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On the Ruin of Britain

St Gildas, tr. Williams, 1899

4. Character of People

This island, of proud neck and mind, since it was first inhabited, is ungratefully rebelling, now against God, at other times against fellow citizens,¹ sometimes even against the kings over the sea and their subjects. For what deeper baseness, what greater unrighteousness, can be or be introduced by the recklessness of men, than to deny to God fear, to worthy fellow citizens love, to those placed in higher position the honour due to them, without detriment to the faith—than to break faith with divine and human sentiment, and having cast away fear of heaven and earth, to be governed by one’s own inventions and lusts?

I, therefore, omit² those ancient errors, common to all nations, by which before the coming of Christ in the flesh the whole human race was being held in bondage; nor do I enumerate the truly diabolical monstrosities³ of my native country, almost surpassing those of Egypt in number, of which we behold some, of ugly features, to this day within or without their deserted walls, stiff with fierce visage as was the custom. Neither do I, by name, inveigh against the mountains, valleys or rivers, once destructive, but now suitable for the use of man, upon which divine honour was then heaped by the people in their blindness. I keep silence also as to the long years of savage tyrants, who are spoken of in other far distant countries, so that Porphyry, the rabid eastern dog⁴ in hostility to the Church, added this remark also in the fashion of his madness and vanity; Britain, he says, is a province fertile in tyrants.⁵ Those evils only will I attempt to make public which the island has both suffered and inflicted upon other and distant citizens, in the times of the Roman Emperors. I shall do it, however, to the best of my ability, not so much by the aid of native writings or records of authors, inasmuch as these (if they ever existed) have been burnt by the fires of enemies, or carried far away in the ships which exiled my countrymen⁶, and so are not at hand, but shall follow the account of foreign writers, which, because broken by many gaps, is far from clear.

Notes

Civibus. The term cives, citizens of the Roman Empire, is throughout employed by Gildas to designate his countrymen. By this character they are, in his eyes, to be distinguished from the “barbarians.”
Gildas, in his narrative, intends to omit all reference to four subjects, (1) He will not treat of the pre-Christian beliefs which the Britons had in common with the whole human race; he naturally calls them “errors.” (2) The forms of old idolatry, remains of which still survived “inside and outside the deserted walls” of temples, will not be recounted. (3) Superstitious honours paid to mountains, valleys and rivers, he will not exclaim against. (4) He will be silent respecting the old years of tyrants, evidently having his eye particularly on Maximus, A.D. 383-388.
His attempt will be to narrate the evils which Britain suffered herself and those which she inflicted on others “during the times of the Roman emperors.” These limitations are instructive, inasmuch as they show how the narrative itself is ruled by the spirit of the whole “Epistle.”
Portenta. Vol. vii of Hübner’s Corpus Inscr. Lat. bears ample evidence that the worship, e.g., of Mithra, had spread in Britain, the monuments of which were mainly erected by Roman officers. Gildas in the word portenta seems to refer to such remains of oriental cults. Cf. Jerome, Ep., 107, 2: nonne specum Mithrae et omnia portentosa simulacra quibus Corax, Nymphus, Miles, Leo, Perses, Helios, Dromo, Pater initiantur.
Porphyrius rabidus orientalis adversus ecclesiam canis. Porphyry (233-304) is called orientalis as a Greek writer; besides other (philosophical) works he wrote also a work in xv Books “Against the Christians” (κατὰ χριστιανῶν). He is several times named by Jerome, always with Celsus and Julian, as an opponent of Christianity, e.g., Ep. 57; but in the Preface to the De Viris Illustribus, we find the very appellation “rabid dog” applied in the plural to Celsus, Porphyry and Julian. Discant igitur Celsus, Porphyrius, Iulianus rabidi adversus Christum canes.
In Ep. 133, Jerome, while answering the Definitiones et Syllogismi of Coelestius (the Irish companion of Pelagius), says: “Lastly (an objection which your friend Porphyry is wont to make against us), what reason is there that the compassionate and merciful God has suffered whole nations, from Adam to Moses and from Moses until the advent of Christ, to perish through ignorance of the Law and His Commandments? For neither Britain, a province fertile in tyrants, nor the people of Ireland .... knew Moses and the prophets (Neque enim Britannia fertilis provincia tyrannum et Scoticae gentes ., . .).” Jerome probably intends a thrust at the Briton (?) Pelagius, and Coelestius the Irishman; but Gildas has evidently fallen into the error of ascribing the words of Jerome himself to Porphyry. The Benedictine editors seem also to take this view, that Porphyry is only credited with the character of the objection. The quotation as it is, together with the words which introduce it, allows us to conclude that Gildas was conversant with the writings of Jerome, and in particular with such as treat of the doctrines of Pelagius, though the latter is not mentioned by him. We cannot, therefore, argue from his silence that he “knew nothing” of the Pelagian heresy.
Jerome, De Viris ill., Pref., Ep. 133.
These very words are reproduced, without recognition, by the author, or compiler, of the Book of Llan Dav, in the “Life of Dubricius” and the “Life of Oudoceus.” (See Introduction, as to materials used by Gildas.)
Vita Dubr., p. 84: quippe cum fuerint aut ignibus hostium exusta aut exilii civium classe longius deportata. Vita Oudicei, p. 139: quippe cum fuerint aut ignibus exusta aut exilii civium classe longius deportata. (Evans.)