The Elements of Celtic Christianity

132 Pages·1995·4.102 MB·English

by  Anthony Duncan

The Elements of Celtic Christianity
Anthony Duncan is the author of The Mind
of Christ and The Whole Christ as well as a
number of other notable Christian titles. He is aji
Anglican canon of Scottish descent, now living
in Northumberland.
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The Elements Of
C
eltic
C
hristianity
Anthony Duncan
E L E M E N T
Shaftesbury, Dorset • Rockport, Massachusetts
Brisbane, Australia
© Anthony Duncan 1992
First published in Great Britain in 1992 by
Element Books Limited
Shaftesbury, Dorset SP7 8BP
Published in the USA in 1992 by
Element Books, Inc.
PO Box 830, Rockport, MA 01966
Published in Australia in 1992 by
Element Books Limited for
Jacaranda Wiley Limited
33 Park Road, Milton, Brisbane 4064
Reprinted 1993
Reprinted 1994
Reprinted March and September 1995
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized,
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
without prior permission in writing from the Publisher.
Cover Photograph: Conbelin Stone, Nargam Abbey,
West Glamorgan
Courtesy of The National Museum of Wales
Cover design by Max Fairbrother
Typeset by Falcon Typographic Art, Fife, Scotland
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Biddles Ltd, Guildford & King's Lynn
British Library Cataloguing in Publication
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
The elements of Celtic Christianity/Anthony Duncan
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Celtic Church. 2. Ireland-Religion.
I. Title, n. Title: Celtic Christianity. HI. Series.
BR737.C4D86 1992
274.1'01-dc20 92-32311
ISBN 1-85230-360-3
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
1. The Relevance of Our Celtic Roots 1
2. Who Are These People? 18
3. The Faith Among The Britons 32
4. Theological, Psychological - or
Pathological? 46
5. The Conversion of Wales, Scotland
and Ireland 56
6. The Centuries of Sorrows 70
7. Celtic? Catholic? Or Simply Orthodox? 82
8. Celtic Christianity - So What? 96
Textual References 113
Bibliography 117
index 119
For Colmcille, Brother-in-Christ and
tribal kinsman
A cknowledgements
The quotations from Celtic sources, upon which this
work substantially depends, derive largely from the
work of Alexander Carmichael (b. 1832). During the
course of a long life, Carmichael collected from the
people of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland their
traditions, their prayers and their poetry, all of which
he eventually published in the six large volumes of
his Carmina Gadelica.
Many others have published selections from this
massive source and I have made use of this material
as found in The Celtic Vision, edited by Esther
De Waal, in Poems of the Western Highlanders by
G.R.D. McLean, and in a selection from this latter
made by Sally Magnusson under the title Praying
with Highland Christians.
Another major source for quotations has been
the collection of translations from Celtic literature
compiled by Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson, under the
title A Celtic Miscellany.
A Welsh Pilgrim's Manual, edited by Brendan
O’Malley, contains, among other treasures, excellent
translations of more modern Welsh material, and I
have also quoted from Thomas Kinsella’s translation
of the Tain Bo Cuailnge. Other quotations, from Bede
and others, are noted as they occur.
All the sources referred to above are readily
available to the reader, mostly in inexpensive
paperback editions.
All sources which I found immediately useful
are acknowledged under Textual References and
Additional Sources at the end of the book, but
inevitably most of my material comes from the
reading and enthusiasms of a lifetime and can no
longer be specifically identified.
I acknowledge with gratitude the prayers and the
encouragements of many brethren of like heart and
mind. And I am happy to ‘declare an interest’ in that
my somewhat remote forefathers were none other
than those Irish ‘Scotti’ who once established the
kingdom of Dalriada on the west coast and among
the Islands of Scotland.
I am grateful to the following individuals and pub­
lishers for permission to quote from their works.
K. H. Jackson, A Celtic Miscellany, Routledge.
J. Marsden, The Illustrated Columcille Macmillan
London.
R. S. Thomas, The Moor’, Pieta, Rupert Hart Davis,
London,1966.
T. Kinsella, ‘He is coming, Adzed-Head’, New Oxford
Book of Irish Verse, Oxford University Press.
B. O’Malley (ed.), S. and C. Davies (trans.), A Welsh
Pilgrim's Manual, Gomer Press, 1989.
‘Jesu MacMary, Have mercy upon us’, ‘The Three
who are over my head’, Praying with the Highland
Christians, Triangle Books/SPCK, © The Estate of
G. R. D. Maclean, 1961, 1988.
A. Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica, Scottish Aca­
demic Press.
viii