At this time [circa 652] a great and frequent controversy happened about the observance of Easter; those that came from Kent or France asserting that the Scots kept Easter Sunday contrary to the custom of the universal Church. Among them was a most zealous defender of the true Easter, whose name was Ronan, a Scot by nation, but instructed in ecclesiastical truth, either in France or Italy, who disputed [pg 606] with Finan,[257] and convinced many, or at least induced them, to make a stricter inquiry after the truth; yet he could not prevail upon Finan … James, formerly the deacon of the venerable archbishop Paulinus … kept the true and Catholic Easter, with all those that he could persuade to adopt the right way. Queen Eanfleda [wife of Oswy, king of Northumbria] and her attendants also observed the same as she had seen practised in Kent, having with her a Kentish priest that followed the Catholic mode, whose name was Romanus. Thus it is said to have happened in those times that Easter was kept twice in one year;[258] and that when the king, having ended the time of fasting, kept his Easter, the queen and her attendants were still fasting and celebrating Palm Sunday.…
After the death of Finan [662] … when Colman, who was also sent out of Scotland, came to be bishop, a great controversy arose about the observance of Easter, and the rules of ecclesiastical life.… This reached the ears of King Oswy and his son Alfrid; for Oswy, having been instructed and baptized by the Scots, and being very perfectly skilled in their language, thought nothing better than what they taught. But Alfrid, having been instructed in Christianity by Wilfrid, a most learned man, who had first gone to Rome to learn the ecclesiastical doctrine, and spent much time at Lyons with Dalfinus, archbishop of France, from whom he had received the ecclesiastical tonsure, rightly thought this man's doctrine ought to be preferred to all the traditions of the Scots.…
The controversy having been started concerning Easter, the tonsure, and other ecclesiastical matters, it was agreed that a synod should be held in the monastery of Streaneshalch, which signifies the bay of the lighthouse, where the Abbess Hilda, a woman devoted to God, presided; and that there the controversy should be decided. The kings, both father and son, came hither. Bishop Colman, with his Scottish clerks, [pg 607] and Agilbert,[259] and the priests Agatho and Wilfrid. James and Romanus were on their side. But the Abbess Hilda and her associates were for the Scots, as was also the venerable bishop Cedd, long before ordained by the Scots.… Then Colman said: “The Easter which I keep, I received from my elders who sent me hither as bishop; all our fathers, men beloved of God, are known to have kept it in the same manner; and that the same may not seem to any to be contemptible or worthy of being rejected, it is the same which St. John the Evangelist, the disciple especially beloved of our Lord, with all the churches over which he presided, is recorded as having observed.…”
Wilfrid, having been ordered by the king to speak, said: “The Easter which we observe we saw celebrated by all at Rome, where the blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul, lived, taught, suffered, and were buried; we saw the same done in Italy and France, when we travelled through those countries for pilgrimage and prayer. We found the same practised in Africa, Asia, Egypt, Greece, and in all the world, wherever the Church of Christ is spread abroad, through several nations and tongues, at one and the same time … except only those and their accomplices in obstinacy, I mean the Picts and the Britons, who foolishly, in these two remote islands of the world, and only in part of them, oppose all the rest of the universe.… John, pursuant to the custom of the law, began the celebration of the feast of Easter on the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening, not regarding whether the same happened on a Saturday or any other day.… Thus it appears that you, Colman, neither follow the example of John, as you imagine, nor that of Peter, whose traditions you knowingly contradict.… For John, keeping the paschal time according to the decree of the Mosaic law, had no regard to the first day after the Sabbath [i.e., that it should fall on Sunday], and you who celebrate Easter only on the first day after the Sabbath do not practise this. Peter kept Easter [pg 608] Sunday between the fifteenth and the twenty-first day of the moon, and you do not do this, but keep Easter Sunday from the fourteenth to the twentieth day of the moon, so that you often begin Easter on the thirteenth moon in the evening … besides this in your celebration of Easter, you utterly exclude the twenty-first day of the moon, which the law ordered to be especially observed.”
To this Colman rejoined: “Did Anatolius, a holy man, and much commended in ecclesiastical history, act contrary to the Law and the Gospel when he wrote that Easter was to be celebrated from the fourteenth to the twentieth? Is it to be believed that our most reverend Father Columba and his successors, men beloved of God, who kept Easter after the same manner, thought or acted contrary to the divine writings? Whereas there were many among them whose sanctity was attested by heavenly signs and the workings of miracles, whose life, customs, discipline I never cease to follow, not questioning that they are saints in heaven.”
Wilfrid said: “It is evident that Anatolius was a most holy and learned and commendable man; but what have you to do with him, since you do not observe his decrees? For he, following the rule of truth in his Easter, appointed a cycle of nineteen years, which you are either ignorant of, or if you know yet despise, though it is kept by the whole Church of Christ.… Concerning your Father Columba and his followers … I do not deny that they were God's servants, and beloved by Him, who, with rustic simplicity but pious intentions, have themselves loved Him.… But as for you and your companions, you certainly sin, if, having heard the decrees of the Apostolic See, or rather of the universal Church, and the same confirmed by Holy Scripture, you refuse to follow them. For though your Fathers were holy, do you think that their small number in a corner of the remotest island is to be preferred before the universal Church of Christ throughout the world? And if that Columba of yours (and, I may say, ours also, if he was Christ's servant) was a holy man and [pg 609] powerful in miracles, yet could he be preferred before the most blessed prince of the Apostles, to whom our Lord said: ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and to thee I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven’?”
When Wilfrid had thus spoken, the king said: “Is it true, Colman, that these words were spoken to Peter by our Lord?” He answered: “It is true, O king.” Then he said: “Can you show any such power given to your Columba?” Colman answered: “None.” Then the king added: “Do you both agree that these words were principally directed to Peter, and that the keys of heaven were given to him by our Lord?” They both answered: “We do.” Then the king concluded: “And I also say unto you that he is the doorkeeper whom I will not contradict, but will, as far as I know and am able in all things, obey his decrees, lest, when I come to the gates of the kingdom of heaven, there should be one to open them, he being my adversary who is proved to have the keys.” The king having said this, all present, both small and great, gave their assent, and renounced the more imperfect institution, and resolved to conform to that which they found to be better.… [ch. 26]. Colman, perceiving that his doctrine was rejected and his sect despised, took with him such as would not comply with the Catholic Easter and the tonsure (for there was much controversy about that also) and went back to Scotland to consult with his people what was to be done in this case. Cedd, forsaking the practices of the Scots, returned to his bishopric, having submitted to the Catholic observance of Easter. This disputation happened in the year of our Lord's incarnation, 664.
(c) Bede, Hist. Ec., IV, 5. (MSL, 95:180.)
The Council of Hertford A. D. 673. The organization of the Anglo-Saxon Church by Theodore.
As the important synod of Whitby marks the beginning of conformity of the Anglo-Saxon Church under the leadership of the kingdom of Northumbria to the customs of the Roman Church, so the [pg 610] synod of Hertford brings the internal organization of the Church into conformity with the diocesan system of the Continent and of the East, where the principles of the general councils were at this time most completely enforced. Theodore of Canterbury was a learned Greek who was sent to England to be archbishop of Canterbury by Pope Vitalian in 668. The Council of Hertford was the first council of all the Church among the Anglo-Saxons. For the council, see also Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, III, 118-122. The text given is that of Plummer.