The Priesthood in England - Part 1

Biblical Anthropology ^ | January 4, 2015 | Alice C. Linsley

[Jandy on Genesis]

Depending on who is telling the story, accounts differ as to when the priesthood came to the British Isles. Anglicans tend to give this account:

Christianity arrived in the British Isles around AD 47 according to Gildas's De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae. Christians likely entered as metal workers and traders traveling long the tin route between Spain and Ireland.

The earliest historical evidence of Christianity among the native Britons is found in the writings of such early Christian Fathers as Tertullian and Origen in the first years of the 3rd century.

In the 1st or 2nd century, southern Britain became part of the Roman Empire. In 595, Pope Gregory of Rome sent missionaries to the Kingdom of Kent under the direction of the Benedictine prior, Augustine. Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury.

Three Romano-British bishops, including Restitutus, are known to have been present at the Council of Arles in 314. Others attended the Council of Sardica in 347 and that of Ariminum in 360, and a number of references to the church in Roman Britain are found in the writings of 4th century Christian fathers.

The Roman Catholic Church tells this story:

Pope Gregory the Great chose a Benedictine monk named Augustine in 595 to lead a mission to Britain to convert King Æthelberht and his the people of Kent from Anglo-Saxon paganism. Augustine was the prior of a monastery in Rome.

[humblegunner]

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