Bell's Cathedrals: The Church of St. Martin, Canterbury / An Illustrated Account of its History and Fabric

by C. F. Routledge

There is, too, the account of the martyrdom of St. Alban, recorded at length in the pages of Bede, which cannot be treated as an idle legend. It took place at Verulam during the persecution under Diocletian and Maximian, somewhere about 303. Although the record does not rest on contemporary evidence, the story was fully believed at Verulam itself as far back as 429 A.D. (i.e. within a hundred and twenty-six years of the traditional date) and is accepted by Constantius in the fifth, as well as by Gildas and Venantius Fortunatus in the sixth, century—while the difficulty of believing in the possibility of a persecution in Britain, which was then under the kindly and tolerant rule of Constantius, seems to us purely imaginary. It is hardly probable that Constantius would have been able to restrain the persecuting zeal of subordinates, in face of the superior authority of Maximian, who is said by Gibbon to have "entertained the most implacable aversion to the name and religion of the Christians." Dean Milman sees no reason for calling in question the historic reality of the event, and suggests that the probable fact of St. Alban being a Roman soldier may have been an additional reason for his not having received the "doubtful protection" of Constantius.

But after this period we come to even surer ground—and from the beginning of the fourth century we find a Christian church fully organised in Britain. At the Council of Arles (in 314) three British bishops were present, whose very names and dioceses are recorded—viz. Eborius of York, Restitutus of London, and Adelphius of Caerleon-on-Usk or Lincoln. British bishops took part in the Councils of Sardica (347) and Ariminium (359), and probably also in the great Council of Nicæan (325). We have also testimony to a regular organisation in the pages of St. Chrysostom, Jerome, Theodoret, etc., ranging from the end of the fourth to the beginning of the fifth century. The conversion of the Southern Picts by Ninian, Bishop of Whithern—the visits of Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, and Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, to Verulam and elsewhere—the missions of Palladius and Patrick to Ireland—the pilgrimages of British Christians to the Holy Land—and even the fact of the Pelagian heresy being propagated by a Briton—all equally bear witness to the prevalence of Christianity in these early centuries, so that Gildas may not be drawing entirely on his imagination when he describes the Church as "spread over the nation, organised, endowed, having sacred edifices and altars, the three orders of the ministry and monastic institutions, embracing the people of all ranks and classes, and having its own version of the Bible, and its own ritual."

Now, in view of these facts, many writers have not unnaturally endeavoured to trace the introduction of Christianity to some great man, or to some special effort. It seemed so impossible that a complete organisation should have sprung up without a definite founder—and claims have been made on behalf of St. Peter, St. John, Simon Zelotes, and Aristobulus, though without even a shadow of probability to recommend them. Something, indeed, may be urged in favour of the pious belief that St. Paul made his way to this island between his first and second imprisonment. St. Clement of Rome says that he preached "to the extreme boundary of the West"; St. Chrysostom, that from Illyricum "he went to the very ends of the earth"; and Theodoret, that the Apostles, including St. Paul, "brought to all men the laws of the Gospel, and persuaded not only the Romans ... but also the Britons, to receive the laws of the Crucified," while the theory has received the support of Soames, Bishop Burgess, Collier, and other ecclesiastical writers—even Bishop Lightfoot thinking it "not improbable that the western journey of St. Paul included a visit to Gaul," from which an extension of his journey to Britain would not of course be impossible. It is true, too, that (as with the closing years of St. Peter) there is an interval of time after St. Paul's first imprisonment (variously estimated as from four to eight years) which cannot be accounted for; and that the mere fact of silence as to St. Paul having preached in this island need not be unduly pressed, because Britain was at that time an obscure and unimportant province at the extremity of the Roman empire. But the critical historian cannot accept what is, after all, a mere conjecture, unsupported by long tradition or any positive evidence—any more than he can lay stress upon what is only a curious coincidence, between the mention by Martial of Claudia, a British lady in Rome newly married to Pudens—and the salutation of "Claudia and Pudens" in St. Paul's Second Epistle to Timothy, written from Rome. The theory as to this identification, is based on a string of hypotheses, called by Dean Farrar "an elaborate rope of sand." Similar remarks would also apply to the legend that the father of Caractacus, King of the Silures, called Bran the Blessed, was converted to Christianity when captive at Rome (A.D. 51-58) and introduced the Gospel into his native country on his return, though there is a tradition to that effect incorporated into the Welsh Triads, which are probably none of them earlier than the fourteenth century. Tacitus (Ann. xii. 35) only mention the "wife, daughter and brothers" of Caractacus as having surrendered with him, and he would scarcely have omitted the "father," if he had shared their captivity.

There is, indeed, one story which we are very loath to surrender—viz. the story that St. Joseph of Arimathea was sent, with twelve companions, to Britain by the Apostle St. Philip (about 63 A.D.) settled in the Isle of Avalon or Glastonbury, and founded there a monastery, striking his staff into the earth, and making it burst, like Aaron's rod, into leaf, and bloom with the blossom of the Holy Thorn. This legend, indeed, is not actually recorded in writing before William of Malmesbury in the twelfth century, but it may have rested on earlier local tradition. We know that Glastonbury was a Christian sanctuary before the Saxons conquered the district, and Bishop Browne (of Bristol) reminds us that Domesday Book speaks of the "twelve hides (the portions of land said to have been granted to St. Joseph's companions) which never have been taxed," and that at the Council of Basle in 1431 the English Church claimed and received precedence as founded by St. Joseph of Arimathea in Apostolic times. The tradition, too, that the first British Christians erected at Glastonbury a church made of twigs or wattlework (called afterwards the Vetusta Ecclesia, and only destroyed by fire in 1184) has been illustrated, if not confirmed, by recent discoveries at Glastonbury (among the ruins of British houses burned with fire) of baked clay showing the impress of wattlework. There is no known fact connected with the life of St. Joseph of Arimathea that would negative the conclusion that he might have been sent to Britain as a missionary.

Some difficulties would be solved if we could believe the tale about Lucius, a British King, having requested Eleutherius, Bishop of Rome from 171 to 185, to send someone to teach his people Christianity. This legend is recorded by Bede, partly confirmed by Nennius, and accepted by William of Malmesbury. And the name of Lucius has been variously associated with Winchester, Gloucester, Llandaff, St. Peter's Cornhill, St. Martin's Church, St. Mary's Church in Dover Castle, and even the church on the site of Canterbury Cathedral. The story probably owed its origin to a note in Catalogus Pontificum Romanorum, but it does not occur in the earlier catalogue written about 353, and was added to it nearly two hundred years later, with the object apparently of connecting the primitive growth of Christianity in Britain with the See of Rome. Though this ancient story cannot be considered as historical, it is not altogether impossible that it had some foundation in an application from a British prince to receive instruction in Christianity about the end of the second century: and this would give point to the statement of Tertullian (in 208) that "the kingdom and name of Christ were venerated in districts of Britain not yet reached by the Romans."

There is much force in the conclusion arrived at by Bishop Browne, that, "with Gaul so close at hand, its people so near of kin, its government so identical with theirs, the Britons would learn Christianity from, and through, Gaul," to whose church ours should occupy the position of a younger sister. At the same time, this fact must be considered—viz. that the earliest bishops mentioned as having attended the Council of Aries are anterior in point of time to the dated bishops in a great majority of the dioceses of Gaul adjacent to this island, so that we should not too readily abandon the possible belief that there was an independent church in Britain, though we know not when or by whom it was founded.

It only remains in this chapter to mention a few of the traces of British Christianity as supplied by monumental or other evidence well attested. We may believe, with Bede, that over St. Alban's tomb at Verulam, "when the peace of the Christian times returned, a church was built of wonderful workmanship, and worthy of that martyr"; and three churches are spoken of at Caerleon, two of which were dedicated to Julius and Aaron, said to have been martyred in the Diocletian persecution; another at Bangor Iscoed, near Chester; besides one at Candida Casa or Whithern, and the Vetusta Ecclesia at Glastonbury, our own church of St. Martin, and the foundations of that lately discovered in Roman Silchester. This is a fair number, even if we pass over for the time any possible claims to Roman origin on the part of Brixworth, Lyminge, Reculver, and St. Mary's Church in Dover Castle, all of which are ascribed to the Saxon period by Mr J. T. Micklethwaite in his interesting paper read at Canterbury in 1896 before the meeting of the Royal Archæological Institute—though we need not allow that his reasoning is in all cases indisputable.

We possess, too, some sepulchral monuments and inscriptions (not at present very extensive, but probably greatly to be multiplied as fresh excavations and explorations are made) at St. Mary le Wigfred, Lincoln, Caerleon, and Barming, and the Chi-Rho monogram (which was first introduced as a Christian symbol by the Emperor Constantine at the beginning of the fourth century) on various rings, stones, and tesselated pavements, also crosses on pavements at Harpole and Harkstow, and various Christian formulas such as "Vivas in Deo," "In pace," etc.

The dogmatism and incredulity of antiquaries may well be illustrated in the case of Mr T. Wright ("The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon"). He disbelieves in all traces of Christianity said to be found among monuments of the Roman period; and his scepticism is thorough and comprehensive—more extreme in our opinion than the credulity which he denounces. He allows, indeed, the possibility of there having been some individuals among recruits and merchants and settlers who had embraced the truths of the Gospel, but with a qualification. He thinks the early allusions made by Tertullian, Origen, Jerome, and others are "little better than flourishes of rhetoric." The list of British bishops at the Council of Aries seems to him "extremely suspicious, much like the invention of a later period." He disbelieves the whole account of the Diocletian persecution having extended to Britain, even partially or locally. He doubts the authenticity of the work attributed to Gildas, though his objections have been met and set at rest, for most people, by such competent authorities as Dr Guest and others. But, as an instance of what I cannot but designate as far-fetched scepticism, we may note his explanation of the Christian monogram found on the pavement of a Roman villa at Frampton. He does not question its genuineness, but explains it by surmising that the beautiful villa had probably belonged to some wealthy proprietor, who possessed a taste for literature and philosophy, and with a tolerant spirit, which led him to surround himself with the memorials of all systems, had adopted, among the rest, that which he might learn from some of the imperial coins to be the emblem of Christ—Jesus Christ standing, in his eyes, on the same footing as Pythagoras or Socrates.

Surely we have here a warning against the dogmatism which is often indulged in by archaeological experts, and it may be extended from monuments and remains to legends and traditions, which are often of great weight, even when they cannot be historically proved. It is not unnatural that many people should have become impatient and wearied of such purely negative criticism.