Welsh Journals

LES Chretientes Celtiques. By Olivier Loyer (Mythes et Religions, Collection dirigee par Georges Dumezil). Presses Universitaires de France, 1965. Pp. 139, 2 Cartes. F. 8. This little volume is doubly welcome in that it covers a wide field in a small compass and brings our knowledge of the recent research of specialists in the subject up to date. In an illuminating preface the author places his subject in its setting, explaining how the barbarian invasions had rendered communication between the church in the British Isles and Rome difficult, resulting in a lack of uniformity in certain ecclesiastical usages. The most important point of difference was the keeping of the date of Easter, and Pope Gregory the Great sent a mission to England, led by St. Augustine, with the purpose of converting the heathen Anglo- Saxons, and at the same time inducing the church of the Celtic Christians in Britain to bring its usages into conformity with the Holy See. A controversy arose, for the Celtic Church already had a long and honourable history and was naturally disinclined to abandon its traditional customs. Moreover, in addition to their spiritual integrity, the Celtic monks had done much to preserve and to spread by their monastic schools, both at home and on the continent, the learning which was threatened with extinction by the barbarian invasions. The Irish on the continent played a role of the first importance in the Carolingian Renaissance, and linked the antique world with the Middle Ages. Chapter I relates the origin of Christianity in Britain, the rise of the Pelagian heresy and its suppression by St. Germanus, the conversion of Ireland by St. Patrick in the fifth century, the age of the saints in the sixth century, the conflict with Rome in the seventh, the anchorite reform in the Irish Church, and finally the integration of Celtic Christianity in the Roman Order. Chapter II traces the origin and history of monasticism as the essential characteristic of Celtic Christianity, and illustrates from the personality of St. Columba of Iona the typical sanctity of the Celtic Age of the saints, and from that of St. Columbanus, the typical missionary spirit, and the peregrinatio which is its inspiration. The chapter concludes with a brief analysis of Celtic ascesis and monachism. In Chapter III the author emphasises the culture of the Celtic ascetics, which survived the havoc wrought by the barbarian invader of the continental centres. A valuable distinction is drawn between the early Celtic spiritual influence in Europe in the sixth and seventh centuries and its cultural influence in the eighth and ninth. In Chapter IV the author traces the development and growth of Celtic sanctity from ancient pagan foundations. The institution of monasticism integrated readily enough into the foundations of Celtic tribal society, with its clearly distinguished social classes and its absence of town life.