A note on the hymn

This hymn, beginning on fo. 4v and ending on fo. 6v of the Antiphonary of Bangor, is prefaced with the words ‘Hymnus apostolorum ut alii dicunt.’ The phrase ‘ut alii dicunt’ can bear its standard meaning, but it is possible that alii means ‘some’ rather than ‘others’, as is attested in Hiberno-Latin usage. The hymn is composed of forty-two quatrains of non-quantitative verse, usually, but not always, employing the pattern 5p 7pp. Rhyme is irregular.

The poem links the themes of the primacy of the first day (Sunday), the life of Christ and the divine plan for human salvation, which extends from the creation to the last judgement. It does not commemorate any one liturgical event, but celebrates a number of events of sacred history, each related to the other by the fact that it occurs on a Sunday. That Sunday observance is central to the poem’s message is shown by detailed comparison with two versions of a short tract entitled Dies dominica. In one or both versions the following events which correspond to various stanzas of Precamur patrem are alleged to have occurred on Sunday: the first day of creation, the passage of Israel through the Red Sea, the birth of Christ, the miracle at Cana, the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the founding of the Church, the opening of the gates of paradise and the last judgement. The correspondences are given in the notes to the translation.

A perplexing feature of the poem is its omission of any direct reference to the canonical resurrection, especially as this event occurred on a Sunday according to scripture, and is mentioned in both versions of Dies dominica.

In the portion of the poem that details the life of Christ (stanzas xviii-xxxix), the crucifixion (stanza xxxi) is followed immediately by a description of the rending of the veil of the temple (stanza xxxii) and then three stanzas detailing the harrowing of hell (xxxiii-xxxv), a reference to the Church triumphant (xxxvi), then the opening of heaven to Christ and the righteous persons rescued from hell (xxxvii) – embellished with an allusion to the Good Shepherd (xxxviii) -, and finally, an indication of Christ’s role in the coming judgement (xxxix). One might hypothesise that Christ’s resurrection is acknowledged in the notion that, in order to harrow hell, Christ had to leave his tomb.

Pelagius was introduced in Chapter I in the context of the monastic movement, and mentioned in Chapter II as the author of a profession offaith. Here we shall examine his doctrines in the wider context of Christian dogma and establish him as a part of a broader activity. We shall then consider the evidence for the continuity of Pelagianism in Britain and Ireland and attempt to show its influence on the character of the common Celtic Church.

The Pelagian movement

Pelagianism is sometimes thought ofas a one-man heresy, but it is now clear that Pelagius himself belonged to a wider movement. Despite the fact that his name is given to the doctrine, it is not completely certain that he was the instigator. Other participants included Rufinus the Syrian, Julian of Aeclanum (an Italian bishop) and Coelestius, who was possibly a compatriot of Pelagius. It should also be recalled that John Cassian, the leader of the ‘semi-Pelagians’, did not follow at some later date, but was contemporary with the main Pelagian movement.

For our purposes, it might be useful to regard the Pelagians as a broad group, embracing the semi-Pelagians on the left (if you will), Pelagius himself in the centre, and the hard-liner Coelestius on the right. While modern theologians may object to this re-classification of semi-Pelagians and Pelagians, it may claim some historical validity. Throughout the history of Christianity, theological polemicists frequently resorted to tarring their opponents with the brush of a heresy that was similar, but not identical, to the doctrine under attack. Throughout the fifth century it was convenient to lump together Pelagians and semi-Pelagians alike as ‘enemies of grace’. This held especially true of Prosper of Aquitaine, the most vigorous champion of Augustinianism after Augustine himself, and a figure closely concerned with suppressing Pelagianism in any form in Britain and Ireland. In Contra Collatorem (’Against Cassian’) Prosper repeatedly accused Cassian of stirring up the ashes of a dead doctrine, or attempting to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.Although Prosper occasionally acknowledged differences between Cassian and the Pelagians, he took greater pleasure in pointing out their similarities. While differences between ‘pure Pelagians’ and semi-Pelagians doubtless persisted throughout the period of the common Celtic Church and even afterwards, the two groups formed a loosely compatible spectrum of belief and practice that differentiated early Celtic Christianity from Christianity in other regions.

Some evidence for a common Church

It is our hypothesis that there was a common Church in Britain and Ireland in the period ca 450 – ca 630. This period embraces the time from the alleged expulsion of the leaders of the Pelagian heresy (discussed in the previous chapter) down to the intrusion of Romanising elements in Ireland and the establishment of a Roman Church in Anglo-Saxon England. After the expulsion of the ‘heresiarchs’ from Britain it may be assumed that a separate Pelagian Church, with its own bishops and clergy, ceased to exist; yet, if we can trust Rhygyfarch’s Lifeof St David, the heresy was not finally suppressed in Britain before some point around or after the mid-sixth century. Even after this, Pelagian ways of thought, which many Britons doubtless never viewed as heretical, persisted. Combining with the effort- based semi-Pelagianism that lay at the heart of the nascent monastic movement, they formed the matrix of theology and ecclesiastical practice in Britain. The early Christian community in Ireland, which may be as old as the fourth century, may have already included Pelagian sympathisers in its numbers, and the papally-sponsored mission of Palladius may have been ineffective in its effort to eradicate them. We can only assume that the continuing presence of British clergy in Ireland in the fifth and sixth centuries reinforced patterns of belief which may have looked like pollution to outsiders, but remained as invisible as the surrounding air to natives. Whereas there was never a central ecclesiastical government for the British and Irish Churches of this period, and local differences may have developed, there was surely a common set of beliefs and practices that demarcated the ‘transmarine’ Church from the continental.

The common Celtic Church developed its peculiarities through isolation. After the departure of Roman forces from Britain in 410, the Church of Rome would have been much reduced in her ability to enforce decrees in that region. It is noteworthy that the two campaigns against the Pelagian heresy in Britain were carried out from Gaul rather than Rome. Prosper of Aquitaine alluded to the remoteness of Britain and its reputation as a retreat for the ‘enemies of grace’. The contacts between the British Church and the continent, so well attested in the fourth century, dwindle in the fifth and sixth centuries.

In 418, or immediately afterwards, some British-born advocates of Pelagian teaching – and possibly Pelagius himself – returned to their homeland in the wake of an imperial interdict. Within eleven years they contrived to establish a separate ‘Pelagian Church’ in Britain, which, in the eyes of their opponents, threatened to undermine British Christianity everywhere. This Church succeeded in building on ‘pre-Pelagian’ sympathies, and radicalising them in opposition to ‘the heresy of Augustine’. In 429, Pope Celestine sent Germanus of Auxerre on a mission to Britain to suppress the movement. However, despite claimed successes, Germanus did not manage to eradicate it, as there was another ‘outbreak’ in the 440s. In 431, the same pope sent the deacon Palladius to Ireland as the first bishop to the island’s Christian community, arguably with the intention of checking any possible occurrence of the heresy there. Later in the fifth century, probably beginning in the early 460s, the Briton Patrick conducted an unsanctioned mission to convert the pagan Irish. His writings show that he was engaged against Pelagian ideas, and it is possible that his superiors, whose accusations he was forced to answer, were of Pelagian sympathies. Towards the middle of the sixth century Gildas remarked on the presence of a group in Britain who displayed Pelagian tendencies, and late evidence tells us that the Pelagians were not finally suppressed in Britain until some time in the sixth century, but that this required two synods. Around 640, a pope-elect charged that Pelagianism had been revived in Ireland.

The Pelagian movement defined the common Celtic Church, which we have envisioned as a set of commonalities of theology and of some features of practice in the British and Irish Churches down to the second quarter of the seventh century. Pelagianism may have dominated this Church for only a short time, but its ideology persisted, in some form, beyond the dissolution of the common Celtic Church in the early part of the seventh century. Its adherents taught the natural goodness of man, that a sinless life was possible not only for the Jewish patriarchs but for gentiles as well, that sin was not transmitted through the blood-line, that grace was not necessary for salvation, that God predestined no one, that all men could be saved if they believed, that salvation was achieved through perfect obedience to the law, and that obedience to the law was fostered by asceticism.

In our Introduction we stated that the Insular world was ‘monasticised’. At the same time, we wish to acknowledge that, at least for the Irish Church, there was no such thing as an over-arching monastic structure under which all religious activity was subsumed. We note that even the meaning of the term ‘monastery’ has been left open to question. In what follows, we examine evidence of a different character, namely that which reveals the promotion of the monastic ideal (expressed in various life-styles) as shown by writers of the three Insular regions. Where possible, we relate this type of evidence to the evidence for the existence of monks and monasteries at various times and in various places. Monastically-oriented texts are, by definition, the writings of an elite about an elite. Those practising the ‘perfect life’ are very few, yet their influence is great, or, more accurately, made to be great by the opinion-makers. These were the proponents of monastic spirituality, whose writings exercised an influence on the clergy concerned with a verbal translation of Christianity to a wider public, as well as on the artists who created objects that could convey specific meanings to the monk, cleric and lay person.

Monasticism began in Egypt and Syria in the fourth century and rapidly spread westward. By the end of the fourth century it was known in Italy and Gaul. What began with individuals seeking salvation in the desert changed into a variety of social forms. Groups could be very small: a chaste widow living in her own home with her virginal daughter, a married couple living in continence by a shrine, a small group of men living in celibacy on an island. As early as Augustine’s day, monastic clergy were attached to episcopal churches, and thus began the long tradition of canons regular. Separate churches for monks and nuns, otherwise known as monasteries, also found early adherents. This was the case at Lérins, an island off the coast of France near present-day Cannes. In some cases monasteries for monks were contiguous to those for nuns – these were the so-called ‘double monasteries’. A separated community life – coenobitism – found its perfect model in the monastery and rule of Benedict of Nursia, who flourished in Italy around the middle of the sixth century.

During the first centuries of Christianity, there was a continuing and often bitter debate as to the propriety of representational art in the service of the new religion. Although the Christian West created and employed representational religious art in the form of painting and sculpture from at least the third century on, the Christian East remained wary of its acceptance. Opposing viewpoints and policies were forcefully promulgated during the great iconodule/iconoclastic controversies of the eighth century. The reluctance to allow representations of Christ, the central figure and focal point of the religion, was undoubtedly at first due to the influence of Judaism on Christianity – note the injunction in the decalogue against graven images (Exodus 20:4). Two additional reasons came to play: Christ’s divine nature could not be truly captured in the form of mere human flesh and portraying him as a man would be a denial of his true nature as the Son of God, Second Person of the Trinity, the almighty Redeemer and Messiah; and, since the older religions of the Mediterranean portrayed their gods as ideal human beings, doing the same for Christ would place him in concert with these gods, thus denying his essential difference. These reasons, combined with the intermittent fear of persecution and the desire to retain the notion of a special, or even secret, society within the larger population, led, very early in the history of Christianity, to the adoption of certain signs and symbols by which the adherents could both identify themselves and profess their allegiance to Christ. As a substitute for the figure of Christ, who could not be truly represented, the fish, the vine, and the cross, along with the Chi Rho monogram became the most common and universally employed symbols. The fish was chosenas a proxy image of Christ because its Greek spelling (IXθYΣ) formed an acrostic of a profession of faith (’Iησovs Xpiστòs Σεov Yiòs Σωτήρ) ‘Jesus Christ Son of God and Saviour’. The vine could represent Christ because of the words which John used in reference to him: ‘I am the true vine’ (John 15:1). The cross became the other widely used substitute image of Christ since it had come to signify Christ’s triumph over death and the accompanying promise of personal salvation and eternal life as the reward for the true believer.

In a world where the tenets of inherited Christianity were probably not understood by the vast majority of the laity and only imperfectly by many clerics and monks, the complicated dogmas dealing with the nature of Christ that arose in the fourth and fifth centuries must have been incomprehensible to all but a very few – learned writers such as Gildas in Britain, Cummian in Ireland, and Aldhelm and Bede in England who show close acquaintance with the history of dogma. However, there are various indications that the Insular world did not entirely escape the effects of the heresies that cropped up on the continent between the fourth and seventh centuries. Writers on both islands took special pains to insist upon their orthodoxy, particularly in matters relating to the Trinity and to the nature of Christ. Involvement in these disputes – however marginal they may seem at first glance – played a role in shaping official theology, but perhaps more importantly, in defining the activities and concerns that constituted Insular Christology and the literary and artistic images of Christ to be examined here.

Expressions of orthodoxy

From the beginnings of Insular Christianity, prominent ecclesiastics were eager to demonstrate their freedom from all taint of heresy and show their solidarity with the central teachings of the Roman Church. This is embodied in the form of a ‘profession of faith’ – a more or less detailed statement of ‘correct’ beliefs which is sometimes coupled with anathematisations of heresies. The defensive character of these professions always relates to the individual claimant, but in some cases, as we shall see, there is a clear awareness on the part of the professing person that he is defending the beliefs and practices of his region. Moreover, such professions do not occur in a vacuum. Two of the three earliest professions – those of Pelagius and Columbanus – were addressed to popes; a third – that of Patrick – was sent to unnamed authorities in Britain. In all three cases we have to do with some charge of heresy, divergent practice, or misconduct. As we noted in our Introduction, praise of orthodoxy and the assertion of one’s own orthodoxy are not synonymous with being orthodox.

It was during the eighth century that Christ was first directly represented in Insular art, at a time when the Romanising factions within the Insular Church had gained ascendancy. Both the Romani in Ireland and the Anglo-Saxons in Northumbria had been working since the mid-seventh century to establish close ties with Rome in practice and theology. We have already noted the activity in southern Ireland of Cummian, ca 630, regarding the questions of the timing of Easter and the authority of Rome. About the middle of the seventh century, probably in Kildare, a cleric who called himself Cogitosus ua hA’ eda wrote a Life of St Brigit which strings together the legendary anecdotes relating miracles associated with that holy woman. In his section on the rebuilding of the monastic church at Kildare, Cogitosus includes a description of the ornate altar and the tombs in which the remains of Brigit and bishop Conla’eth had been laid to rest as being ‘adorned with a refined profusion of gold, silver, gems and precious stones, with gold and silver chandeliers hanging from above and different images presenting a variety of carvings and colours’. Interestingly, he also indicates that the main wooden partition which separated the chancel from the nave was ‘painted with pictures and covered with wall hangings’. Unfortunately, he does not expand his description to include details of what the images were like, or their meaning. It is interesting to note the possibility that in southern Ireland at least, by the middle of the seventh century there was a decided swerving away from the earlier restriction against sumptuous religious objects and simultaneously the beginning of the acceptance of religious imagery. Kildare was also close to the area where the two Ahenny crosses, with their figural bases, were erected, possibly within the same century.

In Northumbria, John, the precentor of St Peter’s in Rome and abbot of the nearby monastery of St Martin, came to Wearmouth with Benedict Biscop upon the latter’s return from his fifth trip to Rome in 678–9. Sent by Pope Agatho, John’s task was very specific. In addition to investigating the beliefs of the English Church and reporting on any lingering taint of heresy, he was to teach the monks the Roman manner of singing and reading aloud during festal celebrations.

This book is about the nexus of two subjects: the images of Christ, and Christianity as it was conceived and practised in the Insular Celtic regions in late antiquity and the early middle ages. Our work presents a model of early Celtic Christianity and its development from the early fifth to the end of the ninth century or beginning of the tenth century. The topics include institutional Christianity, theology and religious practice. We argue that the character of Christianity that emerges from our analysis determined the range of Christological images found in literature and art produced in the Celtic areas. We hope to demonstrate that the form of Christianity and of Christological images experienced both continuity and change over the period studied, reflecting continuity and change in the theological and spiritual outlook. The first four chapters are devoted to the problem of characterising ‘Celtic Christianity’ in the period examined; the last three deal specifically with the images of Christ. Of these, the first deals with images drawn from literary evidence; the last two, with images drawn from the visual arts. This introduction provides an outline of our thesis and defines terms used later in the book. We have reserved detailed argumentation and the presentation of evidence for the ensuing chapters.

Our geographical focus is the Celtic areas of the British Isles: Britain (modern Wales and Cornwall and areas now in northern England) and Ireland with its extensions into Iona. Because of the late nature of the evidence, Brittany receives only intermittent attention, and that chiefly where it provides evidence bearing upon Britain and Ireland. However, for historiographical reasons it is essential to include Anglo-Saxon England in this study. The English writers Aldhelm and Bede, who wrote in the late seventh and early eighth centuries, provide invaluable information for our assessment of British and Irish beliefs and practices in their day. Indeed, as all modern scholars of early Insular history are aware, it would be impossible to write anything very meaningful about the Celtic regions without recourse to these sources, particularly Bede. However, English writers were not simply detached observers of the Celtic scene; they were also deeply influenced by it. Irish missionaries and teachers converted Northumbria, in which Bede lived, and were also influential in Wessex and Kent, where Aldhelm circulated.

A broad range of Christological images was available in the British Isles in the fifth to tenth centuries. Some of these belonged to Christianity of every period, namely, Christ the Judge and Christ the Wonder-Worker. Others were peculiar to certain times and places; for example, the image of Christ the true Sun, a favourite image of the late Roman world, was utilised by some of the earliest Insular writers. The kingship of Christ, ambiguous in the gospels, took on broader form in the time of Constantine as Christ ‘king of kings’, then narrowed again to simple kingship – or high kingship – in the barbarian realms. The notion of the ascetic Christ, Christ crucified or Christ the Perfect Monk, was emphasised in the fourth century and became a central image of the middle ages. All of these have some foundation in the canonical gospels. Out of the apocryphal writings came the tale of the harrowing of hell, which gave rise to the Heroic Christ. The apocrypha must also be credited for broadening the image of Christ the Wonder-Worker.

Clearly, none of these images had its origins in the Insular world (including the period of the common Celtic Church). However, inevitably, the Insular world favoured some images above others, and in some cases even imparted to them a peculiarly Insular form. Here we have selected four images for special consideration: Christ the Perfect Monk, the Heroic Christ, Christ the Wonder-Worker, and Christ the Judge. These images function together in a kind of symbiosis. The Christ who will judge us at the end of the world has also given us a model for our salvation: Christ the Perfect Monk. Up until the end of our lives it is possible to follow Christ as our guide and to invoke his aid. Only when we are no longer in our present bodies must we fear him as our Judge. In between these two are images representing different aspects of the supernatural: God’s redemptive aid and his power to heal. Thus Christ moves from the realm of the human and accessible through the heroic and beneficent to the divine and transcendent being who is beyond all supplication.

The most substantial and enduring images of the common Celtic Church, and indeed of the Insular world, were the first and last of these.