How Pope Gregory and Bishop Augustin Governed the New Church of England (part 1 of 2)
Joy of Gregory on learning the success of the monks. — His letters to Augustin; to the patriarch of Alexandria; to Queen Bertha. — A newmonastic colony sent out. — Letter to the king. — Advice to Augustin regarding his miracles. — Opinion of Burke. — Answer of Gregory to the questions of Augustin. — The Pope's arrangements for the heathen; his admirable moderation. — Supremacy over the British bishops accorded to Augustin. — Opposition of the Welsh Celts. — Nature of the dissensions which separated the British from the Roman Church. — Celebration of Easter. — Origin and insignificance of the religious dispute. —It is increased and complicated by patriotic antipathy to the Saxons. —First conference between Augustin and the British. — Miracle of the blind man. — Second conference; rupture. — The abbot of Bangor. — Angustin's threatening prediction concerning the monks of Bangor fulfilled by the fierce Ethelfrid of Northumbria. — Sequel of Augustin's mission. He is insulted by the fishermen of Dorsetshire. — Foundation of King Ethelbert. — Bishops of London and of Rochester. — Laws of Ethelbert; the first reduced to writing. — Guarantee given to the Church property. —Death of Gregory and Augustin.
Some time before this solemn national consecration ^^ ^^^^ of his work, and after the first year of his mission, cregpryon Augustin had sent to Rome two of his companions Ihe^icfcss — Lawrence, who was to succeed him as arch- ^y,Jjfg bishop, and Peter, who was to be the first abbot of the new monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul — to announce to the Pope the great and good news of the conversion of the king, with his kingdom of Kent; next, to demand from him new assistants in the work, the harvest being great and the laborers but few; and, lastly, to consult him on eleven important and delicate points touching the discipline and the management of the new Church.
The joy of Gregory when, in the midst of the perils and trials of the Church, and of his own sufferings, material and moral, he saw the realization of his soul's most cherished dream, may be understood. The boldest of his projects was crowned with success. A new people had been brought into the fold of the Church through his gentle but persevering activity. Till the end of the world, innumerable souls would 1G2 ST. AUGUSTIN
owe to him their admission to the great brotherhood of souls here below— to the eternal joys that are above. He could not foresee the great men. the famous saints, the immense resources, the dauntless champions, that England was to furnish to the Catholic Church; but neither had he the sorrow of foreknowing the sad revolt which was yet to rob so much glory of its lustre, nor that base ingratitude which has dared to despise or to underrate, in his case as in that of his subordinates, the incomparable blessings which he conferred on the people of England by sending to them the light of the Gospel.
The joy of Gregory, as pure as it was natural, infused its spirit into that vast correspondence in which he has left us so faithful an image of his mind and of his life. To Augustin, as might have been expected, its first overflow was directed. "Glory be to God in the highest," he writes —" glory to that God who would not reign alone in heaven, whose death is our life, whose weakness is our strength, whose suffering cures our sufferings, whose love sends us to seek even in the island of Britain for brothers whom we knew not, whose goodness causes us to find those whom wo sought for while yet we knew them not! ^'^ Who can express the exultation of all faithful hearts, now that the English nation, through the grace of God and thy brotherly labor, is illumined by the Divine light, and tramples under foot the idols which it ignorantly worshipped, in order that it may now bow down before the true God? " He then hastened to re-echo into the East the happy news which had reached him from the extreme West. He writes to the patriarch of Alexandria: " The bearer of your letters found me sick and leaves me sick. But God grants to me gladness of heart to temper the bitterness of my bodily sufferings.^'' The flock of the holy Church grows and multiplies; the spiritual harvests gather in the heavenly garners.... You announced to me the conversion of your heretics— the concord of your faithful people. ... I make you a return in kind, because I knew you will rejoice in ray joy, and that you have aided me with your prayers. Know, then, that the nation of the Angles, situated at the extremest angle of the world,^^ had till now continued in idolatry, worshipping stocks and stones.
^fi "Ne solus rcgnaret in coelo, cujusmorte vivimus, cujus infirmitate roboraniuv, cujus passione a passione cripimur, cujus amore in Britannia fratres quserimus quos ignorabamus." — Epist., xi. 23.
" " ^i,^rum nie reperit, jegrum reliquit... quatenus mentis laetitia inimanitatcm me^e molestiai teniperaret." — Epist., viii. 30, ad Eulogium.
^3 •' Gens Anglorum, in mundi angulo posita suo." — Epist., viii. 30, ad Eulogium. Always this singular taste for puns
!
God inspired me to send thither a monk of my monastery here, to preach the Gospel to them. This monk, whom I caused to be ordained bishop by the Frankish bishops, has penetrated to this nation at the uttermost ends of the earth; and I have now received tidings of the happy success of his enterprise. He and his companions have wrought miracles that seem to come near to those of the apostles themselves, and more than 10,000 English have been baptized by them at one time."
After having thus quickened the zeal of the Egyptian patriarch by these tidings from England, he turns to the queen of the newly converted nation— Bertha, born a Christian, and the granddaughter of a saint— to congratulate her on the conversion to her own faith of her husband and her people, and to encourage her to new efforts by telling her that she was remembered in the prayers of the faithful, not only at Rome, but at Constantinople, and that the fame of her good works had reached the ears of the most serene Emperor himself. " Our very dear sons, Lawrence the priest and Peter the monk, he writes to her, '•' have rehearsed to me, on their arrival here, all that your Majesty has done for our reverend brother and cobishop Augustin — all the comfort and the charity that you have so liberally bestowed on him. We bless the Almighty, who has seen meet to reserve for you the conversion of the English nation. Even as He found in the glorious Helena, mother of the most pious Constantine, an instrument to win over the hearts of the Romans to the Christian faith, so we feel assured will His mercy, through your agency, work out the salvation of the English. Alread}", for a long time, it must have been your endeavor to turn, with the prudence of a true Christian, the heart of her husband towards the faith which you profess, for his own well being and for that of his kingdom. Wellinstructed and pious as you are, this duty should not have been to you either tedious or difficult. If you have in any wise neglected it, you must redeem the lost time. Strengthen in the mind of your noble husband his devotion to the Christian faith; pour into his heart the love of God; inflame him with zeal for the complete conversion of his subjects, so that he may make an offering to Almighty God b}' your love and your devotion I pray God that the completion of your work may make the angels in heaven feel the same joy which I already owe to you on earth." ^^
^ "Qualis erga R. fratrcm... gloria vestra exstiterit, quantaque illi
ALout the same time, in revising bis commentaries on the Scriptures, and his exposition of the Book of Job, he cannot help adding then this cry of triumph: " Look at that Britain whose tongue has uttered only savage sounds, but now echoes the Hallelujah of the Hebrews! Behold that furious sea —it gently smoothes itself beneath the feet of the saints These savage clans, that the princes of the earth could not subdue by the sword — see them enchained by the simple word of the priests! That people which, while yet pagan, defied undauntedly the arms and the renown of our soldiers, trembles at the speech of the humble and weak. It knows fear now, but it is the fear of sin; and all its desires are centred on the glory everlasting." *^o Anew Far, however, from resting indolently in this joy, w°ony*'sOTt te remained to his latest day faithful to the warm and active interest with which his beloved England had inspired InmJ^^ He sent to Augustin a new monastic colony, provided with relics, sacred vessels, priestly robes, the ornaments of the altar, and all that was necessary to give effect to the pomp of religious service. He sent also books, which were intended to form the nucleus of an ecclesiastical library .*^2 22cijune, ^t t'i6 head of this new swarm of monks was a man of noble birth, by name Mellitus, and his companion Justus, who were to succeed each other on the met-
solatiavel qualem charitatem impendent, retulerunt.... Postquam et recta fide gloria vestra munita et litteris docta est, hoc vobis nee tardum nee debuit esse difficile." — Epist., v. 29. It will be observed that this letter is placed in the catalogue of the pontifical correspondence apart from the other letters which Gregory addressed to the husband of Bertha, as well as to the princes and bishops in order to recommend to them the new assistants of Augustin.
'^'^ " Ecce lingua Britannia quce nil aliud noverat quara barbarum frendcre, jamdudum in divinis laudibus Hebrasum ccepit alleluia sonare. Ecce tumidus quondam, jam substrains pedibus sanctorum, servit Oceanus.... Qui catervas pugnantium infidelis nequaquam metuerat, jam nunc fidelis humiliura linguam timet... ut prave agere metuat ac totis desideriis ad asternitatis gloriara pervenire concupiscat." — S. Greg., dioral., book xxviii. c. 11.
^' " Semper pro amatis Anglis vigilantissimus." — Gotseunus, Mist. Jlaior, c. 24.
"^ "Nee non et codices plurimos." — Bede, i. 29. Many of the books sent to Augustin by the hands of the abbot Peter were carefully preserved, and escaped the ravages of time for six centuries. In the days of Henry VIII. Leland still speaks of them with admiration: "Majusculis Uteris Romanis more veterum scriptis.,. incredibilem prae se ferentes antiquitatis majestatem." An old catalogue of this first consignment of books ends with these words: " This is the origin of the library of the whole English Church." — A. D. 601. In the library of the college of Corpus Christi, at Cambridge, a Latin MS. of the four evangelists is preserved, which, according to an old tradition, is the copy brought from Eome by St. Augustin in 096. ropolitau throne of Canterbury, and with them Paulinu?, the future apostle of Northumbria, The Pope provided them with very urgent letters, all of the same date, for Queen Brunehaut, for her grandsons, kings Theodebert and Theodoric; for their rival king Clotaire of Neustra,^^ -^y|-iQ \^r^^ treated Augustin with great kindness, and heartily seconded his enterprise; and for the bishops of Aries, Lyons, Gap, Toulon, Marseilles, Chalons, Paris, Rouen, and Angers— thus marking beforehand the possible halting-places of the new missionaries.*^*
In a special letter to Virgilius, the legate at Aries, be recommends him most particularly to receive their common brother, Augustin, with the greatest affection, in the event of his visiting him; and he adds: " As it often happens that those who are at a distance need to be made aware of disorders which require to be repressed, if he should inform you of faults on the part of his priests or others, examine everything along with him with the minutest care, and act with the greatest strictness, but ever be heedful that you do not let the innocent suffer with the guilty. '"^^
The passionate yet intelligent and impartial tenderness towards his friends, which is one of the most attractive features in Gregory's admirable character, is nowhere more beautifully displayed than in his relations with Augustin. We see him ever engaged in extending and consolidating the authority of his envoy: but not the less anxious for the welfare of his soul, and resolute to give precedence before all else to the interests of the newly Christianized country. He intrusted to the new missionaries a long letter addressed to King Ethelbert, in which, while congratulating him on his conversion, and comparing him to Constantino, as he had compared Bertha to St. flelena, he exhorted him to spread the faith among his subjects — to forbid the worship of idols, to overthrow their temples^ and to establish good morals by exhortations, kindnesses, and threats, but above all by his own example. He adds: " You have with you our very reverend brother, bishop Augustin, trained according to the monastic rule, full of the knowledge of the Scriptures, abounding in good works in the sight of God. Hearken
*^ Epist.,-x\. 61, ad Clotarium Francorum rcgem.
^ Epist., xi. 54-62. Compare Bede, i. 29.
"^ " Si comniunem fratrem Augustinum episcopura ad nos venire contigerit, ita ilium dilcctio vestra, sicut decct, aft'ectuosc dulciterquc sascipiat, ut ct ipsum consolationis sua) bono rcfoveat, et alios, qualiter fraterna ciuiritas colenda sit, doceat." — Epist., xi. C8. deToutly to him, and faithfully accomplish all that he tells you; for the more you listen to what he will tell you on the part of God, the more will God grant his prayers when he prays to Him on your behalf. Attach yourself, then, to him with all the strength of your mind, and all the fervor of faith; and second his efforts with all the force that God has given you."'^*^
The game day, in a public letter, he confers on Augustin the right of bearing the pollium in celebrating mass, as a reward for having established the new English Church. This honor was to descend to all his successors on the archiepiscopal throne.'^'' He constitutes him metropolitan of twelve bishoprics, which he enjoins him to erect in southern England. He gives him authority to appoint whom he will metropolitan bishop in the ancient Homan and episcopal city of York, subordinating to the see of York twelve new bishoprics yet to be erected, but reserving to Augustin during his lifetime the supremacy over the northern metropolitan. Over and above all the bishops to be ordained by him or by the future bishop of York in the conquered territory, Gregory places under the jurisdiction of Augustin all the bishops of Britain, •' in order," says the Pope, " that they may learn by your word and by your life how they must believe, and how they must live, in order to fulfil their office and gain an inheritance in heaven. ''^^ He here treats of the bishops who were established in Wales, or who had fled thither for refuge— the prelates and teachers of the Christian Celtic populations which had escaped the Saxon yoke.
But while he thus openly evidenced the fulness of his confidence and the authority with which he invested Augustin, he addressed to him, in secret, advices meant to presen-e him from the dangerous snare of pride. " In our joy," he wrote, '' there is much to fear. I know, beloved brother,
6^ "Fanorum sedificia everte, subditorum mores ex magna vitae munditia, exhortando, terrendo, blandiendo, corrigendo et boni operis exempla monstrando, sedifica.... Augustinus episeopus, in monasterii regula edoctus." Epist., xi. G6. It is surprising to find in this beautiful letter a paragraph warning the Saxon king that the end of the world is at hand — that he must watch for it day by day, and not be astonished, seeing that it is near, at marvellous things which are about to happen in England as elsewhere.
®^ Since the schism of Henry VIII., the Anglish archbishops of Canterbury, by the strangest of anomalies, have still preserved ihis pallium in the arms of their see.
•'** " Quatenus ex lingua et vita tua) sanctitatis, et recte credendi et bene Vivendi formani percipiant, atque officium fide ac moribus exsequentes, ad coelestia, cum Dominus voluerit, regna pertingaut." — Epist..^ xi. 65. that God has by thee wrought great miracles in this nation. It is right to rejoice that the minds of the English are drawn, by visible miracles to the invisible grace; but we ought to fear lest these prodigies incline the weak mind to presumption, and make the inner man fall to a worse depth through vainglory than he is raised up outwardly. When the disciples said to their divine Master, ' Lord, in thy name even the devils are subject unto us,' he answered them, ' Rejoice not because the devils are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.' The names of all the elect are written there, and yet all the elect work not miracles. And while God thus acts outwardly by thee, thou oughtest, brother beloved, to judge thyself scrupulously within, and to know well what thou art. If thou reraemberest that thou hast offended God by word or deed, have thy faults ever present to thy memory to repress the vainglory which may rise in thy heart. Reflect that this gift of miracles is not given to thee for thyself, but for those whose salvation is committed to thee. The reprobate have wrought miracles; and we, we know not even if we are among the elect. It is needful, then, sternly to humble and subdue the mind in the midst of all these prodigies and signs, lest it should seek in them only its own glory and its private advantage. God has given us but one sign whereby we may know his elect: it is this, that we have love one to another." '^^
Immediately after, to reassure the friend whom he had thus corrected, by a return to his wonted tenderness and sympathy, he continues in these terms: " I speak thus because I desire to subdue to humility the soul of my dear hearer. But let even thy humility have confidence. All sinful as I am, I have a sure hope that all thy sins will be remitted unto thee, inasmuch as thou hast been chosen to bring to others the remission of their sins. If there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance, what joy must not there be over a great nation which, in coming to the true faith, repents of all the evil it has done! And it is thou who hast given this joy to heaven." ''^
^® Fleury, in quoting this letter, says with justice, "Nothing proves more completely the truth of St. Augustin's miracles than these serious counsels of Gregory."
'" " llajc autcm dico quia auditoris raei animum in humilitate sterncre cupio. Sed ipsa tuahuniilitas habeat fiduciam suam. Nam peccatorcgo spem certissimam teneo," — Epist., xi. 28.
In one of Gregory's former letters, addressed, not to Augustin, but to bis friend Eulogiiis, Patriarch of Alexandria, tbe Pope also refers to tbe miracles which had signalized the mission of Augustin; he does not hesitate even to compare them to the signs and wonders which accompanied the preaching of tbe apostlesJ^ Twelve centuries after Gregory, the greatest genius that modern England has produced, the immortal Burke, bows respectfully before that tradition, misunderstood by bis frivolous contemporaries. The introduction of Christianity into any country whatsoever is, according to him, the most inestimable benefit that can be conferred ou humanity. Why, then, in view of an end so worthy, should not Providence itself sometimes directly interpose? Miracles, of old time accepted with a blind credulity, have been since rejected with " as undistinguishing a disregard." " But," adds the great orator, " it is the reality or opinion of such miracles that was the principal cause of the early acceptance and rapid progress of Christianity in this island." "^ It is singular that neither Bede nor any other historian gives the least detail of these wonders which awoke at once the admiration, the gratitude, and the prudent deprecations of St. Gregory the Great. But of all possible miracles, the greatest is assuredly " to have detached from paganism without violence a violent people; to have introduced it into the Christian commonwealth, not man by man, and family by family, but at one stroke, with its kings, its warlike nobility, and all its institutions." ''^ This king, who believes himself descended from the gods of the Scandinavian paradise, yet who resigns his capital to the priests of the crucified God; this people, fierce and idolatrous, which by thousands prostrates itself at the feet of a few foreign monks, and by thousands plunges into the icy M'-aters of the Thames, in mid winter, to receive baptism from these unknown strangers this rapid and complete transformation of a proud and victorious, and at the same time sensual and rapacious race, by means of a doctrine pre-eminently fitted to quell lust, pride, and sensuality, and which, once received into these savage hearts, rests forever implanted there,— is not this, of all miracles, the most marvellous, as it is the most indisputable?
''' " Tantis miraculis vel ipse vel hi qui cum ipso transmissi sunt in gente eadem coruscant, ut apostolorum virtutes in signis, qute perhibent, imitari videantur." — Epist., viii. 30.
'^ BoKKE, Essay towards an Abridgment of English History, book ii. ch. 1., " OZANAM, p. 159.
Finally, after all these letters, Gregory wrote a Answer of very long and very detailed answer to the eleven [I'lc^ues-*"' questions which Augustin had put to him, as to the tionsof principal diflSculties which he had encountered, or tiuehtw'^' which he foresaw might still be met with in the luiSion°'!° course of his mission. To convey a just idea of this reply, which is an admirable monument of enlightenment, of conciliatory reason, of gentleness, wisdom, moderation, and prudence, and which was destined to become, as has been most justly said, the rule and the code of Christian missions,'^* it would have to be quoted entire; but besides its extreme length, it embraces certain details from v/hich our modern prudery recoils. Here, however, is the substance of its most important passages.
The Pope, consulted as to the use and the division to bo made of the offerings of the faithful, reminds Augustin that the revenues of the Church should be divided into four portions; the first for the bishop and his family, because of the hospitality which he ought to exercise; the second for the clergy; the third for the poor; the fourth for the maintenance and repair of churches. '^ But you," he says to the archbishop — "you who have been brought up in monastic discipline, ought not to live apart from your clergy, but to initiate in the new English Church the life in common which our fathers practised in the primitive Church." '^
Why, asked Augustin, are there divers customs in the Church, when the faith is one? and why does the liturgy according to which the mass is celebrated in the churches of Gaul (which Bertha probably followed in her oratory of St. Martin), differ from that of the Roman Church?
"You, my brother," replies the Pope, "know the usage of the Roman Church, in which you cannot forget that you were brought up. But if it should happen that you find in the Church of Rome, or in that of Gaul, or in any other, some usage which you believe to be more pleasing to God, I enjoin you to select it with care, and give it a place in the new Church of England. For institutions are not to be loved because of the places whence they are derived; but rather are places to be beloved for the sake of the good institutions that
" OzANAM, Civilisation Chritienne chez les Francs, p. lo4.
'''" " Intorrogatio beati Augustini episcopi Cantuariorum Ecclesia;.. .__. Respondit Gregorius papa urbis Romae.... Tua fratcrnitas inonasterii, rcgulis eriulita, seorsum vivere non debet a clericis suis." — Beue, i. 27. Greg., Epist., xi. 64.
VOL II. 15 exist therein. Choose therefore among the Churches all that is pious and reasonable, and out of what you thus collect form the use of the English Church." •'^
In these words it is easy to recognize the pontiff who had already braved the criticisms of some petty spirits, by introducing at Rome various usages that were believed to be borrowed from Constantinople, and who had said to his critics, " I shall be always ready to deter my subordinates from evil, but to imitate them in good, borrowing it from it matters not what Church. He is but a fool who could make his primacy a reason for disdaining to learn whatever good can be learnt.'"' '^^
Consulted as to the punishment to be inflicted on sacrilegious robbers, and as to the administration of the Roman law, which imposed on the robber a double or fourfold restitution, Gregory advises that, in the punishment, the poverty or the riches of the depredator be taken into account; and that it be administered always with a fatherly love and a moderation which shall keep the mind within the limits of reason. As to restitution— "God forbid," said he, "that the Church should seek to gain by what she has lost, and to draw a profit from the folly of men." '^
Augustin had further inquired what rule he should follow in regard to marriages within the forbidden degrees, to the duties of the married state, and how much ought to be retained of the purifications prescribed to women by the Mosaic law. Gregory, in reply, interdicts absolutely marriages between mothers-in-law and sons-in-law, which were common among the Saxons: as also between brothers and sisters-inlaw. But, for the latter case, he does not require that converts, who had contracted such marriages before their conversion, should be deprived of the holy communion, " lest,"
76 (1 Novit fraternitas tua Komanaj Ecclesiae consuetudinem in qua se meniinit enulitaiu. Sed mihi placet, sive in Romana, sive Galliarum, seu in qualibet Ecclesia, aliquid invenisti quod plus oninipotenti Deo possit placere, soUicite eligas, et in Anglorum Ecclesiae qusB adhuc ad fidem nova est, institutione prfficipua, quse de multis Ecclosiis colligere potuisti, infundas. Non enim pro locis res, sed pro bonis rebus loci amandi sunt. Ex singulis ergo quibusque Ecclesiis quae pia, quae religiosa, quaj recta sunt, elige: et haec qausi in I'asciculum coUecta, apud Anglorum mentes in consuetudinem depone."
'' " Si quid boni vel ipsa vel altera Ecclesia habet, ego et minorcs meos quos ab illicitis prohibeo in bono imitari paratus sum. Stultus est enim qui in eo se primum existimat, ut bona qua3 videritdiscere contemnat." — Epist., X. 12, ad Joann., Syracus. Episc.
'* "Ita ut mens extra rationis regulam oninino nihil faciat.... Absit ut Ecclesia cum augmento recipiat quod de terrenis rebus vidctur amittere, et lucra de vanis quaerere." he says, "3^ou should appear to piuiish them for what they have done in mere ignorance; for there are things which the Church corrects with strictness, and there are others which, for kindness' sake, she tolerates, or prudently overlooks; but always in such wise as to restrain the evil which she bears with, or winks at." He would, in general, treat the English as St. Paul treated his converts— nourishing them not on solid food, but with milk, as newborn babes. Further on " he prescribes to the marriage bed these severe laws which secure health and vigor and the fruitfulness of the Christian family." '^ He does not permit that the woman who has just borne a child should be excluded from the Church, and that thus her suffering should be made a crime.
But he protests with energy against the unnatural custom of mothers who will not be nurses, and who disdain to suckle the children they have brought forth. He sought thus to impress upon the heart of the Saxon woman all a wife's duties, while at the same time he marked her proper place in the Christian family by exalting her dignity and protecting her modesty.^'^
Reflection only served to confirm the Pope in this
•/. A
wise and generous indulgence towards the new con- cessions of verts, allied, as it was in him, with a zeal at once pure and ardent for the service and progress of the Memtus? truth. Scarce had he addressed to Ethelbert the letter in which he exhorted him to destroy the temples of the ancient national worship, when he reconsidered the matter, and a few days later despatched entirely different instructions to Mellitus, the chief of the new mission, whom he had designated abbot, and to whom he had intrusted the letter for the king — hoping to overtake him on his journey. " Since your departure and that of your company," he writes, " I have been much disquieted, for I have learnt nothing of the success of your journey. But when Almighty God shall have carried you in safet}- to our most reverend brother Augustin, say to him that, after having long revolved in my own mind the '* OZANAM, op. cit., IGl.
^ " In hoc enim tempore sancta Ecclesia quasdara per fervorcm corrigit, quajclam per mansuetudinem tolerat, quKdani i)or coiisiderationcin dissimulat, atque ita portat et dissimulat, ut sa^pe malum quod adversatur portando ct dissimulando compescat. ... Si enixam mulierem prolubemus ccclesiam intrare, ipsam ei pcenam suam in culpam deputamus.... Prava autem in conjugatorum moribus consuctudo surrexit, ut mulieres... dum se continere nolunt, dcspiciunt lactare quos gignunt." Ibid. Comparo Epist. xiv. 17, ad Feliccm Messanensem Episcopum. affairs of the English,! have come to the conclusion that it is not necessary to overthrow all the temples of the idols, but only the idols that are in them. After having sprinkled these temples with holy water, let altars and relics be placed in them; for if they are strongly built, it were well that they were made to pass from the worship of demons to the service of the true God— to the end that the people, seeing that their temples are not destroyed, may the more readily accept the religious change and come to adore God in the places familiar to them. And as it is their custom to slay many oxen in sacrifices to the demons, some solemnity which should take the place of this sacrifice must be established. On the day of the dedication, or on the feast of the martyrs whose relics may be given to them, they may be permitted to make huts of leaves around the temples thus changed into churches, and celebrate the feast with social repasts. But in place of sacrificing beasts to a demon, they will kill them only to be eaten with thankfulness to God who provides their food and thus, by leaving to them some of the enjoyments of the senses, they will be more easily led to desire the joys of the soul. For it is impossible to change all at once the whole habits of the savage mind: a mountain is not climbed by leaps and bounds, but step by step.'''^^
Among the enemies of the Roman Church, pedants and bypercritics are found to accuse St. Gregory of having compromised matters with his conscience in thus opening the entrance of the sanctuary to paganism. Far from sympathizing with them, let us, on the contrary, learn to admire the great and wise teacher who could so well distinguish the essential from the accidental, and who, repudiating the pretensions of minute and vexatious uniformity, and sacrificing the pettiness of prejudice to the majesty of a great design, could thus develop the worship of the truth even among the superstitions of Germanic paganism. Let us admire above all, " a religion which penetrates thus to the depths of human nature — which knows what needful combats against his passions it demands from man, and which has no desire to impose unnecessary sacrifices upon him. The only way of
®' "Post discessura congregationis vestrae quas tecum est, valde sumus suspensi redditi, quia nihil de prosperitate vestri itineris audisse nos contigit.... Dicite ei quid diu mecum de causa Anglorura cogitans tractavi.... Nam duris mentibus simul omr^ia abscidere impossibile esse non dubium est, quia et is qui sumiBum locum ascendere nitetur, gradibus vel passibus, non saltibus elevatur." — Epist., xi. 76. knowing human nature is to love it, and it can be won only at this price." ^^
In his last question Augustin had asked how he —as yet the only bishop among the English — should aclwdeciTo deal b}^ the bishops of Gaul and Britain. Gregory ovi^r^he"^ admonishes him not to keep at a distance the ^^P^^^^^ bishops of Gaul who might wish to be present at his ordinations of new bishops in England, " for to conduct successfully spiritual affairs it is lawful to draw lessons from temporal affairs; and as, in the world, persons already married are invited together to take part in the festivities of a wedding, so nothing forbids the participation of bishops already ordained in that ordination which is the espousal of man with God." The Pope added: '' We do not assign to you any authority over the bishops of Gaul, and you can reform them only through persuasion and good example, except at the risk of thrusting your sickle into another's harvest. As to the British bishops, we commit them entirely to your care, that you may instruct the ignorant, strengthen the feeble, and correct the evil." ^^
Gregory, who knew so well how to read the hearts and win the minds of men, could have only a very imperfect knowledge of the geography as well as of the political condition of Great Britain. lie seems to have held on that subject the antiquated notions which prevailed at Rome regarding an island which had been the first to escape from the imperial yoke. He evidently had no idea of the national and only too legitimate antipathy which inflamed the Christian Brittons against the heathen Saxons, who had for a century and a half overrun, ravaged, and usurped their country. He imagined that those Christians, always faithfully united to the Roman Church, who had so energetically repudiated Pelagianism, and whose bishops had sat in the ancient councils presided over by the legates of Home, would lend a cordial support to the mission of the Roman monks, commissioned by him to evangelize the Saxons. He did not know the implacable hate of the conquered for the conquerors; and he forgot certain points of difference which, though they did not touch the great verities of the Christian faith, and were completely removed from all idea of a national or schismatic
82 OzANAM, (Euvres, i. 1G7.
8^ " Nam in ipsis rebus spiritualibus ut sapienter et mature <lisponantur, exemplum tralicre a rebus etiam carnalibus possumus.... Ikit.xnnoruiu omnes episcopos tuaj fraternitati committimus." — Ejpist., xi. Ci.
Church, raised, nevertheless, a formidable barrier between the British clergy and his Roman missionaries.
Augustin It is evident that Augustin always showed himself Capable of understanding and applying the pre- ^° cepts of his friend and master. No incident of his bishop. j-|-g^ recorded in his history, indicates any opposition to, or departure from, the rules laid down for him by the prudence and charity of Gregory. He Avas faithful to these rules in his relations with the British bishops placed by the Pope under his jurisdiction, as well as in all other respects. A rapid survey of this conflict woukl even lead the reader to protest against the unjust and calumnious accusations of which it has been the object, and will prove that Augustin was exclusively guided by a natural desire to put an end to dissensions which iuipaired the unity of the efforts necessary for the conversion of the Saxons.
AVherein, then, consisted those differences between Rome and the Celtic Christianity of Wales, of Ireland, and of Caledonia, which occupy so prominent a place in the religious history of the sixth and seventh centuries, and which the irritable and haughty zeal of St. Columbanus carried over into France, and with which he tried the patience of St. Gregory; ^^ while Augustin, on his side, found in them the chief stumbling-block to his mission in Great Britain? It cannot be too often repeated, that they affected none of the essential doctrines of Christianity, no article of faith defined by the Church either before or since that period, no question of morals, and, above all, that they did not offer any opposition to the suprem.acy of the Holy See, as it was then exercised or accepted by the rest of the Christian world.
Modern research has finally dispersed all the imaginary chimeras of certain English and German writers who attributed these differences to a pretended influence of Eastern Christianity on the British Churches, of which no authentic trace exists; or more readily still, to a traditional repugnance on the part of the Celtic population to the yoke of Rome —a repugnance belied by the history of the past, as well as by the living testimony of the races, the most tenacious and most illustrious members of which, the Irish and the Armoricans, have purchased, at the cost of the most generous and cruel sacrifices, the right of placing themselves in the foremost rank of the faithful children of the Church of Rome.^^
^* See ante, vol. i. p. 555.
^* The most weighty writers of Protestant Germany in our day, such as
OF CANTERBURY. 175
The principal difference turned on the question -medissenof the date of the festival of Easter. This nice sionre^ardquestion — the bugbear of all who embark on the *"°''*^^'^- study of the primitive annals of the Church— has already emerged in the course of our history, and will often again recur.^*^
From the earliest Christian ages prolonged discussions were raised regarding the day on which the greatest festival of the Church should be celebrated. The Council of Nice fixed the date of the Pascal solemnities for the Sunda}^ after the full moon of the vernal equinox, and that date, sanctioned by the Roman Church, had been received along with the Christian faith b}^ all the Churches of Britain, and had been carried by St. Patrick to Ireland, and by St. Columba to Caledonia. But the Church of Alexandria, having discovered an astronomical error, originating in the employment of the ancient Jewish computation by the Christians, had introduced a more exact calculation, which was adopted by all the Eastern Churches; and the result was, that from the pontificate of St. Leo the Great (440-61) a difference of an entire month had arisen between Easter-day at Rome and Easterday at Alexandria. Towards the middle of the sixth century, the difference ceased to exist; Rome adopted the calculation of Denys le Petit, which demonstrated clearly the error of the day fixed by the Council of Nice,and from this date uniformity was re-established in the Church. But the Saxon invasion had interrupted the ordinary intercourse between Rome and the British Churches; they retained the ancient Roman usage, and it was precisely their attachment to that usage which was their argument against the more exact computation which Augustin and the Italian monks brought with them, but which the British rejected as suspicious novelties, to receive which would be an insult to the traditions of their fathers.^'' It was thus from their very fidelity to the early teachings of Rome that they resisted the new Roman missionaries.
Gieseler, have already abandoned this hypothesis, so lonj? accepted by their co-religionists. It has been learnedly refuted by the illustrious Professor Dollinger in his Manual of Ecclesiastical History, and it may be said annihilated by the two Memoirs of M. Varin on the Causes of the Disse?ision between the British and the Roman Church, published by the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettrcs, 1858. A digest of the conclusions of these two Alemoirs will be found in Appendix II.
*® See ante, vol. i. book vii.
^^ Walter, Alte Wales, p. 225. Dollinger, op. cit., i. 2d part, 216.
This cause of dissension, by far the most important, was of a very recent date, and all the disputes that can be made out on other points (except that regarding the form of the tonsure) were equally new, without being at all more essential. If it had been otherwise — had there been the slightest difference touching doctrine or morals between the British and the Roman Church — Augustin would never have been guilty of the folly of soliciting the aid of the Celtic clergy in the conversion of the heathen Saxons. This would have been but to sow the seeds of confusion and discord in the new Church, which it was his business to organize by means of the energetic co-operation of the native Christians and the envoys of Rome.^^