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On the Ruin of Britain
St Gildas, tr. Williams, 1899
But warnings are certainly not wanting to thee, since thou hast had as instructor the …
But warnings are certainly not wanting to thee, since thou hast had as instructor the refined teacher of almost the whole of Britain.1 Beware, therefore, lest what is noted by Solomon happens unto thee: As one who rouses a sleeper from deep sleep, is he who speaks wisdom to a fool; for in the end of his speaking he will say, ‘What saidst thou first?’ Wash thine heart, O Jerusalem, as is said, from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved.
Despise not, I pray thee, the unspeakable mercy of God, when, through the prophet, he calls the wicked from their sins, as follows: Instantly shall I speak to the nation and to the kingdom, so that I may pluck up, and scatter, and destroy, and ruin. He earnestly exhorts the sinner to repentance in this passage: And if that nation repent of its sin, I also shall repent respecting the evil which I spake to do unto it. Again: Who will give them such a heart that they may hear me, and keep my precepts, and it may be well unto them all the days of their life. Again, in the song of Deuteronomy, he says: They are a people void of counsel and understanding. O that they were wise, that they understood and foresaw their last end! how one shall chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight. Again, in the gospel, the Lord says: Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I shall cause you to rest.2 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; because I am meek and lowly of heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For if thou hear these things with deaf ears, thou contemnest the prophets, thou despisest Christ, and me, though a man of the lowest estate3 I grant, thou regardest as of no weight, though at any rate I keep that word of the prophet with sincere godliness of mind: I shall surely fill my strength with the spirit and power of the Lord, so as to make known unto the house of Jacob their sins, and to the house of Israel their offences, lest I be as dumb dogs that cannot bark. Also that word of Solomon, who says thus: He that saith that the wicked is just, shall be accursed of the people, and hated of the nations: for they who convict him shall hope better things. Again: Thou shalt not respect thy neighbour to his own ruin, nor hold back word in the time of salvation. Also: Pluck out those that are drawn unto death, and redeem those that are slain, spare not, because, as the same prophet says, riches shall not profit in the day of wrath; righteousness delivereth from death. If the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? That dark flood of hell4 shall roll round thee with its deadly whirl and fierce waves; it shall always torture and never consume thee, to whom, at that time too late and profitless, shall be the real knowledge of pain and repentance for sin, from which the conversion to the righteous way of life, is delayed by thee.
Notes
- This teacher is generally regarded to be Illtud, who is not named owing to his pre-eminence, and from a feeling of reverence on the part of the writer (see Introduction).
- Gildas, when quoting elsewhere consecutively from the Gospels, has a text almost identical with that of the Vulgate; but here, quoting probably from memory, his text is the same as the partially revised Old Latin Codex Brixianus (f), et ego vos requiescere faciam, instead of the Vulgate et ego reficiam vos. Such is the case also in his adaptation of these very words in c. 29, et ipse te, ut dixit, requiescere faciet. Vide Additional Note, p. 92.
- Gildas of himself. See cc. 1, 36, 37, 62, 64, 93, 108.
- Although Gildas mingles his denunciatory message to the five princes with affectionate appeals for reform, yet he ends each message with lavish threatening of the torments of hell. The appellations used by him for the place of torment are inferno, or infernum and tartarus. The Latin versions had made the former word familiar everywhere as the name for “the grave,” or Hades, the abode of the dead. In this sense it is the equivalent of the plural inferi, as exaudivit me de venire inferni (Jonah, ii, 3), in the Latin version of Irenaeus: descendam . . . . in infernum (εἰς ἅδου), Gen. xxxvii, 35. Its Welsh derivative, uffern, is employed with the same meaning in most places of the authorised Old and New Testament. But it was used also as a name for a place of punishment (locus suppliciorum atque cruciatorum, Jerome in Is. xiv, 7-11), and Jerome understood the words of the creed, descendit ad inferna, in this sense. Cyprian seems to have used inferi only, while inferus appears a few times in the Latin Bible, e.g., Rev. vi, 8, et inferus (ὁ ἅδης) sequebatur eum, where the Welsh version has uffern, the English hell. Tartarus, though not so frequently found, is employed for “hell” as early as Tertullian, and in the letter of Roman presbyters to Cyprian: parauit caelum sed parauit et tartarum, Ep., xxx, 7. It is evident that neither inferi nor tartarus were in common use, because infernus has given enfer to the French language and uffern, or yffern, to Welsh. Cornish and Armorican have allied forms, ifarn, yffarn; iffern, iverus.