As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
The conversion of the Anglo Saxon Israelites in England from paganism to Christianity was an interesting road of popery, trade and sex. None of this should seem out of the norm, because inroads were always made in some way as the Israelites by war absorbed those who raped their sister Dinah as much as King David did the Jebusites.
The conversion of the English began at Kent, a center of trade, initiated by Gregory the Great, and his advocate, Augustine, who became St. Augustine.
Æthelberht, of Kent, had wed, Bercta, the daughter of the King of Paris of the Franks, who was Christian. She was married at Canterbury at St. Martin's Church, which was still standing after the English put the torch to everything Roman, Christian and Welsh upon their invasion.
It was in this that Augustine arrived at Thanet in 597 AD in the year of our Lord, at the very spot the Anglo Saxon invasion started into the Isles 180 years previous, sent with 40 monks, chanting, bearing a silver cross to Æthelberht, who met them in the open air, as he was fearful they would put an incantation upon him if housed within 4 walls.
The King converted, but London remained pagan, as Melitus was sent to convert East Essex, as Augustine died, and Christianity became a smoldering ember.
In 612 AD in the year of our Lord, Eabald, son of Æthelberht, became king, and went heathen to following Woden again. The East Saxons chased out the bishops to Gaul, and except for a dream which admonished Eadbald by the mouth of Laurentius, all was lost, as Eabald relented and brought the bishops back.
Justice became primate in 624 AD in the year of our Lord, and while London was back to paganism, and Christianity languished, a new opening took place in Northumbria which was acted upon.
Eadwine became king of Northumbria, and took Æthelburh of Kent, daughter of King Æthelberht. She was Christian and sent to attend her religion was Paulinus. Gregory had planned this effectively to make England into two religious centers based on the old Roman capitals of York and London.
Paulinus having arrived, an assassination had been escaped by Eadwine, instigated by the Wessex Saxons. This provided Paulinus grounds into the psychology of Eadwine, who remained not convinced of Christianity, so decided to put off the decision until he returned from war.
If Jesus was Lord, then Jesus would have to win a victory over Wessex for Eadwine.
The battle went well with a great slaughter of the western English, and Eadwine returned to place himself under the teaching of Palinus..........but Eadwine being converted was not so certain about leading all his people to Christianity, as while King, he apparently did not believe the people would follow and instead assassinate him.
So Eadwine did the Republican thing and called the Coucil of the Wise Men, who were all the olegarchs in charge of the families, the Witena Gemot. The meeting in the open air was on the banks of the Derwent, and it was a not so miraculous version of Elijah and the prophets of baal.
For the priests and thengs, all professed a willingness to follow the Christian God, and it was Coifi, the priest of the heathen rites who took up his lance and threw it at the temple of his own demons.
Everyone expected immediate vengeance from the gods, but the earth did not open up, lightning did not strike, nor did brimstone fall from the sky.
With those manifestations not manifesting King Æduin, or Eadwine, with all the leadership and common folk, converted to Christianity in mass.
Æduin was baptised before the Ides of April, (on April 12th) on Easter Sunday, in the Church of St. Peter, he had hurriedly built at the instigation of Paulinus.
That was the beginning of Chritianity being established in England, with resistance from the western and central Kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia. Penda, King of Wessex, would make war on Eadwine and kill him, his son and conquer Northumbria two decades later bring Southumbria under pagan rule again.
Columba, an Irish missionry would cross to Iona in Scotland, and converted the Picts to start the Church there.
Oswald, son of King Eadwine, gained partial rule over Northumbria as the Welsh Cadwalla ruled in the south as a branch of Christianity, which practiced their own Easter days.
Oswald had been in exile in Scotland, and he brought with him, and introduced his Pict missionaries, and not the Italian popery missionaries of a different language.
Aiden of the Irish Pict Church in Scotland, went about the conversion of the Celts home by home.
Penda would at Maserfeld kill Oswald in battle, but martyrdom only enhanced the Christian Faith, as other missionaries of the Picts were at work in Penda's pagan realm. Penda's own son, Paeda, became Christian, and the Faith of the heterodox Church spread.
Osiwu, was now King in Northumbria, and Penda arrayed himself against him at Widwinfield, but this time the Christians were victorius in killing Penda and 30 of his princes. One by one the Anglo Saxon kingdoms had fallen to the Bible and with the death of Penda, Mercia under the rule of Peada became Christian.
The Isles now were divided in the north and west being Pict Irish Christianity and the south being Roman Christianity.
This is how Christianity came to the Anglo Saxons, first at Kent by Rome, and second by the Picts by Ireland.
"The church came as a teacher and civiliser, and in a few years the barbarous heathen English warrior had settled down into a toilsome agriculturist, an eager scholar, a peaceful law-giver, or an earnest priest. The change was not merely a change of religion, it was a revolution from a life of barbarism to a life of incipient culture, and slow but progressive civilisation.
Before the conversion we have not a single written document upon which to base our history; from the moment of Augustine's landing we have the invaluable works of Bæda, and a host of lesser writings (chiefly lives of saints), besides an immense number of charters or royal grants of land to monasteries and private persons. These grants, written at first in Latin, but afterwards in Anglo-Saxon."
Grant Allen. Early Britain / Anglo-Saxon Britain
This is the story of Londonium, the great Christian and pagan center which is no longer civilized in being just British. At one time people looked to Moses, David, Solomon, Jesus and the Church as the instruments of human advancement, and not just missionary plate donations making wards of dark skinned peoples.
agtG
