320 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[♦in-l S. VII. APKIL 16. '69. 



To return to St. Paul. Notwithstanding your 

 correspondent S. C.'s objections to the well-known 

 authorities referred to by Mu. Lee, and the nega- 

 tive argument deduced from Bede's silence, I 

 cannot see the reasonableness of his conclusion 

 that the tradition of St. Paul's preaching in 

 Britain is a mere fable, especially when I find the 

 following remarkable verses in the Life of St. 

 Martin (prope ad finem, lib. iii.) by Fortunatus 

 Venantius, who lived some years before Bede : — 

 " Dogmata quae Christi toto sparsere per orbetn, 

 QuiB dixere prius : tu es Christus filius almi 

 Altithronique Dei doniinantis et omnipotentis, 

 Ac super hac petra fundata Ecclesia regnat, 

 Quam nee flabra movent, neque vertit turbo procellse, 

 Nee trahit undivagam pluviatilis imber arenam, 

 Haee quia viva tenet petra fundamenta salutis ; 

 Contra quam portae inferni nunquam arma valebunt. 

 Quid sacer ille simul Paulus, tuba gentibus ampla? 

 Per mare, per terras Christi praeconia fundens, 

 Europam, atque Asiam, Libyam sale, dogmata com- 



plens ; 

 Et qua sol radiis tendit, stylus ille cueurrit, 

 Arctos, meridies, hinc plenus vesper et ortus. 

 Transit et oceanum, vel qua facit insula portum ; 

 Quasque Britannus habet terras, atque ultima Thyle. 

 Buccina eoncrepuit regiones una per omnes, 

 • **«** 



Principibus geminis fidei sub principe Roma, 

 Carnis Apostolicae quo sunt duo celsa sepulchra. 

 Prima tenent terris, et utrique priora supernis, 

 Dogmatis ore pares, et sedis lionore curulis, 

 Ambo triumphantes spargunt nova dona per orbem : 

 Una nempe die quos passio sancta beavit, 

 Et sacra sic geminus signavit tempora consul : 

 Quis splendor paribus rutilabat ab ore coruscus 

 Lucifer, ut radiis premeretur vultibus illis, 

 Quippe nee ipsa mieat tantum rota fulgida Solis." 



The early existence and propagation of Chris- 

 tianity in this island is well attested : that it may 

 have been introduced by St. Paul is not only pos- 

 sible, but highly probable, considering that Apos- 

 tle's special vocation to the Gentiles, 



" Hebraeus, Graecus, Romanus, Barbarus, Indus," 

 and the interest with which in his time Britain, as 

 a recent conquest, must have been regarded in 

 Rome. BiBLiOTHECAR Chetham. 



It would occupy too much of your valuable 

 space to enter fully into all the arguments which 

 may be adduced in favour of the " probability " of 

 St. Paul's having preached in Britain. I will, 

 however, endeavour to give as concisely as possible 

 the authorities upon which I rested when I made 

 that statement ; and when my friend S. C. has read 

 them, I trust he will think that " there may be a 

 probability established that S. Paul preached in 

 Britain." 



First, then, as to the expression used by S. Cle- 

 ment, ^-kX rh repfta rrjs Aiffewi, I think a Roman 

 writer living in the age of S. Clement would by 

 such an expression include the British Isles. Ca- 

 tullus, who flourished b.c, 50, speaks of Britain as 



" Ultima Britannica" and "Ultima Occidentis In- 

 sula." (Carm. xxix.); and, again, he speaks of the 

 inhabitants as " horribiles ultimosque Britannos" 

 (Carm. xi.). Horace also calls them " ultimos 

 orbis Britannos" (Carm. i. 35.). Plutarch, in his 

 Life of Ccesar, denominates the sea between Gaul 

 and Britain " the Western Ocean." Eusebius 

 {Vita Const, i. c. 25. 41.), and Nicephorus {His. 

 lib. i. I.) give the same name to the British 

 Ocean; and, lastly, Theodoret {Relig. Hist. c. 26. 

 tom. iii. p. 881., D. ed. 1642) enumerates the in- 

 habitants of Spain, Britain, and Gaul, which he 

 says lie between the other two, and describes 

 them as dwelling in the extreme bounds of the West. 

 The language of S. Clement may therefore be 

 fairly held to imply that St. Paul went, not only 

 to Spain, but also to the most remote of the three 

 western provinces, Spain, Gaul, and Britain. 



Secondly. There is distinct evidence that the 

 gospel was preached in the British Isles by some of 

 the Apostles. Irenseus (lib. i. c. ii. iii. p. 57. ed. 

 Paris, 1675), who wrote in the second century, 

 speaks of Christianity as propagated to the utmost 

 bounds of the earth by the Apostles, and particu- 

 larly specifies " the churches planted in Spain and 

 the Celtick nations : " in the latter were included 

 the people of Germany, Gaul, and Britain. Ter- 

 tuUian, who flourished the latter end of the second 

 century (adv. Judceos., sec. 7. p. 189. ed. 1675), 

 speaks of the church having extended to all the 

 boundaries of Spain and the difi'erent nations of 

 Gaul and parts of Britain, inaccessible to the Ro- 

 mans, but subject to Christ. Origen (Horn, in 

 Ezeh. iv.), who wrote in the beginning of the third 

 century, asks, "When, before the coming of Christ, 

 did the land of Britain agree in the worship of 

 God ? " Lactantius (Demonst. Persec. c. iii. p. 

 55.) at the beginning of the fourth century, says 

 that, " Christianity spread itself into the east and 

 west, into every corner of the known world, and 

 into nations however barbarous." Eusebius, the 

 favourite of Constantine (who was born in Bri- 

 tain), and who was present at the Council of Nice, 

 at which British bishops were present (Collier, i. 

 65.), and who had a particular curiosity to exa- 

 mine the history of all churches, declares ex- 

 pressly (Demonst. Evang. lib. iii. p. 112. D. Co- 

 lonifE, 1688), that "some of the Apostles passed 

 over the ocean to those which are called the British 

 Islands,'" an assertion which Eusebius is not likely 

 to have made unless it was well known that Chris- 

 tianity was planted in Britain by the Apostles ; 

 since, at the time Eusebius wrote, Britain was the 

 talk of the world on account of the revolt of Ca- 

 rausius and Allectus, the victory and death of 

 Constantius in Britain, the succession of Constan- 

 tine, and his being declared emperor by the Ro- 

 man army then in Britain. Such being the case 

 it is very unlikely that Eusebius would have 

 stated that the Apostles preached the gospel in 



