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Untitled Article
moulded not exactly to the precise pattern of ttie orthodox church , to which the churches of Britain were at last finally reduced only after the Norman conquest Gregory ' s letter of instructions , in which he honestly permits Augustine to overlook the prejudices of education , and to select from the customs of the various churches whatever was best calculated to promote the general interests of virtue and religion , bears direct evidence to the fact that some diversities were found to exist . That some of the British ecclesiastics
carried their disapprobation of the Roman system so far as to refuse even to meet the western missionaries at the same table , is also matter of historic evidence reported by Bede . Probably Gregory never intended his concessions to extend to any resistance of pontifical authority ; for , in answer to Augustine ' s inquiry how he ought to deal with the British bishops , the pontiff hands over these contemners of his authority to a tolerably summary jurisdiction ; tc Britanniarum omnes episcopos tuae fraternitati committimus ,
ut indocti doceantur , infirmi persuasione roborentur , perversi auctoritate corrigantur . " We have also authentic record of disputations on the comparative merits of the Roman and the independent plans , before the King of Northumbria ( whose kingdom we have seen to have been originally converted by the Scotch elders ) , which ended in the discomfiture of Colman , their bishop of Lindisfarne . The King , after hearing both , declared his preference of the institutions of St . Peter to those of St . Columba and the rule
of Iona ; on which those of the latter party who would not submit , retired back to their parent monastery . The melancholy fate of the monks of Bangor , who fell by hundreds under the swords of orthodox Saxons , proves that zeal could go far to deprive even Christian professors of any favour from the new converts and their leaders . Historical record and local tradition , both in Ireland and Wales , are in favour of the separate existence for a long period of this " old religion , " as it is called . Ireland , in fact , was not completely subdued to the Roman rule till several centuries afterwards . Giraldus Cambrensis refers both in
Wales and Ireland to the Culdees by name , and to churches of " the ancient religion , " as existing in his day . And it may not be amiss to observe , that the Breton churches were long equally infected with taints of heresy and disaffection to the Roman see , which they doubtless owed to their communications with the ancient inhabitants of Britain . To return more particularly to the Culdee or Scotch branch of this ancient and insulated division of the Christian church , it might have been more in due order of our narrative to have quoted ere this the testimony of the Saxon
chronicle on the subject . It is too curious and important , however , to be overlooked . A . D . 560 , " Columba Presbyter came to the Picts and converted them to the faith of Christ , those , I say , who live near the northern moors ; and their king gave them that island which is commonly called Ii . In it , as it is reported , there are five hides of land , on which Columba erected a monastery , and he himself resided there as Abbot thirty-two years , where he also died when seventy years of age . This place is still held by his successors . The southern Picts long before this time had been baptized by
bishop Ninian , who was trained up at Rome . Thenceforth , there ought to be always in Ii an abbot , but no bishop , and to him ought all the Scotch bishops to be subject—for this reason , that Columba was an abbot , not a bishop . " John of Fordun , one of the oldest Scotch historians , says , that before the coming of Palladius " the Scots had as teachers of the faith and administrators of the sacraments , only presbyters and monks , following the custom of the primitive church . "
Untitled Article
The Culdees of Iona . 861
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1827, page 861, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1803/page/5/
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