An alternative example: Celtic Christianity

[Continued from How Christianity became aligned with politics under Constantine.]

Perhaps things could have gone differently. Saint Patrick’s mission to the Irish in the fifth century gives a glimpse into what might have been possible had Christians under the Roman Empire resisted the temptation to align themselves with an earthly government and operate according to the principles of the world. A Celt who lived under Roman rule in Britain, Patrick was abducted by marauders as a youth and spent years as a slave swineherd in the fields of Ireland. In his solitude, he formed a close fellowship with God through constant prayer. Eventually, he escaped and found passage back to Britain, became a priest, and returned to Ireland on a holy mission to spread the gospel in that land. Thomas Cahill, in his How the Irish Saved Civilization, writes how he and his converts helped to transform Irish society:

With the Irish—even with the kings—he succeeded beyond measure. Within his lifetime or soon after his death, the Irish slave trade came to a halt, and other forms of violence, such as murder and intertribal warfare, decreased. In reforming Irish sexual mores, he was rather less successful, though he established indigenous monasteries and convents, whose inmates by their way of life reminded the Irish that the virtues of lifelong faithfulness, courage, and generosity were actually attainable by ordinary human beings and that the sword was not the only instrument for structuring society.[1]

Patrick’s non-violent, politically unadulterated, and courageously resolute message subdued the wild, warlike, and druidic Irish who the Romans could not conquer. Cahill compares the conversion of Ireland with that of the Roman Empire and argues that while Christianity transformed Irish society, Roman society transformed Christianity:

Through the Edict of Milan, which had legalized the new religion in 313 and made it the new emperor’s pet, Christianity had been received into Rome, not Rome into Christianity! Roman culture was little altered by the exchange, and it is arguable that Christianity lost much of its distinctiveness. But in the Patrician exchange, Ireland, lacking the power and implacable traditions of Rome, had been received into Christianity, which transformed Ireland into Something New, something never seen before—a Christian culture, where slavery and human sacrifice became unthinkable, and warfare, though impossible for humans to eradicate, diminished markedly. The Irish, in any case, loved physical combat too much for inter-tribal warfare to disappear entirely. But new laws, influenced by Gospel norms, inhibited such conflicts severely by requiring that arms be taken up only for a weighty cause. Ireland would not again see a battle on the scale of the Tain till Brian Boru would rout the Vikings in the eleventh century.[2]

Roughly a century after the death of Patrick, Ireland had been conquered by Christianity operating according to principles of submission and service and Irish monks began spreading peaceful, apolitical, and non-conformist Christianity in a Europe.[3] For several centuries, these monks infiltrated the barbarian tribes that had overrun the Roman Empire. The growing number of monasteries they established confounded regular church authorities with the number of converts that flocked to them. In these places of refuge, converts found a Christianity that was not only unique from the old order of Roman culture and political power but also radically different than the Germanic paganism of tribal kings. These monasteries were truly “cities on hills which could not be hidden.” Sadly, by the seventh century, unorganized Celtic Christianity was nearly entirely subsumed into the hierarchical Roman church.[4]

[This post is an excerpt of my work-in-progress book on social justice in the Old Testament. Feedback is welcome! More on Learning to Do Right.]

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[1] Thomas Cahill, pg. 110, How the Irish Saved Civilization

[2] Cahill, pg. 148

[3] Cahill, pg. 151, “Ireland is unique in religious history for being the only land into which Christianity was introduced without bloodshed.”

[4] Nora Chadwick, in her history The Celts, eulogizes: “The disappearance of the idiosyncratic Christianity of the Celtic Church was inevitable, owing to the absence of central organization; but it is impossible to reach the end without a feeling of regret. A Christianity so pure and serene as that of the age of saints could hardly be equaled and never repeated.”