All right, now, one of the things that I do want to say before we start reading chapter 9 of the Christian faith comes to the British Isles is that in this particular case, We are going to be talking about many different tribes that settled within the British Isles. Now, first off, when he speaks of the British Isles, he's talking about Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales as the main nations of what is today called the United Kingdom. and one of the things we need to remember is that they all had distinct people groups, distinct tribes, and they were England, Scotland, and Ireland were all settled by people who came from other places. Now, Ireland and England were originally settled by Celts. The descendants of the Celts became known as the Britons, for instance, and they were the people who were there In England, when the Romans invaded, they came across the Channel from Gaul. They invaded, they conquered the people after several savage wars and some rebellions. And they ruled them. Then, of course, the Roman Empire fell. And the problem was that the Britons had become very civilized under Roman rule and no longer knew how to defend themselves. They had some very aggressive neighbors to the north who were the Picts. Now, the Picts were the savage dwellers of the land that we now know as Scotland. But they were not actually the ancestors of the modern Scots by and large, although through intermarriage some of them might be, but the Picts are one of those tribes that has, that ended up being overwhelmed and disappearing. But the Picts came and they frequently invaded England and made trouble for the Britons. And then the Britons had to deal with the succession of invasions coming over from Germany. Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frieslanders. The Frieslanders were mostly from the area that's today modern day Holland, but all these Germanic tribes crossed over the channel and they invaded and they settled mostly in southern and northern England. They in turn were after that, they established their kingdoms, kingdoms like Wessex and Northumbria and so on. They had to deal with the invasions as well. invasions mostly of Scandinavians, Vikings, as we would call them, Danes, who settled mostly along the east coast. And at one point, it was uncertain whether or not the Danes would become the ruling faction, ruling tribe within England. But the important thing to note is that none of these tribes, be they Celts, be they Picts, be they Angles, Saxons, Jutes, they were not Christians when they came into the country. They had to be Christianized. And the Britons were the first to encounter Christianity, that is under Rome. But the problem was the Romans left, obviously, and the Britons got stomped on, and Christianity essentially died out. Paganism flourished. The modern Wiccans loved the old Druidism of the British Isles. The Irish had their Druids. The English had their Druids as well. But these were obviously pagans and they practiced human sacrifice, for instance, to their various gods. And so falling into their hands as a prisoner of war was not a pleasant experience, let's just put it that way. in any event uh... the british isles had to be evangelized and successive missionaries came over and evangelized the british isles uh... s and haughton is going to be dealing with a lot of uh... therefore place names and so on uh... one thing to note also is that uh... as we're reading yesterday the irish were uh... were uh... the irish kelts were christianized and then in turn they crossed into scotland mostly through iona There were successive waves of emigration. That's a nice way of putting it. Invasion, actually, from Ireland into Scotland. The Picts were wiped out and the Celts became the ruling force there. And then, in turn, they were evangelized from Ireland after Ireland was evangelized. Ireland also was mainly evangelized through the efforts of a man from England, actually Wales probably, although Houghton thinks he's from Scotland, by the name of Patricius, better known to history as Patrick, St. Patrick, who evangelized the Irish and then the Irish evangelized Scotland and so on and then evangelists came from the continent Roman Catholic evangelists, monks mostly, came and they evangelized England as well, and he's going to unfold that for us. Do keep in mind that when he speaks of Northumbria, he's talking about an English kingdom. When he talks about Parnesia and so on, that's a kingdom in England as well, modern-day England as well. And England takes its name from Angleland, he'll make that point. going to be confusing for non-Britons. It would be as confusing as, uh, but keep in mind he comes from England, or I'm sorry, the Welsh are now gasping in horror at what I just said. He, uh, Houghton was a Welshman, uh, but the place names that he's naming would be very familiar to everybody, uh, from the, you know, the British Isles who was hearing these names in the same way that if I said Minnesota or Colorado, Nevada, Florida, so on. Speaking of America, American states, people would be very familiar with them as well. I'm not going to stop the reading and say, that's this, and so on. I'd be moving all over the, you know, doing air directions throughout the entire reading. But keep in mind, he's talking about mostly, he's going to be talking about places in what is today modern day England. So for instance, he'll discuss places like Kent, which is in southern England, just below London. And then above that, places like Northumbria, which are on the eastern, northeastern coast, and so on. But without much further ado, let's pray, and then we'll get back to reading The Christian Faith Comes to the British Isles, Chapter 9 in S. M. Houghton's Sketches of Church History. God our Father, I do pray now, Lord, that you would bless our reading time, that you would help me to read clearly, and that I would make the points that need to be made, that your people would grow in grace and knowledge, and that they would understand that you are the Lord of history, that you have ordained everything that we're reading about, and that it came to pass precisely because you wanted it to. and that ultimately you are causing all things, even the things that at the time dismay us, all things, to work for the good of your church, to your elect people. Lord, you have determined that you will assemble out of the world peculiar people, you will create your church, and you have been doing that. Help us then to trust you and to marvel at the way that you've been bringing all of this about. We pray these things in Jesus' holy name. Amen. When the heathen Angles, Jutes, and Saxons invaded Britain in the 5th century and conquered large parts of it, the Britons took refuge in the mountainous west, Cornwall called West Wales, Wales called North Wales, and Cumbria, but they apparently took no steps to preach the gospel to their conquerors. The evangelization of Angleland, Kent, Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria, and other areas came from two different directions. Monks, and Aden in particular, came from Iona into Bernicia, the northern part of the kingdom of Northumbria, and met with much success. The Celtic church to which they belonged was independent of Rome. Another group of preachers, led by a Benedictine monk named Augustine, was sent to England in 597 by Pope Gregory who had seen several fair-haired boys on sale as slaves in one of Rome's marketplaces. He pitied their ignorance of the Christian faith and inquired to what nation they belonged. They are Angles, he was told. Not Angles, but angels, he replied as he looked into their faces. But which province in Angle land do they belong? He next inquired. To Dara, he was informed. Well then, we must pluck them, Dara, from the wrath of God, was his reply. And who rules in Dara? He next asked. The king is Allah, was the reply. Then said Gregory, Allah's people must sing Alleluia in the land of Allah. When he became Pope, he remembered the slave boys, and sent Augustine to preach the Christian faith in England. Now, just two quick notes to untangle something that may have become dangled. First, the Augustine who's mentioned here is not the Augustine of earlier history, the Augustine of Hippo of North Africa who wrote the Confessions, who was born in Carthage and so on. This is Augustine the monk who was involved in evangelizing Britain 200 years later or so. Also, the king there who was mentioned, Allah, that's A-L-L-A, and it has nothing to do with the god of Islam, A-L-L-A-H. So the names are entirely disconnected, so don't get confused there. Naturally, the Roman missionaries, Forty and all, set foot first in Kent, where Ethelbert was king. It so happened that the latter had previously married Bertha, the Christian daughter of a Frankish king living in Paris. We're going to run into the Franks again and again in Christian history. The most famous of the Frankish kings, of course, was Charlemagne. The Franks were a Celtic people who were the forebears of the French. and also they ruled in what is now Western Germany, so they also had German roots. In any event, they were the tribe that mostly lived there. You're also going to encounter other tribes in the area descended obviously from Danes. The most important of them would be the Normans who are going to end up conquering England again, the Norman conquest. The Normans were descendants of Norsemen who had settled on the west coast of France facing England. Of course Normandy was where the D-Day invasion took place and so on, so history down there is intertwined, but So the Franks were French and that's basically the point. She had been permitted by her husband to carry on Christian worship in the ruined church of St. Martin outside Canterbury, which survived from Roman times. Augustine was well received and very soon many professed belief in Christ. Canterbury now became the Christian center and before long Augustine was appointed Bishop of the English by Pope Gregory. Now, I mentioned this last week. The Celtic Church and the Roman Catholic Church were, obviously they were both Christian churches, but they had very different traditions. They differed on the way that monks should cut their hair. You remember the monkish tonsure? I'm not doing this on purpose, incidentally. This is just God's working on my head. But they used to cut a ring on their head to indicate that they were monks, and the way that that was done differed in the Celtic churches and the Western Roman churches. They differed on what days you should eat certain foods and particularly on the feast days or the festival days, days like Easter and Christmas and the various other days that were constantly, saints days and so on, that were constantly being added to the Roman Catholic calendar. were different in the Celtic lands. Now, the problem was, of course, that you can't go to the Bible to determine these things because they're all human traditions that were invented and thrust upon the church. They are not things that were commanded by God, so there's no set day for observing these things. There's no instruction from God on how to get your monkish haircut. But they actually became enraged about who had the right to determine these things, who was in charge, who was going to give God's people these rules. and the Celts and the Western Roman Catholic Church argued about these things for over a hundred years before the Celtic Church finally gave in to the Western or Roman Catholic Church. So let's read more about that. It was agreed that the place of meeting should be a spot called in Bede's time Augustine's Oak, now identified with Aust, in the River Severn, or on the River Severn. They would give consideration to what he had to say, but if he kept to his seat, it would show that he regarded the Roman Church as superior to the Celtic Church, in which case they would not show friendliness. In other words, they agreed to take Augustine's behavior as a sign of his pride or his humility. In the event, Augustine remained seated, and this ruined the conference from the start. Nothing came of it. About the time the conference with the Welsh was held, the king ruling over a part of northern England was Edwin, whose father had ruled over Dara. Dara and Bernicia together formed the larger unit of Northumbria. Unhappily, the ruler of Bernicia had wrongfully taken possession of Dara, but Edwin bestirred himself, recaptured Dara, and extended his conquest as far north as Edinburgh. City, whichever afterwards commemorated his name. So Edinburgh the capital city of Scots is named after an English King Interesting a we'll just pass on by that Edwin also extended his Conquest into South Lancashire and even as far as Chester Anglesey in the Isle of Man indeed before he died He ruled over almost all parts of England except Kent But our chief interest in Edwin lies in his marriage and his subsequent conversion to Christianity Kent had become a Christian kingdom, as we have seen. Edwin, while still a pagan, asked Æthelber, the daughter of the king converted to Christianity during Augustine's mission, to marry him. Naturally, there were difficulties, for Christians were forbidden by scripture to marry non-Christians, and the king of Kent rightly objected. But, ultimately consent was given when Edmund made two promises. First, the bride and her attendants were to have full liberty to practice Christianity. Second, Edwin would give serious consideration to the gospel of Christ. Ethelbur was accompanied to Northumbria by a Roman monk, Paulinus of Canterbury, and before long Edwin called his counselors together The king's council was known as the Witten, and Paulinus preached to them. Almost all that we know of the events of the period is derived from Bede's ecclesiastical history, formerly mentioned. He tells us that Corphy, the organizer of the old pagan worship, spoke in favor of the acceptance of Christianity, but probably a much deeper impression was made upon the listeners by one of the king's chief nobles. We give Bede's own account of his speech. O King, the present life of man, it seems to me, can be compared to the swift flying of a sparrow across the hall in which you sit at supper during the winter, together with your captains and ministers. A good fire blazes in our midst, while the storms of rain and snow are heard and felt around. As we thus sit, a sparrow, I say, comes flying in at one opening, and almost at once it flies out at another. While the bird is within, it is sheltered from storm and rain, but very quickly after this time of fair weather, it vanishes out of our sight into the dark winter from which it had come. Similarly, this life of man appears for a short space of time, but of what went before or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. If, however, this new teaching can give us certainty, it is but right that we should receive and follow it." Incidentally, just a brief note. Here, the noble that Beed quotes is making reference to the fact that at this point in time they didn't have chimneys and fireplaces as we understand them. The fire would burn in the center of a hall to warm the place. And there would be openings. Usually they were in either side if you had the traditional sloped roof so that the rain and the snow come off of it. But at the ends of the building, you would have two openings just under the thatched roof for the smoke to come out. So Sparrow flies in one of these, goes through the hall, and then comes out the other end. And he's saying that's an allegory for our life. The outcome, says Bede, was that all that were foreordained to eternal life believed and were baptized. The baptisms took place on Easter day, 12th April, 627, in a wooden church building which Edwin had erected at York. Coife immediately began the work of destroying the altars and idols which belonged to pagan worship. And as he did so, he said, who can more properly than myself destroy those things which I worship through ignorance for an example to all others, through the wisdom which has been given me by the true God. Paulinus remained for six years preaching the gospel of Christ. In this way, Dara, the southern part of Northumbria, agreed to accept the teaching from Canterbury, and so from Rome. But Bernicia, the northern part of the kingdom, had already accepted the teaching of Aden of Lindisfarne, and so of Ionia, and the Celtic and Roman churches were by no means in full agreement. What was to be done? In the year 664, Oswey, the king of Northumbria, called a conference or synod at Whitby. He himself had been brought up in the Celtic tradition, but he was prepared to listen to Wilfred the Abbot of Ripon, who represented Canterbury. On the Celtic side, the chief speaker was Coleman of Lindisfarne, the successor of Aden. Also present was Hilda, abbess of Whitby, a lady of royal blood. Wilfred's arguments seemed to the King to be more forceful than those of Coleman, and after much debate, the latter withdrew, shortly afterwards leaving Lindisfarne with 30 of his monks and returning to his home in Ireland. It was not long before most of England accepted the views of the Roman Church. In 668, Theodore of Tarsus, a Greek monk, was made Archbishop of Canterbury by the Pope. Very soon, he invited all English bishops to a council held at Hertford, the first council of the whole Church in England, and it was decided to divide the country into dioceses. each having its own bishop. From Rome, there also came to England John, the arch-chanter to teach the rude Anglo-Saxons how to sing the praises of God and how to appreciate church music. It was not long before missionaries began to leave England for work on the continent of Europe, and two of these will be mentioned in our next chapter. Two other names, Cademan and Alfred, from the Anglo-Saxon period, are worthy of mention. Bede's Ecclesiastical History devotes a chapter to Cademan, who was a former laborer of Northumbria. Of course, it's Cademan who gave the modern band Cademan's Call their name, but moving on. In his days it was customary for all persons to sing in turn as the harp was passed around their halls at supper. This cademan could never do, so he always retired from the company at the first opportunity. One night, however, after he had laid down to sleep in the stable where he was taking care of the horses, he had a vision. But let Bede himself take up the story. A person appeared to Cademan in his sleep and greeted him by a name, said, Cademan, sing some song to me. I cannot sing, he replied, and that was the reason why I left the hall. The other answered, however, you shall sing. What shall I sing, said Cademan? Sing the beginning of created beings, said the visitor. Cademan at once began to sing verses to the praise of the creator and the deeds of the father of glory. When he awoke from sleep, he remembered all that he had sung in his dream and added much more to it. Soon he was taken to the abbess Hilda of Whitby and asked to tell her his dream. He was also given passages of scripture, both historical and doctrinal, and he very quickly put them into excellent verse. Our second name, that of Alfred, King of Wessex, West Saxons 871 to 899 is memorable because the efforts Alfred made to give Christian education to those over whom he ruled. He invited learned men from the continent of Europe to assist him in establishing schools, and it was a special endeavor to instruct his people in the elements of the Christian faith. He himself engaged in the work of translation. Bede's history, originally written in Latin, he translated into Anglo-Saxon. He also translated many of the Psalms. A preface which he wrote for one of the books he translated includes the following words, These are the waters which the Lord of Hosts promised for our comfort, and His will is that these ever-living waters should flow into all the world from all who truly believe in Him, and their wellspring is the Holy Spirit. To encourage the clergy of England in the performance of their duties, Alfred presented the chief of them with copies of Pope Gregory's pastoral care. It taught the clergy how to minister to the needs of the souls of men. Asser, a learned Welshman whom Alfred kept at his court, tells us that the king himself was barely able to read English and Latin manuscripts until he was 38 years of age. In consequence, he repeatedly asked Asser to copy out texts of scripture for him into his pocketbook. Alfred also revised the laws made by earlier kings and supplied them with a preface in which he included a part of the law of Moses as found in Exodus chapters 20 to 28. He also informed his judges that Christ came into the world not to destroy but to fulfill the law of God. They must therefore show mercy and mild-heartedness and teach men to do to others that which they would have men do to them. King Alfred well deserved the title of the Great. And of course he is known to history as Alfred the Great of England. But in any event, we will learn more now about the spread of history. Next week we're going to be talking, or rather, sorry, tomorrow we're going to be talking about the early missionaries to Europe, the ones who brought the Gospel to all of those lands that were occupied by pagans and so on. Anyway, I will pause for a moment to allow for any questions if there are any Seeing none. I'm going to go ahead and say goodbye to everybody and I will talk to you God willing tomorrow when we once again take up a reading of SM Houghton's sketches from church history. Goodbye everyone