The Drama of the Lost Disciples

THE DRAMA OF 

THE LOST DISCIPLE’S

By

GEORGE F. JOWETT

(Easier Reading, Floating References, and Repagination)  

(2023 AI Grammar, Large Print, No Facing Pages. )  

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Reformatted

Introduction

It was Edmund Burke who wrote, 'People will not look forward to posterity who never looks backward to their ancestors', and it is certainly true to say that only very real knowledge of what God has done for and through the British race in the days that are past can give confidence and courage with which to face the unknown in this era of crisis and tragedy. This is one of the major reasons for my satisfaction and pleasure in the privilege accorded to me of introducing this most interesting and instructive book to all those who are concerned with facts, not fancies.

So much rubbish has been written concerning Britain's pagan past and so many attempts have been made to destroy our justifiable pride in the very real achievement of our race that we welcome unreservedly one more book devoted to the purpose of informing our people of the glorious Christian heritage that was bequeathed to us in the first four centuries. Here the faith of Christ was firmly founded soon after the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord and here also the first Christian Church in all the world outside of Jerusalem was erected by the original disciple and followers of the Incarnate Word.

It is fashionable these days for our leaders in Church and State to make the pilgrimage to Rome to seek economic security and ecclesiastical unity, but this book reminds us very forcibly that in those early days, while the Roman Empire was still pagan, men braved the fury of the elements and the peril of the sword to journey to the Britannic Isles in order to proclaim the Gospel of love, light, and liberty, and then as the Heralds of the Cross to bear it from Glastonbury and Iona, Bangor and Lindisfarne, to the far places of the earth, for Britain, not Rome, was then the Lighthouse of Europe.

The author of this book, a Canadian of British birth, a man of many parts and varied talents, has put us in his debt by reminding us once again of our glorious privilege and solemn responsibility as God's servants and witnesses. He has obviously spent a great deal of time in travel and research in order to collect and collate the wealth of valuable material here presented to the reader. With a well-arranged bibliography, the book contains treasures both new and old and should without doubt appeal to all those who love and value the truth concerning our illustrious past. Observing all that God has wrought in the generations long ago, the reader will find faith strengthened and hope renewed for the future.

 CHAPTER 1

THE SCANDAL OF THE CROSS

NINETEEN hundred and (P.11) twenty-nine years ago last April, in the year A.D. 32, the most power-packed drama in the history of mankind was enacted when the Roman soldiery nailed Christ to the Cross, on the Hill of Golgotha. With this ignominious death specially reserved for the meanest criminals by the Romans, the powerful, fanatical Sadducean leaders of the Sanhedrin and the Roman Procurator of the Province of Palestine hoped they had rid them­ selves of the great disturbing religious influence which, by their acts, clearly indicated they recognized as a dangerous challenge to their authority.

From a material point of view, the supreme sacrifice of Jesus might have been the grand finale of His mission, ending in a futile gesture but for the existence of one man. This man, but fleetingly mentioned in the tragedy of the cross, passed out of scriptural mention under a mantle of mystery in the fateful year of A.D. 36. From that year onward secular history takes up the theme.

Ancient documents carefully preserved, and others recently recovered from the dusty, long-forgotten archives referring to that epochal year, record him as having been cast upon the seas with a few faithful companions by their remorseless enemies, in an open, oarless boat without sails, on an ebbing tide over which they drifted far from the shores of their shadowed Judean homeland, to which they were never to return.

In order to grasp the significant, historical importance of this particular person, and the considerable power he wielded, we must retrace our footsteps and examine more closely the soul-stirring events that began with the accursed kiss of Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane, to the aftermath of the Crucifixion. In doing so one cannot help but experience amazement at the revolting series of extra-legal actions that pursued the course from the arrest of Christ to His death, indicated by the bitter, bestial hatred of the corrupt ruling Priesthood of the Jewish Sanhedrin.

On that dark night in the torch-lightened garden, it did not need the pointing finger of Judas, or his betraying kiss, to identify Christ. Jesus 

((not listed) J. W. Taylor, The Coming of the Saints, pp. 126-127)

forestalled the traitor by calmly walking to meet the (P.12) guard, asking them if He was the one they sought. Undoubtedly, the soldiers knew Jesus by sight but the law required a civilian to make the identity in order for them to make the arrest.

For this historic act of treachery, Judas was paid thirty pieces of silver by the Sanhedrin to betray his Master. Contrary to popular belief the Roman guard did not make the arrest. It was executed by the priest's guard upon the authority of the Sanhedrin. The arrest was illegal. The Sanhedrin had not the authority to arrest a citizen. The power belonged exclusively to the Roman court which then ruled over Judea. It could only be carried out by the Roman guard on orders issued by Roman authority on a recognized complaint.

Jesus offered no resistance. Quietly He walked between the guards, who had feared to lay hands on Him, through the darkened streets to the Temple of the Sanhedrin where its legislative members had been called to an emergency session at midnight for the sole purpose of trying Christ before its priestly court. Here again, we note an extraordinary breach of the judicial process. Roman law did not permit court hearings to be held after sunset.1

(1 Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England.)

Even under an emergency measure no trial for life could be held after dark. Moreover, a trial for life was exclusively the prerogative of the Roman court, to be held only before the Roman Procurator. Yet we find Caiaphas, High Priest of the Sanhedrin, deliberately flaunting the all-powerful Roman authority in a trial for life as late as midnight.

Off-hand, one is apt to obtain the impression that the Jews were a powerful people whom the Roman authority feared sufficiently to extend to them certain legal extenuations.

This was far from being the case. The Jews were subjects of the Roman State and looked upon with the contempt and scorn a dictatorship reserves for its meanest vassals.

The extra-legal practices of Caiaphas reveal two forms of circum­stances which, even under casual investigation, appear quite evident.

It reveals the desperate position in which the Sanhedrin viewed the insecurity of their own situation by the popularity of Christ's teachings, or it indicates that Caiaphas possessed some damaging secret political knowledge whereby he dared to thwart retaliation by the Roman governor. 

Into the crowded assembly of the Sanhedrin, the tall, stately Christ (P.13) was led to face His arch-enemies, Caiaphas and his father­ in-law Annas who, as the reigning High Priests of Judaism, also represented the powerful, despotic Sadducean families, of which they were members. 

Never before, or since, has a court trial been charged with so much conflicting emotion. Hate, in all its seething virulence, spewed its evil venom upon the tense assemblage, a bale­ful challenge to any member who dared oppose the predetermined decision of the Sadducees. Malevolence was so potent that even at this late day one is readily convinced that any person who dared to stand for the defense of the prisoner must have known he was a doomed man.

Chapter I - Continued

Contrary to the common belief that Jesus was completely surrounded by enemies at that strange midnight trial, the light of recent findings proves it to have been very much otherwise.

That Jesus was encompassed by a vengeful, hostile group who sought His total extinction is substantiated, but the brilliant battle for the defense against the savage demands for destruction has, unfortunately, never been sufficiently reported. 

Today, we know the trial for life was fought out on the floor of the Sanhedrin with all the stormy violence of a bestial, prejudiced fury on one side and the granite uncompromising courage of the defense by men who knew that by the very act of their challenge, they had signed and sealed their own death warrant.1(1 cf. Gospel of Nicodemus, 5:6.)

At this late date, we who are Christians should bow our heads in reverent silence to the memory of that heroic group of de­fenders, unmentioned in history, who gave their all in a gallant attempt to save Christ from the agony of the cross.

The prosecution was led and conducted throughout by men whose vicious bigotry was all the more devastating by reason of their undeniable intelligence. Cruelly aided by Those who bore false witness, a more suitable prosecution could not have been chosen. 

Out of all this unreasonable prejudice, it staggers the imagination to realize the imagination of the man then blazing with hatred who led the violent persecution of the Christians, within the next few years would be blazing with the zeal of Christ. The Bible names him Saul of Tarsus, but posterity was to (P.14) remember him as the great Apostle to the Gentiles, St. Paul.

On this particular occasion, we see the opposition potent with prejudice, slashing at Christ with their verbal darts, subtly fanning the flame of antagonism against Him. On the other side, we see the (P.14) champions of the defense striking back with rapier swiftness. 

The history of the Trial, as it has come down to us, shows that the defense fought back with all the resolute heroism of fearless warriors, invincible in the courage of their firm convictions.The vindication of Christ must have been brilliant, a classic in legal annals, as proven by the amazing vote cast that night in the Sanhedrin. Dauntlessly, they carried their advocacy with an offen­sive vigor that overwhelmed the bigoted prosecution. 

Emotions became unleashed in a tempestuous foment of conflicting opinions. In this confusion, Caiaphas saw danger in his covert acts. Not to be thwarted, he cast prudence to the winds, causing a legal travesty that was not permitted in Jewish jurisprudence. He took the prosecution into his own hands, completely ignoring his prosecuting Counsel and the Counsel for the Accused. Probably for the first time in Jewish legal history, Caiaphas personally conducted a vindictive cross-examination of the Prisoner, after all the evidence had been presented and the testimony of the opposing witnesses broken down by the superb resistance to their evidence.

Throughout the proceedings, Jesus remained unperturbed, serene in His righteousness. He offered no defense to save Himself, on the grounds that that which is right needs no defense. He affirmed His status calmly before friend and foe, knowing beforehand He was destined to die.

The vote was cast and the triumphant defense was established. The amazing fact is that out of the seventy-one legislative members of the Sanhedrin, forty voted for the dismissal of the case and the freedom of Jesus.

This was not to be. Foiled within the Sanhedrin, Caiaphas played a trump card that he knew could not be vetoed. He demanded that Jesus be tried before Pontius Pilate, the Roman Procurator of the Roman Province of Palestine, on the charge of treason.

It must not be thought that the classic defense alone swayed the vote of the Sanhedrin. What it did do was pour courage into many hearts, inspiring them to stand by a religious conviction already instilled within them. Actually, for three years previous to this infamous trial by midnight, the Sanhedrin had been split on religious policy. 

Many had been heated debates within the assembly, with the Sadducees clinging to an emasculated Judean faith into which they had injected their own corrupt personal policy. These were the old ultra-conservatives led by Annas and Caiaphas. Ranged against them was the new Liberal Party who (P.15) had openly declared for the new spiritual order.

 They could not win. The dice were loaded against them. The Sadducees controlled the wealthy ruling power in Jewry, with the exception of a single individual whose influence was so great it stretched beyond the boundaries of Jewry into the high places of Roman administration2

 He is the man who at this stage of events quietly moves into the scene. He was the power behind the throne who backed up the exhortations of the Liberal Party in the Sanhedrin, and the man who stood behind the defense of Jesus with his resourceful support on that fateful night3(1(not listed) St. Joseph has the same word applied to him as to St. John the Evangelist-paranymphos - or attendant to the Blessed Virgin.’ - Rev. L. Smithett Lewis, St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury (quoting John of Glastonbury), p. 42; also The Magna Glastoniensis Tabula, at North Castle, refers to the Apostle John, then working in Ephesus, appointing St. Joseph of Arimathea as paranymphos.2

He is referred to as ‘nobilis decurio’ by Maelgwyn of Llandaff.3See Nicodemus 11:5, etc.)

The only man whom the Sadducees dared not oppose was Joseph, the uncle of Jesus, known scripturally and in secular history as Joseph of Arimathea.

To most people he is passingly remembered as the rich man who kindly offered his private sepulcher for the burial of Christ; the man who boldly claimed the body of Jesus from Pilate, who, with Nicodemus, took the body from the cross, providing the clean linens to make the shroud that enclosed the tortured, crucified form. In the scriptural record, at the most, he appears but a transitory figure at the trial and the crucifixion, seldom mentioned, and then with no evident stress of importance, silently passing out of the scriptural picture four years after the passion of Christ.

In our own time, Joseph of Arimathea is but slightly referred to, skimmed over as a person of little significance.Why he has been indifferently by-passed, along with historic events covering that epochal period is both perplexing and surpris­ing. The part he played in preserving The Word, and in paving the path for the proclamation of 'The Way' to the world, is as fascinating as it is inspiring. He was the protector of that valorous little band of disciples during the perilous years (P.16) following the crucifixion, the indefatigable head of the Christian underground in Judea, and the guardian of Christ's only earthly1 treasure - His mother.Startling as it may appear to most Christians, and particularly to the Anglo-American world, the dominant role he performed in laying the true cornerstone of our Christian way of life should thrill (P.16) our hearts with undying gratitude. His story is exclusively the story of Britain and, in consequence, America, and all Christian people wherever they may be.

In actuality, Joseph of Arimathea was the Apostle of Britain, the true Apostle first to set up Christ's standard on that sea-girt little isle, five hundred and sixty-two years before St. Augustine set foot on English soil. 

He, with twelve other disciples of Christ, erected in England the first Christian church above ground in the world, to the glory of God and His Son, Jesus Christ.

 CHAPTER II

THE NOBILIS DECURIO

Joseph of Arimathea (P.17) was a man of refinement, well-educated, and possessed many talents. He had extraordinary political and business ability and was reputed to be one of the wealthiest men in the world at that time. 

He was the Carnegie of his day, a metal magnate controlling the tin and lead industry which then was akin in importance to that of steel today.

Tin was the chief metal for the making of alloys and was in great demand by the warring Romans.

Many authorities claim that Joseph's world control of tin and lead was due to his vast holdings in the famous, ancient tin mines of Britain.1 

This interest he had acquired and developed many years before Jesus was baptized by His cousin, John the Baptist, and before He began His brief but glorious mission.

(1 See St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury, pp.31-32.)

The world's major portion of tin was mined in Cornwall, smelted into ingots, and exported throughout the then-known civilized world, chiefly in the ships of Joseph. 

He is reputed to have owned one of the largest private merchant shipping fleets afloat which traversed the world's sea lanes in the transportation of this precious metal.

The existence of the tin trade between Cornwall and Phoenicia is frequently referred to by classical writers and is described at considerable length by Diodorns Siculus as well as Julius Caesar.

In the Latin Vulgate of the Gospel of St. Mark 15:43, and St. Luke 23: 50, we find both referring to Joseph of Arimathea as 'Decurio'. 

This was the common term employed by the Romans to designate an official in charge of metal mines.

In St. Jerome's translation, Joseph's official title is given as 'Nobilis Decurio'. This would indicate that he held a prominent position in the Roman administration as a minister of mines. For a Jew to hold such high rank in the Roman State is rather surprising, and goes far to prove the remarkable characteristics of Joseph. 

We know he was an influential member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish religious body that ruled Roman Jewry, and a legislative member of a provincial Roman senate. His financial and social standing can well be estimated when we consider he owned a palatial home in the holy city and a fine country residence just outside Jerusalem.

Several (P.18) miles north of the ancient city he possessed another spacious estate at Arimathea, which is known today as Ramalleh. It was located on the populous caravan route between Nazareth and Jerusalem. Everything known of him points to him as affluent and as a person of importance and influence within both the Jewish and Roman hierarchies.

According to the Talmud, Joseph was the younger brother of the father of the Virgin Mary. He was her uncle, and therefore a great uncle to Jesus. Chiefly from the secular reports we claim that Joseph was a married man and his son, Josephs, left a mark of distinction in British history.

During the lifetime of Jesus there constantly appears reference to his association with a relative at Jerusalem. 

Profane history is more positive on the matter, identifying the connection with Joseph. As we study the old records we find there is a valid reason for the close association of Jesus and his family with Joseph. It is quite obvious that the husband of Mary died while Jesus was young. 

Under Jewish law, such a circumstance automatically appointed the next male kin of the husband, in this case, Joseph, the legal guardian of the family. 

This fact explains many things. History and tradition report Jesus, as a boy, frequently in the company of His uncle, particularly at the time of the religious feasts, and declares that Jesus made voyages to Britain with Joseph in his ships. 

Cornish traditions abound with this testimony and numerous ancient land­ marks bear Hebrew names recording these visits.

Even during the short period of the ministry of Jesus there is definitely shown to exist a close affinity between them, far greater than one would expect from an ordinary guardianship. It was fatherly, loyal, with a mutual affection death could not sever.

We know that Joseph never forsook his nephew. He stood by Him as a bold, fearless defender at the notorious trial, and defied the Sanhedrin by going to Pilate and boldly claiming the body when all others feared to do so. His arms were the first to cradle the broken corpse when taken from the cross and place it in the tomb. 

After death, he continued to protect the mutilated body of Jesus from the conspiring minds of the Sadducees. He risked his all, wealth, power, and position in Those crucial years fulfilling his obligation as guardian of Jesus and of the family of Mary. He loved Jesus dearly. 

The disciples spoke of Joseph with an affec­tionate regard. They wrote he was a 'just man', a 'good man', 'honorable', and a disciple of Jesus. 

The latter clearly indicates that through their association Joseph must have encouraged Jesus (P.19) in His great work and that he was aware of the mystery of his birth and probably His destiny. All evidence proves that Joseph believed in the validity of all Jesus taught and ultimately suffered for.1

(1 cf. Joseph’s testimony, Gospel of Nicodemus, 9:5-11.)

It is commonly taught that Jesus was poor and of obscure relatives. 

His relationship with the affluent Joseph of Arimathea proves otherwise. In His own right, He was a property owner but long before He took up His mission He forsook all material wealth.

It should be remembered that Jesus was a true lineal descendant of the Shepherd King, David, and of Seth, son of Adam, who was the son of Goel.

CHAPTER VI

THE GLORY IN THE NAME

After the Kimmerians (P.45) had settled in the Isles of the West they were known to the rest of the world by another name.

The name held no affinity with the racial title by which ancient ethnologists identified them. In many respects, the name was more of a sobriquet which they appeared willing to accept.

They became referred to as British. Why were they so named?

What was so different about the Kimmerii, or their way of life, that actuated other nations to christen them with this strange surname that was ever to identify them before the world, both ancient and modern, even to the subjection of their racial name?

Ancient chroniclers leave no doubt that it was the religious beliefs and customs of the Kimmerians that set them markedly apart from all other faiths. It was diametrically opposed to all other religions of that time. They believed in One Invisible God and the coming of a Messiah. They had no graven images, abhorring the sight of idols. They always worshipped in the open, facing the east. They had a passionate belief in the immortality of life, to such an extent that both friend and foe claimed this belief made them fearless warriors, disdainful of death. 1

The religious ritual that appeared to make the greatest impres­sion on the foreign historians was their custom of carrying a replica of the Ark of the Covenant before them in all religious observances, as did their forefathers in old Judea. For centuries, as the Kymri passed through foreign lands in migratory waves on their march to the Isles of the West, the chroniclers noted that this custom was never omitted.2

(1 Caesar on the Gauls; Aristotle on the Celts.

2. C. C. Dobson, The Ark of the Covenant.)

It was this ritual that gave birth to their British surname.

The name British is derived from the ancient Hebrew language, with which the old Cymric language was contemporaneous. Formed from two words,  'B'rith' means 'covenant', and 'ish' means a man or a woman. Joined as one word the meaning is apparent: 'British' means a 'covenant man or woman'. The ancient word ‘ain' 'Caesar on the Gauls; Aristotle on the Celts. 'C. C. Dobson, The Ark of the Covenant attached (46) to the word 'B'rith', signifies 'land', therefore the inter­ predation of the word 'Britain', as then and still employed, (P.46) is 'Covenant Land'.

Unknowingly, the ancients named the Keltoi rightly. They were, and still are, the original adherents of the Covenant Law. With the later adoption of Christianity, and the name Christian, a startling new interpretation presented itself. The 'Covenant People' became the 'Consecrated People', living in the 'Covenant Land'. This carries the implication that by the vicarious atonement, the British were consecrated in the Covenant Law and initiated to be the advance guard of Christianity, to evangelize the world in the name of Jesus Christ.

From a close study of their religious beliefs, everything points to the fact that the Kimmerians held fast to the patriarchal faith of the Old Testament. Many eminent scholars point out the great similarity between the ancient Hebrew patriarchal faith and the Druidic of Britain.

Sir Norman Lockyer, in Stonehenge and Other British Stone Monuments (p. 252), writes: 

'I confess I am amazed at the similarities we have come across.' Edward Davies, in MyThornlogy and Rites of the British Druids (Pref., p. 7), states: 'I must confess that I have not been the first in representing the Druidical as having had some connection with the patriarchal religion.'

Wm. Stukcley, in his book Abury (Pref., p. 1), affirms after a close study of the evidence: 'I plainly discerned the religion pro­fessed by the ancient Britons was the simple patriarchal faith.'

Earlier testimony also affirms this. Procopius of Caesarea, in his History of the Wars (A.D. 530), says: 'Jesus Taran, Bel - One only God. All Druids acknowledge One Lord God alone' (De Gothicis, bk. 3).

Julius Caesar wrote, in 54 B.C.: "The Druids make the immortality of the soul the basis of all their teaching, holding it to be the principal incentive and reason for a virtuous life' (Gallic War, VI, 14).

It is a curious fact that the British title was never conferred on their Keltic kinsmen in Gaul, Ireland, and Scotland. Historically the people of Gaul were even referred to as Gauls - Gallic and the land was known as Gaul-Gallica, and Galatia, until the coming of the Franks. It is believed that the Biblical version of the Epistle to the Galatians was addressed to the Gauls of Galatia.1 The inhabitants of Hibernia (Ireland) and Caledonia (P.46) (Scotland) retained

(1 Bishop Lightfoot on Galations.)  both their geographical (P.47) and original racial names. The peoples of what is now England and Wales actually never lost either. The land was always Britain and the inhabitants were documented as British Celts. The Irish perpetuated the name Kelt but the Scottish, while known to be Kelts, were called Gaels.

 One immediately recognized the similarity between the name Gaul and Gael - Gallic and Gaelic. Incidentally, the Gaels were the original inhabitants of Iberia. After centuries of domicile in Iberia, a large host migrated into Cale­donia (Scotland), making way for the constant flow of Kelts from the Continent, to Iberia (or Hibernia), who retained the Irish title. Even though this distinction in names has always persisted, the affinity between them was recognized. The islands were always referred to as the Brittanie Isles even in ancient times Not until the reign of James I when the Irish and Scottish began to be blended into a central Parliament, were the islands known as the British Isles and the United Kingdom. Of later date is the name Great Britain.

This may appear confusing to some who more commonly speak of the people of Britain as English and Welsh, and the race as Anglo-Saxon. The national name English was never shared, or employed to designate, the other inhabitants of the Isles. To this day they each retain their Celtic clan title of Welsh, Irish, and Scottish, in spite of the fact that they all shared the title of British citizens.

The name Britain continued to name England and Wales, long after the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in A.D. 426. Not until the invading Normans began to be domestically absorbed by the British Kelts and Saxons did the Anglican title obtain ascendancy. From the lesser-used name Angle, the national name took the form to label the land and its people, England. Strange as it may appear on First Thought, there are no misnomers in the various names and titles. Racially the Kelts, Anglo-Saxons, and Normans were but separate tribal branches of the same Keltic race. 

This also includes the Danes, who had invaded Britain in A.D. 787. Ethnologically the whole Keltic race is composed of the Keltic-Saxon-Scandinavian stock. Historically the arrival of the Danes, Saxons, and Normans is referred to as an invasion, but actually, it was a converging of one race into their predestined homeland, which to them and to the world became their Motherland, Britain. Together they have grown in stature, wearing the British title like a badge, in honor and with glory.

The fact that the British name was singularly identified with the people (P.48) of England and Wales is more curious than mysterious. As the history of ancient Britain unfolds before us we can understand the reason more clearly. Irrevocably they were bound together by the ties of language and religion. Cymric was their mother tongue and each practices the Druidic religion. Britain was the central headquarters of Druidism, to which all paid tithe. It was by far the most populous and by its commerce and industry was world-renowned. What London is to Great Britain today, Ottawa to Canada, and Washington to the United States, and so was Britain to the whole Keltic race. Largely, this was the reason for other nations identifying the British name with England. From the religious point of view, out of which the British name arose, this island was entitled by priority to the title. England was the first of the British Isles to be inhabited. 

Before the Kelts arrived it was a virgin land devoid of human habitation. It is claimed that the ·first settlers arrived c. 3000 B.C. Druidism was nationally organized under the capable leadership of Hu Gadam, circa I800 B.C., the period given for the erection of Stonehenge, which is also ascribed to Hu Gadarn. He was contemporaneous with Abraham. Like Abraham, Hu Gadam was the chief patriarch of the people, known as Hu the Mighty.

Looking back over the many centuries we see the deep significance of the aisle being named Britain and its people British. We see destiny motivating these people in their course; a greater will than their own subconsciously directing them to a predestined land where, as Jeremiah had prophesied, they would 'plant the seed'. The climax was reached with the arrival of Joseph of Arimathea and the Bethany group. From then on the meaning of the word Motherland became apparent. 

England is the only country in history to be naturally known as the Motherland. The long centuries had prepared it for its Christian destiny. From its womb, the Christian cause was born, cradled, and carried into the world.

We know that the Kelts were by commandment and custom not given to commit anything religious to writing. Neither were they permitted to build altars with the use of metal, or nails. They were the true people of the Biblical 'Stone Kingdom'.

A traditional custom that indelibly bound the Kelts with the old patriarchal faith was the building of altars wherever they rested on their trek to the Isles, a religious custom as marked as the carrying of the Ark of the Covenant before them. Today their passage across the world into the Isles can be clearly traced by the relics of the altars (P.49) they raised in stone, enduring memorials. to their great pilgrimage.

This custom outlasted the ritual of the Ark, which was abandoned with the acceptance of Jesus Christ. It lingers today and, as then, only among the Keltic-Saxon people. In our times the custom of erecting these memorials to some great historic event is chiefly practiced by the Scottish and the Canadians. They comprise pyramids of stones piled to a peak and are known as cairns. This is the Keltic name for the word used in the Bible, 'heaps', 'stones of witness'.

The first stone altar in the Biblical record was erected by Jacob, after his significant dream of the ascending ladder between heaven and earth, known to all Christians as Jacob's Ladder. He built it as a witness to his contact and covenant with God on that occasion. Even after the erection of such altars, or cairns, became a religious custom of the wandering Hebrews and Keltoi, as they passed through strange lands; a declaration and a witness to their belief and faith in the covenant with the One and Only Invisible God.

Despite the evolution of names that identified the people finally named British, the names have always been synonymous with their heritage and religion. The name Kymri originated from King Omri, the founder of Samaria, the capital of Israel. The Assyrians called their Israelite captives Beth-Omri, Beth Kymri, and the People of the Ghomri, after their king. The Greeks called them Kimmerioi. The Welsh are the only people today retaining the ancient title of the people of the Cymri.

In the British Museum can be seen the famous Black Obelisk of Shalrnaneser II. This important relic bears reference to the captivity and to all kings subject to the King of Assyria. Amongst these rulers so subject was Jehu, called the 'son of Omri', king of Israel. 

The obelisk is a series of twenty small reliefs with long inscriptions. The second relief depicts 'the son of Omri' on his knees, paying tribute in gold and silver in (P.49) obeisance to the Assyrian ruler. 1

(1 cf. A Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian Antiquities (British Museum), p. 46.)

 CHAPTER VII

GALLIC TESTIMONY

The religious (P.58) spirit of the Gaul diminished with the coming of the Franks but the fire never flickered in Britain. It flamed like a volcano, fiery in its evangelism and bursting forth fiercely at foreign interference. Even when resting., its complacency was deceptive as the Nazis found out in World War II. To strike at her Christian institutions and sacred edifices is to pierce her heart, causing her people to fight back with that invincible fury that has ever astonished the world, as it finally shattered her enemies.

Long before the arrival of the Bethany castaways at Marseilles, Guizot informs us that the south of France was known as the Provence Viennoise, populated by Gauls, Phoenicians, and Greeks, 'with the Gauls are most populous everywhere'. The significance of this is quite important. The Phoenicians and the Greeks had a long association with the south of France, particularly the Phoenicians, who were the leading mariners before the Grecian seafaring ascendancy. The ancient port of Marseilles was the chief port of call for both the comings and goings in the transportation of tin and lead from Britain. 

Over the centuries a common friendship had developed between them and the Gauls; consequently, 

it is understandable how Phoenician and Grecian colonies came to be founded in Gaul. Marseilles is reputed to be the oldest city in France and its oldest seaport. It was a port long before either settled there but it was the Greeks who developed the port to its peak of prominence and gave it the name it bears. However, we should never lose sight of the fact that the port had its first association with the biblical ships of Tarshish, commanded by the Danites, of the tribe of Dan. They were the first great sea power in history and the first to know intimately the inhabitants of Britain, and to trade with them. 

The Phoenicians and Greeks were very largely Danites. At the time of our story, the port of Marseilles was familiar with the ships of Joseph. To the Gallic populace, his name was well known as are the names of Carnegie, Schwab, and Bethlehem Steel to us today. Therefore, it can be well assumed that Joseph had many influential friends at Marseilles, who would gladly welcome him amongst them.

Among the (P.59) Gauls there existed a deep receptivity for the persecuted followers of 'The Way'. Between the Gauls and the Judean advocates of Christ, there (P.59) was mutual sympathy. The Gauls were Druidic, and their faith held sway over all Gaul, which explains more than anything else why the land was a safe haven for Joseph and the Bethany family, as well as the many other converts who had previously found refuge there, after a safe escape from Judea in the ships of Joseph.

Those who have been indoctrinated by the false stories describing the Druidic religion may pause in consternation. 

The malevolent infamy heaped upon the Druidic Priesthood, their religion, with the practice of human sacrifice, is just as untruthful, vicious, and vile as the other distortions stigmatizing the ancient Britons. On close examination, it will be found that Those who uttered the vindictive maledictions stand out in Roman history as the dictators of the Roman Triumvirate. Their bestial hatred for everything that was British and Christian deliberately promoted the insidious propa­ganda to defame the people they could neither coerce nor subdue. In our own time, among others, none other than the eminent archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie, on examination of the ground around and under the altar at Stonehenge, completely exploded the infamous accusations. 

He found only the fossilized bones of sheep and goats which more firmly established the affinity with the patriarchal faith of the East. In each case, the sacrificial burnt offerings were as stated in the biblical record.

The influence Druidism had upon the rest of the ancient world, and its peaceful and ready reception of the Christian faith, proves its noble structure. Hume, the high-ranking British historian acknowledged for his impartiality and the lack of bias in his reporting, wrote: 'No religion has ever swayed the minds of men like the Druidic.'

It prepared the way for Christianity by its solid acceptance of 'The Way'. But for Druidism Christianity might never have flourished. It drove the first nails into the Christian platform that held it fast through all its early stresses, giving it the vigor to endure for all posterity.

The Roman persecutors, despising Druidic opposition, intensified their malignancy with the British conversion to Christianity. The Emperors Augustus, Tiberius, and the Claudian and Diocletian decrees made acceptance of Druidic and Christian faith a capital offense, punishable by death. Some have claimed that this persecution by Rome drove both religions together to form the solid phalanx of (P.60) Christianity. This is far from being the case. It has been already pointed (P.60) out how the ancient Kymry were bonded in the ancient patriarchal faith even before they arrived in Britain. 

Organized by Hu Gadam (Hugh the Mighty) the faith took on the name of Druid, a word some claim derived from the Keltic word 'Dreus', meaning 'an oak', arising out of the custom of worshipping in the open within the famous oak groves of the island. A more likely derivation is from 'Druthin' - a 'Senrant of Truth'. The motto of the Druids was 'The Truth against the World.' A casual study of the Triads emphasized the old Hebrew faith with positive clari­fication. The British Mother Druidic Church continued to teach the immortality of the soul, the omniscience of One God, and the coming of the Messiah. They were aware of the prophesied vicarious atonement and, extraordinary as it may seem, the actual name of Jesus was familiar to them long before the advent of Christ. 

They were the only people to know it and say it, a fact that has astounded students of theology. From this, it can clearly be seen that there existed a mutual understanding between the Druid and the converted Judean on religious principles that readily opened the door to general acceptance of 'The Way'. From this, we can believe it was no accident whereby the refugee followers of 'The Way' found a natural haven in Gaul, and their apostolic leaders a safer sanctuary in Britain. At that period in history, Britain was the only free country in the world. Gaul had received its baptism of Roman persecution long before the Caesars turned their atten­tion upon the British. 

It was the constant aid given to the Gaulish brethren by the warriors of Britain which brought about the invasion of the Isles. The first attack, led by Julius Caesar, in 55 B.C., was purely a punitive expedition against the Britons for thwarting his arms in Gaul. Contrary to the general opinion that Caesar's attack was a conquest, it was a dismal failure. Within two weeks his forces were routed and pulled back into Gaul. On his return to Rome Caesar was openly ridiculed by Pompey's Party in the Triumvirate. His famous legend, 'Veni, Vidi, Vici' ('I came, I saw, I conquered') was satirized by the pens of the Roman elite. 

They ·wrote in rebuke, 'I came, I saw, but failed to stay.' Over the ten years that followed, to 43 B.C., the mightiest armed forces of Rome, led by its ablest generals, fought to establish a foothold in Britain. In this, Caesar failed to penetrate farther than a few miles inland.

It was not until the reign of Hadrian, A.D. 120, that Britain was incorporated (by treaty- not conquest) within the Roman dom­inions, as described by Spartans in Vita Hadriani. By this treaty the Britons retained their kings, (P.61) lands, laws, and rights, accepting a Roman nucleus of the army for the defense of the realm.

Surely no one can misconstrue this conquest or support the belief the naked barbarians could defy and defeat the Roman legions, during the thousand years led by its Emperors and greatest generals.

The invasions were repelled by the famed British Pendragon, Caswallen, who reigned for seven years after the invasion.

For Gaul, it was not to last. They lacked the security of the seas which protected the British Isles. Unhappily Gaul, later to be known as France, was destined to be the world crossroads of con­tinental invasion, and on its soil, up to our own time, some of the bloodiest battles in all history have been fought. Until the coming of the Franks, the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, and the Gauls for centuries w re to carry on the great evangelizing work of Christianity, laying the foundation of the Church by the great leaders who stemmed from Britain, with carefully formed plans. 

It was to be immortalized with the presence and great work of Philip, Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, and the other Marys, each of whom left an enduring mark in the name of their Saviour. 1 As the story of Joseph 

(1 cf. J. W. Taylor, The Coming of the Saints.) . of Arimathea is brought forth to the light of day, so are thousands, who labored under his instruction, lifted out of the obscure darkness of the past to thrill us with their devotion and sacrifice.

The record shows that Joseph frequently journeyed to Gaul to confer with the disciples, particularly with Philip, who had arrived at Marseilles ahead of Joseph and was awaiting him and the Bethany family.

It must not be forgotten that Joseph, by his tin mining, interests in Cornwall and Devon, had a long association with the British. Consequently, the comings and goings of his ships most certainly would have kept the British up to date with world happenings and also with Gaul.'

Long before Joseph arrived in Britain, the scandal of the cross was known to them and had become a cause of grave concern to the Druidic Church. By similarity of patriarchal faith and know­ ledge of prophecy, the Druidic prelates recognized in the death of Christ the fulfillment of prophecy. The swiftness with which the Druidic delegates journeyed to Gaul to meet Joseph shows how concerned they were to obtain first-hand information. Contrary to the fallacious story of later historians, there was no argument civil or religious, and no bloodshed. It was an open acceptance that elected (‘cf. J. W. Taylor, The Coming of the Saints.) Joseph of Arimathea to (P.62) the head of the Christ-converted British Church.

From then on the Druidic name and the old religion in Britain and Gaul began to be superseded by the Christian name, which the British created to identify the accepted Christ faith, formerly known as 'The Way'.

The miraculous safe arrival of Joseph and his companions at

Marseilles, and thence to Britain, surely was the Will of God working out His inscrutable purpose gradually to fulfill the pro­phetic words of Jesus, to come to the lost sheep of Israel. From that time commenced the organization of the Christian clan, the marshaling of their forces into determined action. 

Thus began the epochal drama that was to change imperial destiny and lead the peoples of the world to a better way of life. Yet, before this was to be fully achieved, millions were to wade their way through an unbelievable tragedy, defying tyranny in its basest and most terri­fying form, wholesale massacre and fiendish torture, suffering the brutalities of the Colosseum, the horrors of the fetid prison of the Mamertine, and the dreadful scourging wars in which the British were to make the most colossal sacrifice in blood and life known to history.

 CHAPTER VIII

ST. PHILIP CONSECRATES JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA IN FRANCE

This is not (P.63) difficult to visualize the joyous meeting that took place between old, tried, and trusted friends when the Bethany group arrived at Marseilles. Every record scrutinized points to the closeness that banded the disciples and followers of 'The Way' to Joseph. In him they possessed an intelligent, intrepid leader, a born organizer with the cold, calm reasoning of the shrewd, successful business mind; truly a much-needed asset to guide them in those crucial years.

 Throughout his lifetime he was to continue to be their salvation against the new and rising storm of Roman persecution that was soon to be loosed upon all followers of 'The Way', with a murderous fury that overshadows the brutalities of Hitler and Stalin. He was to be the means of raising the first Christian army to battle for Christ on the shores and fields of Britain that sent the bestial Romans reeling on their heels.

Joseph was ever the unseen power behind the throne, as he had been on that black night in the Sanhedrin and the following four years in Judea. All rallied around him eager to begin proclaiming the Word to the world.

How many of the disciples were with him during his short stay in Gaul it is difficult to say. It is amazing how nonchalantly the records deal with this important matter. Various existing records agree in part with the Baronius record, 1 naming among the occu­pants of the castaway boat Mary Magdalene, Martha,

(1 Annals Ecclesiastici, vol. 1, p. 327, quoting Acts of Magdalen and others manuscripts.). the hand­ maiden Marcella, Lazarus whom Jesus raised from the dead, and Maximin the man whose sight Jesus restored. 

Then non-committally the report read, 'and others'. Other records state that Philip and James accompanied Joseph. Others report that Mary, the wife of Cleopas, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, were occupants of the boat. That there were many congregated at this time is obvious by the manner in which the various names appear in the early Gallic church records. It is well known that a great number of converts had preceded Joseph to Marseilles. Banded together they formed a (‘Annales Ecclesiastici, vol. 1, p. 327, quoting Acts of Maidalen and other manuscripts.) godly (P.64) company of eager, enthusiastic workers in the Christian vineyard.

Philip, one of the original twelve Apostles, was certainly present. There is a wealth of uncontroversial testimony asserting his commission in Gaul, all of which alike state that he received and consecrated Joseph, preparatory to his embarkation and appointment as the Apostle to Britain.

Some have misconstrued this act of consecration as an act of conversion to the Christ Way of Life, chiefly because Joseph's name is not mentioned as being one of the seventy elected by Jesus on His second appearance. In fact, few names are mentioned, and none of the latter one hundred and twenty. They overlook the facts of the biblical record which states that during the last tragic days of Jesus, the Apostles at Jerusalem referred to Joseph being a disciple of Christ. 

This pronouncement antedates the enlistment of the two later elected groups of disciples; therefore it was not necessary for Joseph to be named among them. His devotion to Jesus, and the apostolic reference shows that he was one of the early disciples of Christ.

In order to be properly ordained to an apostolic appointment it was necessary for the consecration to be performed by the laying on of hands by one of the original Apostles. Strange as it may seem, thrice within thirty years Philip performs this special consecration for Joseph, the third time for a very peculiar reason that will be related in its order.

St. Philip is referred to in the early Gallic church as the Apostle of Gaul. Undoubtedly he was the first acknowledged Apostle to Gaul but, as we shall later see, the unceasing evangelizing effort in Gaul stemmed from Britain, with Lazarus, in particular, dominating the Gallic scene during his short lifetime.1 Due to Philip's apostolic authority it might be more

(1. W. Taylor, The Coming of the Saints, pp. 238-240.)

 correctly said that while in Gaul he was the accepted head of the Gallic Christian Church.

The biblical and secular records show that he did not remain constantly in Gaul. There is frequent record of his being in other lands, in the company of other Apostles and disciples. Scriptural literature ceases to mention him circa A.D. 60. Evidently he returned to Gaul at various intervals. Many of the early writers particularly report Philip being in Gaul A.D. 65, emphasizing the fact that it was in this year that he consecrated Joseph, for the third time. Philip did not die in Gaul nor were his martyred remains buried (J.W. Taylor, The Coming of the Saints, pp. 238-240.) there. 

He was (P.65) crucified at Hierapolis at an advanced age. Two notable church authorities report his death.

Isidore, Archbishop of Seville, A.D. 600-636, in his Historia, writes:

'Philip of the city Bethsaida, whence also came Peter, preached Christ to the Gauls, and brought barbarous and neighboring nations, seated in darkness and close to the swelling ocean to the light of knowledge and port of faith. Afterward, he was stoned and crucified and died in Hierapolis, a city of Phrygia, and having been buried with his corpse upright along with his daughters rests there.'

The Dictionary of Christian Biography refers to Isidore as undoubtedly the greatest man of his time in the Church of Spain. A voluminous writer of great learning.'

The eminent Cardinal Baronius, in his Ecclesiastical Annals, Writes: 

’Philip the fifth in order is said to have adorned Upper Asia with the Gospel, and at length at Hierapolis at the age of 87 to have undergone martyrdom, which also John Chrysostom hands down, and they say that the same man traveled over part of Scythia, and for some time preaching the Gospel along with Bartholomew. In Isidore, one reads that Philip even imbued the Gauls with the Christian faith, which also in the Breviary of Toledo of the school of Isidore is read.'

Julian, Archbishop of Toledo, A.D. 680-690, whom Dr. William Smith in his biographical work states was 'the last eminent Church­ man of West Gothic Spain, and next to Isidore of Seville, perhaps the most eminent', along with the Venerable Bede, A.D. 673, declare that Philip was assigned to Gaul. The talented Archbishop Ussher also asserts: 'St. Philip preached Christ to the Gauls.' Further testimony is found in the MS. Martyrology of Hieronymus.

Finally, to substantiate Philip's mission and presence in Gaul, I quote, Freculphus, Bishop of Lisieux, France, A.D. 825-851 :

'Philip of the City of Bethsaida whence also came Peter, of whom in the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles praiseworthy mention is often made, whose daughters also were outstanding prophetesses, and of wonderful sanctity and perpetual virginity, as ecclesiastical history narrates, preached Christ to the Gauls.'

At this time it is quite in place to discuss the recently revived belief that the Epistle to the Galatians was addressed, as the ancient (P.66) writers claim, to the inhabitants of Gaul, and not the small colony of Gauls in Asia, particularly since the testimony is related by various authoritative writers discussing Philip's mission in Gaul in the same breath. This evidence is quite important to consider, substantiating the great Christian evangelizing effort in Gaul and supporting the mass of evidence associating Britain with Gaul in those dramatic years.

Cardinal Baronius writes :

'We have said in our notes to the Roman Martyrology that, "to the Galatians" must be corrected in the place of "to the Gauls".'

St. Epiphanius, A.D. 315-407, wrote:

'The ministry of the divine word having been entrusted to St. Luke, he exercised it by passing into Dalmatia, into Gaul, into Italy, into Macedonia, but principally into Gaul, so that St. Paul assures him in his epistles about some of his disciples - "Crescens", said he, "is in Gaul.'' 

It must not be read in Galatia as some have falsely thought but in Gaul. 1

Pere Longueval remarks that this sentiment was so general in the East that Theodoret, who read 'in Galatia', did not fail to under­ stand 'Gaul' because as a matter of fact the Greeks gave this name to Gaul, and the Galatians had only thus been named because they were a colony of Gauls (Memoire de l' Apostolat de St. Mansuet (vide p. 83), par l'Abbe Guillaume, p. II).

No better authority may be quoted in discussing this matter than the learned Rev. Lional Smithett Lewis, M.A., late Vicar of Glastonbury, considered the foremost church historian of our times.

The Rev. Lewis writes: 2

(1 “Crescens to Galatia”; 2 Timothy 4:10.

2 Lewis, St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury, pp. 75-76.)

'Perhaps it may be permitted to point out that Edouard de Bazelaire supports this view of Crescens being in Gaul, and not in Galatia. He traces St. Paul about the year 63 along the Aurelian Way from Rome to Arles in France (Predication du Christianisme dans les Gaules, t. IX, p. 198). 

He names his three companions: St. Luke who had just written the Acts, Tropbimus whom he left at Aries, and Crescens whom he had sent to Vienne (Gaul).' He quotes de Bazelaire who goes on to say, 'On his return he retook Trophimus with him and was not able to keep him as far as Rome, for he wrote (St. Paul) from there to Timothy, "Hasten and come (1 "Cresccns to Galatia"; 2 Timothy 4: to. Lewis, St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury, pp. 75-76.) and join me as soon (P.67) as possible. Crescens is in the Gauls. I have; left Trophimus sick at Millet (Miletus).'' The Abbe Maxime Latou, referring to Trophimus being in Gaul says, "In 417 the Pope Zommus recognized in the Church of Arles the right of being Metropolitan over all the district of Narbonne because Trophimus its first Bishop had been for the Gauls the source of life whence flowed the streams of faith.'

The Rev. Lewis also states,   'All this goes to prove that Gaul was known as Galatia, and their chronicling St. Paul's and his companions' journey does not in the least mean that they deny St. Philip's. 

For the same reason M. Edouard de Bazelaire quotes 

M. Chateaubriand as saying, "Peter sent missionaries into Italy, in the Gauls, and on the coast of Africa." The part that St. Peter played is duly emphasized by many illustrious Roman historians, and without St. Peter in the least exercising any primacy this ardent and potent man might well have influenced his compatriot from Bethsaida (St. Philip).'

'It is quite important to know that the Churches of Vienne and Mayence in Gaul claim Crescens as their founder. This goes far to corroborate that Galatia in II Timothy iv, 10, means Gaul, and not its colony Galatia in Asia, and that Isidore meant to say that St. Philip preached to the Gauls, and not to the Gala­tians of Asia.'

'We have seen that the "Recognitions of Clement" (2nd Century) stated that St. Clement of Rome, going to Caesarca, found St. Joseph of Arimathea there with St. Peter, Lazams, the Holy Women and others, a quite likely place for the start of the voyage of St. Joseph and the Bethany Family and others to Marseilles. Caesarea was the home of St. Philip in the Bible story. 

Afterward, tradition, supported by secular records, brings him to France, whence he sent St. Joseph to Britain. William of Malmesbury, quoting Freculphus, calls Joseph St. Philip's "dearest friend". They must have been in close association. Tradition brings the Holy Women and St. Joseph to France. All the way up the Rhone Valley, as we have seen, from Mar­seilles to Morlaix, we find constant memories of the occupants of that boat without oars and sails. From Morlaix in Brittany, it is a short step to Cornwall in Britain. The route from Marseilles must have been known well to Joseph. It was that of his fellow traders, seeking ore. From Cornwall, an ancient road leading to the mines of Mendip, remains of which exist. A vigorous reception of St. Joseph suggests a very possible previous acquaintance.

Testimony from (P.68) the Early Fathers and varied branches of the Church shows that the Church was here in earliest days.'

In discussing reference to the Gauls of France and the Gauls of Asia, Archbishop Ussher sternly rebukes contemporaneous writers for creating the misunderstanding through their inaptitude to examine the ancient documents and compare the records. As we have seen from the few quotations provided, apostolic reference is indicated to the Gauls of France, and not the Gauls of Asia. 

The presence of St. Philip is established in Gaul and as his first allotted mission. Other Apostles are mentioned working in Gaul, some of whom we shall see journeyed with Joseph of Arimathea to Britain. St. Clement throws historic light on the illustrious gather­ ing at Caesarea, about the time of this exodus, which tends to support the statement by many that Philip, as the dearest friend of Joseph, with James, was an occupant in the castaway boat along with the Holy Women and others. 

It is on record that St. Philip baptized Josephes,1 the son of Joseph, and later, when Joseph re­visited Gaul, Philip sent Josephes to Britain with his father and ten other disciples. Evidently, the Saints arrived in Britain in groups. It is ultimately stated that one hundred and sixty had been sent to Britain at various intervals by St. Philip to serve Joseph in his evangelizing mission. 2

(1 Magna Blastoniensis Tabula.

2 From early manuscript quoted by John of Glastonbury, William of Malmesburg and Capgrave.)

Joseph did not linger long in Gaul. 

A British Druidic delegation of Bishops arrived at Marseilles to greet him and extend an enthu­siastic invitation to Joseph, urging him to return to Britain with them and there teach the Christ Gospel. This magnanimous invi­tation was enlarged upon by the Druidic emissaries of the British Prince Arviragus, offering Joseph lands, a safe haven, and protection against Roman molestation. Arviragus was Prince of the noble Silures of Britain, in the Dukedom of Cornwall. He was the son of King Ounobelinus, the Cymbeline of Shakespeare, and cousin to the renowned British warrior-patriot, Caradoc, whom the Romans named Caractacus. Together they represented the Royal Silurian dynasty, the most powerful warrior kingdom in Britain, from whom the Tudor kings and queens of England had their descent.

The invitation was gladly accepted and Joseph made ready to embark for Britain, with his specially elected companions imme­diately after his dearest friend, St. Philip, had performed the 'Magna Glastoniensis Tabula. (From early manuscript quoted by John of Glastonbury, William of Malmcs­ bury, and Capgrave.) (P.69) consecration (69) in the year A.D. 36. From then on Joseph of Arimathea becomes known in history as 'the Apostle to Britain'.

Undoubtedly Joseph was attracted to the Sacred Isle for other reasons apart from welcoming the opportunity of proclaiming 'The Way' to the British populace. We are informed that Arviragus and Joseph were well known to each other long prior to the invitation; consequently, we can well believe he had acquired many influential friends in the south of Britain during the years he had administered his mining interests in Cornwall and Devon. He would be as well known to the common folk as he was to the aristocracy. In one sense it would be a homecoming to the uncle of Jesus. On the other hand, the land held for him many tender memories which he would hold most precious.

In the traditions of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Wiltshire, and Wales, it has ever been believed and definitely claimed, that Jesus as a boy accompanied His uncle to Britain on at least one of his many seafaring trips; then later, as a young man. During Those silent years preceding His ministry, it is avowed that Jesus, after leaving India, journeyed to Britain and there founded a retreat, building a wattle altar to the glory of God.

The ancient wise men of India assert that He had dwelt among them. It is mentioned in the Vishnu Purana that Jesus had visited the Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal. Moreover, the religious teachers of India were familiar with the Isles of Britain. Wilford states that the books of old India describe them as 'The Sacred Isles of the West'. One of the books refers to 'Britashtan, the seat of religious learning'. They employed the term used by Isaiah and others: 'Isles of the West', and 'Isles of the Sea.' The British Isles are the only islands lying to the far west of Palestine.

Centuries after Joseph's time, St. Augustine confirms the tradi­tion of the wattle altar built by Jesus in a letter to the Pope, 1 stating that 

(1 Epistle ad Gregoriam Papam.)

the altar then existed. Consequently, we can believe the records in the ancient Triads that the altar was standing when Joseph, with his twelve companions, arrived in Britain. We can well understand why Joseph made this sacred spot his destination, settling by its site, and there building the first Christian church above ground in all the world, to the glory of God in the name of Jesus and con­tinuing the dedication to Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Who were the twelve companions of Joseph that embarked with him from Gaul to Britain? This is a question one may ask with eager interest. It holds a ‘ (Epistle ad Gregorian Papam.) fascination (P.70) all of its own which becomes exciting as we ponder over the names of the men and women so closely associated with Jesus during His earthly ministry. Our interest is increased as we realize that all of them are lost to the Biblical record following the Exodus of A.D. 36. Truly they are the lost disciples destined to write Christian history with their lives in letters of blood, fire, and gold.

Because the personalities of Peter, Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John so greatly dominate the scriptural spotlight and illumine the historic scene, one cannot help but feel thrilled as we meet again the beloved of Christ, long lost to the sacred record and, of all places, on the shores of the Sacred Isle- historic Christian Britain.

Here is the list of them, the Champions of Christ as selected by St. Philip and St. Joseph, following the latter's consecration in Gaul.

Cardinal Baronius in his great work, quotes from Mistral, in Mireio, and another ancient document in the Vatican Library. He names them one by one, and by the names all Christians know them best.

St. Mary, wife of Cleopas St. Mary Magdalene

St. Martha Marcella, the Bethany sisters’ maid

St. Lazarus St. Maximin

St. Eutropious St. Martial

St. Salome St. Trophimus

St. Clean St. Sidonius (Restitutus)

St. Saturninus St. Joseph of Arimathea

All the records refer to Joseph and their twelve companions. Here are listed fourteen, including Joseph. Marcella, the handmaiden to the Holy women, is the only one not bearing the title Saint, conse­quently she is not considered as one of the missionary band. Probably Marcella went along in her old capacity of handmaiden to the Bethany sisters. Many other writers insist there was another member of this party not recorded in the Mistral report - Mary, the mother of Jesus. Along with tradition, a great deal of extant documentary testimony substantiates the presence of the Christ Mother being with Joseph, he having been appointed by St. John as 'para-nymphos' to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Being 'paranymphos' she had to be with him, and we know Mary remained in Joseph's safekeeping until her death.

What tender memories these illustrious names conjure in the mind!

What (P.71) tales of tragic experiences they brought with them relate to the sympathetic Druidic Priesthood! Here were the people most closely associated with Jesus in the drama of the cross: Joseph, the fearless, tender guardian who embraced the torn body in his arms; the suffering mother whom John led away from the final agony; the women who had dis­ covered the deserted tomb; Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead to walk out of the sepulcher into the Glory and follow Christ; and Restitutus, now known as St. Sidonius, whom eyes had never seen the light of day until Jesus touched them whose first vision was the Light of the World.

Is there any wonder that the little isle of Britain became commonly spoken of as 'the most hallowed ground on earth,' 'The Sacred Isle', and 'The Motherland’?

 CHAPTER IX

JOSEPH BECOMES THE APOSTLE OF BRITAIN ARRIVES ON THE SACRED ISLE OF AVALON

Taking their (P.72) farewell of Philip and the faithful in Gaul, Joseph and the Bethany group of missionaries set sail for Britain in company with the Druidic delegation. Reaching its shores the illustrious band sailed up the waterway of the west, the Severn Sea, until they came within sight of a lofty green hill, as Dean Alford writes, 'most like to Tabor's Holy Mount', known to this day as Glastonbury Tor. They made their way up the estuary of the Brue and the Parrot, arriving at a cluster of islands about twelve miles inland from the coast. The most inspiring of these was the

'Sacred Isle of Avalon', its shores sheltered in apple orchards.

The isle derived its name from Aval, Celtic for Apple, which is the sacred fruit of the Druids, the emblem of fertility. Thus its name applied a special symbolic significance to the spot destined to become the Mecca of Christendom.

This was the manner of the arrival of the Saints in Britain. 

On this fruitful Isle of Avalon Joseph of Arimathea and his dedicated companions were met by another assemblage of the friendly British Druidic Priesthood, King Guiderius and his brother Arviragus, Prince of the royal Silures of Britain, and an entourage of nobles. The first act of Arviragus was to present to Joseph, as a perpetual gift, free of tax, twelve hides of land, a hide for each disciple, each hide representing 1 60 acres, a sum total of 1,920 acres.

This was the first charter given to any land to be dedicated in the name of Jesus Christ, defining them as the Hallowed Acres of Christendom, A.D. 36. It was the first of many charters this historic sacred spot was to receive, during its sacred existence, from the kings and queens of Britain. We find these charters officially re­ corded in the British Royal archives; many are extant today, and over one thousand years later we find in remarkable detail record of the original charter embodied in the Domesday Book, on recognition of William I, the first Norman king of England, A.D. 1066. Throughout the reigns of the British sovereigns these charters were the (P.73) means of settling state, political and religious disputes in refusing to recognize Papal authority,1 proclaiming Britain's seniority to unbroken apostolic succession through its Bishops, dating from St. Joseph, (P.73) the Apostle to Britain, appointed and con­secrated by the Apostle St. Philip and, as we shall see, on orders arising from St. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles. Incidentally, the British claim of seniority was never denied by the Vatican Popes and was affirmed by Papal statements as late as 1936.

With the chartered gift of land to the Josephian Mission, Arviragus promised his protection. With his brother, he led the first army in battle against Roman Christian persecution as Defender of the Faith, A.D. 43. King Lucius, A.D. 156, grandson of Arvira­gus, who renewed and enlarged the charter, was baptized many years earlier at Winchester by St. Timotheus 2 his uncle, who then proclaimed him 'Defender of the Faith’ At this time Roman Catholicism was not founded. 

 It remained for the intrepid Queen Elizabeth, lineal descendant of Arviragus, to make the world­ shaking declaration for the Reformation, when challenging the threats of the combined forces of France, Spain, and Rome, by Pope Pius V, A.D. 1570, to subject Britain to Roman Catholicism. In her famous address from the throne, she rebuked and denounced Papal authority. Alluding to the charters, she pronounced Britain's priority in the Christian Church. She made it a royal decree for the sovereigns of England on their coronation officially to take oath as the 'Defender of the Faith'3 

(1 Ussher, Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates, ch.2.

2 Morgan, St. Paul in Britain, p. 182. 

3 The title was conferred on Henry VIII and confirmed by Parliament in 1544.)

Personally, she declared, as her ancient ancestors had done, that only Christ was the Head of the Church. Ever since, their coronation, the sovereigns of Britain have taken this oath, as did the present Queen of the British Commonwealth, Elizabeth II, on her accession to the British Throne, A.D. 1953. On this occasion, the Roman Catholic Church petitioned for this oath to be omitted. It was stoutly refused, stating the British Kingdom was the Defender of the true Christian Cause with Christ at its Head.

It is stated that following their disembarkation the travelers made their way up the hill where it is reputed that Joseph, weary from his travel, stopped to rest, thrusting his staff (P.74) into the ground. Tradition tells us that the staff became part of the earth, taking root, and in time blossoming. Historically it is known as the 'Holy Thorn'. From ancient times it is referred to as a phenomenon of (nature, being the only Thorn tree in the world to bloom at Christ­mas time and in May. It endured throughout the centuries as a perpetual, living monument to the landing of Britain's Saintly Disciples of Christ, and a reminder of the birth of Jesus in  far-away Bethlehem.

To this day this spot bears the name it received in Joseph's time 'Weary All Hill'.

For centuries the (P.74) phenomenon of the blooming Thorn was looked upon as a miracle by the early devout Christians of Britain and, as one could expect, the Holy Thorn provided a critical opportunity to the nineteenth-century scoffers. Modem science shows their ignor­ance. Tree experts affirm it is not only possible but a natural process, under favorable conditions, for such staff formed from the limb of a tree to take root and develop into a live, thriving tree. The strange blooming propensity of the Thorn tree at Christ­mas as well as in May is something different, but one we can accept as an Act of God to remind us of the fulfillment of Divine prophecy.

The Holy Thorn continued to be world-famous for its strange blossoming habit until the regime of Oliver Cromwell, A.D. 1649-60. During these years it was cut down by a fanatical Puritan when the Cromwellian desecration of holy places by his blind, bigoted followers was in operation. But the sacred phenomenon did not die. 

Its scion, already planted, lived to thrive and bloom as had the mother Thorn tree. It can be seen today, a healthy, fertile tree, blooming gloriously at the same appointed seasons, in the hallowed churchyard of St. John, at Glastonbury, where the noble ruins of the Mother Church of Christendom stand. Nowhere in the world is there another similar tree enacting the same blossoming phe­nomenon. Its lovely snow-white petals spread out like a beacon in the midst of dead nature, its immaculate beauty looking skyward and mutely proclaiming that God still reigns in the heavens. Other shoots taken from this tree, and grafted to wild stock, bloom in the same manner.

Within a mile of the Sacred Isle of Avalon was another smaller island known as Inis Wytren, or Glass Island, a name some claim derived from the pure glassy waters that once surrounded it. Archaeologists provide the more probable answer. Excavations have revealed that it was once a busy site of the glass industry for which the ancient Britons were famous. Later the Saxons named it Glastonbury, by which name it has continued to be known. During the Saxon period, the famed Isles ceased to exist. 

The monks drained (P.75) the land, making where the islands once stood a dry plain, Though it is yet below water level and swampy in wet weather.

Today as you wander (P.75) among the noble ruins of the glorious old Abbey, you cannot escape the feeling of entrancement that touches your heart as you realize you are standing in the center of the hallowed twelve hides of land which the Silurian prince deeded to St. Joseph and his twelve companions. 

The beauty of the scene in this quiet little English town of Glastonbury, encircled by verdant meadows, all part of the dedicated 1920 acres of Christendom, makes it difficult to get down to reality and comprehend the fact that one is walking on the same holy ground on which they trod; where they communed together, including Mary, the mother of Jesus; the beautiful Mary Magdalene; the Bethany sisters whom Christ loved; their brother Lazarus; Peter and Paul, Philip and James, Trophimus, Mary Cleopas and Mary Salome, Aristobulus, the father-in-law of Peter, and Simon Zelotes, among a multitude of others, and where tradition asserts that Jesus built His wattle chapel, where He talked with God. 

Here countless pilgrims from all parts of the world made their vows. Here illustrious converts were confirmed and went forth into the world to preach the Word and die gruesome deaths for the Christian cause. Here, for over a thousand years, mighty kings bowed in reverence and were buried with the elect in Christ, within God's Acre. 

You see embedded in the walls the ancient weather-worn stone which has mystified so many, causing centuries of controversy, mutely bearing the two sacred names, 'Jesus - Maria',: first hewn and placed within the outer wall of the original stone church by the hands of the faithful Saints. You see the ruined Altar of St. Joseph of Arimathea and just across the way the ancient cemetery which contains more famous characters and more dramatic history than all the cemeteries in the world put together.

These magnificent ruins of Glastonbury Abbey are the remains of the beautiful church erected over the very spot where the uncle of Jesus and our Lord's own disciples built their first altar in a church of wattle, thatched with reed, as was the custom of that time. This was the first Christian Church erected above ground to the glory of God and His Son Jesus, dedicated to the Blessed Mary, His mother.

Wattle was the common building material of the ancient Britons, used in the construction of their homes, just as cabins of log and mud and houses of sod were commonly built in the colonizing years of America and Canada. Therefore Joseph and his companions, in (P.76) building the First Church of Christ of Wattle, did not employ unusual or inferior materials for the purpose, but only that which was then of the common order. We (P.76) find proof of this in the book The Church in These Islands before Augustine, written by the Rev. G. F. Brown, a former Bishop of Bristol. Herein the Rev. Brown refers to the excavations of Arthur Bulleid, L.R.C.P., F.S.A., at Godney Marsh, in 1892 :

'This wattle church survived till after the Norman invasion when it was burned by accident. Wattle work is very perishable material and of all things of the kind, the least likely would seem to be that we in the nineteenth century should, in confirmation of the story, discover at Glastonbury an almost endless amount of British wattle work. Yet this is exactly what happened. 

In the low ground, now occupying the place of the impenetrable marshes which gave the name of the Isle of Avalon to the higher ground, the eye of the local antiquary had long marked a mass of dome-shaped hillocks, some of them of very considerable diameter, and about seventy in number, clustered together in what is now a large field, a mile and a quarter from Glastonbury. Peat had formed itself in the long course of time, and its pre­servative qualities had kept safe for our eyes that which it had enclosed and covered. The hillocks proved to be the remains of British houses burned by fire. They were set on the ground made solid in the midst of the waters, with causeways for approach from the land. The faces of the solid ground and the sides of the causeways are revetted with wattle work. There is wattle all over, strong and very well made. The wattle when first uncovered is as good to all appearances as the day it was made. The houses of the Britons at Glastonbury, as a matter of fact, as long tradition tells us, and their church were made of wattles.'

Soon after Joseph and his apostolic company had settled in Avalon painstakingly they began to build their wattle church. It was sixty feet in length and twenty-six feet wide, following the pattern of the Tabernacle. The task was completed between A.D. 38 and 39. To Those who followed after every particle of clay and every reed was held sacred. To protect it from dissolution it was encased in lead and over it, St. Paulinus, A.D. 630, erected the beautiful chapel of St. Mary's. 

It remained intact until the year A.D. 1184, when the great fire gutted the whole Abbey to the ground, and with it perished the structure of the first Christian Church above ground.

The (P.77) pattern of the wattle church was the model employed in the architecture of all the early British churches and perpetuated in many up to the present time. Within (P.77) that humble wattle church, the first Christian instructions were given and the first prayers and chants of praise to the glory of God and to His Son Jesus rang forth over the Island. 

Sanctuary at last! Safe and free from the persecution of the Sanhedrin and the tyranny of pagan Rome, Thornse's faithful, fervent hearts taught the Gospel of Love and Truth in all its original Christian beauty and humble simplicity. Protected by the valiant might of the invincible Silures, before whom the might of Rome was to tremble and crumble, the Apostle of Britain and his noble companions dedicated their lives and efforts in ful­filling the Word of God, through the teachings of the crucified Jesus, in the quiet, restful sunlight of the English vales.

British peoples the world over, Americans whose roots are British, and Christians wherever they may be, should take a heart­ throbbing pride in this monumental event. No wonder England is known as the Motherland to the world. Hers is the womb of Christianity, out of which has sprung the world's most humane democracies. Proudly they proclaim the source. America and Britain are the only two nations that permit another flag to fly above their own national standard and that flag is the Flag of Christ - the Church Flag, more commonly known as the Flag of St. George. By this act, they proclaim to the rest of the world that they acknowledge Christ and the Law of God.

Back of the little wattle church rose the great Tor, which was

a Druidic Gorsedd, 01' 'High Place of Worship, a hand-piled mound of earth vaster in its dimensions than the Pyramid of Egypt. To this day the terraces that wind around the Gorsedd to its summit can be traced. On such eminences, the Druids had their astronomical observatories from which they studied the heavens. With this knowledge, Greek and Romans alike extolled the Druids as the greatest teachers of this complicated science.

There are many who maintain that the reason for the heartfelt, friendly welcome extended to the Josephian Mission was because the Druids, simultaneously with the wise men of Persia, had dis­covered in the heavens the Star of Prophecy, which heralded the long-expected 'Day Spring' that was to lighten the world with the new dispensation - the glory of 'The Star' that should rise out of Jacob.

This could be so - prophecy has a strange way of revealing itself in which (P.78) case, to the Druidic priesthood, the discovery was but the revelation of the great event which they knew, equally with the Israelites of old, was to (P.78) happen. The astounding fact is that whereas the Sadducean Judeans were never familiar with the name of the Messiah, His name was known to the British long before the memorable event transpired on Golgotha's Hill. It was a name familiar on the lips of every Briton. 1  The indisputable fact is that the Druids 

(1 ef. Procopius, De Gothici, bk. 3.)

proclaimed the name first to the world. A translation from a reading in the ancient Celtic Triads is :

'The Lord our God is One.

Lift up your heads, 0 ye gates, and be 

ye lift up, ye everlasting doors and the 

King of Glory shall come in.

Who is the King of Glory? The Lord Yesu;

He is the King of Glory.'

How the Druidic Priesthood knew the consecrated name so long beforehand is indeed a mystery in itself. The name 'Yesu' was incorporated into the Druidic Trinity as the Godhead. In Britain, the name Jesus never assumed its Greek or Latin form. It was always the pure Celtic 'Yesu'. It never changed.

The more researchers study the Celtic Druidic religion the more astonished are they with its similarity with that of old Israel. They taught it as a gospel of peace more faithfully than did their brethren in Israel. Wars, hatred, persecution, and family separation had never divided them as it had the Israelites of Judea. To the members of the Arimathean Mission, the British environment must have appeared as a time haven of happiness after all their bitter experiences.

To the Druids, the advent of the Josephian Culdees was but a

confirmation of the Atonement. They did not need to take up the Cross. It was already with them, a familiar symbol in their religious rituals. The early British Christians never employed the Latin Cross. Their Cross combined the Druidic symbol with the Cross. Even today, the Celtic Cross appears on the peaks and spires of many Anglican churches thoughout the world. The Druidic circle embracing the 

Cross is the symbol of eternity. The Cross is the symbol of victory over the grave, though salvation bought by the vicarious atonement.

The merging of the British Druidic church with Christianity was a normal procedure, peacefully performed. Those who state that (‘ cf. Procopius, De Gothic, bk. 3.) Christianity (P.79) was bitterly opposed by the Druids speak falsely. Nowhere in the Celtic records is there any mention of opposition? The Druidic Archbishops recognized that the old order (P.79) was ful­filled according to prophecy and with the coming of Christ and His atonement the new dispensation had arrived. 

In this light of understanding Druids and Judean Apostles marched forward together firmly wedded in the name of Christ. It was never marred with the persecution, bloodshed, and martyrdom that accompanied the teaching of the Christ Gospel in Rome. The former President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, truly said, 'All histories should be rewritten in truth.' School history books still erroneously teach that the Augustan Mission, sent by Pope Gregory, A.D. 596, marked the introduction of Christianity into Britain. Actually, it is the date of the first attempt to introduce the Papacy into Britain. Therein lies both error and confusion.

The Vatican has always been more emphatic in correcting this mistake than the Protestant denominations. Baronius and Alford, the two foremost historians of the Vatican, each referring to ancient documents in the Vatican Library, affirm St. Joseph as the Apostle of Britain and the first to introduce Christian teachings in the Island. The Popes also have substantiated this statement.

In I 93 I Pope Pius XI received at the Vatican the visiting English Roman Catholic Mayors of Bath, Colchester, and Dorches­ter, along with a hundred and fifty members of The Friends of Italy Society. In his address to them, the Pope said that St. Paul, not Pope Gregory, first introduced Christianity into Britain. (This statement is quoted from the report made in the London Morning Post, March 27th, 1931.)

The Pope spoke the truth; in fact, St. Paul was authoritatively the first to deliver the Message from Rome, Though actually his appointed representative, Aristobulus, preceded him. The important point to remember here is that St. Joseph did not go to Britain from Rome. He went direct from Palestine, via Marseilles, and preceded St. Paul in Britain by twenty years.

At the Ecclesiastical Councils of the Roman Catholic Church, the religious representatives of each country were accorded the honor of place at the Council, in the order that each had received Christianity. Due to the bitter envy some of the countries bore towards the British, they vigorously sought to dispute Britain's precedence in priority but on each occasion, Britain's position was defended by Vatican authority.

Chapter IX - Continued

Theodore Martin, of Lovan, writes of these disputes in Disputoilis super Dignitatem Anglis it Gallioe in Councilio Constantiano, A.D. 1517: (‘Three times the antiquity of the British Church was affirmed in Ecclesiastical Councila. 1. The Council of Pisa, A.D. 14 1 7; 2. Council of Constance, A.D. 1419; 3. Council of Siena, A.D. 1423. 

It (P.80) was stated that the British Church took precedence over all other Churches, being founded by Joseph of Arimathea, immediately after the Passion of Christ.’)The erudite Bishop Ussher writes in Brittannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates:'The British National Church was founded A.D. 36, 160 years before heathen Rome confessed Christianity.' The founding of Christianity in Britain through the Josephian Mission was truly the beginning of the British National Church. 

Conversion spread rapidly through the Isles. It is recorded, A.D. 48, that Conor Mac Nessa, King of Ulster, sent his priests to Avalon to commit the Christian law and its teachings into writing, which they named 'The Celestial Judgments’. 1 However, it was not until A.D. (1 cf. Lewis, St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury; also Old History of Ulster, Irish Tourist Bureau.)156 that Britain, by the royal edict of King Lucius, officially proclaimed the Christian Church to be the national Church of Britain, at Winchester, then the royal capital of Britain. (Quoting from Augustinicio Mission, A.D. 597, it reads:'Britain officially proclaimed Christian by King Lucius, at National Council at Winchester, 156 A.D.’)Winchester was the ancient capital of Britain where its kings were crowned for over fifteen hundred years. 

It was founded in 500 B.C.There is no lack of evidence among the earliest writers, many of whom were citizens of nations hostile to Britain. Confirmation of the facts by them and by prelates of a powerful religion opposed to the British Church, cannot be denied on any pretext.  

St. Clement of Rome, A.D. 30-100, refers to the disciples in Britain in The Epistle to the Corinthians. (As we turn the pages of the Demonstratio Evangelica by Eusebius, of Caesarea, we read the potent passage:'The Apostles passed beyond the ocean to the Isles called the Brittanie Isles.’ 'cf. Lewis, St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury; also Old History of Ulster, Irish Tourist Bureau.)Tertullian (P.81) of Carthage, A.D. 208, tells us that in his time the Christion Church 'extended to all the boundaries of Gaul, and parts of Britain inaccessible to the Romans but subject to Christ'.Sabellius, A.D. 250, writes (P.81) This important passage:'Christianity was privately confessed elsewhere, but the first nation that proclaimed it as their religion and called it Christian, after the name of Christ, was Britain.' Origen, in the third century, wrote:'The power of our Lord is with those who in Britain are separated from our coasts.

'The famed and benevolent St. Jerome, A.D. 378, writes:'From India to Britain all nations resound with the death and resurrection of Christ.'Arnobius, A.D. 400, adds his trenchant message, writing :'So swiftly runs the Word of God that within the space of a few years His Word is concealed neither from the Indians in the East nor from the Britons in the West.'Chrysostom, the venerable Patriarch of Constantinople, A.D. 402, potently pens in his Sermo De Utilit:'The British Isles which are beyond the sea, and which lie in the ocean, have received virtue of the Word. Churches are there found and altars erected. . . . Though thou should go to the ocean, to the British Isles, there thou should hear all men everywhere discoursing matters out of the Scriptures, with another voice indeed, but not another faith, with a different tongue, but the same judgment.'In later years the confirmation continues undenied and unabated.

Polydore Vergil, an eminent Roman Catholic divine, wrote during the denunciations and quarrels between the Pope and Henry VIII of England: 'Britain partly through Joseph of Arima­ thea, partly though Fugatus and Damianus, was of all kingdoms the first to receive the Gospel.’ (Another Roman Catholic leader, the Rev. Robert Parsons, definitely states in his book The Three Conversions of England: 'The Christian religion began in Britain.’)Sir Henry Spelman, the eminent scholar, writes in his Concilia: 'We have abundant evidence that this Britain of ours received the faith, and that from the disciples of Christ Himself, soon after the Crucifixion.  

'And the famed Taliesin, A.D. 500-540, one of Britain's greatest scholars (P.82), Celtic Arch Druid, and Prince Bard, forthrightly declares that Though the Gospel teaching was new to the rest of the world it was always known to the Celtic British. He writes: 'Christ, the word from the beginning, was from the first our teacher, and we never lost His teachings. 

Christianity was a new thing in Asia, but there never was a time when the Druids of Britain held not its Doctrines.'Gildas, A.D. 520, Britain's (P.82) foremost early historian, wrote in his De Exidio Brittannioe: 'We certainly know that Christ, the True Son, afforded His Light, the knowledge of His precepts to our Island in the last year of Tiberius Caesar.'He also wrote the following most important statement: 'Joseph introduced Christianity into Britain in the last year of the reign of Tiberius.'Tiberius was the Roman Emperor against whom Pontius Pilate plotted, with others, the secret knowledge of Caiaphas had been used to compel Pilate to carry out the evil will of the Sadduccan Sanhedrin to crucify Jesus. 

Tiberius reigned for twenty-two years. The crucifixion of Christ took place in the seventeenth year of his reign, A.D. 32, according to the reckoning of their time, and A.D. 33 according to our present reckoning. The last year of Tiberius's reign being his twenty-second, would be, according to the respective calendars, A.D. 37 and A.D. 38. Thus the general agreement that the Gospel was transplanted to Britain within five years of the Passion is in accord with the dates recorded.To all this is added absolute confirmation that Joseph of Arimathea was the one who first brought Christianity to Britain and was the first and truly appointed Apostle to and of the British. 

Probably the statements quoted herein will appear revelatory to many, particularly Those saturated with the unreliable, impotent theories of school-book historians. The references are beyond dispute and are only a fraction of the mass available. They substantiate the fact that Joseph and the Arimathean Mission in Britain were known the world over, and in all cases accurately reported long before the Roman Catholic Church was founded at Rome. Later, when the Vatican had become established, Popes, prelates, and historians of the Roman Catholic See freely confirmed the record. From the dates given, it will be seen that many of the authorities quoted, both secular and ecclesiastical, lived before and during the epochal period of our story. 

Others quoted lived close enough to the era to be familiar with Britain and its inhabitants. The ever­ rising mass of confirmation from the tum of this century to the present (P.83) time is proof of the zealous research of scholars and scientists in reaffirming the ancient truth and lifting the curtain of error and misinformation which unqualified and indifferent writers of the last century had clouded with the unstable dogma of myth and legend. Undoubtedly they acted under the influence of atheism which staggered religious (P.83) belief during the Victorian era, and to a certain extent still lingers to mislead too many. 

The vicious invectives of the Higher Critics of Germany are squelched along with the fraudulent distortions of Darwin's treatise of evolution by Henrich Haerlik, a pseudo-scientist, nakedly exposed by the German Institute of Science and the Lutheran Church, along with the destructive interpretation of socialism by Karl Marx, from which Communism has sprung. 

Today Communism gives the old propa­ganda a new dress but it is the same villain, deliberately distorting the true principles of the Western Democracies. The Britons of our Lord's time were no more barbarian, or 'painted savages', than are the modern English-speaking nations 'war-mad barbarians', as the Soviet press describes us. Education­ ally the Celtic British ranked among the highest to be found anywhere. Each city had its university apart from the special Druidic seats of learning. In A.D. 110 Ptolemy states that there existed fifty-six large cities. Marcianus says there were fifty-nine, and Chrysostom wrote, with the acceptance of the new order of 'The Way', a greater impetus was given to the erection of seats of learning. 

To this great work the converted British Prince Arviragus, then a young unmarried man, along with the rest of the royal Silurian families in England and Wales, gave the fullness of their support. Quoting from the ancient British Chronicles, we obtain an interesting picture of the conversion of Arviragus by Joseph:“Joseph converted this King ArviragusBy his preaching to know ye laws divineAnd baptized him as write hath Nennius the chronicler in Britain tongue full fineAnd to Christian laws made him inclineAnd gave him than a shield of silver white crosse and long, and over thwart full perfectedThese Armes were used throughout all BritainFor a common syne, each man to know his nation and thus hie Armes by Joseph CreationFill long afore Saint George was generateWere worthiest here of mycelia elder date.” 1(1 Hardynge’s Chronicle.)

It is interesting (P.84) to note in this verse that Joseph, on the conver­sion of Arviragus, gave him as a sign for all nations to know, 'the long cross' as his coat of arms, (P.84) then customarily worn on the shield of the chieftain. This is the first record of the cross officially becoming the symbol of a king. The reason is plain. It was given to King Arviragus as a sign and declaration that he was the elected Christian king, and of added interest, given as the writer states long before St. George, the Patron Saint of England, was born. 

This symbol, representing the Flag of St. George and known as such today, was inherited from Arviragus. Its religious significance is still dominant, being the accepted Church flag of the present Protestant Church. Since the time of Arviragus, it has always been the Christian flag of the British Church. Protestantism had nothing to do with it. Actually, it is a mistake to name all Christian denominations separate from the Roman Catholic Church Protes­tants.

 The name arose out of other religious sects appearing later in Britain, which protested against the ritualism of the original British Church. In fact the name applies to the religious sects still holding to the Christian faith, who are known today as the Free Churches, meaning free of ritualism of any kind. Up to, and during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, there was only one religion in Britain. Throughout the Isles, it was known as the British Church and so known to the rest of the world. It was also known as the Holy Catholic Church and never Roman Catholic. When Elizabeth and her Parliament struck back at the powerful forces of the Papal States, France, Spain and Rome, the Papal See was so determinedly denounced that a cleavage was created that left no doubt in the minds of people for all time to come that the British Church, as at the beginning, had no association with the Roman Catholic hierarchy. 

Both the British Church and the State determined a reformation within the British Church to exclude anything and everything that bore any comparison with the Roman Catholic Church in Liturgy and in ritual. Certain Roman innovations had crept into the British Church over the years. The order to reform began, returning to the original concept. Therefore it was not a protest, creating Protestantism, it was as the historic act declares - a cleansing reformation of the British Church. Since then the separation has been positive. The British Church was still the national religion of the Isles. 

Shortly after, the religion began to take on its own native national title, becoming the Church of England, the Church of Wales, the Church of Scotland, and the Church of Ireland, all holding the same communion, all designating (P.85) themselves as Holy Catholics as separate from Roman Catholics. The word 'Catholic' means 'universal'; thus Holy Catholic (P.85) means a universal, holy, Christian Church, with Christ alone being the sole Head of the Church. The Roman Catholic Church designates itself as the universal Christian Church of the Romans, with the Pope as its head. This the British Church would never recognize. In the United States of America, prior to the Revolution, the established Church was the Church of England. 

Following the Revolution, the name was changed to the Episcopal Church of America of the Anglican Communion.It is still so known, maintaining the original service and com­munion of the Mother Church. The German Lutheran Church service also observes a great similarity. All the named churches are Episcopalian, meaning a church government by bishops. In this manner, the original Christian Church was created by the Apostles, who appointed Bishops to govern the Christian Church. 

The present Mother British Church is the only Christian Church that has maintained an unbroken apostolic succession of Bishops from the beginning, with all the named Episcopal Churches sharing in this distinction. Protestantism is claimed by many to have arisen with the protests of Martin Luther against the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church. 

In this case, the word could be applied, for at that time Germany had long been part of the Holy Roman Empire, with the Emperor of Germany the appointed representa­tive of the Pope. Britain was never part of this Empire and never nationally under the domination of the Vatican. It was from the beginning to this day - British - the Church of the Covenant People.Christianity was founded in Britain A.D. 36. The first Christian Church above ground was erected A.D. 38-39. 

The Roman Catholic hierarchy was founded circa A.D. 350, after Constantine, and not until centuries later was the Papal title created. Until then, the head of the Roman Catholic Church was still a Bishop. The title of Pope, or universal Bishop, was first given to the Bishop of Rome by the wicked Emperor Phocas, in the year A.D. 610. 

This he did to spite Bishop Ciriacus of Constantinople, who had justly excommunicated him for his having caused the assassination of his predecessor, Emperor Mauritus. Gregory I, then Bishop of Rome, refused the title but his successor, Boniface III, first assumed the title of Pope. Jesus did not appoint Peter to the headship of the Apostles and expressly forbade any such notion, as stat«d in Luke 22 : 24-26; (Ephesians r : 22-23; Colossians r : 18; and r Corinthians 3: r 1.)

Returning (P.86) to the history of the cross as the Christian symbol of Royal heraldry and given to Arviragus by Joseph, the cross on the shield up to the present time has remained the special symbol of the sovereigns of Britain. In later times the Lion was superimposed on the shield, as shown today. 

The Lion was the emblem of Judah, Keeper of the Sanctuary but, as Christ said, it would be taken away from them and given to another who would keep the Law. This symbol appearing on the British Royal Arms, with the cross, is significant. The cross denotes that the British were the first to accept Christ and by keeping the Law inherited the Kingdom of God taken from the nation of the Jews.

Arviragus was to carry the banner of the Cross though the most bitterly fought battles between the Britons and the Romans. In spite of the fact that the early Christian and Roman records abound with the name and warrior fame of Arviragus, he is entirely lost to the later histories. His fame is overshadowed by his famous cousin Caractacus. In spite of this, Arviragus was the most powerful representative of the royal house of the Silures and the most famous Christian warrior in history, not excepting his illustrious descendant, the Emperor Constantine.

The royal boundaries of the Silureswere divided into two sections. Arviragus ruled over the southern part of England and Caradoc, or Caractacus, over Cambria, the region that is now wales. Each was king in his special domain but in time of war, they united under a Pendragon or Commander-in-Chief, agreed upon by the people. At that time they represented the most powerful warrior clan in Britain. 

Arviragus ruled as Pendragon, while his cousin Caractacus was captive in Rome, conducting the war against the Empire for years1 in (1 Tacitus, Annals, bk. 5, ch. 28.)Britain in a manner that gained him immortal fame exceeding that of Caractacus. Juvenal, the Roman writer, in his works clearly indicates how greatly the Romans feared Arviragus, stating that his name trembled on the lips of every Roman and that no better news could be received at Rome than the fall of this Royal Christian Silurian. He writes, asking: 'Hath our great enemy Arviragus the car-borne British King, dropped from his battle throne?

'Edmund Spencer adds his tribute: 'Was never king more highly magnified nor dread of Romans was than Arviragus.'Despite the fact that the Romans were the implacable foe of the British, and sought by every means at their command in their vicious hatred to exterminate the Christian faith at its source, they (Tacitus, Annals, bk. 5, ch. 118.) held the (P.87) 

British warriors in high esteem, holding that their religion was the reason for their fearlessness in battle and disdain of death. Julius Caesar wrote, circa 54 B.C.: 'They make the immortality of the soul the basis of all their teaching, holding it to be the principal incentive and reason for a virtuous file. Believing in the immortality of the soul they were careless of death.’ 2(2 Gallic War, ch. 1, sec. I.)Lucanus, A.D. 38, writes in Pharsalia that the Britons' indifference to death was the result of their religious beliefs, and Pomponius Mela, A.D. 41, in his works, describes the British warrior in astonishment. 

He also ascribes the extraordinary bravery of the Britons to their religious doctrine, based on the immortality of the soul.  Such was the invincible spirit of the ancient Britons who formed a living wall around the sacred boundaries of Avalon in the domain of Arviragus. No Roman army ever pierced it. These were the lands that Roman writers referred to as 'territory inaccessible to the Romans where Christ is taught'.

Behind this heroic warrior wall of protection, Joseph and the disciples of Christ were safe from harm, free to preach and teach the glorious faith on the Sacred Isle of Avalon. To the Britons, this was hallowed ground and they died willingly to preserve the first planting of the Christian Way so that it might thrive and blossom to bless the whole world.

There was to be a second separate planting of the Christ Seedin Britain about twenty years after Joseph's arrival. Independent of the Josephian Mission it was also to be sponsored by the Royal Silurian House, in Wales, by the father and family of Caractacus, under the  commission of St. Paul. It originated in Rome, where this same family was to be the divinely ordained instruments of St. Paul in developing his great mission as directed by Christ. After contact with them, he declares it in his statement, 'I turn henceforth to the Gentiles.'

This Royal British family in Rome was to provide the Christian story with its greatest romance, its greatest drama, and its most terrible tragedy.

They were destined to be the first martyrs to suffer for Christ in the Gentile Church and millions more were to follow later.

Believe it or not, the British have paid the greatest blood sacrifice in all history in the defense and for the preservation of the Christian Church, more so than all other nations put together. 

The (Gallic War, ch. 11 sec. 1.) underground (P.88) cemeteries of Rome, the Catacombs, are packed with their tortured, murdered bodies - men, women and children. The soil of Britain is saturated with their blood, eternal testimony to their undying faith.

Knowing that Christ died for them, they were fearless in dying for Christ.

 CHAPTER X

EDICT OF EMPEROR CLAUDIUS, A.D. 42: 

'EXTERMINATE CHRISTIAN BRITAIN

The past is so remote (P.89) it seems inconceivable and perhaps insignificant to the indifferent Christians of today, basking

in luxury and the comfort of security, that it is nineteen hundred and fifteen years ago when as the first armed challenge of a powerful world-conquering nation it was officially decreed to destroy Christianity at its core by the extermination of the Island British.

It was ten years after the Scandal of the Cross had taken place and less than six years since Joseph, the Noblis Decurio, had pro­ claimed the Christ Way throughout Britain from his sanctuary on the Isle of Avalon.

The Holy Crusade had spread so rapidly from Avalon to beyond the seas that Rome was so disturbed it could no longer ignore the challenge to its own pagan policies and imperial security.

In the year A.D. 42 Claudius, Emperor of the Romans, issued

the fateful decree to destroy Christian Britain, man, woman, and child, and its great institutions and burn its libraries. To this purpose, Claudius equipped the largest and most efficient army ever sent by Rome to conquer a foe and led by its most able generals.

In this edict, Claudius proclaimed in the Roman Senate that acceptance of the Druidic 2 or Christian faith was a capital offense, 

(1 not listed O’Reiley, The Martyrs of the Colosseum.

2 Suetonius.)

punishable by death by the sword, the torture chamber, or to be cast to the devouring lions in the arena of the Colosseum. It is interesting to note that this ruling also included 'any person descended from David'. This meant the Jew, making no exceptions as to whether he was a converted Jew or one holding to the orthodox Judean faith. This indeed was a paradox. While the converted Jew embraced Gentile followers of 'The Way' as brethren, regardless of race, and died with them with equal courage, the orthodox Jew perishing in the arena by the side of the Christian, never relented in his bitter hatred. With his dying breath, he spat on the Christian in malevolent scorn. (‘O'Reiley, The Martyrs of the Colosseum ‘Suetomus.)

In (P.90) this peculiar manner British Christians and Jews now had one thing in common, the penalty of death.

The Romans had not previously held any special enmity to the British. Actually, and perhaps grudgingly, they had held the Briton in respect. Association in commerce and culture had drawn them together for centuries and it was not uncommon for the children of the nobility on both sides (P.90) to seek education in  the institutions of each. It was the impetus the British had given to the new Christian faith that had cast the Romans die.

The Romans had always despised the Jews, and oppressed though the Jews were under Roman domination, they hated the Romans with a burning vehemence which they displayed on the slightest pretext. They would never willingly break bread with a Roman, nor share their home, and on the street would not allow their clothing to touch that of their enemy. When flogged, the unfor­giving Jews would spit out vile epithets at their torturers as they writhed or died in agony. The Romans could never understand why the Jewish religion could incite such hatred against members of other faiths, nor could they understand the disdainful contempt the Jews held for women. From the time of Abraham, the marital life of the Hebrews was polygamous. While one woman would be named the wife, and be head of the household., Abraham had several concubines, sometimes referred to as handmaidens. At the time of our Lord it is stated that marital conditions among the Jews were at their lowest ebb. Women were regarded as mere chattels. Divorce was prevalent and declared at will without resorting to law, with seldom any provision made for the divorced woman. It is recorded that it was common for a Jew to consort with several women to the knowledge of his so-called legal wife. It amused and angered the Romans to note the hypocritical, puritanical attitude of the Jewish male toward adultery. A woman, be it one of his own consorts or not, was apt to be stoned to death if found guilty of adultery. The suspicion of it would cause her to be branded. The Jewish brand of adultery was to cause the woman to wear her hair in braids to be reviled and shunned by both Jewish sexes. There was no forgiveness in the Jewish male heart. Realizing these con­ditions at the time of our Lord, we can better understand the significance of the test of the cohorts of the Sanhedrin put to Jesus when they led before Hirn the adulteress to be judged. Under the circumstances our hearts can swell with pride at the courage of Jesus and the magnificent manner in which He made the decision by writing in the sand with His finger, 'He that is without sin among (P.91) you, let him first cast a stone at her.' With these words, Jesus challenged each and every man present to prove his right to stone the woman to death. They slunk away. It was Jesus who set women free from this male bondage. He freely forgave the adulteress and simply told her to sin no more.

Contrary to the common (P.91) belief of the Romans, though granted to be licentious, abhorred divorce. The wealthy Romans had many con­ sorts, including the Emperors, but the wife held a sacred place as the head of the house which could not be disputed. Consorts were the common practice of the Romans, which found little ill-favour in the eyes of the legal wife. For centuries a divorce could not be obtained. The first record of a Roman divorce occurred five hun­dred and twenty years after the founding of the Roman dynasty. It was obtained by Spurius Carvilius Rugo on the grounds of sterility. The act so shocked the people that Rugo was shunned by all and so completely disgraced that he was obliged to leave Rome. Even Though divorce was not recognized long before Christianity entered Rome, we can understand the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church towards divorce, being so embedded in the original Roman law. The attitude of the British Holy Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, stems from the words of Jesus.

All this added to the Roman hatred of the Jews. Now a new hatred had developed, manifested in the Claudian Edict which accused them of being responsible for the Advent of Christ and for the rise of the new faith which had found its first converts among the people of Judea.

The efforts of the Sanhedrin to eradicate 'The Way', in the calumny of the Cross and the terrifying persecution of the Fol­lowers by the Saulian Gestapo, were completely overlooked by the Roman Senate or ignored.

Further to seek to inflame the populace against Christians and Jew, the Romans were the first to create the false slander that Christians and Jews alike practiced human sacrifice in their religion. They knew better. They knew that the burnt offerings of Judean and Druids were animals, chiefly sheep, goats, and doves. The Romans spread the ridiculous propaganda that the Jews devoured Gentile babies. Communist distortions of the truth and insinuating fabrica­tions are not new. They are merely imitating the vile trickery of the Romans of Caesar's time.

Probably because the Jews were unorganized and not militant like the British, the Roman campaign of extermination was not so widespread, less determined, and never as constant. The Jews were driven (P.92) into ghettoes, where they could do no harm. The British were a dominating problem. They were a warrior nation skilled in the art of warfare on land and on the sea. They were guided by intelligent rulers and commanders, all of whom were steeped in the invincibility of the spirit created by the passion in their faith that declared all men should be free. One of the earliest battle hymns of the Britons was 'Britons never shall be slaves'.

The overwhelming rise of Christianity in populous Britain and Gaul was viewed with grave consternation in Rome. Britain was the seeding ground where an ever-flowing stream of neophytes was tutored and converted by Apostles and disciples of Christ and sent out into other lands to teach the Gospel. This the Romans declared had to be stopped. To them, as to all dictatorships, might alone was right. Nevertheless, from past experience with British military ability they had good reason to fear this stubborn, valorous race, now inspired by the zeal of Christ. Forewarned, Rome built the mightiest army in its history to enforce the Claudian Edict to destroy Britain.

The decree of Claudius was inspired by fear and with sadistic intentions. Rome believed from the experience of her other con­ quests that only violent persecutors would terrify the Briton into ultimate submission.

How wrongly they judged their opponents they were soon to learn.

Defamers of ancient Britain should turn back the pages of history and read the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who describes how in the year 390 B.C. Belinus and Brennus, sons of the most famed British King Dunwall, assaulted and captured Rome with a British army. And from 113 to 1 of B.C. European observers affirm that the Cimbri-Keltoi of Britain were the terror of Rome and could have brought that Empire under their own subjection if they had so desired. They point out with emphasis that British aggressions were not inspired by wars of conquest but were punitive expeditions arising out of Roman depredation against their Gaulish brethren. Looking back on the pages of Those bloodstained years the heart recoils in horror at the savagery, murder, massacre, rape, and destruction inflicted upon the inhabitants and the land of the Sacred Isle.

The Romans, who had ground so many nations under their despotic heel, looked upon aU other nations with scorn as inferiors, labeling every enemy as barbarian, no matter how magnificent their culture. The records attest to the indisputable fact that the

Romans (P.93) of all people were the most barbarous and brutal in history. The people of the Christian democracies still shrink in horror at the blood-chilling viciousness of the Communistic purges. The soul faints before the terrifying pictures of the vile concentration camps, the gas ovens, and the fiendish modes of torture inflicted upon the Jews, other peoples, and the Allied war prisoners by the diabolic Nazis and Japanese. It makes one feel as if the Devil himself had scraped the bottom of his foul satanic barrel. But vile as it all was, the Nazis, the Japanese, and the Reds could have learned more dreadful forms of torture by studying the methods of Roman persecution during the pagan centuries.

The slaughter of the British Kelts was not confined to the short but too-long period of War II. It endured from the time of the Claudian invasion, A.D. 42, to the close of the horrible, infamous Diocletian savagery of A.D. 320, nearly three hundred years. Where was the invincibility of the great Roman Caesars?

Numerous as were the lives ravished in the Russian, Nazi, and Japanese purges and incredible tortures, the loss of life is small compared with the total sacrifice of British lives given entirely in the Cause of Christ during Those three hundred years. Strange as it may seem, Though Gaul was at various times invaded by the Romans and suffered great loss of life, no mass campaign was ever directed against them and never on religious grounds. Britain alone was the chief culprit and against them, the vengeance of the bestial Roman knew no bounds. Britain is the only nation in history ever attacked by the full might of another powerful people in an effort to purge Christianity off the face of the earth. Rome sent her very best against the British legions. As they failed to subdue the British, Rome recalled many brilliant generals who had gained fame for the double-headed eagle in other foreign conquests, as she determinedly sought to wipe out one defeat after another to her armies.

From the Claudian to the Diocletian persecution, the extermination of Britain and all that was Christian was a Roman obsession. How satanic it was can be estimated in the brutal act which touched off the Diocletian campaign. The finest warrior battalions in the Roman army were the famed Gaulish Legions. On the order of Maximian, co-ruler with Diocletian, the Christian Gaulish veterans were slaughtered to a man in cold blood. His hatred of the Christian is stated to have exceeded that of Diocletian and to satiate it he butchered his finest soldiers.

The martyrologies state that during the first two hundred years of Christianity, over six million Christians were entombed within the catacombs (P.94) of Rome - murdered. How many more were buried within the other unexplored catacombs is difficult to say. The total number would be appalling. It is claimed that if the passages of the catacombs of Rome were measured end to end they would extend to a length of 550 miles, from the city of Rome into the Swiss Alps. It seems almost incredible that while only about one million Christians today walk the streets of Rome, under their feet are over six million mutilated bodies that had testified for Christ.

Let free men and women wherever they may be today, take stock of the price their Christian ancestors paid to obtain and make secure the freedom which they now enjoy. The ancient Britons appear to have better realized than does the present-day shirking Christians that Christianity sets men free and freedom can only be maintained in preserving the Christian faith. The present democ­racies of the English-speaking world owe all they have or ever will have to their Christian ancestors.

Let us remember that, when it seemed as Though Christianity was crushed on the Continent by the murderous Diocletian persecution, it was a British king with an army of Christian British warriors who crossed the seas and smashed the Diocletian-Maximian armies with defeat so catastrophic they never rose again. That British victory ended all-time Roman Christian persecution. Following the victory this British king marched his army of Chris­ tian warriors into Rome and there declared Rome Christian. From thence dates Roman national acceptance of Christianity.

It was not Peter who nationally Christianized Rome but Constantine, the great-grandson of Arviragus, and son of the famous Empress Helen, a British princess.

Surely we cannot afford to forget.

 CHAPTER XI

JESUS OR JUPITER?

The Commander-in-Chief selected by Emperor Claudius to carry,7 out his edict was none other than the famous Aulus Plautius, called the Scipio of his day. He stands in Roman history as one of the most brilliant commanders and conquerors in her military record. He arrived in the area of Britain, and we now know as England, A.D. 43, making his headquarters at Chichester.

Plautius lost (P.95) no time in sending his veteran Legions into action, directing his campaign to the south against the Silmians, thus cutting off the powerful Brigantes in the remote north, who were the Yorkshire Celts. Both armies clashed with appalling violence and in this first conflict with the Romans, probably underestimating the quality of their opponents, were forced to retreat. In the various battles that followed, to his surprise the Roman General realized he was confronted with a military intelligence that matched his own and an army of warriors, though greatly outnumbered, were undaunted and fought back with a fearless ferocity that had never before been encountered by the veteran soldiery of Rome.

For the first time, the Romans found they were not opposing a race of people who could be terrorized by numbers or brutalities. To their dismay, as reported by Tacitus, and like the Nazis in World War II, they found that the destruction of the British sacred altars increased their anger, making them blind to odds and circumstances. The more destructive and brutal the Roman persecution the more determinedly did the Briton strike back.

At the onset, the British Silurian army was led by Guiderius, the elder brother of Arviragus, who was second in command. Guiderius had succeeded his father to the kingdom of the Silures. Arviragus, as Prince, ruled over his Dukedom of Cornwall. In the second battle with the Romans Guiderius was killed in action. Arviragus succeeded his slain brother in command of the army and to the kingdom of the Silurcs. At this time the second branch of the Silurian kingdom lying further south in what now is Wales, had not entered the conflict. Caradoc, King of the Welsh Silures, was the first cousin to Arviragus, a much older man and an experienced military leader. A few years before this record his father, known as 'the Good King Bran', had (P.98) abdicated his throne voluntarily in favor of his son Caradoc. Bran was a deeply religious (P.98) person and had resigned his kingship to become Arch Druid of Siluria. He and his family had accepted the new faith and some of the mem­bers of the family had been already converted and baptized by Joseph by the laying on of hands, but Bran and Caradoc had not received this final act of conversion. Now as the conflict between Roman and Briton increased in vigor and territorial scope, Caradoc realized the seriousness of the situation, particularly since the death of his cousin Guiderius. It was agreed that more concerted and determined military action was needed against the Romans. Arviragus, by necessity, was only substituting in command for his slain brother. It was a law among the British that the supreme leader of the army, especially when more than one clan was involved, could only be appointed by general acclamation of the people, the military council, and the Arch Druids. The election to such a command was known by the official title of Pendragon, meaning Commander-in-Chief. By popular election Caradoc, better known in history by the name the Romans gave him - Caractacus - was created Pendragon.

Caractacus, as we shall now call him, was a man of great vigor, intelligent, and versed in the arts of politics and warfare. As is to be elected, being raised in a religious household, he had deep religious convictions. He had received his education chiefly in British universities and partly in Rome. He was an able administrator of noble mien and outstanding stature. His countenance was described by Roman writers as 'bold and honorable'. Such was the man who was elected Pendragon to conduct the war against the invading Romans. He began the continuation of the strife with all his natural energy. Out of this bitter conflict his outstanding military genius his indomitable character and invincible courage carved for an immortal name in history that was never to perish in British and Roman annals. In them, he stands out as one of the greatest examples of all that is grand and noble. A magnificent patriotic representative of the unconquerable valor of his race. Feared by the foe, it is said that Roman mothers used his name to quiet their children. His military merit won the unstinted admiration of the enemy who named him 'the Scourge of the Romans'.

Historically his achievements are well known, but not so well the reasons for them. Modem historians in dealing with the Roman invasions completely ignore the reason for the great Roman invasion of Britain. Never once do they mention the Edict of Claudius, or explain that (P.97) it was a war of religious extermination, designed to crush Christianity at its source. Evidently, they were totally ignorant of the true reason. They could easily have been enlightened by reading the Roman records of that time. They write off the nine years of ceaseless warfare between Roman and Briton, led by Caractacus and Arviragus against the greatest Roman generals, as though it was of no significance. They give the impression that the British armies were driven like wild sheep before the Roman Legions. Surely it takes but little imagination from even a casual perusal of this campaign to realize that it would not take nine years for the Roman Empire to subdue opponents who were merely 'wild, painted barbarians'. By this time Rome had conquered all the world except Britain. They had defeated mighty armies skilled in warfare and led by brilliant kings and generals. The conquered nations they had enslaved in Africa, Asia and Europe testify to their despotic brutality. The same Roman generals who had accom­plished these conquests led the Roman army in Britain and failed, one after the other.

With such a far-flung Empire to protect the Roman emperors could not afford to keep their greatest army and best commanders in Britain for nine years. Less could they afford the decimation of their veteran Legions in useless combat. The enormous loss of lives on both sides sustained in many of the battles in Britain, according to the records, was larger than the loss in most of the battles in World War I and World War II. Such losses do not indicate a leisurely Roman campaign in Britain. In some of the battles, several of the greatest Roman generals were engaged in conducting battle strategy at one time.1 This was an experience never before called for of Roman generalship.

(1 Tacitus, Agricola, ch. 14 and 17.)

In World Wars I and II, when the full forces of the Allies were engaged, their numbers greatly outnumbered the enemy. It was the absolute reverse in the British-Roman, Claudian campaign. Common sense shows there could only be one reason for this long conflict. 

The Romans had met their match in military genius and in man-to-man combat a warrior ferocity that outmatched their tough veterans. The fierce, fearless spirit of the British soldiery appalled the Romans. Their bravery and disdain for death shocked them. The great Agricola, engaged in the British campaign, stated that it would be no disgrace if he fell in battle among so brave a people.

This had to be more than a defense of the shores could (‘Tacitus, Agricola, ch. 14 and 17.) have been (P.98) readily ended by coming to terms with the Romans. It was a battle against the extermination of all the Britons held dear and, as Winston Churchill promised the Nazis, would happen again. They fought on the sands, on the fields, in the streets and the lanes and by-ways, to very death.

On these fields the Cross the Christ was unfurled as given to Arviragus by St. Joseph, so 'all nations should see', for the first time in military history. This alone proclaimed what the British were fighting in defense of their new faith, Christianity, the Gospel of Jesus, with the freedom it gave to all who believed in Him.

Caractacus is given official credit as being the first general to lead a Christian army in battle in defense of the faith. As Pendragon of the British, elected by them in an open council, this is true. But it was Guiderius and Arviragus who led the first battle against the Romans. It was they who first stopped Aulus Plautius in his tracks. Guiderius was the first British king to fall for Christ. Before Caractaus was elected Pendragon the British battalions had marched towards the foe flying the coat of arms bequeathed to Arviragus by Joseph, on their battle standards and painted on their war shields, and this, long before St. George was born.

Fearlessly they met the full force of unconquered Rome and defeated them. This is the imperishable record of the valiant British in the Claudian nine-year war. Throughout the entire campaign, Arviragus fought as the right-hand man of the Pendragon, Caractacus, and for years after when Caractacus no longer led the British forces against the plundering, murdering Romans, he conducted the conflict. Though the Romans destroyed every altar in their path, not once were they able to pierce through to their objective, the Isle of Avalon, the Sanctuary of Christendom. St. Joseph and his Bethany companions were never molested nor was their shrine ever violated by Roman intrusion.

No better picture can be obtained of the relentless manner in which this war was fought, with victory swinging from one side to the other, than by reading the reports of the foremost Roman writers, Tacitus, Martial, Juvenal, and others. The story chronicled by the pens of the enemy gives more substance to the truth than if it were written by our own. With ungrudging admiration, they tell how the Silurian warriors, led by Caractacus, Arviragus and the Arch Priests, swept onward in irresistible waves over the bodies of their dead and dying comrades with battling savagery that appalled the hardened, war-scarred veterans of the Roman Legions. Their fierce outcries of defiance rang over the din and clash of sword and (P.99) shield. For the first time, the Romans met women warriors fighting side by side with their men in righteous combat. Tacitus states that their long-flowing flaxen hair and blazing blue eyes were a terrifying sight to behold.1 For the first time the Roman soldiery heard the amazing motto of the ancient Druidic Priesthood transferred into a clarion Christian battle cry: 'Y gwir erbyn y Byd', meaning 'The Truth Against the World'. No finer battle cry was ever employed with equal truth. It has never died. It has lived through the ages and today it is the motto of the Druidical Order in Wales.

Truly the British stood alone against the world, fought alone and died alone, even as they did in the most hazardous early years of the last two world wars, battling for the Great Truth and the preservation of its principles of freedom, in the name of their accepted Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Tacitus, the Roman historian, writing of the Claudian campaign that lasted for nine years, except for one brief six months pause, dismally wrote that, although Rome hurled at the British the greatest army in her history, it failed to prevail against the military genius of Caractacus and the reckless fierceness of the British warrior. Many drawn battles were fought and the famed Legions of Rome frequently suffered defeat with terrible slaughter. On occasions when the British suffered severe reverses, Tacitus said, 'The fierce ardour of the British increased.'

After two years of ceaseless warfare Claudius, recognizing the futility of the struggle and the terrible drainage on his finest Legions, took advantage of a reverse against Caractacus, at Brandon Camp, A.D. 45, to seek peace through an armistice. A six­ month truce was declared in which Caractacus and Arviragus were invited to Rome to discuss the possibilities for peace. The facts that followed prove that Claudius went to great lengths to come to satisfactory terms with the obstinate British leaders.

Hoping to clinch the peace the Emperor Claudius offered to Arviragus, in marriage, his daughter, Venus Julia. And, amazing as it appears, they were married in Rome during the truce period, A.D. 45. 2

(1 Tacitus, Annals, 14:30.

2 Venus Julia, named after Venus, mother of Aeneas, and of the Julian family, therefore of Trojan stock.)

Here we have the strange instance of a Christian British king becoming the son-in-law of the pagan Roman Emperor Claudius, who had sworn to exterminate Christianity and Britain. (‘Tacitus, Annals, 14: 30. 'Venus Julia, named after Venus, mother of Aeneas, and of the Julian family, therefore of Trojan stock.)

Surely one (P.100) is justified in asking would the Emperor of a nation, then the most powerful in the world, high in culture and intellectual pursuits, has sacrificed his natural daughter in marriage to be the wife of a 'crude barbarian', just for the sake of peace? Impossible. There had to be some other valid reason and, as we shall see as time moves on, the unseen Hand of God was writing the script. The circumstances refute the later pernicious propaganda of the Christian-hating Romans who in their benighted prejudice sought to label their most noble foe - barbarian.

It is inconceivable.

This marriage was but the beginning of other similar strange circumstances that were swiftly to arise. They were to have a tremendous influence on the Christian movement in Rome, with the British dominating the entire scene. For sheer drama and stirring romance, these incidents have no equal in the pages of history.

During the six months truce while Caractacus and Arviragus were at Rome discussing peace terms and the latter was getting married, Aulus Plautius, the Roman commander, remained in Britain maintaining the truce, on behalf of Rome. During this interval, another strange alliance took place in Britain. Gladys (Celtic for Princess), the sister of the British warlord Caractacus, was united in marriage to the Roman Commander-in-Chief, Aulus Plautius! Again we witness the amazing spectacle of a member of the Silurian royal family, a Christian, married to a Roman pagan. Gladys had been personally converted by Joseph of Arimathea, together with her niece, Eurgain, Guiderius, Arviragus, and other members of the British aristocracy. Like her father, the ex-King and present Arch Druid, she was devoutly religious, completing her religious instruction at Avalon and in association with the Bethany women. Considering all this, one is immediately intrigued by this unusual situation. It is made more exciting as we realize that her brother and husband were wartime opponents.

The marriage of Gladys and Plautius is brought into the Roman limelight by Tacitus in his Annals, 1 wherein he relates with humor the 

(1 Tacitus, Annals, 13:32.)

peculiar circumstances and results of a Roman trial in which Gladys, the wife of Plautius, is accused of being Christian. On her marriage, Gladys took the name of Pomponia, according to Roman custom, which was the name of the Plautium clan. Later the name Graecina was added, so that she is thereafter known as Pomponia Graecina Plautius. The added name was a distinctive academic Tacitus, Annals, 13: 3) honor conferred (P.101) upon her in recognition of her extraordinary scholarship in Greek.

As we shall see, the truce fell though and hostilities were resumed between the British and Romans. Following the marriage of the Roman Commander Aulus Plautius, to the British Princess, it appears as Though Emperor Claudius distrusted leaving further operation of the war in Britain to Plautius. He is recalled to Rome,

A.D. 47, Though honorably relieved of his command. Reference to these events and the trial of Gladys is well covered by Tacitus, as will be noted from the following quoted text :

'Pomponia Graecina, a woman of illustrious birth, and the wife of Plautius, who, on his return from Britain, entered the city with the pomp of an ovation, was accused of embracing the rites of a foreign superstition. The matter was referred to the jurisdiction of her husband. Plautius, in conformity to ancient usage, called together a number of her relations, and in her presence, sat in judgment on the conduct of his wife. He pro­nounced her innocent.'

From our point of view, the method of the trial provides a humorous situation.

It was the custom, by Roman law, to give priority to the nobility to judge and settle any legal disputation where the family was concerned. Consequently, it was in order for Plautius to judge his wife. Next, we note that Pomponia is judged in the presence of her own relations, all immediate members of the Royal Silurian Chris­tian household undoubtedly acting in her defense.

It is quite certain that not much defense was needed. Plautius knew his wife Gladys was Christian before he married her, as were all the immediate members of her family, as well as her royal relatives. Theirs was a love marriage, free of all political significance on either side. The fact that they were married in Britain makes it certain that the bond of holy matrimony was sealed by the Priest­hood of her Christian faith. Evidently, Plautius had a sympathetic leaning toward the new faith, for we are later informed that he also became a Christian. Viewed in the light of these circumstances it was a forgone conclusion that Plautius would judge his wife guilt­less, which he did.

The Rev. C. C. Dobson, M.A., a keen student of Celtic-Roman history, in his learned works, goes into much detail covering this whole situation, pointing out that Tacitus refers to Pomponia as 'a woman of illustrious birth' - an aristocrat. Her marriage to the Roman nobleman (P.102) bears this out. Plautius certainly recognized her social station to have been equal to his Roman dignity. That she was unusually talented, as well as highly cultured, is borne out by the honor of her Roman-conferred title, 'Graecina'. The Rev. Dobson writes, 'For forty years she was a leader of the best Roman society.' A brilliant woman of wide cultural learning, she was a past scholar in classical literature and wrote a number of books of prose and poetry in Greek and Latin as well as in her native language, Cymric. Their home was a meeting place for the talented and they were to be as intimately acquainted with the Apostles, Peter and Paul, as Gladys had been with Joseph, Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, and the rest of the missionaries at Avalon.

The Roman records state that when the Roman General Aulus Plautius was recalled to Rome, A.D. 4 7, 'He took his foreign wife with him.' This statement clearly indicates that his wife was not Roman and, since Plautius was unmarried when he arrived in Britain and was never absent during the years of his command, his wife had to be British.

Gladys and Plautius remained in Britain almost eighteen months after their marriage. The armistice had proved fruitless. The British leaders considered the peace terms unsatisfactory. Caractacus and Arviragus did not linger in Rome; but they returned to Britain and with Arviragus went his Roman wife, Venus Julia. All were faced with an unpleasant situation: Plautius in conducting the war against his in-laws, Caractacus against his sister and brother-in-law, and Arviragus opposing his father-in-law, Emperor Claudius.

What Claudius and the Roman Senate had underestimated was the unbending temper of the Britons. He was quick to learn that it was an impossibility for the British to make any compromise where their religion was concerned. His faith was his most precious treasure for which, as he has long proved, he would willingly die but never relinquish. His religion had taught him that his earthly life was but a stepping-stone to the eventual goal of immortality. Following the Atonement, in the Ascension of Christ, he had obtained satisfactory proof of the fulfillment of the promise that death transcended the grave. It made him both faithful and fearless. Yet he did not willingly seek death. He fully understood that his earthly sojourn was a necessary preparation for the afterlife. He recognized that Christ had set him free and was solidly convinced that Christianity could only be practiced in absolute freedom. Interference with this freedom is what made him the indomitable warrior as the Romans described him. Normally the Briton was a man of (P.103) peace and a respecter of other peoples' rights. History proves that the ancient Britons were never engaged in territorial conquest or war by invasion except in their own defense, or for punitive reasons.

Ostorius Scapula had replaced Plautius and the war continued for another seven years. Finally, after many bloody battles, the British, under the Pendragon Caractacus, met disaster at Clune, Shropshire, A.D. 52, by a strange trick of circumstance.

Chapter XI - Continued

Caractacus was not outmaneuvered in this last battle by the one General, Scapula. He opposed four of the greatest commanders in Roman history in this action and more. Up to this point, things had been going badly against the Romans on the field of battle, as shown by the fact that Emperor Claudius himself, with heavy reinforcements, came to Britain to support his generals in the field which climaxed the action at Clune.Opposing Caractacus in the Claudian campaign, in allied command with Aulus Plautius, was the great Vespasian, future Emperor of Rome, his brother and his son Titus who a few years later was to put Jerusalem to the torch, destroy its inhabitants and scatter the survivors of Judah over the face of the earth. Added to this illustrious military assemblage was Geta, the conqueror of Mauritania. As matters became desperate, an urgent appeal for help was sent to Emperor Claudius. He hastened to Britain, taking with him the 2nd and 14th Legions, with their auxiliaries, and a squadron of elephants. He landed at Richborough, joining his other generals on the eve of the battle of Clune, personally directing the battle which saved the day for Rome.It took the combined military genius of four great Roman generals, together with the Emperor and an army that vastly out­ numbered the British, to bring about this victory. This in itself is the greatest tribute that could be given to the military excellence of Caractacus, the valorous British warrior.It was a disastrous defeat.Not only was Caractacus captured but his entire family was taken as hostage to Rome. It was the most complete subjection of any royal house on record by an enemy.The British Triads commemorate the event as follows :'There were three royal families that were conducted to prison, from the great, great grandfather to the great-grandchildren without permitting one to escape. First the family of Llyr Lllediaith, who was carried to prison in Rome by the Caesaridae.

Not one or (P.104) another of these escaped. They were the most complete incarcerations known to families.'Arviragus and his family were not numbered among the captives. Evidently, he was more successful than his cousin Caractacus in making his escape at Clune, for we read of him reorganizing the British army and carrying on the war against Rome for many more years.Among the captives were the wife of Caractacus and his daughter Gladys, as well as his brother who had remained on the battle scene to receive the terms of the victor. Caractacus had been urged to flee so that he might later continue the conflict. However, fate was against him.Caractacus sought sanctuary from Aricia, the Cartismandua of Tacitus, queen of the Brigantes, and a grand-niece of the treacherous traitor, Mandubratius, who acquired infamy during the Julian war. By order of the traitorous queen, Caractacus was taken prisoner while asleep, loaded with irons, and delivered to Ostorius Scapula, to be numbered with the many other royal captives and shipped to Rome.Tacitus, in his Annals (bk. XII, ch. 36), writes that the news of the capture of the famed British warrior sped like wildfire though­ out Rome. The event was received by the people with greater jubilation than had climaxed any other Roman conquest, including the victories of Publius Scipio, when he brought Syphas to Rome in chains, and Lucius Paulus, who led the proud Perses into captivity.He further states that three million people crowded the streets of Rome to view the captive British King and the Senate convened to celebrate.Another Roman historian wrote :'Rome trembled when she saw the Briton, though fast in chains.’ 1(1 ef. Morgan, St. Paul in Britain, p. 99.)What had this great 'barbarian' chief achieved to cause such a sensation among the high and the low of the conquering Empire? Why was he so feared that the people trembled and shrank from him as he passed by helpless in irons? Fear and respect must have been well deserved to make the Romans cringe in their shoes. Being so dreaded, why did they not dispose of this 'barbarous Christian leader' according to their usual brutal custom?One is inclined to ponder on the mysterious workings of Providence (1 cf. Morgan, St. Paul in Britain, p. 99.)  as (P.105) we learn from the contemporary Roman reporters that Caractacus was the first captive kingly enemy not cast into the terrible Tarpcian dungeons. Why? The Roman conquerors were never noted for their clemency. They delighted in humiliating their adversaries, satiating their bestial nature in the most fiendish forms of torture. The greater the renown of their unfortunate victim the less chance he had of escaping the horrors and incarceration of the Tarpeian. This evil experience was specially reserved for the captive kings, princes, and great war generals, who were terribly maltreated, starved and finally strangled to death. Their dead bodies suffered a further indignity. With hooks pierced through the broken body, it was kicked and spat on as the mocking soldiery dragged it through the streets of the city, finally to be cast into the nearby river-like offal. Yet here was a captive king, leader of the hated Christians, who had conducted a devastating war against Rome over a period of years exceeding that of any other opponent, during which tune he had inflicted many disastrous defeats upon the mightiest Roman army ever to march on the field of battle· a warrior who had repeatedly outmaneuvered the ablest combination of Roman military strategy alone, still feared and looked upon with awe mixed with admiration.Neither he nor any member of the British royal family was subject in the least to any physical indignities. 1

In Those nine years of conflict, Eutropius reports in his Roman Records that thirty-two pitched battles were fought with victory swaying from one side to the other. The British Annals report that thirty-nine pitched battles were fought. Is there any wonder, as Tacitus remarks, that people from all parts of Europe poured into Rome to gaze upon this valiant warrior who had so seriously decimated the crack Roman Legions in combat? The record further. states. that Caractacus, heavily chained, walked proudly with his relatives and family behind the chariot of the Emperor, through the crowded streets of Rome. With this scene before us, we can cease to wonder at the series of startling events that transpired from the beginning of the famous trial onward. 2(1 Tacitus, Annals, 12:37.2 Tactitus, Annals, 12:36.)On the day of the trial, Tacitus tells us that his daughter Gladys refused to be separated from her father, Though it was against the Roman law for a woman to enter the Senate. Voluntarily she walked by the side of Caractacus, up the marble steps into the Senate, as brave and as composed as her father. (The report continues, the Pendragon stood before the Emperor 'Tacitus, Annals, 12: 37. • Tacitus, Annals, 12: 36.) full chest, a noble (P.106) figure, fearless, calmly defiant, unconquered in spirit. The Senate was crowded to capacity and here again, we note another breach of Roman law in the presence of another woman. History tells us that the great Queen Agrippira sat on her throne, on the far corner of the Dais, a fascinated witness to the most famous trial in Roman history.This man who should have been the most hated as the leader of the Christian army drew admiration from all sides as he stood poised before his sworn enemy, the Emperor Claudius.Such was the fame of the gallant Christian Briton - Caractacus. As the trial proceeded he spoke in a clear voice, trenchant with the passion of righteous vigor, as he vindicated the rights of a free man. He replied to his prosecutors with words that have lived down though the ages. Probably it is the only episode in this great Christian warrior's life that is remembered by posterity. Free men the world over may read his epic address with blood-wanning pride as the pen of Tacitus worded it.In the words of Tacitus, 1 Caractacus addressed the Senate :(1 Tacitus, Annals, 12:37.)'Had my government in Britain been directed solely with a view to the preservation of my hereditary domains, or the aggrandizement of my own family, I might long since have entered this city an ally, not a prisoner: nor would you have disdained for a friend a king descended from illustrious ancestors and the dictator of many nations. My present condition, stripped of its former majesty, is as adverse to myself as it is a cause of triumph to you. What then? I was lord of men, horses, arms, and wealth; what wonder if at your dictation I refused to resign them? Does it follow, that because the Romans aspire to univer­sal domination, every nation is to accept the vassalage they would impose? I am now in your power - betrayed, not conquered. Had I, like others, yielded without resistance, where would have been the name of Caradoc? Where is your glory? Oblivion would have buried both in the same tomb. Bid me live. I shall survive for ever in history one example at least of Roman clemency.'1Never before or after was such a challenging speech heard by a Roman Tribunal in the Roman Senate. It is the one solitary case in history. Spoken by a Briton, vibrant with the courageous conviction of a free man. (1 Tacitus, Annals, Ill:37.)This noble (P.107) address was once the proud oration of every British schoolboy; now, like the Songs of Tara, heard no more.How cheaply today Christians hold this cherished heritage.For many years students of Roman history puzzled their brains seeking a reason or motive that caused Emperor Claudius to render his remarkable verdict. Why, they ask, did not Claudius demand the customary Roman revenge? The pages of history are full of their brutal 'triumphs' dragging their unfortunate victims behind chariots; trampling them to death under the feet of elephants as they were forced to lie prostrate along the avenue of triumph; thrown to the starving lions in the arena; torn apart on the wrack, strangled, burnt or confined to the horrible pit of the Mamertine where they went stark raving mad.Did the strange intermarriages between princely Britons and Roman aristocrats, which was also to penetrate into his own family, induce Claudius to make his extraordinary decision?Historians definitely declare to the contrary. Emphatically they affirm that the Roman law was so embedded in the conscience 0f the Romans, that they would not think, let alone dare to avert traditional ruling.Nevertheless there and then by order of the Claudian Tribunal, Caractacus, with all the members of the royal Silurian family, were immediately set free. As the decision was rendered, we are told that the whole Senate applauded loudly. And the famed Queen Agrippira rose from her dais, approaching the Pendragon, and his daughter Gladys, shaking hands with each according to British fashion, then embracing them, according to the Roman. This display of emotion was another strange deviation from custom.'1The only restriction imposed in the pardon of Caractacus was that he must remain in Rome, on parole for seven years, and neither he nor any member of his family was ever to bear arms against Rome. To this Caractacus agreed and never once thereafter did he break his pledge. When he returned to Britain seven years later, even Though war was then raging between Briton and Rome, led by the unrelenting Arviragus, Caractacus, and his family remained aloof, honor bound. While he remained in Rome he enjoyed all the privileges of a freeman. With his family, he resided at the Palatium Britannicum - 'the Palace of the British' - which was soon to become world famous in Christian deeds and history. A son2 had been permitted to return to Britain and rule over the kingdom of the(1 Tacitus, Annals, 13:37.2 St. Cyllinus, Records of Justin ap Gwrangant.)Welsh Silurians in the stead of his father. During (’ Tacitus, Annals, 12: 37. ' St. Cyllinus, Records of '}estyn ap Gwrgant.) the seven (P.108) years of parole Caractacus was allowed to receive regular income from his British estates so that he and his family might continue to live in state, as befitted a royal household. Why Claudius bestowed such generous clemency upon the royal Britons, knowing full well he could never force them to recant their faith, is something that cannot be reasoned in material form. A greater influence was at work in which all these characters were but pawns on the Divine chessboard, moved in their actions by the inscrutable will of the Almighty, as the astounding events that follow prove so clearly, with St. Paul and this branch of theSilurian royal family holding the spotlight at Rome.In concluding the chapter on the valiant Caractacus, it should prove of interest to consider the validity of the remark he made in his address before the Roman Tribune, in which he states hewas 'betrayed - not conquered'.Do the facts support his contention? Undoubtedly they do.It was the unpredictable conditions that brought about the defeat of the British. Overwhelmed by numbers, as they were, it was circumstance and not arms that wrought the catastrophe.As stated before, Claudius had brought over to Britain a squadron of elephants, with other reinforcements, to bolster the distressed Legions of Aulus Plautius. This was the first time these strange creatures had been seen in Britain. They were introduced into the fight with the hope that their massive charging weight would offset the havoc wrought upon the Roman army by the British war chariots, armed with scythes on their wheels.Neither the size nor the charges of these monsters dismayed the British. It was the offensive odor of the elephants that distracted and panicked the horses(P.108) and drove the British chariots of war. Going completely out of control the horses and chariots wrought more havoc within the British lines during the battle than did the arms of the Romans. 1(1 Dion Cassius.)Added to this dilemma was the treachery of the Coraniaid, a clan long known for their traitorous dealings. The Romans had succeeded in buying them over. Unknown to Caractacus this insurgent army was hidden in his rear. The enemy had shaped up into the form of a letter L on the field of battle, with the Roman cavalry attacking the British flank. Striving to concentrate on this attack while the frenzied horses ran amok in the center, the Pendragon was taken by surprise when the hidden Coraniaidci attacked (P.109) into the rear. The defeat was inevitable. Seeing all was lost, Caractacus was urged by his brother and others to flee the field before it was too late. He made good his escape but the betrayal of the Pendragon by his cousin Aricia prevented him from con­necting with Arviragus, to carry on the conflict. Thus, by the unhappy accident that attends the fortunes of war, Caractacus stated in truth that he was betrayed and not conquered.Later Arviragus avenged the treachery of the Coraniaid, warring through their domain and taking a terrible vengeance.It is of peculiar interest to note that during the nine-year Claudian campaign the Silurians did not receive any reinforcements from the north, nor from Gaul, to whose defense the British had gone on many occasions over the past years. Neither did help come from Hibernia (Ireland) or Caledonia (Scotland). The fact is that help was almost impossible. The Romans used Gaul as a jumping­ off place to invade Britain, thus Gaullish aid was prevented. The Roman navy would block the Hibernians and Caledonia was too sparsely inhabited. At that time the migration of the Scots from Hibernia into the Caledonian highlands had not yet taken place. The powerful northern Brigantes were under the influence of their traitorous Queen who sold out Caractacus to the Romans. Aricia was later deposed and the powerful Yorkshire Britons from then on played an important part in firmly rooting the new Christ faith in Britain. In fact, many years after, when the faith appeared to weaken, it was the Yorkshire Britons who strengthened the founda­tion of Christianity that ensured its enduring perpetuation in Britain.These can be the only reasonable conclusions for the Silurians bearing the brunt of the Roman prosecution. If the whole Celtic nation could have marched as one it is certain that the Romans would have been quickly and decisively defeated and expelled from the Island. With an odd exception, which is ever the rule, there was no unfriendliness among the Celtic peoples. They were staunchly Druidic to begin with, and all showed their eagerness to absorb the instruction of the Christ faith. Throughout the Claudian campaign, the Irish and Pictish records tell of an ever-flowing stream of neophytes and delegates from the various kingdoms, journeying to Avalon to receive first-hand instruction from the Arimathean Culdees.It was a greater authority than that of man which decided the Claudian issue. If it had been otherwise St. Paul would most certainly have been seriously handicapped in carrying out the responsibility placed (P.110) upon him by our Lord to preach to the Gentiles.The historic tribute to Caractacus is, that without the aid of his Christian allies, he had proven his sterling ability against the Montgomerys and Eisenhower's of his day. By valor of arms and military strategy, he had outmatched them. In the quality of his address before the Roman Tribune, we see a man of high integrity and intelligence. His oration is worthy of a Winston Churchill. Yet this is the Briton whom short-sighted historians refer to as 'bar­barian'. It could be of interest to the despoilers of historic truth to learn that Caractacus addressed the Roman Tribunal in their own language - Latin. This vernacular, not being that of the British, had necessarily to be culturally acquired. We are authoritatively informed that the Celtic Priesthood employed their own common language in compiling their sacred works, using Greek exclusively for civil transcriptions. Latin was not adopted in British ecclesias­tical liturgies until centuries later, yet Latin was as familiar to their tongue as was Greek and Hebrew. The long association Britain had with Rome in commerce, culture, and social affairs had made each conversant with the other on common grounds.Following the Julian campaign of 55 B.C., we learn that British citizens were the only people permitted to walk the streets of Rome as freemen. Actually, this privilege was older than the Julian report; nevertheless, by this act and statement, it is clearly shown that the only people in the world who were truly freemen and free women were the British. Freedom was an all-consuming passion with them as Titus, the son of Emperor Vespasian, was to learn on other fields of battle than that at Clune. Titus fought thirty battles to subdue the short coastal areas of (P.110)Anglesey and the Isle of Wight without gratifying results.No Briton ever entered the Temples of Jupiter but, in the ensuing years, thousands of Roman soldiery who served in Britain turned to Jesus, kneeling before the Christian altars with the Christian British.The banner of the Cross under which Caractacus led the British troops for nine years was to be unfurled at Rome and accepted by the Romans as their national insignia. It was the family of Caractacus who first unfurled that standard at Rome and the family of Arviragus who made it steadfast.In the end, the Silureans conquered Rome for Christ.