Early Church & Anglicans Flashcards
Gildas and Bede
Gildas took part in the battle of Mount Badon, nicknamed Badonicus
Bede, a priest, was nicknamed the Venerable. His great work is “The church history of the English people”
The council of Arles
314, in the south of Roman Gaul = the first representative meeting of Christian bishops in the Western Roman Empire
Donatists
a Christian sect, who considered those who abjured their faith should be treated severely on their return to the Church, were condemned in Arles in 340.
The Edict of Milan
312, put an end to Christian persecution
The Church in Britain in the 4th century, wealthiness situation?
Bishops had too little money to attend councils abroad and paid their expenses out of their own pocket.
Pelagius
a famous heretic of Welsh origin, Saint Augustine was his adversary, whose doctrines seemed to Pelagius to deny the moral courage and dignity of man. For him, man was able to reach perfection without the intervention of supernatural grace & Adam’s sin affected himself only.
Some Pelagius followers attempted a reconciliation between the doctrines of Free will & predestination (St Augustine)
Germanus
Bishop, but also former soldier, he organised the British as a fighting Christian Army and led them to victory against the Picts. He went through the country preaching his miracles.
Saint Ninian
He founded a monastery built of stone and white washed, in the district of Galloway, Whithorn.
From there, he and his monks set out on their evangelistic journeys among the Pictish tribes. (Scotland)
(same period as Germanus)
Saint Patrick
son of a priest, he was taken captive by Irish pirates where he became a swine herd.
He managed to escape to Gaulle and received Monastic training.
Back to Britain in 442, he was consecrated a Bishop for Work in Ireland where he remained 30 years among the (celtic) Pagan tribes.
5th Century
- Invasion, the Roman Legion left the British to defend themselves.
- Germanic people mixed with the local Celtic population; and destroyed the Christian Church.
- In place where Celtic society survived independently, Christian Church continued to exist.
Saint David (520-588)
Celtic bishop of Welsh origin. Wales kept Christianity going, held out against the pressure of Paganism.
Saint Columba
- Abbot and missionary traditionally credited with the main role in the conversion of Scotland to Christianity.
- He was banned from his country, Ireland, and vuilt a Monastory on a small island of the west coast of Scotland. Iona.
- Columba directed his efforts to the Northern Picts. But his major exploits = he managed to convert the local king, King Brude
event striking the beginning of the conversion of Saxon England and the return of Britain to Christianity
8 days before his death, Ethelbert, King of the Juts in Kent, had been baptised by Saint Augustine at Canterbury. His wife Bertha had already converted.
Ethelbert converted himself just like Clovis a century before.
St Gregory the Great, Pope Gregory Ist
- He saw beautiful fair boys exposed for sale as slaves, he was told they were “Angles” to which he answered “They aren’t Angles, but angels”. He said they should be saved.
- He became Pope 4 years after his encounter with his Anglian slaves. He devoted some of his revenues to buying as many Anglican slaves as he could, in order to teach them the Christian faith and eventually send them back to their country as Christian missionaries.
- 6 years later he sends one of his own monk to England: Augustine
St Augustine of Canterbury
- Augustine was consecrated bishop in Gaulle & then he was to Canterbury where he baptised converts by the thousands.
- He had many Churches built, provided with books and ornaments, relics sent over by Gregory from Roma.
- He was given full authority over the British bishops = tension, those bishops refused to cooperate with Roma.
Kent
Church money division
Church money was divided into 4 parts: one for the bishop, one for the priest, one for the Relief of the poor, and one for the upkeep of the church.
Paulinus
- A monk who joined Augustine in 601, was then consecrated bishop (York) in 625.
- The king Edwin was a civilised pagan interested in the faith of other people and besides the princess was a Christian (he married her, with Paulinus as the bishop).
Paulinus’ preaching of the gospel was just as effective as Augustine’s. Together with Edwin, the whole assembly was immediately converted, in 627. - his success was so great that he was made archbishop of York
Oswald
king of North-Ambria, he consolidated Paulinus’ work with the assistance of another monk from Iona = Aidan, who founded the monastery of Lindisfarne
Ideal partnership of Church and State, which ended with Oswald’s death in 642.
3 types of monasteries
- Some were for men
- other for women,
- for both men and women → mixte monasteries or double monasteries were always under the authority of an abbess.
Christian faith in Northumbria
brought by Paulinus, it’s the Celtic church led by Aidan that established Christianity
conflict between Celtic and Roman church
- the date for easter
the church of Roma rejected the Celtic way, the Resurrection took place on the 1st day of the week after the Passover and ought to be commemorated on a certain Sunday. This Sunday was fixed in the 6th century following tables introduced in 457 by Victorius of Aquitaine. → Britain had ceased to be part of the Roman empire by the 6th century. The Celtic bishops were not affected by the new calculation of the date of Easter, they continued to celebrate and calculate it on the original basis.
Dispute between Iona and Canterbury
when Oswy (king of Northumbria after Oswald) was aware that he and his wife (who was a Christian of the Roman observance) would be having Easter at a different time.
> decision was made to side with the Roman Catholic Church
Bede
The Venerable Bede was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and of St Paul in the Kingdom of Northumbria of the Angles. He was one of the greatest scholars of the Anglo-Saxon period. => for 200 years, the English Church remained a learned church.
