460 



NOTES AND QyEEIES. 



[2''d S. VII. June 4. '59. 



Tertullian, who merely speaks of " Britannorum 

 inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo vero subdita," 

 regions of Britain, inaccessible to the Romans, hut 

 subject to Christ. How does this prove that any 

 apostle preached in Britain ? Origen's evidence 

 is still less "distinct;" for how does merely say- 

 ing, in the beginning of the third century, that 

 the land of Britain agreed in the worship of God, 

 prove that any apostle ever preached there? Lac- 

 tantius tells us no more than that Christianity had 

 spread into every corner of the known world; but 

 not a word of any apostle having preached in Bri- 

 tain. But now we come to something which at 

 least appears more to the point. Eusebius says 

 that " some of the apostles passed over the ocean 

 to those which are called the British islands." Un- 

 fortunately for Mr. Lee's argument, Eusebius 

 does not say whether these were any of the apo- 

 stles, or some of their fellow-labourers. He had 

 before observed that those who preached the 

 Gospel were the twelve elect and the seventy others; 

 and he goes on to speak of some oy^Aem having 

 passed over to the British Isles. If some apostles 

 came to Britain, there would be more than Mb. 

 Lee wants ; but the passage proves just as much 

 that those who came were none of the apostles ; 

 and thus Eusebius affords no more " distinct evi- 

 dence" than those before him. 



Mr. Lee enters upon his third inquiry, whether 

 St. Paul actually did preach in Britain, by quot- 

 ing St. Jerome, who says, "AY. Paid, after his 

 imprisonment, preached the Gospel in the western 

 parts." But what St. Jerome meant is evident 

 from his Lib. de Viribus illustribus, where he says 

 of St. Paul, " Ut evangeliuni Ghristi in occidentis 

 quoque partibus prsedicaret, sicut ipse scribit in 

 secunda Epistola ad Timotheum, eo tempore quo 

 et passus est, et de vinculis dictat epistolam .... 

 Dominus autem mihi affuit et confortavit me, ut 

 per me prcedicatio compleretur, et audirent omnes 

 gentes :"' he evidently meant Rome or . Italy. 

 Next, because Theodoret says that St. Paul "car- 

 ried salvation to the islands which lie in the 

 ocean," Mr, Lee asks confidently, " What islands 

 can these be but the British?" Theodoret will 

 soon answer. He had just spoken of St. Paul's 

 preaching in Italy and Spain, and in proof quoted 

 Romans xv. 24. He goes on to prove that he 

 preached to the islands in the ocean, by quoting 

 Titus i. 5. : For this cause I left thee in Crete. It 

 is clear that he alluded to Crete and other isles in 

 the Mediterranean. But Mb. Lee alleges that 

 Venantius Fortunatus 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 qua facit insula portum, 

 Quasque Britannus habet terras, quasque Ultima Thule." 



It is rather lucky that in the preceding page of 

 " N. & Q." a correspondent has favoured us with 

 more of these verses of Fortunatus, with the same 



object indeed as Mr. Lee, but without perceiving 

 that he was supplying the ready refutation of his 

 own argument. For the poet merely says that 

 the stylus, that is the writings, of St. Paul have 

 crossed the ocean, reached Britain, and even the 

 Ultima Thule, where no one ever pretended that 

 St. Paul himself preached : — 



" Et qua sol radiis tendit, stylus ille cucurrit, 

 Arctos, meridies, hinc plenus vesper et ortus, 

 Transit et oceanum," etc. 



I have no means at present of examining the 

 alleged testimony of Sophronius ; but a witness 

 of the seventh century can carry no weight when 

 not founded on earlier testimonies, which here 

 are wholly wanting. Enough, however, has been 

 said to destroy all probability of St. Paul's having 

 preached in Britain. Claims have been set up 

 in fact for other apostles. Nicephorus says that 

 Britain fell to the lot of St. Simon, and the Greek 

 Menology even adds that he was crucified in our 

 island. Dr. Burgess admits that Nicephorus was 

 "perhaps mistaken" (7VacA9, p. 115.), but he could 

 not see that he was quite as likely to be correct in 

 asserting that St. Simon preached in Britain, as 

 in saying that some of the apostles went to the 

 British Isles. But it has been just as plausibly 

 maintained that St. Peter himself preached in 

 Britain. In fact, as Dr. Lingard long ago ob- 

 served in his refutation of Dr. Burgess, it would 

 be as easy to prove that Simon Magus preached 

 in Britain, for Eusebius says that he came into the 

 western parts : iirl Sva-fxhs wx^'''o, and equally pro- 

 bable that St. Peter himself came hither ; for 

 Eusebius also says of him, that he brought the 

 light of the Gospel to those that dwell in the 

 West, To7s Kara dvffiv, the very expressions on 

 which Mr. Lee pounces whenever he thinks they 

 can favour his theory of St. Paul's visiting Bri- 

 tain. But it is time to abandon all these specu- 

 lations, none of them having any solid foundation 

 in historic truth. The object of the argument for 

 St. Paul is of course manifest ; but I have left the 

 controversial question untouched, as unsuited to 

 the pages of " N. & Q." F. C. H. 



LAYLOCK, OB LILAC. 



(2"" S. vii. 385.) 



The difficulty felt by your correspondent in 

 viewing the lilac as a Syringa appears to originate 

 in the ambiguous use which has been made of the 

 term Syringa itself. This term has been applied 

 not only to the lilac, but to the Philadelphus or 

 mock orange, to which the lilac has certainly no 

 botanical affinity. But, says Loudon, speaking of 

 the mock orange, " instead of the common trivial 

 name Syringa, applied to this genus in gardens, 

 we have substituted its generic name, Philadel- 

 phus, Syringa being the generic name of the lilac!'' 



