Augustine Arrives in England

For he had learnt from his teachers and from the authors of his health that Christ’s service should be of good will, not of compulsion.

Continuing Augustine’s Missionary Work In England,
with a selection from Ecclesiastical History of the English People by The Venerable Bede published in 731 AD. This selection is presented in 5 easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Augustine’s Missionary Work In England.

Time: 597 AD
Place: Kent

Then the King gave them a dwelling and a place in Canterbury, which was the chief city of all his kingdom, and as he had promised to give them a livelihood and their worldly needs, he likewise gave them leave that they might preach and teach the Christian faith. It is said that when they went and drew nigh to the city, as their custom was, with Christ’s holy cross, and with the likeness of the great King our Lord Jesus Christ, they sung with a harmonious voice this Litany and Antiphony: Deprecamur te, etc. “We beseech thee, Lord, in all thy mercy, that thy fury and thy wrath be taken off from this city and [from] thy holy house, because we have sinned. Alleluia.”

Then it was soon after they had entered into the dwelling place which had been granted to them in the royal city, when they began to imitate the apostolic life of the primitive church — that is, served the Lord in constant prayers, and waking and fasting, and preached and taught God’s word to whom they might, and slighted all things of this world as foreign; but those things only which were seen [to be] needful for their livelihood they received from those whom they taught; according to that which they taught, they [themselves] through everything lived; and they had a ready mind to suffer adversity, yea likewise death [it] self, for the truth which they preached and taught. Then was no delay that many believed and were baptized. They also wondered at the simplicity of [their] harmless life and the sweetness of their heavenly lore.

There was by east well-nigh the city a church built in honor of St. Martin long ago, while the Romans yet dwelt in Britain [in which church the Queen (was) wont to pray, of whom we said before that she was a Christian]. In this church at first the holy teachers began to meet and sing and pray, and do mass-song, and teach men and baptize, until the King was converted to the faith, and they obtained more leave to teach everywhere, and to build and repair churches.

Then came it about through the grace of God that the King likewise among others began to delight in the cleanest life of holy [men] and their sweetest promises, and they also gave confirmation that those were true by the showing of many wonders; and he then, being glad, was baptized. Then began many daily to hasten and flock together to hear God’s word, and to forsake the manner of heathenism, and joined themselves, through belief, to the oneness of Christ’s holy Church. Of their belief and conversion [it] is said that the King was so evenly glad that he, however, forced none to the Christian manner [of worship], but that those who turned to belief and to baptism he more inwardly loved, as they were fellow-citizens of the heavenly kingdom. For he had learnt from his teachers and from the authors of his health that Christ’s service should be of good will, not of compulsion. And he then, the King, gave and granted to his teachers a place and settlement suitable to their condition, in his chief city, and thereto gave their needful supplies in various possessions.

During these things the holy man Augustine fared over sea, and came to the city Arles, and by Aetherius, archbishop of the said city, according to the behest and commandment of the blessed father St. Gregory, was hallowed archbishop of the English people, and returned and fared into Britain, and soon sent messengers to Rome, that was Laurence a mass-priest and Peter a monk, that they should say and make known to the blessed St. Gregory that the English nation had received Christ’s belief, and that he had been consecrated as bishop. He likewise requested his advice about many causes and questions which were seen by him [to be] needful; and he soon sent suitable answers of them.

Asked by St. Augustine, bishop of the church of Canterbury: First, of bishops, how they shall behave and live with their fellows. Next, on the gifts of the faithful which they bring to holy tables and to God’s churches — how many doles of them shall be?

Answered by Pope St. Gregory: Holy writ makes it known, quoth he, which I have no doubt thou knowest, and sunderly the blessed Paul’s epistle, which he wrote to Timothy, in which he earnestly trained and taught him how he should behave and do in God’s house. For it is the manner of the apostolic seat, when they hallow bishops, that they give them commandments, and that of all the livelihood which comes in to them there shall be four doles. One, in the first place, to the bishop and his family for food, and entertainment of guests and comers; a second dole to God’s servants; a third to the needy; the fourth to renewing and repair of God’s church. But because thy brotherliness has been trained and taught in monastic rules, thou shalt not, however, be asunder from thy fellows in the English church, which now yet is newly come and led to the faith of God. This behavior and this life thou shalt set up, which our fathers had in the beginning of the new-born church, when none of them said aught of that which they owned was his in sunder; but they all had all things common. If, then, any priests or God’s servants are settled without holy orders, let those who cannot withhold themselves from women take them wives, and receive their livelihood outside. For of the same fathers, of whom we spoke before, [it] is written that they dealt their worldly goods to sundry men as every [one] had need.

The Venerable Bede begins here. John R. Green begins here.

More information here and here, and below.

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