Description
In AD 597 St Augustine arrived at Canterbury to preach the gospel to the heathen English, and in 1997 the fourteen hundredth anniversary of his coming was celebrated by millions of English-speaking Christians around the world. The history of the evangelisation of England and of the Anglo-Saxons' subsequent missionary expeditions elsewhere is well known, but what has been lacking has been a study of the theological perspective of the early English Church.
Douglas Dales has provided just such a work. Priest, historian and theologian, he succeeds in shedding new light on the theology of the evangelism of the British Isles and the work of missionaries to and from the British Isles in the Western church throughout the period 400–800 AD.
Although the historical value of the literary texts analysed in this book is substantial, this study gives them an inherent theological pre-eminence. This reprinted edition is thus an examination of particular people, and the beliefs they shared with those who remembered them, and who caused these texts to be written.
Through these pages, we discover that the origin of hagiographical literature in this specific area comes from a remote and singular period when the memory of the Roman era and of the church fathers was ever present. It was because of the barbarous condition that the Church faced, that the stream that fought to keep Latin Christian culture alive to nurture monastic education, missionary activity and the ascetic cultivation of sanctity remained hidden.