EARLY CELTIC CHURCHES OF liRITAlN AND IRELAND. 185 



liad never subdued. As far north as York, where Severus died, 

 the country had Roman cities and organisation, and we may 

 suppose some knowledge of Christianity. 



A hundred years later came Diocletian's persecution* ( 303 A.D.). 

 St. Alban, the proto-martyr of Britain, who was one of the few 

 who seems to have suffered in these islands, was a native of the 

 Roman city of Caerleon-on-Usk, and died at the place now 

 known by his name. If the story of his death is a true one 

 and not invented to give honour to an almost martyr less 

 Christian community, a thing regarded in early days as being 

 a stain upon their faith, he and his companions, Julius and 

 Aaron, were evidently not native Britons but Roman citizens. 

 This is sufficiently evident from their names. 



Under the mild rule of Constantius and his son Constantine 

 it is hardly likely that any serious persecution extended itself 

 to Britain. Indeed a story is told both by Sozomen and 

 Eusebius to the effect that Constantius, when the decree of 

 persecution was ordered, called before him his officers and bade 

 them consider whether they would abandon Christianity and 

 retain his favour, or keep their faith and be banished from his 

 presence. Those who, after retiection, decided to sacrifice to 

 the pagan deities were, however, the men dismissed by him, for 

 he declared that those who had been worthy servants of their 

 God would also be faithful to their Emperor. (Quoted by Bishop 

 Brown, The Church hefore Augustine, p. 56.) The interest of 

 this story lies in the fact that the larger number of Constantius' 

 officers appear to have been, nominally at least, Christians ; and, 

 though he himself never embraced the Christian faith, his son, 

 Constantine (Emperor 302-337), is universally admitted to 

 have received his Christianity in Britain, though he was not, as 

 we know, baptized until immediately before his death (Sozomen, 

 Eccles. Hist., ii, ch. 34 ; Socrates, i, ch. 39). 



But we can go a step further. 



By the date of the Council of Aries in 314, we find existing 

 an organised Christian British Church with regularly appointed 

 bishops presidiug over it. Three bishops from Britain were 

 present at this Council and signed the decrees along with the 

 thirty other bishops gathered from Italy, Africa and Gaul. 

 They were respectively Bishops of York, London, and what is 

 understood to be Caerleon-on-Usk. 



* The persecution of Diocletian hardly extended itself to Britain, 

 which was cut off from the Eoman empire hj the usurpation of Carausius 

 and Allectus, and came later under the mild rule of Constantius. 



