This is the fourteenth in a series of teaching letters. In my last teaching letter (the thirteenth), I started a study on the Zerah branch of Judah with which a whole lot of people are not familiar. Because this subject covers so much territory, it was not possible to cover it in one lesson. For this reason, this lesson will be a continuation of letter number thirteen. (If you don’t have lesson #13, you will need it to go along with this one.) It was shown in the last lesson, how the Zerah branch of Judah had kings of royalty long before the House of David. It was discussed how the two royal branches of Judah (Pharez and Zerah) were eventually merged together. That is another important story which I will cover in the future. We learned the Zerah branch left Egypt before the main body of Israelites went through the Red Sea, and became the famous Trojans of history in Asia Minor. Approximately 400 years later, they eventually moved on to Italy. Furthermore, we learned many of them, after some maneuvering, made their way to Britain. We gained the knowledge of how the Britons and Romans, in spite of being kinsmen, each country respectively developed different histories in law, politics and religion. We acquired the important knowledge that Joseph of Arimathaea established the first above ground church in history, and that the Roman Catholic Universal Church’s claim of being the first church was, and still is, entirely false. As a matter of fact, the entire Roman Catholic Church system is a counterfeit church along with its “daughters.” We became aware, the reason Rome invaded Britain under Claudius, was to destroy the British church before it could get established. It was revealed, further, how Linus and Claudia of Timothy 4:21 were converts of the British church. With this lesson, we will continue with more interesting aspects related to this Zerah branch of Judah theme.
Now Continuing the Topic:
JUST WHO IS THIS PATRIARCH, JUDAH? (Part 14)
To get started with this second in a series on the Church of Britain, I will quote from The Origin and Early History of Christianity In Britain, by Andrew Gray, D.D., pages 36-37:
“ It could scarcely be expected that a people so savage as the Britons, so devoted to their superstitions, and so depressed by their fierce invaders, could speedily be converted to the Christian Faith. The branch of the spiritual vine, therefore, though planted so early in the soil of Britain, was, from the nature of things, slow in its growth, and during the first century did not make a rapid progress. By the middle of the second century, however, ‘She had sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river’; for it is evident that, by that time, a large number of the inhabitants, of all ranks, had abandoned idolatry and had embraced the Christian Faith. We have already seen that the first Church [building] ever built in Britain, and probably in Christendom, was erected at Glastonbury in the first century. ...
For further information that the establishment of the first church, other than that of Jerusalem, was at Glastonbury in Britain, I will quote excerpts from Celt, Druid and Culdee, by Isabel Hill Elder, pages 98-101:
“ Gildas, the British historian, writing in A.D. 542, states: ‘We certainly know that Christ, the True Sun, afforded His light , the knowledge of His precepts, to our Island in the last year of the reign of Tiberias Caesar, A.D. 37.’
“ Sir Henry Spelman states, ‘We have abundant evidence that this Britain of ours received the Faith, and that from the disciples of Christ Himself soon after the Crucifixion’, and Polydor Virgil observes that ‘Britain was of all the kingdoms the first that received the Gospel.’
“ The fact that Lucius established Christianity as the State religion excludes the claim of the Latin Church to that eminence. That this early establishment was acknowledged beyond the confines of Britain is well expressed by Sabellius, A.D. 250. ‘Christianity was privately expressed elsewhere, but the first nation that proclaimed it as their religion, and called itself Christian, after the name of Christ, was Britain’; and Ebrard remarks, ‘The glory of Britain consists not only in this, that she was the first country which in a national capacity professed herself Christian, but that she made this confession when the Roman Empire itself was pagan, and a cruel persecutor of Christianity.’
“ The writer of Vale Royal states, ‘The Christian faith and baptism came into Chester in the reign of Lucius, king of the Britons, probably from Cambria, circa A.D. 140.’
“ Missionaries are said to have come from Glastonbury, only thirty miles distant, to instruct the Druids of Amesbury in the Christain faith. When the Druids adopted and preached Christianity, their universities were turned into falseBook Titlespan style=Christian colleges and the Druid priests became Christian ministers; the transition was to them a natural one. ... ‘It would be difficult to conceive of Christianity being preached to any people for the first time under more favourable conditions. There was hardly a feature in their national character in which it would not find a cord answering and vibrating to its touch.’ ... ‘There was no violent divorce between the new teaching and that of their own Druids, nor were they called upon so much to reverse their ancient faith as to lay it down for a fuller and more perfect revelation.’”
For another reference on the Roman’s hatred for the British Christians and Druids, we are going to turn to The Drama of the Lost Disciples, by George F. Jowett, pages 59-60:
“ Those who have been indoctrinated by the false stories describing the Druidic religion may pause in consternation. The malevolent infamy heaped upon the Druidic priesthood, their religion, with the practice of human sacrifice, is just as untruthful, vicious and vile as the other distortions stigmatizing the ancient Britons. On close examination it will be found that those who uttered the vindictive maledictions stand out in Roman history as the dictators of the Roman Triumvirate. Their bestial hatred for everything that was British and Christian deliberately promoted the insidious propaganda to defame the people they could neither coerce nor subdue. In our own time, among others, none other than the eminent archaeologist Sir Flanders Petrie, on examination of the ground around and under the altar at Stonehenge, completely exploded the infamous accusations. He found only the fossilized bones of sheep and goats which more firmly established the affinity with the patriarchal faith of the East. In each case the sacrificial burnt offerings were as stated in the biblical record. ...
“ The Roman persecutors, despising Druidic opposition, intensified their malignancy with the British conversion to Christianity. The Emperors Augustus, Tiberius and the Claudian and Diocletian decrees made acceptance of Druidic and Christian faith a capital offence, punishable by death. Some have claimed that this persecution by Rome drove both religions together to form the solid phalanx of Christianity. This is far from being the case. It has been already pointed out how the ancient Kymry were bonded in the ancient patriarchal faith even before they arrived in Britain. Organized by Hu Gadarn (Hugh the Mighty) the faith took on the name of Druid, a word some claim derive from the Keltic word ‘Dreus’, meaning ‘an oak’, arising out of the custom of worshipping in the open within the famous oak groves of the island. A more likely derivation is from ‘Druthin’ — a ‘Servant of Truth’, The motto of the Druids was ‘The Truth against the World.’ A casual study of the Triads emphasized the old Hebrew faith with positive clarification. The British Mother Church continued to teach the immortality of the soul, the omniscience of One God and the coming of the Messiah. They were aware of the prophesied vicarious atonement. ... At that period in history Britain was the only free country in the world. Gaul had received its baptism of Roman persecution long before the Caesars turned their attention upon the British. It was the constant aid given the Gaulish brethren by the warriors of Britain which brought about the invasion of the Isles. The first attack, led by Julius Caesar, 55 B.C., was purely a punitive expedition against the Britons for thwarting his arms in Gaul. Contrary to general opinion that Caesar’s attack was a conquest, it was [actually] a dismal failure. Within two weeks his forces were routed and pulled back into Gaul.
“ It was not until the reign of Hadrian, A.D. 120, that Britain was incorporated (by treaty — not conquest) within the Roman dominions, as described by Spartians in —Vita Hadriani. By this treaty the Britons retained their kings, lands, laws and rights, accepting a Roman nucleus of the army for the defence of the realm.”
EDICT OF EMPEROR CLAUDIUS, A.D. 43 “TO EXTERMINATE CHRISTIAN BRITAIN”
For this part of the story, I will quote from The Drama of the Lost Disciples, by George F. Jowett, pages 89-90:
“ In the year A.D. 42 Claudius Emperor of the Romans, issued the fateful decree to destroy Christian Britain, man, woman and child, and its great institutions and burn its libraries. To this purpose Claudius equipped the largest army and most efficient army ever sent by Rome to conquer a foe and led by its most able generals.
“ In this edict, Claudius proclaimed in the Roman Senate that acceptance of the Druidic or Christian faith was a capital offence, punishable by death by the sword, the torture chamber, or to be cast to the devouring lions in the arena of the Colosseum. It is interesting to note that this ruling also included ‘any person descended from David.’ This meant the Jew, making no exceptions as to whether he be a converted Jew or one holding to the orthodox Judean faith. This indeed was a paradox. While the converted Jew embraced Gentile followers of ‘The Way’ as a brethren, regardless of race, and died with them with equal courage, the orthodox Jew perishing in the arena by the side of the Christian, never relented in his bitter hatred. With his dying breath he spat on the Christian in malevolent scorn. ...
“ Further to seek to inflame the populace against Christian and Jew, the Romans were the first to create the false slander that Christian and Jew alike practiced human sacrifice in their religion. They knew better. They knew that the burnt offerings of Judean and Druid were animals. chiefly sheep, goats and doves. ...”
It is apparent that the leaders of Rome were not aware of the difference between the true Judeans of the Tribe of Judah and the Canaanite Jews descended from Cain. Most are still making that same mistake today. You will notice here the natural hatred of the “Jew” for the Christian as foretold in Genesis 3:15! I believe the Romans lumped together the Zera-Judah Britons with the Jews, and it was an assault by Rome to destroy the king-line of the House of David because their pagan religion was in opposition to the newly revealed beliefs of Yahshua being the Messiah. “The Way” (followers of the Nazarene) posed a threat to the Roman leaders and their newly formed cult of emperors as gods. If you don’t understand the history of the worship of Augustus Caesar, you cannot understand the war that was shaping up between Britain and Rome. The religion of the Nazarene posed to undermine the authority of the Roman state religion. This was shaping up to be a religious war plain and simple, and it has continued down to our present day. The sad part of the story is, the Roman and Briton were kinsman, both of Zerah-Judah, although the House of David had merged with Zerah in Britain, but not with Rome, so there might have been a motive on Rome’s part to destroy the House of David-Pharez. Now continuing from the book, The Drama of the Lost Disciples, by George F. Jowett, pages 92-94:
“ The overwhelming rise of Christianity in populous Britain and Gaul was viewed with grave consternation at Rome. Britain was the seeding-ground where an ever-flowing stream of neophytes were tutored and converted by Apostles and disciples of Christ and sent out into other lands to teach the Gospel. This the Romans declared had to be stopped. To them, as to all dictatorships, might alone was right. Nevertheless, from past experience with British military ability they had good reason to fear this stubborn valorous race, now inspired with the zeal of Christ. Forewarned, Rome built the mightiest army in its history to enforce the Claudian Edict to destroy Britain. ...
“ The Romans, who had ground so many nations under their despotic heel, looked upon all other nations with scorn as inferiors, labelling every enemy as barbarian, no matter how magnificent their culture. The records attest to the indisputable fact that the Romans of all people were the most barbarous and brutal in history. ...
“ Britain is the only nation in history ever attacked by the full might of another powerful people in an effort to purge Christianity off the face of the earth. Rome sent her very best against the British legions. As they failed to subdue the British, Rome recalled many brilliant generals who had gained fame for the double-headed eagle in other foreign conquest, as she determinedly sought to wipe out [and recover from] one defeat after another to her armies.
“ From the Claudian to the Diocletian persecution, extermination of Britain and all that was Christian was a Roman obsession. How satanic it was can be estimated in the brutal act which touched off the Diocletian campaign. The finest warrior battalions in the Roman army were the famed Gaulish Legions. On the order of Maximian co-ruler with Diocletian, the Christian Gaulish veterans were slaughtered to a man in cold blood. His hatred of the Christian is stated to have exceeded that of Diocletian and to satiate it he butchered his finest soldiers.
“ The martyrologies state that during the first two hundred years of Christianity over six million Christians were entombed within the catacombs of Rome — murdered. How many were buried within the other unexplored catacombs is difficult to say. The total number would be appalling. It is claimed that if the passages of the catacombs of Rome were measured end to end they would extend to a length of 550 miles, from the city of Rome into the Swiss Alps. It seems almost incredible that while only about one million Christians today walk the streets of Rome, under their feet are over six million mutilated bodies which had testified for Christ.”
It is possible some of you may not be familiar with the tenth persecution under Diocletian, or any of the ten persecutions by Rome, inflicted upon the followers of the Nazarene. You can read about the Diocletian persecution in, Fox’s Book of Martyr’s, pages 24-33. If you don’t read any of the other Roman persecutions in this book, I highly recommend you read this passage especially. To get some idea of this, I am going to quote from The Drama of the Lost Disciples, by George F. Jowett, pages 215-216:
“ The infamous Diocletian held the reins at Rome, and on his orders began what is often described as the worst persecution of the Christians in the year A.D. 290. In his Edict, he ordered churches to be pulled down, the sacred scriptures to be gathered together and burnt, along with other Christian literature on which they lay their hands. Libraries, schools of learning and private homes were to be destroyed. ...
“ The Emperor Diocletian struck with sudden appalling savagery at the Christians. He blamed them for the series of disasters over the years that had decimated the Roman arms to such an extent that they were no longer able to defend their own frontiers successfully, let alone conquer as formerly. Rome was on the decline; her glory was fast waning. Diocletian sought to avert national disaster by ordering the extermination of the Christians, their churches and other possessions. The bestial cruelty lasted eighteen years. The persecution flamed across Europe for several years before it struck the shores of Britain. Again the Romans were frustrated by the incredible zeal of the martyrs who died with prayer on their lips, or ringing exhortations. They saw the common people destroyed, showing the same disdain for death as had their Christian forebears. This infuriated Diocletian to more fiendish practices, in which he later was aided by Maximian, who became co-ruler with him over the continental Roman Empire. Brutal as was Diocletian, it is written by the Romans themselves that Maximian was worse. His ferocity and atrocities are claimed to be beyond description. He caused the finest Legions, exclusively composed of Gauls to be butchered to the last man because they were Christian. He was blind with maniacal (insane) hate.”
For more on Diocletian, and how his persecutions finally reached Britain, I will now quote from Celt, Druid and Culdee, by Isabel Hill Elder, pages 108-109:
“ Surprise is sometimes expressed that there are so few records of the early British Church. The savage edicts of Roman Emperors were directed not alone to the destruction of individuals who confessed the Christian faith, but also to the literature and records of the Church.
“ There were ten ‘high power’ persecutions of the Christians under these tyrants, extending from A.D. 66 to A.D. 303; the last being that of Diocletian which began in A.D. 290. Bede says: ‘The Diocletian persecution was carried out incessantly for ten years, with the burning of Churches, outlawing of innocent persons and the slaughter of martyrs. At length it reached Britain in the year 300, and many persons, with the constancy of martyrs, died in the confession of the Faith.’ The records of the Church had now to be written not with pen and ink but in blood and the flames of martyrdom. In the edict of Diocletian the Scriptures were to be carried away or destroyed, being regarded as books of magic; in this he was following older methods of suppression. ...
“ After the Diocletian persecution had died out, the churches in Britain were rebuilt, and Christianity flourished to so great an extent that at the Council of Aries, A.D. 314, the British Church was represented by three bishops and a presbyter, and again at the Council of Sardica and Ardminium in the fourth century.”
The reason, today, we are so unaware of the fact that the British church was the true church established by Joseph of Arimathaea by the direction of St. Philip, is because most all the records have been destroyed. There have been enough records to survive, though, to establish beyond all doubt that the church of Britain (not to be confused with the present day Anglican Church of England) was the true church, before being Romanized,. For this reason most everyone has assumed that the true church was the Roman Catholic Church, which is entirely false. Neither the Roman Catholic Church nor her Protestant daughters represent the true church established by our Messiah. There was a church established at Rome, and Linus (the son of Caractacus) was appointed by the Apostle Paul to be the First Bishop, and it was not related in any way to the Roman Catholic Church, ever! It was called, Basilica Di Pudenziana (also the Palace of the British). There were many incidents of burning and destroying church records at various times and places. I will now quote passages from different books concerning this:
The Origin and Early History of Christianity In Britain, by Andrew Gray, D.D.:
Page 3. “ The very early history of the British Church has been involved in some obscurity by the destruction of many of the ancient records; and yet quite enough can be gathered from history of the remote times to serve our purpose — probably quite as much as can be obtained in support of any contemporaneous event of secular history.”
Page 47. The Emperor (Diocletian) commanded the Governor to burn all Christian books, and to destroy their places of worship. Christians who refused to deny their Lord were to be tortured and put to death. Amongst those who suffered death were St. Alban of Verulam, Julius of Caerleon, Aaron of Exeter, and Angulius of London.
Celt, Druid and Culdee, by Isabel Hill Elder:
Page 75. “‘ The next promoter of letters was King Tuathalius, first century A.D., who appointed a triennial reversion of all the antiquaries’ books by a committee of three kings or great lords, three Druids and three antiquaries. These were to cause whatever was approved and found valuable in these books to be translated into the Royal Book of Tara.
“‘ The third patron of literature was King Cormac, A.D. 266, who renewed the laws about the antiquaries, and rebuilt and enlarged the academy of Tara for history, law and military training. He was an indefatigable (untiring) distributor of Justice, having written numerous laws still extant. ...
“‘ The O‘Duvegans were hereditary bards; the O‘Clerys and the O‘Brodins were hereditary antiquaries; the O‘Shiels and the O‘Canvans were hereditary doctors; the Macglanchys were hereditary judges.’”
“‘The Druids did not at all times receive fair treatment from the Christians. Dudly Forbes, in a letter to an Irish writer, states that in St. Patrick’s time no fewer than one hundred and thirty volumes relating to the affairs of the Druids were burnt in Ireland. What a deplorable extinction of arts and inventions; what an unspeakable detriment to learning. What a dishonour upon human understanding has the cowardly proceeding of the ignorant, or rather the interested at all times occasioned.’”
Page 108. “ Surprise is sometimes expressed that there are so few records of the early British Church. The savage edicts of Roman Emperors were directed not alone to the destruction of individuals who confessed the Christian faith, but also to the literature and records of the Church.”
The Drama of the Lost Disciples, by George F. Jowett:
Pages 138-139. “ The hallowed sanctity of ‘Our Lady’s Dowry’ is descriptively corroborated by the Saxon historian, William of Malmesbury, who wrote his outstanding works in the twelfth century. He wrote two histories covering the religious subject-matter related herein. His last work, De Antiquitate Glastoniae, is most authentic. He was specially commissioned by the Abbot of Glastonbury to write the complete history of the famous church from its beginning at Avalon and was invited to live at the Abbey where he had full access to the world-famous Glastonbury Library. Therein were contained all the original documents from Druidic times, consequently he wrote his history with the benefit of first-hand material, long before the great fire completely destroyed the Abbey and its wonderful library, then considered one of the largest in the world. Consequently, his historic literary work completed at the Abbey, under his commission, is probably the most precious document of the British Christian Church in existence.
Page 154. “ One should remember, however, that since the Claudian Edict for Christian extermination, beginning A.D. 42, up to and including the Boadicean war of A.D. 60, the people and the land of Britain suffered a persecution at the hands of the Romans for eighteen years which no other nation had experienced. Their towns, religious institutions, libraries and seats of cultural learning had been burnt to the ground with a barbaric insolence unequalled. The defenceless had been massacred. Licentiousness, pillage and plunder of wealth, crops and cattle had been conducted unabated in the vicious Roman pledge to crush the Christian faith and spirit in Britain.”
Page 215. “ The infamous Diocletian held the reins at Rome, and on his orders began what is often described as the worst persecution of the Christians in the year A.D. 290. In his Edict, he ordered churches to be pulled down, the sacred scriptures to be gathered together and burnt, along with other Christian literature and private homes were equally destroyed.”
This should give you some idea as to the deliberate and accidental destruction of important historical and religious records that have happened over the many years since the time when Joseph of Arimathaea was commissioned by Saint Philip through the laying on of hands. You can see very clearly, from all of this devastation of the written record, why so many have come to believe that the history of the church emanates through Rome. Almost without exception, all written church histories take that route. If you have come to identify the route through the British church, you are one of the very few who know the real and important truth! But if you want to become a member of the British Celtic church today, I am sorry, it no longer exists in its early form, it was completely Romanized until the Reformation and Protestantism, which has never since caused it to attain its original character. With these circumstances, there is no church today that has a continual descent from the original Apostles, I don’t care what you call it! If you wanted to, you cannot start another one, I don’t care how much you organize it. The descent of ordination was performed by the laying on of hands from the original Apostles on downward, and I know of no one today that has that kind of authority. If you find someone who can prove this continual lineal authority from the original Apostles, please let me know. For this, you can thank Rome. This is why it is important today to support the truth rather than some organization which falsely claims descent from the original Apostles, and is not teaching anything relative to the truth. I find this kind of ordination spoken of in the book, The Drama of the Lost Disciples, by George F. Jowett, page 64:
“ In order to be properly ordained to an apostolic appointment it was necessary for the consecration to be performed by the laying on of the hands by one of the original Apostles.”
For documentation on the ordination of Joseph of Arimathaea, I will again refer to the Drama of the Lost Disciples, by George F. Jowett, page 64:
“ Philip, one of the original Apostles, was certainly present. There is a wealth of uncontroversial testimony asserting his commission in Gaul, all of which alike states that he received and consecrated Joseph, preparatory to his embarkation and appointment as the Apostle to Britain.”
I am sure someone reading this may take high exception to what I have just said about the present day churches not having a direct succession from the original Apostles, quoting to me Matthew 16:18 which says of the church: “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” I agree that “the gates of hell” (Rome) has not prevailed against Yahshua’s Church because of, and as a result of, the Reformation. The Reformation, though, only served to form divisions and the Protestants continued to maintain much of the Roman doctrine. As I said in lesson #13: But the Reformation left us with a conglomerate of fractionalized divisions and that is the reason we have today so many denominations, each with its own doctrine. Mrs. Hill Elder says in her book, Celt, Druid and Culdee, pages:
158. “ The simple historical truth is, there was no break in the continuity of the Church of Ireland at the Reformation, and every attempt to prove the contrary has only resulted in confirmation of its unbroken descent from the ancient Church of our native land.”
159. “ From the Reformation onward the Protestant Church did not maintain the intense zeal which her earlier supporters displayed; apathy crept in, and divisions and sub-divisions occurred, weakening her cause throughout the land.”
From all of this we can see, while the Reformation was good in some aspects, in other respects it had its bad points. Today, the true message is not coming from either the Catholic or Protestant churches or televangelist. If you are supporting any of these, you are throwing your money down a rat hole.
HOW AND WHEN THE BRITISH CHURCH WAS FINALLY ROMANIZED
For this information, I atext-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;DefaultTextm going to quote from the book The Origin and Early History of Christianity In Britain, by Andrew Gray, D.D., pages 87-91:
“ From the days of St. Patrick to the conquest of Ireland by Henry II., in 1172, the Irish Church enjoyed a complete autonomy, and was free from all foreign control. It governed itself, knew no superior to its own Episcopate, and acknowledged no more obedience to Rome than to any other diocese in Christendom. ... Through all this period, when the Church of Rome had scarcely anything to do with Ireland, Christianity flourished as it has never done since the Popes have had [anything] to do with that island.
“ The question naturally arises — How and when was Romanism introduced into Ireland? First, through the influence and connection of the Danes with Ireland. The Danes, who invaded and pillaged Ireland, settled in Dublin, Limerick, and Waterford. They afterwards became converted to Christianity; but as they claimed affinity with the Normans they got their Bishops from [Romanized] Canterbury. Lanfranc and Anselm were partisans of Rome, and were thus the first to gain a foothold in Ireland for papal pretensions, near the close of the eleventh century. The Bishop of Limerick was nominated by the Pope as his legate in 1106, and in 1151 the Pope, for the first time, sent the pall (cloth) as a present to the four Archbishops. All the while, however, there was but one Church in Ireland, viz., the old Church of the land, but now becoming more and more Romanized.
“ Then, in 1156, Henry II., of England applied to the Pope, Nicholas Brakespear (the son of a priest at St. Alban’s, and the only English Pope), known as Adrian IV., for permission to take possession of Ireland, and to make himself and his successors, the kings of England, masters of it; in order, he said, to establish religion ‘in its purity’ — showing that the religion which was there already, was not, in his estimation, all that it ought to be; in other words, it was not under the control of the Bishop of Rome. The Pope granted Henry’s request, under the pretence that ‘all islands’ had been given to the Popes by the so-called ‘Donation of Constantine,’ and issued his bull accordingly. If it be asked why the Pope sanctioned Henry’s invasion of Ireland, the answer is given in his own bull: ‘To widen the bounds of the Church, and to extend her jurisdiction where she has none at present.’ The Pope exacted a further condition, that the English King should pay him ‘a penny a year for every inhabited house in the island’, thus furnishing the evidence that ‘Peter’s pence’ had not hitherto been paid from the Church in Ireland.
“It will be seen that the transaction, on the part of the Roman Pontiff at least, was of the most deliberate and carefully calculated kind. It is a little marvellous that Romanists of to-day in Ireland are so ill at ease under English rule. ...
“ Henry, under various pretext, with the sanction and approval of the Pope, took his armies to Ireland. The Irish chiefs, taken singly, soon submitted to him, and paid him homage. The Bishops agreed to a ecclesiastical union with the Church of England. Then Henry, to suit his own ends, handed over the Irish Church to the Pope of Rome. By these unwarranted acts schism was introduced, and Bishops and priests were appointed by order of the Pope. A few of the Bishops still continued to assert an independent position, and offered here and there a spasmodic resistance, but the independence of the Celtic Church was gone. She had been betrayed by the King of England and the Pope of Rome. Irish national independence, and Irish ecclesiastical independence terminated practically together, and in both cases by fraud and grasping usurpation. The fate was sealed when Gelasius, Archbishop of Armagh, visited Dublin in 1172, and made his formal submission to King Henry II. From this date to the Reformation the papacy held sway, and the history of the 350 years which followed the Synod of Cashel — when the Irish Church agreed to an ecclesiastical union with the English — is indeed a dreary one. The Church of St. Patrick held out against a foreign usurper longer than any other Church in Western Europe, and its final submission was largely secured through the influence of the Church of England, which had to a great extent yielded already. The usurped authority was rejected and thrown off in the year 1558 after only 400 years’ subjection.
“ When the work of the Reformation began in England it made itself felt in Ireland also, and Protestants arrayed against Rome increased everywhere. In the reign of Edward VI. (1551) a Synod of Irish Bishops adopted the English Liturgy instead of the Latin Service Book. In 1558 the Church in Ireland united with the Church in England in accepting the reforms proposed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and in 1560-61 regular Synods of the Irish Bishops were held, and the Reformed English Liturgy was fully accepted. ...
“ The Romanists went out of the Irish Church in 1558, and formed a new sect, securing Bishops, as has been said, from Spain and from Italy. Such is the origin of the present Italian-Spanish Mission in Ireland. ... It follows, therefore, that the Old Church is the Church of Ireland; the New Church is the Church of Rome in Ireland, which, it will be seen, has no connection with the old Church of the land — the Church of St. Patrick — but it is a foreigner, and alien, an exotic (stranger). ... Rome calls her schismatical, but history shows that it is the Church of Rome that is in schism, in Ireland as well as in England. She stole into the Irish Church in the days of Henry II. by means of schism, and she went out of it at the Reformation and set up a schism in opposition to it.
“...Yet in face of all her difficulties she still survives. ‘ The gates of hell have not prevailed against her.’”
Another short summary account of the Celtic Church is found in the book, St. Joseph of Arimathea At Glastonbury, by Lionel Smithett Lewis, page 191 as follows:
“ It is very difficult to write a short account of the Celtic Church. But it must be done. For nothing is more pathetic than that, in spite of the glorious missionary zeal of the saints of that Church, the memory of it and of them has been nearly forgotten, As mentioned in the text, this is mainly owing to political events. The constant raids of the heathen Saxons, their demolition of churches, monasteries, and manuscripts, coupled with the driving of the Britons into mountains and morasses, and, after the Saxons were converted, the similar raids by their still heathen kinsmen, the Danes, nearly wiped out the Christian Church in this land, except in portions of Western England. And then gradually, in spite of vehement Celtic resistance, by the 8th century the overwhelming Continental influence of the Roman Church, tremendously reinforced later by the Norman Conquest, and derived from the prestige of Imperial Rome’s position as Mistress of the World, at last caused the memory of the Celtic Church, and her courageous saints, to be nearly eclipsed.”
Although the gates of hell have not prevailed against her, she is badly scarred with Roman doctrine. I believe it is safe to say: we no longer have the original church which was established by the Apostles, or anything like it. It was only to last approximately a thousand years (Revelation 20:6). If you are reading this, and you are Irish or Scottish, we are talking about our ancestors — we are talking about our church. Once learning the history of our church, you and I should become quite disturbed whether we have a Roman Catholic or Protestant background. We are in a position where we can’t go back, and neither Catholicism nor Protestantism or any other cult is the answer. We have been robbed of our heritage. If you are an Israelite, and you have come to the knowledge of your identity, and you also know the identity of the serpent “Jew” enemy, you have discovered the two most important pillars of truth that can be assimilated. This subject of the British Celtic Church will be continued in the next lesson.
