NUNTIATORIA

St. Aidan/Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Aidan, as well as commemorating the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost. St. Aidan was born in Ireland in the sixth century. Nothing is known about his early life until he became a monk in St. Columba’s great monastery on Iona, an island off the coast of Scotland. The future king of Northumberland in northern England, St. Oswald, had been brought up  in the Irish Christian tradition when in exile. After he had defeated his opponents in battle and had himself become king of Northumberland St. Oswald desired that a bishop be chosen from among the monks of Iona to convert the people from paganism. There had been an earlier mission led by St. Paulinus (a disciple of St. Augustine of Canterbury) after a previous king of Northumberland, Edwin had accepted Christianity. It had collapsed after Edwin had been defeated and slain in battle by a rival pagan king and St. Paulinus had been forced to flee from Northumberland. Hence, when St. Oswald became king of Northumberland, the whole process of Christianisation had to be started again. He chose St. Aidan from among the monks of Iona to be bishop in his kingdom. Whereas St. Paulinus’ bishopric was at York, St. Aidan chose Lindisfarne, an island off the coast of Northumberland, to be the seat for his bishopric. This became the English equivalent of Iona. St. Aidan had no delusions of grandeur and continued to live an essentially monastic lifestyle. He worked closely with the king, St. Oswald, in evangelising the Northumbrian kingdom. He outlived St. Oswald, who was himself slain in battle, and died in 651 under his successor Oswin.

The great chronicler of the ecclesiastical history of the English people, St. Bede (who was himself a Northumbrian), thought very highly of St. Aidan. He wrote that St. Aidan “gave his clergy an inspiring example of self discipline and continence, and the highest recommendation of his teaching to all was that his followers lived as they taught. He never sought or cared for any worldly possessions, and loved to give away to the poor who chanced to meet him whatever he received from kings or wealthy folk. Whether in town or country he always travelled on foot, unless compelled by necessity to ride; and whatever people he met on his walks, whether high or low, he stopped and spoke to them. If they were heathen, he urged them to be baptised; and if they were Christians, he strengthened their faith, and inspired them by word and deed to live a good live and be generous to others…. He cultivated peace and love, purity and humility; he was above anger and greed, and despised pride and conceit; he set himself to keep as well as to teach the laws of God, and was diligent in study and prayer. He used his priestly authority to check the proud and the powerful; he tenderly comforted the sick; he relieved and protected the poor…. He took pains never to neglect anything that he had learned from the writings of the evangelists, apostles and prophets, and he set himself to carry them out with all his powers.”

However, there was one practice propagated by St. Aidan which St. Bede strongly disapproved. Whereas the mission led by St. Paulinus under King Edwin had followed the Roman usage for the dating of Easter, the mission led by St. Aidan under King Oswald had followed the Irish usage. By the time St. Bede was writing in the following century the Roman dating of Easter had long since prevailed over the Irish. At the Synod of Whitby in 664, the Northumbrian kingdom had decided to adopt the Roman as opposed to the Irish dating of Easter. Since Northumbria was the most powerful of the English kingdoms at the time this in effect ensured that from that time on England would follow the Roman rather than the Irish custom for the dating of Easter.

Why did the Irish missionaries follow a different practice over the dating of Easter from the Roman missionaries? The divergence came about as a consequence of the isolation of Irish Christianity from continental European Christianity. During the time when Britain was a part of the Roman empire Christianity had made little progress in the country. The mission to Ireland (which was never part of the Roman empire) led by St. Patrick had far greater success. After the Romans withdrew from Britain, Christianity was largely obliterated by pagan Anglo Saxon invaders who established tribal kingdoms. It retained hold in Wales, where the Anglo Saxon invaders had not penetrated and Christianity continued to flourish. 

The tribal nature of Irish and Welsh society meant that instead of having bishops based in towns as in the rest of Europe, they were based instead in monasteries. One of the monks was chosen to be a bishop, but to all intents and purposes he was still subject to the abbot in whose monastery he was based. This was appropriate for a society in which people lived in clans and there was no towns. The monastery formed the Christian equivalent of the clan and was the means by which the people were evangelised. This isolation from mainland Europe meant that the Irish monks continued to observe many practices that differed from elsewhere. It has sometimes been supposed that they formed a separate Celtic Church, more free spirited and independent than in mainland Europe. In many ways this is very far from being the case. If anything, the Irish monks were even more austere than their Roman counterparts, having much in common with the original desert fathers in Egypt and Syria. By contrast, the Roman monks generally followed the rule of St. Benedict, which was austere, but sought to place restrictions on excessive asceticism in the interests of building up stable  communities. This was the practice of the missionaries led by St. Augustine of Canterbury who were sent by St. Gregory the Great to evangelise England.

By contrast, since St. Aidan had been a monk on Iona (which had been founded by the great Irish missionary St. Columba as a base for evangelising Scotland), he followed the Irish usages. He based his episcopacy on an island off the coast of the mainland, Lindisfarne, where he had his monastery. He travelled on foot rather than horseback and continued to live as a monk. This clearly made an impression on the people and explains why he was a successful missionary.

However, in a more settled society the Irish model of episcopacy would come to seem too austere to  generate stable communities. It was designed for societies that were remote from civilisation and had little or no interaction with the outside world. This was entirely appropriate for remote places in   Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but less so in the gentler landscape of much of England. The Benedictine usage was more practical in building up stable communities in England as the tribal kingdoms gradually became Christianised. That being said, great Irish missionaries like St. Aidan continued to be revered for their sanctity and heroism, even if not all their practices were appropriate to a more settled and less heroic age. It is significant that St. Aidan’s later successor, St. Cuthbert, though he adhered to the Roman rather than the Irish dating of Easter, continued to follow the example of his great Irish predecessor, and retained an essentially monastic model of episcopacy based on Lindisfarne.

Hence, while it was right for the long term stability of Christianity in England that it followed the Roman Benedictine model of monastic life rather than the Irish, there is much that we can still learn from the heroism and sanctity of the great Irish missionaries like St. Aidan.

Let us pray that we will follow the example of St. Aidan in preaching the gospel, not only in word and in deed, in our own time and place. 🔝