The Settlement of the Anglo-Saxon Church¶
In the last chapter we referred to the mixed sources of English Christianity. It will be useful now to trace the way in which the various missions of which we have spoken were united to form the English Church, and how the English Church came to accept the authority of the bishop of Rome.
i¶
There came at last, as might have been expected, a collision between the Roman and the Celtic missionaries and their disciples. The customs of the two bodies differed in several particulars. The main difference was as to the time of keeping the great Easter festival, - the followers of the Roman mission observing it at one time, those of the Celtic mission at another. The difference naturally caused great confusion. To solve the difficulty, a conference was held at the Abbey of Whitby, under Oswy, the Northumbrian king, Oswald’s successor. This was in the year 664.
By this time the belief had grown that the Church of Rome, which had been founded by the two apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, had specially the authority of St. Peter in its favour; and also that St. Peter himself had the keys of the kingdom of heaven, to open and to shut at his will. Arguments were heard on both sides, and the king decided in favour of the Roman use, basing his decision on the idea that Rome represented St. Peter, “that door-keeper, whom I will not contradict when I come to the doors of the kingdom of heaven, there should be none to unbar them.”[1] The result of this conference was mainly due to the influence of Wilfrid, formerly one of the twelve boys whom Aidan had gathered round him at Lindisfarne; who, though brought up by Celtic monks, had become a staunch supporter of the Roman usages.
This decision involved far more than the question of keeping Easter. It naturally followed that Rome should be looked to as the arbiter in all differences, and the referee in questions which might afterwards arise. It is however to be observed, that, important as the decision at Whitby was, it was but a voluntary act on the part of the English Church acting under royal authority. There was no question of divine right, otherwise there could have been no choice. It is quite impossible that such saintly men as the Celtic missionaries could have been ignorant, as they certainly were, of the Roman claims, if such claims were a matter of divine right. All this is to be borne in mind, for. it affects the action of the English Church at the time of the Reformation.
Bishop Lightfoot, in speaking of the decision at Whitby, says, - “This was the first rivet of the Roman yoke, which was to press so heavily on England in the generations to come. Yet it would be foolish to ignore the immediate advantages of this submission. The Church of England needed unity before all things. But this was impossible, while there was one Church in the North looking to Iona for guidance, and another in the South owing allegiance to Rome. Moreover, the fuller development of the English Church required that it should be drawn into the main stream of Christian civilisation, which at this time flowed through Rome. While we are thankful that the foundations of our Northumbrian Church were laid on the simplicity and devotion, the free spirit, the tenderness and love, the apostolic zeal of the missionaries of Iona, we need not shrink from acknowledging that she learnt much from the more complete organization and the higher culture of which Rome was then the schoolmistress.”[2]
ii¶
This same year the yellow fever caused a dreadful mortality throughout England. Many Anglo-Saxon bishops died, and among them the archbishop of Canterbury. By this time the whole land, with the exception of Sussex, had become Christian, and a general desire arose to push forward the work of the Church. The first thing needed was to knit together the scattered missions of the Church, and for this purpose a master-mind was needed. Oswy, king of Northumbria, and Egbert, king of Kent, as the two most powerful princes, agreed that it would be well to select an Englishman to be archbishop of Canterbury. One of the Kentish clergy was chosen, but having gone to Rome for consecration, died there.
After some delay, the bishop of Rome made choice of a priest of the Eastern Church, named Theodore, who was consecrated at Rome in the year 668. Theodore was a Greek monk, a native of Tarsus, St. Paul’s city. He was a man of years and experience, a scholar, and withal possessed with large sympathy. He arrived in our land on Sunday, May 27, A.D. 669. Shortly after his arrival he was joined by one Hadrian, who had previously been offered the archbishopric, but had declined the offer. Traversing together the whole land, they soon became acquainted with the people and their needs; organizing schools and monasteries as occasion presented itself, and correcting such abuses as then existed. Theodore appears to have won his way everywhere by his tact and sympathy. With the support of the clergy, he began to carry out his great plans for the consolidation of the isolated missions of the Anglo-Saxon Church.
Theodore’s primacy was a very eventful crisis in the history of the Anglo-Saxon Church. Hitherto made up of scattered missions, under his direction it was knit into an organic whole; the number of bishops was nearly doubled: the land was divided into dioceses, and the foundations of the parochial system, as we have inherited it, were laid.