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On the Ruin of Britain
St Gildas, tr. Williams, 1899
74. (c) Compared with examples furnished by Church History
(c) Compared with examples furnished by Church History
Who of you, like the holy martyr Ignatius, bishop of the city of Antioch1, after wonderful deeds in Christ, was torn to pieces at Rome by the teeth of lions, because of his testimony? When you hear his words as he was being led to his passion, if ever you have—with blushing—felt confusion of face, you will not only not consider yourselves priests in comparison with him, but will barely regard yourselves as middling Christians. In the epistle which he sent to the Roman Church he says: From Syria unto Rome I fight with wild beasts, by land and sea, day and night, being bound and tied to ten leopards, I mean the soldiers appointed as guards, who wax more cruel by our kindnesses. Howbeit by their wickednesses I grow more instructed, yet am I not hereby justified. O! the beasts of salvation, that are being prepared for me, when will they come? When shall they be let out? When will it be free for them to enjoy my flesh? These I wish to be made more prompt, and I will entice them to devour me, and pray that they will not, as they have done in the case of some, fear to touch my body. Yea, even if they delay, I will force them to it; I shall rush upon them. Bear with me; I know what is expedient for me. Now am I beginning to be a disciple of Christ. Let the envy, whether of human feeling or spiritual wickedness, cease, that I may be worthy to attain unto Jesus Christ; may fires, crosses, beasts, wrenchings of bones, hacking of limbs, and pains in my whole body, and all tortures devised by the art of the devil be fulfilled in me alone, provided I be worthy to attain unto Jesus. Christ.
Why do you look at these things with the sleepy eyes of your soul? Why listen to such with the dull ears of your senses? Disperse, I pray, the dark black mist of your heart’s slothfulness, so that ye may be able to see the beaming light of truth and humility. A no common Christian2 but a perfect one, a no mean but most excellent priest, a martyr not sluggish but distinguished, says: Now am I beginning to be a disciple of Christ. And you, just like that Lucifer, cast down from heaven, are puffed up with words, not power, and ruminate under your teeth, and allege by gestures the things which your advocate had formerly pictured, saying: I will ascend unto heaven, and will be like to the Most High; and again: I have digged and drunk water, and with the print of my feet have dried up all the rivers of the banks. Far more rightly ought ye to imitate and hear him who is the victorious example of goodness and humility when he says by the prophet: But I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and rejected of the people. O! something wonderful for Him to say that He was the reproach of men, when He blotted out the reproaches of the whole world. Again, in the gospel: I can of myself do nothing, when He Himself, coeternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit, of common and the same substance3, made heaven and earth with all their priceless ornamentation, not by the might of another, but by His own. And wonderful that you should arrogantly have held high words, though the prophet says: Why is earth and ashes proud?
Notes
- Ignatius Antiochiae urbis episcopus. Here Gildas is certainly borrowing from Eusebius, H. E., iii, 36, 7, in the version of Rufinus. Jerome has also, in the De viris illust., c. 16, a Latin version of the passage, but an entirely different one from that in Gildas’ quotation. The facts recorded are naturally the same.
It is well to remind ourselves that Gildas is comparing, not the simoniacal, immoral clergy with such an example as Ignatius, but those against whom he has no wish to make any charge in respect of their life. These blameless ones, when placed side by side with the fervid Antiochene martyr, cannot regard themselves as priests; barely arc they Christians, and of an indifferent type. Of the same scathing severity, are the words in which he declares that they sleep rather than worthily take their seat in the priest’s chair.
Eusebius quotes the whole of c. 5 in the Letter of Ignatius to the Roman church, written by him when on his way, as a prisoner, from Antioch to Rome and martyrdom, during the reign of Trajan, about A.D. 110-120. - Christianus non mediocris. Gildas’ picture of Ignatius describes what he could wish his priest to be—no mean, but perfect Christian; no common, but high-minded priest; a distinguished martyr, not sluggish; and such a one that, as he nears his noble end, says: “I am but beginning to be a disciple of Christ.”
- Cum ipse coaevus Patri, etc. This is about the only theological passage in Gildas, unless we add Christo vero Deo of the last chapter. But two terms not often met with in Creeds and Formulas of faith appear here. The first is coaevus, instead of coaeternus or consempiternus, in which we are reminded that Gildas employs in aevum for in aeternum, c. 25 and c. 70. The other is communis eiusdemque substantiae; we generally find unius substantiae cum Patre (e.g., Creed of Damasus, Hahn’s Bibliothek, p. 272): but the Creed of Toledo, A.D. 675, says, hoc est eiusdem cum Patre substantiae (Hahn, p. 243). Gildas could not have in mind the so-called Nicene Creed, which employs consubstantialis.