LECTURE III.
Early Christianity in other parts of these islands.—Ninian in the south-west of Scotland.—Palladius and Patrick in Ireland.—Columba in Scotland—Kentigern in Cumbria.—Wales.—Cornwall.—The fate of the several Churches.—Special rites &c. of the British Church.—General conclusion.
We are to consider this evening the early existence of Christianity in other parts of these islands, in order that we may have some idea of the actual extent to which Christianity prevailed in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, at the time when Augustine came to Kent.
The Italians appear to have blamed the British Church for its want of missionary zeal. But that only applied to missions to the Angles and Saxons; and I have never quite been able to see how the Britons could be expected to go to their sanguinary and conquering foes with any message, least of all to tell them that their religion was hopelessly false. The expulsion of the Britons from the land of their fathers was too recent for that; the retort of the Saxons too apposite, that at least their gods had shewn themselves stronger than the God of the Britons.
It is a curious fact that we know more of the work of the British Church beyond its borders than at home; and what we know of it is very much to its credit. Somewhere about the year 395, when the inroads of barbarians from the north had become a grave danger, and the territory between the walls had been abandoned by the Romano-Britons, one of the British nation, who had studied at Rome the doctrine and discipline of the Western Church, and had studied among the Gauls at Tours, established himself among the Picts of Galloway and built there a church of stone. The story is that he heard of the death of his friend Martin of Tours when he was building his church, and that he dedicated it to him. This, which after all is a late story in its present form, but is, as I think, to be fully accepted, gives us the date 397; the only sure date in Ninian’s history. From this south-west corner of Scotland he spread the faith, we are told, throughout the southern Picts, that is, as far north as the Grampians.
This Christianising of the Picts may not have been very lasting. Patrick more than once speaks of them[37] as the apostate Picts. It did not prevent their ravaging Christian Britain, denuded of the Roman troops. But it had a great influence in another way. The monastery of Whithorn, which Ninian founded, was for some considerable time the training place of Christian priests and bishops and monks, both for Britain, and, especially, for Ireland. The Irish traditions make Ninian retire from Britain and live the later part of his life in Ireland, where he is certainly commemorated under the name Monenn,—“Mo” being the affectionate prefix “my,” and Monenn meaning “my Ninian.”
Ninian lived and worked, we are told, for many years, dying in 432, a date for which there is no known authority. That period covers the second, third, and fourth withdrawal of the Roman troops from the northern frontier and from Britain[38]; a time when British Christians might well have said they had more than enough to do at home. Ninian’s work has left for us memorials such as no other part of these islands can shew. There are three great upright stones, one at Whithorn itself, and two at Kirkmadrine, that in all human certainty come from his time. They are in complete accordance with what we know of sepulchral monuments in Roman Gaul. Each has a cross in a circle deeply incised, with the member of an R attached to one limb, so as to form the Chi Rho monogram. The Chi Rho is found as early as 312 in Rome and 377 in Gaul, with Alpha and Omega, 355 in Rome and 400 in Gaul. Hic iacet is found in 365. The stone at Whithorn itself has Petri Apustoli rather rudely carved on it. The two at Kirkmadrine have Latin inscriptions[39] well cut, running apparently from one to the other, as though they had stood at the head and foot of a grave in which the four priests were buried:—“here lie the chief priests”—some say that at that time sacerdotes meant bishops—“that is, Viventius and Mavorius” “[Piu]s and Florentius.” One of these latter stones has at the top, above the circle, the Alpha and Omega[40]. I ought to say “had,” for some years ago a carriage was seen from a distance to drive up to the end of the lane leading to the desolate burying-place, a man got out, went to the stone, knocked off with a hammer the corner which bore the Omega, and made off with it. They are since then scheduled as ancient monuments. There was formerly a third stone, which bore the very unusual Latin equivalent of Alpha and Omega, initium et finis, “the beginning and the end.” These remains in a solitary place may indicate the wealth of very early monuments we must once have had in this island, long ago broken up by men who saw nothing in them but stones. Time would fail if I were to begin to tell of the recent exploration of the cave known by immemorial tradition as Ninian’s cave, and of the sculptured treasures of early Christianity found there. There is in this same territory between the walls, but nearer the northern wall, another memorial of the later British times. It is a huge stone a few miles north-west of Edinburgh, with a rude Latin inscription[41], In this tumulus lies Vetta, son of Victis. It takes us to the time when, along with the Picts and Scots who ravaged Britain, we hear for the first time of allies of the ravagers called Saxons. We are accustomed to think of the Saxons as coming first from the south-east and east; but we hear of them first in this region of which we are speaking. As Vetta and Victis correspond to the names of the father and grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, it is difficult to resist the suggestion that in this great Cat Stane, that is, Battle Stone, we have the monument set up by the Romano-Britons, in triumph over the fallen chief of the Saxon marauders. If this is so, the sons of Vetta found the south of the island better quarters than their father found the north, though Horsa, it is true, was killed soon. A great monument bearing his name was to be seen in Bede’s time in Kent, and this fact serves to confirm the assignment of the Cat Stane to another generation of his family.
Ninian affords one of the many evidences of a close connection between Britain and Gaul. We should have been surprised if there had not been this close connection; but somehow or other it has been a good deal overlooked. He dedicated his church to his friend St. Martin of Tours. In the Romano-British times a church at the other end of the island, in Canterbury, had a like dedication; and these are the only Romano-British dedications of which we are sure, so far as I know.