Culdees

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

a body of religious, who chiefly resided in Scotland, Ireland, and some of the adjacent isles. The name has been also written Keldees and Kyldees. Various etymons have been given of it. Two of these seem to have superior claims to attention. It may be deduced either from Irish ceile, or, gille, a servant, and De, Dia, God; or from cuil, ceal, in Welsh cel, a sequestered corner, a retreat. The latter seems to derive support from the established sense of kil, retained in the names of so many places, which, in an early age, have been consecrated to religion. It is more than probable that Christianity had found its way into Scotland before the close of the second century; and that it continued to be professed by a few scattered individuals even before the arrival of Ninian, in the beginning of the fifth. But we have no proof of the existence of any religious societies observing a particular institute, till the year 563, when Columba landed in Hii, or Ions; which, in honour of him, was afterward called I-colum-kill; that is, the isle of Colum, or Columba, of the cells. He was born in Ireland, A.D. 521; and, after founding many seminaries of religion there, prompted by zeal for the propagation of Christianity, set sail for Scotland with twelve companions. According to Bede, having converted the northern Picts, he received from Brudi, their king, the island of Hii in possession, for the purpose of erecting a monastery. Here he almost constantly resided till the year 597, when he died. He made occasional visits to the mainland, proceeding even as far as to Inverness: also to Ireland, where he was held in high estimation. As he was himself much devoted to the study of the Holy Scriptures, he taught his disciples to confirm their doctrines by testimonies brought from this unpolluted fountain, and declared that only to be the divine counsel which he found there. His followers, faithful to his instruction, "would receive those things only which are contained in the writings of the Prophets, Evangelists, and Apostles, diligently observing the works of piety and purity." They lived, indeed, according to a certain institute, which, it is said, was composed by their venerable instructer. But there was this remarkable distinction between them and those societies properly called monastic, that they were not associated expressly for the purpose of observing this rule. While they seem to have reckoned something of this kind necessary for the preservation of order, and for the attainment of habits of diligence, their great design was, by the instruction of those committed to their charge, to train them up for the work of the ministry. Hence it has been justly observed, that the Culdean fraternities may more properly be viewed as colleges than as monasteries; as being in fact, the seminaries of the church both in North Britain and in Ireland. There were also Culdees in Wales; and, for many ages, the Christians of that country held the same doctrines, and observed the same rites, with their Scottish and Irish brethren. The presbyters not only acted as the ministers of religion to those in their vicinity, but were still instructing others, and sending forth missionaries whenever they had a call, or any prospect of success.

2. In each regular establishment of the Culdees, it would appear that there were twelve brethren, with one who presided over them. Their ecclesiastical government has been viewed as materially the same with the Presbyterian. Their president, or abbot, was not a bishop, but a presbyter; to whose authority, as we learn from Bede, even the bishops of the district were subject. In their meetings, all matters were settled by plurality of voices. The members of this council had the general designation of seniores, or elders. To them, collectively, belonged the trial of the gifts of those who had been educated in their seminaries, when they were to be employed in the public ministry; from them they received ordination and mission, and to them they were amenable in the discharge of their office. Those whom they thus employed are, by ancient writers, often denominated bishops. But that they attached to this designation no dignity superior to that of presbyter, appears incontrovertible from their being afterward called to account, and sometimes censured by the fraternity. It has been asserted by the friends of diocesan episcopacy, that a bishop must always have resided at Iona for the purpose of conferring ordination. But there is not the slightest evidence of this. The contrary appears from all the records of these early ages. We learn from the Saxon Chronicle, that "there was always an abbot at Hii, but no bishop." It is a singular fact, that those who were first acknowledged as bishops in the northern parts of England, and were indeed instrumental in the introduction of Christianity there, were not only trained up at Iona, but received all their authority from the council of seniors in that island. This was the case with respect to Corman, the bishop of the Northumbrians, as well as Aidan, Finan, and Colman, who succeeded each other in this mission. From the testimony of Bede, it is evident that by means of Scottish missionaries, or of those whom they had instructed and ordained, not only the Northumbrians, but the Middle- Angles, the Mercians and East-Saxons, all the way to the river Thames, that is, the inhabitants of by far the greatest part of the country now called England, were converted to Christianity; and for some time acknowledged subjection to the ecclesiastical government of the Scots. The latter lost their influence merely because their missionaries chose rather to give up their charges than to submit to the prevailing influence of the church of Rome, to which the Saxons of the west and of Kent had subjected themselves.

3. Their doctrines were not less unpalatable than their mode of government to the friends of the church of Rome. In England, in a very early period, the adherents of the Popish missionary Augustine were viewed by the delegates from Iona in the light of heretics. They accordingly refused to hold communion with them. Matters were carried so high in support of the Roman authority in the synod of Stroneschalch, now Whitby, in England, A.D. 662, that Colman, the Scottish bishop of Lindisfarne, left his bishopric, and with his adherents returned to Scotland. Thus, as Bede informs us, "the Catholic institution daily increasing, all the Scots who resided among the Angles, either conformed to them or returned to their own country." It was decreed in the council of Cealhythe, A.D. 816, that no Scottish priest should be allowed to perform any duty of his function in England. But in Scotland the Culdean doctrine had taken deeper root; and, although equally offensive to the votaries of Rome, kept its ground for several centuries. The Popish writers themselves celebrate the piety, the purity, the humility, and even the learning, of the Culdees; but while they were displeased with the simplicity, or what they deemed the barbarism, of their worship, they charged them with various deviations from the faith of the Catholic church. It was not the least of these, that they did not observe Easter at the proper time. They did not acknowledge auricular confession; they rejected penance and authoritative absolution; they made no use of chrism in baptism; confirmation was unknown; they opposed the doctrine of the real presence; they withstood the idolatrous worship of saints and angels, dedicating all their churches to the Holy Trinity; they denied the doctrine of works of supererogation; they were enemies to the celibacy of the clergy, themselves living in the married state. One sweeping charge brought against them is, that they preferred their own opinions to "the statutes of the holy fathers."

4. The Scots, having received the Christian faith by the labours of the Culdees, long withstood the errors and usurpations of Rome. It was not till the twelfth century that their influence began to decline. The difference between the lower classes of society in England and those of the same description in Scotland, both with respect to religious knowledge and moral conduct, in generally considered to be very striking. Some writers, whose attention has been arrested by this singular circumstance, and who could not be influenced by local attachments, have ascribed the disparity to the relative influence, however remote it may seem, of the doctrine and example of the Culdees. Notwithstanding their great disinterestedness and diligence in propagating the Gospel in England, these good men, it has been remarked, within thirty years after the commencement of their mission, were obliged to give way to the adherents of Rome; whereas the Scots, it is certainly known, enjoyed the benefit of their labours for more than seven centuries, and seem to have still retained their predilection for the doctrines and modes which they so early received.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

The name Culdee is variously derived and explained by several different authorities. Ebrard gives "Kile De" — man of God;" Dr. Braun, "Gille De" — "servant of God." But the latest, and perhaps best authority, gives us Cuildich as the only name of the Culdees known among native Celts. This word means "a secluded corner;" a Culdee, therefore, is "the man of the recess." This accurately enough describes the Culdees' mode of life; though not monks, they were in a certain sense recluses.

The Scottish Church, when it first meets the eye of civilization, is not Romish, nor even prelatical. When the monk Augustine, with his forty missionaries, in the time of the Saxon Heptarchy, came over to Britain under the auspices of Gregory, the bishop of Rome, to convert the barbarian Saxons, he found the northern part of the island already well-nigh filled with Christians and Christian institutions. These Christians were the Culdees, whose chief seat was the little island of Hi or Iona, on the western coast of Scotland. An Irish presbyter, Columba, feeling himself stirred with missionary zeal, and doubtless knowing the wretched condition of the savage Scots and Picts in the year 565, took with him twelve other missionaries, and passed over to Scotland. They fixed their settlement on the little island just named, and from that point became the missionaries of all Scotland, and even penetrated into England. Before the end of the 6th century they had filled the country with their institutions, and subjected it, at least nominally, to Christ. Invited to England by Oswald, king of Northumberland, to preach the Gospel to his people, they sent Corman, who failed because of too great austerity of behavior, and then Aidan, who, without knowing the people's language, succeeded, and proved himself one of the noblest of missionaries. The people in the south of England converted by Augustine and his assistants, and those in the north who had been won by Culdee labor, soon met, as Christian conquest advanced from both sides; and when they came together, it was soon seen that Roman and Culdee Christianity very decidedly differed in a great many respects. The Culdees, for the most part, had a simple and primitive form of Christianity, while Rome presented a vast accumulation of superstitions, and was arrayed in her well-known pomp.

The result was, that in England the Culdee soon gave place to the Roman, and retired to his Northern home. Columba no doubt chose the little island of Iona as a place of safety from barbarian attack, as also because it was near to Ireland, whence he had brought his divine message. Besides, the loneliness of a small island in the sea was favorable to meditation, and accorded with the ascetic tendencies which at least touched the best men of those ages. The institution set up by Columba has been called a monastery, but, in truth, it had no claim to that name. True, the members of the community lived in cells, to which they retired for devotion and study, but this no more made them monks than a similar life makes monks of theological students of our own day. The Culdee recluses were not pledged to celibacy; many of them were married; many of them were succeeded in office by their own sons; they were not dedicated for life to their calling, but were free at any time to change it for another. Their families did not live within the sacred enclosure, but the husbands, their work within being done, passed out to spend the rest of their time with their families. Nor, indeed, was the aim of the institution at all kindred to that of monachism. The monk generally retires for his own improvement solely; he is weary of the world, and will have no more contact with it. He renounces it. The Culdee went to Iona that in quiet, with meditation, study, and prayer, he might fit himself for going out into the world as a missionary. Indeed, Iona was a great mission institute, where preachers were trained who evangelized the rude tribes of Scotland in a very short time. To have done such a work as this in less than half a century implies apostolic activity, purity, and success. With the exception of the principal men, they must have been much more out of their cells than in them. Traces of the schools and churches they established are found all over Scotland. The reason of this freedom from Romish asceticism may be found, at least in part, in the doctrines of these men.

They had no dogma of purgatory, no saint worship, no works of supererogation, no auricular confession, or penance, or absolution; no mass, no transubstantiation, no "chrism" in baptism, no priesthood, and no third order (bishops). They knew nothing of any authoritative rule except the Holy Scriptures. "These were held to be the one standard of truth, and were made by the missionaries a subject of close and constant study. Columba's own home work and that of his disciples was transcribing the Scriptures. These early missionaries were thoroughly Biblical. Columba's life by Adamnan represents him in almost every page as familiar with the Word of God, and ready to quote it on all occasions as of supreme authority." . . . "The great subject of their teaching was the simple truth of the Gospel of salvation. It was ‘ verbum Dei,' the Word of God. Adamnan says of Columba that from his boyhood he was instructed in the love of Christ." "The spirit of the Culdean Church may suitably and rightfully be described as an evangelical spirit, because it was free and independent of Rome; and when it and the papal Church came into contact, it always and obstinately repudiated its authority, under appeal to the single and supreme authority of holy Scripture; but, above all, because in its inner life it was penetrated throughout by the main principles of the evangelical Church. The Culdees read and understood the Scriptures in their original texts. Wherever they came they translated them orally and in writing into the language of the country, explaining them to the inhabitants, exhorting them to diligent and regular Bible reading. But the Scriptures were more to them than a codex of authoritative doctrines of faith. They were the living word of Christ. In the most earnest manner they preached the natural, inborn inability of man for good; the atoning death of Christ; justification without all merit of works; the worthlessness, especially, of all mere outward works; and the necessity of the new birth" (Ebrard). These views of life and doctrine reveal sufficiently the reason why the Culdees were missionaries rather than monks. The truths of the Gospel, pure and simple, just as they warmed the hearts of the apostles, had possession of them, and all their work was to make men feel and accept them. Their theory of Church government was very simple.

The institution at Iona was under the presidency of a presbyter called a presbyter abbot, who had associated with him twelve other presbyters. In case of a vacancy in the headship, these brethren elected their abbot. That he was a presbyter simply there can be no doubt. Bede, who belonged to the Romish Church, himself mentions it as a very strange thing "that a man who is merely a presbyter should govern a diocese, and have even bishops under him." The truth is, that the missionaries sent out from these Culdee seminaries were appointed and ordained pastors of the churches they founded, and the pastor of the church was the overseer of it, i.e. the bishop. The presbyter abbot, therefore, had ordained an elder, but, by appointment to a parish, had made him a bishop. They evidently knew nothing of the distinction between the order of presbyter and that of bishop. After the success of Augustine and his monks in England, the Culdees had shut themselves up within the limits of Scotland, and had resisted for centuries all the efforts of Rome to win them over. At last, however, they were overthrown by their own rulers. Margaret, the daughter of William the Conqueror, the queen of Malcolm Canmore, devoted to the cause of Rome, notable for piety, of powerful mind and skillful in the management of others, set her heart upon exchanging the Culdee for the Romish Church in Scotland. She got the Culdee presbyters together, and for three days discussed the matter with them in person. She succeeded by persuasion and artifice. This was in the latter part of the 11th century. It was not, however, till the 13th century that Culdeeism was completely overturned and Romanism established. Nay, it is more than probable that Culdeeism, with its simple and powerful Gospel influence, continued to live in the hearts of the people long after its forms and public ministrations had been buried beneath the finery of triumphant Romanism. There was a readiness among the Scotch to embrace the Reformation when it came, which, together with their sturdy evangelical character, reminds the historical reader of Culdeeism.

Literature. — McLauchlan, The Early Scottish Church from the 1st to the 12th centuries (Edinb. 1865, 8vo); Alexander, Iona (Edinb. 1866); Ebrard, Kirchen-und Dogmengeschichte (4 vols., vol. 2); Zeitschr. f. d. hist. Theol. 1862, 1863; King, The Culdees and their Remains, 1864; Meth. Quart. Rev. Oct. 1861; Brit. and For. Ev. Rev. Jan. 1866; Princeton Rev. Jan. 1867; The Church of Iona, by the Bishop of Argyll, 1866. See IONA.

The Nuttall Encyclopedia

Fraternities of uncertain origin and character scattered up and down Ireland, and especially Scotland, hardly at all in England, from the 9th or 10th to the 14th century; instituted, as would appear, to keep alive a religious spirit among themselves and disseminate it among their neighbours, until on the establishment of monastic orders in the country they ceased to have a separate existence and lost their individuality in the new communities, as well as their original charac ter; they appear to have been originally, whatever they became at length, something like those fraternities we find later on at Deventer, in Holland, with which Thomas à Kempis was connected, only whereas the former sought to plant Christianity, the latter sought to purify it. The name disappears after 1332, but traces of them are found at Dunkeld, St. Andrews, Brechin, and elsewhere in Scotland; in Ireland they continued in Armagh to the Reformation, and were resuscitated for a few years in the 17th century.