Light to the Isles
By Douglas Dales

Introduction

The celebration in 1997 of the death of St Columba on Iona and the arrival of St Augustine at Canterbury in the summer of 597 draws attention to the remarkable ferment of monastic missionary activity that occurred in Britain at that time. In 1897, William Bright, then Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, published the third and enlarged edition of his Chapters of Early English Church History to mark the thirteenth centenary of these events. In his preface he pays tribute to the work of Plummer in producing the first critical edition of Bede’s historical works, upon which all subsequent research has rested. It is encouraging to reflect upon the wealth and breadth of writing that has since then shed so much light upon every aspect of English ecclesiastical and general history of the period a.d. 400-800.

These dates are significant for establishing the context of Columba’s and Augustine’s achievements. The end of Roman rule in Britain, and the first stirrings of missionary activity in Gaul, and from Britain to Ireland, took place in about 400, while 800 indicates the outer limit of the sustained missionary activity from England to Germany and the Low Countries, and its absorption into Carolingian church and society.

A cursory examination of the select bibliography at the end of this book, and more detailed reference to the very extensive bibliographies contained in many of the works mentioned there, will indicate the scope and quality of recent historiography. Discoveries in archaeology, palaeography, art, numismatics, and related fields have amplified, elucidated and corroborated the literary texts which remain. These are for the most part well-established in critical editions and competent translations. Their primacy remains undimmed.

The historical value of the literary texts has never been in doubt, and such ordered understanding of the history that there is rests upon them. They are almost entirely ecclesiastical in their origin, and for themost part comprise various forms of hagiography or related material. Since the time of Plummer and Bright there has emerged a much fuller and more sympathetic, if critical, appreciation of this particular genre of writing. There is therefore a fundamental affinity within the material remaining, whether its provenance be British, Irish or Anglo-Saxon. Taken as a whole throughout the period 400-800, it reflects faithfully the multifaceted activity of the Latin church in and around the British Isles, during a period of prolonged upheaval. As such these texts are a partial mirror also of the remarkable social and cultural developments which laid the foundations of England and its church.

It is important to emphasise and accept, however, that whatever the intrinsic historical value of the literature, it was in its original intent theological. This study attempts to give this inherent theology pre-eminence. It is thus an examination of particular people, and the beliefs they shared with those who remembered them, and who caused these texts to be written. The century since Bright wrote has seen the fundamental historical framework confirmed to a remarkable degree. The character and quality of the spiritual and theological vision that motivated the creation of this literature and the activities it describes can now be more securely appreciated.

Hagiographical literature is not however without its difficulties. It comes from a remote and singular period when the memory of the Roman era and of the church fathers was ever present. But the conditions that faced the church and its servants were often barbarous and insecure. The tenacity with which Latin Christian culture was maintained is remarkable. Yet this was the hidden stream which nurtured monastic education, missionary activity and the ascetic cultivation of sanctity.

How is sanctity to be described, let alone assessed? Hagiography conformed during this period to certain patterns crystallised in the classic lives of Antony, Benedict and Martin. In its written form it was consciously written within a tradition: it reflected a corporate spiritual expectation and perception. Yet within this corpus of literature, no hagiography simply mimics another. There is much incidental historical detail embedded within it, and it is possible to discern the lineaments of individual personalities. But hagiographies are not biographies: they are more like icons - true images rooted in history, but seen in the perspective of the eternal purpose of God in Christ.

The evidence of sanctity lay partly in teaching and example, partly in evangelism and miracles. Hence the remarkable and inextricable connection between education, mission and sanctity that persisted throughout this period. Whatever other social or political factors may have motivated or moulded the life of the church, and determined its impact upon society at that time, this troika is portrayed as the inner well-spring of the church’s purpose and capacity to communicate the gospel effectively.

The prologue to this study examines the life and work of St Martin of Tours, captured by his faithful disciple, Sulpicius Severus. As a monastic and missionary bishop he was venerated as a role-model in Gaul and Britain throughout the period of this study. Part one comprises an appreciation of the conditions in the late Romano-British church which produced St Patrick. His writings, though brief, are missionary theology of the highest quality: he was a true disciple of St Paul. The vitality of the British church in Wales and elsewhere during the ‘Dark Ages’ of the fifth and sixth centuries emerges as a crucial link of education and mission, seen best in the Life of St Samson, and the writings of Gildas.Through these channels monastic Christianity took root in Ireland, to exert a decisive influence in Britain and on the Continent in the sixth and seventh centuries. Columba and Columbanus are the towering figures here, whose spirtual stature can be readily appreciated in their Lives, and in the writings associated with them and their followers.

Part two examines how Christianity came to the Anglo-Saxons, from Rome, Iona and Gaul. The theology and vision of St Gregory the great permeates the way Bede records the development of this mission in the seventh century. Despite the tensions between the Roman missionaries and some of the Irish Christians and their followers, each strand of mission saw itself as a faithful part of the one church of the West. Bede’s essentially reconciling view is corroborated by the other remaining sources independent of him. These would have been the only window upon the work of the missionaries had Bede not written, and it is important that they are done full justice. During this period, dominant personalities like those of Aidan, Wilfrid, Theodore, and Cuthbert, whose careers shed much light on the growth of the English church and its intellectual and spiritual life, emerge.

Part three concludes by assessing the legacy of the mission to the English in terms first of Bede and his writings. His is the dominant mind whose History influences every approach to this period. Suffused throughout all his writings is a profound theology of the church and its mission. He was also a most effective teacher, and a percipient gauge of sanctity. His De Templo is the summation of this thought, and a master-key to understanding his History.

The second legacy of the mission to the English was the energetic missionary work of Willibrord and Boniface, and their English helpers and friends in the Low Countries and Germany in the eighth century. The long-term consequence of this activity and the learning it disseminated was immense for European culture. Of no less importance was the way it captured the united interest and support of the various regions of the English church. The memory of this chapter of English church life inspired the revival of mission by the Anglo-Saxons to Scandinavia in the tenth century.

When the forging of the English church is viewed ‘sub specie aeternitatis’, the death of a saint like Columba and the arrival of the Roman mission to Kent in the same year may not be just a coincidence. No less significant may be the creative co-operation and final reconciliation of the several strands of the mission: taken overall the distinctive features of Celtic and Roman pale before their united achievement. Equally the fundamental importance of the British and Welsh churches emerges from under the penumbra in which Bede unhappily placed them. The nexus between Christian education, effective evangelism, and the pursuit of sanctity is of abiding significance. So too is a positive receptivity towards and concern for Celtic and European neighbours. Finally the sense of urgency behind the mission sprang from a lively sense of the reality and nearness of the heavenly church. This was embodied in the person of the saint, who epitomised the true meaning of the church’s life, and mediated the reality of the gospel and its saving power.

By listening to the spiritual testimony of these fathers of the English church, the words of T.S. Eliot may prove true: ‘the communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living’.