On the Ruin of Britain

Notes

1. Quae, licet ab incolis tepide suscepta sunt. This is all that Gildas says respecting the evangelisation of Britain. Whether he knew more as to the first preachers of Christianity it is impossible to tell, but his words imply that its spread among the native population (incolae) of the island was exceedingly slow: they received it “coldly.” Among Roman officials and foreign immigrants it may have spread early, so that the few remains which now attest an early Christian church in Britain belong to them, and are found in the parts most thoroughly Romanised. According to the evidence furnished by Hübner’s seventh volume of Latin inscriptions, we gather that heathenism of various types continued long, even among these provincials. Mithra and Cybele, Tyrian Hercules and Phoenician Astarte, had their worshippers: at York there was a temple to Serapis, and at Caerlleon, in South Wales, the Roman Legate, Postumius Varus, restores a temple of Diana late in the third century, that is, not very long before that Council of Arles (314) which we know so well. Christian inscriptions are more numerous in Wales than in any other part of Britain, yet neither there nor in the other parts do they indicate a date earlier than the middle of the fifth century. Of Britain, as well as of Gaul, the words of M. le Blanc are true, that the legendary stories of a conversion “by explosion” have no evidence whatever in their favour. “L’ecole historique n’admet point chez nous un Christianisme fait, comme on l’a dit, par explosion” (Preface, xli, Insc. Chretiennes de la Gaule). A solid historic truth lies in that curt tepide of Gildas.
2. Novennem, the nine years’ persecution. The meaning to be attached to this expression may be gained from c. 12, “when ten years had not yet been completed.” Eusebius speaks of the persecution as having lasted ten years (ὁ δεκαέτης χρόνος, H. E., viii, 15), yet both numbers admit of ready explanation. The first Edict of Diocletian, of which Gildas gives the first and second provisions, was issued in February 303, and the Edict of Milan, terminating state persecution of Christianity, appeared towards the end of 312. The period was in this way a good deal more than nine years, though not quite ten. Gildas seems to be simply copying or enumerating, in order, the provisions of Diocletian’s Edicts as stated in Rufinus’ version of the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius. By the first provision of Edict I, the churches were to be levelled to the ground; by the second, the Scriptures were to be burnt; another provision, involving degradation, finds no mention in this narrative of Gildas. Edict II published not long after, commanded all church officers to be imprisoned without even the option of recantation. Edict III (or so-called Edict) again soon followed, leading to the application of torture, which too often resulted in death, though death hitherto had not been enjoined as a punishment. With Edict IV, in 304, the persecution reached its fiercest point by reproducing the former measures of Decius: commanding all men to offer sacrifice and libations to heathen deities, it brought in its train the atrocities described by Eusebius, and chronicled in so many Acta Martyrum. An African writer of the fourth century describes the persecution in words that remind us of Gildas here: “It made some martyrs, others confessors; some it demeaned in a calamitous death; it spared only those who succeeded in hiding themselves” (Optatus, De Schism. Donat., i, 13).
3. Ecclesiastica historia narrat. Under this term we are to understand the Latin version of Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiastica, by Rufinus. But the mention of “ecclesiastical history” suggests the very question that has been asked by several. Scholl was probably the first to suggest that Gildas is here adopting the description he found in Eusebius of the Diocletian persecution, and applying the same to Britain. But this chapter is in fact not a description of persecution in Britain; it rather describes what took place “over the whole world” (per totum mundum) and as such is a resume of Book VIII in Eusebius’ History. The actual course of events is followed by Gildas, just as the edicts succeeded each other, and as described by Eusebius in the second chapter of the book named—the ruin of churches, burning of Scriptures, slaughter of Christians. Further, when the final step was taken by the emperors in the issue of the fourth Edict, the real object had become (as here stated by Gildas) the extermination of Christianity. It is hardly just to say: “Gildas’ general statement respecting this persecution rests (as usual with him) upon an unauthorised transference to the particular case of Britain of the language of Eusebius (H. E., viii, 2) relating to the persecution in general, and is conclusively contradicted by Eusebius himself and by Sozomen and Lactantius” (Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, i, p. 6, n.). The last italics are mine: but this is what Gildas does not do in this part; he is simply summarising what “Ecclesiastica Historia” narrates respecting the church in general. His definite references to Britain are moderate. (Vide next note.)
   Besides the places named in Eusebius, one might consult the De Morte Persecutorum of Lactantius; and, in addition to the notes of Heinichen (pp. 381, 405) on the former, Mason on The Persecution of Diocletian, chs. v and vi, and the notes in McGiffert’s translation of Eusebius, pp. 325, 397.