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On the Ruin of Britain

St Gildas, tr. Williams, 1899

4. Conclusion

Why ply more words? You find brought before you the example of Matthias for your confusion, the example also of the holy apostles. The lot fell upon him by the election or judgment of Christ, not by his own will, to which fact you have become blind, and do not see how far apart you are from his merits, while of your own accord you sink to the desire and disposition of Judas the traitor. It is plain, therefore¹, that the man who consciously from his heart calls you priest, is not an excellent Christian. I shall certainly speak out my feelings.² My rebuke might certainly be milder, but what benefit is it merely to stroke softly with the hand, or besmear with ointment a wound which by now, horrible in its foulness, has need of cautery and the public remedy of fire? If, indeed, it could be healed in any manner, as the patient does not seek cure, and the doctor is withdrawing further and further from him. O ye enemies and not priests of God, veterans in wickednesses and not bishops, traitors not successors of the holy apostles and not ministers of Christ, you have certainly listened to the sound of the apostle Paul’s words contained in the second lesson, but in no wise have you observed their admonitions and strength. After the fashion of idols, which see not, neither do they hear, you stood the same day at the altar, while then and always he was thundering at you. Brethren, he says, faithful is the word and worthy of all acceptation. He spoke of it as faithful and worthy; you have scorned it as not faithful and unworthy. If a man desireth the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. You seek the office of bishop chiefly because of covetousness, without the pretence of spiritual profit, and by no means regard good work as suitable thereto. Such a man must therefore be without reproach. Here there is, of a truth, more need of tears than of words, as if the apostle had said that he ought to be, beyond all men, without reproach: The husband of one wife. This saying is also so far despised with us, as if he were not heard to say the same, and were heard to say: the husband of wives.³ Temperate, sober-minded. Which of you has ever even wished this to dwell in him? Given to hospitality. If that has ever by accident come to pass, done rather for the sake of a breeze of popularity than because it is commanded, it profits not, as our Lord the Saviour says thus: Verily I say unto you, they have received their reward. A man equipped, not drunk with wine, no striker, but gentle, not contentious, not covetous. O fatal change! O awful treading under foot of the precepts of heaven! Do you not indefatigably seize your armour of deeds and words to assault, or rather to destroy, these precepts, for the preservation and strengthening of which, were it necessary, one ought to undergo suffering, and lay down one’s life?

Notes

Apparet ergo. Cf. c. 106.
Sane quod sentio, proferam. These and the following words well prove that Gildas was not an empty declaimer. “He will speak out his mind,” but he is conscious that his words have been severe; that fact itself should save him from contempt. So also his words in the next section: quod non absque dolore cordis fateor.
Idem dicere et virum uxorum. We need not, possibly, press these words so far as to understand them as implying that a bishop or presbyter could be living with women in unclean intercourse; “a husband of women” would be found in those complained of by Leo the Great in his Ep. xii, 5. Ad Episcopos Africanos: “ut non solum laicos, sed etiam secundarum uxorum viros, aut viduarum maritos ad officium cognoscamus pastorale provectos.”