Early Christianity in the British Isles
Glastonbury Tor. Photo by Niklas Weiss on Unsplash
Early Christianity in the British Isles
Early Christianity in the British Isles Updated Video
Saint Irenaeus (c. 130-202), bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul (now Lyon, France). From Wikimedia Commons
The Apostle John was one of Jesus’ twelve disciples. John lived to be an old man and had disciples of his own. Both Irenaeus and Tertullian (both leading 2nd Century theologians) tell us that one of John’s disciples was a man called Polycarp. Polycarp was a Christian leader who lived from about 69 -155 AD. He was one of the earliest Christian writers and was known as a church leader and prophetic teacher. Irenaeus was one of the disciples of Polycarp and was ordained by him for ministry. Irenaeus himself went on to teach and lead churches This brings us to Hippolytus of Rome who lived from about 170 to 235 AD.
Photios I of Constantinople describes Hippolytus in his Bibliotheca (cod. 121) as a disciple of Irenaeus. Hippolytus became one of the most important 2nd Century Christian writers and we can see that he was in a direct line of Christian teachers from the Apostle John. It’s important to note that Polycarp, Irenaeus and Hippolytus derived their authority from their connection with John the Apostle not from an institutional church.
Jesus
Apostle John
Polycarp was John's Disciple
Irenaeus was Polycarp’s Disciple
Hippolytus was Irenaeus’ Disciple
The word Pope, meaning father, was originally applied to all bishops (church leaders) and only later in the fifth century became reserved for the bishop of Rome. Hippolytus would not have regarded himself as a Pope because of Jesus’ injunction not to use the title Father for any earthly religious leader.
[Mat 23:8-9 KJV] 8 But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, [even] Christ; and all ye are brethren. 9 And call no [man] your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.
Hippolytus was often in conflict with the popes of his time over matters of doctrine. This is important because Hippolytus was not a functionary of the Catholic church. He received his teaching and authority in a direct line from John. One of the smaller works attributed to him was called On the Seventy Apostles of Christ. This work lists the names of seventy of Jesus’ disciples. This list relates to the seventy disciples that Jesus sent out in Luke chapter 10.
Ancient Roman sculpture, maybe of Saint Hippolytus of Rome, found in 1551 at Via Tiburtina, Rome, and now at the Vatican Library.
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Skellig Michael By Jerzy Strzelecki - Own work. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons .
[Luk 10:1 KJV] 1 After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come.
It’s possible that seventy were sent out because this number relates to the seventy nations listed in the Table of Nations in Genesis chapter 10. Anyway, each of the disciples was appointed a bishop of a particular area. Number 29 on the list was Aristobulus and he was made Bishop of Britain. It is interesting that traditionally, in Ireland, Aristobulus ordered the establishment of a hermitage on the island of Skellig Michael. It remains a site of pilgrimage to this day.
So, Christianity could have come to the British Isles almost immediately from the time of the gospels. There was a large native church in Ireland well before the time of Patrick, so much so that Palladius was appointed Bishop of Ireland the year before Patrick arrived. I find the story of Skellig Michael fascinating so I have reproduced an extract from its Wikipedia entry to provide more information.
The monastery at Skellig Michael, via Wikimedia Commons
“This establishment of a hermitage on the island was ordered by Arwystli (aka Aristobulus) who was appointed and ordained Bishop of Britain by the Apostle Paul. Arwystli was the spiritual instructor of Bran (Bran The Blessed son of Llyr Llediaith) of the Silurian dynasty.[27] The purpose of the hermitage was the preservation of doctrine and protection of sacred texts of the Culdee church consisting of the full canon of the Essenes brought to Britain by Joseph Of Arimathea circa AD 37.[28] The hermitage remained in use by Culdee anchorites and was visited by all the prominent Christian bards – Dewi, Teilo, and Padarn – for instruction and wisdom before their trip to Jerusalem.[29] The hermitage was visited extensively by Cattwg Ddoeth, who took over its funding and had the first chapel built on the west side of the island. The last Culdee anchorite to live on the island was Gildas, a student of Cattwg Ddoeth. Gildas retired finally to Glastonbury where he wrote his History Of The Britons.[30] The island remains a sacred pilgrimage site for Culdee Christians, particularly for members of the Assembly Of Christian Israelites.”
Extract from Wikipedia entry on Skellig Michael.
There are other reasons to believe that Christianity came to Britain extremely early. The Roman historian Tacitus gives us the story of Caractacus, a British/Welsh chieftain who was taken captive by the Romans and taken to Rome. You can find more on this story if you search the web site for Caractacus.
There are a group of medieval documents known as The Welsh Triads which have preserved some fragments of Welsh history. According to the Triads Caractacus was allowed to return home to Britain but his family were kept behind in Rome. His father Bran was detained in Caesar’s household and while there he converted to Christianity. He was allowed to return to Britain in 58 AD bringing the Christian faith with him. Consequently it is possible that Christianity spread to Britain from the time of the early church as recorded in the Book of Acts.
Caradoc (Caractacus) Before the Roman Emperor. Illustrations and photographs of places and events in Welsh history from a children's book called 'Flame Bearers of Welsh History'. From Wikimedia Commons
Early Christianity in thr British Isles Part 2
Early Christianity in thr British Isles Part 2. Video
William of Malmesbury has been described as the foremost English historian of the 12th Century. He was a monk at Malmesbury Abbey in Wiltshire, England. He is remembered for his historical works and in particular his Gesta Regum Anglorum ("Deeds of the English Kings"),
Here we are concerned with one of his works called De antiquitate Glastoniensis ecclesiae (63–1126 AD) (The Ancient Church of Glastonbury). In this work he tells us that Philip, presumably meaning the disciple of Jesus, sent twelve of his disciples to teach God’s Word. It is said that he appointed as their leader his very dear friend, Joseph of Arimathea, who had buried the Lord. They came to Britain in A.D. 63, the fifteenth year after the assumption of the Blessed Mary, and confidently began to preach the faith of Christ.” Soon after which, “the saints were incited by a vision of the Archangel Gabriel to build a church [at Glastonbury] in honor of the Virgin Mary … making the lower part of all of its walls of twisted wattle, an unsightly construction no doubt, but one adorned by God with many miracles.”
Stained glass window showing William, installed in Malmesbury Abbey in 1928. From Wikimedia Commons
Statue of Saint-Gildas. It on the shore line in a small bay near the "Grand-Mont" (Morbihan, France)
Clearly, William gives his own version of this legend but he must have got the story from somewhere. He is not the only medieval writer to talk of Joseph coming to Britain. During the late 12th century, Joseph became connected with the Arthurian stories, appearing in them as the first keeper of the Holy Grail. This idea first appears in Robert de Boron's Joseph d'Arimathie, in which Joseph receives the Grail from an apparition of Jesus and sends it with his followers to Britain.
So far we are still in the realm of legend but we also have accounts of the early arrival of Christianity from other more verifiable sources.
The 6th Century British monk Gildas wrote an history called On the ruin of Britain where he describes the trials the British people were undergoing at the hands of the invading Anglo-Saxons. He believed the difficulties the British were going through were largely a result of the impieties of their kings. In his account he claims that Christianity came to Britain during the reign of Tiberius Caesar. Tiberius reigned from from 14 AD until 37 AD.
The early Christian writer Tertullian (c. 155 - c. 220 AD) wrote in Adversus Judaeos that Britain had already received and accepted the Gospel in his lifetime, writing, "all the limits of the Spains, and the diverse nations of the Gauls, and the haunts of the Britons—inaccessible to the Romans, but subjugated to Christ."
Another early Christian writer, Eusebius of Caesarea (writing in the 3rd Century AD) wrote of Christ's disciples in Demonstratio Evangelica, saying that "some have crossed the Ocean and reached the Isles of Britain.”
So we can see that there is evidence to support the idea that Christianity reached Britain from the time of the Apostles. God’s Word reaches to the ends of the earth. As the Apostle Paul wrote.
[Rom 10:17-18 KJV] 17 So then faith [cometh] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. 18 But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.
Allegoric wood engraving featuring Tertullian, excerpt from ''Vrais pourtraits et vies des hommes illustres grecz, latins et payens'' by André Thevet (Lyons, 1584)
Glastonbury Abbey. Site of what William of Malmesbury claimed was the oldest church in England. Around 1130, William of Malmesbury described Glastonbury’s ancient ‘brushwood’ church. He suggested that missionaries founded it in AD 166. William thought it could even date back to the time of Christ’s apostles.
The reason that all this is important is that many people think that the gospel came to the British Isles under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church.
However I believe that God made sure that the gospel spread out all over the world through the work of the Lord’s Apostles. A native Christian church existed in the Britain and Ireland before the Catholic Church institutionalised the Christian faith in the British Isles.
Anybody can become a Christian simply by believing in Jesus Christ. There is only one church and that is the church of all believers. The Catholic church brought in a religious system that told ordinary people that the way to Salvation was through the Catholic Church and that they could only find God through using a priest as an intermediary. However very often the priests themselves were not born again believers.
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The Pharisees Question Jesus. James Tissot, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
This clash between institutional religion and true believers goes back to the time of Jesus which is why our Lord said to the religious people of his time:
[Luk 11:52 KJV] 52 Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.
In other words they had the scriptures but didn’t understand them and couldn’t lead anyone else to salvation.
This is the situation that we are still facing today. There is always a true church (built by God) and an institutional church which is in the process of being transformed into a one world religion, combining with all the other religions. This situation will continue up until the time of the Harvest
[Mat 13:30 KJV] 30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
The Prophetic Significance of Cornwall
Saint Piran 'rediscovered' tin-smelting (tin had been smelted in Cornwall since before the Romans' arrival, but the methods had since been lost) when the tin in his black hearthstone, which was evidently a slab of tin-bearing ore, was smelted out of it and rose to the top in the form of a white cross (thus the image on the flag). This became the flag of Cornwall.
The tin route from Cornwall to Israel
St Just in Roseland Church. This is the creek where legend says that Joseph of Arimathea and Jesus landed in Cornwall.
Botallack Mine
Cornish Round Houses at Carn Euny
The Prophetic Significance of Cornwall Video
Cornwall is known as “The Land of the Saints” because of the great number of “Saints” associated with the county. In fact there are over sixty of these saints who have Cornish connections. Mostly they were from the branch of Christianity known as Celtic Christianity and came to Cornwall from Ireland or Wales. St Piran the patron saint of Cornwall was a 5th-century Cornish abbot and saint, probably of Irish origin. He is the patron saint of tin-miners. St Petroc was born in Wales, he primarily he is associated with a monastery at Padstow and is known as “the captain of the Cornish saints. The list of saints goes on and on with many Cornish towns and villages named after saints.
In folklore, Christianity came to Cornwall even before these saints. According to the Talmud, the primary source of Jewish teaching and theology, Joseph of Arimathea was an uncle of the Virgin mary and therefore the great-uncle of Jesus. This would explain why he was allowed, as a close relative, to bury the body of Jesus in his tomb. There are very persistent traditions in Cornwall that Joseph was involved in the trade of tin.The existence of a tin trade between Cornwall and Phoenicia is frequently referred to in Classical writers, and is described at considerable length by Diodorus Siculus.
In 2019 there were news reports that Ancient tin found in Israel has unexpected Cornish links. Researchers from Heidelberg University and the Curt Engelhorn Centre for Archaeometry, Mannheim studied 27 tin ingots – metal cast into bars, plates, or sheets – from sites in Israel, Turkey and Greece.
Using lead and tin isotope data and trace element analysis, the archeologists discovered that the metal ingots, which dated from the 13th and 12th centuries BC, did not originate from Central Asia as previously thought, but instead came from tin deposits in Europe. Perhaps most surprisingly, the team found that tin artifacts from Israel probably came from Cornwall and Devon in southwest England.
This is the firmest evidence we have of the ancient tin trade between Israel and Cornwall. We now move into the realm of folklore and there is plenty of folklore regarding Joseph of Arimathea visiting Cornwall with his great nephew, Jesus. According to legend, Joseph of Arimathea visited Cornwall with the young Jesus, seeking tin, and the story is associated with places like Looe Island and the Roseland peninsula. The Rev’d C.C. Dobson recorded some of the local stories in his book “Did our Lord visit Britain, as they say in Cornwall and Somerset” published in 1936. Also the Rev’d H.A.Lewis recorded some of the local Cornish folklore in a pamphlet published in 1939 called “Christ in Cornwall”. At the time local people were loth to talk about the legends they had been brought up with for rear of ridicule. However some of them were willing to talk. For example the inhabitants of St Just in Roseland had a strong tradition of believing that Joseph and Jesus visited their creek.
“I have had it confirmed by past inhabitants of St Just that it was a common tradition of their childhood that Christ came there. One variant version was that “Joseph of Arimathea and Our Lord came in a boat, and anchored in St Just Creek.”
Traditionally the tin miners of Cornwall believed that Joseph of Arimathea was a “tin man”. This belief was reported by the clergyman Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould, in his Book of Cornwall of 1899, where he says that Jesus taught Joseph “how to extract the tin and purge it of its wolfram”. When tin is flashed, then the tinner shouts, “Joseph was in the tin trade,” which is probably a corruption of “St. Joseph to the tinner’s aid!”
There is a wealth of folklore on this subject which is usually dismissed as fable but there is something special about Cornwall which many people feel as soon as they cross over the Tamar river from Devon. The miners themselves remembered Joseph in a song recorded in Glyn S. Lewis’ book “Did Jesus come to Britain”.
Here come three Josephs, three Josephs are here,
All for to bring ‘ee the luck of the year;
One he did stand at the Babe’s right hand,
One was a lord in Egypt’s land,
One was a sinner and sailed the sea.
God keep you merry, say we.
There are about forty Celtic courtyard-house villages on the Land’s End peninsula in Cornwall. These are roughly contemporaneous with the time of Jesus. The tin mining trade was thriving at this time. If Joseph and jesus did visit Cornwall these communities could have been among the first Christian communities in Britain.
I like to believe the old stories but there are some hard facts. The tin trade to Israel definitely did exist and Cornwall had a Christian community as far back as anyone can trace. Prophetically speaking God tends to bring things full circle. The bible start with the Tree of Life and finishes with the Tree of Life. I believe that Christianity found some of its earliest beginnings in Cornwall and in these last days I expect to see a revival of real Christianity in Cornwall again. There have been many revivals in Cornwall in the past but the last one will be the greatest and will spread throughout the whole of the British Isles.
The Prophetic Significance of Somerset and Glastonbury
Somerset locator map
Somerset Today
The Prophetic Significance of Somerset and Glastonbury Video
Somerset is a county in England which has great prophetic significance. If you have seen my website or watched the YouTube videos you will know that certain themes are important to me and many of them converge in Somerset. The fact that dinosaurs are the same thing as dinosaurs is an important prophetic theme because dragons are in the bible and help disprove the theory of evolution which is a theory sent by the devil to deceive us. Somerset has one of the richest histories of dragons of anywhere in Britain. The kings who helped create the nations of the British Isles (some people in Ireland don’t like this term so call the British Isles the Atlantic Isles if you prefer) are important because they demonstrate that God created these nations as Christian nations. King Alfred the Great hid in the bogs and marshes of Somerset when all seemed lost and he was being hunted by the Vikings. King Arthur is reputed to have found his final resting place at Avalon which is Glastonbury in Somerset.
I want to look at the folklore around Joseph of Arimathea’s visit to Britain and the stories related to him bringing Jesus to Somerset. In the previous video entitled “Cornwall. Its Prophetic Significance” we looked at the legend of Joseph of Arimathea being Jesus’ great uncle and visiting Cornwall with Jesus as part of his work as a tin trader. In Somerset the legend persists that Joseph and Jesus also visited Glastonbury. After the death and resurrection of Jesus, Joseph returned to Glastonbury and, with his companions constructed a mud and wattle church. The first in Britain. We actually have some historical references for this. In the year 600 AD, three years after his arrival in Britain St. Augustine wrote to Pope Gregory: -
Glastonbury Tor. The Isle of Avalon
Romantic image of Taliesin the Druid
The village of Priddy today
"In the Western confines of Britain, there is a certain royal island of large extent, surrounded by water, abounding in all the beauties of nature and necessities of life. In it the first neophytes of catholic law, God before hand acquainting them, found a church constructed by no human art, but by the hands of Christ Himself, for the salvation of His people."
The island which is referred to here is almost certainly Glastonbury, the Isle of Avalon. The neophytes would be Joseph and his companions. The church was constructed already when Joseph arrived and the inference is that is was constructed by Jesus Himself. Further documentary evidence comes from Gildas the Wise, the British historian, who wrote in AD. 550 in his De Exidio Brittany: -
"We certainly know that Christ, the true Son, afforded His light, the knowledge of His precepts to our Island in the last year of Tiberius Caesar."
Tiberius was contemporaneous with Jesus Himself and so we can see that this passage is evidence of Christianity being in Britain from the very earliest times. The druids, who were a priestly class in ancient Celtic cultures, believed that Jesus came to Britain. Taliesin, the druid and great British prince and bard of the 6th century claimed the following: -
“Christ was from the beginning our teacher, and we never lost His teaching”.
There are in fact a host of other ancient references to Christ being in Britain and in particular in Glastonbury. In fact the charter given to Glastonbury in 700 AD by King Ina records the belief that our Lord Himself had resided and ministered there. Glastonbury was traditionally known as Domus Dei or Home of God.
In Somerset itself folk traditions have always maintained that Jesus came to the area. The Rev’d C. C. Dobson in his booklet “Did our Lord visit Britain”, published in 1936, tells us of a Somerset tradition that Jesus and Joseph “came in a ship of Tarshish to Summerland, and sojourned in a place called Paradise”. The ship of Tarshish would refer to one of the tin trading ships that came from Israel. Summerland refers to Somerset and Paradise is the old name for the area around what is now Burnham-on-Sea. Near to Burnham is a port called Uphill which was used by merchants in ancient times. From here Joseph and Jesus could have made their way up the river Axe to Priddy, a small village in the Mendip hills. Priddy was at the centre of the ancient Mendip lead and copper mining area and there is an old proverb which says “as sure as our Lord was at Priddy”. Glyn S Lewis in his book Did Jesus Come to Britain? Quotes an old folk song about Jesus going to Priddy
O Joseph came a-sailing over the sea,
A-trading of metal, a-trading came he
And he made his way to Priddy
With our dear Lord.
O Joseph. Joseph!
Joseph was a tinner, was he.
A representation of a Glastonbury Lake Village landing stage by Amédée Forestier in 1911. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Joseph would have travelled from Priddy by log boat along the river Brue through the marshes of Somerset. They would have passed the village of Godney (God’s Isle) and eventually come to Glastonbury. The purpose of their going to Glastonbury was to trade for the lead and copper which were mined in the region. There is archeological evidence for bronze and iron being worked at Glastonbury. Glyn S. Lewis believes Joseph may have traded iron bars for copper and lead as the metal workers at Glastonbury could not have achieved the high temperatures requires for smelting iron on site. In Druidic folklore Jesus spent some time in Glastonbury preparing for his ministry. Legend has it that he built himself a wattle and thatch hut there. When Joseph returned to Glastonbury in later years he may have enclosed this hut in a church constructed of wood. This would explain what St Augustine was referring to in his letter to Pope Gregory which I quoted earlier “a church constructed by no human art, but by the hands of Christ Himself”
There are several other ancient manuscripts which refer to the church at Glastonbury as being divinely constructed. Glastonbury has long been thought of as the site of the earliest church in Britain. In the next video I will put together the stories from Cornwall and Somerset to give an overview of how the trip of Joseph and Jesus to Britain could actually have happened.