OCR Text |
Show - ' THE EARLY BRITISH CHURCH AND AUGUSTINE. AU-GUSTINE. I. .- i j Before replying to the charge of Anglieanus i that the bishops of the British church refused to I . submit to or even acknowledge the papal jurisdie- I tion of St. Augustine, let us clean up the eeelesi- I astieal status of the pre-Augustine Church in Eng- I land. The historical myth of the ecclesiastical in- I dependence of the British Church has been so cf- ! fectually disposed of bv the more recent school of I Anglican Church historians of repute, that those ! ' who persist in keeping up the old cry about the in- I dependence of the British Church make them- 1 selves simply ridiculous in the eyes of those who are possession of the facts. I lien- are a few extracts from non-Catholic writ- ers t ha', ought to dispose for all time of the in- dependent myth and the myth-makers: I ''A well-informed man cannot resist the weight f of historical evidence which establishes that in the whole period of the four first ages of the church the principal points of the papistical doctrines f were alre&dy admitted in theory and in practice." I (Introd. Decline and Fall Rom. E. Gibbon). i "A-J 1 T-i r i ,i e aim, uaca, us ne i.l ope viregory; Dore tne I pontificial power over all the world, and was placed over the churches already reduced to the faith of j truth, he made our nation (the British) till then i given up to idols, the Church of Christ." (His. I Eccles. Lib. 11, c. l.-Bede, A. D. 735). ' "The Church of England is the daughter of the ; Church of Rome, a historical fact which cannot be t altered to please any man." (Bishop Collins, Angli- can, in Ency. Brit.). 1 "There has been among some historians of our church a foolish exhibition of rooted prejudice in I dislike shown by them to acknowledge the indebted- ne.?s of the British Church to Rome." (Celtic Church of Scotland," p. 28. Bishop Dowdcn). Of this British church. Dr. Goodwin, Anglican bishop of Carlisle, in his "Church of England, Past ' and Present," savs : ''There is no evidence of any substantial differ- I ; enee between it (British church) and the church ' which. Augustine established." We might adduce a fheaf of Anglican extracts to prove that until I Henry VIII there never was any other faith in England than that of Rome. But of what use? I A man convinced against his will, I Is of the same opinion still. I It is surprising that Anglieanus should adopt i the now exploded arguments in favor of an indepen- I frnt church, when Bede, who records (Bed. 11.2) , the incident of the misunderstanding between Au- gustine and these early British bishops, records also I the reconciliation of ihe saint with the bishops and i i.i .- , . . ... cicrgy, ana me invitation to them to join with him I in the conversion of the Britons and the Saxons. , Now. would Si. Augustine have asked them to join v'ith him in t he conversion of these barbarians, if tnv professed and taught doctrines which he con-j con-j ; denmed The early historian, Bede (who wrote in j i :': A. I).), relates with great minuteness the full i controversy between Augustine and the bishops, j They all hinge on points of discipline. Xowhere I "I10 the remotest hint occur of any difference be-I be-I tween them on any point of doctrine. If, when the I British bishops came to meet Augustine at Worces-1 Worces-1 . tershire. he had treated ihem a little more diplomat-I diplomat-I icully and had advanced from his seat to greet I them, they would ;-.t once have submitted to his j J authority. When we remember the implacable ani-I ani-I I mosity of the Britons to the Saxon invaders who : ravaged their land, and for a hundred and fifty years made ruthless war upon their homes, their faith and themselves can we conceive of their being' i willing, under any circumstances, to accept this j newly arrived missionary as superior to their own time-honored prelates, unless they had tome pro- I ' I , found regard for the sovereign authority of the Pope. The line of justification taken by the British bishops against Augustine's counter-claims shows this, for they took the ground that their church was a "Papal Foundation," and its local customs were authorized by ''authority of the holy Pope Elentherius, their first founder." (Archael. Camb., vol. 11, p. SOS). Anglieanus appealed in his first letter to the Council of Sardica. Surely he ought to know that, according to Athanasius, the British bishops who took part in that council signed the decrees which establishes appeals to the Roman pontiff pon-tiff to settle questions concerning accused bishops. And, now, we do not thiuk that these dead issues have much interest for the public, or the discussion of much edification to our readers. After our courteous cour-teous correspondent has been heard in his defense he will allow US to close thp enntrnuprw TtritVi rv. pressions of good will and kindly feeling for him and his church, the least heretical and most respectable re-spectable beyond the Roman pale. |