2»* S. VIL April 16. '69.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



321 



tbe British Isles unless he had good authority for 

 so doing. Hence, on the authority of S. Cle- 

 ment, Irenseus, Tertullian, Origen, and Eusebius, 

 we conclude that the gospel was preached in 

 Britain by some of the Apostles. 



Since, then, an Apostle first preached the gospel 

 in Britain, we have now to consider the testimony 

 afforded us of St. Paul being that Apostle. St. 

 Jerome {Cat. Scrip. Eccles. torn. i. p. 266. D. 

 Basil, 1583), says " St. Paul after his imprison- 

 ment preached the gospel in the western parts," 

 by which expression, say Bps. Stillingfleet and 

 Burgess, the British Isles were especially under- 

 stood. Theodoret (Ps. cxvi. p. 87. ed. 1642), says 

 that St. Paul preached " in Italy and Spain," and 

 (having thus distinctly mentioned Spain), adds, 

 " carried salvation to the islands which lie in the 

 ocean." What islands can these be but the British? 

 Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers, in the 

 sixth century, says St. Paul passed over the 

 ocean to the island of Britain, and to the Ultima 

 Thule : - 



" Transit et oceanum vel quh facit insula portum, 

 QuasqueBritannus liabet terras, quasque Ultima Thule." 



Sophronius, a patriarch of Jerusalem, who 

 flourished in the seventh century, in a sermon on 

 the Nativity of the Apostles (vide Godwin, de 

 Prcesulihus AnglicE, cap. i. p. 6. ed. 1743), says ex- 

 pressly, that " St. Paul visited and preached the 

 gospel in Spain, and in the Island of Britain; 

 and, lastly, Nicephorus, patriarch of Constanti- 

 nople, who wrote in the ninth century, says (Hist. 

 lib. ii. c. 40. ed. 1588), "one of the Apostles went 

 to Egypt and Libya, and another to the extreme 

 countries of the Ocean, and to the British Isles." 

 Such is the direct historical testimony to the fact 

 of the gospel being preached in Britain by one of 

 the Apostles, that one being St. Paul himself. 

 When we add to this the testimony of Gildas, that 

 " the gospel was here received before the fatal de- 

 feat of the Britains by Suetonius Paulinus," which 

 is generally placed in the seventh or eighth year 

 of Nero ; St. Paul having been released from his 

 first imprisonment at Rome in the fifth year of that 

 emperor. When we consider also that it has been 

 calculated that at this period there were no fewer 

 than 48,000 Roman soldiers, including their auxi- 

 liaries in Britain, so that there must have been 

 great intercourse at this time between Britain and 

 the capital, is it very unlikely that St. Paul, just 

 released from a two years' imprisonment, burning 

 with heat, after his long captivity, more fully to 

 preach the gospel, should have taken advantage 

 of this intercourse, prompted thereto by the com- 

 mand which he had received from his Lord when 

 in a trance in the Temple at Jerusalem He had 

 said unto him, " Depart, for I will send thee far 

 hence unto the Gentiles " ? 



I will add but one more testimony from the an- 

 cieat British Triads, or metrical triplets of the 



Welsh, of which the celebrated antiquary Mr.. 

 Vaughan has said, " the majority of the Triada 

 have probably existed as traditions from a period 

 coeval with the facts they record,'' — at the same 

 time referring the collecting and committing of 

 them to writing to the seventh century. Now in 

 the thirty-fifth Historical Triad we are told : — 



" Of the three Blessed Princes of the Isle of Britain, th© 

 first was Bran the Blessed, who first brought the faith of 

 Christianity to the Cambrians from Rome, where he had 

 been seven years as an hostage for his son Caradog, or 

 Caractacus, whom the Romans put in prison after being 

 betrayed through the enticement oft Boadicea, Queen of 

 the Britons." 



Now, when we remember that the captivity of 

 Caractacus's father was coincident with that of St. 

 Paul (why may they not have met in the same 

 prison ?), and also that his release from captivity 

 was in the same year in which St. Paul was al- 

 lowed to depart from Rome, viz. 58, we shall 

 have at least a clue to the conversion of Bran, if 

 not to the immediate cause which may have in- 

 duced St. Paul to visit Britain. 



S. C. objects the silence of Bede as an argu- 

 ment against St. Paul's preaching in Britain. 

 Bede was a Saxon monk, hostile to the Britons, 

 and, as we all know, anxious to refer everything 

 to Rome. He says nothing of the introduction of 

 Christianity to Britain before the time of Lucius, 

 whereas we know from good authority that Bri- 

 tain received Christianity in the time of the Apos- 

 tles. Besides Bede often made glaring mistakes : 

 in the very chapter in which he mentions that 

 Lucius became a Christian (he does not say Chris- 

 tianity was introduced into Britain in his reign) 

 he says also, "Marcus Antoninus Verus, the 

 14th from Augustus, was made emperor together 

 with his brother Aurelius Commodus :" the truth 

 being that no such emperors as the two men- 

 tioned ever reigned together, Commodus being 

 the son of Marcus Aurelius, and Verus his son-in- 

 law. 



S. C. speaks boldly when he claims " most of 

 the historians of our day " as agreeing in his con- 

 clusions. To say nothing of Speed, Parker, Cam- 

 den, Godwin, Ussher, Stillingfleet, Cave, Gibson,- 

 Alford, Rapin, Mason, Nelson, Collier, Stanhope, 

 and Trapp, all of whom (and what great names 

 are there amongst them!) are in favour of St. 

 Paul's visit to Britain. Besides these there are 

 Bishop Burgess, Soames, Palmer, Churton, Bates, 

 and Yeowell, in our own day, who hold the same 

 opinion as they did. 



On the whole, then, I conclude in the words of 

 Bp. Gibson (vide his ed. of Camdeiis Britannia, 

 vol. i. p. 46. ed. 1772), that from the authority of 

 Clemens Romanus, aided by that of other writers, 

 " it follows not only that the gospel was preached 

 in Britain in the time of the Apostles, but that 

 St. Paul himself was the preacher of it." 

 I am indebted for many of the above authorities, 



