Continued from Chapter XIII. The False Decretals Part 2.

The Native Britons.—Their Religion before Augustine.—Gildas and Bede.—Augustine holds Synod with British Bishops.—His Threats against Them.—Conversion of Ethelfied.—Battle of Carlegeon, and Murder of Monks of Bangor.—Roman Religion introduced.—The Effects of It. Offa murders Etlielbeit, and the Pope pardons Him.—He establishes Peter—pence.—He accepts a Code of Canon Laws from Adrian I.—The Native Britons and the Saxons.—Their Customs and Religion are imparted to each Other.—Saxon Kings willingly accept the Doctrine of the “Divine Right” to govern from Rome.—The Norman Conquest.—Harold. William of Normandy.—The Decision of Alexander II. upon his Claim.—Consecrated Banner and a Hair of St. Peter.—Battle of Hastings.—Influence on England.—Celibacy introduced.—Example of the Legate of Honorius II.—Innocent III. and King John.— He releases the Subjects of John from their Allegiance.—Holds all Disobedient Kings to be Traitors to God.—His Claim of Power and that of Pius IX. the Same.—Church and State united.—Cardinal Antonelli to Papal Nuncio at Paris.—He approves the Bull Unigenitus of Clement XI.—His Theory of the Indirect Power.—Its Effect.—A Heretical King forfeits his Kingdom.—The Pope chooses a King for a Heretical Nation.

THE working of the papal system and its influence upon civil policy are nowhere more clearly seen than in the principal events which led to the Reformation in England. As we trace the birth of our popular institutions back to the great uprising of the people there, we cannot fail to realize how manifestly it was designed by Providence as the means of breaking the scepter of ecclesiastical tyranny and giving freedom to the human mind. Having already observed enough to demonstrate the necessity for reform among the prelates and clergy of the Roman Church, we shall find, as we go along, ample means of comparing Protestantism with Romanism, and more particularly with that perverted form of it which is maintained by those who direct the policy of the papacy, and exultingly call themselves “the princes of the Church.”

The native Britons had their own form of Christianity, existing apart from their Druidical worship, which, in whatsoever way it was acquired, they believed to be of apostolic origin. Upon this subject there is much false teaching in history. All the papal writers affirm that Christianity was first introduced into Great Britain in the year 597, by the monk Augustine and the missionaries who accompanied him from Rome, during the pontificate of Gregory I. And many Protestant writers concede this, seemingly disposed, without investigation, to accept it as a fact, because it has been so frequently and dogmatically asserted. (*) There is nothing farther from the truth; and the evidence of this is so abundant and conclusive that no intelligent man, if he will take the pains to examine it, can entertain any reasonable doubt upon the subject.

Clement, who was a disciple of Peter and a fellow-worker of Paul, and who was Bishop of the Roman Church about the end of the first century, wrote his First Epistle to the Corinthians shortly before his death—probably about the year 97. Referring to Paul, he says he preached “both in the East and West,” and went to “the extreme limit of the West.” (*) Now, we know that after the Roman conquest of Great Britain, before the birth of Christ, the country was governed by a Roman prefect or proprietor, who maintained his authority by a large military force, and required the payment of an annual tribute by the native inhabitants. And we know also that the Britons were unable to expel the Roman magistrates and establish their independence until about the beginning of the fifth century. Hence the conclusion is clear that, if Paul preached in “the extreme limit of the West,” he must have gone to Great Britain and planted the Gospel there. Or, if the expression of Clement be taken in a narrower and more limited sense, and Gaul be considered as the utmost field of Paul’s labors, then we may conclude that the Christianity planted by him there was carried over to Britain by means of the intercourse between the Gauls and the Britons.

Eusebius and Theodoret both assert that Christianity was carried to Britain by some of the apostles, but without naming Paul or any other apostle. Tertullian and Origen both speak of it as established in their day—the first half of the third century—and the former says distinctly that Christ was solemnly worshiped by the inhabitants. Irenaeus says that Christianity was carried to the “Celtic nations,” which included the Britons.

Baionius, the annalist, says that there was a MS. in the Vatican library at Rome which proved that Simon Zelotes, the apostle, propagated the Gospel in Britain, and that Joseph of Arimathea went there about the year 35, and died there. Other authors mention the same facts; and Dorotheus, Bishop of Tyre, says that Aristobulus, to whom St. Paul refers in his Epistle to the Romans, was the first bishop of Britain. (*)

Gildas the Wise wrote his “History of the Destruction of the Brittaines” in the year 546, fifty—one years before the mission of Augustine. Every page, and almost every sentence, of this book shows the existence of a British Christian Church at that time. It is crowded with extracts from the Old and the New Testament, and makes many references to the condition of the British Christians. At one place he says:

“Britaine hath Priests, but some shee hath that are unwise; very many that minister, but many of them impudent; Clearkes shee hath, but certaine of them deceitful raveners; Pastors (as they are called), but rather wolves prepared for the slaughter of Soules.” [Note: This is the original spelling.] (*)

In the same connection he immediately speaks of “Apostolical decrees,” “Priesthood or episcopal dignity,” “followers of the Apostles,” “the office of a Bishop or Priest,” etc., thus establishing the fact, beyond controversy, that Christianity had been introduced and a British Church established long before Augustine was sent there by Gregory. As to the time when this was done, Gildas is not very explicit, but he states quite enough to show that the British Christians in his day traced their Christianity back to the apostolic times. Referring to their religion, he says:

“In the meane while, Christ, the true Son of God, spreading forth not onely from this temporall firmament, but also from the Castell and Court of Heaven (which exceedeth all times) throughout the whole world, his most (glorious light, especially (as we know) in the Raign of Tiberius Caesar, (whereas in regard to that Emperour) against the will of the Senate threatened death to the disturbers of the professors thereof, Religion was most largely without any hindrance dispersed of his infinite mercy, did first cast on this Island, starving with frozen cold, and in a farre remote climate from the visible sunne, his gladsome beames, to wit, his most holy Lawes.” [Written in old spelling.] (Gildas, pp. 13, 14.)

Some have supposed that Gildas intended to assert here that Christianity was carried to Britain in the reign of Tiberius. But this conclusion cannot be reached without great confusion of dates. Tiberius died about the year 37, and it was either during that or the preceding year that Paul was converted on the road to Damascus. The “door of faith” was opened to the Gentiles about the year 42 or 43. The assemblage of the apostles at Jerusalem was about the year 50. At that time it was agreed that Paul and Barnabas should “go unto the heathen,” that is, to the Greeks and Romans; and that Peter and John should “go unto the circumcision,” that is, to the Dispersion, in the provinces of Asia Minor.

Paul did not go to Rome until about the year 60, when he went as a prisoner, and there is not a word in the whole of the gospels to show that anyone of the apostles visited that city before that time. It was undoubtedly after that when Paul went to “the extreme limit of the West” to preach, and it is not likely that any of the apostles were there before him. Therefore Gildas could not have meant to fix the reign of Tiberius as the time when the Gospel was preached in Britain. And if his language be carefully scanned, it does not bear that meaning, although it is somewhat obscure. He must have meant to say that the light of the Gospel began to spread forth during the reign of Tiberius, which is the fact; that Tiberius “threatened death to the disturbers of the professors” of religion, and that then Christianity, having an opportunity to disperse itself, first reached the island of Britain. That this is his real meaning, and that he intended to assign the introduction of Christianity to Paul, is evident from the following language, which he elsewhere uses:

“Which of yee for the confession of the true word of Christ, hath, like the vessell of election, and chosen Doctor of the Gentiles [Paul], after suffering the chaines of imprisonment, sustayning of shipwracke, after the terrible scourges of whips, the continuall dangers of seas, of theeves, of Gentiles, of Jews, and of false apostles, after the labours of famine, of fasting, etc., after his incessant care had over all the churches, after his exceeding trouble for such as scandalized, after his infirmity for the weake, after his admirable peregrination over almost the whole world in preaching the Gospel of Christ, through the stroke of the sword lost his head,” etc. [Original spelling.] (Gildas, p. 217.)

Here, in speaking of the labors of Paul as extending over “almost the whole world,” the inference is unavoidable that he intended to include Great Britain, which, as a Roman province, was an important part of the world. But, however this may be, the fact is incontestable that Christianity in Great Britain antedated many years the mission of Augustine from Rome. And it is equally true that the British Christians had a church of their own, regularly organized, which existed independently of the Church of Rome. Even Lingard, the great Roman Catholic historian, is compelled to say, “That the Christian faith was publicly professed in Britain before the close of the second century, is clear from incontestable authority.” (“Anglo—Saxon Church,” by Lingard, p. 18 (note).)

But he immediately endeavors to break the force of this admission by insisting that after this time the race of native Britons disappeared before the Saxons, and that with them also disappeared their refinements and “knowledge of the Gospel;” and that the worship of Woden took the place of the worship of God. This is not probable, if it is even possible. It is a naked assertion without any proof to sustain it.

Venerable Bede refers to the desolating war carried on by the Saxons against the Britons, showing that the country was overrun by fire and sword, and the inhabitants “butchered in heaps.” But he says that some of them escaped to the mountains, some fled beyond the seas, and others “led a miserable life among the woods, rocks, and mountains.” (“Eccl. Hist. of England,” by Bede, Bohn’s ed., p. 25.)

Rapin says the Saxons became masters everywhere except in Wales. (“History of England,” by Rapin, vol. i., pp. 144, 145.) And Lingard himself, in another work, without entering into details, says it would be interesting “to exhibit the causes which transferred the greater part of the island from the milder dominion of the Romans to the exterminating sword of the Saxons.” (“History of England,” by Lingard, vol. i., pp. 42, 43.) It is not true, then, that the race of native Britons disappeared before the Saxons; and, inasmuch as they were not exterminated, it is a most natural conclusion that those of them who remained in Wales, and were concealed in different parts of the island, retained and preserved their religious faith and church organization. All history shows that when a people are thus persecuted and driven from their homes, they cling to these with the utmost tenacity and with unfaltering courage. And this conclusion is supported by the condition in which Augustine found the inhabitants when he reached there.

That there were then Christians there is undoubtedly true; and that they were all native Britons is equally true, for, as is conceded on all hands, none of the Saxons were converted until afterward. It may be laid down, then, as an indisputable fact, that Christianity always existed in Great Britain from the time of its first introduction; that is, at all events, from the second century.

When Augustine arrived in Kent, during the reign of Ethelbert, he came in immediate contact with an organized Christian community, having, ordained bishops and other church functionaries. With the assistance of the king he assembled these together, and invited them to unite with him in “the common labor of preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles.” They kept the festival of Easter according to the custom of the Eastern Christians, and not that of Rome a fact which goes to show that they had not then submitted to the Council of Nice, and were, consequently, independent of the Roman Church. And “they did several other things which were against the unity of the Church,” in the Roman sense; that is, against the supremacy of the pope. Thus, having their own Church organization and their fixed principles of religious faith, they declined to “comply with the entreaties, exhortations, or rebukes of Augustine and his companions, but preferred their’ own traditions before all the churches in the world.”

Then, it is said, the pretended miracle performed by Augustine, of restoring a blind man to sight, extorted from the Britons the concession that he was a preacher of the divine truth; nevertheless, they declared “that they could not depart from their ancient customs without the consent and leave of their people.”

A second synod was subsequently held, no more favorable to Rome than the first. At this assemblage there were present, on the part of the British Christians, seven bishops, “and many most learned men.” To these Augustine proposed that if they would consent to keep Easter and administer baptism according to the custom of the Roman Church, and unite with him in the propagation of the word of God among the British people, he would “tolerate all other things” they might do; that is, if they would only recognize the sovereign supremacy of the pope over them, they could believe and do whatsoever else they pleased! The papal proposition was again rejected, the British Christians continuing to prefer their own to the religion of Rome, and at once the true spirit of Roman propagandism was displayed. (*)

Seemingly conscious of being supported by a strong and aggressive power, Augustine replied to these humble and tolerant British Christians in words of insolent defiance and threat, “that in case they would not join in unity with their brethren they should be warred upon by their enemies; and if they would not preach the way of life to the English nation, they should at their hands undergo the vengeance of death!” (Bede, pp. 68—71.)

Did Augustine design this language as a threat? The language itself is susceptible of no other meaning; and if the foregoing quotation shows truly what he said, there is no room for doubt about it. The extract is taken from Bede, whose accuracy is not doubted by anybody, and who undoubtedly understood Augustine as threatening, vengeance against the British Christians, because they would not consent to obey the pope! No contrary interpretation could ever have been given to his words, had not the defenders of the pope’s supremacy found it necessary to break the force of this objection to their system of ecclesiastical organization by placing Augustine in the attitude of making a prophecy, and not a threat. Hence we find Lingard, one of their standard authors, instead of quoting truly from Bede, representing him as putting this language into the mouth of Augustine: “Know, then, that if you will not assist me in pointing out to the Saxons the way of life, they, by the just judgment of God, will prove to you the ministers of death.” (*)

Let the reader compare these words with those of Bede, and he will see at a glance how the latter are perverted. Bede does not say a word about the judgment of God, which was to fall upon the Britons for their disobedience, or that they were to be providentially punished by having the Saxons become the “ministers of death” to them, or anything that can be tortured into such a meaning. Lingard is inconsistent with himself in putting these words into the mouth of Augustine. He had, but a little while before, said that before that time the Britons had “disappeared” before the Saxons; and yet, in order to change the threat of Augustine into a prophecy, he has the British Christians still existing as fit subjects for Saxon vengeance!

The papacy, however, requires far greater inconsistencies of those who enter upon its defense. In this particular case, it required the invention of a new set of words; and Lingard has supplied them. And, seeming indisposed to dwell upon them, he follows them with this single sentence, “He did not live to see the prediction verified,” using the word in the sense of prophecy. But it is clear that the language of Augustine, as recorded by Bede, does not bear this interpretation. Other words are found at another place in his history, wherein he is represented as speaking of “the prediction of the holy Bishop Augustine.”

Referring to the murder of “about twelve hundred” of the unarmed monks of Bangor by the Saxon king, a convert of Augustine, for no other offense than that of praying for the success of their countrymen, and refusing obedience to Rome, he says: “Thus was fulfilled the prediction of the holy Bishop Augustine, though he himself had been long before taken up into the heavenly kingdom.” (*)

If these words are really such as Bede used, they are consistent only with the supposition that the language of Augustine was that given by Lingard. But we have seen that his language was in every essential particular different, and therefore are justified in looking upon this last extract at least with some degree of suspicion. If, however, it is accurately taken from the original, it is but the construction which Bede placed upon the language of Augustine, which he has handed down to us, and which we can interpret for ourselves.

Now, when it is considered that the words of Augustine were, that the British Christians “should be warred upon by their enemies,” and “should, at their hands, undergo the vengeance of death;” and, further, that he did not, as Lingard alleges, say one word about “the just judgment of God” which was to fall upon them, his plain and obvious meaning must have been that he would employ the means necessary to bring about this result; in other words, that as it was a part of the canon law of Rome that force could be rightfully employed to compel obedience to the papacy, he would teach this to the Saxon kings, his converts, and incite them to the bloody and murderous work. Why, otherwise, did he omit any reference to the “judgment of God?” And why, if the meaning of his language, as given by Bede, were not perfectly clear, and did not mean a threat instead of a prophecy, has it been considered necessary to substitute other language for it, not used by Bede, entirely perverting the original meaning?

There can be no other conclusion fairly arrived at, from the whole account of this transaction as given by Bede, than that Augustine had reference to his own agency, and not to the providence of God, in bringing about the punishment of these humble British Christians, for no other offense than that of adhering to their “ancient customs,” and preferring their “own traditions ” in preference to the customs and traditions of Rome, and of choosing to obey their own bishop rather than the pope! What was there in all this that God should curse them for, or should cause “about twelve hundred” of their number to be butchered in cold blood? Is it not time that the world should hear no more of such debasing superstition as this—that the vengeance of God will fall upon all who oppose the papacy—when we now see all the Roman Catholic governments destroyed, the temporal scepter of the pope broken, no king, or prince, or people on all the earth having either the power or will to defend the papacy, and the Protestant nations and peoples marching forward, with marvelous and unchecked prosperity, in the full sunlight of intellectual, moral, and material development?

The sequel shows how well Augustine accomplished his design, how true he was to the teachings of Rome. How different was his method of propagating the Gospel from that practiced by Christ and the apostles! They went among the humble and obscure, the poor and the unlettered; but he dealt only with the Saxon kings. And when he had brought these to realize that the best means of preserving their crowns was by adopting a system of religion which taught, as its starting—point, the necessity of passive submission and obedience to authority, he succeeded in so training his new converts as to cause them to murder the harmless British monks, merely for praying that the British Christians—their own countrymen—might be able to defend themselves successfully against the Roman Christians(!) at the Battle of Carlegion, where the attempt was made to destroy them for maintaining their ancient religion!

The manner in which Bede relates these events must excite the fire of indignation in every honest Christian heart, although more than twelve centuries have passed. It was the beginning of religious persecution in England, and at no one time since then has bloodier work been done. When the poor British monks went out to pray at the battle, taking no part in the conflict of arms, and Ethelfied, one of the converted Saxon kings, was informed of it, he said: “If, then, they cry to their God against us, in truth, though they do not bear arms, yet they fight against us, because they oppose us by their prayers.” (*) Then, out of twelve hundred and fifty, twelve hundred of these praying Christians were cruelly butchered, for refusing to acknowledge the Pope of Rome as the head of their Church!

And thus did papal vengeance and papal intolerance begin their work of bloody persecution at the very first planting of Romanism in England! To Rome all other Christianity than its own was—as it yet is—barbarism; and, therefore, the sword was drawn to hew down these poor British Christians, not because they did not worship God, but because they would not obey the pope! And thus we learn what papal writers mean when they tell us that Augustine first carried Christianity into England. With them there is no Christianity except that which comes from Rome—none which does not acknowledge entire and passive submission to the pope, none that does not put the pope in the place of God on earth!

Thus introduced, the papal power was preserved in England for hundreds of years, by the authority of kings who were held in obedience to Rome by that part of its religion which teaches that they govern by divine right; that they derive their crowns, not from the people, but from God, through the pope as his sole earthly representative. What ever occasional conflicts about spiritual and temporal juisdiction may have arisen between these kings and the popes on account of personal interest or ambition, this sentiment has been common to them all. Differ as they may about other things, they have always agreed on this, because it keeps the people in subjugation to them. None understood better than they that those who select the rulers of a nation are its masters. The papacy has always taught that the people have no right to govern, but are bound to the duty of obedience to princes.

Therefore the popes have never hesitated to invoke the assistance of the armies of princes in carrying on the work of popular subjugation. They have caused mercenary hordes to be turned loose upon harmless and inoffensive people, as the Albigenses and Waldenses, without the slightest “compunctions visitings of conscience,” for no other purpose than to bring them down into a condition of inferiority and subordination. And when they have thus made princes minister to their ambition, they have held them in like subordination, by threatening to devastate their dominions.

Thus England was governed for centuries, with the load of papal tyranny pressing with the weight of mountains upon her. Her kings kept no faith except that which bound them to Rome; and the popes were always ready to release them from the most solemn obligations, and to sanction the most enormous crimes, when the interest of the papacy required it.

Offa, one of the Romish kings of the Heptarchy, invited Ethelbert, King of the East—Angles, to visit his court, under the pretense of marrying his daughter. But, that he might become master of East—Anglia, he violated the sacred laws of personal honor and hospitality by his assassination. To quiet the remorse of a guilty conscience, he went to Rome to obtain a pardon from the pope, who, availing himself of the opportunity of extending his power and enlarging his jurisdiction, readily granted it “on condition he would be liberal to the churches and monasteries!” that, says the historian, being “the way of atoning for sins then!”(Rapin, vol. i., p. 187; “Anglo—Saxon Chronicle,” by Bede, A. 792, p. 342.)

Offa repaid this act of pardon by the pope in a manner which subsequently proved most fatal to the happiness and prosperity of England. One of the West—Saxon kings had already established at Rome a college for the education of English youth, and had ordered a penny to be collected each year from every family for its support. Offa extended this tax over Mercia and East—Anglia; and thus was originated the celebrated Peter— pence, which came to be afterward claimed by the popes as a tribute from the English to St. Peter and his successors, and which they converted to their own use for many years, and until it was abolished by Henry VIII. (Rapin, vol. i., p. 188.)

But King Offa did more than this to degrade his country, and to show how completely he had become the vassal of the pope, who was at that time Adrian I. The pope sent two legates to England with a code of ecclesiastical laws carefully prepared by himself, which he required to have introduced there for the government of the kingdom. These legates called two synods, one of which met in Mercia, and was attended by King Offa in person; and the introduction of this papal code as the law of England was, under his influence, consented to. (History of England,” by Lingard, vol. i., p. 78.) And thus a power was built up in England sufficiently strong to govern the country, without reference to the people or any responsibility to them, but responsible only to the pope! What these laws were can now be learned only by comparing them with others which have grown out of the papal system. But it may be safely assumed that the papal clergy were by them freed from all responsibility to the domestic laws of the kingdom, and were by this means erected into a privileged and irresponsible class, looking only to the pope for direction in all things. Pope Adrian I., whose character may be inferred from what has been elsewhere said,(Ante, ch. xi., p. 347.) would have been satisfied with nothing less than this.

Continued in Chapter XIV. The Native Britons Part 2

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