Augustine and his monks were not the first missionaries to
Britain. Roman soldiers, merchants, and officials had introduced Christianity
among the Britons as early as second century. During the fifth century the
famous St. Patrick had carried Christianity to the heathen Irish. The
Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain drove many Christians to Ireland, and that
island in the sixth and seventh centuries became a center from which devoted monks
went forth to labor in western Scotland and northern Britain [27] Here they
came in contact with the Roman missionaries.
[27] The enthusiasm of the Celtic Christians reached such
proportions that it swept back upon the Continent. In the seventh and eighth
centuries Irish missionaries worked among the heathen Germans and founded
monasteries in Burgundy, Lombardy, and southern Germany (now Switzerland).
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CELTIC AND ROMAN CHRISTIANITY
The Celtic Christians followed some customs which differed
from those observed by Roman Christians. They computed the date on which Easter
fell according to a system unlike that of the Romans. They permitted their
priests to marry; the Romans forbade the practice. Their monks shaved the front
of the head from ear to ear as a tonsure, while Roman monks shaved the top of
the head, leaving a "crown of thorns." These differences may not seem
very important, but they were enough to prevent the cooperation of Celtic and
Roman missionaries for the conversion of the heathen.
