CONTENDING FOR FAITH

~ The Received Text ~

ONCE DELIVERED TO THE SAINTS

CHAPTER XVII

THE ANGLO-SAXON VERSION

THE CELTIC CHURCH

According to Gail Riplinger’s “untold, underground hidden history of the Bible,” “countless...nameless Christians” received the language of the Celtic Britons at Pentecost and carried the gospel to the “isles of the sea” mentioned in Isaiah 24:25, which means Britain.   

“England was dominated by the Celtic Britons for at least 500 years before Christ. In marched the Romans in 55 B.C. carrying their laws, their language and building byways which in less than 100 years would carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to the natives of Britain. According to historians, Christ’s command to ‘Go ye into all the world,’ coupled with the new gift of tongues, carried countless Christians to ‘preach the gospel’ in the first century to the ‘isle’ which is today called England (Mark 16:15). The trail of blood which brought us our English Bible begins with those nameless Christians who received that tongue spoken by the ‘Bararians’—Celtic Britons—living in the ‘isles of the sea’ (Acts 2, Isa. 24:15)...

“That the vernacular scriptures were received by ‘every nation under heaven’ (Acts 2:5) assures us that the Angles and Saxons, who lived in Europe during the time of the apostles, were given the word of God in the first and second centuries.” (Awe, pp. 674, 687)

Acts 2:5 states that on Pentecost “there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.” However, it is a non sequitur to assert “That the vernacular scriptures were received by ‘every nation under heaven’ (Acts 2:5).” 

“1 And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. 5 And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. 6 Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. 7 And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? 8 And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? 9 Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, 10 Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.” (Acts 2:1-11)

Isaiah 24:15 is not a prophecy of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and the spread of the gospel to the world. It is Isaiah’s prophecy of God’s terrible judgment upon the world during the Tribulation period.

“1 Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.  2 And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him. 3 The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the LORD hath spoken this word. 4 The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish. 5 The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. 6 Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left. 7 The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth, all the merryhearted do sigh. 8 The mirth of tabrets ceaseth, the noise of them that rejoice endeth, the joy of the harp ceaseth. 9They shall not drink wine with a song; strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it. 10 The city of confusion is broken down: every house is shut up, that no man may come in. 11 There is a crying for wine in the streets; all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone. In the city is left desolation, and the gate is smitten with destruction. When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people, there shall be as the shaking of an olive tree, and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done.  14 They shall lift up their voice, they shall sing for the majesty of the LORD, they shall cry aloud from the sea. 15 Wherefore glorify ye the LORD in the fires, even the name of the LORD God of Israel in the isles of the sea. 16 From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs, even glory to the righteous. But I said, My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me! the treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously; yea, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously. 17 Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth. 18 And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake.  19 The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. 20 The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.  21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.  22 And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited. 23 Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.” (Isaiah 24)

The whole of chapter 24 of Isaiah clearly describes the judgments of the Tribulation period when “the earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard... Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed... ” (v. 19-20a)  To put “the isles of the sea” (v 15) in the context of Acts 2 and claim that together they mean the gospel was carried to Britain after Pentecost is disingenuous in the extreme.  However, Gail’s misinterpretation does leave room for the Merovingian legend that Joseph of Arimathea brought the Holy Grail to Glastonbury following the crucifixion of Christ.  The legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table is based on this legend—King Arthur, “the once and Future King,” being the descendant of Jesus Christ.

“Jesus’  brother, James the Just...is better known as Joseph of Arimathea...

“Arthur’s father, King Adean mac Gabran of Scots, became Pendragon... In this line, Aedan’s mother, Lluan of Brecknock, was descended from Joseph of Arimathea... The Celtic Church accepted [Arthur’s] mother, Ygerna del Acqs, as the true High Queen of the Celtic kingdoms. Her own mother (in the hereditary lineage of Jesus) was Viviane I, dynastic Queen of Avalon. The priests therefore anointed Arthur High King of the Britons following his father’s ordination as King of Scots...

“On 26 March 1371, the Royal House of Stewart was founded by King Robert II. For the first time since the 6th-century Arthur mac Aedan of Dalriada, the key Grail successions of Britain and Europe had conjoined in Scots royalty, and the Stewarts’ ancient legacy of kingship was fulfilled.” (Bloodline of the Holy Grail: The Hidden Lineage of Jesus Revealed, pp. 131, 192-3, 285)

Gail’s disingenuous interpretation of Acts 2 and Isaiah 24:15 coincides with interpretations found in Druidic publications such as The Welsh Question and Druidism by Elizabeth Griffith, who claims that Wales was the “emporium of learning” for other nations because the Welsh forefathers, the Druids, were the “Magi of the West.”

“Again, in Isaiah xxiv. 14-16, we read, ‘They shall lift up their voice, they shall sing for the majesty of the Lord in the fires, even the name of the Lord God of Israel in the isles of the sea. From the uttermost part of the earth (Hyperboreans--Britons), have we heard songs (of the Bards and Druids), even glory to the righteous.

“Isaiah prophesied about 750 B.C.--that is, about the time of the foundation of Rome. Unless these words refer to the Ancient Britons, to whom then could they refer? Britain, as the ‘Tin islands,’ was known before this time, and the prophet speaks of the ‘uttermost parts of the earth,’ being almost the identical words adopted by the ancients for the ‘Hyperboreans.’ Here we have the Lord God of Israel worshipped, and no nation worshipped the God of Israel except the Israelites ; and here we find these worshippers in the ‘isles of the sea,’ where they cry aloud unto the God of Israel ; it also shows that they are not people in captivity, for ‘they shall sing for the majesty of the Lord;’ therefore the Lord had done great things for them ; and this majesty seems to point to the visible glory or majesty of their religion in the great works of Avebury and Stonehenge. And more emphatically still does it point to the Druidical worship, in the words, ‘Glorify ye the Lord in the fires.’

“HYPERBOREANS. We are perfectly satisfied that the Hyperboreans of the ancients were the Ancient Britons. They had but a confused conception as to where these remarkable and peculiar people lived, because, as we have before explained, Dan and the kindred tribes kept their colonies a deep secret, hence their name CELTAE.”   (Welsh Question and Druidism, p. 155)

Although this Celtic/Druidic source misinterpreted Isaiah 24:15, the author did reveal that the Celts are the Israelite Tribe of Dan which, following the Assyrian invasion of northern Israel, migrated north and eventually settled in the British Isles.  She also stated that the priests of the Celts, the Druids, built the megalithic monument, Stonehenge, where they practiced their religion which involved worshipping in the fires. The fires most likely refers the Druidic ritual of human sacrifice which took place at Stonehenge.

Note that the Druids had an hereditary succession which is a strong indicator linking them with the Merovingian bloodline. Barry Dunford, author of The Holy Land of Scotland: Jesus in Scotland & the Gospel of the Grail, cited Francis Rolt-Wheeler who explains that Jesus entrusted Joseph of Arimathea with a secret doctrine apart from that which He taught to His apostles.

“Identifying the roots of the Celtic Church with the medieval Grail mythos, Francis Rolt-Wheeler says: ‘The Legend of the Holy Grail, in its origin and in its development, is essentially Christian.... It is agreed by all writers and keepers of holy legend that Joseph of Arimathea had naught to do with the apostles. The Christic teachings and certain particular rites, given him by Jesus in spirit-visitation, were exclusive. He was divinely ordered to leave Palestine immediately after his liberation, bearing with him the Holy Grail and holding in memory the Mysterious Words, rightly to fulfil his light-bearing mission on the border of the western world. Such a mission, mystic and spiritual, could not be realized in the Orient; to the present writer, this seems a point too often overlooked by commentators on the Legends of the Grail. In order that the mysticism of the Holy Grail might flower and fruit, it was essential that Joseph escape all legalistic influences: as much the rabbinic jurisprudence of Jerusalem as the canonical jurisprudence of Rome. Neither among the Jewish nor the Latin peoples was such a mystic development possible; it needed the special nature of the Celtic race, whose soul is a harbourage of Mystery. It is often asked why the Holy Grail should have travelled so far, finally to home in Brittany; in the south-west of England, and in Wales. The answer is of the simplest. These are the countries of the Celtic race. Moreover, in these countries shone the light of the Celtic Church, as ancient as that of Rome, known as ‘The Church of the Holy Spirit’ and, later, ‘The Church of the Grail’…(Mystic Gleams from the Holy Grail, c.1940s)”

Moving forward in Gail Riplinger’s “untold, underground hidden history of the Bible” (which contradicts standard histories but agrees with Celtic/Druidic sources), the Celtic Church in Britain and Ireland was not only ‘Christian’ but also preserved and spread the true Bible throughout England in the centuries before Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, arrived as a Roman Catholic missionary in 597 A.D.

“Warning Bell: Most other histories of English Christianity, including those used in seminaries and even home schools, are at recess from the first century until Rome rings the bell in England in A.D. 597. Augustine calls them to class to hear fables of a 1001 mights, maybes, monks and monasteries, wrongly steering them along the polluted Latin Vulgate river, to the supposed ‘first’ English Bible in A.D. 1382. ‘[T]here is nothing covered,’ by the slight hand of man ‘that shall not be revealed’ or time can leave sealed (Matt. 10:26). Contrary to the much repeated myth that ‘Augustine brought Christianity to Britain in A.D. 597,’ the following primary source documentation proves that there were many Britons, ‘men of the Celtic race who were already Christians’ carrying the scriptures throughout England during the first six centuries and in the years following (Peter Hunter Blair, Anglo-Saxon England, NY: Barnes & Noble, 1996 ed., p. 119, originally published by Cambridge University Press)” (Awe, p. 675)

Gail scoffs at historical records which document Celtic monasticism as “fables of a 1001 mights, maybes, monks and monasteries” (Awe, p. 675).  Yet her primary source, Peter Hunter Blair, stated that although Augustine of Canterbury and his fellow missionaries abandoned monasticism, the Celtic Church remained “largely monastic in it organization”:

“…It is noticeable that those of the early missionaries who acknowledged the supremacy of Rome concentrated their activities almost wholly upon what had been centers of population in Roman Britain and that monasticism played little or no part in their lives. A monastery was founded at Canterbury during Augustine’s lifetime, but although Augustine and his companions had formerly been monks, they lived in Canterbury as a bishop and his household serving the cathedral church and no longer bound by any monastic rule. It is probable that the churches in Rochester and London were served in a similar way.

“The arrival of Aidan’s mission at Lindisfarne and the subsequent spread of Irish missionaries beyond Northumbria into the midlands and the eastern countries introduced into much of England a conception of episcopacy which was fundamentally different than that of the Roman Church. The Celtic Church in the seventh century was largely monastic in its organization and a bishop in the Irish or Scottish Church at this time was invariably a monk, subject as such to the authority of his abbot. He exercised the spiritual functions conferred upon him by his office, preaching, baptizing, confirming and ordaining, but he remained under his abbot’s authority and was in no way territorially limited by fixed diocesan boundaries.” (Blair, pp. 132-133) 1.

Contrary to Gail Riplinger’s revisionist Church history, Peter Hunter Blair’s Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England states that Augustine brought the “word of God” to Britain in 597.  Blair’s favorable account of Augustine’s mission to England and the conversion of many Britons to Christianity is found in Chapter III titled “The Church: St. Augustine’s Mission.”  Portions of this book can be read at Amazon.com. (Search “Inside This Book” by typing “Chapter III” in the search box; to read successive pages click on “Continuous” in the “View” drop-down menu.) 

Gail frequently misquoted Blair, as she does her other sources, by stating that “‘men of the Celtic race who were already Christians’ carrying the scriptures throughout England during the first six centuries and in the years following.” In fact, Blair credited those ‘men of the Celtic race who were already Christians’ to the evangelism of Augustine and the Roman mission to England. For the record, here is the relevant portion of Blair’s Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England, which reveals how seriously Gail Riplinger has misrepresented yet another source:

Gail Riplinger’s brief mention of the conversion of King Ætheberht (Awe, p. 686) makes no reference to Augustine or his meeting with the king of Kent, much less his extraordinary role in the king’s conversion to Christ and the subsequent evangelization of Britain.

 

Peter Blair went on to state that “it may be conjectured that many of those who came to hear Paulinus preach, particularly so far north as Yeavering, were men of Celtic race who were already Christians.”  However, Gail omitted most of the sentence so that Blair appears to state as a fact that “men of the Celtic race who were already Christians’ carrying the scriptures throughout England during the first six centuries and in the years following”:

“Contrary to the much repeated myth that ‘Augustine brought Christianity to Britain in A.D. 597,’ the following primary source documentation proves that there were many Britons, ‘men of the Celtic race who were already Christians’ carrying the scriptures throughout England during the first six centuries and in the years following (Peter Hunter Blair, Anglo-Saxon England...” (Gail Riplinger, Awe, p. 675)

Compare...

“These setbacks in the south-east were relieved by notable gains in the north, though in telling with such a wealth of detail a story which must have been dear to his heart it may be that Bede has exaggerated the importance of the Roman mission to Northumbria. The mission came about through the marriage of Edwin, king of Northumbria, to a daughter of Æthelberht of Kent. Edwin promised that his bride and her attendants should be free to practice their own religion and even that he himself would adopt it if his councilors thought fit that he should do so. Accordingly, Paulinis, one of those who had come to England in 601, was consecrated bishop in 625 and traveled north with the Kentish princess. Paulinus laboured for a year to support his companions in their faith and strove, though without success, to convert others to their way of thinking. In the following year, at Eastertide, an emissary from Wessex made an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Edwin and in gratitude for his escape Edwin allowed the infant daughter who had been born to his wife that same Eastertide, to be baptized. She and eleven others of the royal household received baptism at Pentecost in 626. Edwin himself promised that he would follow their example if his expedition to punish the West Saxons for their conspiracy against him was successful. On his return he still hesitated until Paulinus reminded him of a previous escape from death during a period of exile at the East Anglian court. He then declared his readiness to be baptized, but only after the whole matter had been submitted to general discussion by his councilors. Bede’s account of the debate which followed still has power to stir the emotions of those who read it. In the upshot Edwin was baptized on the eve of Easter Day 627 in a wooden oratory in York, and many of his nobles followed him. From York Paulinus traveled north to a royal estate at Yeavering by the northern foothills of Cheviot and for thirty-six days, it was said, he never ceased instructing the people who came from the neighbouring villages to hear him, and baptizing them in the River Glen. Further south similar mass baptisms took place in the Swale near another royal estate at Catterick. “When even the very appearance of Paulinus was handed down to Bede’s age, by Deda a priest who knew an old man who had been baptized by him, it would be a mistake to discredit this account of the early days of Christianity in Northumbria simply because it is told in the form of popular traditions which contrast strongly with the documentary evidence from which Bede learnt of the conversion of Kent. The readiness with which paganism was abandoned accords with the other evidence which suggests that its hold was much weaker in the north than it was in the south and it may be conjectured that many of those who came to hear Paulinus preach, particularly so far north as Yeavering, were men of Celtic race who were already Christians.” (Peter Hunter Blair, Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 118-119)

 

As previously shown, the Celtic Church of Britain was, in the words of Peter Hunter Blair, “largely monastic in it organization” and he described the Celtic Church in Northumbria as such:

 

“...A small company of monks led by Aidan came from Iona and established a monastery on the island of Lindisfarne whence there was access to the mainland at low tide. As time went by many more Scottish monks came from Iona and elsewhere to build churches, establish monasteries and give instruction in the discipline and observance of monastic life. During the next twenty years Christianity was firmly established throughout Northumbria. Following their missionary work with the fervour characteristic of Celtic Christianity at this time, the monks of Lindisfarne soon began to extend their activities beyond Northumbria.  In 653 Peada, the son of Penda who still ruled in Merica, married into the Northumbrian royal family and received baptism at the hands of Finan, Aidan's successor at Lindisfarne. Penda himself remained heathen but he allowed a small mission, par English, part Celtic, to work in Mercia, and soon after his death, one of his band, an Irishman called Diuma, was consecrated bishop among the Mercians. Shortly afterwards, another of the band, an Englishman named Cedd, was sent by the Northumbrian king to the East Saxons whose bishop he became. Despite his race the Christianity he practiced was wholly Celtic in form.” (Blair, p. 125)

John Marsden’s The Illustrated Bede identifies the Irish preachers who converted the Picts as “monks” and Roman Catholic priests, a fact which Gail works hard to conceal by omitting every favorable reference to monks and priests:

“It was though Irish ‘preaching that they adopted the Christian faith…long ago.’ [before A.D. 565] (Marsden, p. 55)” (Gail Riplinger, In Awe of Thy Word, p. 683)

 

“For those who came to preach were mostly monks. Bishop Aidan himself was a monk; he was sent from the island of Hii, whose monastery was for a long time chief among most of the northern Irish and all the Picts, exercising control over their peoples. This island belongs to Britain, being separated from it by a narrow strait, but was long ago given to Irish monks by the Picts who inhabit that part of Britain, because it was through the monks’ preaching that they adopted the Christian faith.

“In the year of our Lord 565...there came to Britain from Ireland a priest and abbot named Columba, a true monk in his life and in his habit, to preach the Word of God to the kingdom of the northern Picts... The southern Picts...are said to have given up the errors of idolatry long before this and received the true faith through the preaching of the word by Bishop Ninian, a most reverend and holy man of British race, who had received orthodox instruction at Rome in the mysteries of the true faith.” (John Marsden, The Illustrated Bede, pp. 54-5)

In his Introduction to The Illustrated Bede, Marsden credited Augustine with introducing Christianity to southern England:

“If we disregard the legends of Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury, it was only in 597 -- the year of Columba’s death -- when Pope Gregory’s emissary, Augustine, came to Kent that Christianity reached the southern kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England.” (Marsden, p. 15)

Mrs. Riplinger, however, credited the Celtic missionaries with the conversion of England and the destruction of pagan temples:

“Cambridge Professor Peter Blair writes of ‘The readiness with which paganism was abandoned...’ He states that there were few if any places in England ‘which had not been visited by a missionary.’

“Bede has left a vivid account of the destruction of a Northumbrian heathen temple... Coifi, the heathen high-priest, displayed his zeal for the new faith by remarking that none was more fitted than himself to initiate and overthrow the old ways.. [He] was the first to profane the old idols and altars which he himself had consecrated’ (Blair, pp. 117, 118, 119, 120, 121)” (Awe, pp. 681, 685-6)

To the contrary, it was a direct result of the evangelistic initiatives of the Roman Catholic Church that paganism was abandoned in Britain, that no “southern” English lands had not been visited by a missionary, and that it was at the directive of the popes that the heathen temples and idols were destroyed.  Here is what Peter Blair actually wrote:

“At about the same time as the Church suffered this setback in Northumbria, a third, and this time successful attempt, was made to convert the East Angles. Sigeberht, the brother of Eorpwald, had been converted in Gaul, where he was living in exile during his brother's reign. On his return to England he sought help from Archbishop Honorius who sent him a Burgundain called Felix, already consecrated a bishop in Gail. He was given a seat at Dommoc, probably the site of the lost Saxon Shore fort near Felixstowe and during his episcopacy the conversion of the East Angles was completed. Meanwhile, a certain Birinus reached Wessex. He appears to have worked in complete independence of Canterbury, but little is known about him, except that he came to England intending to preach in the midlands, but finding that the West Saxons on whose shores he landed were still heathen, he remained with them and after converting their king, Cynegils, in 635, he established a bishopric at Dorchester on Thames. With the introduction of Christianity into Wessex in this way, only Sussex and the Isle of Wight remained of the southern English lands which had not been visited by a missionary. 2. ANGLO-SAXON HEATHENISM “Mellitus, who reached England with the second mission in 601, brought with him a letter from Gregory giving instructions about the attitude which the missionaries were to adopt towards heathenism. He was to tell Augustine that heathen temples were not to be destroyed, but only the idols which they housed. The buildings themselves were to be purified and altered to make them fit for the service of God. Sacrifices of animals might be allowed to continue, but only as a means of providing good cheer for days of Christian festival with which they were to be associated. Thus supplied with outward comforts the people might the more readily be persuaded to accept spiritual teaching. But to the newly baptized Ætheberht, Gregory wrote more sternly, bidding him to overthrow the temple buildings and set his face against the worship of idols. Such also was the bidding of Pope Boniface to Edwin of Northumbria a generation later. No structural remains of any Anglo-Saxon heathen temples have yet bee discovered, but there are some indications that Augustine and his successors followed the policy of attempting to assimilate as much of the old ways as was consistent with the Christian faith. There was a Canterbury tradition that the church of St Pancras was built within the precincts of what had formerly been a heathen sanctuary, but perhaps the most remarkable application of this policy was the retention of the name of a heathen goddess, Eostre, and its use for the greatest of Christian festivals. Bede has left a vivid account of the destruction of a Northumbrian heathen temple at Goodmanham in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Coifi, the heathen high-priest, displayed his zeal for the new faith by remarking that none was more fitted than himself to initiate and overthrow the old ways. Arming himself and mounting a stallion fitted with harness, actions which had been forbidden by the priestly caste, he rode away from the assembly which had been debating the matter and was the first to profane the old idols and altars which he himself had consecrated.’” (Blair, pp. 120-121)

The following paragraph from In Awe of Thy Word is typical of Gail’s “cut and paste” % method of cooking the data:

“Much of what we know about Christians in England between A.D. 597 and A.D. 731 is from Bede. He assures us that ‘the reading of the scriptures is in general use among them all’ (Marsden, p. 33).” (Awe, p. 688)

To say that Bede wrote that ‘the reading of the scriptures is in general use among them all’ without the rest of the sentence is ungrammatical and misleading. Removed from its context, the reader is given the impression that the Scriptures were in general use among the English which is not at all what Bede wrote.

“At the present time, corresponding to the number of the books containing the divine law, Britain uses the languages of five peoples to study and profess the one undivided knowledge of the supreme truth and true sublimity. These five are the languages of the English, the Britons, the Irish, the Picts, and the Latin language, the last of which through the reading of the scriptures is in general use among them all.” (Marsden, pp. 32-33)

The full context of Bede’s sentence was that ‘the Latin language...is in general use among them all’ -- the English, the Britons, the Irish, the Picts -- because the Latin scriptures were read by monks and priests. Blair wrote that the English converts to Christianity were illiterate and credited the Irish monks with teaching Latin to the English monks at Lindisfarne:

“There are no native English records from these times and it may be supposed that during the first half of the seventh century the Roman missionaries in south-eastern England were so heavily engaged in their fight against deeply rooted paganism that the teaching of letters to their converts was beyond their power. Anglo-Saxon handwriting of the eighth century plainly reveals its descent from the Irish form of the Latin alphabet, not from the seventh-century Italian hand, and it is to the Irish monks who came to England in large numbers, beginning with the settlement of Aidan at Lindisfarne in 635, that much of the credit for teaching letters to the English must be ascribed. Lindisfarne was only one of several monasteries founded in Northumbria at this time and as the century passed monks found their way into most of the English kingdoms. The reputation of Irish learning stood high in England and in the second half of the second century many Englishmen, especially from Northumbria, went to study in monasteries. The zeal of the Irish for learning and teaching was undoubtedly great, but it should not be forgotten that the Englishmen whom they attracted to their schools were men whose fathers had been ignorant of the very existence of the Latin alphabet.” (Blair, pp. 312-313)

ST. PATRICK

According to Gail Riplinger, the conversion of Ireland was due to the missionary work of Patrick two hundred years before Augustine:

“Secular historians admit, ‘Christianity also arrived there [Ireland], indeed considerably earlier than the annals of the church suggest… [T]he Celtic church flourishing in the island was older than both Irish apostles [Patrick and Palladius] and different from what the pope desired… How it could have started we cannot tell… Christianity seems to have advanced by the power of persuasion alone. (Gerhard Herm, The Celts)” (Awe, p. 683)

The reader is assured that Patrick’s faith was in Jesus Christ, yet there seems to be no evidence of this in his personal writings, at least not in the one obscure source quoted as evidence:

“Patrick records his conversion to saving faith in Jesus Christ in the 400s… Patrick writes, ‘The Lord opened to me the sense of my unbelief that I might remember my sins and that I might return with my whole heart to the Lord, my God…I was like a stone lying in the mire, but he who is able came. He raised me up in his mercy.’ (as cited by Duane Russell, ‘The Real St. Patrick,’ The Day Spring (2001, No. 1), Banbridge, Co. Down, No. Ireland: G. Edgerton, pp. 3-5)” (Awe, p. 683-684)

 

Who was Patrick, if he even existed? Some have speculated he was Palladius. In his book, The Top 13 Illuminati Bloodlines, Fritz Sprinmeier stated that and that “Patrick” was the Anglicized form of the Egyptian god, Ptah-rekh, which may have been a title:

“...Gerald Massey’s A Book of the Beginnings...shows in detail how the inhabitants of the British Isles came originally from Egypt. This is important because...the Druidism of the British Isles was simply a Satanic witchcraft/magic of Ancient Egypt. They Egyptian word Makhaut (clan or family) became the Irish Maccu and the Maccu of the Donalds (clan of Donalds) now reflected in the name MacDonald. The sacred keepers of the Clan-Stone in Arran, were also known by the family name of Clan-Chattons. another word for clan is Mack and the Clan-Chattons were also known as Mack-Intosh. Ptah-rekh the name of the Egyptian god Ptah was passed down to us by the Druids adopting the name Patrick, which sounded similar. St. Patrick’s day then is a Christianized form of a druidic holiday which originally had its origins in Egypt.” (Springmeier, p. 229)

In his Book of the Beginnings, Gerald Massey explained that many of the saints were fictional characters whose names reflected pagan deities. It seems that “Patrick” (Ptah-rekh) was a Druidic title for the “priests of Ptah”:

“One part of the process in converting the Irish was to take their ancient deities, the devil included, and transform them into Christian saints, and as saints they have figured in the calendar ever since. Thus the mythical Patrick appears to be identifiable with the god Ptah not but that there may have been a priest of Ptah named Patrick. The rekh (Eg.) is the mage, wise man, priest, and there may have been one or many Ptah-rekhi, the priests of Ptah. Patrick, or Ptah-rekh is probably the hard form of the Paterah known as a Druidical title. Attius Paterah, the friend of Ausonius, was a Druidical Paterah or Patrekh in this sense; he who was said to have been ‘stirpe satus druiden gentis armoricae,’ and the companion of Dyved.” (A Book of the Beginnings, Chap. 10)

ST. COLUMBA

In order to remove all references to St. Columba’s monasticism, Gail Riplinger has spliced together partial sentences from Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People:

“Bede asserts, ‘In the year of our Lord 565...there came to Britain from Ireland...Columba...to preach the word of God to the kingdoms of the northern Picts...The southern Picts are said to have given up the errors of idolatry long before this [565] and received true faith through the preaching of the word... Now Columba came to Britain...and converted the people to the Christian faith by his word and his example... [T]hey diligently practiced those works of devotion and purity which they could learn from the writings of the prophets, evangelists and apostles’ (Marsden, pp. 55, 57).” (Awe, p. 685)

The unadulterated paragraph from John Marsden’s The Illustrated Bede reveals that Columba established numerous monasteries:

“Now Columba came to Britain in the ninth year of the reign of Bruide, son of Maelchon, a Pictish king of great power, and converted the people to the Christian faith by his word and his example; and because of this they gave him possession of the island mentioned above to build a monastery... Before coming to Britain he had built a noble monastery in Ireland, called Dearmach in the Irish language, meaning the field of the oaks, after the many oak trees that stand there. His disciples from both of these monasteries went on to found many more monasteries in Britain and Ireland, over all of which the island monastery, where his body lies at rest, held pre-eminence." (Marsden, The Illustrated Bede, pp. 55. 57)

The Columbia Encyclopedia entry for Saint Columba also describes him as a monk and the founder of a monastic order:

“Almost as a matter of course, under such circumstances, he embraced the monastic life. He was ordained deacon while at Moville, and afterwards, when about thirty years of age, was raised to the priesthood. During his residence in Ireland he founded, in addition to a number of churches, two famous monasteries, one named Daire Calgaich (Derry) on the banks of Lough Foyle, the other Dair-magh (Durrow) in King’s county... Columba established himself on the island of Hy or Iona, where he erected a church and a monastery... The precise details, except in a few cases, are unknown, or obscured by exaggeration and fiction; but it is certain that the whole of northern Scotland was converted by the labours of Columba, and his disciples and the religious instruction of the people provided for by the erection of numerous monasteries. The monastery of Iona was reverenced as the mother house of all these foundations, and its abbots were obeyed as the chief ecclesiastical rulers of the whole nation of the northern Picts. There were then neither dioceses nor parishes in Ireland and Celtic Scotland; and by the Columbite rule the bishops themselves, although they ordained the clergy, were subject to the jurisdiction of the abbots of Iona, who, like the founder of the order, were only presbyters. In matters of ritual they agreed with the Western Church on the continent, save in a few particulars such as the precise time of keeping Easter and manner of tonsure.”

The Celtic Church has always maintained its pedigree as the “true Christianity” and, in our own day, propaganda on “Celtic Christianity” fills the bookshelves of popular bookstores like Barnes & Noble, Borders and Amazon.com. For example, The Forgotten Monarchy of Scotland, by Prince Michael Stewart portrays the Celtic Church the true Christian Church that was persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church. The “Christian message” according to Stewart was the body of heretical doctrine preserved by Nestorius, who denied the union of the two natures of God and man in the person of Christ. Merovingian propaganda also reveals that St. Columba is revered because he crowned and anointed the father of King Arthur, Uther Pendragon, i.e. the Celtic Dragon King:

“St. Columba had brought the original Christian message (preserved by the Syrian bishop Nestorius) into Ireland and Scotland from the Middle East, so that both the Old and New Testaments received equal status within the Celtic Church. In deed it was Columba who, in 574, had crowned and anointed King Aedan mac Garan of Dalraida (Celtic Pendragon and father of King Arthur) - the first British monarch to be installed by priestly ordination - and this greatly upset the Church of Rome. Following Columba’s death in 597, the Pope sent St Augustine to dismantle the Celtic Church in Britain, but although he became England’s new Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, his mission failed in Scotland, Ireland and Wales, where the Celtic Church prevailed.” (Stewart, The Forgotten Monarchy of Scotland, pp. 29-30)

The Messianic Legacy acknowledges various heretics who were the founding fathers of Celtic Christianity and posits that Saint Columba disseminated their heretical works in Ireland:

"If Celtic Christianity drew heavily on Egypt, it also drew heavily on the more explicitly heretical traditions of Syria, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia. We have already discussed how Nestorian thought served as a repository for certain Nazarean traditions. As early as 430 - the time of Saint Patrick - a book explaining the teachings of Nestorius was being circulated in the West. Nestorius himself had studied at the theological school of Antioch, where his mentor was a man known as Theodore of Mopsuestia. At the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553, Theodore and all his works were officially anathematised and declared heretical. In consequence, most of his teachings have long since vanquished. And yet much of what we know of him today comes from Ireland. One of his major scriptural commentaries survives only in an old Irish manuscript. Additional material from Theodore turns up in other Irish manuscripts, dating from the eighth century, the ninth century and, in one case, from the late tenth century - more than four hundred years after Theodore was condemned. It has been suggested that Theodore's works were translated and brought to Ireland by no less a figure than Saint Columba... In its organization, then, in its use of certain texts, in many of its outward aspects, the Celtic Church circumvented the Church of Rome and functioned as a repository for elements of Nazarean tradition transmitted from Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor.” (The Messianic Legacy, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh & Henry Lincoln, pp. 119-120)

Laurence Gardiner, author of Bloodline of the Holy Grail is also the “Prior of the Celtic Church’s Sacred Kindred of Saint Columba.”  [A prior is “‘a superior officer of a religious house or order,’ 1093, from L. prior ‘former, superior’” (Online Etymology Dictionary)]  Gardner describes Celtic Christianity as Torah observant, in other words, Jewish.  Celtic spirituality is frequently characterized by the term "Nazarene" - a name also given to the Essene Community at Qumran:

“A unique and indigenous culture thus developed in the form of Celtic Christianity. It derived primarily from Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia, and its precepts were distinctly Nazarene. The liturgy was largely Alexandrian and, because Jesus's own teachings formed the basis of the faith, the Mosaic content of the Old Testament was duly retained. The old Jewish marriage laws were observed, together with the celebration of the Sabbath and Passover, while the divinity of Jesus and the Roman dogma of the Trinity played no part in the doctrine. The Celtic Church had no diocesan bishops but was essentially under the direction of abbots (monastic elders). The whole was organized on a clan structure, with its activities focused on scholarship and learning.”  (Bloodline of the Holy Grail, p. 189)

“Laurence Gardner, Prior of the Celtic Church's Sacred Kindred of Saint Columba, is an internationally known sovereign and chivalric genealogist. Distinguished as the Chevalier Labhran de Saint Germain, he is Presidential Attaché to the European Council of Princes -- a constitutional advisory body established in 1946. He is formally attached to the noble household guard of the Royal House of Stewart, founded at St Germain-en-Laye in 1692, and is the Jacobite Historiographer Royal.” (Bloodline of the Holy Grail, back cover)

ST. GILDAS

Chapter 19 of In Awe of Thy Word promises to present the reader with “primary source documentation [which] proves that there were many Britons, ‘men of the Celtic race who were already Christians’ carrying the scriptures throughout England during the first six centuries and in the years following...” (Awe, p. 675)  The “primary source documentation” which Gail presents, however, can hardly be considered impartial, objective history. Gail Riplinger sneers at “Most other histories of English Christianity, including those used in seminaries and even home schools” as presenting “fables of a 1001 mights, maybes, monks and monasteries” in the Celtic Church.  Yet the “primary source documentation” offered by Gail is for the most part from Celtic monks and Masons. For example, a “primary source” used to document “‘men of the Celtic race who were already Christians’ carrying the scriptures throughout England” is The Story of Our English Bible by Sir Walter Scott, who was a Freemason and chairman of the Celtic Society of Edinburgh.  Another “primary source” is William of Malmesbury, a monk at Malmesbury Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in England. Another primary source, Venerable Bede, was a Benedictine monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth.

Another “primary source” for this deception was St. Gildas. According to the Legend of King Arthur “Gildas Bandonicus, a Celtic monk, lived in the 6th century from about 494 AD to 570 AD.”  The Encyclopaedia of the Celts also associates St. Gildas with King Arthur, the legend of Joseph of Arimathea and Glastonbury:

GLASTONBURY

“# 156: A small town in Somerset, the site of a medieval abbey, which was variously said to have been founded by Deruvian and Phagan, missionaries sent by the Pope to the British king, Lucius, and by Saint Patrick before his mission to the Irish. There is in fact no real evidence for an abbey there before the seventh century. In the romance PERLESVAUS, Glastonbury is identified with Avalon. Saint Joseph of Arimathea was thought to have founded the old Church there. In the Middle Ages, bones, which were identified by their discoverers as those of Arthur and Guinevere, were discovered there. Although most authorities regard the find as a hoax, this is not necessarily the case. According to a story found in the LIFE OF GILDAS, Melvas (Meleagaunce) abducted Guinevere and took her to Glastonbury, but Gildas mediated between him and Arthur. See: GILDAS, SAINT.”

In Arthurian lore, the Lord of the Underworld resides in Glastonbury, a mythical Isle of Glass, and this is the alleged location of the Holy Grail.

“When mist, like sea, surrounds the Tor [of Glastonbury], it rises from the Levels like a magical island of ancient lore. Indeed in Celtic times it was known as the Isle of the Dead - the threshold of the spirit world where wisdom and knowledge were revealed. Its Celtic name was Ynys Witrin; it is the faery Isle of Glass where the Lord of the Underworld resides. Most famously, legend knows Glastonbury as the Isle of Avalon. Literally meaning ‘The Place of Apples’, Avalon was a legendary paradise associated with the Celtic Otherworld - the Summerland Annwn. In Romance, Avalon is where Arthur’s great sword Excalibur was forged; it is where Arthur went to heal his wounds and where his sister Morgan Le Fay had her magical stronghold. The Life of St Gildas tells of Arthur’s deeds at Glastonbury; the abbey’s chronicles know him as a major benefactor of Glastonbury’s early church. Christian legend knows the Vale of Avalon as the place where Joseph of Arimathea landed with the Holy Grail...” - 831

The Life of Gildas, reveals that Gail Riplinger’s “primary source” was an ascetic at Glastonbury at the time of King Arthur:

“St. Gildas...was received with much welcome by the abbot of Glastonia, and taught the brethren and the scattered people, sowing the precious seed of heavenly doctrine. It was there that he wrote the history of the kings of Britain. Glastonia, that is, the glassy city, which took its name from glass, is a city that had its name originally in the British tongue. It was besieged by the tyrant Arthur with a countless multitude on account of his wife Gwenhwyfar, whom the aforesaid wicked king had violated and carried off, and brought there for protection, owing to the asylum afforded by the invulnerable position due to the fortifications of thickets of reed, river, and marsh. The rebellious king had searched for the queen throughout the course of one year, and at last heard that she remained there. Thereupon he roused the armies of the whole of Cornubia and Dibneria; war was prepared between the enemies.

“When he saw this, the abbot of Glastonia, attended by the clergy and Gildas the Wise, stepped in between the contending armies, and in a peaceable manner advised his king, Melvas, to restore the ravished lady. Accordingly, she who was to be restored, was restored in peace and good will. When these things were done, the two kings gave the abbot a gift of many domains; and they came to visit the temple of St. Mary and to pray, while the abbot confirmed the beloved brotherhood in return for peace they enjoyed and the benefits which they conferred, and were more abundantly about to confer. Then the kings reconciled, promising reverently to obey the most venerable abbot of Glastonia, and never violate the most sacred place nor even the districts adjoining the chief's seat.

“When he had obtained permission from the abbot of Glastonia and his clergy and people, the most devout Gildas desired to live a hermit's life upon the bank of a river close to Glastonia, and he actually accomplished his object. He built a church there in the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, in which he fasted and prayed assiduously, clad in goat's hair, giving to all an irreproachable example of a good religious life. Holy men used to visit him from distant parts of Britain, and when advised, returned and cherished with delight the encouragements and counsels they had heard from him.”

According to the author of The Merovingian Infiltration of the Christian World Through Monasticism, the Merovingians established monasteries to infiltrate the Church in order to destroy it from within.

“Like most Merovingian monasteries Glastonbury became a Benedictine Monastery. And the purpose of Merovingian monasteries was 'infiltration' based on the belief that the best way to crush the Church was from 'within.'... There is no doubt in my mind that [the Grail legend] would have been the work of the Cistercians, founded by Benedictine monks as 'the ratchet' for the structural organization of [the Prieuré de] Sion. Joseph of Arimathea is alone associated with the Grail legend and the Quest of the Grail legends, which per Colliers Encyclopedia, are dominated by the mystical symbolism of Cistercians...

 “More than any heretical Merovingian organizations, the Cistercians personified the banality of evil at its finest. The name Cistercian and of their first monastery, Citeaux derive from Cistus, of the Cistaceae or Rockrose family resembling the wild rose and cultivated in the Mediterranean. The Myrrh with which Mary Magdalene anointed the Body of Jesus also comes from the Cistus family. And they had chosen the Magdalene...assigning her the symbol of the Rose and Cross in memory of the Brotherhood of the Sun founded by Akhenaten who had taken as its symbol the Rose and Cross (Lewis). Cistercians were Rosicrucians. And this Rosicrucian order of monks would triumph in its infiltration of the Church.”  (550)

CELTIC CHURCH TODAY

The present day Celtic Church is far afield from Biblical Christianity in its doctrine and practice. The Celtic Synod, which is displays the Celtic Cross as its logo, prequires that “All clergy members of this Synod shall be members of the Military and Religious Order of Culdees.”  The Ancient Order of the Culdees of Iona states that “Culdee” means “Chaldea,” as in ancient Babylonia: “Origin of the word Culdee. The name Culdee comes from Chaldee, (Chaldeans pronounce the word Chaldee as Kaldee or Culdee), in the sense that it alludes to Abraham the Chaldee, who left his home, worldly wealth, kindred and idol making to find the Promised Land.” The 1611 King James Version used the word “Caldees” with reference to the Babylonians or “Chaldeans,” which was the updated spelling in later editions.

Verse(s)	Reading of the Authorized Bible	Variation of later editions
Genesis xv. 7	Caldees (Chaldees, ch. xi. 31)	Chaldees, 1629
2 Kings xxv. 4, 5, 10, 13, 24, 25, 26	Caldees	Chaldees, 1744
2 Chronicles xxxvi. 17	Caldees	Chaldees, 1638
Nehemiah ix. 7	Caldees	Chaldees, 1638

James Bonwick wrote of the Jewish and Druidical traditions and hereditary priesthood of the Culdees in Irish Druids And Old Irish Religions.

“An old statistical work says, ‘the Druids undoubtedly possessed Iona before the introduction of Christianity.’ It must be admitted that the Culdees wore a white dress, as did the Druids, [and the Essenes] and that they occupied places which had a Druidical reputation. They used the Asiatic cross, now called that of St. Andrew’s.’ Notably, in an Irish version of the gospel of St. Matthew, the phrase ‘there came wise men from the east’ is rendered ‘the Druids came from the east.’ [fn. James Bonwick’s Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions] In like manner, in the Old Testament, Exodus vii. II, the ‘magicians of Egypt’ are made ‘Druids of Egypt.’ [fn. Rev. John Williams Ab Ithel, The Traditionary Annals of the Cymri, 1867, p.166.]…

“In Tirechan's Life of St Patrick, Cele-de came from Briton to Ireland in 919; but in 811 some were said to have been miraculously conveyed across the sea. Bede, who opposed them, whether from Ireland or Scotland, was shocked at their holding his religion ‘in no account at all,’ nor communicating with his faithful ‘in anything more than with pagans.’ He banished those who came to his quarter. He found these Irish, Welsh, and Scotch Christians to have, in addition to many heresies, the Jewish and Druidical system of hereditary priesthood. Property of the Church even descended from father to son; and, says Dr. Reeves, ‘was practically entailed to members of certain families.’ He adds that they were understood in the 12th century as ‘a religious order of clerks who lived in Societies, under a Superior, within a common enclosure, but in detached cells; associated in a sort of collegiate rather than œnobical brotherhood.’ Giraldus, as well as Bede, complained of their hereditary priesthood. The same principle prevailed in the Druidical region of Brittany, and only yielded to the force of the Council of Tours in 1127.” (Irish Druids & Old Irish Religions, pp. 280-1, 285)

The Celtic Synod of the present day locates its origins in the Holy Grail (Joseph of Arimathea) heresy and Messianic Judaism, defines itself as monastic, accepts the Apocrypha and believes in Apostolic Succession:

THE HOLY CELTIC CHURCH / note the Triskele symbol

“The Celtic Church probably developed its monastic characteristics through Coptic Orthodoxy influence and, as all of early Christianity for the first hundred years, was influenced by its Messianic Jewish origin. It should be noted that the “Galatians” referred to in scripture by the Apostle Paul and with whom he visited were Celts that had migrated into what is now Turkey. Traces of Celtic influence can still be found in that area.”

“Historical evidence indicates the Church founders were followers of our Lord Jesus Christ, led by Joseph of Arimathea, dating from before the crucifixion and the dispersion of Jesus’ followers after Pentecost. These founders traveled from the Holy Land and ultimately settled in the British Isles by way of Gaul. The Celtic Church established at Glastonbury in Britain is accepted as the first above ground Christian Church. Because of its autonomy and geographical isolation, the Celtic Church remained uniquely uncorrupted by Hellenistic Greek philosophy or Roman jurisprudence.”

“The H.C.C. firmly believes the Holy Bible to be the infallible and divinely inspired Word of God and that it contains all of the teachings which constitute the basis of our faith. These teachings are to be believed and followed in their entirety. We consider the alteration, revision or gross reinterpretation of scripture to be a major heresy. We accept the books contained in the Apocrypha as fully legitimate scripture and affirm their validity. These books were contained in the early Jewish texts prior to the Birth of Our Lord and were referred to but considered holy books of lesser importance. The early church accepted them and quoted from them numerous times. The frivolous accusations made against them during the Reformation period were invalid and unjust. The H.C.C. believes with firm conviction that the church, the sole guardian and teacher of the revealed will of God, was personally instituted by the real and historically verifiable Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, when he lived among us; and that the church is built upon the solid rock and cornerstone, being Our Savior Himself. And we believe that He instituted the Apostolic Succession to ensure continual existence of divinely appointed authority, and to a lesser degree a visible mark of purity of doctrine.” (Article 8)

According to Prince Michael Stewart, the traditions of Judaism given by God in the Old Testament have also been faithfully preserved by the Celtic Church:

“Early Celtic Christianity was the closest of all religious teachings to the original doctrines of Jesus, and it had emerged within a few years of the Crucifixion as the foremost Church of the Christian world. Christians of the Celtic Church were recorded in Ireland in the latter reign of Emperor Tiberius (AD 14-37), long before St Peter went to Rome. Given that Jesus' own teachings formed the basis of the faith, the Mosaic structure of the Old Testament was duly incorporated. Judaic marriage laws were observed, together with the celebrations of the Sabbath and Passover, while Easter was correctly held as the traditional feast-day of the Spring goddess, Eostre, long before the Roman Church foisted a new significance on the old Celtic festival at the Synod of Whitby in 644.

“Contrary to traditional belief, Emperor Constantine the Great (AD 274-337) did not embrace Christianity as the religion of Rome; he adapted Christianity into a new form which was implemented as the religion of Rome. Constantine’s reign as Emperor was actually related to the Syrian Sol Invictus cult of sun worship, but he determined to create a purpose-built religion to divert Christianity from its Judaic origins. He redefined Jesus' birthday to comply with the Sun Festival on 25 December, and substituted the sacred Sabbath (Saturday) with the Sun-day. Indeed by a series of such manoevres, the high-points of Judaic Christianity were conveniently merged with the pagan tradition, and the Persian cult of Mithras, which stressed the concept of final judgement, was also partially enveloped.

“The outcome, from a purely political base, was the uniquely contrived and controllable State ‘hybrid’ of the Roman Church. On being formalized at the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople, the new Roman doctrine proclaimed all alternative faiths heretical, all except for the Celtic Church, which was too well-established to provoke. Any such attempt would have been tantamount to a declaration of war, particularly against Ireland; and at that time Rome did not have the military capability to confront the fierce troops of the Irish kings.” (The Forgotten Monarchy of Scotland, p. 30)

This is the same Celtic Church that is promoted in KJV-Only propaganda as the “true Christian Church” which preserved the pure text of the Holy Bible. The Celtic Church is also promoted throughout the apostate Christian community by false prophets and teachers such Peter Wagner, Chuck Pierce, Cindy Jacobs, Dutch Sheetz, to name a few who are well-known for teaching sorcery and witchcraft in the false Charismatic revival. (See: “The Transformation of America: Strategic Level Sorcery”)  Now one of their number, Kathie Walters, is leading Celtic Pilgrim Tours to sacred sites of the Celtic Church in Ireland. Walters is the author of many books such as The Visitation, Celtic Flames and Columba - The Celtic Dove, whose promos reveal the mystical religion of the Celtic Church and its spiritual leaders, Sts. Patrick and Columba:

“Kathie has had two major visitations from the Lord. The first one - she was lifted into heaven every day for seven days and the second one - she was lifted into heaven every day for 3 ½ weeks.” (The Visitation)
 

“Accounts of the supernatural ministries of Patrick, Brigid, Cuthbert, Brendan, Kieran etc. Read how these Celtic Christians in the 4th-5th-6th centuries demonstrated the power of God and won the hearts of the people for the Lord. For example, Patrick converted Dublin by raising the king’s two children from the dead. (Celtic Flames)

 

“The early Celtic Christians had an incredible anointing. They confronted the Druids with the supernatural power of God, raised the dead, healed the sick. This book contains eye-witness accounts of the ministry of Columba of Iona.” (Columba - The Celtic Dove)

 

“Kathie shows that according to the scripture, angels are meant to be a normal part of the life of the believer. She tells how the angels of God are sent to minister to us and help us in our own lives and ministries. There are many stories of her own encounters with God’s angels.” (Angels - Watching Over You)
 

“Kathie believes the realm of the Spirit, the supernatural realm, the angels and heavenly visitations etc are meant to be a normal part of your life - most people are robbed because of religious mindsets.” (Living in the Supernatural)

ANGLO-SAXON VERSION

Outside of the controlled network of a pseudo-Christian propagandists, scholars and Celtic writers concur that the “scripture” of the Celtic Church was not the Traditional Text of the Bible, but a range of corrupt and even heretical texts:

“The original British churches lived within the Roman empire, so they could make intelligent use of the Latin Bible, which from the 4th cent. on meant Jerome’s translation, the Latin Vulgate. With the barbarian invasions, however, a new situation arose. Whereas the Vulgate could be studied, used, and copied in the circles of Celtic monasticism, the newcomers, who had first to be evangelized, brought with them no background of Latin language and culture. The need for translation into the vernacular arose, therefore, with the extensive evangelization and the growth of the Anglo-Saxon Church in the 6th century...” (Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Ed., International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, "English Versions," p. 83)

“The Bible most popular with Christians of the Celtic lands was the Old Latin. It is called the Itala... J.F. Kenney observed that... ‘the Irish were the most important of the agents who have transmitted to us the Old Latin texts...’” (The Celtic Church in Britain, Leslie Hardinge, p. 31)

“As we have noted, the Celtic Church drew upon a broad spectrum of texts beyond Rome’s sphere of influence - Nazarean texts, Nestorian texts, Priscillianist texts, Gnostic and Manichean texts, books of both Judaic and ‘Christian’ apocrypha. In one instance, the Book of Cerne, a prayer is found ultimately deriving from a work in the corpus found at Nag Hammadi.” (Messianic Legacy, p. 124)

To fabricate a case that Bede translated the Greek New Testament into Saxon, the vernacular language of his day, Riplinger did the usual “cut and paste” % trick of stringing together snippets from numerous sources:

“Wycliffe, in the 1300s, states in his Bible’s preface that Bede had translated the Bible into Saxon... Bede’s Saxon Bible is attested to by Dore who brings this fact to his readers in the 1800s affirming ‘he translated the Bible into the vulgar tongue of his day...’ (Dore, 1st ed. p. 4) The 1611 KJV translators of the scriptures, note that Bede ‘turned a great part of them into Saxon’ (“The Translators to the Reader’ as cited in Dore, 2nd ed. p. 364). Others, like Skeat,...mention only a part of Bede’s work, noting that Bede made a 'translation of the Gospel of St. John...’ Bosworth admits this proves ‘the three preceding [Matthew, Mark, and Luke] had most likely been previously translated... ’ (The Gospels: Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, Wycliffe, and Tyndale Versions...) ‘The Anglo-Saxon Gospels were translated in 735 or before...’ (Bosworth, p. ii)  Bede had access to the Greek text of the book of Acts and perhaps the rest of the Greek New Testament because there were many ‘well equipped libraries in England by c. 700 or a little later’ (Blair, pp. 314, 315, 324)” (Awe, pp. 693-694) 

In the first place, ‘well equipped libraries in England by c. 700 or a little later’ is a truncated portion of a sentence which goes on to state that historians do not know what these libraries contained. The paragraph in Blair’s book from which this excerpt was severed also mentions that Bede “made great use of the writings of the Christian Fathers, especially Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine and Gregory”:

“Most of Bede’s library was undoubtedly composed of theological works. He was of course deeply familiar with the Bible and he made great use of the writings of the Christian Fathers, especially Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine and Gregory. It is though that there was a Greek text of the Acts at Jarrow in Bede’s time,¹ but it is doubtful whether the other parts of the Greek New Testament were there. Bede occasionally used Greek authorities, but he seems only to have done so in Latin translations. Greek was certainly taught in the school established in Canterbury by Theodore and Hadrian, and according to Bede there were some pupils of the school still alive in his own day who were as familiar with both Latin and Greek as they were with their own tongue. There were certainly other well equipped libraries in England by c. 700 or a little later, but we have not the means of learning in such detail what books they contained...’ ¹ It closely resembled MS Cod. Laudianus Graecus 35”

The fact is that the Bible which Bede translated into the Saxon language was Jerome’s Latin Vulgate. In her essay “Bede, the Bible, and the North,” Benedicta Ward, Reader in the History of Christian Spirituality in the University of Oxford, described Venerable Bede as a thoroughgoing Roman Catholic:

“Bede received the full tradition of the teaching of the Fathers on Scripture and he made it flower in his own life in three ways: firstly, by his work on the text of the Scriptures themselves; secondly, by his transmission of the tradition of patristic commentary to the English monks, clergy and people, and thirdly, by the way in which he looked at the early history of the English people as part of the whole work of God in creation and redemption. “There is one book which illustrates all Bede’s concerns. He was involved in the creation of a remarkable manuscript, a codex of the Scriptures, that is, the Codex Amiatinus, the oldest extant version of Jerome’s Biblia Vulgata, which, apart from its value as a work of supreme scholarship, has a right to be called the most beautiful book in the world... “The Codex Amiatinus is now kept in the Laurentian Library in Florence, a huge book of 1,030 folios (2,060 pages) of calf skin, each made from one calf... The whole book mirrors Bede’s concern for a sound biblical text, a patristic interpretation of it, a focus on Jerusalem, and above all an interest in making the text of the Bible both accurate and useable. This magnificent book was only one of three, all produced in the scriptorium at Wearmouth/Jarrow under Ceolfrith and in Bede’s lifetime. In his History of the Abbots, Bede described the making of three such codexes: He (Ceolfrith) added three copies of the new translation of the Bible to the one copy of the old translation which he had brought back from Rome. One of these he took with him when he went back to Rome in his old age and the other two he bequeathed to his monasteries. ... “Ceolfrith never reached Rome; he died at Langres and the codex disappeared. It lay in the library of the monastery at Amati, where it was known as the earliest codex of Jerome’s Latin Vulgate...” (“Bede, the Bible, and the North,” What is It That the Scriptures Say?, pp. 158, 162)

The 1611 Translators allowed that Bede “turned” portions of the Scriptures into Saxon. However, this does not mean that Bede translated from the Byzantine manuscripts, for the Translators included Ulfilas, who translated from Arian texts, and Jerome, who translated the New Testament from the corrupt stream of Alexandrian manuscripts.

THE TRANSLATING OF THE SCRIPTURE INTO THE VULGAR TONGUES “...The same Jerome elsewhere affirmeth that he, the time was, had set forth the translation of the Seventy suae linguae hominibus, i.e., for his countrymen of Dalmatia [S. Jerome. Sophronio.] Which words not only Erasmus doth understand to purport, that S. Jerome translated the Scripture into the Dalmatian tongue, but also Sixtus Senensis [Six. Sen. lib 4], and Alphonsus a` Castro [Alphon. lb 1 ca 23] (that we speak of no more) men not to be excepted against by them of Rome, do ingenuously confess as much. So, S. Chrysostom that lived in S. Jerome’s time, giveth evidence with him: ‘The doctrine of S. John [saith he] did not in such sort [as the Philosophers’ did] vanish away: but the Syrians, Egyptians, Indians, Persians, Ethiopians, and infinite other nations being barbarous people translated it into their [mother] tongue, and have learned to be [true] Philosophers,’ he meaneth Christians. [S. Chrysost. in Johan. cap.I. hom.I.] To this may be added Theodoret, as next unto him, both for antiquity, and for learning. His words be these, "Every Country that is under the Sun, is full of these words (of the Apostles and Prophets) and the Hebrew tongue [he meaneth the Scriptures in the Hebrew tongue] is turned not only into the Language of the Grecians, but also of the Romans, and Egyptians, and Persians, and Indians, and Armenians, and Scythians, and Sauromatians, and briefly into all the Languages that any Nation useth. [Theodor. 5. Therapeut.] So he. In like manner, Ulfilas is reported by Paulus Diaconus and Isidor (and before them by Sozomen) to have translated the Scriptures into the Gothic tongue: [P. Diacon. li. 12.] John Bishop of Sevil by Vasseus, to have turned them into Arabic, about the year of our Lord 717; [Vaseus in Chron. Hispan.] Bede by Cistertiensis, to have turned a great part of them into Saxon: Efnard by Trithemius, to have abridged the French Psalter, as Bede had done the Hebrew, about the year 800: King Alfred by the said Cistertiensis, to have turned the Psalter into Saxon: [Polydor. Virg. 5 histor.]” (“The Translators to the Reader”)

 

Chapter 20 of In Awe of Thy Word presents many charts which demonstrate the agreement between the Anglo-Saxon translation and the King James Version.  As previously noted, in Riplinger’s charts, the Anglo-Saxon translation need not follow the Greek Textus Receptus, but only the KJV.  For example, charts for Mark 10:30, Matt. 28:20 and Luke 1:70 dispense with the Textus Receptus reading which, in these verses, is the Greek word “aeon”, which means “age.” As per usual, the corruption started with the Wycliffe translation:

CHAPTER XVIII

THE WYCLIFFE BIBLE

CONTEND FOR THE FAITH:

THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS

NOTES

1. Gail Riplinger’s source for her citations of Peter Hunter Blair is the 1996 edition of Blair’s Anglo-Saxon England (NY: Barnes & Noble, 1996 ed., p. 119, originally published by Cambridge University Press.)  Cambridge University Press published Peter Hunter Blair’s Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England in three editions, 1956, 1977 and 2003. Blair edited some of the books in a series titled Anglo-Saxon England which was also published by Cambridge University Press in various years. The third edition Blair’s Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England which we have cited is the text of the second edition written five years before the author’s death:

“Peter Hunter Blair, Emeritus Reader in Anglo-Saxon History, in the University of Cambridge, and Life Fellow of Emmanuel College, died on 9 September 1982, five years after the publication of the second edition of An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England... The text here remains that of the second edition (1977)...” (Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England)