

00:11:08.380 there's at least seven but maybe more and monastic tonsuring is one of these things that some saints

00:11:14.440 impart with a sacramental significance and so changes to the form of the monastic tonsure are

00:11:22.140 symbolic expressions of changes to the whole monastic ascetic life which um you know for these people

00:11:29.020 this is the foundation of their faith this is this is where every this is everything and so a figure like

00:11:34.240 saint cuthbert such a holy man one of the holiest men to have ever been born in england to accept and

00:11:43.160 to be a partisan of this without compromising on his own indigenous celtic styles and um traditions

00:11:50.380 while adopting the forms of roman monasticism is really a very kind of conciliar synthesis of both

00:11:59.940 traditions once you get to about the the 10th century you actually see a a synthesis not just

00:12:07.700 of celtic christianity and anglo-saxon christianity but but danish christianity as well i mean i've seen

00:12:14.660 uh the tall stone crosses that they have and they've had uh celtic knot work at the bottom then they've got

00:12:22.440 uh the anglo-saxon work which is uh more geometric and then at the top it's got the danish stuff with

00:12:29.680 um you know like dragon's heads or weird animals heads and then they've got the cross at the top

00:12:35.440 which shows you that all three of them eventually formed into one church and celtic was played a

00:12:41.900 large part in that he continued he continued his missionary work traveling the breadth of the

00:12:47.560 country from berwick to galloway to carry out pastoral work and founding an oratory of dull scotland

00:12:54.080 complete with a large stone cross and a little cell for himself he is also said to have found a

00:13:00.500 saint cuthbert's church in edinburgh after cuthbert's death numerous miracles were attributed to his

00:13:06.740 intercession and to intercessory prayer near his remains in particular alfred the great king of wessex

00:13:12.940 was inspired and encouraged in his struggle against the danes by a vision or dream he had of cuthbert

00:13:19.560 thereafter the royal house of wessex who became the kings of england made a point of devotion to him

00:13:25.560 which also gave a useful political message as they came from opposite ends of the united english

00:13:31.300 kingdom cuthbert was a figure of reconciliation and a rallying point for the reformed identity of

00:13:37.360 northumbria and england after the absorption of danish populations into anglo-saxon society

00:13:44.160 cuthbert's cult had appealed to the converted danes who now made up much of the population of 1.00

00:13:49.900 northumbria and was also adopted by the normans when they took over england so that actually after

00:13:55.520 his death that uh the danes were influenced by him but uh so that's you know pretty amazing after

00:14:02.420 the guy's death he's still uniting people together and also again you see that style of nationalism there

00:14:09.060 um where accepting uh cuthbert shows that the north of england is associated with the south of england

00:14:17.380 according to bead's life of the saint when cuthbert sarcophagus was opened 11 years after his death

00:14:23.300 his body was found to have been perfectly preserved or incorrupt this apparent miracle led to the steady

00:14:30.300 growth of cuthbert's posthumous cultus to the point where he became the most popular saint of northern

00:14:35.420 england numerous miracles were attributed to his intercession and to intercessory prayer near his

00:14:41.840 remains in 875 the danes took the monastery of lindisfarne and the monks fled carrying saint

00:14:48.220 cuthbert's body with them around various places including melrose abbey after seven years wandering

00:14:54.540 it found a resting place at the still existing saint cuthbert's church in chesterle street until 995

00:15:01.480 when another danish invasion led to its removal to rip on then the saint intimated as it was believed

00:15:08.900 that he wished to remain in durham a new stone church the so-called white church was built the

00:15:15.220 predecessor of the present grand cathedral in 1104 cuthbert's tomb was opened once again and his

00:15:21.980 relics translated to a new shrine behind the altar of the recently completed cathedral when the casket was

00:15:28.640 opened a small book of the gospel of john measuring only 5.4 by 3.6 inches now known as the saint cuthbert

00:15:36.840 gospel was found this is the oldest western book to have retained its original book binding in finely

00:15:43.620 decorated leather also recovered much later were a set of vestments of 909 to 916 made of byzantine silk

00:15:51.200 with a nature goddess pattern with a stole and decoration in extremely rare anglo-saxon embroidery

00:15:58.660 or opus anglicanum which has been deposited in his tomb by king ethelstan 920c to 939 on a pilgrimage

00:16:08.860 while cuthbert shrine was at chesterle street cuthbert shrine was destroyed unfortunately in the

00:16:14.560 dissolution of the monasteries but unusually his relics survived and are still interred at the

00:16:21.000 site i think where they say there that it's a nature goddess pattern um that's probably just

00:16:25.940 celtic knotwork i don't think they'd have a picture of a goddess on his well i think it's yeah that's a

00:16:32.320 euphemism sort of thing yeah yeah no well and i would definitely encourage you know we're going over

00:16:38.800 the broad strokes of saint clithbert's life i mean it's impossible to get into super detail but if

00:16:44.020 anybody is interested you can find full um his full life online and he it's just he's marvelous it's

00:16:51.320 really some of the these miracles that he did his type of ministry um if i could maybe before to leave

00:16:57.720 them there's a few stories that stick out to be most poignantly from his mind um where

00:17:04.040 for instance one time he was with one of his disciples and they were uh wandering through the

00:17:11.060 forests of northumbria um they kind of got lost on their way to visit someone and so after a couple

00:17:18.100 of days they began to starve to death and his disciple was quite concerned because he was expected

00:17:25.180 to die and saint clithbert was completely unconcerned and he just chided his disciple and he told him you

00:17:32.160 know you need to trust in god more if god wants us to die thus we'll die but if not he will provide

00:17:36.880 for his servants and at this so he began to pray for some food and an eagle flies out of the heavens

00:17:44.220 and sort of strikes down into the river in front of them and pulls out this you know massive salmon

00:17:50.440 you know 50 pound salmon something like this out of the river and so saint clithbert then takes the

00:17:57.300 salmon and cuts it in two and gives half of it to the eagle and then takes half of it and by the

00:18:03.160 providence of god wanders with his disciple into a country house a cottage where a hunter and his

00:18:08.520 family are staying and then they share the meal with them you know so these sorts of things uh there's

00:18:14.420 he's often depicted with otters because otters were obedient to him and would come and pray with him

00:18:20.280 when he was praying and linds fought him uh so many many tales such as this i think you often hear

00:18:27.300 about um deer as well i think there was there was one that was was involved with the deer there

00:18:32.360 lots of birds that appear that that are associated with them lots of uh nature really i mean it's such a

00:18:40.120 shame that um you know they had the reformation and destroyed all this stuff i mean that's probably why 0.92

00:18:46.460 they don't really want people to learn about it and learn about our history because it it's you know

00:18:51.720 it just looks badly on the people that are ruling now that that they did that to it all they they

00:18:56.720 destroyed it all the uh the next one is chad of mercia and i think he's got a great name saint chad

00:19:04.640 and it's all about yeah and it's all about his humility saint chad was one of four brothers all

00:19:12.280 active in the anglo-saxon church the others were ched chenibal and chaelin chad seems to have been

00:19:20.320 ched's junior arriving on the political scene about 10 years after ched it is reasonable to suppose that

00:19:26.720 chad and his brothers were drawn from the northumbrian nobility they certainly had close connections

00:19:32.340 throughout the northumbrian ruling class however the name chad is actually of british celtic rather

00:19:38.380 than anglo-saxon origin it is an element found in the personal names of many welsh princes and nobles

00:19:44.320 of the period and it signifies battle this may indicate a family of mixed cultural or ethnic

00:19:50.660 background with roots in the original celtic population of the region the only major fact that

00:19:56.940 bede gives about chad's early life is that he was a student of aden at the celtic monastery

00:20:02.160 at lindisfarne in fact bede attributes the general pattern of chad's ministry to the example of aden and

00:20:09.300 his own brother ched who was also a student of saint aden so by this time we're starting to get um

00:20:15.880 the the the celts interbreeding with the saxons and and they're they're forming this um you know the

00:20:22.920 english basically and and england is is starting to become a nation through christianity chad later

00:20:31.180 traveled to ireland as a monk before he was ordained as a priest in 653 when he was sent to work

00:20:37.620 among the middle angles chad's companion was egbert who was of about the same age as himself

00:20:43.140 and of the anglian nobility although the monks sent to ireland were of all classes

00:20:49.000 bead places egbert and therefore chad among an influx of english scholars who arrived in ireland

00:20:55.320 while finian and colman were bishops at lindisfarne this meant that egbert and chad must have gone to

00:21:00.640 ireland later than the death of aden in 651 bead gives a long account of how egbert fell dangerously

00:21:07.320 ill in ireland in 664 and vowed to follow a lifelong pattern of great austerity so that he might live to

00:21:14.540 make amends for the follies of his youth his only remaining friend at this point was called ethel hun

00:21:20.020 who died in the plague hence chad must have left ireland before this in fact it is in 664 that he

00:21:26.660 suddenly appears in northumbria to take over from his brother chad also stricken by the plague

00:21:32.220 imagine that you've got people that are dying by the plague all the time you know and they're not

00:21:37.800 cursing god they're not blaming god for this plague coming they're just wanting to make amends for the

00:21:43.420 stupid things that they that they've done in their past and it this really comes across in this i think 0.92

00:21:48.880 that the the regret that they have for going out and killing people or going out and committing crimes 1.00

00:21:55.580 and barbarous behavior and there's something within them that says that they want to atone for that

00:22:01.160 and they they want to have that guilt taken from them and and the priest says well you know what

00:22:06.640 you've got to do is make penitence you've got to go out and convert people you've got to live humbly

00:22:10.280 you've got to be become a monk you've got to live the christian life and and that's how they converted

00:22:18.060 people by actually living it not not by speaking to them because if you think most most of the population

00:22:23.420 were uneducated so they weren't sort of reading to them bits from the bible they were they were

00:22:28.320 living like that and and uh performing miracles yeah absolutely well that was a much greater

00:22:35.360 consciousness of the importance of the next life right i mean the rates of deaths or death is much

00:22:42.360 higher and so naturally people are focused on the spiritual world upon what happens after their death

00:22:47.860 and these sorts of things but more than this i think it is the process of you know the man is the

00:22:52.600 embodiment of the nation right and so these nations are being converted and it takes that's

00:22:57.980 difficulties it takes time hundreds of years for a nation to really convert and every man in some

00:23:03.380 sense has to do this in the microcosm but the problem is as we see in our own times that nations

00:23:09.080 can convert and they can unconvert they can deconvert and so um what has gone on is that we've had

00:23:15.500 hundreds of years of degeneration rather than an improvement of our christianity and this is one of the

00:23:21.220 the hallmarks of the spiritual life generally speaking is that if you're not continually

00:23:25.580 struggling to go forward you begin to go backwards um and so saint chad is a great example of this

00:23:32.420 and it just it occurs to me now and i wanted to mention it before it slips my mind is that saint chad

00:23:37.940 was a very very intense and holy monastic and he was known for especially the strictness of his

00:23:44.880 um aremetic of his ascetic life where he would go and asceticize in like holes in the ground for 0.74

00:23:51.440 weeks months at a time and in this is of particular interest for those of you who are familiar with

00:23:59.280 gregory palamas who lived some uh 600 years later 600 years later in thessaloniki where he writes about

00:24:08.420 the uncreated light well it's traditionally in saint chad's hagiographies it said that after a

00:24:14.340 sufficient period of purification when he was like asceticizing these holes in the ground he did see

00:24:18.580 the uncreated mystical light of god the light of the kingdom of heaven of god's grace so these are the

00:24:25.240 sort of levels of monastics that you have these hesicast monastics that you have in um the british

00:24:32.000 isles at that time is that they're you know they're just they're seeing the uncreated light of god

00:24:35.180 right well incredible feats of endurance that would go through i mean remember earlier in the

00:24:40.180 series we talked about the guy that was that was hanging on these scythes you know and today you

00:24:44.620 have these indian fake ears that do stuff like that you know we we had early christians that were

00:24:49.860 doing things like that going through these feats of endurance and just rejecting the the sensation of

00:24:56.440 pleasure basically and you're talking about death there as well in bead it comes across a lot that when

00:25:02.280 these people came close to the time of death that you know they were looking forward to it because

00:25:06.600 they knew that they were going on to eternal life they were like these these early marchers that

00:25:12.180 if we didn't have the early marchers we wouldn't have christianity today because they knew that if

00:25:16.780 they died they were going to get eternal life so it didn't matter if they were being tortured and

00:25:21.080 and there were cases of that they didn't feel the pain when they were being tortured you know it's

00:25:25.280 like in in the old testament when uh daniel and the rest of them were put in the uh in the lion's den

00:25:30.600 and nothing happened and and they were put in the uh uh in the kiln oven with with the flames in

00:25:36.280 there and they weren't burned you know this is the sort of thing that these these monks and these

00:25:41.700 these preachers that they were doing and and this would convert the people along with these miracles as

00:25:48.140 well and these healings bead makes clear that the wandering anglian scholars were not yet priests

00:25:54.140 at this time an ordination to the priesthood generally happened at the age of 30 the age at

00:26:00.600 which jesus commenced his ministry the benedictine rule was slowly spreading across western europe with

00:26:07.000 encouragement from rome chad was educated in an entirely distinct monastic tradition indigenous to

00:26:14.500 western europe itself and tending to look back to the saint and monastic founder martin of tours as an

00:26:20.880 exemplar although not as founder of an order as bead accounts make clear the irish and early anglo-saxon

00:26:28.380 monasticism experienced by chad was peripatetic stressed ascetic practices and had a strong focus on

00:26:35.540 biblical exegesis which generated a profound eschatological consciousness what how would you

00:26:44.560 explain that uh florian profound eschatological consciousness because i always thought eschatology

00:26:50.120 was like um end times yes that's correct so i think for for them their monastic tradition um

00:27:00.480 emphasizes closeness to the holy scripture and the reality of holy scripture in their daily lives and

00:27:06.420 this is combined with a very very intense rejection of the world it uh it leads to the

00:27:13.880 the reality of the coming kingdom of heaven earth which is a thing that we see across monasticism in

00:27:22.060 all disciplines but in some places particularly intensely either because of the particular styles

00:27:28.540 and modes of life of the people or um circums you know like sometimes things get really really bad

00:27:33.740 people are about the state of the world sort of like what we have today and so in

00:27:40.180 uh the you know celtic style monasticism i think is you know you can characterize it as being um perhaps

00:27:50.660 more uh eccentric um

00:27:54.120 benedictine monasticism right where benedictine style monasticism is all about stability organization

00:28:01.940 uh monastic rule but it's very very roman celtic monasticism is much more um there are certainly

00:28:14.360 many many uh group monasteries and obidic monasteries much more almost similar to the the

00:28:21.480 palestinian versions which focus on individual asceticism on relationships between um

00:28:30.720 learned uh monastics and their disciples uh focuses much more on the reading the exposition of

00:28:39.020 scripture the meditation the contemplation of scripture right these are in fact i would say

00:28:43.320 very almost egyptian or palestinian characteristics um which is in keeping with

00:28:49.760 the traditional origin of irish uh and celtic monasticism from egypt through southern france

00:28:57.360 march on the plutus and all that so we still see it there uh six or seven hundred years later you

00:29:03.480 still see this this uh eastern influence there egbert recalls later that he and chad followed the

00:29:10.940 monastic life together very strictly in prayers and continents uh chastity and in meditation on holy

00:29:18.900 scripture some of the scholars quickly settled in irish monasteries while others wandered from one

00:29:24.240 master to another in search of knowledge bead says that the irish monks gladly taught them and fed them

00:29:30.300 and even let them use their valuable books without charge since books were all produced by hand with

00:29:36.580 painstaking attention to detail this was astonishingly generous the practice of loaning books freely seems

00:29:43.640 to have been a distinctive feature of irish monastic life it was a violent dispute over rights to copies of a

00:29:49.740 borrowed psalter which had allegedly led to columbus exile from ireland many years before so it seems

00:29:56.060 that that was quite an important um event there that actually changed the way that they did things

00:30:01.900 chad's first appearance as an ecclesiastical prelate occurs in 664 shortly after the synod of whitby

00:30:08.460 when many church leaders had been wiped out by the plague among them ched who died at lastingham itself 1.00

00:30:14.240 on the death of his elder brother chad succeeded to the position of abbot at lastingham bead seldom

00:30:20.400 mentions chad without referring to his regime of prayer and study so these clearly made up the

00:30:25.840 greater part of monastic routine at lastingham study would have been collective with monks carrying

00:30:31.680 out exegesis through dialectic yet not all of the monks were intellectuals bead tells us of a man called

00:30:38.400 owen who appeared at the door of lastingham owen was a household official of ethelfrith

00:30:44.080 an east anglian princess who had come to marry egfrith ozio's younger son he decided to renounce the

00:30:51.620 world and as a sign of this appeared at lastingham in ragged clothes and carrying an axe he had come

00:30:57.980 primarily to work manually he became one of chad's closest associates so you have example there of them

00:31:05.040 sort of renouncing royalty basically to go and join the church chad's eschatological consciousness and

00:31:12.940 its effect on others is brought to life in a reminiscence attributed to trumbert who is one of

00:31:17.740 his students at lastingham chad used to break off reading whenever a gale sprang up and call upon god

00:31:24.120 to have pity on humanity if the storm intensified he would shut his book altogether and prostrate himself

00:31:30.300 in prayer during prolonged storms or thunderstorms he would go into the church itself to pray and sing

00:31:36.220 psalms until calm returned his monks obviously regarded this as an extreme reaction even to

00:31:43.140 english weather and asked him to explain chad explained that storms are sent by god to remind

00:31:48.920 humans of the day of judgment and to humble their pride the typically celtic christian involvement with

00:31:55.440 nature was not like the modern romantic preoccupation but a determination to read in it the mind of god

00:32:02.980 particularly in relation to the last things so that's almost like a form of science that they had there

00:32:09.800 looking at nature right well for them for them they see nature as an expression of christ's personality

00:32:15.800 um and that nature you know is an icon into into heaven into the spiritual world right and so that

00:32:23.080 the world has a definite cosmological origin and uh destination just to say the eschaton

00:32:30.980 this is the consummation of all things is where salvation is to be found the return of christ

00:32:34.860 and so the purpose of the monastic life is to prepare oneself in this in this life for that moment

00:32:41.000 that return which for us it has like a it's uh co-terminus with our death which we have to reach

00:32:47.880 before we can be resurrected and so this is sort of for them the whole the natural world monastic life

00:32:55.160 these are uh all wrapped up in this mythological process of of waiting of being initiated into the

00:33:04.140 risen christ as he is on earth as he is in his their in themselves in their nation in their country

00:33:10.200 right in other peoples in order to be fully consummate to be united with him when he returns

00:33:16.260 in glory at the end of time they're resurrected and so it all it's all ties together for them right

00:33:22.720 is that the the resurrection the eschaton scripture these are one unified reality and it all all ties

00:33:30.580 together that i mean that's that's the way that you should see things is is all fitted in together

00:33:35.900 you know if if you do something kind for somebody you don't expect them to do something kind back some

00:33:41.720 somebody else will do something kind back you know i think you have to have to look at uh look at us

00:33:47.180 all together as as individuals and also as as all parts of the same body and and the world itself

00:33:54.460 right that's the way providence works isn't it you know it um well that's exactly it when you go to a

00:33:59.720 church um you know it's not just yourself who's praying there and so if you're praying badly in a

00:34:04.980 church then that spiritual atmosphere can affect everyone else's prayer and so it's the same thing with

00:34:10.760 anything else is is that you know our own uh virtue and our own spiritual cultivation it has a radiating

00:34:17.760 effect of people around us right and so if we're if we're at least struggling to improve struggling to

00:34:24.180 be decent christians right then that that that inspires people around us you know it as uh it builds

00:34:30.460 people up generally speaking rather than having a destructive deleterious effect and so

00:34:35.520 that's the the church fathers everything that they have to do with their lives there sort of is a

00:34:42.520 moral um implication for it all and so whether it's our our fathers and the celts and the angles of the

00:34:50.840 danes or in the east one of the slavs and greeks and the latins for them you know how you you live

00:34:57.040 your life and the mysticism this is all bound up with the religion and mostly it's about just struggling

00:35:03.160 to deny the self but to manifest christ to manifest virtue uh for the betterment of the neighbor and

00:35:08.660 the worship of god primarily so and set a good example that's that's the most important thing

00:35:15.460 chad was invited then to become bishop of the northumbrians by king ozuyu and he set off to seek

00:35:21.460 ordination amidst the chaos caused by the plague b tells us that he traveled first to canterbury where he

00:35:27.180 found that archbishop deus dedet was dead and his replacement was still awaited from canterbury he

00:35:33.340 traveled to wessex where he was ordained by bishop winnie of the west saxons and two british i.e welsh

00:35:40.840 bishops so the welsh bishops were were down there in wessex none of these bishops was actually recognized

00:35:47.700 by rome bead points out that at the time there was no other bishop in all britain canonically ordained

00:35:53.600 except winnie and the latter had been installed irregularly by the king of the west saxons

00:35:59.580 bead describes chad at this point as a diligent performer indeed of what he had learned in the

00:36:05.960 scriptures should be done bead also tells us that chad was teaching the values of aden and chet his life

00:36:12.420 was one of constant travel bead says that chad visited continually the towns countryside cottages

00:36:19.140 villages and houses to preach the gospel clearly the model he followed was one of the bishop as

00:36:25.040 prophet or missionary in 669 a new archbishop of canterbury theodore of tarsa sent by pope vitalian

00:36:32.620 arrived in england he immediately set off on a tour of the country tackling abuses of which he had been

00:36:38.500 forewarned he instructed chad to step down and let wilfrid take over according to bead theodore was so

00:36:45.580 impressed by chad's show of humility that he confirmed his ordination as bishop while insisting

00:36:51.400 he stepped down from his position chad retired gracefully and returned to his post as abbot of

00:36:57.080 lastingham leaving wilfrid as bishop of the northumbrians at york later that same year queen

00:37:02.900 wilfrid of mercia requested a bishop wilfrid and the other sons of pender had converted to christianity

00:37:09.380 although pender himself had remained a pagan until his death in 655 pender had allowed bishops to

00:37:16.060 operate in mercia although none had succeeded in establishing the church securely without active

00:37:22.380 royal support shows you how important it was to um have have the kings behind you but at least he was

00:37:29.080 allowing them to to act and uh try to convert the people archbishop theodore refused to consecrate a

00:37:36.680 new bishop instead he recalled chad out of his retirement at lastingham according to bead theodore

00:37:42.140 was greatly impressed by chad's humility and holiness this was displayed particularly in his

00:37:47.420 refusal to use a horse he insisted on walking everywhere despite his regard for chad theodore

00:37:53.840 ordered him to ride on long journeys and even went so far as to lift him into the saddle on one occasion

00:38:00.200 chad then proceeded to carry out much missionary work and pastoral work within the kingdom

00:38:05.780 bead tells us that chad governed the bishopric of the mercians and of the people of lindsay in the

00:38:11.220 manner of the ancient fathers and in great perfection of life the area he covered was very large

00:38:17.380 stretching across england from coast to coast it was also in many places difficult terrain with woodland

00:38:23.740 heath and mountain over much of the center and large areas of marshland to the east bead does tell us

00:38:30.840 that chad built for himself a small house at lichfield a short distance from the church

00:38:35.500 sufficient to hold his core of seven or eight disciples who gathered to pray and study with

00:38:41.280 him there when he was not out on business chad worked in mercia and lindsay for only two and a

00:38:47.180 half years before he too died during a plague yet saint bead could write in a letter that mercia came to

00:38:53.640 the faith and essex was recovered for it by the two brothers ched and chad in other words bead

00:39:00.480 considered that chad's two years as bishop were decisive in christianizing mercia according to

00:39:06.820 bead chad was venerated as a saint immediately after his death and his relics were translated

00:39:12.180 to a new shrine he remained the center of an important cult focused on healing throughout the

00:39:18.120 middle ages the cult had twin foci his tomb in the apse directly behind the high altar of the cathedral

00:39:25.260 and more particularly his skull kept in a special head chapel above the south isle the relics some

00:39:32.600 long bones are now enshrined on the altar of saint chad's cathedral they were examined by the oxford

00:39:38.340 archaeological laboratory by carbon dating techniques in 1985 and all but one of the bones which was a

00:39:45.800 third femur and therefore could not have come from bishop chad were dated to the 7th century and were

00:39:52.120 authenticated as true relics by the vatican authorities so those relics are still genuine

00:39:59.900 they're they're still there i mean that's a really holy man there he did a lot and i think his like his

00:40:06.840 again his life shows us that the celtic church was right the way across britain and it was the celtic

00:40:13.840 church really that that converted the people because all the all the roman church had there was 1.00

00:40:17.800 was one bishop and and he hadn't even been made into bishop properly it was it was all the celts that

00:40:24.300 converted them pretty much i think absolutely absolutely that was the major missionary effort

00:40:31.340 uh the successes of the major missionary efforts was by by the the celtic peoples and we see

00:40:36.260 to a lesser degree this is also true in mainland but the celtic missionaries were extremely successful

00:40:42.660 at this time period and later at converting the germanics um the saxons who had come into

00:40:49.040 northwestern germany and the rhino as well and that was where the importance of um the boat technology

00:40:56.560 came in that we were talking about at the beginning and the fact that these were these were good sailors

00:41:01.900 and and even when the saxons had uh had most of england they were still able to make their way from

00:41:07.820 wales to cornwall and then across to the continent without actually crossing over any of the saxon

00:41:13.200 lands in england so that they could uh convert the people in gaul and as you say eventually over there

00:41:20.100 to the to the germanic tribes as well well that that brings us to the end of the series florian thank

00:41:25.700 you very much for coming on thank you very much to listeners for listening i hope uh you got as much

00:41:30.220 out of that as we have i will be back on monday of course with the daily nationalists for you

00:41:36.320 once again god bless and hail victory

00:41:39.320 you

00:42:06.320 you

00:42:09.820 you

00:42:11.820 you

Mysterium Fasces - November 02, 2024

The Celtic Saints Of Britain (5) - Saints Cuthbert & Chad – w_ Florian Geyer & Sven Longshanks

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