ST. PAUL 
 IN BRITAIN 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. R. W. MORGAN 
 
MAY 12 1969 . 
 
 BX 5176 .M67 1860 
 Morgan, W. 1813 or 14-1889. 
 St. Paul in Britain; or, The 
 origin of British as 
 
Digitized by 
 
 the Internet Archive 
 
 
 
 in 2015 
 
 
 https://archive.org/details/stpaulinbritainoOOmorg_0 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 OR. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF BRITISH 
 
 AS OPPOSED TO 
 
 PAPAL CHRISTIANITY 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. W. MORGAN 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 Verities of the Church 
 
 The Churches of England end Rome 
 
 Christianity and Infidelity Intellectually Contrasted, &c. 
 
 " Ecclesia Britannica ab incunabulis Regia et Apostolica." 
 
 Monc&us. 
 
 " The British Church was from its cradle Apostolic and Royal." 
 
 ABRIDGED VERSION 
 
 THE COVENANT PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD. 
 6 Buckingham Gate, London, S.W.i 
 
TO 
 
 CONNOP, LORD BISHOP OF ST. DAVID'S 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE AND SUCCESSOR, 
 IN THE PRIMITIVE METROPOLITAN SEE OF BRITAIN, 
 OF THE NATIONAL SAINT OF THE CYMRY. 
 
 The following pages, 
 
 A SLIGHT HOMAGE 
 TO HIS VARIED AND PROFOUND ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS A 
 SCHOLAR, 
 
 HIS CATHOLICITY OF SPIRIT AS A CHRISTIAN, 
 AND HIS CONSCIENTIOUS MASTERY, AS A BISHOP OF SOULS, 
 OF THE LANGUAGE OF HIS PEOPLE, 
 ARE, BY PERMISSION, DEDICATED, 
 BY HIS VERY FAITHFUL SERVANT, 
 
 R. W. MORGAN. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 A faithful account of the origin of native British 
 Christianity as opposed to the Papal system first intro- 
 duced four hundred and fifty-six years subsequently by 
 Augustine the monk, is here, in readable compass, 
 presented to the public. The history of such origin is 
 inseparably blended with the long-sustained resistance of 
 our early forefathers to the invasions of their liberties by 
 the greatest empire of antiquity, wielding against them 
 the military forces of nearly three-quarters of the globe. 
 The events thus recorded have left their moulding power 
 to this day on our constitution in Church and State. The 
 most cursory glance at them is sufficient to demonstrate 
 the untenableness of the supposition that Britain is in- 
 debted to Germany — a country which has never itself 
 been free — for its free institutions, or to Italy for its 
 Gospel faith. The leading principles of her laws and 
 liberties are of pure indigenous growth; and her evan- 
 gelical faith was received by her directly from Jerusalem 
 and the East, from the lips of the first disciples themselves 
 of Christ. The struggles in after ages down to our own 
 period for the restoration and preservation of these in- 
 digenous birthright liberties, this primitive apostolical faith, 
 constitute the most stirring and ennobling portions of our 
 annals; and we may rest assured that as long as in their 
 modern developments of British Protestantism, British 
 Patriotism, and British Loyalty, they continue to inspire 
 the national heart, our island will continue to retain her 
 position in the van-ward of the march of Order, Liberty, 
 and Progress. 
 
 Dec. 24, i860. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Religion of Britain and Western Europe — Druidism, 
 the Preparation for Christianity — Its Principles 
 and Influences 9 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Historic Positions of Britain and the Roman Empire at 
 the Commencement of the Christian Era ... 30 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The British Royal Family at Rome — The Arimath^an, or < 
 First Introduction of Christianity into Britain — 
 Simon Zelotes — Aristobulus 60 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Tracings-up of the Ancient Royal Church of Britain 
 to its Apostolic Foundations — St. Paul in Britain — 
 His Connection with the Royal Silurian Family of 
 Britain — Buried in their Family Sepulchre . .100 
 
 Conclusion 126 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Religion of Britain and Western Europe — Druidism. — 
 Its Principles and Influences. — The Preparation for 
 Christianity. 
 
 Westward of Italy, embracing Hispania, Gallia, the 
 Rhenish frontiers, portions of Germany and Scandinavia, 
 with its headquarters and great seats of learning fixed in 
 Britain, extended the Druidic religion. There can be no 
 question that this was the primitive religion of mankind, 
 covering at one period in various forms the whole surface 
 of the ancient world. 
 
 The ramifications of Druidism penetrated, indeed, into 
 Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor; nor did Plato hesitate to 
 affirm that all the streams of Greek philosophy were to be 
 traced, not to Egypt, but to the fountains of the West. 
 The pre-historic poets of Greece anterior to the mythologic 
 creations of Homer and Hesiod, were, as their names 
 imply, Druids — Musasus, Orpheus, Linus, (knowledge, the 
 harp, the white-robed). Such historians were necessarily 
 poets, for with the Druids metre was the vehicle of in- 
 struction. The visit of the British Druid, Abaris, was long 
 remembered at Athens. Greek fancy converted the 
 magnetic needle by which he guided his travels into an 
 arrow of Apollo which would transport him at wish 
 whithersoever he pleased. A more celebrated Druid, 
 Pythagoras, founded a school in Italy the effects of which, 
 though he himself and many of his leading scholars 
 perished in a popular commotion, were never wholly 
 obliterated; the transmigration of souls, their pre- 
 
 9 
 
10 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 existence and immortality, the true theories of the 
 heavenly bodies and their revolutions, the severity of the 
 esoteric system with its silence and secrecy, being 
 observed by various Italian sects down to the Christian 
 era. In the /Egean Sea, Samothrace and Delos were 
 Eastern cells of the same priesthood, the same rites being 
 observed as in Britain, and embassies at stated periods 
 exchanging visitations. 1 In earlier ages the City of 
 Circles in Asia Minor — Troia (Troy) — and the Minoan 
 Labyrinth in Crete were seats of the same widely-extended 
 religion, and in Egypt the name of the great mother- 
 temple, Carnac, identifies its remote founders with those 
 of the mother-temple of the same name in Bretagne, both 
 meaning ' the high stones of worship.' In the East, how- 
 ever, the principles of Druidism could only be traced in 
 its earliest records, whilst on the continent of Europe they 
 bore in practice and development the same corrupt rela- 
 tion to primitive Druidism as at present the Roman 
 Catholic religion in the same countries does to primitive 
 Christianity. In Britain, on the contrary, it had, for many 
 reasons — the inaccessibility of the island, its freedom from 
 foreign invasion, its character of sanctity, its possession 
 by Gomeridae — retained in great degree its original purity. 
 In the time of St. Paul it had been for a period of two 
 thousand years the established religion; and the attach- 
 ment of the people to its rule, with the desperate and well- 
 sustained defence they made in its behalf and that of their 
 country against the whole force of the Roman Empire in 
 the meridian of its power, confirm the impression left by 
 a dispassionate examination of the remains of its theology 
 which have descended to us in the ancient British tongue, 
 namely, that it was a highly moral, elevating, and bene- 
 ficent religion, a superstructure not unworthy the prin- 
 
 1 Artemidorus, quoted by Strabo, the Orphic Hymns; Avienus de 
 Britannia. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 11 
 
 ciple on which it assumed to be built, and by which it 
 offered itself to be judged, " The truth against the world," 
 (Y Gwir erbyn y Byd). 
 
 It has been observed by the historian Hume, " that no 
 religion has ever swayed the minds of men like the 
 Druidic." The determined efforts of the Roman empire 
 to overthrow its supremacy, and, if possible, suppress it 
 altogether, prove that its rulers had been made practically 
 aware of this fact. A Druidic triad familiar to the Greeks 
 and Romans was, 14 Three duties of every man : Worship 
 God; be just to all men; die for your country 2 ." It was 
 this last duty, impressed by a thousand examples and 
 precepts, and not its religious tenets or philosophy, which 
 caused Druidism to be marked for destruction by an em- 
 pire which aspired to universal dominion and to merge 
 all nationalities in one city. The edicts of the Emperors 
 Augustus and Tiberius proscribed it throughout their 
 dominions, making the exercise of the functions of a 
 Druidic priest, as those of the Roman priest in the reigns 
 of the Tudor sovereigns in England, a treasonable offence. 
 But nations cannot be proscribed. The Druidic colleges in 
 Britain, the only free state in Europe at this period, con- 
 tinued to educate and send forth their alumni to all parts 
 of the Continent. Not till a.d. 43, that is, fourteen years 
 only before the arrival of St. Paul in Rome, did the second, 
 or Claudian invasion of Britain take place. It took ten 
 years of incessant warfare to establish a firm footing in 
 the south of the island; nor was it till seven years after 
 the fall of Caractacus that the Roman state ventured to 
 give its legions orders to carry out the leading object of 
 
 2 There is touching beauty in many of the Druidic triads, as 
 in the following: — "There are three men all should love: He 
 that loves the face of his mother Nature; he that loves rational 
 works of art; he that looks lovingly on the faces of little 
 children/' 
 
12 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 the invasion — the destruction by force of arms of the 
 Druidic cori, or seminaries, in Britain. The Boadicean war 
 and the death of 80,000 Roman citizens were the first 
 results of this policy of religious " dragonnades." 
 
 Summary of Druidic Theology 
 
 Druidism was founded by Gwyddon Ganhebon, supposed 
 to be the Seth of the Mosaic genealogy, in Asia, in the 
 year when the equinox occurred in the first point of 
 Taurus, or the constellation of the Bull. Every year the 
 equinoctial year is completed about twenty minutes before 
 the sun has made a complete revolution from a certain 
 star to the same star again. This arises from the precession 
 of the equinoxes, or from a slow revolution of the pole of 
 the equator round that of the ecliptic. In 25,920 years 
 the pole of the equator makes one entire revolution round 
 that of the ecliptic : hence the equinoctial colure occurs 
 before it did the preceding year. In 72 years the preces- 
 sion amounts to one degree. If therefore, we have the 
 equinoctial or solstitial point given in the ecliptic at any 
 unknown period, it is easy to discover, by comparing it 
 with the present solstitial point, how long that period is 
 past. When the Druidic system was founded, the equinox, 
 on the 1 st of May, occurred in the first point of Taurus, 
 which first point is now, on the 1st of May, 80 degrees 
 from this solstitial point. It requires 72 years to recede 
 one degree. Eighty degrees multiplied by 72 gives 5,760, 
 the exact date when Druidism commenced, i.e., 3,903 
 years before the Christian era, 181 years after the crea- 
 tion of man, and 50 years after the birth of Seth. The 
 astral bull of milk-white hue, its horns crowned with 
 golden stars, became the symbol, or visible sacrament, of 
 Druidism. In process of time the symbol, as usual, super- 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 13 
 
 seded in the East the thing signified, and Druidism became 
 that tauric religion which gave the Crimea the appellation 
 of the Tauric Chersonese. Extending thence, this corrup- 
 tion became the religion of Mithras in Persia, of Baal in 
 Assyria, of Brahma in India, of Astarte or the Dea Syria 
 in Syria, of Apis in Egypt, and in later ages, transferred 
 from Egypt, of the two "Apis" (or calves as they are 
 rendered in our version of the Scriptures) of the kingdom 
 of Israel. 3 In all these religions the bull, or Taurus, was 
 the sacred animal, and the symbol was preserved free, as 
 far as we can judge, from idolatry by the Gomeridae of 
 Britain. The bull was the sign and representant of the 
 great Druidic isle, and the name still, in common parlance, 
 continues to indicate a Briton of Britain as distinguished 
 from the rest of the world. 
 
 From Asia Druidism was brought into Britain by Hu 
 Gadarn, or the Mighty, its first colonizer, a contemporary 
 of the Patriarch Abraham, and under his successors, 
 Plennydd, Goron, Alawn, and Rhivon, it assumed its com- 
 plete organization, becoming both the ecclesiastical and 
 civil constitution of the island. About five centuries before 
 the Christian era, its civil laws were codified by Dunwal 
 Moelmud, the British Numa, and have since that period 
 remained the common, unwritten, or native laws of the 
 island, as distinguished from the Roman, the canon, and 
 other codes of foreign introduction. These British or 
 Druidic laws have been always justly regarded as the 
 foundation and bulwark of British liberties. 4 The 
 examination of them does not fall within our present 
 purpose. The civil code and the sciences were taught by 
 
 3 The symbol of Druidism in Crete was the Menw-tarw, or 
 Menw-bull and its chief temple the Labyrinth. Out of such simple 
 elements the imaginative Greek mind forged the fable of Minos, 
 the Minotaur, and the Pasiphae, as it did that of the rape of 
 Europa from the Astarte of Syria. 
 
14 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 the Druids — orally or in writing indifferently — to every 
 citizen, but the Druidic system of divinity was never 
 committed to writing, nor imparted except to the initia- 
 ted, and then under obligations to secrecy of a very awful 
 character. It is, however, to the infraction of these obliga- 
 tions, when their force had been impaired by the in- 
 fluences of Christianity, that we are indebted for such 
 knowledge as we possess of the real principles of the 
 primitive religion of our island. 
 Druidism taught as follows: — 
 
 The universe is infinite, being the body of the being 
 who out of himself evolved or created it, and now per- 
 vades and rules it, as the mind of man does his body. 
 The essence of this being is pure, mental light, and there- 
 fore he is called Du-w, Duw (the one without any dark- 
 ness). His real name is an ineffable mystery, and so also 
 is his nature. 5 To the human mind, though not in himself, 
 he necessarily represents a triple aspect in relation to the 
 past, present, and future; the creator as to the past, the 
 saviour or conserver as to" the present, the renovator or 
 re-creator as to the future. In the re-creator the idea of 
 the destroyer was also involved. This was the Druidic 
 trinity, the three aspects of which were known as Beli, 
 Taran, Esu or Yesu. When Christianity preached Jesus as 
 
 4 Sir John Fortescue, Be Laudibus Legum Anglice; Coke, Preface 
 to third vol. of Pleadings; Origin of the Common Law of England. 
 
 5 There are now three states of existence; the cycle of 
 ' Ceugant,' where there is nothing of living or dead but God, and 
 God alone can traverse it; the cycle of 'Abred,' where all natural 
 existence originates from death — this man has traversed; the 
 cycle of ' Gwynfyd,' where all existence is from life to life — this 
 man will traverse in the ' Nevoedd ' (changes of life in heaven). 
 . . . The Druids, contrary to the Mosaic account, made the crea- 
 tion of man simultaneous with that of solar light. " Three things 
 came into being at the same moment — light, man, and moral 
 choice." — (Druidic Triads.) 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 15 
 
 God, it preached the most familiar name of its own deity 
 to Druidism; and in the ancient British tongue ' Jesus ' has 
 never assumed its Greek, Latin, or Hebrew form, but re- 
 mains the pure Druidic ' Yesu.' It is singular thus that the 
 ancient Briton has never changed the name of the God he 
 and his forefathers worshipped, nor has ever worshipped 
 but one God. 6 
 
 The symbol of the ineffable name of the Deity were 
 three rays or glories of light. Every Druid bore these in 
 gold on the front of his mitre. 
 
 Other names of the deity were Deon, Dovydd, Celi, Tor, 
 Perydd, Sol, Rhun, Ner. 
 
 In the infinite Deity exist in some incomprehensible 
 mode, indivisible from himself, infinite germs, seeds, or 
 atoms (manred, manredit), each in itself full and perfect 
 deity, possessing the power of infinite creativeness. This 
 branch of Druidic theism is involved in profound ob- 
 scurity. It appears to have supplied Democritus with his 
 theory of the atomic powers of nature, and Plato with his 
 typal forms in the mind of the Deity. Matter was created 
 and systematized simultaneously by the Creator's pro- 
 nouncing His own name. It cannot exist without God. 
 Nature is the action of God through the medium of 
 matter. The laws of nature are, in the strictest sense, the 
 laws of God, and that which is a violation of the laws of 
 nature is necessarily a violation of the laws of God. 7 
 
 The universe is in substance eternal and imperishable, 
 
 6 So Procopius also testifies: — 
 
 " Hesus, Taranis Belenus unus tantummodo Deus 
 Unum Deum Dominum universi Druides Solum agnoscimt." 
 
 De Gothicis, lib. iii. 
 
 7 The Druid regarded himself as the priest of the deity of 
 nature, but in addition to this hierarchic character there appears 
 to have been the following observances derived from one original 
 family, language, and religion common to his with all the other 
 forms of the primitive truth — libation, sacrifices, tradition of the 
 
16 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 but in form it is subject to successive cycles of dissolution 
 and renovation. There is no such thing as annihilation in 
 matter. Every particle of matter is capable of all forms of 
 matter, and each form has its own laws of existence and 
 action. 
 
 Around every separate existence, wherever it be, ex- 
 tends infinity; this is ' Ceugant ' (the infinite space, or all- 
 of-being, ubiquity), which God alone can fill, sustain, or 
 uphold. 
 
 There were originally but two states of sentient existence 
 — God in ' Ceugant,' and the ' Gwynfydolion ' (the beings 
 of the happy, literally ' white/ state) in ' Gwynfyd.' The 
 only aberration to which the ' Gwynfydolion ' were liable 
 was ' balchder.' ' Balchder ' consisted in trying to do that 
 which God only can do, enter and sustain ' ceugant,' up- 
 hold and govern the infinite universe. Certain of the 
 ' Gwynfydolion,' whose numbers are known only to God, 
 attempted to do so, and thus originated in themselves the 
 state of 'Annwn.' 'Annwn ' is the lowest possible point 
 of conscious existence, in which the evil is wholly un- 
 mitigated by any particle of good. This result was the 
 inevitable consequence of their act itself, not an external 
 penalty imposed by God. To restore them to the state of 
 ' gwynfyd,' God in His goodness created the third state 
 of 'Abred.' 'Abred ' includes all conditions of sentient life 
 under ' gwynfyd.' Its lowest point is ' annwn;' its highest 
 that immediately next to that of the ' Gwynfydolion,' the 
 state of man, humanity. All ' abred ' under humanity was 
 termed ' byd maur,' the great ' byd.' Humanity itself was 
 
 Deluge, of the war of the Titanidae against Heaven, metempsy- 
 chosis, adoration towards the East, the division of the circle into 
 360 degrees, of the zodiac into twelve signs, of the week into 
 seven days. Most of these we find in the Chaldaean faith, and it 
 is certain the Chaldaeans were highly civilised 2,000 years before 
 the Christian era. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 17 
 
 termed ' byd bychan,' the little ' byd ' (world), because as 
 all the infinite was contained in God, so all the cycles of 
 existence below man were contained and represented in 
 man. 8 
 
 'Abred ' is a state of probation and suffering for the 
 'Abredolion,' that is, for the ' Gwynfydolion ' in ' abred/ 
 the reason being that, moral liberty of choice and action, 
 or willinghood, being the essence of ' gwynfydiaeth,' or 
 the spirit-life, there is nothing per se to prevent the 
 ' Gwynfydolion/ when they shall have re-attained heaven, 
 from committing ' balchder ' a second time, and thus re- 
 incurring its consequences. God created ' abred ' to be a 
 state of suffering, that in the vivid recollection of its pains 
 and degradations the ' Gwynfydolion ' might possess in 
 themselves the surest moral guarantee against a repetition 
 of their folly. 'Abred ' was, therefore, essentially the 
 creation of God's mercy, and its sufferings were indispen- 
 sable to fulfil the object of such mercy towards the fallen 
 beings for whom it had been so created. 9 
 
 In the 1 byd mawr ' below man there was no responsi- 
 bility, for there was no liberty of choice. Responsibility 
 began with the ' byd bychan/ or manstate, because there 
 began such liberty. Hence the essence of the soul, accord- 
 ing to the Druids, was the will, and the essence of religion 
 
 8 The three causes of man falling into 'Abred ' — neglect of 
 knowledge, aversion to good, love of evil. Occasioned by these 
 three, man declines to his congenial state in ' abred,' whence as 
 before he re-ascends to humanity. (Druidic Triads.) 
 
 9 The three things God alone can do — endure the eternities of 
 infinity, participate of all being without changing, renew every- 
 thing without annihilating it. The three things wherein man 
 necessarily differs from God — man is finite, God infinite; man 
 had a beginning, God had none; man unable to sustain ' ceugant ' 
 (infinity of space and time), must have in ' gwynfyd ' eternal 
 change, cycles of existence; God sustains ' ceupan ' unchanged. 
 (Druidic Triads.) 
 
18 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 was willinghood. Without freedom of will there was no 
 4 humanity ' in its distinguishing sense from animal life, 
 nor any life or light in the soul which continued marw, 
 void of living action and imbruted. Freedom of con- 
 science was both the birth and breath of manhood, with- 
 out which it was not manhood at all, but brutality — the 
 soul resembling foetus undeveloped in the womb. 
 
 Reason appears to have been regarded by the Druids as 
 a faculty common to all sensitive creatures, the difference 
 in their physical organization being the cause of the 
 difference in its degrees. 
 
 Mankind are the fallen 1 Gwynfydolion.' Every human 
 being has been in the angelic state in heaven (' gwynfyd '), 
 fell thence to ' annwn,' rose thence through the various 
 cycles of ' abred ' probationary existence to his present 
 state (' byd bychan '), in which he is again a free agent, 
 master of his own spiritual destinies. If his soul willingly 
 prefers good and abides by its choice, then at the dissolu- 
 tion of the body it re-enters ' gwynfyd,' from which it fell. 
 This is the restoration. If his soul prefers evil, it again 
 lapses back to some cycle in ' abred ' best calculated to 
 purify it from it. For ' abred ' is the cycle of purification 
 by suffering. ' Balchder ' alone plunged the soul back to 
 the lowest point, ' annwn,' and of this man could not be 
 guilty; hence the proverb, " But once in ' annwn.' " In- 
 humanity sunk the soul to the condition nearest ' annwn.' 
 
 In the 'byd mawr,' below man, evil and suffering pre- 
 ponderate. In the ' byd bychan,' or ' man-state,' good and 
 evil are equipoised. With ' byd bychan ' probation termi- 
 nates. In 'gwynfyd' pure good and pure happiness 
 commence. 
 
 A soul might relapse countless times from ' byd bychan ' 
 back to ' abred,' and again rise. Ultimately every soul 
 would pass ' byd bychan '; and when the last of the 
 'Gwynfydolion' had regained 'gwynfyd,' then would be 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 19 
 
 the end of 'abred' ('terfyn abred' 10 ), the purpose for 
 which it had been created being fulfilled. 'Abred ' being 
 dissolved, there would remain only the two states which 
 existed from the beginning, ' Ceugant ' and ' Gwynfyd.' 
 According to the Druidic system, the ' hell ' of man was 
 past before his birth, and hell itself was a temporary state. 
 1 Gwynfyd ' was re-attainable through ' abred ' only and 
 its conditions, 4 abred ' through 4 annwn ' only and its 
 conditions. 'Annwn ' and 4 abred ' were the pre-conditions 
 of the re-attainment of 'gwynfyd.' The knowledge and 
 suffering of evil was held the sine qua non to the under- 
 standing and appreciation of good, being the only means 
 whereby their difference could be realized to ourselves. 
 Suffering was regarded as the pre-essential of enjoyment. 
 
 The faculty of the soul which constituted more 
 especially its eternity, or imperishable self-identity, is cov, 
 or memory. The memory of all the evils and existences 
 it has undergone in ' abred/ forms or develops in the soul 
 immediately it re-enters ' gwynfyd,' and not before. For 
 the end of such memory is to preserve such ' Gwyn- 
 fydolion ' from a second fall. In the ' abred ' cycles there 
 is a suspension of ' cov,' and of the consciousness of self- 
 identity. 
 
 The doctrine of transmigration was certainly Druidic, 
 but it is equally certain that it was held by the Druids in 
 a sense the Greek and Italian schools of philosophy have 
 failed to transmit to us. The following extract the Coei- 
 bren Rhodd, 11 obscure as it is, may cast some light on the 
 subject: — 
 
 10 Three things decrease continually, darkness, evil, and death. 
 Three things increase continually, light, truth, and life. These 
 will finally prevail over all; then ' abred ' will end. (Druidic 
 Triads.) The idea of the eternal progression of man and the 
 universe which pervades the Triads is very fine. 
 
 11 A Druidic Catechism, of which fragments only are extant. 
 
20 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 " Master. What art thou? 
 " Disciple. A man. 
 " M. How? 
 
 " D. By the will of God. What God wills must be. 
 " M. Why art thou not something else than man? 
 " D. What God wills cannot be otherwise. 
 " M. Where art thou ? 
 " D. In ' byd bychan.' 
 "M. Whence art thou come? 
 " D. From ' byd mawr.' 
 " M. What wert thou doing in ' byd mawr ' ? 
 " D. Traversing the cycle of ' abred.' 
 " M. Where wert thou before thou didst begin to 
 traverse ' cylch abred ' ? 
 " D. In ' annwn.' 
 
 " M. What wert thou in ' annwn ' ? 
 
 "D. The least of life that could be in itself, the 
 nearest to the teeth of the dead. And in all forms and 
 through all forms that are called body and life am I come 
 hither into 'byd bychan/ and misery and trouble have 
 been my condition for ages and ages since I was delivered 
 from ' annwn ' and separated therefrom through the hand 
 of God and His love, endless and indestructible. 
 
 " M. Through how many ' rhith ' (forms of life) art 
 thou come, and what has been thy ' damwain ' (character 
 of life)? 
 
 " D. Through every ' rhith ' that can possess or be 
 called life-in-itself, and my ' damwain ' has been all misery, 
 all hardship, all evil, all suffering, and little of good or 
 happiness has there been of me before I am man. 
 
 " M. Through the love of God thou sayest thou art 
 come through all this and hast felt all this — how so, seeing 
 there are so many signs of unlove? 
 
 " D. ' Gwynfyd ' cannot be regained without knowing 
 everything, there cannot be knowing everything without 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 21 
 
 feeling-in-self everything, there cannot be feeling every- 
 thing without suffering-in-self every ' rhith ' of evil and of 
 good, that one may be self-known from the other; and all 
 this must be before 1 gwynfyd ' can be regained, for 
 ' gwynfyd ' is perfect liberty, choosing the good when all 
 forms of good and evil have been self-suffered. 
 
 " M. Why cannot there be 1 gwynfyd ' without travers- 
 ing every ' rhith ' of life in ' abred ' ? 
 
 " D. Because no two ' rhiths ' are identical, and every 
 ' rhith ' has its own cause, suffering, means of knowledge, 
 intelligence, ' gwynfyd,' power, not to be found in any 
 other ' rhith '; and since there is special knowledge in 
 every special ' rhith ' not to be found in any other, neces- 
 sity ensues to suffer every ' rhith ' before ' abred ' be com- 
 pletely traversed. 
 
 " M. How many ' rhiths ' are there ? 
 
 " D. As many as God saw necessary towards knowing 
 all good and all evil in every kind and quality, so that 
 there should be nothing conceivable by God which should 
 not be experienced, and thence its ' abred '-knowledge." — 
 (Coelbren Rhodd, p. i.) 
 
 The happiness of ' gwynfyd ' consisted in ' nevoedd,' i.e. 
 eternal progressions of new scenes with new faculties of 
 happiness. Herein, as in its notion of the time and object 
 of " hell," Druidism differed from Christianity, which 
 represents heaven as an eternal sabbath or rest. 12 
 
 A soul that had passed ' byd bychan ' might resume the 
 morphosis of humanity for the good of mankind. The 
 re-incarnation of such was always a blessing. 
 
 The lapse of a soul in ' byd bychan ' began at the 
 moment when it voluntarily preferred vice to virtue, for 
 the will is its essence. 
 
 12 The three necessary essentials of God — infinite in Himself, 
 finite to the finite, co-unity with every model of existence in 
 'gwynfyd.' (Druidic Triads.) 
 
22 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 A new form of life, or the entrance into another cycle 
 of existence, 13 ensued simultaneously with death. 
 
 Man had the power by accepting every evil as his part 
 of 1 abred ' (or purification for ' gwynfyd '), to turn it to 
 good. Hence willing suffering for our own good or that 
 of others was the test-virtue of humanity, or ' byd bychan.' 
 
 Every soul guilty of crime, by voluntarily confessing it 
 and embracing the penalty prescribed, expiated its guilt, 
 and if in other respects good, re-entered ' gwynfyd.' 
 
 Except by the laying down life for life there could be 
 no expiation or atonement for certain kinds of guilt. 
 Caesar's words on this point are remarkable: — "The 
 Druids teach that by no other way than the ransoming of 
 man's life by the life of man, is reconciliation with the 
 divine justice of the immortal gods possible." — (Comment., 
 lib. v.) The doctrine of vicarious atonement could not be 
 expressed in clearer terms. 
 
 The value of an atonement, or expiatory sacrifice, was 
 in proportion to the value of the life sacrificed. 
 
 In all the changes of the ' byd mawr,' until it assumed 
 the morphosis of man, the soul was in occultation, or 
 eclipse. 
 
 The temples of the Druids were hypaethral, circular, 
 and obelistic, i.e., open above and on every side, represent- 
 ing in form the dome of heaven, and composed of mono- 
 liths, or immense single stones, on which metal was not 
 allowed to come. The dracontic, or circular form, sym- 
 boled the eternal cycle of nature. The monolithic avenues 
 leading to and from the temple, usually known as the 
 dragon's head and dragon's tail, were in some instances 
 seven miles long. The national religious processions moved 
 through these on the three great festivals of the year. 
 
 13 There could in fact, according to the Druids, be no life at all 
 in ' abred ' except as proceeding from death. Above ' abred ' death 
 ceased, and the celestial novations ran through eternity. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 23 
 
 All the prehistoric temples of Palestine, Persia, Italy, 
 and Greece, commonly called Cyclopean or Pelasgic, were 
 Druidic. 
 
 Stonehenge, the Gilgal of Britain, is the wreck of four 
 thousand years' exposure to the elements. Its first founder 
 was Hu Gadarn, B.C. c. 1800. 
 
 There were in Britain south of the Clyde and Forth 
 forty Druidic universities, which were also the capitals of 
 the forty tribes, the originals of our modern counties, 
 which preserve for the most part the ancient tribal limits. 
 Hence, for instance, Yorkshire retains the same dispro- 
 portioned magnitude to our other counties as the terri- 
 tories of the Brigantes, its British tribe, did to those of the 
 other tribes. Of these forty seats nine have disappeared, 
 the remainder were as follows: — 
 
 Three seats of the three Arch-Druids of Britain. 14 
 
 Caer Troia, or Caer Lud, or Caer Llyndain (the city of 
 the lake of the Tain (Thames), or of the beautiful lake, 
 tain meaning fair or beautiful, hence the Tain so called 
 in British, Tyne still in North Britain), London. 
 
 Caer Evroc, York. 
 
 Caer Lleon, Caerleon. 
 
 Seats of the Chief Druids of Britain : — 
 
 Caer Caint, Canterbury. 
 
 Caer Wyn, Winchester. 
 
 Caer Werllan, afterwards Caer Municipium, St. Alban's, 
 or Verulam. 
 
 Caer Salwg, Old Sarum. 
 
 Caer Grawnt, Cambridge, or Granta. 
 
 Caer Leil, Carlisle. 
 
 Caer Meini, Manchester. 
 
 14 The Gildas MS. (Julius, D. xi.), Cottonian Library, calls these 
 the three arch-flamens and twenty-eight flamens of Britain. 
 Geoffrey of Monmouth appears to have found the same titles 
 in the Armorican version of Tyssiiio's History. 
 
24 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 Caer Gwrthegion, Palmcaster. 
 Caer Coel, Colchester. 
 Caer Gorangon, Worcester. 
 Caerlon ar Dwy, Chester. 
 Caer Peris, Porchester. 
 Caer Don, Doncaster. 
 Caer Guoric, Warwick. 
 Caer Meivod, Meivod. 
 Caer Odor, Bristol. 
 Caer Llyr, Leicester. 
 Caer Urnach, Uroxeter. 
 Caer Lleyn, Lincoln. 
 Caer Gloyw, Gloucester. 
 Caer Ce\, Chichester. 
 Caer Ceri, Cirencester. 
 Caer Dwr, Dorchester. 
 Caer Merddin, Caermarthen. 
 Caer Seiont, Caernarvon. 
 Caer Wysc, Exeter. 
 Caer Segont, Silchester. 
 Caer Baddon, Bath. 
 
 The lapse of two thousand years has made but slight 
 alteration in the names of these primitive cities of Britain. 
 The Romans invariably fixed upon the chief caer of a 
 British tribe, generally the strongest military position in 
 its bounds, for their castra: hence the castra and Chester 
 superseded the caer or British citadel; but the British name 
 itself survived the Roman. Llyndain is still London, not 
 Augusta; Werllan, Verulam, not Municipium; Caer Col, 
 Colchester, not Camalodunum, &c, &c. 
 
 The students at these universities numbered at times 
 sixty thousand souls, among whom were included the 
 young nobility of Britain and Gaul. It required twenty 
 years to master the circle of Druidic knowledge; nor, 
 when we consider the great range of acquirements which 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 25 
 
 the system included, can we wonder at the length of such 
 probation. Natural philosophy, astronomy, arithmetic, 
 geometry, jurisprudence, medicine, poetry, and oratory 
 were all proposed and taught, the first two with severe 
 exactitude. The system of astronomy inculcated had never 
 varied, being the same as that taught by Pythagoras, now 
 known as the Copernican or Newtonian. 15 The British 
 words for ' star/ ' astronomer/ * astronomy/ are seven, 
 seronydd, seronyddiaeth; hence the usual Greek term for 
 the Druids was Saronidoe, astronomers. Of the attainments 
 of the Druids in all the sciences, especially in this of as- 
 tronomy, classic judges of eminence, Cicero and Caesar, 
 Pliny and Tacitus, Diodorus Siculus and Strabo, speak in 
 high terms. In the Druidic order indeed centred, and from 
 it radiated, the whole civil and ecclesiastical knowledge 
 of the realm : they were its statesmen, legislators, priests, 
 physicians, lawyers, teachers, poets; the depositaries of all 
 human and divine knowledge; its Church and parliaments; 
 its courts of law; its colleges of physicians and surgeons; 
 its magistrates, clergy and bishops. The number of Druids 
 was regulated by very stringent laws in proportion to the 
 population. None could be a candidate for the Order 
 who could not, in the May congress of the tribe, prove his 
 descent from nine successive generations of free fore- 
 
 15 " He that will be a prophet of God," writes Gildas, " must 
 never rest till he has traced everything to its cause and mode of 
 operation. He will then know what God does, for God does 
 nothing but what should be, in the manner it should be, at the 
 time and in the order it should be. By understanding these laws 
 of God, he will be able to see and foretell the future." (Principles 
 of Prediction of Gildas the Prophet, Iolo MSS., p. 609.) Prophecy, 
 then, was with the Druids nothing but the theological term for 
 science, and Gildas supplies a useful commentary on Caesar's 
 words: "The Druids discuss many things concerning the stars 
 and their revolutions, the magnitude of the globe and its various 
 divisions, the nature of the universe, the energy and power of the 
 immortal gods." (Caesar's Com., lib. v.) 
 
26 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 fathers. No slave could of course be a Druid; becoming 
 one, he forfeited his Order and privileges; and hence per- 
 haps one of the reasons of the protracted, stubborn, and 
 finally successful resistance of the Druidic island to the 
 Roman arms; for it was not till the reign of Adrian, a.d. 
 i 20, that Britain was incorporated, and then by treaty, 
 not conquest, with the Roman dominions, the Britons 
 retaining their kings, land, laws and rights, and stipulating 
 in return to raise and support three legions to be officered 
 by the Emperor for the defence of the common empire. 16 
 By common law every Briton was seized as his birthright 
 of five acres (ten English) of land in the gweli cenedl, the 
 ' bed ' or hereditary county of his clan. If the clan land 
 was exhausted, recourse was had to emigration or con- 
 quest, and for this purpose the superfluous population was 
 draughted off as an army, or more generally as a colony. 
 Hence the mother-tribe and daughter-tribes of the same 
 name which so frequently occur in Britain, Gaul, Germany 
 and Hibernia. In addition to these five acres, the Druid 
 received five acres more and a certain fixed income from 
 his tribe. The difficulty of admission into the Order was 
 on a par with its privileges. The head of the clan pos- 
 sessed a veto on every ordination. Every candidate was 
 obliged to find twelve head of families as sureties for moral 
 conduct and adequate maintenance; nor could he be 
 ordained until he had passed three examinations three 
 successive years before the Druidic college of the tribe. 
 
 16 The accepting or circulating of Roman coin in Britain was 
 made a capital offence by Arviragus; for such an act according 
 to the Roman construction, inferred the right of levying tribute, 
 as we see in the Scriptures : " Whose image and superscription is 
 this? Caesar's. Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are 
 Caesar's." From the reign of Claudius to that of Hadrian no coins, 
 therefore, of the intervening Roman emperors have been found 
 in Britain. From Hadrian onward there have been found a nearly 
 complete series. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 27 
 
 These barriers to promiscuous admission threw the Order 
 almost entirely into the hands of the blaenorion, or 
 aristocracy, making it literally a " royal priesthood," kings, 
 princes, and nobles entering largely into its composition. 
 "All power," states Caesar, speaking of Gaul, " is vested in 
 the two orders of the Druids and aristocracy : the people 
 are nothing." This, however, was evidently not the case 
 in Britain, where the primitive Druidic laws, unaffected 
 hitherto by foreign innovations, referred the source of all 
 power to the people in congress, and every congress was 
 opened with the words Trech gwlad n' arglwydd, 1 The 
 country is above the king.' Nevertheless, the authority and 
 influence of the Druids were very great, and, on the whole, 
 as popular as they were great. The extreme penalty 
 lodged in their hands, and the one most dreaded, was that 
 of excommunication — poena gravissima, states Caesar — 
 which was, in fact, a decree of expulsion from both 
 worlds, the present and future. The terror it inspired is 
 the best proof that it was not abused and but rarely 
 resorted to; for the most terrific punishments, if abused, 
 soon lose their effect and become despised. 
 
 The sacred animal of Druidism was the white astral 
 bull; the sacred bird, the crested wren; the sacred tree, 
 the oak; the sacred grain, wheat; the sacred plant, the 
 mistletoe; the sacred herbs, the trefoil, vervain, and 
 hyssop. 
 
 The great festivals of Druidism were three : the vernal, 
 on the i st of May; the autumnal; and the mid- winter, when 
 the mistletoe was gathered by the arch-Druids. The 
 mistletoe, with its three white berries, was the symbol of 
 the Druidic Trinity, and its growth in the oak the type 
 of the incarnation of the Deity in man. 
 
 The hypaethral altar in the Druidic circle was called 
 cromlech (stone of bowing, or adoration). Near it another 
 stone received in a cavity water direct from heaven (holy 
 
28 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 water.) This holy water and the waters of the river Dee, 
 the Jordan of ancient Britain, were the only waters per- 
 mitted to be used in Druidic sacrifices. No Druid could 
 wear arms of any description. None but a Druid could 
 officiate at a sacrifice. 
 
 The canonicals of the Druid were white linen robes, no 
 metal but gold being used in any part of the dress. The 
 canonicals of the arch-Druids were extremely gorgeous, 
 not very dissimilar from those of the high-priest of the 
 Hebrew religion. The Druidic cross was wrought in gold 
 down the length of the back of his robe. 
 
 No Druidic service could be celebrated before sunrise 
 or after sunset. 
 
 The Druidic was essentially a priesthood of peace, 
 neither wearing arms nor permitting arms to be un- 
 sheathed in its presence; and though patriotism, or the 
 defence of one's country in a just war, was a high virtue 
 in its system, we have no instance of Druidism persecut- 
 ing or using physical force against any other religion or 
 set of opinions. Its whole theory, indeed, would have 
 stultified itself in so doing; and herein consists no small 
 part of its identity with Christianity. 17 
 
 The saying of Taliesin, the prince-Bard and Druid, con- 
 veys a great historic truth, though over-strongly ex- 
 pressed: — "Christ, the Word from the beginning, was 
 from the beginning our teacher, and we never lost His 
 teaching. Christianity was a new thing in Asia, but there 
 never was a time when the Druids of Britain held not its 
 doctrines." 
 
 Having thus passed in review the religious status of our 
 
 17 " In the ancient world," observes Higgins (Celtic Researches, 
 p. 196), " the Druids were the only priesthood of peace. Clad 
 in his white canonicals, the Druidic herald presented himself be- 
 tween two armies, and every sword was instantly sheathed." 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 29 
 
 own country, in the apostolic era, we proceed to give an 
 epitome of the events in British history which brought 
 the royal family of Britain into contact with St. Paul at 
 Rome. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Historic Positions of Britain and the Roman Empire at the 
 Commencement of the Christian Era. 
 
 Julius Oesar, in justification of his invasion of Britain, 
 alleges the Britons to have been the aggressors, British 
 levies taking the field against him in every Gallic cam- 
 paign. Those singular collections of cardinal events known 
 as the " Triads of the Isle of Britain," corroborate the 
 statement. Prior to Caesar's campaigns in Northern Gaul, 
 a British army of ^0,000 men, termed in these Triads the 
 " second silver host," under the command of the two 
 nephews of Cassibelaunus, or Caswallon, invaded Aqui- 
 tania, routed the Roman proconsul, Lucius Valerius 
 Praeconinus, at Tolosa, and compelled Lucius Manilius, the 
 consul, to fly with the loss of all his commissariat. On 
 receiving intelligence of these reverses, Caesar turned his 
 arms against the Veneti (Vendeans), who carried on a 
 flourishing commerce with Britain, and whose navy sup- 
 plied the transport for these auxiliaries. As long as the 
 Venetine fleet, which from Caesar's description of it would 
 do no discredit to our present state of nautical architec- 
 ture, remained mistress of the narrow seas, invasion was 
 impracticable. Upon its destruction, Caesar advanced by 
 slow marches to Portius Iccius (Witsand), near Calais, and 
 on the £th of August, B.C. 55, the Roman fleet crossed the 
 Channel in two divisions. This first campaign lasted fifty- 
 five days, during which Caesar failed to advance beyond 
 seven miles from the spot of disembarkation, lost one 
 battle, and had his camp attempted by the victorious 
 enemy, a thing unprecedented in his continental career. 1 
 The second expedition embarked in above a thousand 
 ships, and carrying the army which afterwards completed 
 
 1 Dion Cassius states that Caesar's original intention was to 
 carry the war into the interior, but finding his forces inadequate 
 to cope with the British in the field, he abruptly determined to 
 close the campaign. (Lib. xxxix. p. 115, ed. 1606, fol.) 
 
 30 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 31 
 
 the conquest of the world on the fields of Pharsalia and 
 Munda, set sail from Witsand May 10, B.C. ^4. The cam- 
 paign lasted till September 10, when peace was concluded 
 at Gwerddlan (Verulam, or St. Albans), the furthest point 
 (70 miles) from the coast Caesar had been able to attain. 
 The conditions are not particularized in either the Triads 
 or Commentaries. Hostages and a tribute are mentioned 
 by Caesar, but it is certain from numerous passages in the 
 Augustan authors that no Briton of eminence left the 
 island a hostage or prisoner. On the conclusion of the 
 treaty, Caesar moved from Verulam to London, where he 
 was entertained at the Bryn Gwyn (white mount 2 ) by 
 Cassibelaunus, the British pendragon, or military dictator, 
 with a magnificence which appears to have found great 
 favour in the eyes of the ancient Bards, who record it with 
 great exactness. Leaving not a Roman soldier behind, 
 
 2 The old belief that part of the Tower of London was built by 
 Julius Caesar is known to every one; and the White Tower was 
 pointed out as the part. " The White Tower " appears a version 
 of the original British name Bryn Gwyn, but whether Caesar was 
 lodged therein, or laid its foundation-stone, or was never at all 
 entertained in London, there seems to us to be so much good 
 sense in the sentiments put by Shakespeare on this point in the 
 mouth of the young King Edward V, that we make no apology 
 for transcribing them: — 
 " Vrince Edward. Did Julius Caesar build the Tower, my lord ? 
 Gloucester. He did. my gracious liege, begin that place; which 
 
 since succeeding ages have re-edified. 
 Pr. Ed. Is it upon record, or else reported 
 
 Successively from age to age he built it? 
 Glo. Upon record, my gracious lord. 
 Pr. Ed. But say, my lord, it were not registered; 
 
 Methinks the truth should live from age to age, 
 As 'twere entailed to all posterity, 
 Even to the general all-ending day. 
 Glo. So wise, so young! 
 
 I say, without characters, fame lives long." 
 
 King Richard III, act. iii, sc. 1. 
 
32 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 Caesar disembarked his forces at Rutupium, at ten at night, 
 and arrived at Witsand by daybreak the next morning, 
 September 20, B.C. 54. 
 
 The tests of the success or non-success of a campaign 
 are its effects. The effects of the second Julian invasion 
 demonstrate that both at Rome and in Gaul it was con- 
 sidered a more serious failure than the first. The line 
 quoted by Lucan — 
 
 " Territa qu&sitis ostendit terga Britannus*" — 
 
 as a common sarcasm in the mouths of the Pompeian 
 party against Caesar, may be thrown aside as the invidious 
 exaggeration of the defeat on the Darent, and the loss of 
 his sword to Nennius, the brother of Caswallon; but it is 
 undeniable that the invasion cost Caesar for a time the loss 
 of all his continental acquisitions. Before he could dispose 
 of his troops in winter quarters, the Treviro, Eburones, 
 Senones, and Sicambri rose in arms, and the work of Gallic 
 conquest had to be re-enacted. 
 
 To estimate aright the military abilities of Caswallon, 
 and the resources of the British people at this period of 
 the first collision of our island with the continent, it 
 should be borne in mind that they were engaged against 
 perhaps the ablest general of antiquity, heading an army 
 to which, either before or after the invasion, France, Spain, 
 Western Germany, Africa, Egypt, Asia, and finally Rome 
 itself succumbed; the conquerors, in fact, of Europe, Asia, 
 and Africa, and the real founders of the imperial dynasty 
 of the Caesars. The double repulsion of the Julian expedi- 
 tion by the ancient Britons has never received due weight 
 
 3 Aulus Gellius wrote an account of Caesar's invasion of Britain. 
 He commemorates a British cry which seems to have produced a 
 very lively impression on the Roman mind — " Horribilis ille 
 Britannorum clamor, Tori pen i Caisar " (' Off with Caesar's head '). 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 33 
 
 or consideration. It yet remains unparalleled in British 
 history. 
 
 Barbarism is a very indefinite term. To the Greeks and 
 Romans all other nations were in common parlance 
 " barbarians," by which was meant no more than 
 " foreigners." If popular amusements are to be taken as 
 the test, the Romans were themselves the most barbarous 
 of the nations of Europe. The Coliseum is the gigantic 
 evidence of the race of human wolves which they not 
 unaptly considered themselves to be. When the brutal 
 sports of the gladiators were proposed to be introduced at 
 Athens, even the Cynic philosopher cried out, " We must 
 first pull down the statue to Mercy which our forefathers 
 erected fifteen hundred years ago." A similar gulf separa- 
 ted the British from the Roman temper, and the accounts 
 of the latter people with regard to the former must be 
 received with much the same caution as those of the 
 modern enemies of the same reserved and incommunica- 
 tive insular race. Boadicea, in her oration as given by 
 Dion Cassius, observes, that though Britain had been for 
 a century open to the continent, yet its language, philo- 
 sophy, and usages continued as great a mystery as ever 
 to the Romans themselves; and the same remark, with 
 little modification, applies still. All the evidences supplied 
 by Caesar refute the notion of material barbarism. Agri- 
 culture was universal, corn everywhere abundant, pastur- 
 age a distinct branch of national wealth, the population 
 so thick as to excite his astonishment — " infinita multi- 
 tudo hominum " — the surest and most satisfactory proof 
 of a sound social state and ample means of sustenance. 4 
 
 4 " Hominum infinita multitude " is Caesar's expression. 
 Diodorus calls Britain TroXvavOpwn-ov vrjaov. In a.d. no. 
 Ptolemy enumerates fifty-six cities; later, Marcianus fifty-nine, 
 7roAei? i^tcrrjfjLov^ British architects were in great demand 
 on the Continent. " Redundabat Britannia artificibus," states 
 Eumenius in his era. 
 
34 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 The points which appear to have originated the idea of 
 barbarism connected in some minds with the ancient 
 Britons are, that they stripped to fight, which every 
 Briton, every British schoolboy continues to do, and no 
 other nation does; and, secondly, that they tattooed their 
 bodies with various devices in deep blue lines, a practice 
 which the British sailor cherishes in all its original free- 
 dom, and from which probably he will never be weaned, 
 for these immemorial usages seemed rooted in something 
 much deeper than taste or imitation. Our soldiers also 
 still retain the propensity of getting rid of every accoutre- 
 ment and incumbrance in battle, and of charging as naked 
 as military regulations will allow them. Yet it would be 
 ridiculous to term our sailors and soldiers barbarians in 
 the modern sense of the word because they continue in 
 these respects to be " true blue ancient Briton." In all 
 the solid essentials of humanity our British ancestors will 
 compare to great advantage with the best eras of Greece 
 or Rome. In war the Briton, after the Julian invasions, 
 walked the streets of Rome the only freeman in Europe, 
 pointed at as the exception to the world: — 
 
 " Invictus Romano Marte Britannus." 5 
 
 For ninety-seven years no Roman again ventured to set 
 hostile foot on the island, and when the eagle of Romulus 
 once more expanded its pinions to the stormy winds of 
 
 5 Tibullus. Horace implies that the Briton had scarcely been 
 touched by Caesar's campaigns: — 
 
 " Intactus aut Britannus ut descenderet 
 Sacra catenatus via." 
 
 In another Ode he writes, that nothing but the conquest of 
 Britain was wanting to make Augustus " presens divus in terris," 
 Od, lib. iii. 5. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 35 
 
 ocean, it was when no other enemy, unconquered, con- 
 fronted its gaze from the Euphrates to Gibraltar, and the 
 forces of the whole empire were ready to follow its lead- 
 ing against the solitary free nationality of the West. 
 
 Caswallon, the able antagonist of Caesar, reigned after 
 the invasion seven years. Augustus Caesar succeeded 
 Julius B.C. 30. Henceforth Rome is to be regarded as the 
 unity of the continent of Europe, Northern Africa, and 
 Asia, in action from a central court under a series of 
 autocrats rarely swerving from the imperial policy laid 
 down by the Julian family. Augustus sent ambassadors to 
 Britain demanding the restoration of the three Reguli of 
 the Coritani, or Coraniaid, Dumno, Belaunus, and Jer- 
 nian, to their estates, confiscated for treason. Tenuantius, 
 the son of Caswallon, a mild, pacific monarch, had sent 
 his two sons, Cynvelin and Llyr (Lear), to be educated at 
 Rome, where they were brought up with his nephews in 
 his palace by Augustus himself, who made a rule, as 
 Suetonius informs us, of teaching the younger branches 
 of his family in person. Cynvelin subsequently served in 
 the German campaigns under Germanicus. He had now 
 succeeded his father, and received the Roman ambassadors 
 with courtesy, but peremptorily rejected the interference 
 of a foreign potentate in the affairs of the island. Augustus 
 moved half the disposable forces of the empire to the 
 Gallic harbours on the Channel, but he never entertained 
 serious intentions of an invasion. Cynvelin concentrated 
 his army at Dover. A British fleet, as we learn from Dion 
 Cassius, swept the Channel. The preparations of Augustus, 
 tardily urged, indicated that prudential motives had al- 
 ready superseded the suggestions of pride. He had never 
 conducted his campaigns in person, and where the genius 
 of Julius had been baffled, inferior skill was likely to incur 
 nought but disgrace and disaster. A reverse, as Horace 
 had the courage to warn him (Ode 35, lib. v.), would be 
 
36 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 followed by a rising of the oligarchic faction in Italy. 
 Cynvelin was not slow to take advantage of this reluc- 
 tancy. A conference with the imperial friend and tutor 
 of his youth was solicited. The result was the triumph 
 of British diplomacy, a much rarer success than that of the 
 British arms. Not only did the emperor abandon his de- 
 mands, but the heavy duties previously levied on British 
 goods were reduced to a very light tariff (Strabo, lib. iv. 
 c. 5). Friendly relations were restored. British nobles 
 again took up their residence at Rome, and were to be 
 seen dedicating their offerings at the shrines of the 
 Capitol. 
 
 Cymbeline, or Cynvelin, after a reign of thirty-five years, 
 was succeeded by his eldest son Cuiderius (Gwyddyr), his 
 younger, Arviragus (Gweyrydd), receiving the dukedom 
 of Cornwall (Cernyw), which by the British laws was a 
 dukedom royal. The numerous coins of Cynvelin (Cuno- 
 belinus) which remain in our days, are the only monu- 
 ments we possess of a national mint in Western Europe 
 apart from that of Rome. The horse, sometimes thought 
 to be introduced as a national emblem by the Saxons, is 
 one of the most common types upon them, Britain being 
 long before the reign of Cymbeline famous for its breed 
 of steeds, and the daring and accomplishments of its 
 charioteers. 
 
 We now enter the times contemporary with St. Paul. 
 
 As the central figure in the group of the historic 
 characters we are about to portray is Caradoc, king of 
 Siluria, we are called upon to notice somewhat at large his 
 birth and character. 6 
 
 It is a matter of wonder and indignation how few 
 
 6 The accent in the British language is invariably on the penult 
 — Caradoc, Cynvelin, Taliesin, Llewelyn, &c. The Romans latin- 
 ized Caradoc by Caractacus, the Greeks hellenized it more 
 correctly by Caratacos. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 37 
 
 patriotic heroes the long annals of history present to our 
 view. One in a century is not to be found. Turning over 
 the pages which record the aggressions of the Romans on 
 various nations, we inquire in vain for the most part for 
 heroes to confront them. When we have named a 
 Viriathus for Spain, a Hannibal for Carthage, an Arminius 
 or Herman for Germany, a Mithridates for Asia, we have 
 exhausted the catalogue of three continents. Britain is 
 here also an exception to the world, for it shews an al- 
 most uninterrupted succession of patriots of the highest 
 order, from Caswallon and Caradoc, through the Arthurs 
 and Cadwallos, to the Wallaces and Glyndores of the 
 Norman period. Nor have we any wars on record so 
 long and stubborn as those which were waged, first be- 
 tween the Britons and the Romans, and secondly between 
 the same Britons and the Saxons with other Teuton tribes, 
 after the fall of the great empire. But Caradoc stands forth 
 pre-eminently as the ideal of what a patriot in the field 
 should be. With Arminius the last spark of liberty had 
 expired on the Continent. Northern Africa had finally 
 been incorporated, by the arms of Suetonius, Paulinus, 
 and Cneius Geta, into the Roman empire. Gaul, Spain, 
 Southern Germany, Italy, Eastern Europe, and Asia as far 
 as the Euphrates enjoyed profound peace and no small 
 amount of material prosperity under the enormous 
 shadow of the Roman Capitol. The Caesars were seated, 
 firm as the seven hills themselves, on the throne. East 
 and west, north and south, there was no enemy to be 
 encountered; all was subjection and repose. The formid- 
 able armies of the imperial state hung up their shields for 
 lack of a foe, or were employed in the formation of the 
 numerous military roads which radiated like a network 
 from Rome to Finisterre and Calais westward, and to 
 the shores of the Persian Gulf eastward. It was in truth 
 the grandest and most magnificent of empires, the extent 
 
38 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 of which, though embracing 1,600,000 sq. miles, and a 
 population of 120,000,000 of Caucasian or semi-Caucasian 
 blood, was its least glory. Nothing has risen like it since. 
 Its mere fragments have sufficed for modern kingdoms. 
 Countries ruled by proconsuls now term their rulers 
 emperors. Fertile and well-cultivated, not only were these 
 countries situated in the healthiest part of the temperate 
 zone, but they teemed with all the materials of the finest 
 soldiery, with all the resources of inexhaustible physical 
 wealth. " Urbs Roma orbs humana " was no unfounded 
 boast, for within the circumference of the empire were 
 contained almost every land and race that had contributed 
 to the civilization and progress of humanity. All the ap- 
 pliances of this vast unity of law and arms were at the 
 command of one despot, and were now about to be moved 
 towards the northern harbours of Gaul for the invasion of 
 the only unconquered land of the ancient civilization. 
 
 One army and one general constituted the force which 
 Caswallon was called upon to resist; but Caradoc was 
 summoned by the voice of his country to take the field 
 against an empire pouring forth a succession of armies in 
 the highest state of discipline, under a succession of able 
 and experienced commanders. This is the first time Britain 
 was matched against the world in arms, and right nobly 
 did the little island acquit herself. 
 
 Bran, or Brennus, the father of Caradoc, was the son 
 of Llyr, brother of Cynvelin, surnamed Llyr Llediaith, 
 from the foreign accent imparted to the pronunciation of 
 his native tongue by his education under Augustus at 
 Rome. During threatened invasion of Augustus he com- 
 manded the British fleet in the Channel. Augustus was 
 succeeded by Tiberius Claudius Caesar, and Tiberius by 
 Caligula, a.d. 37, a year marked by the births of Nero, 
 Josephus the Jewish historian, and Julius Agricola, the 
 future commander of the Roman forces in Britain. The 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 39 
 
 tranquility pervading the empire instigated Caligula to 
 renew the attempts at a conquest which the first and 
 second Caesars had either failed to achieve, or prudently 
 bequeathed to their successors. The character, however, 
 of this emperor, compounded of mania and vice, left a 
 memorable stamp of ridicule upon the whole expedition. 
 The armies of Gaul and the Rhine rendezvoused at 
 Boulogne. A Roman flotilla collected from the Spanish 
 ports was moored, ostensibly prepared to embark the 
 troops, in the Seine. The appearance, however, of a 
 British fleet under Arviragus disconcerted and put an ab- 
 rupt end to the enterprize, if indeed it was ever seriously 
 meditated. Caligula, who felt a morbid gratification in 
 burlesqueing the most momentous measures of state, and 
 scandalizing his subjects by the maddest freaks of im- 
 perial caprice, held a grand review of his splendid expe- 
 ditionary force on the sands at Boulogne. At its termina- 
 tion, ascending the tribunal, he expiated on the glory 
 which already encircled his brow as one who had led his 
 troops like Bacchus, Hercules, and Sesostris, to the con- 
 fines of the earth-surrounding ocean. He asked if such 
 renown ought to be jeopardized by an armed exploration 
 of an island which nature itself had removed beyond the 
 power and jurisdiction of the gods of Rome, and which 
 the campaigns of the deified Caesar himself had only suc- 
 ceeded in pointing out to the wonder of the continental 
 world. "Let us, my comrades," he continued, adopting 
 the well known phrase of the great Julius (commilitones), 
 " leave these Britons unmolested. To war beyond the 
 bounds of nature is not courage, but impiety. Let us 
 rather load ourselves with the bloodless spoils of the 
 Atlantic ocean which the same beneficient goddess of 
 nature pours on these sands so lavishly at our feet. 
 Follow the example of your emperor — behold," he added, 
 suiting the action to the word, " I wreathe for laurel this 
 
40 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 garland of green sea-weed around my immortal brow, and 
 for spolia optima I fill my helm with these smooth and 
 brilliant shells. Decorated with these we will return to 
 Rome, and, instead of a British king, Neptune and Nereus, 
 the gods of ocean themselves, shall follow captives to the 
 Capitol behind our triumphal car. To each of you, my 
 fellow soldiers in this arduous enterprize, I promise a 
 gratuity of a year's extra stipend in merited acknowledg- 
 ment of your services and fidelity to your emperor." 
 
 This singular harangue, which we are tempted to regard 
 as the practical sarcasm of a despot not altogether insane 
 on the ambition of the whole race of conquerors, was 
 welcomed with thunders of acclamation. The projected 
 expedition had been from the first viewed with extreme 
 distaste by the soldiery, and despite the indignation openly 
 expressed by the officers, they did not hesitate to give 
 vent to their satisfaction, and, with military jests and 
 peals of laughter, imitate the example of their imperial 
 master. The British fleet gazed with astonishment on these 
 bronzed and mail-clad veterans disporting themselves in 
 the childish amusement of collecting shells on the sea- 
 shore. The camp was broken up, and Caligula entered 
 Rome in triumphal procession, with his army, on his 
 birthday, August 31, a.d. 40. He was assassinated next 
 year, in the 29th year of his age (January 24th), and suc- 
 ceeded by Claudius, then in his 50th year. 
 
 The father of Tiberius Claudius Caesar was Drusus 
 Claudius Nero, elevated first to the quaestorship, then to 
 the praetorship, subsequently appointed to conduct the 
 Rhaetian and German campaigns. He was the first Roman 
 commander that navigated in force the German Ocean. 
 He carried his arms to the centre of Germany, and is 
 stated by Suetonius to have been deterred from further 
 advance by the sudden apparition on his march of a 
 female of more than mortal stature and beauty, bidding 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 41 
 
 him halt the Roman banners where she appeared. He died 
 suddenly, not without suspicion of foul play, in the Castra 
 ^Estiva, thence called Scelerata, whilst preparing to extend 
 his conquests in another direction. His body was con- 
 veyed from town to town, and buried with state honours, 
 Augustus himself pronouncing the funeral panegyric, in 
 the Campus Martius at Rome. Nearly connected as he was 
 with the Caesars, Drusus remained to the last a stern re- 
 publican. He left three children, Germanicus, Livilla, and 
 Claudius; the last born at Lyons. The infancy, childhood, 
 and youth of the future emperor were spent under the 
 strictest state of surveillance. He was regarded as but one 
 remove from an idiot. M He is as imbecile as my son 
 Claudius " was an ordinary phrase in his mother Livia's 
 mouth when she wished to imply an extraordinary degree 
 of stupidity. His appearance did not belie his character. 
 Tall and full in person, and possessed, when seated, of the 
 external show of dignity, in motion his knees shook, his 
 head perpetually trembled, his tongue stuttered, his 
 laughter was outrageously violent, and his anger marked 
 by profuse foaming at the mouth. Cruel and bloodthirsty 
 by nature, as indeed every Roman was, he insisted on 
 being present whenever any criminal was put to the 
 torture. He never failed to give the sign of " no quarter " 
 against disabled gladiators, and delighted with a horrible 
 voracity to gloat over the dying expression of their faces. 
 He sat from morning to night, neglecting the ordinary 
 hours of refreshment, at the bestiaria, or combats of wild 
 beasts, and yet personally was the rankest and most con- 
 temptible of cowards. He never attended an invitation 
 except surrounded by guards, who searched every guest 
 before he entered the apartment, a precaution exercised 
 on every citizen who accosted him. In many points there 
 exists a strong resemblance between Claudius and our 
 James the First — both were addicted to the lowest com- 
 
42 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 panions and buffoonery, both were poltroons, both coarse 
 gourmands, and both were pedants of the deepest dye. 
 Yet it must be confessed that the loss of the work of 
 Claudius on the Races and Antiquities of Primitive Italy 
 is one that can never be replaced, the few fragments we 
 possess evincing it to have been a mine of undigested, but 
 very valuable and authentic matter. 
 
 Let us with the Roman emperor contrast the British 
 patriot. Caractacus was born at Trevran, the seat of his 
 father Bran, within the present parish of Llanilid, in 
 Glamorganshire. He received his education at the Druidic 
 cor of Caerleon-on-Usk, where most of the Silurian 
 nobility were trained in the cycle of Celtic accomplish- 
 ments. Of these, oratory was one of the chief, and we 
 possess in the speech of the British king before Claudius 
 a fair specimen of the bold, free, terse style inculcated in 
 these ancient national colleges. Allusion is made in it to 
 a long line of illustrious ancestors — " clari majores." It 
 sounds strange to persons accustomed to think a Norman 
 pedigree, dating from a.d. 1066, ancient, to hear this 
 British king, a thousand years before, face to face with a 
 Roman emperor, and in the heart of the Capitol deliver 
 himself proudly of a royal lineage, the fount of which, 
 like that of the Nile, was lost in its very remoteness. In 
 the clan times, however, the preservation of a pedigree 
 meant the preservation of all that was valuable in blood, 
 station, and property. Without it a man was an outlaw; 
 he had no clan, consequently no legal rights or status. 
 Genealogies were guarded, therefore, with extreme 
 jealousy, and recorded with painful exactitude by the 
 herald-bards of each clan. On the public reception, at the 
 age of fifteen, of a child into the clan, his family genealogy 
 was proclaimed, and all challengers of it commanded to 
 come forward. Pedigree and inheritance, indeed, were so 
 identified in the ancient British code, that an heir even in 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 43 
 
 the ninth descent could redeem at a jury valuation any 
 portion of an hereditary estate from which necessity had 
 compelled his forefathers to part. As the succession of 
 these clari majores may be interesting to the antiquary, 
 we extract it from the Pantliwydd Manuscripts of Llan- 
 sannor : — 
 
 " Genealogy of Carddoc. Caradoc ab Bran Fendigaid, 
 ab Llyr Llediaith, ab Baran, ab Ceri Hirlyn Gwyn, ab 
 Caid, ab Arch, ab Meirion, ab Ceraint, ab Greidiol, ab 
 Dingad, ab Anyn, ab Alafon, ab Brywlais, ab Ceraint 
 Feddw, ab Berwyn, ab Morgan, ab Bleddyn, ab Rhun, ab 
 Idwal, ab Llywarch, ab Calchwynydd, ab Enir Fardd, ab 
 Ithel, ab Llarian, ab Teuged, ab Llyfeinydd, ab Peredur, ab 
 Gweyrydd, ab Ithon, ab Cymryw, ab Brwt, ab Selys Hen, 
 ab Annyn Tro, ab Brydain, ab Aedd Mawr." 
 
 Reckoning thirty years for a generation, this pedigree 
 carries us back 1,080 years, that is, 330 years before the 
 foundation of Rome. Not all of these ancestors have 
 escaped the reprobation of the blunt Bardic chroniclers — 
 one of them especially, Ceraint Feddw, is stigmatized as 
 an irreclaimable drunkard, deposed by his subjects for 
 setting fire just before harvest to the corn lands of Siluria. 
 In the year a.d. 36, Bran resigned the Silurian crown to 
 Caradoc, and became Arch-Druid of the college of Siluria, 
 where he remained till called upon to be a hostage for his 
 son. At the period of his accession Caradoc had three 
 sons, Cyllin or Cyllinus, Lleyn or Linus, and Cynon, and 
 two daughters, Eurgain and Gladys, or Claudia. 
 
 In July, a.d. 42, a British embassy arrived at Rome from 
 Guiderius, complaining of the encouragement extended by 
 the Emperor to the intrigues of Beric and Adminius, two 
 reguli of the Brigantes and Coritani, who, in consequence 
 of being detected in a treasonable correspondence with 
 Caligula during the late menaced invasion, had been 
 banished by Britain. Claudius had powerful reasons for 
 
44 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 declining to receive the ambassadors. The invasion of 
 Britain had been already decided upon, and the Roman 
 forces were collecting at the usual rendezvous at Boulogne. 
 
 Whatever the deficiencies of the Emperor himself might 
 be, at no time were the great offices of state filled by men 
 of higher administrative capacity, or better able to wield 
 the vast military resources of the empire. Aulus Plautius, 
 a general who emulated the Scipios in the rigour of his 
 discipline and the rapidity of his marches, was appointed 
 to the command of the army of invasion. The fleet and 
 transports collected were too numerous and well appoin- 
 ted for the British naval force to cope with, and it accord- 
 ingly returned to Torbay. This obstacle was no sooner re- 
 moved, than another, quite unparalleled in the annals of 
 Roman obedience, arose. The army refused to embark, 
 and broke into open mutiny. Appeals to their sacraments, 
 or military oaths of allegiance, failed to move them, the 
 only response they elicited being, " We will march any- 
 where in the world, but not out of it." The lapse of ninety 
 years had not extinguished the memory of the Julian cam- 
 paigns, the sanguinary disembarkation on the Walmer 
 beach, the stubborn battle-fields, and the terrible chariot- 
 charges. Intelligence of this alarming state of things soon 
 reached Rome, and Claudius at once despatched his 
 favourite freedman and minister, Narcissus, to the scene 
 of disaffection. Convening the army, Narcissus, whose 
 failings were not those of moral or physical cowardice, 
 mounted the general's tribune and commenced his 
 harangue. It was the first time a eunuch had ever dared 
 to address Roman soldiers. Stupefaction and indignation 
 for a time kept the legions dumb, but when he exclaimed 
 " He would himself lead them into Britain," a universal 
 shout of execration arose, and rushing to the tent of 
 Plautius, they called upon him to give the signal for em- 
 barkation. Taking instant advantage of this change of 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 45 
 
 temper, Plautius embarked the army in three divisions, 
 and landed two days afterwards at Rutupium, or Ynys 
 Ruthin, between Thanet and Richborough. 
 
 From Dover to Holyhead ran the British causeway, 
 constructed by Dyfnwal and his son, Beli the Great, B.C. 
 400, called Sam Wyddelin, or the Irish Road, Wyddelin 
 being the British term for ' Irish.' The corruption into 
 Watling Street is not great. Along the Sarn Wyddelin 
 Caesar had directed his march, and Plautius moved his 
 forces on the same line. He found the British army drawn 
 up under Guiderius and Caradoc at Southfleet, across the 
 Sarn on the flat between the Kentish hills and the Thames. 
 The action terminated in the Britons falling back to Wim- 
 bledon Heath, where a second battle was fought, in which 
 Guiderius fell. He was succeeded on the throne by his 
 brother Arviragus, but the national emergency requiring 
 the establishment of the pendragonate, or military dic- 
 tatorship, Caradoc was unanimously elected to that high 
 office, Arviragus giving his vote first in his favour, and 
 consenting to act under him. Caradoc withdrew his forces 
 across the Thames at Chertsey, Plautius following along 
 the Sarn, now called " The Devil's Causeway." In attempt- 
 ing to force the passage of the Thames at Kingston, the 
 Roman general was thrice foiled. He then proceeded to 
 Silchester, by means of his German cavalry defeated a 
 British division at Nettlebed, in Oxfordshire, and return- 
 ing by a forced march to Wallingford, crossed the Thames 
 there, after a desperate resistance. Dion Cassius, the Greek 
 historian, gives a vivid description of the action. The 
 Romans, led by Plautius, Flavius Vespasian, the future 
 emperor, and his brother, entered the river in three 
 columns, whilst the German cavalry swam it lower down, 
 and assailed the British position in flank. But the British 
 stupidity, which never knows when it is beaten, appears 
 to be of very old date. Dion states the contest continued 
 
46 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 with slight intermissions for two whole days on the 
 northern side, and that the defeat of Caradoc was eventu- 
 ally effected by a daring mancevre on his flank and rear 
 made by Cneius Geta, the conqueror of Mauritania, who 
 was rewarded for it, though he had not yet attained the 
 consular dignity, with the honours of a triumph. It tells 
 well for the abilities of Caradoc that in this first battle as 
 pendragon he was able to hold his ground for two days 
 of incessant fighting against three such generals as 
 Plautius, Vespasian, and Geta. Undismayed, he collected 
 his forces again, and Plautius, on attempting to follow 
 him, was so roughly handled that messages were sent to 
 Rome for instructions and reinforcements. Claudius him- 
 self immediately quitted Rome, and passing through Gaul, 
 landed at Richborough, with the second and fourteenth 
 legions, their auxiliaries, and a cohors of elephants 
 brought over for the express purpose of neutralizing the 
 British chariot-charges. He effected a junction with 
 Plautius at Verulam. Beric and Adminius had accompanied 
 him, and, as had been previously arranged, the two states 
 of the Iceni and Coritani, or Coraniaid, on their making 
 their appearance among them, rose in arms and pro- 
 claimed their alliance with the invaders, Caradoc had 
 thus the Romans in front and an insurgent country in the 
 rear. Dion terms Caer Col, or Colchester, the basileion or 
 royal residence of Cynvelin. It was known at this period 
 as Comulodunum, the city of Camul, an Umbric or Cym- 
 ric term for the God of War. 7 In its defence Caradoc 
 fought two more battles— the first at Coxall Knolls, and 
 the second at Brandon camp, on the Teme. In this latter 
 the horses of the British chariots, the odour of elephants 
 being insupportable to this animal, gave way in all direc- 
 tions, and Caradoc suffered his first decisive defeat. Col- 
 
 7 "Camulo Deo Sancto et Fortissimo." — Umbrian altar inscrip- 
 tion. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 47 
 
 Chester in a few days surrendered. A treaty was con- 
 cluded, known as the Claudian treaty, by which it was 
 stipulated that the Coranidae and Iceni, on the payment of 
 a certain amount of tribute, should, under the Roman pro- 
 tectorate, be guaranteed their land, laws, and native 
 government. Claudius is said to have promised also his 
 natural daughter, Venus Julia, called in the British 
 accounts Venissa, to Arviragus. The alliance in after years 
 took place, and Arviragus built Caer Gloyw, or Gloucester, 
 in honour of his imperial father-in-law. Claudius left the 
 further prosecution of the war to his generals, and, re- 
 turning to Rome, celebrated his triumph with signal mag- 
 nificence — the more impressive from the humility dis- 
 played by himself in ascending the steps of the Capitol 
 on his knees, supported on either side by his sons-in-law. 
 But the war had in reality only just begun. Caradoc, hav- 
 ing carried fire and sword through the territories of the 
 revolted tribes, transferred hostilities from the champaigns 
 of the eastern counties to the hilly districts of the south- 
 west. Here he proceeded to levy and arm fresh forces. It 
 is instructive to study the movements on both sides, for 
 never was war carried on with greater energy and 
 laboriousness. Plautius marched against the pendragon by 
 land, whilst Vespasian was dispatched with the Roman 
 fleet to effect a landing at Torbay. Geta was left at Col- 
 chester, his legions commencing the construction of that 
 celebrated line of fortresses which extended from the head 
 of the fens, now forming the Isle of Ely, to Gloucester. 
 This immense work, the object of which was to mark off 
 southern Britain at once as a Roman province, was carried 
 on day and night with the usual indefatigability and 
 science of the Roman service. Castra after castra rose, 
 each as completed being occupied by its appropriate 
 garrison, and the British pendragon heard at the same 
 time of the rising of the formidable circumvallation in his 
 
48 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 rear, of the advance of Plautius on his flank, and the dis- 
 embarkation of Vespasion in his front. Devonshire (Dyv- 
 naint, the deep vales), Dorset (the water land), and Somer- 
 set (Gwlad yr hav, summer land), were, however, admir- 
 ably adapted for the display of British intrepidity and 
 tactics. The camps, Roman and British, pitched at almost 
 regular intervals in hostile frontage of each other over 
 the whole surface of these counties, bespeak better than 
 any history the desperate and long-sustained character of 
 the campaigns which now ensued. In the art of castra- 
 metation we fail to detect any evidence of scientific 
 superiority on the part of the invaders, it appears to us to 
 be, if anywhere, on the British side, especially in the ram- 
 parts and in the strength of the approaches. But it is cer- 
 tain that both the British and Roman soldier must have 
 been in the highest condition of military discipline before 
 earthworks necessitating such labour to construct and 
 such vigilence to defend could have been carried out as 
 part of the ordinary drill of the day. The ' navvy ' power 
 displayed in them is not unworthy of the present century. 
 Here the war rolled backward and forward for seven 
 years, absorbing during that time the almost undivided 
 military interest of the Roman world; for, with the ex- 
 ception of the rebellion, soon crushed out by Corbulo, in 
 Armenia, the British pendragon was bearing the whole 
 brunt of the arms of the empire, under a series of its 
 finest generals. In these seven years, according to 
 Suetonius thirty, according to Eutropius thirty-two battles 
 were fought. The central camp of Plautius was fixed 
 between Silbury Hill and Amesbury, that of Vespasian 
 and his son Titus on Hampden Hill, near Ilchester, the 
 area of which was able to accommodate 100,000 men. On 
 the ground now forming a farm called Conquest-farm, 
 Bishops Lydiard, near a smaller camp of twenty acres, 
 Arviragus sustained a total defeat by Vespasian, who pro- 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 49 
 
 ceeded to invest Caer Use (Exeter). On the eighth day of 
 the siege he was surprised in his intrenchments by 
 Caradoc and Arviragus, and routed with great slaughter. 
 Titus had on this occasion the glory of saving his father's 
 life. The British attack was so sudden that Vespasian was 
 on the point of being slain in his tent, when Titus, divin- 
 ing his father's danger, charged his captors at the head of 
 the first cohort of the fourteenth legion, and rescued him 
 from their hands. 8 
 
 Plautius, Vespasian, Geta, and Titus were successively 
 recalled. We cannot do better than use the significant 
 language of Tacitus in describing the fluctuations of the 
 war, victory hovering now over the Romans, now over 
 the British standards: — "The Silures reposed unbounded 
 confidence in Caractacus, enumerating the many drawn 
 battles he had fought with the Romans, the many victories 
 he had obtained over them." 9 The passionate attachment, 
 indeed, of his countrymen to their high-souled and in- 
 corruptible compatriot is abundantly evidenced by the 
 fond allusions to him in their ancient Triads. " Three have 
 been," declare these records, " our hero-kings — Cynvelin, 
 Caradoc, Arthur. Except by treachery they could not be 
 overthrown." M Three have been the chief battle-kings of 
 the Isle of Britain — Caswallon, son of Beli; Arviragus, son 
 of Cynvelin; Caradoc, son of Bran." " Caradoc, son of 
 Bran, whom every Briton, from the king to the peasant, 
 followed when he lifted his spear to battle." 
 
 But we must draw his military career, which is but in- 
 directly connected with this essay, to a close. On the 
 recall of Plautius, who had married Gladys (Pomponia 
 
 8 " In Britannia circumdato a barbaris Vespasiano et in extreme-, 
 periculo versante Titus Alius ejus patri metuens coronam hostium 
 incredibili audacia disjecit." — Suetonius in Vita Vespas.; Dion Cass., 
 lib. ix. 
 
 9 Taciti Annal., lib. ii. c. 24. The era of Tacitus was ajd. 80. 
 
50 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 Graecina), the sister of Caractacus, a truce was concluded 
 for six months, during which must be fixed the visit of 
 the British chief to Rome. What credence to attach to 
 the British story in the Iolo MSS., which represents him 
 as appearing before the senate, and stating that he had 
 ordered "every tree in Siluria to be felled, that the 
 Romans might no longer allege it was the British forests, 
 and not British valour, which baffled him," we hardly 
 know. It is in accordance with his character, which we 
 recognise also in the anecdote recorded by Dion. " When 
 Caractacus," says that historian, " was shewn the public 
 buildings of Rome, he observed, ' It is singular a people 
 possessed of such magnificence at home should envy me 
 my soldier's tent in Britain.' " On the expiration of the 
 truce and the return of Caradoc to his command, Ostorius 
 Scapula, with the Plautian line of fortresses for his base 
 of operations, proceeded to carry the war westward. Sup- 
 ported by the Silures and Ordovicians, the fierce indomit- 
 able mountaineers, whom the Roman arms never suc- 
 ceeded in subduing, the Pendragon contested every 
 advance of the invaders. Around Caer Essylt (the Here- 
 ford Beacon) a succession of encounters took place for 
 six months. The winter did not interrupt hostilities. A 
 Roman division which had penetrated as far as Caerleon 
 was cut to pieces. Ostorius, in the next campaign, fixed 
 his headquarters at Castra Ostorii, in Dinder, Hereford- 
 shire, now ludicrously corrupted into " Oyster Hill." 
 Towards the end of the campaign, in the autumn of a.d. 
 £2, the battle which terminated the career of Caradoc in 
 the field was fought close to the confines of the Teme and 
 the Clune in Shropshire. The Roman victory was com- 
 plete. 10 The wife of Caradoc and his daughter Gladys fell 
 into the hands of the conquerors, and were conveyed to 
 the castra at Urechean (Uriconium, Wrekin). Caradoc 
 10 Taciti Annal., lib. xii. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 51 
 
 himself took refuge, at her repeated solicitations, at Caer 
 Evroc (York), with Aregwedd, or Aricia, the Cartismandua 
 of Tacitus, queen of the Brigantes, and grand-niece of the 
 infamous traitor in the Julian war, Mandubratius, or 
 Avarwy. Here by her orders, with hereditary treachery, 
 he was seized while asleep in her palace, loaded with 
 fetters, and delivered to Ostorius Scapula. On intelligence 
 of the event, Claudius ordered him and all the captive 
 family to be sent to Rome. The British Triads com- 
 memorate this captivity of the royal Silurian family in 
 their quaint fashion. " There were three royal families 
 that were conducted to prison, from the great-great- 
 grandfather to the great-grandchildren, without permitting 
 one of them to escape. First the family of Llyr Llediaith, 
 who were carried to prison at Rome by the Cesaridae . . . 
 Not one or another of these escaped. They were the most 
 complete incarcerations known as to families." The great- 
 great-grandfather on this occasion was Llyr, the father of 
 Bran, who subsequently died at Rome. Bran voluntarily 
 surrendered himself as a hostage. The approach and 
 arrival of Caradoc at Rome are finely described by the 
 ancient historians — 
 
 " Roma catenatum tremuit spectare Britannum 11 ." 
 Since the days of Hannibal and Mithridrates, the only 
 foe worthy the Roman arms entered the Eternal City 
 amidst the excitement of three millions of inhabitants, 
 who blocked up the line of the procession to obtain a 
 view of the formidable and illustrious captive. The 
 Senate was convened. The trial and speech of Caradoc 
 are familiar to every schoolboy. With an unaltered 
 countenance, the hero of forty pitched fields, great in 
 arms, greater in chains, took his position before the tri- 
 bunal of the emperor, and thus delivered himself: — " Had 
 
 u . . . " Rome trembled 
 When she saw the Briton, though fast in chains." 
 
52 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 my government in Britain been directed solely with a 
 view to the preservation of my hereditary domains, or the 
 aggrandizement of my own family, i might long since have 
 entered this city an ally, not a prisoner; nor would you 
 have disdained for a friend a king descended from illus- 
 trious ancestors, and the dictator of many nations. My 
 present condition, stript of its former majesty, is as ad- 
 verse to myself as it is a cause of triumph to you. What 
 then? I was lord of men, horses, arms, wealth: what 
 wonder if at your dictation I refused to resign them? 
 Does it follow, that because the Romans aspire to univer- 
 sal dominion, every nation is to accept the vassalage they 
 would impose? I am now in your power — betrayed, not 
 conquered. Had I, like others, yielded without resistance, 
 where would have been the name of Caradoc? Where 
 your glory? Oblivion would have buried both in the same 
 tomb. Bid me live, I shall survive for ever in history one 
 example at least of Roman clemency." 
 
 Such an address as this, worthy a king, a soldier, and a 
 freeman, had never before been delivered in the Senate. 
 Tacitus thought it worthy to be reported and immortalized 
 by his pen. Its spirit reminded him of the old republican 
 times of the Camilli, the Cincinnati, the Catones; a spirit 
 long since extinct. The custom at those revolting displays 
 of Roman pride and bloodthirstiness called " triumphs," 
 was that at a certain spot on the Sacra Via the captive 
 kings and generals should be removed from the procession, 
 cast into the Tarpeian dungeons, to be there starved to 
 death, strangled, or decapitated, and their dead bodies 
 dragged by hooks into the Tiber. 12 Alas! for the chivalry 
 of heathen warfare. The preservation of Caradoc forms a 
 solitary exception in the long catalogue of victims to this 
 dastardly and nefarious policy; nor can it be accounted 
 
 12 Jugurtha, king of Numidia, went mad during the procession, 
 as he followed the car of his conqueror Marius. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 53 
 
 for, considering the inflexibility of Roman military usage, 
 in any other way than by an immediate and supernatural 
 intervention of Providence, which was leading by the 
 hand to the very palace of the British king at Rome 
 the great Apostle of the Gentiles. The family of Aulus 
 Plautius, indeed, was already connected with that of 
 Caradoc, and an engagement existed between his daughter 
 Gladys and Aulus Rufus Pudens Pudentinus, a young 
 senator of large possessions in Samnium. But their united 
 influences would never have sufficed to alter a fixed law 
 of the Roman state in favour of an enemy that had tasked 
 its utmost prowess and resources for so many years. The 
 defeat at Caer Caradoc and the betrayal of their sovereign 
 had, moreover, served not to intimidate, but to infuriate 
 and rouse to greater efforts, his subjects in Britain. The 
 Silures elected his cousin Arviragus his successor in the 
 pendragonate. The Romans were beaten back across the 
 Severn. Disaster followed disaster. Tacitus, loth to dilate 
 on the misfortunes of the imperial arms, sums up the 
 reverses of the war in a few expressive lines: — "In 
 Britain, after the captivity of Caractacus, the Romans 
 were repeatedly conquered and put to the rout by the 
 single state of the Silures alone." 13 Perhaps this know- 
 ledge, that the execution of Caradoc might still further 
 imperil the Roman states in Britain, and the consideration 
 that clemency might be the wisest policy towards a high- 
 spirited and loyal enemy, dictated the course of Claudius. 
 Be this as it may, the life of Caradoc was spared, on con- 
 dition of his never bearing arms against Rome again. A 
 residence of seven years in free custody (libera custodia) 
 at Rome was imposed upon him. His father Bran was 
 accepted as one of the hostages, and he was allowed the 
 
 13 " In Britannia Romanos post Caractaci captivitatem ab una 
 tantum Silurum civitate saepius victos et profligatos." — Tac. Ann., 
 lib. v. c. 28. 
 
54 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 full enjoyment of the revenues of the royal Silurian 
 domains, forwarded to him by his subjects and council. 
 Gladys, his daughter, was adopted by the Emperor 
 Claudius, and assumed, of course, his family name — 
 Claudia. Caradoc took up his residence in the Palatium 
 Britannicum, on the side of the Mons Sacer, converted 
 afterwards by his grand-daughter, Claudia Pudentiana, into 
 the first Christian Church at Rome, known first as the 
 " Titulus," and now as St. Pudentiana. Here the nuptials 
 of Claudia and Rufus Pudens Pudentinus were celebrated 
 a.d. 53. Four children were the issue of this marriage — 
 St. Timotheus, St. Novatus, St. Pudentiana, St. Praxedes. 
 Of the sons of Caradoc, Cyllinus and Cynon returned to 
 Britain, the former succeeding on his death to the Silurian 
 throne. The second, Lleyn, or Linus, remained with his 
 father, and was, as we shall see subsequently, consecrated 
 by St. Paul first bishop of the Roman Church. 
 
 Martial the epigrammatist was born a.d. 29 : he went 
 to Rome a.d. 49; he left Rome a.d. 86; and died at his 
 native place, Bilbilis in Spain, a.d. 104, aged 75. As far 
 as we can collect by collation, Claudia was born a.d. 36, 
 and at her marriage with Rufus was in her 17th year. 
 Martial was a familiar frequenter of the Pudentinian 
 house, and in the habit of submitting his verses for emen- 
 dations to its heir, Rufus. We have an epigram extant in 
 which the witty but licentious poet complains of the 
 severity of his young critic's castigations. It would have 
 been well for his reputation, with no loss to his wit, had 
 he allowed all his works to pass through the hands of 
 Rufus before he had consigned them to the public ear. 
 The epigram he addressed to the cousin of Rufus, Quintus 
 Pomponius Rufus, then on military service in Dalmatia, 
 on the nuptials of Claudia and Rufus, at which he 
 appears to have been present, is subjoined in the note 
 below. 14 
 
 [see footnote 14 pg. 55] 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 55 
 
 Four years afterwards, on the birth of Pudentiana, Mar- 
 tial addressed a second highly complimentary poem to the 
 British princess, celebrating her beauty, grace, wit, and 
 fascination. He represents her as uniting the separate 
 accomplishments of the Roman and the Athenian ladies. 
 Claudia, though the mother of three children, was only 
 in her twenty-first year, and might with propriety be still 
 termed " puella " by the poet. In the interval between 
 the first and the present epigram, Pudens had been con- 
 verted to Christianity, hence he is called Sancto Marito : — 
 
 " Claudia Ceruleis quum sit Rufina Britannis 
 Edita quam Latiae pectora plebis habet! 
 
 Quale decus formae! Romanam credere matres 
 Italidum possunt Attides esse suam 
 
 Die bene quod sancto peperit fcecunda marito 
 Quod sperat generos quodque puella nurus 
 Sic placeat superis ut conjuge gaudeat una 
 Et semper natis gaudeat ipsa tribus." 
 
 All the family of Caradoc were attached to literary 
 pursuits. Bran introduced the use of vellum into Britain 
 from Rome; 15 and by the younger members copies of the 
 best Roman authors were circulated in Siluria, and de- 
 posited in the principal receptacles of Druidic learning. 
 Martial was no exception, and his verses appear to have 
 become popular : — 
 
 " Dicitur et nostros cantare Britannia versus." — Lib. xi. 
 
 14 " Claudia, Rufe, meo nubit Peregrina Pudenti : 
 Macte esto taedis, O Hymenaee, tuis. 
 Tarn bene rara suo miscentur cinnama nardo, 
 Massica Theseis tarn bene vina cadis, 
 Nec melius teneris junguntur vitibus ulmi, 
 Nec plus Lotos aquas, littora myrtus amat. 
 Candida perpetuo, reside, Concordia, lecto, 
 Tamque pari semper sit Venus aequa jugo. 
 Diligat ilia senem quondam: sed et ipsa marito, 
 Tunc quoque quum fuerit, non videatur anus." 
 
 Lib. iv. p. 1 8. 
 
 15 Coelbren, p. 25. 
 
56 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 Claudia wrote several volumes of odes and hymns. Her 
 aunt, Pomponia Graecina, received her agnomen from her 
 intimate acquaintance with Greek literature. The palace, 
 indeed, of the British king formed a focus and rendezvous, 
 and perhaps the safest they could frequent, for the poets 
 and authors of Rome. Nor did it cease to be so on his 
 return to his native country; it continued to be the resi- 
 dence of Pudens and Claudia and their children. Some 
 conception may be formed of its size and magnificence 
 from the number of servants who constituted its ordinary 
 establishment. These, as we learn from the Roman 
 Martyrology, were two hundred males and the same num- 
 ber of females, all born on the hereditary estates of 
 Pudens. in Umbria. 16 
 
 The attachment between Pudens and Claudia first grew 
 up when the former was stationed by Aulus Plautius as 
 praetor castrorum at Regnum, now Chichester. We still 
 possess in the Chichester Museum a remarkably interest- 
 ing monument of the residence of Pudens in this city. 
 Cogidunus, regulus of the Regni, was one of the kings in- 
 cluded as allies — in fact, tributaries — under the Roman 
 protectorate in the Claudian treaty of Colchester. Their 
 native dynasties, laws, and lands were guaranteed to such 
 states — the kings themselves becoming and being titled 
 Legati Augusti, Lieutenants of the Roman emperor, as the 
 heads of our counties are now styled Lieutenants of the 
 Queen. They were bound to permit the construction of a 
 Roman castra, garrisoned by Roman legionaries with their 
 
 16 Adjacent to the palace were baths on a corresponding scale, 
 known subsequently as Thermae Timothinae and Thermae 
 Novatianae. The palace baths and grounds were bequeathed by 
 Timotheus to the Church at Rome. And these were the only 
 buildings of any magnitude possessed by the Roman Church till 
 the reign of Constantine. Hermas terms the Titulus " amplissima 
 Pudentes domus." It was the hospitium for Christians from all 
 parts of the world. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 57 
 
 usual staff of engineers, in their chief city. The praetor of 
 the castra held the military command within the allied 
 territory. Such kings were considered and dealt with as 
 traitors to the national cause by the Silurian and indepen- 
 dent Britons, and their names either branded with the 
 disgraceful stigma of bradwr (traitor), or consigned to 
 oblivion by the Bardic chroniclers. Hence we find not a 
 few commemorated in the pages of the Roman historians, 
 of whose existence we can trace no vestige in the British. 
 Of these Cogidunus is one. Tacitus remembered him, as 
 he well might. For Tacitus was born a.d. 56, the year of 
 the death of Claudius, and Cogidunus was alive a.d. 76, 
 ten years after St. Paul's martyrdom, when Tacitus was in 
 his twentieth year. In the year a.d. 1723, whilst excavat- 
 ing the foundations of some houses, the monument to 
 which we refer, generally known as the Chichester stone, 
 was discovered. The inscription, which was partly muti- 
 lated, and is cut in very bold characters, as restored by 
 Horsley and Gale, is as follows : — 
 
 Neptuno et Minerva 
 Templum 
 
 Pro Salute Domus Divine 
 
 ex auctoritate tlb : claudii 
 
 Cogiduni Regis Legati Augusti in Britannia 
 
 Collegium Fabrorum et qui in eo 
 
 A Sacris sunt de suo dedicaverunt 
 
 Donante Aream Pudente Pudentini Filio. 
 
 " The College of Engineers, and ministers of religion 
 attached to it, by permission of Tiberius Claudius 
 Cogidunus, the king, legate of Augustus in Britain, have 
 
58 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 dedicated at their own expense, in honour of the divine 
 family [the imperial family] this temple to Neptune and 
 Minerva. The site was given by Pudens, son of Puden- 
 tinus." 
 
 Apart from its value in other respects, the inscription 
 is interesting as evidence of the naturally pious bent of 
 the young Roman commander's disposition, and, secondly, 
 of the fact that to every legion in the Roman service was 
 attached a staff of ministers of religion — a part of moral 
 discipline in which these iron-minded heathens put to 
 shame our own and other countries professing Christianty. 
 The temple appears to have been erected about a.d. 50, 
 before, of course, the conversion of Pudens or his marriage 
 with Claudia. 
 
 We have now, a.d. 56, the royal Silurian family located 
 at Rome on that part of the Mons Sacer called Scaurus, 
 in the Palatium Britannicum, afterwards called the Titulus, 
 or Hospitium Apostolorum, then St. Pudentiana, which 
 name the building still retains. The minister of this 
 church, and of the family of Pudens, was Hermas, men- 
 tioned by St. Paul, 17 surnamed, from his work bearing the 
 title of Vastor, Hermas Pastor. The church was called also 
 after him, Pastor. In front of this relic of eminent British 
 and Apostolic times may still be seen, carved in characters 
 corroded by age, the Latin inscription, attributed to the 
 second century, of which the following is a translation : — 
 
 " In this sacred and most ancient of churches, known 
 as that of Pastor, dedicated by Sanctus Pius Papa, formerly 
 the house of Sanctus Pudens, the senator, and the home of 
 the holy apostles, repose the remains of three thousand 
 blessed martyrs, which Pudentiana and Praxedes, virgins 
 of Christ, with their own hands interred." 18 
 
 17 Rom. xvi. 14. 
 
 18 " In hac sancta antiquissima ecclesia," &c, &c. — Baronius, ad 
 Maii 19. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 59 
 
 Baronius 19 has the following note upon the Titulus : — 
 " It is delivered to us by the firm tradition of our fore- 
 fathers that the house of Pudens was the first that enter- 
 tained St. Peter at Rome, and that there the Christians 
 assembling formed the Church, and that of all our 
 churches the oldest is that which is called after the name 
 of Pudens." 
 
 19 Annales Ecclesias, in Notis ad 19 Maii. Note on Pastor. Some 
 authors affirm there were two distinct Hermas Pastors — one the 
 above minister of the Titulus, so called because he belonged to 
 the senatorian family of the name of Pastor; the second of later 
 date, author of the treatise Vastor, and brother of Pius Papa. If 
 this view is correct, both were ministers of the Titulus, for the 
 letters of the latter from the Titulus to Timotheus in Britain are 
 extant. 
 
 Vide also Moncaeus, Syntagma de Claudia Britannica, p. 18; 
 Pastoris Epistolae ad Timotheum; Justini Martyris Apologia; Greek 
 Menology, ad dies Pudentianas et Praxedis. That the palace of 
 Claudia was the home of the apostles in Rome appears agreed upon 
 by all ecclesiastical historians — even Robert Parsons, the Jesuit, 
 admits it. " Claudia was the first hostess or harbourer both of St. 
 Peter and St. Paul at the time of their coming to Rome." — Varsons' 
 Three Conversions of England, vol. i. p. 16. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 The British Royal Family at Rome. — The Arimath/ean, or 
 First Introduction of Christianity into Britain 
 
 Having thus established the British king and his family in 
 the Titulus, we turn our attention to St. Paul, who arrived 
 at Rome for the first time on his appeal to Caesar, a.d. 58. 1 
 A strong Christian Church, celebrated for its zeal and 
 fidelity, existed in Rome before the visit of St. Paul or any 
 other apostle to it. We know, from many passages in the 
 Epistle to the Romans itself, that at the time of its com- 
 position and despatch St. Paul had not yet been to Rome. 
 Amongst the members of the Church, however, were some 
 not only of the most intimate fellow-labourers and friends, 
 but relatives of the Apostle. Some of the latter, such as 
 Andronicus and Junia, had been converted before him. 
 Herodion is mentioned as another kinsman. In connec- 
 tion with Rufus Pudens who is saluted by name, occurs 
 another salutation which originates an interesting ques- 
 tion, the right solution of which would throw a flood of 
 light on this part of the history both of Paul and Pudens — 
 "Salute Rufus chosen in the Lord, and his mother and 
 mine." Does this mean natural or spiritual relationship? 
 We are inclined to believe the former. A spiritual father 
 or mother is, in Gospel phraseology, the person who con- 
 verts another to Christ. St. Paul's conversion was effected 
 
 1 Jerome states St. Paul was sent to Rome in the second year 
 of Nero, i.e. a.d. 56. in which date agree Bede, Ivo, Freculphus 
 Platina, Scaliger, Capellus, Cave, Stillingfleet, Alford, Godwin De 
 Trcesuhbus, Rapin, Bingham, Stanhope, Warner, Trapp. We believe 
 this to be the true date, and its assumption would be more favour- 
 able to the tenor of this essay, as it would allow three years 
 instead of one for the interview at Rome between St. Paul and 
 Caractacus. We prefer, however, not to insist upon it. 
 
 60 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 61 
 
 by Christ Himself by a direct miracle. With respect to 
 him the terms could not be applied to any human being. 
 Was, then, the mother of Rufus the mother also of Paul? 
 Were Rufus and Paul half-brothers — the latter, the elder, 
 by a Hebrew, the former, the younger, by a second mar- 
 riage with a Gentile, or proselyte Roman? This mother 
 was a Christian, living with Rufus, and is termed also his 
 mother by St. Paul. In the palace of Rufus, when at Rome, 
 Paul spent most of his time, though he had also his own 
 hired house. 2 The children of Claudia and Pudens, as we 
 learn from the Roman Martyrologies, were brought up on 
 his knees, and we find in the last scene of his life preced- 
 ing his martyrdom, the only salutations sent by him to 
 Timothy to be those of Eubulus, Claudia, Linus, and 
 Pudens — the same family evidently ministering and 
 attending to him to the last. There is, whichever way we 
 decide, a closeness in the connection between the 
 Apostle and the family of Pudens which has hitherto 
 escaped observation, and remains to be explained. And 
 this continued even after death, for the children of 
 Pudens, all of whom suffered martyrdom, were interred 
 by the side of the Apostle, as in a common family 
 cemetery, in the Via Ostiensis. Leaving the question of 
 the nature of this affinity in abeyance, we now observe — 
 
 1. That Pudens was converted before St. Paul came to 
 Rome, and by some other Christian than Paul. 
 
 2. That Hermas Pastor appears at this very early date 
 to have been the pastor at the Titulus, which constituted 
 the place of meeting for the Gentile Church, or Church 
 
 2 That the apostles having once been received into the Palatium 
 Pudentinum, should continue to make it their home in Rome, is 
 in conformity with our Lord's instructions, " Into whatsoever city 
 or town ye enter, inquire who in it is worthy, and there abide 
 till ye go thence." — Matthew x. n. At the same hospitium Justin 
 Martyr was received. " Nobili revera atque prascipua in urbe 
 Christi familia." — Baron, vol. i. p. 228. 
 
62 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 of the uncircumcision. The Hebrew Church, or Church 
 of the circumcision, met at the House of Aquila and 
 Priscilla. 3 
 
 3. That the household of Aristobulus is greeted, but 
 Aristobulus himself is not, being absent at the time from 
 Rome. Hence arise the questions — Who were the evan- 
 gelizers of the family of Claudia Britannica and Pudens? 
 Where was Aristobulus absent? Was it in Britain? Was 
 Britain evangelized in any degree before St. Paul came to 
 Rome ? and if so, by whom ? — An investigation of the 
 utmost interest. 
 
 The fairest way of treating the subject of the first 
 introduction of Christianity into Britain seems to be to lay 
 down an affirmative statement, adduce what evidence 
 there is in support of it, and leave the reader to draw the 
 conclusion whether it makes good such statement or not. 
 We write as investigators, not as dogmatists, but our pro- 
 positions must of necessity often assume the affirmative 
 form, or we should be mere negationists of history. 
 
 Our statement, then, will take the following form: — 
 
 Christianity was first introduced into Britain by Joseph 
 of Arimathasa, a.d. 36-39; followed by Simon Zelotes, the 
 apostle; then by Aristobulus, the first bishop of the 
 Britons; then by St. Paul. Its first converts were members 
 of the royal family of Siluria — that is, Gladys, the sister 
 of Caradoc, Gladys (Claudia) and Eurgen his daughters, 
 Linus his son, converted in Britain before they were 
 carried into captivity to Rome; then Caradoc, Bran, and 
 the rest of the family, converted at Rome. The two cradles 
 of Christianity in Britain were Ynys Wydrin, ' the Crystal 
 Isle,' translated by the Saxons Glastonbury, in Somerset- 
 shire, where Joseph settled and taught, and Siluria, where 
 the earliest churches and schools, next to Ynys Wydrin, 
 were founded by the Silurian dynasty. Ynys Wydrin was 
 
 3 Rom. xvL 5. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 65 
 
 also commonly known as Ynys Avalon, and in Latin 
 " Domus Dei," " Secretum Dei." 
 
 Now for the consecutive evidences of this statement. 
 They have been collected at the cost of much research 
 from various quarters, but the reader will remember that 
 they are not presented as decisive. All historic evidence 
 must be ruled by times and circumstances. If it be such 
 as the times and circumstances of the era alone admit, it 
 is entitled to be received in court, and if there is no con- 
 trary evidence which can be brought forward to cancel it, 
 we must bring in, till such evidence be produced, a verdict 
 of proven. The testimony in other historical cases may 
 be stronger and more satisfactory, but we must be content 
 in all cases to give judgment by such evidence as we can 
 command. In ages when literature or written evidence 
 had but very limited existence, tradition and general 
 belief are the chief sources to which we can apply for the 
 knowledge of broad facts, their details being a minor 
 consideration. 
 
 The constant current of European tradition affirmed 
 Britain to have been the first country in Europe which 
 received the Gospel, and the British Church to be the 
 most ancient of the Churches of Christ therein. The uni- 
 versality of this opinion is readily demonstrated. 
 
 I. Polydore Vergil in the reign of Henry VII, and after 
 him Cardinal Pole (a.d. 1555), both rigid Roman Catholics, 
 affirmed in Parliament, the latter in his address to Philip 
 and Mary, that " Britain was the first of all countries to 
 receive the Christian faith." " The glory of Britain," re- 
 marks Genebrard, " consists not only in this, that she was 
 the first country which in a national capacity publicly 
 professed herself Christian, but that she made this con- 
 fession when the Roman empire itself was Pagan and a 
 cruel persecutor of Christianity." 
 
 II. This priority of antiquity was only once questioned, 
 
64 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 and that on political grounds, by the ambassadors of 
 France and Spain, at the Council of Pisa, a.d. 1417. The 
 Council, however, affirmed it. The ambassadors appealed 
 to the Council of Constance, a.d. 1419, which confirmed 
 the decision of that of Pisa, which was a third time con- 
 firmed by the Council of Sena, and then acquiesced in. 
 This decision laid down that the Churches of France and 
 Spain were bound to give way in the points of antiquity 
 and precedency to the Church of Britain, which was 
 founded by Joseph of Arimathaea " immediately after the 
 passion of Christ." 4 
 
 We may therefore accept as the general opinion of 
 Christendom, the priority in point of antiquity over all 
 others of the British Church. This opinion is well ex- 
 pressed by Sabellius: — "Christianity was privately con- 
 fessed elsewhere, but the first nation that proclaimed it 
 as their religion, and called itself Christian after the name 
 of Christ, was Britain." 5 
 
 It is certain that the primitive British, Irish, Scot, and 
 Gallic Churches formed one Church, one communion, and 
 that on the assumption of the Papacy, a.d. 606, by Rome, 
 this great Celtic Church, which had been previously in full 
 communion with primitive Rome, refused in the most 
 peremptory terms to acknowledge her novel pretensions. 
 
 4 " Statim post passionem Christi." An account of the pleadings 
 at the Council of Constance will be found in a thin quarto, 
 Disceptatio super Dignitatem Anglioe et Gallioe in Concilio Con- 
 stantiano, Theod. Martin (Lovar. 1517). 
 
 Robert Parsons, the Jesuit, in his " Three Conversions of 
 England," admits, in common with the great majority of Roman 
 Catholic writers, that Christianity came into Britain direct from 
 Jerusalem. " It seems nearest the truth that the British Church 
 was originally planted by Grecian teachers, such as came from 
 the East and not by Romans." — Vol. i. p. 15. The Eastern usages 
 of the British Church would alone attest the fact. 
 
 5 Sabell. Enno., lib. vii. c. 5. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 65 
 
 It is, of course, this primitive British Church, and not the 
 Roman Church introduced by Augustine, a.d. 596, into 
 Kent among the Pagan Saxons, of which such priority 
 must be understood. That such a Church existed on a 
 national scale, and was thoroughly antagonistic to the 
 Roman Church in its new form and usurpations in the 
 person of Augustine, is so notorious, that we may dis- 
 pense with all but a few testimonies in proof of the fact. 
 " Britons," declares Bede, 6 " are contrary to the whole 
 Roman world, and enemies to the Roman customs, not 
 only in their Mass, but in their tonsure." The Britons re- 
 fused to recognise Augustine, or to acquiesce in one of his 
 demands. " We cannot," said the British bishops, " depart 
 from our ancient customs without the consent and leave 
 of our people." Laurentius, the successor of Augustine, 
 speaks yet more bitterly of the antagonism of the Scottish 
 Church : — 
 
 " We have found the Scotch bishops worse even than 
 the British. Dagon, who lately came here, being a bishop 
 of the Scots, refused so much as to eat at the same table, 
 or sleep one night under the same roof with us." 7 
 
 6 Bede's Hist. Frag., quoted by Usher, "Ancient Irish Church," 
 c. 4, Hist., lib. ii. c. 2. One demand of Augustine was that the 
 British Church should recognise him as Archbishop. "At illi," 
 says Bede, lib. ii. p. 112, "nihil horum se facturos neque ilium 
 pro Archiepiscopo habituros esse respondebant." Bede must him- 
 self, one would suppose, from his own testimony in favour of the 
 British Church, and his knowledge of its extent and institutions, 
 have felt some astonishment at this demand of an emissary whose 
 only religious establishment in Britain was a solitary church 
 among the Pagans of Kent. " The Britons," he writes, lib. i. c. 4, 
 " preserved the faith which they had received under King 
 Lucius uncorrupted and entire in peace and tranquillity, until the 
 time of the Emperor Diocletian." Nicholas Trivet says, "Abbot 
 Dinothus, of Bangor, treated Augustine with contempt." 
 
 7 Laurentii Epist. ad Papam; Bede, Eccles. Hist., ii. c. 4. 
 
66 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 And the protest of the British Church itself, signed on 
 its behalf by the Archbishop of St. David's, six bishops, 
 and the abbot of Bangor, who conducted the conference 
 with Augustine at Augustine's Oak, a.d. 607, place in still 
 clearer light the gulf which the change of the primitive 
 Roman Church into the Papacy formed between the 
 Churches hitherto in full communion. It ran as follows: — 
 
 " Be it known and declared that we all, individually and 
 collectively, are in all humility prepared to defer to the 
 Church of God, and to the Bishop of Rome, and to every 
 sincere and godly Christian, so far as to love every one 
 according to his degree, in perfect charity, and to assist 
 them all by word and in deed in becoming the children of 
 God. But as for any other obedience, we know of none 
 that he whom you term the Pope, or Bishop of Bishops, 
 can demand. The deference we have mentioned we are 
 ready to pay to him, as to every other Christian, but in 
 all other respects our obedience is due to the jurisdiction 
 of the Bishop of Caerleon, who is alone, under God, our 
 ruler to keep us right in the way of salvation." 8 
 
 It is plain from these and similar testimonies that 
 Britain — 1. Was a distinct diocese of the empire. 2. That 
 it was subject neither to the patriarch of Rome, nor to 
 any foreign ecclesiastical jurisdiction. 3. That it had its 
 sovereignty within itself. 4. That it never consulted the 
 See of Rome nor any foreign power in its rites, discipline, 
 government, or consecration of bishops and archbishops. 
 5. That it recognised no superior but God to its arch- 
 bishop of Caerleon, or St. David. 9 
 
 As late as the twelfth century no instance could be 
 
 8 Hengwrt MSS.; Humphry Llwyd; Sebright MSS.; Cottonian 
 Library (British Museum), Cleopatra, E. i. 1. 
 
 9 Spelmanni Concilia; Sir Roger Twysden, Historical Vindica- 
 tion; Brerewood, p. 113; Collier, vol. i. p. 6, &c; Bishop Lloyd's 
 Government, &c, &c. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 67 
 
 produced of the British metropolitan receiving the pall 
 from Rome. 
 
 The two British metropolitans of London and York, 
 Theon and Tediac, had retired from their Sees into Wales 
 a.d. c86, ten years only before the arrival of Augustine. 
 
 In the Diocletian persecution the British Church sup- 
 plied the following remarkable list of native martyrs : — 
 Amphibalus. Bishop of LlandafT; Alban of Verulam; 
 Aaron and Julius, presbyters of Caerleon; Socrates, Arch- 
 bishop of York; Stephen, Archbishop of London; Augulius, 
 his successor; Nicholas, Bishop of Penrhyn (Glasgow); 
 Melior, Bishop of Carlisle, and above 10,000 communicants 
 in different grades of society. 
 
 Its religious institutions were on an immense scale. 
 William of Malmesbury describes the ruins of Bangor 
 Iscoed Abbey in his days as those of a city — the most ex- 
 tensive he had seen in the kingdom. Two other British 
 foundations in England retained their superiority over all 
 others of a later date, under every change of rulers till 
 the Reformation — St. Alban and Glastonbury. Of all the 
 monasteries these continued the most popular and highly 
 venerated. 10 
 
 10 It is certain, states Spelman (p. 18), that the people of that 
 province held no oath so sacred as that " by the old church " 
 (Glastonbury), fearing nothing so much as to incur the guilt of 
 perjury in taking it. " The church of Glastonbury, from its 
 antiquity called by the -Angles ' Ealde Churche,' savoured of 
 sanctity from its very foundation. Here arrive whole tribes of 
 the lower orders, thronging every path. Here, divested of their 
 pomp, assemble the opulent. It has become the crowded resi- 
 dence of the literary and religious. There is no corner of the 
 church in which the ashes of some saint do not repose. The very 
 floor inlaid with polished stones, and the sides of the altar, and 
 even the altar itself, above and beneath, are laden with the 
 multitude of relics. The antiquity, and multitude of saints, have 
 endowed the place with such sanctity that at night scarcely any 
 one presumes to keep vigil there, or during the day to spit upon 
 
68 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 Tracing our course back from the Diocletian era, a 
 consensus of authorities fixes the national establishment 
 of Christianity in Britain somewhere about the middle of 
 the second century. From a.d. 33, then, to a.d. 150, we 
 have in round numbers a space of 120 years left for the 
 propagation of the faith and the gradual conversion of 
 the nation. 
 
 All accounts concur in stating that the person who 
 baptized Lucius, or Lleeuer Mawr, the monarch who thus 
 established the Church, was his uncle, St. Timotheus, the 
 son of Pudens and Claudia, who was brought up on the 
 knees of the apostles. 
 
 The infancy of Timotheus carries us back to Paul him- 
 self, to Claudia, to Pudens, to Linus, Caractacus, Bran, and 
 the other members of the Silurian house in their captivity 
 at Rome. 
 
 But we have seen that Pudens and others were Christians 
 before Paul came to Rome, which carries the first British 
 conversions to an earlier date than a.d. 58. 
 
 And thus we arrive within twenty-five years of the 
 Crucifixion. In which of these years, then, was the Gospel 
 first introduced into Britain ? 
 
 Gildas, the British historian, who flourished a.d. 520 — 
 560, states expressly that it was introduced the last year 
 of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. 11 
 
 The Crucifixion took place in the seventeenth year of 
 Tiberius. The last year of Tiberius would be his twenty- 
 
 the floor. St. Patrick is buried by the right side of the altar in 
 the ' old church.' The men of Ireland frequent it to kiss the 
 relics. St. David, that celebrated and incomparable man, built and 
 dedicated the second church here. He sleeps by St. Patrick." — 
 William of Malmesbury, b. i. c. 2. St. Aidan was buried by the 
 side of St. David. 
 
 11 " We know that Christ, the true Son, afforded His light to 
 our island in the last year of Tiberius Caesaris." — Histor. Briton. 
 Usher terms Gildas " auctor veracissimus." 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 69 
 
 second. Consequently, if we follow Gildas, Christianity 
 was introduced into Britain five years after the Crucifixion, 
 that is, a.d. 38. 
 
 This is certainly an early period, but Gildas speaks 
 positively — " ut scimus." It synchronizes with the first 
 persecution of the Church by Saul of Tarsus, and its 
 general dispersion. " They were all scattered abroad ex- 
 cept the apostles." 12 If all, then Joseph of Arimathaea 
 among them. Regarding Gildas' date as our starting-point, 
 we have the following testimonies assigning the introduc- 
 tion of Christianity in or about the same year to Joseph 
 of Arimathaea : — 
 
 1. Gregory of Tours, in the History of the Franks: 13 
 He flourished circiter a.d. 544 — 595. This is Gallic testi- 
 mony. 
 
 2. The Pseudo-Gospel of Nicodemus, 14 supposed to be a 
 composition of the fourth century. This is Oriental 
 tradition. 
 
 3. Maelgwyn of Llandaff, the uncle of St. David. His 
 era is circiter a.d. 450. His words being remarkable, we 
 insert them at length: — "Joseph of Arimathaea, the noble 
 decurion, received his everlasting rest with his eleven 
 associates in the Isle of Avalon. He lies in the southern 
 angle of the bifurcated line of the Oratorium of the 
 Adorable Virgin. He has with him the two white vessels 
 of silver which were filled with the blood and the sweat 
 of the great Prophet Jesus. 15 " 
 
 12 Acts viii. 1. 
 
 13 P- 133. 
 
 14 Ad finem. 
 
 15 " Joseph ab Arimathea nobilis decurio in insula Avallonia 
 cum xi. Sociis suis somnum cepit perpetuum et jacet in meridiano 
 angulo lineae bifurcatas Oratorii Adorandae Virginis. Habit enim 
 secum duovascula argentea alba cruore et sudore magni prophetas 
 Jesu perimpleta." — Thick vellum Cottonian MS., quoted also by 
 Usher, Melchini Fragmentum. Joseph of Arimathaea is by Eastern 
 
70 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 This is British testimony, of one also personally 
 acquainted with the interior of the church of Avalon, or 
 Domus Dei, and the exact spot within it of the resting- 
 place of Joseph. The greater weight is due to Maelgwyn's 
 evidence, as no fact is better established than the recon- 
 struction of the Domus Dei on a cathedral scale by his 
 nephew, St. David the Archbishop. 16 
 
 4. The Vatican manuscript, quoted by Baronius in his 
 "Ecclesiastical Annals," ad annum 35 (the same year in 
 which the Acts of the Apostles state all, except the 
 apostles, were scattered abroad from Judaea). The manu- 
 script records that in this year Lazarus, Maria Magdalene, 
 Martha, her handmaiden Marcella, Maximin a disciple, 
 Joseph the Decurion of Arimathaea, against all of whom 
 the Jewish people had special reasons of enmity, were 
 exposed to the sea in a vessel without sails or oars. The 
 vessel drifted finally to Marseilles, and they were saved. 
 From Marseilles Joseph and his company passed into 
 
 tradition said to have been the younger brother of the father of 
 the Virgin Mary. The records of Glastonbury, as cited by Malmes- 
 bury and others, preserved the genealogy of his descendants in 
 Britain: — " Helias nepos Joseph genuit Josua, Josua genuit 
 Amminadab, Amminadab Castellor," &c. — Historia de Glastonbury. 
 
 16 In the two "vascula argentea alba," full of the Saviour's 
 blood and sweat shed on the cross and at Gethsemane, we have 
 the first nucleus of the celebrated legend and a quest of the Sant- 
 Greal. They gave the name of the Crystal Isle to Glastonbury. 
 The Britons commemorate (writes Forcatulus) that Joseph brought 
 with him the pledge and testimony of the sacred Eucharist, 
 namely, the chalice which was used by the Saviour, and placed 
 before His most holy guests the apostles, and which is preserved 
 by them (the Britons) as the pledge of the safety of Britain, as 
 the palladium was of that of Troy. — Fortaculus de Gallor. Imperio 
 et Thilos., lib. vii. p. 989. Greal in British is a collection of 
 elements; Sant-Greal, the holy elements. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 71 
 
 Britain, and after preaching the Gospel there, died. 17 
 
 £. The Chronicon of Pseudo-Dexter, the Fragmenta of 
 Haleca Archbishop of Saragossa, Freculphus and Forcatu- 
 lus, 18 deliver the same statement professedly from primi- 
 tive sources of unknown date. Cressy, Pitsaeus, Sanders, 
 Alford, the Roman Catholic historians, concur with Gildas 
 in the year, and with the above authorities in holding 
 Joseph of Arimathaea to have been the first who preached 
 Christ in Britain. 
 
 6. We possess abundant proofs that Britain was studded 
 with Christian churches before the end of the second 
 century, and whatever direction our investigations take, 
 we find authorities unanimous in the statement that the 
 church of Joseph in Avalon, or Glastonbury, was the first 
 and oldest of these churches, many affirming it to be the 
 oldest or senior Christian church in the whole world. It 
 will be useful to transcribe the conclusions arrived at by 
 the historians who have treated on this subject before us. 
 
 "The church of Avalon in Britain no other hands than 
 those of the disciples of the Lord themselves built. — 
 Tublius Discipulus. 
 
 " The mother church of the British Isles is the Church 
 in Insula Avallonia, called by the Saxons Glaston." — Usher. 
 
 " If credit be given to ancient authors, this church of 
 Glastonbury is the senior church of the world." — Fuller. 
 
 " It is certain that Britain received the faith in the first 
 age from the first sowers of the Word. Of all the churches 
 whose origin I have investigated in Britain, the church of 
 Glastonbury is the most ancient." — Sir Henry Spelman. 
 
 17 The respective dates of a.d. 35 and 38 allow three years 
 between the expulsion of Joseph from Judaea and his settlement 
 in Britain — an undesigned harmony which goes far chronologic- 
 ally to confirm the common record. 
 
 18 Lib. vii. p. 989. 
 
72 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 Had any doubt existed on this point of priority, it 
 certainly would have been contested by some other 
 church in our island, for it was not a question of mere 
 chronology, but one which drew with it enormous privi- 
 leges and advantages. It never was disputed. It was uni- 
 versally conceded : and upon it the long series of the royal 
 charters of the church and monastery, from that of King 
 Arthur, the nephew of its second founder, St. David, to 
 that of Edward III, proceed. " The first church in the 
 kingdom, built by the disciples of Christ," says the 
 charter of Edgar. " This is the city," states the charter 
 of Ina, or Ivor, " which was the fountain and origin of 
 Christ's religion in Britain, built by Christ's disciples." 
 
 The tombs of Saxon and British kings, saints, bishops, 
 and abbots, buried in and around its confines, confirm 
 the charters. 
 
 Of the general truth of the Arimathaean mission there 
 have been numerous supporters. No author, indeed, who 
 has taken due pains to examine its evidences, rejects its 
 main facts. " We dare not deny," writes the caustic 
 Fuller, " the substance of the story." Bishop Godwin, in 
 his quaint style, writes, " The testimonies of Joseph of 
 Arimathaea's coming here are so many, so clear, and so 
 pregnant, as an indifferent man cannot but discern there 
 is something in it. 19 " Archbishop Usher defends it with 
 his usual display of erudition, and with unusual vehe- 
 mency of manner, as if the honour of ecclesiastical 
 Britain rested on its truth. The reader will form his own 
 judgment. 
 
 For our part, we cast aside the addenda and crescenda, 
 the legends, poems, marvels which after ages, monk, trou- 
 badour, and historian piled high and gorgeously on the 
 original foundation. That foundation must indeed have 
 originally possessed no mean strength, depth, and solidity, 
 
 19 Godwin's "Catalogue of Bishops," Praesul., p. it. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 73 
 
 to bear the immense superstructure which mediaeval 
 superstition and literature emulated each other in erecting 
 above the simple tomb of the Arimathaean senator in the 
 Avalon isle. This superstition was rising tide-high in the 
 time of Augustine, a.d. 600. " In the western confines of 
 Britain," he writes to the Pope, " there is a certain royal 
 island of large extent, surrounded by water, abounding 
 in all the beauties of nature and necessaries of life. In it 
 the first neophytes of the catholic law, God beforehand 
 acquainting them, found a Church constructed by no 
 human art, but by the hands of Christ Himself, for the 
 salvation of His people. The Almighty has made it mani- 
 fest by many miracles and mysterious visitations that He 
 continues to watch over it as sacred to Himself, and to 
 Mary the mother of God." 20 The same edifice of figments 
 has been built in all ages, more or less, on Christianity 
 itself, but we do not therefore demur to the primitive 
 facts of Christianity. Leaving details out of the question, 
 the cardinal features of the first, or Arimathaean, mission 
 of Christianity into Britain are, in our opinion, entitled 
 to historic acceptance and registration. 
 
 These cardinal features we consider to be the follow- 
 ing: — Joseph and his company, including Lazarus, Mary, 
 Martha, Marcella, and Maximin, came at the invitation of 
 certain Druids of high rank, 21 from Marseilles into Britain, 
 circiter a.d. 38, 39; were located at Ynys Avalon, the seat 
 of a Druidic cor, which was subsequently made over to 
 them in free gift by Arviragus. Here they built the first 
 church, which became the centre and mother of 
 Christianity in Britain. Here also they terminated their 
 mortal career, the gentle and conciliatory character of 
 Joseph securing the protection of the reigning family, and 
 
 20 Epistolas ad Gregorium Papam. 
 
 21 " Negotium habuit cum Druidis quorum primi precipuique 
 doctores erant in Britannia." — Freculphus, apud God., p. 10. 
 
74 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 the conversion of many of its members. Joseph died and 
 was interred a.d. 76. 
 
 The church was 60 ft. in length by 26 in breadth, built 
 Galileo more of timber pillars and framework doubly 
 wattled inside and out, and thatched with straw. 22 This 
 simplicity might have been the effect of necessity or 
 design. The Druidic faith required three essentials in 
 every temple: — 1. It must be circular; 2. Hypaethral, or 
 roofless at top, and open at the sides; 3. Its materials must 
 be monoliths, vast single stones unhewed, untouched by 
 metal. The Arimathaean church rose in direct though 
 humble antagonism to the old Cyclopean architecture — it 
 was oblong, it was of wood, it was roofed and covered in. 
 The Druidic mind could not, without a strong effort, con- 
 nect such a building with the ideas of religion and wor- 
 ship. It carried with it no image, no symbolism of the 
 One, the Infinite, and the Darkless. The Briton on his way 
 to one of the great cors — Amesbury or Stonehenge, with 
 their miles of obelisks — would smile with pity on the 
 ecclesia, or, as he rendered this new word from the East, 
 the eglwys of the Wyr Israel (men of Israel). But the 
 Druidic religion knew of no such monstrous abortions as 
 intolerance and persecution. There is no instance of 
 Druidism persecuting conscience or knowledge. Such 
 crime was left for Rome, for a religion of foreign importa- 
 tion. Casting his eye round the circle of the horizon, and 
 then upwards to the vast open dome of heaven, the Briton 
 saw the outer ring, as it were, the circumference of his 
 own Druidic cor; he would resume his march, trying to 
 discover some possible identification in nature between 
 an oblong pitched roof and the temple of the universe. 
 
 22 And such also was the primitive Capitol of Rome: — 
 " Quae fuerat nostri si quaeras Regia nati, 
 
 Adspice de Canna straminibusque Domum." 
 
 Ovid, Fasst. ad Fest. Roma. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 75 
 
 The tomb of Joseph was inscribed with the following 
 epitaph, touching from its spirit of faith, peace, and 
 humility : — 23 
 
 "Ad Britannos veni post Christum Sepelivi. 
 Docui. Quievi." 
 
 Of the perpetual exemption of the twelve ploughs of 
 land conferred by Arviragus on the Arimathsean Church, 
 the Domesday Survey of a.d. 1088 supplies curious con- 
 firmation. " The Domus Dei, in the great monastery of 
 Glastingbury, called the Secret of the Lord. This Glasting- 
 bury church possesses, in its own villa, xii. hides of land 
 which have never paid tax." 1 
 
 After a.d. 35 — 36 Joseph disappears from the Scripture 
 narrative. 
 
 The Greek and Roman menologies and Martyrologies 
 commemorate with scrupulous jealousy the obituaries 
 and death-places of all the earlier Christian characters of 
 mark who died within the pale of the Roman empire. 
 They nowhere record those of Joseph. Now we know 
 from Tertullian that Britain was Christian before it was 
 Roman. The Dove conquered where the Eagle could make 
 no progress. " Regions in Britain which have never been 
 penetrated by the Roman arms," are his words (a.d. 192) 
 " have received the religion of Christ." If this statement 
 were correct, after the war between Rome and Britain had 
 raged for a century and a half, from a.d. 43 to a.d. 192 — 
 and in a national point of view it is impartial testimony, 
 for Tertullian was an African — it is obvious that the 
 
 23 Hearne's Antiquities of Glastonbury; Leland, ibid.; John of 
 Tynemouth, Ad Josephum Arimath. 
 
 1 " Domus Dei in magno Glaston. monasterio quod secretum 
 Domini vocatur, Ecclesia Glaston. habet in ipsa villa xii. hydas 
 quae nunquam geldaverunt." — Domesday Survey, fol., p. 449. 
 
76 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 Arimathasan mission must have been founded in the heart 
 of independent Britain, quite out of the pale, therefore, of 
 the Roman empire. And this inference tallies with the 
 rest of the evidence. Joseph died in these loca inaccessa 
 Komanis. His death, therefore, could not be chronicled 
 by Greek or Roman Churches. 
 
 Lazarus is asserted to have accompanied Joseph. The 
 only record we possess of him beyond the Scripture 
 narrative 2 is in a very ancient British Triad : " The Triad 
 of Lazarus, the three counsels of Lazarus : Believe in God 
 who made thee; Love God who saved thee; Fear God who 
 will judge thee." 3 It is difficult to explain how the name 
 and counsel of Lazarus could find their way into these 
 peculiarly British memorials except by his presence and 
 teaching in Britain. 
 
 Finally, were there any other eminent converts, besides 
 those of the Silurian family, made at this very early date 
 in Britain? Three are particularly mentioned — Beatus, 
 whose first name was Suetonius, Mansuetus, and Marcellus. 
 
 Beatus, born of noble parents in Britain, was there also 
 converted and baptized. He became the founder of the 
 Helvetian Church. He fixed his mission at Underseven, on 
 the lake of Thun, disposing of all his property to ransom 
 prisoners of war. His death occurred in the cell still 
 shown at Underseven, a.d. 96/ 1 
 
 Mansuetus, born in Hibernia, converted and baptized 
 in Britain, was sent afterwards from Rome with St. 
 Clement, afterwards the second bishop of Rome, to preach 
 the Gospel in Gaul. He founded the Lotharingian Church. 
 
 2 The tradition of the Church of Lyons makes him return with 
 Martha and Mary to Marseilles, of which town he became the 
 first bishop, and there died. 
 
 3 Triads of Primitive Britain. 
 
 4 Theatr. Magn. Britan., lib. vi. p. 9. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 77 
 
 fixing his mission at Toul, where, after extending his 
 labours to Illyria, he suffered martyrdom, a.d. no. 5 
 
 Marcellus, a noble Briton, became bishop of Tongres, 
 and afterwards founder-bishop of Treves — the diocese 
 which for centuries exercised the chief influence in the 
 Gallic Church. The conversion of Linus, the son of 
 Caractacus, is attributed to him. 6 
 
 Before, therefore, the incorporation of Britain with the 
 Roman empire, whilst the war of invasion raged, we 
 have before us these remarkable facts: — i. A young and 
 vigorous Christian Church, direct from Jerusalem and the 
 East, and which had never touched or passed through 
 Rome, was in full and successful work in the heart of 
 independent Britain, under the protection of the very 
 sovereign and family that conducted the war against 
 Rome. 2. This native Church, though so young, does not 
 limit its operations to Britain. It ramifies from Britain 
 to the Continent, and becomes, through native-born 
 missionaries, the mother-Church of Gaul, Lotharingia, and 
 Helvetia. Providence, for the most part, works in a very 
 noiseless way, by natural means. Nothing could be more 
 natural than that Joseph and his companions — for whom, 
 as Christians, there was neither peace nor safety among 
 their own countrymen; for whom, as Christians and 
 Jews, there was no assurance of their lives in any Roman 
 province — should seek refuge in the only independent 
 kingdom of the West, whose national religion, like their 
 own, was marked for destruction on the Continent; for, 
 as we have seen, the decrees of Augustus, Tiberius, and 
 
 5 Pantaleon, De Viris Illus. Germaniae, pars. I.; Guliel. Eisengren, 
 cent. 2, p. 5; Petrus Mersaeus, De Sanctis German.; Franciscus 
 Guilliman, Helvetiorum Historia, lib. i. c. 15; Petrus de Natalibus, 
 Episcop. Regal. Tallensis. 
 
 6 Marcellus Britannus, Tungrorum episcopus postea Trevirorum 
 Archiepiscopus," &c. — Mersaus, De Archiepiscopis Trevirensium. 
 
78 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 Claudius constituted Druidism a capital offence. 7 Nothing 
 could be more natural than that Guiderius and Aviragus, 
 on the intercession of influential Druids, should receive 
 and protect such refugees, and in accordance with their 
 own Druidic principles, leave whatever religion they pro- 
 fessed to the voluntary acceptance or rejection of their 
 subjects. All this, we repeat, was very natural, yet we 
 may well affirm that Providence was working in the wheel 
 of Nature. If the stoker was Nature, the engineer was 
 Providence. Under this reflection lies another. Whatever 
 the errors of Druidism were, it was, in its main truths, a 
 grand religion, forming grand and truthful characters. Its 
 foundation-maxim was, " Truth against the world 
 literally, against " all being." 8 
 
 Now, if we just cast one eye on Britain, on a Druidic 
 Caractacus, Arviragus, or Claudia, listening from their 
 thrones to a Christian missionary, because he professed 
 to bring and to preach truth, and Christ as the Truth, the 
 Way, and the Life; then cast the other on a Pilate, asking, 
 in the profoundest disbelief in all virtue and goodness, 
 "What is truth?" we shall see at a glance that Britain 
 was prepared, and the Roman empire not prepared, for 
 Christianity. The British and Roman minds were different. 
 Druidism, therefore, dissolved by the natural action of its 
 own principles into Christianity. No persecution until the 
 tenth, under Diocletian, touched Britain, for Christianity 
 had become nationality. And the Diocletian was stopped 
 in two years, on his own responsibility, at the hazard of 
 civil war, by Constantius. Then rose Constantine, with a 
 British army sworn to put down the persecution of 
 
 7 " Penitus religionem Druidarum abolevit Claudius." — Suetonius, 
 in Vita Claud. 
 
 8 St. Paul's maxim, " We can do nothing against the truth," 
 breathes a kindred spirit, and would at once conciliate a Druidic 
 hearer. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 79 
 
 Christianity for ever. The clue is a national, a British one. 
 
 The next missionary after Joseph was Simon Zelotes 
 the apostle. There can be little doubt, we think, on this 
 point. One Menology assigns the martyrdom of Zelotes to 
 Persis in Asia, but others agree in stating he suffered in 
 Britain. Of these the principal authority is Dorotheus, 
 Bishop of Tyre, in the reigns of Diocletian and Constan- 
 tius (a.d. 300). His testimony we consider decisive: — 
 "Simon Zelotes traversed all Mauritania, and the regions 
 of the Africans, preaching Christ. He was at last crucified, 
 slain, and buried in Britain." 9 Crucifixion was a Roman 
 penalty for runagate slaves, deserters, and rebels: it was 
 not known to the British laws. We conclude Simon Zelotes 
 suffered in the east of Britain, perhaps, as tradition affirms, 
 in the vicinity of Caistor, under the prefecture of Caius 
 Decius, the officer whose atrocities were the immediate 
 cause of the Boadicean war. Two things strike the investi- 
 gator of early Christian history: the marvellous manner 
 in which Christian seed is found growing and fructifying 
 in unheard-of places; the indifference of the sowers to 
 perpetuating their own name and labours. They seem to 
 have been quite satisfied and blest in sowing Christ, and 
 then resting. The epitaph of Joseph of Avalon would ex- 
 press the feelings of all : — Docui, Quievi, 1 1 taught, I have 
 entered on my rest.' Beautiful as is this in fact and faith, 
 it is very unsatisfactory in history. As Christians we feel 
 its propriety; as writers we desiderate more of that yearn- 
 ing for immortality on earth which inspires the Greek and 
 Latin authors, and inspires us also in reading them. Yet 
 the effects of the Christian principle are undoubtedly 
 greater; for the principle it is which meets us face to face. 
 It is Christ or self. We come on a field: the sower has 
 inclosed it, built round it strongly, sowed proved seed in 
 it, entrusted it to a few like-minded men, and he vanishes. 
 
 9 Dorotheus, Synod, de Apostol.; Synopsis ad Sim Zelot. 
 
80 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 He is crucified a thousand miles off, leaves no memoir of 
 himself, no message to posterity, no foot-mark on the 
 geology of the Church. In perusing the Apostolic Epistles 
 we are struck by the maximum of censure, the minimum 
 of approval conveyed to the Churches. We are apt to 
 think they had little force or vitality. But when we extend 
 our survey to the whole empire of Rome, we are almost 
 terrified at the subterraneous shocks with which these 
 Churches are everywhere bringing Pagan temple and 
 tower to the ground. We try to calculate and value this 
 power. We fail in doing it. The Roman government failed 
 also. It is an unknown power, the source of which is 
 from above. 
 
 3. Next to Joseph and Simon Zelotes came Aristobulus. 
 " It is perfectly certain," writes Alford, 10 " that before St. 
 Paul had come to Rome Aristobulus was absent in 
 Britain." We have seen he was not at Rome when Paul 
 wrote his Epistle. Now Aristobulus must have been far 
 advanced in years, for he was the father-in-law of St. 
 Peter. His wife was the subject of the miracle recorded 
 by St. Matthew. His daughter bore Peter a son and a 
 daughter. We have the following evidences that he 
 preached the Gospel and was martyred in Britain: — 
 
 The Martyrologies of the Greek Churches: — "Aris- 
 tobulus was one of the seventy disciples, and a follower 
 of St. Paul the Apostle, along with whom he preached 
 the Gospel to the whole world, and ministered to him. 
 He was chosen by St. Paul to be the missionary bishop to 
 the land of Britain, inhabited by a very warlike and fierce 
 race. By them he was often scourged, and repeatedly 
 
 10 Alford's Regia Fides, vol. i. p. 83. Alford. whose proper name 
 was Griffiths, and who assumed the name of Alford on entering 
 the Society of Jesuits, is, next to Baronius, the most learned of 
 the Roman Catholic historians. His Regia Fides is a wonderful 
 monument of erudition and research. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 81 
 
 dragged as a criminal through their towns, yet he con- 
 verted many of them to Christianity. He was there mar- 
 tyred, after he had built churches and ordained deacons 
 and priests for the island." 11 
 
 Haleca, Bishop of Augusta, to the same effect: — "The 
 memory of many martyrs is celebrated by the Britons, 
 especially that of St. Aristobulus, one of the seventy 
 disciples." 12 
 
 Dorotheus, a.d. 303: — "Aristobulus, who is mentioned 
 by the Apostle in his Epistle to the Romans, was made 
 bishop in Britain." 13 
 
 Adonis Martyrologia : — " Natal day of Aristobulus, 
 Bishop of Britain, brother of St. Barnabas the Apostle, by 
 whom he was ordained bishop. He was sent to Britain, 
 where, after preaching the truth of Christ and forming a 
 Church, he received martyrdom." 14 
 
 The British Achau, or Genealogies of the Saints of 
 Britain: — "These came with Bran the Blessed from Rome 
 to Britain — Arwystli Hen (Senex), Hid, Cyndaw, men of 
 Israel; Maw, or Manaw, son of Arwystli Hen." 15 
 
 According to the genius of the British tongue, Aristo- 
 bulus becomes Arwystli. 
 
 A district in Montgomeryshire, on the Severn, per- 
 petuates by its name (Arwystli) the scene of his martyr- 
 dom. 
 
 The Britons must have had Arwystli in person among 
 them; they must have been struck by the age of the 
 venerable missionary, or the epithet Senex would not have 
 become amongst them part of his name. 
 
 There are several points here to be noted. The first is, 
 
 11 Greek Men., ad 15 March. 
 
 12 Halecae Fragmenta in Martyr. 
 
 13 Synopsis ad Aristobulum. 
 
 14 In Diem Martii 17. 
 
 15 Achau Saint Prydain. 
 
82 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 that Aristobulus was sent into Britain by St. Paul before 
 St. Paul came himself to Rome, and even before the 
 Epistle to the Romans was written, for Aristobulus, when 
 St. Paul wrote it, had left for his mission. The large space 
 given by the Roman historians to the wars in Britain 
 demonstrates the interest felt in them by the whole 
 empire. Britain was a familiar term in every household. 
 Upon it the whole military attention had for some years 
 been concentrated. The name of Arviragus had by this 
 time attained as great a celebrity as that of his cousin 
 Caractacus — it was in every one's mouth; and Juvenal 
 could suggest no news which would have been hailed by 
 the Roman people with more intense satisfaction than that 
 of his fall:— 
 
 " Hath our great enemy 
 Arviragus, the car-borne British king, 
 Dropped from his battle-throne?" 
 
 It is certain, therefore, that St. Paul, who travelled 
 everywhere, mixing with every kind of society, must 
 have been as well acquainted with Britain, and the events 
 passing therein, as any other intelligent Roman citizen. 
 There was everything to attract his eye to it as a field 
 for Gospel labour and enterprise. 
 
 But have we any Scripture evidence that St. Paul at this 
 time thought at all of Western Europe? Undoubtedly we 
 have. Commentators and writers of his life generally refer 
 to his visit to Spain as contemplated after his first im- 
 prisonment at Rome. A reference to the passage in the 
 fifteenth chapter of the Epistle shows, on the contrary, 
 that his journey to Spain was meditated not only before 
 he came to Rome, but that it was his principal object in 
 leaving the East, his call at Rome being simply on the 
 way. " Whensoever I take my journey into Spain, I will 
 come to you, for I trust to see you on my journey, and to 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 83 
 
 be brought on my way thitherward by yo?\" 16 He speaks 
 of the journey as a thing decided upon, taking Rome by 
 the way. Literally, in the original it is, "I hope in passing 
 through to see you." It was the West of Europe, then, 
 beyond Rome, not Rome itself, which was the Apostle's 
 mark, even at this comparatively early date. All the inci- 
 dents and delays which occurred between this date (a.d. 
 56), and the termination of his first imprisonment at Rome, 
 were interruptions of his original plan of operations. His 
 destination was the extreme West, and this was in accor- 
 dance with the command of Christ, " I will send thee tar 
 hence to the Gentiles." According to the Scriptures, there- 
 fore, and the view we have therein of Paul's own mind, 
 we think we are justified in concluding that having already 
 sent Aristobulus into Britain, he intended to traverse 
 Spain himself, and thence join his fellow-labourer in our 
 island; for it is plain that Aristobulus acted as wholly 
 under Paul's instructions in Britain as Titus in Crete or 
 Timothy in Asia Minor. " He preached the Gospel with 
 St. Paul to the whole world, and ministered to him." 17 
 
 It appears that Bran left Rome with Aristobulus, his 
 son Manaw, Hid, and Cyndaw, before Caradoc. He was 
 accompanied also by Eurgain, the eldest daughter of 
 Caradoc, and her husband Salog, lord in her right of Caer 
 Salog (Salisbury), a Roman patrician. Hid established his 
 mission under the protection of Bran, his grandson Cyl- 
 linus (eldest son of Caradoc), Salog and Eurgain, in the 
 centre of Siluria, on the spot in Glamorganshire known 
 from that period till the present as Llan-Ilid. At this Llan, 
 or 1 consecrated inclosure,' the Princess Eurgain founded 
 and endowed the first Christian cor, or choir, in Britain. 
 From this Cor-Eurgain issued many of the most eminent 
 
 16 Rom. xv. 24. 
 
 17 Greek Menology, ad Diem Martii 17. 
 
84 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 teachers and missionaries of Christianity down to the 
 tenth century. Of the saints of this cor, from Hid in suc- 
 cession, there are catalogues in the " Genealogies of the 
 Saints of Britain." 18 
 
 Eastern and Western testimonies concur in thus proving 
 the Aristobulian mission to Britain under the Sanction of 
 Bran and his family. We complete the chain with the 
 two following, from historic sources : — 
 
 "The three blessed sovereigns of the isle of Britain: — 
 i. Bran, son of Llyr Llediaith, who first brought the faith 
 of Christ to the Cymry from Rome, where he had been 
 seven years a hostage for his son Caradoc, whom the 
 Romans put in prison, after being betrayed by the plot- 
 ting, deceit and enticement of Areddig. 2. Lleuver, or 
 Leirwig (Lucius), son of Coel, son of St. Cyllin, son of 
 Caradoc, son of Bran, son of Llyr Llediaith, called Lleuver 
 the Great, who founded the first church of Llandaff, and 
 first gave the privileges of the country and nation to all 
 who professed the faith in Christ. 3. Cadwalladr the 
 Blessed, who gave protection within all his lands to the 
 Christians who fled from the pagan Saxons who wished 
 to slay them." 19 
 
 "The three priorities of the Cymry: — 1. Priority as 
 the first colonizers of Britain; 2. Priority of government 
 and civilization; 3. Priority as the first Christians of 
 Britain." 20 
 
 18 Achau Saint Prydain. In these Achau, or genealogies, Eur- 
 gain is commemorated as the first female saint of the isle of 
 Britain. Her conversion., therefore, preceded that of her sister 
 Claudia. Hid was a Hebrew: — 
 
 " Hast thou heard the saying of Hid, 
 
 One come of the race of Israel ? 
 ' There is no mania like passion.' " — 
 
 British Troverbs. 
 
 19 Triads of the isle of Britain. 
 
 20 Triads of the Cymry. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 85 
 
 In an ancient collection of British proverbs we find 
 certain sayings transmitted of Bran and the first Christians 
 of Britain : — 
 
 " Hast thou heard the saying of Hid, 
 The saint of the race of Israel? 
 ' No folly but ends in misery.' 
 
 Hast thou heard the saying of the noble Bran, 
 The blessed, to all the renowned ? 
 ' There is no good but God Himself.' 
 
 Hast thou heard the saying of Caradoc, 
 
 The exalted son of the noble Bran? 
 
 ' Oppression persisted in brings on death.' " 
 
 We have at this stage of the inquiry two distinct cradles 
 of Christianity in Britain — the mission of Joseph in 
 Avalon, and the Cor-Eurgain at Llan-Ilid in Wales; the 
 former protected by Arviragus, the latter fostered by the 
 family of Caradoc, his cousin. We can entertain no 
 reasonable doubt that very intimate ties bound these two 
 Christian missions together. St. Barnabas, Aristobulus his 
 brother, and Joseph were members of the Jerusalem 
 Church — they were of the one hundred and twenty which 
 constituted it prior to the day of Pentecost — the same 
 spiritual union, the same friendship, the same one faith, 
 one heart, one mind, one baptism, one hope, one Lord, 
 would joint them together in Britain as in Jerusalem. Both 
 establishments were out of the pale of Rome, both among 
 the free states of Britain. Beyond Siluria, among the 
 Ordovices, the protection of Bran did not avail Aristobu- 
 lus: Joseph came direct from Jerusalem, and was there- 
 fore regarded with favour; Aristobulus came from Rome, 
 from the metropolis of the national enemy, and fell, per- 
 haps, rather a victim to this fact than a martyr to religion. 
 In Siluria itself the royal family were hard pressed to 
 reconcile their subjects to the presence of men in any 
 
86 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 way, however slightly, connected with Rome, so unap- 
 peasable was the hatred borne to the invaders, so easily 
 misapprehended and confounded every embassage from 
 their city. Every overture of peace made by the Roman 
 government to this ferox provincia was sternly rejected; 
 rigour and mildness were alike thrown away. " The race 
 of the Silures," observes Tacitus, " was not to be changed 
 by clemency or severity." 21 Even after the treaty which 
 incorporated Britain with Rome (a.d. 118), two-thirds of 
 the whole military force of the island continued to be 
 stationed on the frontiers of Wales, at Chester and 
 Caeleon. The same dogged opposition to the foreigner 
 characterised the same race in the West in the later Saxon 
 eras. " It is certain," writes Kemble, " that neither Roman 
 nor Saxon produced any effect worth mentioning on the 
 Cymric race and language west of the Severn. We see 
 indeed what little effect all the centuries since then, 
 though but a river divides the two races, has produced 
 upon the British language." 22 
 
 Great caution, therefore, was called for in the exercise, 
 under these circumstances, of the royal protection. 
 Meanwhile, however, the cor continued to strike roots. 
 The royal family themselves remained firm in the profes- 
 sion of Christianity. Cyllinus, who acted as regent in the 
 absence of his father Caradoc, had all his children bap- 
 tized. Converts increased, and more teachers arrived from 
 
 21 " Silurum gens non atrocitate, non dementia mutabatur " — 
 Taciti Annal, lib. ii. c. 24. 
 
 22 History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. Tacitus, in his Life of 
 Agricola (c. 21), takes occasion to notice the stubborn attachment 
 of the Briton to his native tongue. And it is one of the most 
 remarkable facts connected with the occupation of Britain by the 
 Romans, that though they entirely recast the languages of the 
 Continent through the medium of their own, they did not leave 
 probably a hundred Latin words behind them in Britain: within 
 twenty years of their departure Latin had ceased to be spoken in 
 the island. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 87 
 
 Greece and Rome. The following notice of St. Cyllinus 
 is extracted from the family records of Jestyn ap Gwrgant, 
 Prince of Glamorgan, in the eleventh century: — 
 
 " Cyllin ab Caradog, a wise and just king. In his days 
 many of the Cymry embraced the faith in Christ through 
 the teaching of the saints of Cor-Eurgain, and many godly 
 men from the countries of Greece and Rome were in 
 Cambria. He first of the Cymry gave infants names; for 
 before, names were not given except to adults, and then 
 from something characteristic in their bodies, minds, or 
 manners." 23 
 
 Nero had succeeded Claudius Sept. 28, a.d. 53. He was 
 in his seventeenth year, and for some time remained under 
 the influence of Seneca, a Stoic philosopher in profession 
 but in practice a grinding usurer. The capital of this 
 minister amounted to fifteen million pounds sterling of 
 modern money. Two millions of this he advanced to the 
 Iceni of Britain on the security of their public buildings. 
 We doubt if Rothschild or any modern capitalist would 
 advance half the sum on such buildings as may now be 
 found in the old Icenic counties. The king of the Iceni 
 was Prasutagus, his queen Victoria (in British, Vuddig or 
 Boeddig — Boadicea). Tacitus speaks of him as a sovereign 
 whose wealth was notorious at Rome — longd clarus 
 opulentid. 
 
 The commerce between Britain and the Continent con- 
 tinued to be vigorously conducted. Tacitus informs us 
 that the great foreign emporium was London, a city the 
 foundation of which the British annals carried back 270 
 years before that of Rome, i.e. B.C. 1020. 1 Above 80,000 
 
 23 Gwehelyth Iestyn ap Gwrgant. 
 
 1 " Londinum vetus oppidum quod Augustam posteritas appel- 
 lavit." — Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. xxvii. c. 8, 9. If London was 
 not a prae-Roman city, Ammianus could not term it " an ancient 
 city:" for supposing it founded the first year of the Claudian 
 
88 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 Roman citizens, according to the Roman historians, 
 perished in the Boadicean war, of whom the greater num- 
 ber resided in London. A Roman garrison stationed in the 
 Praetorium — which extended along the Thames from the 
 temple of Diana, where now stands St. Paul's, to the Bryn 
 Gwyn, or White Mount, the site of the Tower — protected 
 their property and interests. It was just as easy for an 
 apostle to find his way into Britain as for any of these 
 80,000, amongst whom there must have been a fair pro- 
 portion of Christians. The Roman citizen could travel 
 from Babylon to London along the great military itinera 
 of the empire, more slowly indeed, but with fewer civil 
 inconveniences in the shape of passports and stoppages, 
 and no less security, than an Englishman can now. It was 
 not in mediaeval Europe, divided amongst a thousand 
 independent marauding states and barons, nor in the 
 pathless wilds of a new world, but over the length and 
 breadth of an empire possessed of a system of roads laid 
 down with consummate engineering skill, and remaining, 
 until the invention of railroads, without rivals on a great 
 scale, that the first preachers of the Gospel had to travel. 
 The Roman iter at Babylon would conduct them, under 
 the protection of one law, one government, without a 
 frontier, to Calais. The whole empire was a network of 
 connected arteries, along which a traveller might take his 
 ease from anywhere to anywhere under the overshadow- 
 ing protection of the Eagles of the Caesars. It was not till 
 he had crossed the British Channel that the din and terror 
 of war assaulted his senses. So profound, indeed, until the 
 brief civil commotion that resulted in placing the Ves- 
 
 invasion, a.d. 43, it would still, in a.d. 350, be quite a new town; 
 and as the Boadicean war broke out a.d. 60, it would be absurd 
 to affirm that it rose in seventeen years to the condition described 
 by Tacitus : " Copia negotiatorum et commeatuum maxime cele- 
 bre." — Tacit. AnnaL, lib. 1; Hist., lib. L, and lib. xiv. c. 27 — 30. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 89 
 
 pasian family on the throne, was the peace which pre- 
 vailed through Europe, that the Roman annalists are 
 driven, for lack of national events, to fill page after page 
 with court scandals, with the personal debaucheries and 
 cruelties of the emperors. These emperors were despots 
 created by the democracy against the oligarchy; they held 
 the same position as the Tudors of later times in Britain. 
 When a noble raised his head above his fellows, like 
 Tarquin and the poppies, they cut it remorselessly and 
 unscrupulously down. A lover of the old oligarchic times, 
 such as Tacitus, would — and no doubt in many cases justly 
 stigmatize such executions as judicial murders, and trans- 
 mit their authors to the execration of posterity. The 
 people at large were unaffected; the lightning passed over 
 them; and, in return, it was the dagger of the oligarch in 
 the chamber, not the popular tumult, which the Caesar 
 dreaded. He walked the streets a simple citizen without 
 guards, but he went to the Senate armed. Meanwhile, 
 Ostorius Scapula in Britain suffered a defeat from 
 Arviragus at Caervelin, near Caerleon. Exhausted in mind 
 and body by the harassing vicissitudes of the war, he 
 petitioned to be recalled. He was succeeded by Didius 
 Gallus, who founded Cardiff, still called by the Welsh 
 Caer Dydd, ' the Castle of Didius.' After a short command 
 Didius gave way to Veranius, under whom the Roman 
 armies were again driven behind the Plautian line of for- 
 tresses, and their headquarters fixed at Verulam. Veranius 
 was superseded by Suetonius Paulinus, a second Fabius 
 Cunctator, and regarded as the ablest tactitian in the 
 Roman service. 2 He had under him the ninth, fourteenth, 
 twentieth (Vicesima Valens Victrix), and second (Augusta) 
 legions. 
 
 The expression of Tacitus, that Britain had long been 
 
 2 " Cunctator natura, nemo rei militaris callidior habe batur." — 
 Taciti Hist., lib. xiv. c. 20. 
 
90 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 the field for the employment of the great generals and 
 picked armies of the empire, 3 may be readily understood 
 by merely reading over the names of the Roman com- 
 manders who were successively entrusted with the con- 
 duct of war — Aulus Plautius, Geta, Vespasian and Titus, 
 Ostorius Scapula, Suetonius Paulinus, Cerealis, Julius 
 Frontinus, Julius Agricola, Sallustius, Lucullus, under 
 whom the island was lost, and the Roman armies a second 
 time withdrawn to the Continent, a.d. 86; from which 
 time till a.d. 118 we have but one solitary Roman name 
 occurring in British history, Neratius Marcellus. From a.d. 
 43 to a.d. 86 sixty pitched battles were fought. " The 
 series of invasions and sanguinary conflicts," observes 
 Smith in his "Ancient Religions," 4 " between the Romans 
 and Britons have no parallel in any age or country." " We 
 are able to perceive," writes Richardson, " from the partial 
 story furnished by the invaders themselves, that conquest 
 was never more dearly attempted than in the case of 
 Britain by the Romans. By no people was every inch of 
 country at any age contested with more bravery and sur- 
 rendered more stubbornly than by the aboriginal fathers 
 of this isle. They had become a very populous nation, so 
 versed in military tactics as to meet the armies, which 
 had been carrying the Roman banners over the most 
 famed and intellectual quarters of the world, on such 
 formidable terms, as to render victory at every encounter 
 little better than defeat. They had settled laws and insti- 
 tutions, were distinguished for an ardent love of liberty, 
 in defence of which the highest degree of valour and self- 
 devotion were on all occasions manifested. It is certain 
 they reverenced the laws by which they had been long 
 governed, and evinced profound homage for the memory 
 of their forefathers: nor can we less credit their un- 
 
 3 " Magni duces, egregii exercitus." — Tacitus, AnnaL, lib. ii. c. 24 
 
 4 P- 457. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 91 
 
 daunted energy against the mercenary and implacable 
 plunderers of the world, against whose experienced arms 
 they had to contend. A man must be a barbarian himself 
 to suppose that such a nation could be barbarous. The 
 idea is simply ludicrous." 5 
 
 This firm resistance to the Roman arms was mainly due 
 to the national religion — to Druidism, which acted then 
 much the same as Protestantism did on the British mind 
 in the popish invasion of the Armada. Druidism had been 
 persecuted by pagan Rome on the Continent as Protestant- 
 ism in the Tudor era was by papal Rome : both had their 
 headquarters and stronghold in Britain, both had common 
 points admirably suited to the native bent and genius of 
 the British race; both were religions of freedom; and both 
 were thoroughly identified with British independence and 
 grandeur. The Druid, indeed, regarded the Roman mytho- 
 logic religion with much the same mixture of contempt 
 and hatred that a strong Protestant does still the image 
 system and inquisition practices of the Papacy. " When 
 the Romans," observes Cleland, " effected a footing in 
 Britain, they found in Druidism a constant and implacable 
 enemy to their usurpation. They would have been glad to 
 introduce their religion, but to that point there was an 
 invincible obstacle in the horror and contempt of the 
 natives for a religion formed by a corruption of their own 
 allegories; which made the name of their heathen gods 
 as familiar to them as Julius Caesar states, but in a sense 
 which excluded them from reception in a divine one." 6 
 
 The Briton soon perceived the fact that Christianity and 
 Druidism were the two religions persecuted by Rome. The 
 gathering prejudice against the former, because the Aris- 
 tobulean mission came from Rome, gave way to strong 
 
 5 Richardson's Historian, p. 10. 
 
 6 Cleland's Ancient Celtica, p. 13. 
 
92 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 predilections in its favour. A large class of Britons, it is 
 true, cared as little then, as now, for religion in itself, but 
 they were ardent patriots, and Druidic because patriots; 
 they were indifferent what the national religion was, pro- 
 vided it was thoroughly anti-foreign, anti-Roman — that it 
 was thoroughly British. Nothing, therefore, served so 
 much to recommend Christianity and extend it in Britain, 
 as its persecution by Rome. Common oppression drove 
 the two religions into each other's arms, and finally united 
 them in so indissoluble a union, that we cannot now 
 separate in British Christianity the Druidic from the 
 Christian element. Two events now occurred which 
 crowned the national hatred towards both the arms and 
 religion of Rome, and, in the same degree, disposed Druid- 
 ism to identify its sufferings with those of Christianity — 
 these were the Boadicean outrage and the Menai massacre. 
 
 Orders were issued from Rome to Suetonius Paulinus 
 to extirpate, at any cost, the chief seat of Druidism among 
 the Cymry, or Western Britons. Seneca, who still, in some 
 respects, acted as Nero's adviser, demanded repayment, at 
 the same time, of his loan to the Iceni, charging exorbitant 
 interest. The Icenic senate demurred; whereon Caius 
 Decius, the Roman praefect at Caistor, was instructed to 
 take possession of all the temples, castles, and palaces 
 belonging to the state. These orders were vigorously exe- 
 cuted. Prasutagus, the king, dying in the midst of these 
 measures, left Nero co-heir, with his two daughters, to 
 his accumulated treasures. On the pretext that the whole 
 of the royal hoard came under the denomination of public 
 property, Decius proceeded to seize it. Resistance being 
 made, the legionaries stormed the palace, perpetrated the 
 most inhuman outrages on the persons of Queen Victoria 
 and her daughters, and carried the treasures off to the 
 Castra. Not content with these atrocities, Decius confis- 
 cated, in direct violation of the Claudian treaty, the 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 93 
 
 estates of many of the Icenic blaenorion, or nobility. The 
 Iceni sent Venusius to Arviragus, adjuring the Roman pro- 
 tectorate, and placing themselves and the Coraniaid at his 
 disposal. Suetonius, meanwhile, by forced marches along 
 the Wyddelian road, had reached the banks of the Menai. 
 On either side extended the myvyrion, or colleges, and the 
 cemeteries of the ancient religion, the tumuli of which 
 are yet traceable. Here reposed, between the soaring 
 ramparts of Snowdon, the sacred mountain, the Zion of 
 Cymru, and the blue waters of the unexplored Atlantic, 
 the fathers of the British Isle : chiefs whose ashes for 
 fifteen hundred years had never been desecrated by the 
 tramp of a foreign foe; arch-druids, the depositaries of 
 the hoary wisdom of the East; kings whose Cimbric names 
 had carried terror over the continents of Europe and Asia. 
 Through these sanctuaries of so many and such ancient 
 memories, the regulated march of the mailed legions of 
 Rome now resounded. Anglesey was then known as Mon, 
 and ecclesiastically, from the number of Druidic groves 
 which covered it, sweeping down to the margin of the 
 Menai, as Ynys Tywyll, the dark isle. The massacre of 
 the Druidic priests and priestesses which ensued is graphic- 
 ally described by Tacitus. It was a complete surprise. 
 Effecting the passage of the Menai, opposite the present 
 seat of the Marquis of Anglesey (Plas Newydd), Seutonius 
 gave the colleges to the flame and their inmates to the 
 sword, the resistance attempted by the native force on 
 the spot being easily overcome. The myvyrion were level- 
 led with the soil, and for many nights and days the waters 
 of the Menai were illuminated with the glare of the con- 
 flagrations of the sacred luci — the favourite haunts of 
 Druidic meditation and philosophy. Tacitus endeavours 
 to palliate this foul wholesale assassination of the 
 ministers of religion, by stating that the Druids were in 
 the habit of sacrificing the Roman prisoners of war on 
 
94 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 their altars. The Romans themselves, we know, after 
 exhibiting them in triumph, slaughtered every captive 
 king and chief in the Tarpeian dungeons, whilst the 
 privates were condemned in thousands to butcher each 
 other on the public altar, or the arena of the circus, in the 
 gladiatorial games — even the vestal virgins smiling on the 
 sanguinary holocausts. The immolation, on the other 
 hand, of Roman prisoners by the Druids, rests on the 
 solitary assertion of an enemy who, with a like scandalous 
 indifference to truth, terms almost in the same page the 
 Christian religion itself ' a destructive superstition. 7 " The 
 news of the massacre was no sooner diffused through 
 Britain than it excited the nation to frenzy. The war from 
 this moment became a religious war; a crusade 
 accompanied with all the frightful and remorseless 
 cruelties on either side which have in all ages dis- 
 tinguished such hostilities. 8 The Iceni and Coranidae 
 had entirely forfeited the name of Britons, and then- 
 oppression alone might have been regarded in the 
 light of a just retribution, but the Menai massacre merged 
 all other feelings in one torrent of universal indignation 
 and horror. Boadicea soon found herself at the head of 
 120,000 men in arms. The Roman accounts impress us 
 vividly with the profound gloom in which their forces 
 
 7 Suppose we knew nothing more of the Jewish dispensation 
 and of the Levitical priesthood than we find in Greek and Latin 
 authors, it must be confessed we should have either to remain in 
 total ignorance, or to embrace very absurd misconceptions. It 
 may. however, be added, that the Greeks were equally unjust 
 towards the Romans, for no Greek writer deigns to mention the 
 name of any of their authors, or, indeed, to suppose that they 
 had any literature at all. 
 
 8 In the Boadicean war, states Tacitus, no quarter was given or 
 asked on either side : " Neque enim capere aut venumdare aliudve 
 quod belli commercium sit," &c. — Anna!., lib. xiv. c. 29 — 39. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 95 
 
 were plunged, by the heavy shadows of the forthcoming 
 disasters. Portent on portent is recorded. At Colchester 
 the statue of Victory, like that of Dagon at Joppa, fell 
 backward and was shattered to fragments. A Pythoness, 
 agitated, like Cassandra on the eve of the fall of Troy, 
 with the insuppressible spirit of divination, caused the 
 streets to re-echo with the cry — " Death is at hand." In 
 the senate-house the British warcry, uttered by invisible 
 tongues, terrified and dispersed the councillors. The 
 theatres resounded with the shocks and groans of a field 
 of battle. In the waters of the Thames appeared the 
 mirage of a Roman colony subverted and in ruins. The 
 channel between Dover and Calais ran at high tide with 
 blood. On the tide receding, the sands revealed, in long 
 lines, the impressions of files of bodies laid out for burial. 
 The Menai massacre had, in fact, terrified the consciences 
 of its perpetrators, as it had roused to fury the passions of 
 the whole Druidic population. The return of Caradoc also 
 about this period to Siluria, though bound by solemn 
 stipulation, which he faithfully observed, not to bear arms 
 again against Rome, augmented the general commotion. 
 The British army, assembled at Caer Llyr (Leicester) under 
 Venusius, was harangued by Boadicea in person. Boadicea 
 was a near relative of Claudia. We have seen the latter 
 princess cultivating the belles lettres, throwing her palace 
 open to Martial and the literati of the capital of Europe, 
 receiving apostles, establishing the first Christian Church 
 in her own household, uniting the graces of religion with 
 refined art and high personal accomplishments. This is the 
 royal Christian lady, such as we should expect to find, 
 presiding, surrounded by the elite of Roman society, over 
 the household of a Roman senator of ample possessions 
 and powerful connexions. Dion Cassius gives us a sister 
 picture of her cousin the Druidic queen, under very dif- 
 ferent circumstances during the same year in Britain. It 
 
96 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 is a grand and imposing composition, quite unique in 
 history. Greece and Rome shew us nothing like it. The 
 Maid of Orleans, in more modern times, is the only 
 approach to it, but all the terrible features are supplanted 
 by gentler ones. We see a queen, stung to madness by 
 the wrongs which most nearly affect womanhood, leading 
 a whole nation to battle; the sense of injury has changed 
 her whole nature into that of a Bellona, an incarnate 
 goddess of war, and she lives only for revenge. In her 
 eyes every Roman is a monster already doomed. She 
 would have been less than woman not to have felt her dis- 
 honour, more than human not to have panted for the hour 
 of retribution. " Boadicea," writes Dion, " ascended the 
 general's tribunal; her stature exceeded the ordinary 
 height of woman; her appearance itself carried terror; her 
 aspect was calm and collected, but her voice had become 
 deep and pitiless. Her hair falling in long golden tresses as 
 low as her hips, was collected round her forehead by a 
 golden coronet; she wore a tartan dress fitting closely to 
 the bosom, but below the waist expanding in loose folds 
 as a gown; over it was a chlamys, or military cloak. In 
 her hand she bore a spear. She addressed the Britons as 
 follows." — We give only her peroration: — 
 " I thank thee ! I worship thee ! I appeal to thee a 
 woman to a woman, O Andraste ! I rule not, like Nitocris, 
 over beasts of burden, as are the effeminate nations of the 
 East, nor, like Semiramis, over tradesmen and traffickers, 
 nor, like the man-woman Nero, over slaves and eunuchs — 
 such is the precious knowledge these foreigners introduce 
 amongst us — but I rule over Britons, little versed indeed 
 in craft and diplomacy, but born and trained to the game 
 of war: men who, in the cause of liberty, stake down 
 their lives, the lives of their wives and children, their 
 lands and property. Queen of such a race, I implore thine 
 aid for freedom, for victory over enemies infamous for 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 97 
 
 the wantonness of the wrongs they inflict, for their per- 
 versions of justice, for their contempt of religion, for their 
 insatiable greed; a people that revel in unmanly pleasures, 
 whose affections are more to be dreaded and abhorred 
 than their enmity. Never let a foreigner bear rule over 
 me or these my countrymen : never let slavery reign in 
 this island. Be thou for ever, O goddess of manhood and 
 of victory, sovereign and queen in Britain. 9 " 
 
 Colchester was carried on the first assault by the British 
 army. The temple, garrisoned by the veterans, held out 
 for two days, then shared the same fate. Petilius Cerealis, 
 the Roman lieutenant, was defeated, with the loss of the 
 ninth legion, at Coggeshall (Cocci Collis). Cerealis himself, 
 with a few horsemen, escaped into camp. The municipal 
 town of Verulam was then stormed, gutted, and burnt. 
 London had received a Roman garrison, under the name 
 of a colony, within its walls. Against it the British army, 
 now swelled to 230,000 men, directed its vengeance. A 
 battle was fought and lost in its defence, at Ambresbury, 
 between Waltham and Epping. 10 Such of the inhabitants 
 as possessed the means fled, at the approach of the British 
 Queen, to Regnum and Rutupium. The rest, including the 
 Roman citizens and foreign merchants, took refuge with 
 the garrison in the fortifications of the Prastorium, extend- 
 ing from the temple of Diana to the White Mount. The 
 ramparts were escaladed, the city fired, public and private 
 edifices reduced indiscriminately to ashes, the walls level- 
 led, and above 40,000 residents put to the sword. Leaving 
 
 9 Dion Cassius, Xiphilini Excerpta, printed in the government 
 Monumenta Britannica, ad an. 58, 59. 
 
 10 The spot of Boadicea's camp is approached across the old 
 Ermine Street by the Camlet (Battle-way). Its figure is described 
 in Cromwell's " Colchester," vol. i. p. 32 as irregular, containing 
 twelve acres, surrounded by moats and high ramparts, overgrown 
 with oaks and hornbeams. 
 
98 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 behind this terrible example of a metropolis in conflagra- 
 tion, quenched with blood, Victoria swept westward to 
 intercept Paulinus. Tacitus records but two, Dion many 
 engagements, between her and the Roman forces. Her 
 British epithet, Buddig, or Vuddig (the Victorians), implies 
 that in more than one battle success followed her stan- 
 dard. Tacitus localizes the last battle on the margin of 
 Epping forest — a plain error. The British traditions place 
 it on the Wyddelian road, near the modern town of New- 
 market, in Flintshire. The names still attached to the 
 various sites of the field confirm this statement. Here are 
 "Cop Paulinus," the "Hill of Arrows," the "Hill of 
 Carnage," the "Hollow of Woe," the "Knoll of the 
 Melee," the "Hollow of Execution," the "Field of the 
 Tribunal," the " Hollow of No Quarter." Half-a-mile fur- 
 ther is a monolith, the " Stone of Lamentation,' and on 
 the road to Caerwys was formerly — now removed to 
 Downing — the " Stone of the Grave of Vuddig." Turning 
 to the pages of Dion, we read the description of a conflict 
 such as these names suggest — a deadly melee of legion- 
 aries, auxiliaries, archers, cavalry, charioteers, mingled 
 together and swaying to and fro in all the heady currents 
 of a long-sustained and desperate combat. Towards sun- 
 set the fortune of the day was decided in favour of the 
 Romans. The Britons, driven back on their intrenchments, 
 left a large number dead on the field, or prisoners in the 
 hands of the enemy. They prepared, however, to renew 
 the conflict, but in the interim, Victoria died, by poison 
 according to Tacitus — in the course of nature according 
 to the Greek historian, who adds that her obsequies were 
 celebrated with extraordinary magnificence. Her death 
 little affected the spirit or resources of the western and 
 northern Britons, who continued hostilities with unabated 
 vigour under Arviragus, Venusius, and Gwallog, or 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 99 
 
 Galgacus. 11 Harassed by the same anxieties that had under- 
 mined the constitution of Ostorius Scapula, Paulinus, at 
 the expiration of the year a.d. 6i, resigned his command 
 to Petronius Turpilianus. The whole of the Roman empire 
 elsewhere continued to enjoy tranquility, Syria alone ex- 
 cepted, the disturbances in which were pacified in a few 
 months by Corbulo. Whatever emperor occupied the 
 throne, the military service was never deficient in generals 
 of the highest order of ability. The war had now lasted 
 eighteen years, and the Roman province was still limited 
 by the Exe and Severn westward and the Humber on the 
 north. Even within these lines its bounds fluctuated with 
 the success of reverses or the imperial arms. 12 
 
 11 We have elsewhere observed that the gallant and successful 
 resistance of Britain to the Roman invasions was mainly due to 
 the patriotic spirit and exalted doctrines with regard to the 
 indestructibility of the soul breathed by their Druidic religion. 
 Seneca was the indirect cause of the Boadicean war. His nephew 
 Lucan, in the first book of Vharsalia, attributes the British fear- 
 lessness of death to Druidic teaching in the following fine lines: — 
 
 " Certe populi quos despicit Arctus. 
 Felices errore suo, quos ille timorum 
 Maximus haud urget, lethi metus. Inde ruendi 
 In ferrum mens prona vivis animaeque capaces 
 Mortis et ignavum rediturae parcere vitae." 
 
 Cicero had noted the fact before — " In prcelio morituri exultant 
 
 Cimbri." — Tuscul. Disp., lib. ii. 
 
 12 " Non poterant Britanni sub Romana ditioni teneri," is the 
 frank admission of the Augustini Scriptores, p. 68. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Tracings up of the Ancient Royal Church of Britain to 
 its Apostolic Foundations. — St. Paul in Britain. — His con- 
 nection with the Royal Silurian Family of Britain. 
 
 TWO cardinal reasons, we have seen, each of national 
 weight and extent, inclined the British mind to accept 
 Christianity — the first, its identity in many important 
 points with Druidism; the second, its uncompromising 
 antagonism to the whole system of the Roman state 
 mythology. The Roman persecution of both religions 
 identified them still further in the popular mind. No- 
 where, then, in Asia, Africa, or Europe, could the apostles 
 find richer or a better-prepared soil for the Gospel. If we 
 add that Britain was the only country in these ages where 
 the Christian could profess and practise his religion free 
 from persecution, we reasonably and antecedently con- 
 clude that a strong Christian current must have set in 
 from both Jerusalem and Rome to this island from the 
 first or Pentescostal days of the Church. 
 
 We shall better estimate the force of the following testi- 
 monies if we keep steadily in mind the fact that the great 
 British Church which Augustine found a.d. 596 established 
 in Britain and Ireland, was essentially Eastern, proclaim- 
 ing by every usage in which she differed from Rome her 
 direct and independent birth from Jerusalem and the 
 apostles themselves in the first throes of Christianity. It 
 is, indeed, an absurdity to go about explaining the exis- 
 tence of such a Church, abounding in all the characteris- 
 tics of an ancient institution, deeply fixed in the native 
 mind and soil, in any other way than by a frank accep- 
 tance of its apostolic origin. Every other attempt at solu- 
 tion fails us. How came these archbishoprics, bishoprics, 
 
 100 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 101 
 
 dioceses, Christian colleges, parochial churches and en- 
 dowments, royal Christian houses, genealogies of saints, 
 immense and opulent monasteries, a whole nation of 
 believers, to be in Britain? How came they, on their first 
 meeting with the missionary of the Bishop of Rome, to 
 proclaim with one voice, " We have nothing to do with 
 Rome; we know nothing of the Bishop of Rome in his 
 new character of the Pope; we are the British Church, the 
 Archbishop of which is accountable to God alone, having 
 no superior on earth. 1 " This is one of those tremendous 
 facts which rise before us like a huge mountain in the 
 plain of history. Rome found here a Church older than 
 herself, ramifications of which struck into the very heart 
 of the Continent, the missionary triumphs of which in 
 Italy itself in the life of Augustine were greater than his 
 own among the British Saxons; for Columba and his asso- 
 ciates from the primitive colleges in Ireland were the 
 evangelizers of the barbarian conquerors, the Lombards, 
 
 1 The continental Churches admitted, for the most part, a 
 Primacy when they rejected the Supremacy of the Bishop of 
 Rome. The British Church admitted neither; it knew nothing of 
 the Bishop of Rome, except on an equality with any of its own 
 British bishops, or any other bishop in the Christian Church. The 
 further we go back into British history, the clearer shines forth 
 in all our laws the entire independence of the British crowns, 
 Church, and people, of all foreign authority. All our great legal 
 authorities concur on this point. " The ancient British Church," 
 writes Blackstone, vol. iv. p. 105, " by whomsoever planted, was 
 a stranger to the Bishop of Rome and all his pretended authori- 
 ties." ■"' The Britons told Augustine," writes Bacon, Government 
 of England, " they would not be subject to him, nor let him 
 pervert the ancient laws of their Church. This was their resolu- 
 tion, and they were as good as their word, for they maintained 
 the liberty of their Church five hundred years after his time, and 
 were the last of all the Churches of Europe that gave up their 
 power to the Roman Beast, and in the person of Henry VIII, that 
 came of their blood by Owen Tudor, the first that took that power 
 away again." 
 
102 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 of Northern Italy. The Gallican Church was entirely one 
 with the British in this opposition to Roman assumptions. 
 The archbishops of Treves were, as we learn from the 
 Tungrensian Chronicles, always supplied from Britain. 
 Treves and Rheims became the headquarters of Gallic 
 liberties, and here rose, under Hincmar, as powerful a 
 resistance as in Britain to Italian supremacy. The Briton 
 could never understand why, because Rome professed 
 certain truths, she should arrogate spiritual despotism 
 over all who held the same. He does not appear to have 
 troubled himself about her errors and corruptions; these 
 he regarded as her own matters, with which, as not 
 belonging to him, he did not interfere. Cadvan, Prince of 
 Wales, expresses himself thus to the Abbot of Bangor: — 
 "All men may hold the same truths, yet no man thereby 
 be drawn into slavery to another. If the Cymry believed 
 all that Rome believes, that would be as strong reason for 
 Rome obeying us as for us to obey Rome. It suffices for 
 us that we obey the truth. If other men obey the truth, 
 are they, therefore, to become subject to us? Then were 
 the truth of Christ made slavery unto men, and not 
 freedom." 
 
 The soldier who interrogated Augustine at the oak of 
 Conference seems, in like manner, to treat the question 
 between them as one quite apart from doctrine. 
 
 "Does Rome possess all the truth?" 
 
 " All." 
 
 " And you say we do — our usages only differ. Now of 
 two men, if both have all their limbs and senses complete, 
 both are equal. Because the Romans have noses and we 
 have noses, must we either cut off our noses to be 
 Romans? must all who have noses be subject to the 
 Romans? Why, then, should all who hold the faith be 
 subject to Rome because she holds the faith?" 
 
 This rough, broad reasoning allowed almost identity in 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 103 
 
 doctrine and practices to be maintained by any Christian 
 with Rome, or any other Church, without in the most 
 remote degree admitting any claim Rome might advance 
 on the ground of such identity. The Briton thus had his 
 festivals, processions, floral decorations, antiphonal choirs, 
 cathedrals — an immense deal in common with Rome — 
 but he had had them for centuries before Papal Rome was 
 ever heard of. And he would have ridiculed the notion 
 that he was to give up a good thing because Rome also 
 had it, as he scorned the idea that a community in such 
 things constituted the shadow of a title on the part of 
 Rome to his allegiance. His position, in fact, was a very 
 strong one, — thoroughly Catholic, thoroughly anti-fanati- 
 cal, and at the same time thoroughly anti-papal: and he 
 knew its strength, resting on historical monuments which 
 could neither be ignored nor destroyed : around him rose 
 hoary cathedrals, churches, abbeys, colleges, " imperish- 
 able stones of witness " that his Church was the primitive 
 apostolical Church of Britain, — that the Papacy, with all 
 its claims, was a novelty, an intrusion, an invention, a 
 fable; that there never was a time when the eyes of the 
 Christian pilgrim did not rest in this island on vast evid- 
 ences bespeaking a Church subject to no other Church on 
 earth, built on its own apostolic foundations, and recognis- 
 ing the apostolic Scriptures alone for its rule of faith. 2 
 
 2 Bede's testimony as to the pure scriptural character of the 
 teaching of the British Church is full and explicit, and he con- 
 trasts, with feelings of shame and reluctance, the apostolic lives 
 of the British missionaries with those of his own Papal Church. 
 Of Columba he writes. " He taught only what was contained in 
 the prophetic, evangelic, and apostolic writings, all works of piety 
 and charity being at the same time diligently observed." — Lib. 
 iii. c. 41. Of Aidan: "All who resorted to him applied them- 
 selves either to reading the Scriptures or to learning Psalms." — 
 Lib. iii. c. 5. Of Adamnan : " He was most admirably versed in 
 the knowledge of the Scriptures." — Lib. iii. c. 15. How entirely 
 the British Church rejected human authority in matters of faith 
 
104 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 The general conclusion arrived at by the writers who 
 have previously investigated this final part of our question 
 may be given in the words of Capellus : " I scarcely know 
 of one author, from the times of the Fathers downwards, 
 who does not maintain that St. Paul, after his liberation, 
 preached in every country in Western Europe, Britain 
 included." 3 " Of St. Paul's journey to Britain," writes 
 Bishop Burgess, " we have as satisfactory proof as any 
 historical question can demand." 4 The same view is sub- 
 stantially maintained by Baronius, the Centuriators of 
 Magdeburg, Alford or Griffith, next to Baronius the most 
 erudite of the Roman Catholic historians; Archbishops 
 Parker and Usher, Stillingfleet, Camden, Gibson, Cave, 
 Nelson, Allix, &c. 
 
 Let us preface the catena authoritatum on this point 
 with a few general testimonies from widely different 
 quarters. 
 
 " The cradle of the ancient British Church was a royal 
 one, herein being distinguished from all other Churches: 
 for it proceeded from the daughter of the British king, 
 Caractacus, Claudia Rufina, a royal virgin, the same who 
 was afterwards the wife of Aulus Rufus Pudens, the 
 Roman senator, and the mother of a family of saints and 
 martyrs." 5 
 
 " We have abundant evidence that this Britain of ours 
 received the Faith, and that from the disciples of Christ 
 Himself, soon after the crucifixion of Christ." 6 
 
 may be collected from the saying of Columba, " Except what 
 has been declared by the Law, the prophets, the evangelists, and 
 apostles, a profound silence ought to be observed by all others on 
 the subject of the Trinity." — Lib. iii. c. 4. 
 
 3 Hist, of the Apostles. 
 
 4 Independence of the British Church. 
 
 5 Moncaeus Atrebas, the learned Gallican divine, In Syntagma, 
 p. 38. 
 
 6 Sir Henry Spelman's Concilia, fol., p. 1. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 105 
 
 " Britain in the reign of Constantine had become the 
 seat of a flourishing and extensive Church." 7 
 
 " Our forefathers, you will bear in mind, were not 
 generally converted, as many would fain represent, by 
 Roman missionaries. The heralds of salvation who planted 
 Christianity in most parts of England were trained in 
 British schools of theology, and were firmly attached to 
 those national usages which had descended to them from 
 the most venerable antiquity." 8 
 
 " The Christian religion began in Britain within fifty 
 years of Christ's ascension." 9 
 
 " Britain, partly through Joseph of Arimathaea, partly 
 through Fugatus and Damianus, was of all kingdoms the 
 first that received the Gospel." 10 
 
 " We can have no doubt that Christianity had taken 
 root and flourished in Britain in the middle of the second 
 century." 11 
 
 7 Soames' Anglo-Saxon Church, Introd.. p. 29. 
 
 8 Soames' Bampton Lectures, pp. 112 — 257. This statement is 
 so true, that sixty-three years after the landing of Augustine, that 
 is, AS). 660, when all the Heptarchy, except Sussex, had been 
 converted, Wini, Bishop of Winchester, was the only bishop of 
 the Romish communion in Britain, and he had purchased his first 
 bishopric of London from Wulfhere, King of Mercia : all the rest 
 were British. And the cause is patent: Maelwyn or Patrick, the 
 apostle of Ireland Ninian, the apostle of the southern Picts, Aidan 
 of the Northumbrians, Paul Hen his successor, Columba of the 
 Scots, Finan of the East Angles, Cad or Chad of the Mercians, 
 were all native Britons, educated in the native colleges. The 
 Romish succession had died down to one prelate, and Saxon 
 Christianity was kept alive or refounded by British Christians. 
 The succession of Augustine in Canterbury and Rochester expired 
 in Damianus, a.d. 666. 
 
 9 Robert Parsons the Jesuit's Three Conversions of England, 
 vol. i. p. 26. 
 
 10 Polydore Vergil, lib. ii. 
 
 11 Cardwell's (Camden Prof.) Ancient History, p. 18, 1837. 
 
106 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 " It is perfectly certain, that before St. Paul had come 
 to Rome Aristobulus was absent in Britain, and it is con- 
 fessed by all that Claudia was a British lady." 12 
 
 "The faith which was adopted by the nation of the 
 Britons in the year of our Lord 165, was preserved 
 inviolate, and in the enjoyment of peace, to the time of 
 the Emperor Diocletian." 13 
 
 Let us now trace our way back from the time of 
 Venerable Bede, a.d. 740, step by step, to the apostolic era 
 and the apostles themselves. 
 
 In the seventh century we have a galaxy of Christian 
 bishops in England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland, whose 
 names alone would make a considerable catalogue. 
 
 In the year a.d. 596 we have the Augustine mission 
 landing in Kent, followed by three conferences with the 
 bishops of the British Church. In a.d. 600, Venantius 
 Fortunatus, in his Christian Hymns, speaks of Britain as 
 having been evangelized by St. Paul. 14 
 
 In a.d. 542, Gildas writes: "We certainly know that 
 Christ, the True Sun, afforded His light, the knowledge 
 of His precepts, to our island in the last year of the reign 
 of Tiberius Caesar." 15 
 
 In a.d. 500-540, we have various productions of Chris- 
 tian bards, such as Taliesin and Aneurin, emanating from 
 the courts of the Christian sovereigns of Britain — one of 
 the latter, "The Crowned Babe" (i.e., Christ), interesting 
 as the earliest European specimen, of any length, of rhyme 
 in poetry: it is composed in the ancient British tongue. 
 
 In the year a.d. 408 Augustine of Hippo asks, " How 
 many churches are there not erected in the British isles 
 
 12 Alford's Regia Fides, vol. i. p. 19. 
 
 13 Bede, lib. i. c. 4. 
 
 14 " Transit et oceanum vel qua facit insula portum. 
 
 Quasque Britannus habet terras atque ultima Thule." 
 
 15 Ve Excidio Britannia, p. 25. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 107 
 
 which lie in the ocean?" 16 And about the same time 
 Arnobius writes : " So swiftly runs the word of God that 
 though in several thousand years God was not known, 
 except among the Jews, now, within the space of a few 
 years, His word is concealed neither from the Indians in 
 the East nor from the Britons in the West." 17 
 
 Theodoretus in a.d. 435 testifies : " Paul, liberated from 
 his first captivity at Rome, preached the Gospel to the 
 Britons and others in the West. Our fishermen and pub- 
 licans not only persuaded the Romans and their tributaries 
 to acknowledge the Crucified and His laws, but the Britons 
 also and the Cimbri (Cymry)." 18 
 
 To the same purport in his commentary on 2 Timothy 
 iv. 16: "When Paul was sent by Festus on his appeal to 
 Rome, he travelled, after being acquitted, into Spain, and 
 thence extended his excursions into other countries, and 
 to the islands surrounded by the sea." 
 
 More express testimony to Paul's preaching in Britain 
 could not be delivered, nor from a more unexceptional 
 quarter. Theodoret was Bishop of Cyropolis, attended 
 both the General Councils of Ephesus (a.d. 431), against 
 the Nestorians, and of Chalcedon, a.d. 451, consisting of 
 600 bishops. As an excellent interpreter of Scripture, and 
 a writer of ecclesiastical history, he deservedly ranks high. 
 
 Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople, supplies (a.d. 
 402) cumulative evidence of the existence of pure British 
 Christianity. " The British Isles," he writes, " which are 
 beyond the sea, and which lie in the ocean, have received 
 the virtue of the Word. Churches are there founded and 
 altars erected. Though thou shouldst go to the ocean, to 
 
 16 Opera, fol., Paris Edit., p. 676. 
 
 17 Arnobius, Ad. Vsalm cxlvii. 
 
 18 Theodoret, De Civ. Graze. Off., lib ix. Nicephorus seems to 
 have followed Theodoretus (Niceph., lib. ii. c. 40); and Eusebius 
 Pamphilus, lib. iv. — "cVi ras KaAo-vfcems 
 
108 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 the British Isles, there thou shouldst hear all men every- 
 where discoursing matters out of the Scriptures, with 
 another voice, indeed, but not another faith, with a differ- 
 ent tongue but the same judgment." 19 
 
 " From India to Britain," writes St. Jerome (a.d. 378), 
 " all nations resound with the death and resurrection of 
 Christ." 20 
 
 In a.d. 320, Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, speaks of 
 apostolic missions to Britain as a matter of notoriety: 
 " The apostles passed beyond the ocean to the isles called 
 the Brittanic Isles." 21 
 
 The first part of the fourth century is the era of Con- 
 stantine the Great and his mother Helena. Gibbon, with 
 that perversity which beset him as a mania in dealing 
 with the leading facts of Christianity, strives to persuade 
 himself that Constantine and Helen were not Britons, but 
 natives of some obscure village in the East 22 ; his sole 
 support for such a supposition being the fragment of an 
 anonymous author, appended to Ammianus Marcellinus. 
 " The man must be mad," states Baronius, " who, in the 
 face of universal antiquity, refuses to believe that Con- 
 stantine and his mother were Britons, born in Britain." 1 
 
 19 Chrysostomi, Qrat. 'O ®eog Xpta-ros 
 
 20 Jerome, In Isaiam, c. liv.; also, EpistoL, xiii. ad Vaul'mum. 
 
 21 Eusebius Be Demonstratione Evangelii, lib. iii. 
 
 22 Naissus. Colchester, the birth-place of Helen of the Cross, 
 has, from time immemorial, borne the cross with three crowns for 
 its arms. 
 
 1 Baronius, ad ann. 306 : "Non nisi extremae dementiae hominis." 
 Until the reign of Constantine the Roman Christians had no other 
 church than the Titulus to worship in : " Ante Constantini im- 
 perium templa Romae non habuerint Christiani," observes Bale 
 (Scriptores Britan., p. 17.) The Pope, it is well known, claims the 
 sovereignty of the States of the Church by right of the decree of 
 the British Emperor Constantine making them over in free gift 
 to the Bishop of Rome. That this decree was a forgery no one 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 109 
 
 Archbishop Usher delivers a catalogue of twenty contin- 
 ental authorities in the affirmative — not one to the con- 
 trary. The Panegyrics of the Emperors, the genealogy of 
 his own family, as recited by one of his descendants, 
 Constantine Palaeologus, native records and traditions, ail 
 the circumstances of his career, demonstrate Constantine 
 a Briton, bred in the strongest British ideas. "It is well 
 known," states Sozomen, " the great Constantine received 
 his Christian education in Britain." 2 " Helen was unques- 
 tionably a British princess," writes Melancthon. 3 " Christ," 
 declares Pope Urban in his Brief, Britannia, " shewed to 
 Constantine the Briton the victory of the cross for his 
 sceptre." " Constantine," writes Polydore Vergil, " born 
 in Britain, of a British mother, proclaimed Emperor in 
 Britain beyond doubt, made his natal soil a participator in 
 his glory." 4 Constantine was all this and more — by his 
 mother's side he was the heir and representative of the 
 royal Christian dynasty of Britain, as a glance at the table 
 on the next page will serve to show. 
 
 The policy of Constantine, in carrying out which for 
 twenty years with admirable wisdom and inflexible pur- 
 pose he was supported by armies levied for the most part 
 in his native British dominions, consisted in extending to 
 the whole Roman world the system of constitutional 
 
 doubts; it was, however, confirmed by Pepin. By the papal 
 Church's own showing, it is infinitely more indebted to the ancient 
 British Church and sovereigns than they ever were to it. Without 
 the benefactions of the Claudian family and Constantine, it would 
 never have risen above the character given it by Pius the First, 
 the brother of Hermas Pastor — " Pauper Senatus Christi." For its 
 earthly aggrandisement it is mainly indebted to ancient British 
 liberality. 
 
 2 Sozomen, Eccles. Hist., lib. i. c. v. So Eumenius, in his Pane- 
 gyric on Constantius to Constantine : " He begot thee in the very 
 flower of his age." — Pan. 9. 
 
 3 Epistola, p. 189. A Historic Brit., p. 381. 
 
110 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
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ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 111 
 
 Christianity which had long been established in Britain. 
 But his religious sympathies, as well as those of his 
 mother, were wholly Eastern, not Roman. They were 
 those of the British Church. They revolved round Jeru- 
 salem, and the Holy Land, and not Rome. Constantine 
 made but two brief visits, during his long reign, to the 
 Italian capital. Helen spent all her declining years in 
 restoring the churches and sacred sites of Palestine. The 
 objects of Constantine's life are well explained by him in 
 one of his edicts : " We call God to witness, the Saviour 
 of all men, that in assuming the government, we are influ- 
 enced solely by these two considerations — the uniting of 
 the empire in one faith, and the restoration of peace to 
 a world rent to pieces by the insanity of religious perse- 
 cution." Regarded in his threefold character of general, 
 statesman, and legislator, the British founder of secular 
 Christendom may justly be considered the greatest of the 
 Roman emperors. The British Church was represented 
 during his reign by native bishops at the Councils of Aries, 
 a.d. 308, and Nice, a.d. ^2£. 5 
 
 In a.d. 300 the Diocletian persecution raged in Britain, 
 but was stopped in one year by Constantius Chlorus, 
 continuing to ravage the rest of the empire for eighteen 
 years. We have elsewhere given a list of the British 
 martyrs who perished in it. We cannot doubt that we 
 stand, during these centuries, in the midst of a Church as 
 broad and thoroughly national as the present Protestant 
 establishment; indeed, in one chief respect more so, for 
 the present national Church of England is not that of the 
 people of Scotland, Wales, or Ireland, whereas the ancient 
 British Church embraced all these populations in its fold. 
 Their very names indicate the broader national character 
 
 5 The archbishopric of York was founded, at the request of 
 Helen, by Constantius the Emperor, a.d. 290. Its second arch- 
 bishop, Socrates, was martyred in the Diocletian persecution. 
 
112 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 of the ancient and primitive Church, one being the British 
 Church, or Church of Britain, the other the Church of 
 
 England. 
 
 Continuing to trace the British Church back, we find 
 Origen, a.d. 230, alluding thus to its existence : " The 
 divine goodness of our Lord and Saviour is equally diffused 
 among the Britons, the Africans, and other nations of the 
 
 world." 6 
 
 In a.d. 230, however, Britain had been re-incorporated 
 in the Roman empire. What was the case in a.d. 192-198, 
 in the reign of Commodus, when it proclaimed its inde- 
 pendence, and the British legions elected Albinus Caesar? 
 Was the Church confined to the Roman province then 
 insurgent, or were the stubborn British tribes — the Cymri, 
 the Caledonii, the Picts, whom no efforts of peace or war 
 could succeed in bringing to acknowledge the right of a 
 foreigner to plant hostile foot in Britain — within its pale? 
 Tertullian, who flourished during the war of Commodus 
 in Britain, which Dion Cassius terms " the most dangerous 
 in which the empire during his time had been engaged," 
 says expressly that the regions in Britain which the 
 Roman arms had failed to penetrate professed Christianity 
 for their religion. 14 The extremities of Spain, the various 
 parts of Gaul, the regions of Britain which have never 
 been penetrated by the Roman arms, have received the 
 religion of Christ." 7 We have seen that the British Church 
 had, long before Tertullian's age, founded the Churches 
 of Gaul, Lorraine, and Switzerland, and that its mission- 
 aries had made their way into Pannonia. Coming nearer 
 Rome itself, we find that in Tertullian's own age a mission- 
 ary of the British Church founded, a.d. 170, the Church 
 of Tarentum. This was St. Cadval, after whom the cath- 
 
 6 Origen, In Tsalm cxlix. 
 
 7 Tertullian, Def. Fidei, p. 179. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 113 
 
 edral at Tarento is still named. 8 Not only, therefore, did 
 the British Church, a.d. 170, embrace Roman and Inde- 
 pendent Britain, but it had struck its roots in France, 
 Switzerland, Germany, and the extremities of Italy. 
 
 We now come to a.d. 120-150, within the era of the 
 disciples of the apostles. It is certain from St. Paul's own 
 letters to the Romans and to Timothy, that he was on the 
 most intimate and affectionate terms with the mother of 
 Rufus Pudens, with Pudens himself, with Claudia his wife, 
 and Linus. The children of Claudia and Pudens were 
 instructed in the faith by St. Paul himself. The eldest was 
 baptized Timotheus, after Timothy, Bishop of Ephesus, 
 the Apostle's " beloved son in Christ." The four, Timoth- 
 eus, Novatus, Praxedes, Pudentiana, with their father, 
 Pudens, sealed at different times their faith with their 
 blood in Rome, and were, with Linus, the first Britons who 
 were added to the glorious army of martyrs. And, Pudens 
 excepted, they were not only martyrs, but royal martyrs; 
 not only royal martyrs, but martyrs of the most patriotic 
 and heroic blood in Britain. Let us confirm these state- 
 ments by the evidences of primitive antiquity. 
 
 The reader will recollect the " natal day " of a martyr 
 is the day of his martyrdom. 
 
 Pudens suffered a.d. 96, Linus a.d. 90; Pudentiana 
 suffered on the anniversary of her father's martyrdom, 
 in the third persecution, a.d. 107; Novatus in the fifth 
 persecution, a.d. 139, when his brother Timotheus was 
 absent in Britain, baptizing his nephew, King Lucius. 9 
 Shortly after his return from Britain, and in extreme old 
 
 8 MS. Vellum of the Church of Tarentum; Catalogue of Saints 
 in the Vatican, published a.d. 1641; Moronus, De Ecclesia Taren- 
 tina. 
 
 9 All authors concur in this fact, though all do not see how 
 naturally it followed that the relationship between the royal house 
 of Britain and its branch settled in Rome. 
 
114 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 age, about his ninetieth year, Timotheus suffered with his 
 fellow-soldier Marcus in the same city of Rome, " drunk 
 with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." Praxedes, the 
 surviving sister, received her crown within the same year. 
 Claudia alone died a natural death, in Samnium, before 
 any of her children, a.d. 97, surviving Pudens one year. 
 They were all interred by the side of St. Paul in the Via 
 Ostiensis. 
 
 May 17. Natal day of the blessed Pudens, father of 
 Praxedes and Pudentiana. He was clothed with baptism 
 by the apostles, and watched and kept his robe pure and 
 without wrinkle to the crown of a blameless life. 10 
 
 November 26. Natal day of St. Linus, Bishop of Rome. 11 
 
 May 17. Natal day of St. Pudentiana, the virgin, of the 
 most illustrious descent, daughter of Pudens, and disciple 
 of the holy apostle St. Paul. 12 
 
 June 20. Natal day of St. Novatus, son of the blessed 
 Pudens, brother of St. Timotheus the elder, and the virgins 
 of Christ Pudentiana and Praxedes. All these were in- 
 structed in the faith by the apostles. 
 
 August 22. Natal day of St. Timotheus, son of St. 
 Pudens, in the Via Ostiensis. 13 
 
 September 21. Natal day of St. Praxedes, virgin of 
 Christ, in Rome. 14 
 
 Have we, again, any direct contemporary evidence that 
 Linus, the first bishop of Rome, was the son of Caractacus, 
 and brother of Claudia Britannica? Putting aside, for a 
 moment, British genealogies and tradition, does any con- 
 
 10 Martyr. Romana, ad diem Maii 17. To the same effect the 
 Martyrologies of Ado, Usuard and Esquilinus. 
 
 11 Martyr, Rom., ad diem; Martyrologies of Ado; Greek Menol- 
 ogies; Usuard, &c. 
 
 12 Martyr. Rom., ad diem; Ado, &c. 
 
 13 Martyr. Rom., Ado, Asuard, Greek Menol. 
 
 14 Martyr. Rom., Ado, &c. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 115 
 
 temporary of St. Paul and Linus, in Rome itself, assert the 
 fact? Undoubtedly. Clemens Romanus, who is mentioned 
 by St. Paul, states in his epistle, the genuineness of which 
 has never been questioned, that Linus was the brother of 
 Claudia — " Sanctissimus Linus, frater Claudiae." 15 Clemens 
 succeeded Cletus within twelve years of the death of 
 Linus, as third bishop of Rome. He had also been asso- 
 ciated with the British missionary Mansuetus, in evangel- 
 izing Illyria. His sources of information are, therefore, 
 unquestionable. St. Paul lived, according to all evidence, 
 whenever he was at Rome, whether in custody at large 
 (libera custodid) or free, in the bosom of the Oaudian 
 family. There is no dispute that Claudia herself was 
 purely British, and whether Linus was her son or brother, 
 the British character of the family, and the close, the 
 domestic ties of affection between such family and St. 
 Paul, are equally manifest. The relationship is, in many 
 important regards, more intimate between St. Paul and 
 the British mind — that mind being the leading, because 
 the royal, influence in Britain — in the domestic circle and 
 family worship of the Claudian palace at Rome, than 
 
 15 In the Oxford edition of Junius, published a.d. 1633, " The 
 son of Claudia." Apostol ci Vatres, lib. vii. c. 47; Apostohci Con- 
 stitutiones, c. 46. The Apostolic Constitutions may or may not be 
 what their present title infers; but no scholar who peruses the 
 opinions pro et contra, collected by Iltigius, (De Vatribus Apostol- 
 icis), Buddaeus, (Isagoge in Theologiam), and Baratier, (De Succes- 
 sione Vrimorum Episcoporum), will assign them a later date than 
 a.d. 150. The mention of Linus in them runs thus: "Concerning 
 those bishops who have been ordained in our lifetime, we make 
 known to you that they are these : Of Antioch, Euodius ordained 
 by me, Peter; of the Church of Rome, Linus, the (son) of Claudia, 
 was first ordained by Paul, and after Linus' death, Clemens the 
 second, ordained by me, Peter." Lib. i. c. 46. In the original, 
 At '09 /xev 6 KAavS'a? t 000x09 vtto II nvyov Analogy requires rtos to 
 be supplied, but the relationship might have been so well known 
 as to render a6eA<£s superfluous. 
 
116 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 when he addressed the British people themselves in Britain. 
 
 But Clemens Romanus not only proves to us that the 
 family which the Apostle thus honoured with his constant 
 residence and instruction was British, that the first bishop 
 appointed by him over the Church at Rome was of this 
 British family, but that St. Paul himself preached in 
 Britain, for no other interpretation can be assigned to his 
 words, l-rrl to Tepfia Trjq Aooe'cos — " the extremity of the 
 West." " Paul, after he had been to the extremity of the 
 West, underwent his martyrdom before the rulers of man- 
 kind; and thus delivered from this world, went to his holy 
 place." 16 
 
 It may be suggested that Linus, the first bishop of Rome, 
 was, however, some other than the brother of Claudia, 
 mentioned by St. Paul. Not so; for if the above authorities 
 permitted a doubt to remain, the evidence of Irenaeus as 
 to their identity is conclusive. "The apostles," writes 
 Irenaeus, a.d. 180, " having founded and built up the 
 Church at Rome, committed the ministry of its supervision 
 to Linus. This is the Linus mentioned by Paul in his Epistle 
 to Timothy." 17 
 
 16 Clement. Rom., Epistola ad Corinthios, c. 5. The passage in 
 extenso runs thus : " To leave the examples of antiquity, and to 
 come to the most recent, let us take the noble examples of our 
 own times. Let us place before our eyes the good apostles. Peter, 
 through unjust odium, underwent not one or two, but many suffer- 
 ings; and having undergone his martyrdom, he went to the place 
 of glory to which he was entitled. Paul, also, having seven times 
 worn chains, and been hunted and stoned, received the prize of 
 such endurance. For he was the herald of the Gospel in the West 
 as well as in the East, and enjoyed the illustrious reputation of the 
 faith in teaching the whole world to be righteous. And after he 
 had been to the extremity of the West, he suffered martyrdom 
 before the sovereigns of mankind; and thus delivered from this 
 world, he went to his holy place, the most brilliant example of 
 stedfastness that we possess." 
 
 17 Irenaei Opera, lib. iii. c. 1. Irenaeus was born in Asia, became 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 117 
 
 We are not aware we should be stating anything 
 improbable if we regarded St. Paul's domiciliation at the 
 house of Pudens, or his being ministered to immediately 
 before his martyrdom by Pudens, Claudia, and Linus, as 
 additional presumptive evidence of his sojourn in Britain. 
 At any rate, we observe that all the sympathies with 
 which he was surrounded, after his arrival at Rome, in 
 the Claudian family, all the influences of that family in 
 their native country, would lead him to Britain in pre- 
 ference to any other land of the West. This was the great 
 isle of the Gentiles, the centre and source of their religion, 
 and, through his royal converts, a " mighty door and an 
 effectual " for its conversion was opened to him. 
 
 Caractacus meanwhile continued to reside at Aber 
 Gweryd, now St. Donat's Major (Llan Ddunwyd), in 
 Glamorganshire, where he had built a palace, more Rom- 
 ano. Everything invited Paul to Britain, to follow the 
 bishop he had already commissioned for the work of the 
 Gospel therein, and to be the guest of the royal parent of 
 Claudia. Considering the combination of circumstances 
 which now favoured the execution of his long-cherished 
 design of visiting the West of Europe, we should regard it 
 much more extraordinary if the Apostle had not come to 
 Britain than we do his coming here. When to this circum- 
 stantial evidence we add the written testimonies we have 
 adduced of Eusebius, Theodoret, Clemens, and others, that 
 he positively did preach in Britain, we see fair reason for 
 concurring in Bishop Burgess's conclusion, though the 
 bishop had but a part of the evidence we have collected 
 before him, " That we possess as substantial evidence, as 
 
 a disciple of Polycarp Bishop ol Smyrna, afterwards a presbyter 
 of Lyons, whence he was sent as a delegate to the Asiatic 
 Churches. He succeeded Photinus in the bishopric, and suffered 
 under Severus. 
 
118 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 any historical fact can require, of St. Paul's journey to 
 
 Britain." 18 
 
 There are six years of St. Paul's life to be accounted 
 for, between his liberation from his first imprisonment 
 and his martyrdom at Aquae Salvias in the Ostian Road, 
 near Rome. Part certainly, the greater part perhaps, of 
 this period, was spent in Britain — in Siluria or Cambria, 
 beyond the bounds of the Roman empire; and hence the 
 silence of the Greek and Latin writers upon it. 
 
 Has any portion of his doctrine or teaching in Britain 
 come down to us? Any such would be sure to be trans- 
 mitted in a British form, and most probably in that triadic 
 form in which the Druids, the religious teachers of Britain, 
 delivered their teaching. Now we find in the ancient 
 British language certain triads which have never been 
 known otherwise than as " the triads of Paul the Apostle." 
 They are not found totidem verbis, either whole or frag- 
 mentally, in his epistles, but the morality inculcated is, of 
 course, quite in unison with the rest of his Gospel preach- 
 ing. 
 
 Triads of Taul the Apostle 
 
 " There are three sorts of men : The man of God, who 
 renders good for evil; the man of men, who renders good 
 for good and evil for evil; and the man of the devil, who 
 renders evil for good. 
 
 18 The ancient MS. in Merton College, Oxord, which purports to 
 contain a series of letters between St. Paul and Seneca, has more 
 than one allusion to St. Paul's residence in Siluria. 
 
 Had the large collection of British archives and MSS. deposited 
 at Verulam as late as a.d. 860, descended to our times, invaluable 
 light would have been thrown on this as on many other subjects 
 of native interest. Amongst these works were the Poems and 
 Hymns of Claudia. Vide Matthew of Westminster, William of 
 Malmesbury, " Life of Eadmer." 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 119 
 
 " Three kinds of men are the delights of God : the 
 meek; the lovers of peace; the lovers of mercy. 
 
 " There are three marks of the children of God : Gentle 
 deportment; a pure conscience; patient suffering of in- 
 juries. 
 
 " There are three chief duties demanded by God : Justice 
 to every man; love; humility. 
 
 " In three places will be found the most of God : Where 
 He is mostly sought; where He is mostly loved; where 
 there is least of self. 
 
 " There are three things following faith in God : A con- 
 science at peace; union with heaven; what is necessary 
 for life. 
 
 " Three ways a Christian punishes an enemy : By for- 
 giving him; by not divulging his wickedness; by doing him 
 all the good in his power. 
 
 " The three chief considerations of a Christian : Lest 
 he should displease God; lest he should be a stumbling- 
 block to man; lest his love to all that is good should wax 
 cold. 
 
 " The three luxuries of a Christian feast : What God 
 has prepared; what can be obtained with justice to all; 
 what love to all may venture to use. 
 
 " Three persons have the claims and privileges of 
 brothers and sisters: the widow; the orphan; the 
 stranger." 19 
 
 The evangelical simplicity of these precepts, contrasting 
 so forcibly with monkish and mediaeval inventions and 
 superstitions, favours the traditional acceptance of their 
 Pauline origin. Their preservation is due to the Cor of Hid. 
 
 The foundation of the great abbey of Bangor Iscoed is 
 assigned by tradition to St. Paul. Its discipline and doctrine 
 were certainly known as " the Rule of Paul " {Vauli 
 
 19 Ancient British Triads; Triads of Paul the Apostle. 
 
120 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 Regula , and over each of the four gates was engraved his 
 precept, " If a man will not work, neither let him eat." 
 Its abbots regarded themselves as his successors; they were 
 always men of the highest grade in society, and generally 
 of the blood royal. Bede and other authors state the num- 
 ber of monks in it at 2,100. The scholars amounted to 
 many thousands. Pelagius was its twentieth abbot. St. 
 Hilary and St. Benedict term it " Mater omnium monas- 
 teriorum," the mother of all monasteries. The first Egyp- 
 tian monastery was founded by Pachomius, a.d. 360. 20 
 
 In what language did St. Paul preach in Britain? This 
 question, if pursued, would open an interesting but diffi- 
 cult investigation. Every apostle, by the Pentecostal in- 
 spiration, possessed the command of every known tongue 
 then in the world. This supernatural faculty was part of 
 the " power from on high " with which they were en- 
 dowed, and the lingual credential of their divine mission. 
 Of the fact that Paul preached in the British tongue we 
 have no evidence; neither have we any that he ever 
 preached in Latin; yet with both languages he must, as an 
 apostle, have been familiar. We infer he often preached 
 in both. The Druids in their sacred writings used the 
 Bardic alphabet, of forty-two characters; but in their civil 
 transactions, as Caesar informs us, the Greek alphabet. St. 
 Paul wrote all his Epistles in Greek, and Greek continued 
 some time after the apostolic age the language of the 
 Church at Rome. The royal family of Britain were, as we 
 have seen, ardently attached to both Greek and Latin 
 literature. Cymbeline and Llyr, the old generation, had 
 received their education, which must necessarily have 
 been the highest Rome could impart, from Augustus Caesar 
 
 20 " Pelagius heresiarchus ex Britannia oriundus famati illius 
 collegii Bangorensis praepositus erat in quo Christianorum philo- 
 sophorum 2,100 militabant suarum manuum laboribus juxta Pauli 
 doctrinam victitantes." — Vita Velag'u, p. 3. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 121 
 
 himself. Caractacus must, unless we have recourse to the 
 rather violent supposition that Claudius, who heard, and 
 Tacitus, who has recorded, his oration, were proficients in 
 British, have delivered himself in Latin. 21 Paul, it is 
 certain, used the tongue of the people in preaching to the 
 people. The canon he laid down for the Corinthian Church 
 was that which he practised himself: "If I know not the 
 meaning of the voice, I shall be to him that speaketh a 
 barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be to me a bar- 
 barian. ... I would rather in the church speak five words 
 with my understanding than ten thousand words in an 
 unknown tongue." 22 He must, therefore, according to this 
 rule, have preached to the Britons in their vernacular 
 tongue. 
 
 By the conversion of the British dynasty in its various 
 members, a very important class of prophecies were ful- 
 filled. The expressions, also, " the ends of the earth," " the 
 uttermost parts of the earth," " the isles afar off," used 
 by Isaiah, are precisely those which the Roman authors 
 also used to designate Britain. 
 
 From the captivity of Caractacus and the life of St. 
 Paul in the family of his daughter Claudia at Rome, to the 
 turning of the Roman empire into Christendom, the 
 history of the royal dynasty of Britain in connection with 
 
 21 Claudia herself was the authoress of a volume of epigrams, 
 a volume of elegies, and a volume of sacred poems or hymns. 
 Copies of these were preserved in the library at Verulam as late 
 as the thirteen century. 
 
 22 i Cor. xiv. ii, 19: It was the uniform practice of Christians, 
 from the earliest times, to read the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, 
 and it was not till the period of Charlemagne that Latin became 
 the language of the Church services. Vide Usher's Historia Dog- 
 matica. No two causes contributed so much to the declension of 
 Christianity and the progress of Mahometanism, as the suppression 
 by the Church of Rome of the vernacular Scriptures, and her 
 adoption of image-worship. 
 
122 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 the Church of Christ is indeed one long, continuous, and 
 exact verification of Scriptural prophecy. 23 
 
 Against the British Church itself no charge of heretical 
 doctrine has at any time been advanced, though the 
 heresiarch, the very prince of heretics — Pelagius, was 
 nursed in her bosom. Bede's reluctant testimony is, on 
 this point, decisive. Whilst the Christian Churches in 
 Asia, Africa, and on the Continent of Europe were over- 
 run with false doctrines, the British Church grew up and 
 covered with its shade the whole nation, untroubled for 
 the space of four centuries by any root of bitterness. It is 
 reasonable to infer that the foundations of such a Church 
 were very deeply and faithfully laid by the hands of wise 
 master-builders. According to the foundation rose the 
 superstructure, resting on these four pillars — St. Paul, 
 Simon Zelotes, Joseph, Aristobulus. Its great evangelist 
 in the second century, St. Timotheus, the baptizer of his 
 nephew King Lucius and of his nobility at Winchester, 
 had also received the faith from the mouth of Paul him- 
 
 23 A few of these prophecies we subjoin: — 
 
 " It is a light thing that thou shouldest be My servant to raise 
 up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the outcasts of Israel: I 
 will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest 
 be My salvation unto the ends of the earth. Kings shall see and 
 arise; princes also shall worship. Behold they shall come from 
 the north and from the west. Kings shall be thy nursing-fathers 
 and queens thy nursing-mothers. Arise, shine, for thy light is 
 come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. The Gentiles 
 shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. 
 Thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed 
 at thy side. The sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and 
 kings shall minister unto thee. Thou shalt suck the milk of the 
 Gentiles, and shalt suck the breast of kings. I will set My sign 
 among them, and send them that escape of them unto the nations, 
 unto the isles afar off, and they shall declare My glory unto the 
 Gentiles. They shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of My 
 planting." — Isaiah xlix, lx, lxvi. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 123 
 
 self. This unanimity of faith in the founders impressed 
 itself on the Church they founded, which " continued in 
 the things it had learned and been assured of, knowing 
 from whom it had learned them." 
 
 Having thus first surveyed the religions of the ancient 
 world at the birth of Christianity, and next traced the 
 introduction of the latter, and its progress in Britain, a 
 bird's-eye view will shew us the following Churches, 
 making up the Catholic Church sixty-six years after the 
 Incarnation: — In Palestine — Jerusalem, Samaria, Caesarea, 
 Lydda; in Assyria — Babylon; in Syria — Antioch, Damas- 
 cus; in Asia-Minor — Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra, 
 Ephesus, Smyrna, Sardis, Thyatira, Pergamos, Philadelphia, 
 Caesarea in Cappadocia; Laodicea, Colosse, Galatia; in 
 Greece — Athens, Corinth, Thessalonica, Beraea, Philippi, 
 Crete; in Egypt — Alexandria; in Italy — Rome; in Gaui — 
 Lyons; in Britain — Cor Avalon (Glastonbury), Cor Salog 
 (Old Sarum), Cor Hid (Llan Hid) in Siluria. 
 
 The force of the testimony for St. Paul's residence in 
 Britain may be more clearly estimated by comparing it 
 with that for St. Peter's at Rome. The earliest testimony 
 in favour of the latter is that of Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, 
 a.d. 180, 1 prior to which we find no indication in the 
 Scriptures or ecclesiastical authors that St. Peter ever 
 visited or ever intended to visit Rome, which, as a Gentile 
 Church over which St. Paul in the most pointed manner 
 claimed jurisdiction, 2 was certainly not within the pro- 
 vince of the apostle of the circumcision. Britain, on the 
 contrary, was within Paul's province, placed already, as 
 
 1 Irenaei Opera, lib. iii. c. 1 : " Matthew published his Gospel 
 among the Hebrews in his own language while Peter and Paul 
 were engaged in evangelizing and founding the Christian Church 
 at Rome." 
 
 2 " My apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations, 
 among whom are ye also . . . that I might have some fruit among 
 you also, as among other Gentiles."— Rom. i. 5, 13. 
 
124 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 Ephesus and Crete had been, by Paul himself under one 
 of his bishops, Aristobulus. If we are to concede that St. 
 Peter founded the Roman Church in person, much more 
 are we compelled by infinitely stronger evidence to ac- 
 knowledge that St. Paul in person founded the British 
 Church. 3 
 
 Of St. Paul's life after quitting Britain no particulars 
 have descended to us. After visiting Asia we find him in 
 the last scene of his life returned to the bosom of the 
 British royal family at Rome. In his farewell charges to 
 Timothy he sends him the greetings of Pudens, Linus, and 
 Claudia. These, with that of Eubulus, the cousin of 
 Claudia, are the only names of the brethren mentioned by 
 him; these ministered to him on the eve of his martyrdom, 
 these attended him when he was on the block of the state 
 lictor at Aquae Salviae, a little out of Rome, and these con- 
 
 3 If we desired to strengthen from Roman Catholic evidence 
 the apostolical foundations of the British Church, or to insist that 
 it can with equal justice, at least, as the Roman Church, claim 
 St. Peter amongst its founders, it would not be difficult to adduce 
 the affirmative evidence of Roman Catholic authorities upon the 
 point. Cornelius a Lapide, in answering the question " How came 
 St. Paul not to salute St. Peter in his Epistle to the Romans," states, 
 " Peter, banished with the rest of the Jews from Rome by the 
 edict of Claudius, was absent in Britain." (Cornelius d Lapide, in 
 Argumentum Epistolce St. Tauli ad Romanos, c. xvi.) Eusebius 
 Pamphilus, if we can credit the quotation of him by a very un- 
 trustworthy author, Simeon Metaphrastes, states St. Peter to have 
 been in Britain as well as Rome. — (Metaphrastes ad 29 Junii.) The 
 vision to which St. Peter refers, 2 Pet. i. 14, " Knowing that shortly 
 I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ 
 hath shewed me," is said to have appeared to him in Britain on 
 the spot where once stood the British Church of Lambedr (St. 
 Peter), and now stands the Abbey of St. Peter's, Westminster. 
 Lambeth may be a corruption of Lambedr. But this question lies 
 between Roman Catholic authors and their own Church, which 
 will scarcely put the seal of its infallibility on a position that 
 places the British Church on its own special appropriated Rock. 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 125 
 
 signed his remains with their own hands to the Puden- 
 tinian family tomb on the Ostian Road. Like his Divine 
 Master, " he made his grave with the rich in his death." 
 Linus, Claudia and Pudens and their four children, when 
 God in His appointed time called them to receive the 
 same crown of the Cross, were buried by his side : the 
 other royal converts, Bran, Caractacus, Cyllinus, and Eur- 
 gain died peaceably in Britain, and were interred in the 
 cor of Hid in Siluria. All — kings, heroes, apostles, martyrs, 
 saints — were united in the kingdom of light, in the joy 
 of their Lord. 4 
 
 4 Bede was a very earnest adherent of the novel papal Church, 
 introduced a.d. 596, by Augustine into Britain, but the honesty 
 and simplicity of his character has rendered his history in many 
 respects a very inconvenient and obnoxious record to the said 
 Church. What became of the remains of St. Peter and St. Paul? 
 At Rome they still pretend to exhibit them, but Bede — and it 
 must be remembered he is a canonized saint in the Roman cal- 
 endar — expressly states that the remains of the bodies of the 
 apostles Peter and Paul, the martyrs St. Lawrence, St. John, St. 
 Gregory, and St. Pancras, were, at the solicitation of King Oswy 
 to Pope Vitalian, removed from Rome to England, and deposited 
 at Canterbury a.d. 656, Pope Vitalian's letter to Oswy being extant. 
 (Bedoe hist., lib. iii. c. 29.) Their remains, then, if any, repose in 
 British soil. 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 From the preceding investigation ensue the following 
 conclusions : — 
 
 1. Before Christianity originated in Judaea, there had 
 existed from the remotest period in Britain a religion 
 known as the Druidic, of which the two leading doctrines 
 were identical with those of Christianity, viz., the im- 
 mortality of the soul and vicarious atonement. 
 
 2. That this identity pointed out Britain as of all 
 Gentile countries the one best prepared for the reception 
 of Christianity. 
 
 3. That the only religions persecuted by the Roman 
 government were the Druidic and the Christian. 
 
 4. That this common persecution by the great military 
 empire with which Britain was engaged in incessant hos- 
 tilities from a.d. 43 to a.d. 118, materially aided in pre- 
 disposing the British mind in favour of Christianity. 
 
 £. That Britain, being the only free state of Europe, was 
 the only country which afforded a secure asylum to the 
 Christians persecuted by the Roman government. 
 
 6. That a current of Christianity flowed into Britain 
 from the East contemporaneously with the first dispersion 
 of the Church at Jerusalem, a.d. 35 — 38. 
 
 7. That the first planters of the Gospel in Britain never 
 were in Rome at all, but came hither from the mother 
 Church at Jerusalem. 
 
 8. That these first planters were Joseph of Arimathaea 
 and his associates, who settled under the protection of the 
 British king Arviragus, in the Isle of Avalon, Glastonbury 
 — one of the Druidic cors of Somerset. 
 
 9. That among the earliest converts of Joseph and his 
 fraternity were Gladys (Pomponia Graecina) the sister, 
 Gladys or Claudia, and Eurgain, the daughters, and Linus 
 
 126 
 
ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 127 
 
 the son of Caractacus, prince of Siluria, and military dic- 
 tator of the national forces against the Romans. 
 
 10. That the second planter of the word was Simon 
 Zelotes the apostle, who was martyred and buried in the 
 Roman province, probably near Caistor, in Lincolnshire. 
 
 11. That the third planter was Aristobulus, one of the 
 seventy, brother of St. Barnabas and father-in-law of St. 
 Peter; commissioned first bishop of Britain by St. Paul, and 
 consecrated by St. Barnabas, the two apostles to the Gen- 
 tiles. That Aristobulus was engaged in his mission in 
 Britain when St. Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans, 
 some years before his first visit, or the visit of any other 
 apostle, to Rome. 
 
 12. That Pudens, the husband of Claudia, Claudia her- 
 self, the sister Eurgain, her brother Linus, and aunt Pom- 
 ponia, being converted prior to St. Paul's visit to Rome, 
 the rest of the British royal family, Bran, Caractacus, 
 Cyllinus and Cynon, were converted and baptized by St. 
 Paul himself during his detention in that city preceding 
 his first trial. That the palace of Pudens and Claudia was 
 the home of St. Paul and the other apostles; that their four 
 children, Timotheus, Novatus, Pudentiana and Praxedes, 
 were instructed in the faith by St. Paul; and that Linus, 
 the brother of Claudia and second son of Caractacus, was 
 appointed by the same apostle first bishop of the Church 
 of Rome, such Church meeting at that time, and till the 
 reign of Constantine, in the aforesaid palace, called in- 
 differently " Domus Pudentis, Palatium Britannicum, 
 Domus Apostolorum, Titulus, Pastor, St. Pudentiana." 
 
 13. That after the return of Caractacus to Siluria, St. 
 Paul himself, following the footsteps of his bishop and 
 forerunner, Aristobulus, visited Britain, and confirmed the 
 British Churches in the faith. 
 
 14. That the last days of St. Paul, preceding his martyr- 
 dom at Rome, were attended by Pudens, Claudia, Linus, 
 
128 
 
 ST. PAUL IN BRITAIN 
 
 Eubulus, whose salutations he sends in his dying charge 
 to Timothy, and that his remains were interred by them 
 in their family sepulchre. 
 
 15. That the foundations of the British Church were 
 Apostolical, being coeval, within a few years, with those 
 of the Pentecostal Church in Jerusalem — preceding those 
 of the primitive Church of Rome, so far as they were laid 
 by either an apostle or apostolic bishop, by seven years — 
 preceding the arrival of St. Peter at Rome, as fixed by the 
 great majority of Roman Catholic historians (thirteenth 
 year of Nero), by thirty years — preceding the first arrival 
 of the papal Church of Rome in Britain, under Augustine, 
 by 456 years. 
 
 16. That the British Church has from its origin been a 
 royal one; the royal family of ancient Britain — of whom 
 our present sovereign is, through the Tudors, the lineal 
 blood representative — being 1. the first British converts to 
 Christianity; 2. the founders of the first Christian institu- 
 tions in Britain; 3. the chief instruments, in the second 
 century, in the establishment of Christianity as the state 
 religion; and in the fourth century, in the persons of Helen 
 and Constantine the Great, the chief instrument in the 
 abolition of Paganism, and the substitution, in its place, of 
 Christianity over the whole Roman Empire. 
 
 17. That the spiritual or ecclesiastical head of the 
 British Church was always a Briton, resident in Britain, 
 amenable to British laws, and British laws only, and hav- 
 ing no superior in the Church but Christ. 
 
 18. That whatever may be the religious advantages or 
 disadvantages of the union of the ecclesiastical and civil 
 governments in the person of the Sovereign, such union 
 has been, from the first colonization of our Island, first 
 in Druidic and then in Christian times, the native British, 
 as opposed to the foreign papal — and, in later times, dis- 
 senting — principle of their separation. 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CAVLORO 
 
 
 
 PRINTED IN U.S.A. 
 
illffiffilil 
 
 BW5075.M84 
 St. Paul in Britain; or, The origin of 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 00153 4389