A Legendary Tale

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 22, 28 May 1903, Page 18

A Legendary Tale

We are, no doubt, fast advancing towards a period when the science of history is making its mark — a period of which it is becoming daily more and more true that many of ' The legendary tales that pleased of yore Can charm an understanding age no more.'

The head of the loi)g human procession has got there already, but those in the rear still cling to myths and fancies — to the sort of ' history ' that calls the imagination, and not reason, into active play. It we can trust a report in the ' Pahiatua Herald ' of May 18, the public there were treated to some ' history ' of this kind at at one of the local churches on the previous evening. H_was all about the early British Church ; and the legendary tales of its Eastern origin, its foundation by St I\i \n 1, Aristobulus, etc , and its non-Rpman character were cahnlv set forth as iron-clad and unassailable facts of sober histoiy ! As a cool matter of fact, writers of history — and not of unhistorical romance — have long ago relegated these fables to the department of literature that :s adorned with the adventures of Jack the Giant-killer and the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.

Wo need not hero go beyond the testimony of Protestant historians of the first eminence. Milman, for instance, says that the story of the apostolic origin of the early British Church ' has not the slightest historical ground,' and that it 'is a fiction of religious national vanity.' Canon Bright passes it by as ' a pious fancy ' and refers contemptuously to ' the Greek fiction about Aristobulus ordained by St. Paul as a bishop of Britain.' Haddan and St'ubbs dismiss the whole story of the Pauline convorsion of Britain as 'a gratuitous assumption.' 'The story,' says Haddan, 'must first have feet to stand on before it can be needful to wayte time in knocking it down.' The same two authors refer to the ' groundlessness of the so often alleged " Orientalism " of the early British Church,' and Haddan declares as ' utterly groundless ' the ' idea of a specially Greek origin of the British Church ' Pearson, Warren, and other noted Protestant authorities on that period also contribute their quota of dynamite to blow into smithereens ' the beautiful mediaeval romance ' that was spun before a Pahiatua audience as a piece of genuine history. The doctrine, the ritual, the hierarchy, the version of the Scnptuies used (the Vet us Itala), the Mass, the altars, the monastic institutions, the pilgrimages, the penitential canons of the early British Church were (as show^ by Bode and Gildas) Roman through and through. Their bishops, too, were in communion with the Holy See, and three of them attended the Council of Aries. In

fact, as Woodward and other Protestant writers testify, the early British Church was saturated with ' Popery.' The works of the learned Protestant historians mentioned above are not within easy reach of the general body of readers. But our Pahiatua friends will find in Archbishop Carr's ' Origin of the Church of Eng-land ' (Verga, Melbourne) the best and ablest treatment of this subject that has yet appeared within the compass of a cheap and moderate sized book.