in twenty or thirty years afterwards, Tertullian testifies that Christianity had extended into parts of Britain where the Romans had not penetrated. This implies that Christianity had been for some time in Britain, and we can scarcely suppose that it had not been introduced before A.D. 180. Irenæus, perhaps, refers to it. And there was nothing in the state of Britain to prevent the spread of Christianity there: it was a peaceful and well-regulated Roman province from the time of Agricola. If Christianity had not, under such circumstances, made its way into Britain in the early part of the second century at latest, it would be a very strange fact. And to suppose that any British king would, in the year 180, be obliged to send as far as Rome in order to obtain Baptism, is inconsistent at once with all probability, and with the position held by the Church of Rome in that age; for it is incredible that there should not have been Christian Clergy much nearer than Rome: indeed, it is certain there were, as Irenæus speaks of the "Churches" amongst the Germans, Celts, and Iberians; and in that age, though the Church of the City of Rome possessed a pre-eminence, founded on its being the imperial city, yet it had scarcely assumed such a position in the Church as the alleged mission of "Lucius" to Eleutherius would seem to indicate, and which would much better suit the notions of the eighth century than those of the second.

In addition to these objections there is this: that "Lucius" is represented by Bede as King of the Britons, at a period when there certainly could have been no such person, the whole country being subject to the Roman emperors; and there is not a trace in history of any subordinate or tributary sovereigns in Britain at that time, or at any time after the final conquest of Britain by Agricola. There is no sort of evidence that the Romans permitted any one to succeed Cogidunus in the dominions they allotted him. It is true that Archbishop Ussher saw a gold and a silver coin bearing the name of Lucius; but the gold coin, which is still extant in the British Museum, is a forgery; and the silver coin, which has disappeared, was probably no better. The only genuine British coins which appear to exist are those of Cunobelinus, the father of Caractacus, which have been found in great numbers, and of one other petty prince named Segonax.

It is very strange that writers, like Archbishop Ussher and Bishop Stillingfleet, should not have felt themselves at liberty wholly to reject the story of "King Lucius" as apocryphal. The authority of Venerable Bede is, doubtless, very respectable; and

5 See Rev. T. Pantin's Preface to Bishop Stillingfleet's Originus Britannicæ, p. xv. Ed. Oxford, 1842.

as far as regards events in the history of the Anglo-Saxon Church, it is of the highest value; and yet even in this part of his history, there are legends which it is impossible to accept as matters of fact. His informants seem to have practised on his credulity occasionally; and it is clear that a pious fraud was committed, when he was told by some one (for we will not suppose that he was himself the author of the tale) that the British Church owed its Christianity to Pope Eleutherius, as the Anglo-Saxon did to Pope Gregory. We presume that the object of inventing this tale was to show the Britons that they ought to follow the Roman customs in preference to their own, because they had originally derived their Christianity from Rome. It is of course very easy for Ussher and Stillingfleet, and other writers who have followed them, to endeavour to reduce Bede's story of "King Lucius" to credible dimensions, by getting rid of the notions which he connects with it, that Lucius was King of the Britons, and that Christianity was then first introduced. It is easy to say that Lucius was not King of the Britons, but that he might have been some tributary prince of some one of the native tribes; and that he may have communicated in some way with Eleutherius, though not for the purpose of introducing Christianity into Britain. To make suppositions and conjectures like this is very easy; but to do so is to subvert the facts which Bede connects with the story; and if this be done, the whole story may be just as well rejected at once.

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If there were any other evidence with reference to King Lucius" besides the statement of Venerable Bede, and if that evidence were in some respects inconsistent with that of Bede, we might make the accounts tally by rejecting the more improbable circumstances on conjecture; but we have no such reasons to correct Bede's account, because it stands perfectly alone. No former writer, or document of any kind, corroborates it. There is no collateral evidence whatever. After the time of Bede, "King Lucius" was, indeed, frequently referred to, but by writers who appear to have derived the notion from Bede.

Our own conviction is, that "Lucius" was a purely imaginary personage; that the fiction was invented in the eighth century, at about the same time, and on the same principles as the spurious decretal epistles of the early Bishops of Rome. We think it is a plain and evident imposture, intended for the express purpose of advancing the influence of the See of Rome, just as "the Historical Triads" were designed for the purpose of enhancing the dignity of the Welsh people.

And now, having examined the records of early British ecclesiastical history, comprised in the Welsh Triads and in the ac

counts of King Lucius, we must notice the claims put forward by many of our writers to the presence or preaching of one or more of the Apostles in our island. Stillingfleet, Collier, and others have sufficiently shown the baselessness of those various traditions which refer us to St. Peter, or St. James the Less, or St. Simon Zelotes, or Joseph of Arimathea, or Aristobulus, as preachers of the Gospel here in the apostolic age. All these traditions are easily proved to be valueless. But the accounts of St. Paul's mission are much more deserving of attention, and have been vigorously defended by Stillingfleet and Collier, who reject so many other traditions. It may, therefore, be desirable to offer a few remarks on this subject.

The argument of Stillingfleet and Collier is briefly this: Eusebius, in his Evangelical Demonstration, states that the Apostles preached amongst the remotest nations, such as the Romans, Persians, Armenians, Parthians, Medians, Scythians, and that some passed over the ocean to the "British islands;" and Stillingfleet adds, that Eusebius had an opportunity of gaining accurate information as to the history of the British Churches from the Emperor Constantine, who had been in Britain. We do not attach much weight to this; for Constantine was not likely to have felt much interest in the antiquities of the British Church, or to have had time to examine them. But besides Eusebius, Theodoret (in the fifth century) after mentioning Spain, remarks that St. Paul brought salvation to the "islands" in the ocean, and elsewhere expressly speaks of the "Britons" as amongst those who were converted by the Apostles. Jerome speaks of St. Paul's having been in Spain, and going" from one ocean to another," and his preaching 66 as far as the earth itself." In fine, Clemens Romanus says that St. Paul preached even" to the utmost bounds of the West," an expression which, according to the usage of ancient writers, may fairly include Britain. In addition to this, it is argued that St. Paul had time and opportunity to come to Britain, for it is generally admitted that he suffered at Rome, A.D. 69, and that the period during which he dwelt two years in Rome, on his first being sent there, ended in A.D. 61. So that the eight latter years of his life may have been spent in preaching in the West; and there is sufficient reason to allege that they were so spent, from the statement of the Fathers above referred to.

Such is a summary of the argument in behalf of St. Paul's preaching in Britain, and we would observe on it, in the first place, that the testimony of Jerome is very indefinite, and does not necessarily refer to Britain at all-that Theodoret may have probably derived his opinion from Eusebius; and Eusebius may have been led to make the statements referred to by the testimony of Clemens

Romanus. The latter testimony is of the highest authority, and, as far as the words go, may certainly refer to Britain; but they may equally refer to Spain; and, considering that the latest date at which the epistle of Clemens Romanus could have been written was about A.D. 96, it certainly appears a strong argument that, during some part of the latter years of his life, he did preach in the remotest parts of the West. That he spent all the latter years of his life in the West is improbable, when we remember the declaration of St. Paul to the Philippians, ii. 24, that he would "shortly come" to them. See also the Epistle to Philemon (22). In the Second Epistle to Timothy, St. Paul says that the time of his departure is" at hand" (iv. 6); and yet it appears that he had only lately returned to Rome, from a circuit through the East and Greece (i. 18; iv. 13, 20). It is evident from this, that the latter years of St. Paul's life could not have been exclusively devoted to the West, as Bishop Stillingfleet argues. It would also be an unaccountable fact, if St. Paul had preached for any length of time in the West, there should not be extant any epistles to Western Churches. Nor is there in any of the epistles, any allusions even, to any Western journeys, with the single exception of his intention to visit Spain. If he actually visited Spain, it seems strange that the fact should not be alluded to in any way in his last epistles. It may be further added, that the time between St. Paul's release from his first imprisonment at Rome, till his death, is held by the ablest modern critics not to have exceeded four years, instead of eight.

But, however this may be, one thing appears very clear-that it is not probable that St. Paul should have gone to Britain between A.D. 61 and 69; for in 61 and 62 occurred the expedition of Suetonius against Mona, and the subsequent bloody struggle between the Romans and Britons, in which seventy thousand Romans and their confederates were put to death at Camulodunum, London, Verulamium, and other places; while eighty thousand of Boadicea's army fell in battle. And though, after this, the war was not carried on with any vigour by the Romans till the time of Vespasian, about A.D. 70, still Britain was, unlike any of the other Roman provinces of the West, the seat of war. And it is not probable that St. Paul should have visited this island, when this was the case; more especially since, if we suppose him to have preached through the peaceable countries of Spain, and perhaps Gaul, and to have revisited the East, there would have been abundant employment for his latter years, without supposing that he visited a country which was in so unsettled a state as Britain. He would not have come to Britain until he had first evangelized Spain and Gaul, and those

two countries were of such vast extent, that, judging from his preaching elsewhere, he would have been engaged for several years in preaching there; so that, remembering his visit to the East, which certainly took place before his death, and which must have taken a long time, it seems very improbable that he should have come to Britain.

Setting aside therefore, as very improbable, any notion of a mission by St. Paul, or any other Apostle, in Britain, and rejecting also the story of the conversion under the pretended "Lucius, King of Britain, and also the fabrications of the Welsh Bards, in reference to the introduction of Christianity by Bran, the father of Caractacus; we only know, as matter of historical fact, that from the time of Agricola, A.D. 80, the province of Britain was reduced to subjection to the Roman arms and laws; and that there is the same probability that Christianity penetrated there at an early period, as there is in the case of Spain, Gaul, Africa, and Germany. But from the time of Agricola, A.D. 80, till that of Tertullian, A.D. 200, we hear absolutely nothing certain about Christianity in Britain-not even whether it existed. All we do know is, that by Tertullian's time Christianity in Britain had extended into those parts not subject to the Roman dominion;— that is, into Caledonia;-from which we may infer that it had existed for a considerable time previously in this country; and the allusion in the writings of Irenæus to Christian Churches among the "Celts," may very possibly refer to Britain as well as Gaul, both countries including a Celtic population at that time.

The mention of Christianity as existing in Britain in the pages of Origen, is the only circumstance in our ecclesiastical history of the third century; but, early in the fourth, we have the martyrdom of Alban, Julius, and others-the first mention of which occurs in Gildas, about A.D. 570, and which he may have learnt from the Martyrology in use in the British Church. Venantius Fortunatus, who, in the seventh century, mentioned the martyrdom of St. Alban in his poems, probably learnt the circumstance from the writings of Gildas, as Venerable Bede may also have done; and in the interval between the time of Gildas and Bede, the legend, as was to be expected, received many additional extraordinary circumstances. The facts relating to the Synod at Arles, A.D. 314, the orthodoxy of the British bishops during the Arian controversy, their presence at Ariminum, and the poverty of three of their number (the majority being in better circumstances), the events of the Pelagian controversy, and the mission of Germanus and Lupus, in the fifth century, are all within the province of history; though there are various disputed points. The amount of historical fact, however, is very small.