The ancient Irish church/Chapter 1
CHAPTER I.
EARLY CHRISTIANITY.
Before the close of the fourth century the Christian Church had passed through many vicissitudes and had gained many victories. When the contest began between the small company of believers—despised and persecuted as they were—on the one hand, and the great power of Imperial Rome on the other, few would have ventured to predict that Christianity would ever take the place of paganism as the religion of the multitude; and yet, long before the time of which we write, it had been shown that the weakness of God is stronger than men, and that He in His great providence had chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty. As early as the time of Justin Martyr, the Christian apologist could boast that 'there is no race of men, whether of Barbarians or of Greeks, or bearing any other name, either because they live in wagons without fixed habitation, or in tents leading a pastoral life, among whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered to the Father and Maker of the universe, through the name of the crucified Jesus.' But in the year 400 it needed not that an apologist should direct attention to the fact. The old worships were already for the most part forgotten. The temples of the gods had been destroyed or turned to Christian uses. The spread of Christianity was in some respects a more striking fact then than it is even at the present moment, for the diffusion of knowledge and the discoveries of modern times have revealed to us the existence of millions who have not as yet heard the sound of the Gospel; whereas in that age men's minds never went much beyond those countries which were subject to the imperial power. 'All the world' was to them synonymous with the Roman Empire, and in this sense, 'all the world' was Christian.
This abundant success was not without its serious drawbacks. The converts in the earliest ages were gathered from those whose hearts God had touched, and who, having been brought to a true knowledge of the Saviour, were ready to make any sacrifices and to endure any persecutions for His name's sake. But the case was far different when, after the conversion of Constantine, Christianity became the religion of the State, and multitudes changed their faith without abandoning their superstition. Men who had been taught that they should worship some god, but that it mattered little which, might easily become converts; but they were scarcely the class of men who would aid in preserving the purity and zeal of the earlier ages.
Accordingly we find that the fourth century, although it was a time when large numbers were added to the Church, was not an age of real missionary enterprise. Instances are recorded of new Churches having been founded at that period, but none of them owe their origin to the labours of apostles solemnly sent forth for the purpose of evangelization. In the case of Abyssinia, for example, two youths, who had been taken prisoner by the inhabitants, instructed their captors in the faith of Christ, and spread among all the people the light of the Gospel. In Georgia, too, a captive was the first to preach amongst the people the unsearchable riches of Christ, and thus a 'little maid' was honoured of God in being chosen to be the means of their conversion.
The Christian Church, in its corporate capacity, gave no sanction to these and similar enterprises, and had quite forgotten that its mission was to preach the Gospel to every creature. In the apostolic age the idea was that Christianity should be like a great sea, spreading over the whole earth. In the fourth century Christians were content that it should be like a river—a broad and mighty river, it is true, but with heathenism as banks on each side, unmeasured in extent, and not to be reached by the healing waters.
When Christianity became generally diffused over Western Europe, two nations were passed over. The Irish were not evangelized until the fifth century, and the tribes of Germany and the northern parts of the Continent remained in heathenism for some centuries later. Both of these facts have to be kept in mind when we come to study the history of Christianity in Ireland.
The particular time at which a Church was founded must necessarily influence its future to a great extent, particularly when, as in Ireland, the country is more or less isolated from the rest of the world, and is scarcely, if at all, influenced by the intellectual and spiritual movements in other lands. It is thus that the peculiar monastic character of Irish Christianity is to be explained. If it had been founded earlier or later, monasticism might have been introduced, but it would have been different in kind, and would never have become the sole rule of the Church. On the continent of Europe the old monastic ideas soon became antiquated, and new developments so revolutionized the system that it retained in the end no resemblance to the original institution. Ireland continued through many ages to perpetuate that which in other places was only a passing fashion. In many ways too, as we shall see, Ireland retained for centuries the peculiarities of the age in which she first received the faith; and it is this, indeed, that lends particular interest to her history, for in no other country of Europe could we find, even down to the twelfth century, a survival of the peculiar doctrines and usages that existed in the fifth.
The paganism of the German tribes and Norsemen had also its influence on the Irish Church. First of all it afforded scope for missionary enterprise, and provoked enthusiasm and zeal, which were crowned with abundant success, and which must have reacted most beneficially on the Church that sent forth her children to preach the Gospel. In later years the heathen Norsemen, having made settlements on the Irish shores, brought trial and suffering to the Christians, breaking up many of the religious establishments and schools of learning; and at a still later period, when these same Norsemen had been converted to Christianity they had no small share in revolutionizing the Celtic Church and in bringing it into subjection to the see of Rome.
When it is said that Irish Christianity dates from the fifth century, it is not meant that there were absolutely no Christians in the country before that time. Many reasons, on the contrary, would lead us to believe that some progress in the work of evangelization had already been made. For example, we know that before this time Christianity had obtained a footing in Britain, and there is every reason to believe that a constant intercourse was kept up between her and the neighbouring island. Irish ports, too, were often visited by Roman merchants, and some of these were very probably Christians.
Irishmen, again, were great travellers, and occasionally rose to eminence as bishops and presbyters of the Church in different countries. Mansuetus, first bishop of Toul (A.D. 350), is said to have been Irish, and so also was Celestius, who became one of the chief propagators of the Pelagian heresy. We have not, it is true, any historic record of these Christian Irishmen returning to their own country, or keeping up correspondence with their friends at home; but it is not improbable that some of them did so, and thus introduced the religion which they had learned in a foreign land.
Another probable source of Christian instruction was the number of slaves obtained either by purchase or conquest, sometimes from Britain, and sometimes even from Gaul. Patrick himself was a Christian slave in Ireland long before he thought of visiting the country as a missionary.
These conjectures are borne out by the fact that the ancient legends, however inconsistent they may be in other respects, nearly always agree in stating that a Christian Church existed in the country long before the time of Patrick.
Finally, we have Prosper of Aquitaine telling us in his Chronicle, in a passage quoted afterwards by the Venerable Bede, that Pope Celestine, in the year 431, consecrated one Palladius, and sent him to the Irish believing in Christ as their first bishop. This has been accepted by most historians as proof positive that there were at that time some who had already received the faith.
But when full weight has been given to all these considerations, it will nevertheless appear certain that before the preaching of Patrick the number of Christians in Ireland must have been very small. Prosper speaks in another place of Palladius as 'having made the barbarous island Christian,' from which one would be led to conclude that his mission was that of an evangelist to the heathen rather than that of a bishop for the faithful. But it is very evident that Prosper was only imperfectly acquainted with the facts of the case. For this latter statement he seems to have had no grounds whatever. From Irish sources we learn that Palladius was very far indeed from making the barbarous island Christian; on the contrary, his whole mission was a failure. He landed, it is said, on the coast of Wexford, but found that the 'Irish believing in Christ,' whom he was sent to shepherd, were non-existent; and he met with such determined opposition from the prince of that district that he shortly afterwards re-embarked, and never set foot again on Irish soil. Accordingly, when Patrick, the great apostle of Ireland, entered his missionary labours in the beginning of the fifth century, he found the whole country given over to the superstitions of Druidism. Indeed, Ireland and Scotland and the more remote parts ot Brittany were then the only places where that ancient cult survived.