Lives of the English Saints. The Life of St. Augustine of Canterbury, Apostle of the English

Front matter

Ex . libris . S . Mariae . de . Stan brook .

THE LIFE

ST. AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY,

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. The British Church. Its first Teachers 1

II. The British Church King Lucius 12

Chapter I

THE BRITISH CHURCH. ITS FIRST TEACHERS.

NEVER was the face of a country more speedily and entirely changed than was that of our own island by the inroads of its Saxon conquerors in the fifth and sixth centuries of the Christian sera. Secular historians have recounted how those fierce invaders swept all before them like a torrent ; drove the ancient people of the land into its farthest recesses, or compelled them to take shelter behind its mountain-fastnesses ; establishing themselves in the places which they had laid waste, and demolishing with ruthless hands the comely fabric of civilization and social order which had been gradually growing up in Britain since its subjugation to the Roman power.

They, meanwhile, who read the history of their country with a Christian and Catholic eye, will regard with an interest, such as no mere record of political changes and worldly reverses can inspire, the effect of this sudden and mighty revolution upon the religious condition and destinies of Britain. To them, the contest between the aboriginal inhabitants of the island and their impetuous conquerors, if contest it can be called, where the panic- were so unequally matched in numbers and resources, will seem chiefly memorable, not as it was a trial of human strength, or a struggle for national ascendancy, but as it was a war of extermination waged by a heathen people against one, which, however miserably debased in practice, was yet in name and privilege, Christian. The Church, which had dislodged, by little and little, one vast system of idolatry, was now in turn to be herself displaced by another, less compact and imposing indeed, but not less wicked. Our own venerable historian, St. Bede, in describing the religious consequences of this great national visitation (for such he accounts it), speaks of " buildings public and private, levelled to the ground; priests everywhere massacred at the very altars ; and prelates with their {locks swept away by fire and sword." 1 It seemed like a new fulfilment of the prophet's words: " Ascendit contra earn gens ab Aquilone, quse ponet terram ejus in solitudinem : et non erit qui habitet in ea ab homine usque ad pecus, et moti sunt, et abierunt." 2 Thus was heathenism once more dominant in the land which had been trodden by saintly footsteps, and watered by Martyrs' blood.

I ( is true that our Lord did not, even in this gloomy interval, leave 1 1 imself without witness in Britain; and so gave a pledge that He still watched over it, and would one day come to its help. Yet the prospects of Hi- Church in this our island, during the period to which we are referring, were to human eyes sufficiently

1 S. Bcde, Hist. Eccl. Gent. Ang. lib. i. c. 15. 2 Jer. L. 3.

I.] ITS FIRST TEACHERS. 3

dismal. The land, in its length and breadth, was overspread by darkness ; gross, palpable, darkness. The light of God's Lamp, though not extinct, was pent up where it could not be seen ; the Church, whose place is everywhere, was, in England, imprisoned within fixed, and, for all that appeared, impassable, barriers ; it was but coextensive with the now shrivelled boundaries of the ancient British name. As the war drew to a close, and the aboriginal islanders resigned their former possessions into the hands of an enemy whom they could no longer resist, settled heart-burnings, and jealousies, of which it is painful even to think, took the place of more active and sanguinary hostilities. Britain was now a nation divided against itself ; and pride and resentment interposed an effectual obstacle to the reconciliation of the conquerors and the conquered within that universal Fold, " where there is neither barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free ;" in which all worldly distinctions are neutralized, and all narrowing prejudices overruled.

At this critical juncture, it pleased Almighty God to move the heart of His servant St. Gregory, the first of that name who filled the chair of St. Peter, and, for his eminent virtues, surnamed the Great, with compassion towards our afflicted country ; and to direct hither the steps of that blessed Saint, whose life is to form the subject of these humble pages. Happily for England, she had before established, against this her hour of need, a title to those especial favours which are ever in store for a Church of Martyrs. The seed whose manifold return, how long soever delayed, is never-failing in the end, had already been profusely sown in her own soil. And thus, " after many days," the blood of holy Alban and his companions which had "cried from tin- Around" for mercy upon desolate England, was to re its answer in the mission of a new Apostle to shores. Even, as the blood of Stephen, first heir of his Master's Cross, had its abundant harvest in the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul, did the sufferings of our glorious Protomartyr win for England the pitying regards of St. Gregory and the Apostolic labours of his blessed son in the faith. For many ages, \lban was accounted the Patron of England, and national blessings were traced, by religious men 1.1, to the effect of his death, or looked upon as answers to his continual prayers. 3 Nor can we doubt that, among the chief fruits of his sufferings and intercession is to be numbered that gracious interposition of our Lord in behalf of His Church, by which this i shi i id was for the second time wrested from the Enemy's grasp, and brought under the healing shade of the True Vine.

Although, then, the ancient Church of Britain presen ted no visible tokens of life to the eyes of our Saint, ujM)H his landing on English ground, we may not question that the way had been really, though secretly, prepared for him, through the power of Divine Grace manifested in the works and sufferings of those who had preceded him in this scene of his labours. And. accordingly, some notice of the ancient Church of Britain, its origin, rise, and decline, seems a fitting, if not necessary, introduction to the history of one, whose very title to our veneration, as the second Founder of the rhmvh in our island, suggests the grateful remembrance <f mercies vouchsafed to Britain in the ages re him. As it is due to his memory, to point out

3 Sec his Life by the Rev. A. Butler. (June '2'2.)

I.] ITS FIRST TEACHERS. 5

how entirely the vestiges of Christ had disappeared from that portion,, at least, of the island, into which he was immediately called, and thus how strictly his labours were of a Missionary and Apostolic character ; so does it seem due to theirs, who went before him, to begin our narrative with some connected account of those earlier triumphs of faith, by which his course was smoothed, rather than with the abrupt mention of the degeneracy, which created the necessity for his mission.

The light of the Gospel is believed to have dawned upon Britain as early as the age of the Apostles. St. Bede, indeed, takes no notice of a Church here, till the time of King Lucius, or towards the end of the second century ; but a yet earlier historian, whose name, like his own, is invested with the honours of sanctity, St. Gildas, makes the introduction of Christianity into Britain anterior to a great revolt of the inhabitants, evidently corresponding with that under Boadicea, in A.D. 6 1. 4 The same historian appears to direct us for the origin of Christianity in Britain to some epoch midway between a certain great national convulsion, and the abovementioned rise ; and it has been thought that, by the former of these critical events, St. Gildas intends the victory obtained over Caractacus by the Emperor Claudius, in the year of our Lord 51 ; 5 as a result of which the British king was taken captive, and carried, with his family and retinue, to Rome. Concurrent with this account of St. Gildas are many ancient traditions which, together with such other proofs as the case admits, seem to make it highly probable, that the introduction of Christianity into Britain was nearly contemporaneous

4 S. Gildas de Excid. Brit. 8, compared with 6 and 7.

5 Cf. Bp. Burgess' Tracts on the British Church.

THE BRITISH CHURCH. [CH.

with the defeat of Caractacus, and owing to circumstances which sprang out of that event.

Among the captives who where led to Rome in the train <>f the British king, is said to have been one Claudia Uuffina, a virgin, and, as some suppose, daughter of Caractacus, who was forced to take the name of Claudia, as was not unusualj in compliment to her imperial master. It is related, that this Claudia, while at Rome, became the wife of Pudens, a Senator, with whom St. Peter is said to have lodged, on his first arrival in the City. A certain Claudia, the wife of Pudens, is twice celebrated for her beauty and accomplishments }>v the poet Martial. 6 Again, among the salutations in >t. Paul's second Epistle to Timothy, written from Rome, we read, " Eubulus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Chi mini. '"^ Hence it has been supposed, and with much apparent probability, that Claudia who has a place in British story became, while at Rome, the disciple of the Blessed Apostles, SS. Peter and Paul, and, interceding with them in behalf of her native country, became the means of its conversion. If St. Grildas be rightly understood to refer that event to some period between A.D. 51, and A.D. Gl, his account will appear to corroborate, in a remarkable manner, the tradition which fixes upon the residence of Caractacus at Rome U the first occasion of a religious intercourse between that city and Britain. For the year 58, when some members of the family of the British king returned li<me, is the precise date assigned by Baronius for St. Paul's arrival at Rome, and for St. Peter's journey into \YrMrrn Europe.

Tin- names of both those great Apostles are associated

I.] ITS FIRST TEACHEES. 7

by divines and antiquaries with the earliest annals of the British Church. That St. Paul visited Britain is very generally asserted, both by Catholic and Protestant authorities ; though it must be acknowledged that the written testimony in favour of this tradition is anything but conclusive. It is certain, indeed, from the accounts of early writers, that the Apostle of the Gentiles penetrated to the "boundary of the West ;" 8 but some have considered this expression to be satisfied by the fact of his visit to Spain, of which he speaks in his Epistle to the Eomans. The historical evidence for St. Peter's Apostolic journey to Britain is scantier still, consisting chiefly in a passage quoted by Metaphrastes (a writer of the tenth century, of whose authority Baronius speaks slightingly) from Eusebius, and which is not found in the extant works of that author. Yet it has undoubtedly been long received as a pious opinion by the Church at large, as we learn from some often quoted words of St. Innocent 1.9, that St. Peter was instrumental in the conversion of the West generally. And this sort of argument, although it ought to be kept quite distinct from documentary and historical proof, and will form no substitute for such proof with those who stipulate for something like legal accuracy in inquiries of this nature, will not be without its effect upon devout minds, accustomed to rest in the thought

THE BRITISH CHURCH. [CH.

of God's watchful guardianship over His Church. The tradition of St. Peter's immediate, or intimate, connexion, with tin- .Brit Mi Church, has been combated almost universally by Protestant writers ; indeed, it is much to !>< laiiu -ntrd. that this and other like questions of fact shmild too often have been forced out of their proper department as mere subjects of history, and invested with a grave theological importance which does not surely belong to them. In the present instance, it is impossible not to feel, with all the respect undoubtedly due to the names of those who have taken part on both sides of this controversy, that the historical testimony to the fact of St. Peter's Apostolical visit to Britain has been as unduly pressed by writers on the affirmative side, as what may be called the moral and theological proof of it has been commonly undervalued on the other. It ought, however, to be mentioned, both to the credit of the particular writer himself, and as important to the fact in dispute, that a learned and zealous Protestant, Dr. Hales, considers the visit of St. Peter to Britain to furnish the most satisfactory of all clues to the solution of an intricate chronological problem. 1

Three other members of the Sacred College, besides 8t Peter, are said by some to have preached the Gospel in Britain ; viz. : St. James the Greater, St. Philip, and

Bibliothecu Patrum Vet. torn. viii. p. 586. Ed. Venet. 1772.) This Irttrr is dated 19 March, 416.

top Stillinirfleet contends (Or. Sac. lib. 3), that this list does not

include Britain; yet thr.r pages farther on, in order to show that

British BUhops were at the Council of Sardica, he proves that Britain

.1 rarly times comprehended under the name of Gaul. See the

1 YitU- Dr. JI;,k-s' s Analysis of Sacred Chronology, vol. ii. pt. 10.

I.] ITS FIRST TEACHERS. 9

St. Simon Zelotes ; but without a shadow, as far as appears, even of plausibility. St. Simon is reported to have come to this country, after preaching the Faith in Mauritania, and other parts of Africa. But it seems very doubtful whether St. Simon preached even in Africa, for his mission was to the East ; and, if he did, he certainly returned into the East ; for all the ancient Martyrologies place his martyrdom in Persia. And, as to St. James the Greater, and St. Philip, both of these Apostles suffered martyrdom too early to have been concerned in the foundation of the British Church ; St. James in 43, or 44, and St. Philip ten years only afterwards. Therefore, as the learned Archbishop Ussher observes, the question lies, in fact, between St. Peter and St. Paul. St. Peter is believed to have come to Britain, A.D. 60 ; St. Paul, to have set out on his Western journey in the following year, and to have reached Britain about A.D. 62. 2

Other holy men who are thought to have visited our island in the Apostolic age, are St. Joseph of Arim^thsea, and St. Aristobulus, of whom the latter is said, but apparently upon very slender grounds, to have been consecrated by St. Paul to the first British bishopric. The tradition which brings St. Joseph of Arimathaea to Britain about the year of our Lord (according to Baronius) 63, is defended by the Protestant archbishops, Ussher and Parker, though by the latter in a spirit of very marked hostility to the special prerogatives of St. Peter. St, Joseph of Arimathsea was venerated in the ancient English Church as the founder, and first abbot, of the celebrated Monastery of Avallonia, afterwards Glastonbury, where are still to be seen the ruins

2 Alford,-Annales, ad aim.

10 THE r.Rrrisii rumen. [on.

nf a chapel dedicated to Almighty God under his tuteairaiii. if wo are to go by external, documentary, and generally available proof, it must be acknowledged that Mr. Collier, in his Ecclesiastical History, 3 has made out a strong case against the tradition in question. Yet even after the credit of titledvdx and charters has been shaken, is it easy for reverent minds to conceive that such a belief, if unfounded, would have been allowed to grow up, and entwine it-elf, as it were, round the hearts of men, bound together by the most solemn obligations, and for the most sacred objects, and that for successive generations, so as to enter into their formal proceedings and be expressed in their most durable monuments 1 It is surely one tiling to admit that such a tradition is not proveablej and quite another to say that it is worthless. Upon what evidence do we put faith in the existence of St. George, the Patron of England ? Upon such, assuredly, as an acute critic or skilful pleader might easily scatter to the winds ; the belief of prejudiced or credulous witnesses, the unwritten record of empty pageants and bauble decorations. On the side of scepticism might be exhibited a powerful array of suspicious legends and exploded acts. Yet after all, what Catholic is there but would count it a profaneness to question the existence <>i St. George ] Grounds of this kind, however, are evidently quite distinct from external, tangible, argumentative, proof. 4

From the testimony of St. Gildas we learn, that

3 Hook i. cent. 1.

4 < >f course the instance is meant as an illustration merely, not a parallel. It is not denied that every Catholic has stronger reason for

believing i n t l u - existence of St. (.Jcorge than in the visit of St. Joseph of Arimatluca to Britain.

I.] ITS FIRST TEACHERS. 11

Christianity, though early established in Britain, made comparatively little progress among the inhabitants till it received a new impulse in the persecution under Diocletian. 5 But while St. Grildas distinctly attests the fact that Christianity, when once brought into Britain maintained its ground without interruption, the records of its progress during the first and greater part of the second century are extremely meagre and unsatisfactory. Even tradition itself is silent upon the annals of this period, except in two particulars ; the one, a mission to Pope Clement, in the year 100, upon liturgical questions ; the other, an accession to the Church of Britain, about forty years later, of certain doctors and scholars of Granta.

THE BRITISH CHURCH. [CH.

Chapter II

THE BRITISH CHURCH. KIXG LUCIUS.

THE second great epoch in British Church History is the conversion of king Lucius, which, though the date has been much canvassed, is supposed by competent authorities to have taken place about A. D. 182. The truth of this circumstance undoubtedly rests upon a firmer basis of evidence than that of some among the foregoing details, and it finds a remarkable concurrence of authority, Protestant as well as Catholic, in its favour. The fact, as related by St. Bede the Venerable, was as follows : " In the 156th 1 year from our Lord's Incarnation, Marcus Antoninus Verus, the fourteenth in succession from Augustus, attained the first power in conjunction with his brother, Aurelius Commodus, in whose time, Eleutherius, a holy man, being vested with the pontificate of the Roman Church, Lucius, king of Britain, sent him a letter, praying to be made a Christian by an act of his authority ; the object of which pious entreaty he shortly afterwards obtained ; and the Britons, having received the Faith, kept it whole and undefiled, and in peace and quiet, till the times of Diocletian the Emperor." 2

This, as we have already said, is the first mention which St. Bede makes of Christianity in Britain. Taken, however, with the account of St. Gildas, beforementioned,

1 It rnu^t bo ivinrmbrred that St. Bede's chronology is often inaccurate. 2 S. Bede, Hist. Eccl. lib. i. c. 4.

II.] KING LUCIUS. 13

his words cannot be thought to imply more than what is universally acknowledged, that the Faith was not openly embraced by the British nation till the days of Lucius.

From sources of greater or less authenticity, we learn that Lucius, though he did not determine upon professing Christianity till towards the close of his life, was no stranger to it in his earlier years. The instrument of his early religious convictions is said by some to have been St. Timothy, one of the four sainted children of SS. Pudens and Claudia. 3 A more credible tradition records, that Lucius obtained the rudiments of the Christian faith through the teaching of St. Elvanus, whom some authors suppose to have been one of the aforementioned converts of Granta ; but who is generally said to have been a brother of the Monastery of Avallonia. But from whomsoever the good king Lucius derived his first knowledge of the Christian religion, certain it is, that he could not be persuaded to avow it till towards the close of his life, when he had been king nearly sixty years. Several causes are said to have put him upon seeking the grace of eternal life through the Sacraments of the Church. He had now enjoyed ample means of observing the fruits of the Christian religion in the holy lives of its professors. He was no stranger to the doctrine of a Judgement to come, and knew that he must shortly be called away to account for his use of the opportunities vouchsafed him. But the more immediate and constraining motive, under Divine Providence, of his happy resolution, appears to

3 The others were, his brother, St. Novatus, and his sisters SS. Praxedes and Pudentiana, Virgins. See Cressy, Hist, of the Church of Brittany.

have been the great and signal deliverance of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and all his army by the prayers of the Christian soldiery, the news of which merciful interposition had lately come to Britain, and had produced a powerful impression upon the king's mind ; who, being now fully satisfied in his heart of the Divine original and wonderful effects of that holy creed towards which he had been long favourably disposed, sent for his faithful counsellor Elvanus, and made him a party to his intention of entreating instant admission into the fold of Christ. Desiring, also, to obtain an authoritative rule for the better government of the Church in his kingdom, he resolved upon seeking counsel in his difficulty, and the See of Rome was the quarter to which his thoughts instinctively turned. He chose, as his representatives in this most important mission, Elvanus, and another clergyman named Medwinus, of the province of the Belgae. 4 These sacred ambassadors were commissioned to prefer a request that the holy Father, Eleutherius, in whom the Roman pontificate was then vested, would send to Britain persons duly qualified and authorized to instruct the king and his subjects, and to celebrate, and administer to them, the Divine Mysteries. He also desired to be furnished with rules for the government of the British Church, and, as some add, with a transcript of the famous Roman laws, to serve as the basis of a national code. Eleutherius was a prelate of great piety and virtue, as is sufficiently shewn by the place which his name holds in the memory and affections of the Church. 5 He succeeded St. Soter

4 Comprising the present counties of Hants, Wilts, and Somerset.

5 He is mentioned in the Calendar on May 26, St. Augustine of Canterbury's day.

II.] KING LUCIUS. 15

in the Supreme Pontificate in 176, and presided over the Church when it was grievously harassed by the blasphemous doctrine of the Montanists. Some suppose that, in the earlier and less dangerous stages of this heresy, the good Pope Eleutherius was led to give it some sort of countenance ; but this is denied by others, who ascribe this act of favour not to St. Eleutherius, but to his successor, Victor. At all events, whether the judgement were given by St. Eleutherius or by another, it was revoked upon fuller information.

Different conjectures have been thrown out by learned ecclesiastical antiquaries, upon the probable motives by which king Lucius was actuated in resorting to Rome for the Sacraments of the Church, and for instruction in Christian doctrine ; a circumstance rendered the more worthy of remark by the fame of the great St. Irenseus, at that time Bishop of Lyons, through, or near, which city the messengers of Lucius must have passed on their way to Rome. There can be no doubt that, in learning and acquirements, St. Eleutherius, holy man as he was, fell infinitely short of this famous Bishop, who is said by an ancient father, to have been " the most accurate expositor of doctrine in his day." Indeed, there appears absolutely no reason whatever, why king Lucius should have gone farther for advice, which he might have obtained nearer, unless it were that he, or rather the British Church of his time, acknowledged the See of Rome, even at that early age, and when the great spiritual Monarchy of which it afterwards became the centre, was not as yet fully developed, or perfectly organized, as invested with some special prerogatives of rank and authority. And, had the messengers of Lucius paused on their way to consult the great Bishop of Lyons, certainly he would have given them no other advice

16 THE BRITISH </IH IK'Il. [CH.

than that which he has left on record, when he says, " To the Roman Church, by reason of its more powerful principality, it is necessary that every Church, that is to say, the faithful in every place, should have recourse, 6 since in it the universal tradition received from the Apostles is safely preserved." 7

The good Pope Eleutherius was in raptures of joy on receiving the message of the British king, and caused (Jlnr'nt in r./w/x/x to be chanted in commemoration of the happy event. 8 He commissioned two holy Bishops, by name Fugatius and Damianus, to accompany SS. Elvanus and Medwinus back to Britain ; and it is added by some writers, that he raised St. Elvanus himself to the Episcopal dignity. He is related, likewise, to have sent the necessary instructions for the ordering of the British Church, but to have declined complying with the king's request for a copy of the Roman laws, on the ground that they had no direct bearing upon Christian institutions.

\Yhen the holy legates arrived in Britain, the king, queen, and all their household, were immediately baptized. The name of the queen has not come down to us \ but a sister of Lucius, called Emerita, is said to have attained the honours of a Saint.

SS. Fugatius and Damianus, having preached the Word of Life to the king and his family, next proceeded into the several parts of Britain. At the end of three years, they returned to Rome, reported the good success of their mission, and obtained from the holy Father a confirmation of their acts. They afterwards returned to Britain, and renewed their Apostolic travels,

6 Convenire. 7 S. Iren. cont. litres, lib. iii. c. 3.

8 See Ussher's Primord. Eccl. 10.

II.] KING LUCIUS. 17

in the course of which they are said to have visited the Isle of Avallonia, the seat of the famous Monastery of Glastonbury, which had then become a covert for wild beasts. 9 There they discovered, by Divine guidance, the ancient oratory dedicated to our Lord, in honour of His Blessed Mother, in which they continually celebrated the Divine praises. It is also related of the same holy men, that they founded at Avallonia two other chapels, one under the title of the Blessed Apostles SS. Peter and Paul, the other under that of St. Michael the Archangel. It is added, that they established a succession of twelve devout persons, in memory of the twelve companions of St. Joseph. Whether they died at Avallonia is doubtful ; but a very authentic tradition records that they continued there nine years. Harpsfield places the scene of their deaths in South Wales, near the city of Llandaff, where a church was afterwards built under their patronage. Their names occur on May 24 in the English Marty rologies, where they are said to have died in the year 191. About the same time, king Lucius was called away from an earthly to a heavenly crown ; having occupied, according to a very ancient belief, some of the latter years of his life in spreading the Christian faith among the nations of Germany and Switzerland.

It cannot be doubted, that the conversion of this good king, St. Lucius, was the beginning of a new era in the Church of Britain, and that very many of his subjects were moved by his example to embrace the Faith. It is equally certain, that the Lord raised up many devoted servants to work in this promising field of ministerial labour; true though it also is, that their memorial has utterly perished. Of the period between the death of king

9 Capgrave in Vita S. Josephi.

Lucius and the martyrdom of St. Alban, there is all but a total dearth of trustworthy information ; but we gather from the testimony of foreign writers, as well as from that of our own sainted historians Gildas and Bede, that the Church of Britain was in a flourishing state during this interval, consisting of almost a century. And now the British Church is said to have been placed under the government of twenty-eight Bishops, and three Metropolitans, the chief see being founded in London. Bishop Stillingfleet, indeed, gives reasons which appear satisfactory, for believing that there was a succession of Bishops in the British Church from the first, though he considers that, under king Lucius, steps were taken for the increase and consolidation of the Episcopate. If there were Bishops in Britain when St. Lucius sent his embassy to Rome, it is all the more remarkable that he should have resorted to a foreign quarter for aid and counsel. And even if there were no Bishops in this country, he need not, as we have seen, have gone so far as Rome to supply the want. Let us but be content to follow the Church of all ages in ascribing a right of precedence to the See of the Apostles, and the conduct of king Lucius becomes perfectly intelligible, without the necessity of supposing any flaw in the succession of the ancient British Episcopate, or involving any disparagement of the claims of other European prelates.