CATHOLIC PICTORIAL - FOOD FOR THOUGHT	THE COMING OF THE FAITH
	Fr Francis Marsden  	for 9/6/91

It is Manchester which provides us with some of the earliest evidence of Christianity in Britain: the cryptogram of the PATER NOSTER scratched on plaster which was found near the ruins of the Roman fort near Deansgate. It may date from as early as 120—140 AD. Roman soldiers or merchants may have brought the faith to these shores and on to the garrison of Mamucium (Manchester).

For over three centuries the Roman armies controlled southern Britain. Three British bishops - London, Lincoln and Eboracum (York) - had been present in AD313 at the Council of Arles in the south of France. British bishops also participated in the Council of Sardica, now Sofia in Bulgaria, in AD 347, and in AD 359 at Rimini in Italy. They were boarded at the cost of the Emperor, for they must have been poor and unable to pay their own expenses. The early British church thus tried to play its part in the wider Catholic communion, despite its isolation on the wet and windy north-west fringes of Europe.

The Roman occupation left Britain with fortified towns and camps, some villas, and many straight roads. However the Romans held aloof from the local British population. They did not intermarry or share their culture with the natives. So apart from the physical remains at such places as London, Chester, York, St Albans etc. they had very little impact on early British life. In 410 AD the Roman commanders informed the British chiefs that they were withdrawing their troops (to defend the collapsing Empire on the European mainland). The British must now look to their own defence and no longer rely on the Romans.

The country was still mostly wilderness: forest, moor and fenland. The British lived in solitary huts, a race of shepherds, speaking their own Celtic tongue end with their own laws. They were a hardy people, but incapable of organised political life. Slowly they lapsed Lack into paganism. Christian practice survived only near a few holy shrines, monasteries and major churches.

Then in AD 450 began the Saxon invasions of these islands. These tribesmen from northern Germany and Denmark were brutal warriors. In their flat-bottomed boats they penetrated up the Thames, the Humber and the Wash. They had never been Christian. They were pagans.

“Their paganism made them take a sad and gloomy view of life. If they ever thought of heaven, it was a kind of German Bierkeller that they pictured to themselves, where they might sit drinking all day long, reclining on thrones in a vast hall. Their fancy loved to roam over seas that washed dismal island shores, where dwarfs and giants dwelt among ghosts and dragons and gnomes, or they would dream of climes where crows filled the air with their cries and eagles flew by bearing carrion in their beaks; of captured enemies flung into ditches filled with hissing serpents; of meals of human flesh; of battlefields running with human blood.” (Fr Brou S.J., a French historian)

The chief deity of the Saxons and Angles was Woden, the war-god (hence our Wednesday), who inspired battles and took fallen heroes to Valhalla, to a paradise where they hoped days of battlefield carnage would alternate with nights of debauchery. One wonders whether the Anglo-Saxon psyche has really changed all that much over 15 centuries, and that a decline in Christianity just allows the underlying pagan inclinations to re-emerge.

The original British inhabitants, the Celts, were steadily driven back to the west, to Wales, Cumbria, the West Country, and over the seas to Brittany — which acquired its name as that part of France where the Britons settled. By 500 AD the Saxons occupied the whole side of England east of a line from the Isle of Wight to Berwick-on- Tweed. The British cities fell: Londinium, Ratae (Leicester), Lindum (Lincoln), Eboracum, Glevum (Gloucester), Old Sarum by Salisbury (552) Wroxeter (Shrewsbury) in 583, Deva (Chester)in 618 and finally Carlisle about 650. The Celts took refuge in the Welsh mountains, where they still are today, with the same Welsh language.

The old British Church survived in Wales. It had bishops, saints like David, monasteries and holy wells. But such was the resentment and fear of the Saxons who had driven them from their homeland, that no monk or missionary ever ventured forth to try to convert their brutal conquerors. They hid behind the barrier of the Welsh mountains, and led their own life - just as some Catholics today keep their faith hidden behind the walls of church or home, and fail to challenge the encroaching tide of paganism.

Meanwhile, in a far distant land, chance events under the hand of Providence, were leading to the missionary enterprise which would bring the Saxon tribes to the Faith. The story of St Gregory and the English slaves is well known. He was prior of St Andrews monastery in Rome and one day was passing through the public markets. He noticed some slaves for sale: the usual groups of African negroes, dark-skinned Asiatics and Spaniards, but also three handsome youths of fair complexion and auburn hair. He asked the seller where they came from.

“They come from Britain.” the merchant replied. “In that island all alike have that clear and beautiful complexion.”

“Are they Christians or pagans?” asked Gregory. “Pagans” was the answer.

Gregory sighed. “Alas,” he said, “that faces so bright should be the property of the prince of darkness, and that these fair forms should conceal a soul void of God’s grace, sick with sin and ignorant of the bliss of heaven. And what is the name of their race?”

“Angles, my Lord.”

“Angles? No, angels, rather, for they have the faces of angels and must share with angels the Kingdom of heaven. From what province have you brought thea?”

“From Deira.” Deira was the equivalent of modern Yorkshire and county Durham. The Angles were young noblemen probably captured in battle with Bernicia (Northumberland) and sold into slavery.

“Ah. Deira. De Ira eruti. They shall be snatched from the wrath of God, and brought to the mercy of Christ.” It seems Gregory was fond of puns. “And what is the name of their prince?”

“Aella, my Lord.”

“Aella! Alleluia! Even there shall be sung the praises of God” From that day Gregory harboured a desire to take the Gospel to the English, but in AD 590 he was elected Pope. He did not forget the distant island of the Anglo-Saxons. He gathered reports from the bishops of Gaul. He sought volunteers from his own abbey to mount a missionary expedition. Eventually he enlisted 40 monks with Augustine the prior at their head and including several musicians. Perhaps Gregory hoped that sacred music, the new Gregorian chant, would open an entrance into the savage English soul.

In June 596 the missioners left Rome and reached Lerins, near Nice. There they heard bad reports about the English, As St Bede reports: “They became afraid, and began to consider returning home. For they were appalled at the idea of going to a barbarous, fierce and pagan nation, of whose very language they were ignorant,”

So they delegated Augustine to go back to Rome and beg Pope Gregory that they might all be excused. He would not hear of it. “My very dear sons, it is better never to undertake any high enterprise than to abandon it when once begun. So with the help of God you must complete this holy task . . .

Encouraged and heartened, Augustine returned to his companions, and under obedience they pressed on together: Marseilles, Arles, Vienne, Lyons, Autun. They spent the entire winter of 596-7 traversing Gaul, and sailed probably from Boulogne in the spring. Soon they sighted the white cliffs of Dover. They followed the cliffline round to the north. The coastline sank lower and lower. Stretches of sand appeared. They passed the spot near Deal where Julius Caesar’s ships had first landed in 55 BC, to signal the first invasion of the Roman Empire. Now a second invasion from Rome was beginning, but this time a spiritual invasion, an invasion of Divine Grace.

The ship sailed into the channel between the Isle of Thanet and the mainland, and beside the ruined Roman fort of Richborough they landed. The conversion of England had begun.

(Augustine’s adventures are continued next week
in your very own Catholic Pictorial)