Gildas and his prophecy for Britain

JAEMA 9 (2013) 47–68 © the author and Australian Early Medieval Association

gildas and his prophecy for britain

Stephen Joyce Monash University

Abstract

In his De excidio Britanniae, Gildas systematically set out to admonish the morally corrupt secular and church leaders of partitioned fifth- or sixth-century Britain, calling for repentance, unity, and obedience to God’s law in order to restore his beloved patria. Examining Gildas’ use of rhetorical and biblical legitimations, this paper will argue that his warning of divine judgement for sin was inspired by a scriptural revelation that directly equated partitioned Britain with a divided biblical Israel just prior to the fall of Judah and Jerusalem to the Babylonians. In doing so, Gildas, drawing on both Jeremiah, prophet to the nations, and Paul, apostle to the nations, strikingly claimed prophecy. It will be argued that Gildas’ unique prophecy for Britain, built on respect for romanitas, fear of de praesenti iudicio, and a singular providential claim to the inheritance of Israel, defined the political power of his natio not by gens but by obedience to God’s law. In doing so, Gildas appears to draw on cultural, literary, and religious themes more appropriate to the late-fifth century than the mid-sixth century.

Introduction

One of the few surviving texts from ‘Dark Age’ Britain is the De excidio Britanniae by Gildas.1 Variously dated from the last quarter of the fifth century to the second quarter of the sixth century, the text contains a fierce denunciation of the sins of contemporary rulers and churchmen.2

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Australian and New Zealand

Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies conference in February 2013, and draws heavily from chapter one of my dissertation. See S. Joyce, “Rome Burns Brightly Still: Contextualising Gildas’s de excidio Britanniae” (Masters diss., Monash, 2013). I would like to thank Prof. Constant Mews, Dr Rina Lahev, and Sara Amos for reading a draft of this paper. Any errors are, of course, my own.

1 M. Winterbottom (ed. and trans.), Gildas: The Ruin of Britain and Other Works, History from the Sources, Arthurian Period Sources, vol. 7 (Chichester: Phillimore, 1978). For brevity, this paper will concentrate on book 1 (chapters 2–26).

2 C. Snyder, The Britons (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 123, notes various scholastic positions on the dating of De excidio in a useful table: D.N. Dumville, “Gildas and Maelgwn: Problems of Dating,” in M. Lapidge and D.N. Dumville (eds), Gildas: New Approaches (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1984), 51–60 (c. 550); M. Lapidge, “Gildas’s Education and the Latin Culture of Sub-Roman Britain,” in Lapidge and Dumville, Gildas: New Approaches, 27–50, at 49 (pre-500); T.D. O’Sullivan, The De Excidio of Gildas: Its Authenticity and Date, Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition, vol. 7 (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 178–180 (c. 515–520); M.W. Herren and S.A. Brown, Christ in Celtic Christianity: Britain and Ireland from the Fifth to the Tenth

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Gildas, addressing a moral and political crisis in Britain, calls for the spiritual and physical restoration of his divided patria through obedience to God’s law. Written in the form of an epistola, De excidio is prefaced by a brief history of Britain from the birth of Christ to Gildas’ present day, a history that is structured to reinforce divine punishment for sin through historical exempla and by overt comparison with the Old Testament ‘historia’ of God’s chosen people, Israel. This patriotic vision of Britain, is the single surviving historical narrative describing Britain in the period around the presumed withdrawal of the Roman army in the fifth century—a time when Britain began to evolve away from being a province of the Roman empire.

Gildas, whose education reflects his membership of the Romano-British elite, describes a province divided: heathen Pictish aristocracies have claimed British lands in the north up to Hadrian’s Wall; heathen Germanic aristocracies (Saxons) have claimed British lands in the east; Christian British aristocracies in the west were warring among themselves. He presents a divortium or border, likely militarised, as existing between British- and Saxon-controlled areas in the east and west, as defined by urbs legionum (either Caerleon, Chester, or York) and Verulamium (St Albans), and between Pictish- and British-controlled areas in the north and south, as defined by Hadrian’s Wall.3 An ordained member of the clergy, Gildas describes the Britain he knows as dominated by moral depravity and material affluence: he names and shames five Christian reges or ‘tyrants’ for their immorality and idolatry.4 He criticises the unnamed clergy of the

Century, Studies in Celtic History (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2002), 27–28 (c. 500); N.J. Higham, The English Conquest: Gildas and Britain in the Fifth Century, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), 137 (c. 479–484); and M.E. Jones, The End of Roman Britain (New York: Cornell University Press, 1996), 45, n. 20(post-500). This lack of consensus amongst specialists in early medieval Britain has tended to reinforce the more traditional dating of De excidio to the second quarter of the sixth century, as supported by reports for a figure called Gildas in the various Irish and Welsh annals. Accordingly, Snyder dates it to c. 530.

3 Gildas, De excidio 10.2 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 92): “… [Sanctorum martyrum] nunc corporum sepulturae et passionum loca, si non lugubri divortio barbarorum quam plurima ob scelera nostra civibus adimerentur, non minimum intuentium mentibus ardorem divinae caritatis incuterent: sanctum Albanum Verolamiensem, Aaron et Iulium Legionum urbis cives ceterosque utriusque sexus diversis in locis summa magnanimitate in acie Christi perstantes dico.”; and 19.1 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 95): “… tetri Scottorum Pictorumque greges … extremamque terrae partem pro indigenis muro tenus capessunt.”

4 Gildas, De excidio 27.1(Winterbottom, Gildas, 99): “Reges habet Britannia, sed tyrannos.” The tyrants are named as Constantine, Vortipor, Aurelius Caninus, Cunoglasus, and


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British church for a lack of moral leadership, for fornication, greed and corruption, and for illegitimacy and simony.5

The epistola is strikingly original within the Christian literature tradition of post-Roman western Europe: it contains the first history of a former Roman province (Britannia) as a nation, and Gildas is the first post-Roman author to stake a national claim (as Britones) to the divine legitimation of the chosen people of God.6 In investigating this novel claim to the inheritance of Israel, this paper will argue that Gildas draws on prophecy to legitimate his message of impending judgement for sin, directly equating partitioned Britain with a divided biblical Israel just prior to the fall of Judah and Jerusalem to the Babylonians. In doing so, Gildas appears to legitimate his prophecy with cultural, literary, and religious themes that are more appropriate to the late-fifth century than the mid-sixth century.

Gildas and the Bible

In order to highlight the imminent dangers faced by the sinful secular and church leaders of a partitioned Britain, the deacon Gildas looks to the Bible to construct a rhetorical case for de praesenti iudicio or judgement in the here and now.7

Maglocunus. For a discussion of the named tyrants see O’Sullivan, The De Excidio of Gildas, 87–133; and Dumville, “Gildas and Maelgwn,” 51–60.

5 Gildas, De excidio 66.1 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 118): “Sacerdotes habet Britannia, sed insipientes.”

6 E.A. Thompson, “Gildas and the History of Britain,” Britannia 10 (1979), 203–226, at 208, notes that Gildas was “the first man in the entire west to write a provincial history.” Jones, The End of Roman Britain, 123, notes that this “must have been a conscious rhetorical innovation.” D.R. Howlett, Insular Inscriptions (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005), 29, notes that “[n]o-one before Gildas had identified a single Christian people as praesens Israel, but that is what Gildas called the Britons, and not in an argumentative passage, rather in an obiter dictum to those who already believed themselves to be ‘the present Israel’. In the psychology of self-definition of the Britons it would be hard to overstate the importance of this idea.” T. O’Loughlin, Gildas and the Scriptures: Observing the World through a Biblical Lens, Studia Traditionis Theologiae, vol. 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), 25, in his study on Gildas’ use of the scriptures, also notes his originality: “The perception of his people as a distinct baptised nation marks an important break in the history of theology. This focus on his own populus in the DEB … means that we can treat Gildas as the first medieval theologian.”

7 O’Loughlin makes a convincing case for Gildas as a deacon. See O’Loughlin, Gildas and the Scriptures, 24-25.


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In his preface, Gildas quickly turns to the Old Testament to support his argument of the biblical past offering a vision for the present. Quoting from Numbers, Leviticus, Exodus, Joshua, and Samuel, Gildas skilfully moves the reader from his opening lament over the state of Britain to identifying a number of parallel situations in the Old Testament.8 He notes how a single word of doubt in God prevented the lawgiver Moses (and by association contemporary lawgivers) from entering the promised land.9 Immediately after this he contrasts the effects of obedience and disobedience of God’s law on the tribes of Israel (and by association Britain) whereby obedience to God brought divine aid, food, and military victory and disobedience brought defeat.10 Gildas refers to Joshua and the tribes of Israel breaking the treaty with the Gibeonites, leading to God's punishment. This alludes directly to the misfortunes of the recent past, predicated on the breaking of the treaty between Britain and Saxon mercenaries, an incident referred to in De excidio 23.5.11 Finally, Gildas equates the sins of the tribes of Israel with their subsequent divine destruction at the hands of the Babylonians. In doing so, Gildas draws the prophet Jeremiah’s description of the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem into his immediate present as he laments the sinful state of his beloved patria, Britain.12

In just four verses, Gildas has made some significant claims: the first is the actuality of providential history as laid out in the Old Testament, of God directly shaping the destiny of the chosen people—the tribes of Israel—on the basis of obedience or disobedience to divine laws; the second is the equation of Gildas’ patria, Britain, with biblical Israel, placing the Britons within the divinely shaped destiny of the chosen people of God; and the third claim is the equation of Gildas and the prophet Jeremiah, whose warnings of divine punishment for disobedience were ignored by the tribes of Israel.

The first claim places Gildas in a long line of patristic writers who viewed Christians of the New Testament as the inheritors of the divine promise made to the chosen people of God as outlined in the Old

8 See Higham, The English Conquest, 67–69, and K. George, Gildas’s De Excidio Britonum and the

early British Church (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2009), 16–17 for a similar discussion of Gildas’ pursuance of a single thread of argument using these selected texts from the Old Testament.

9 Gildas, De excidio 1.3 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 87), with reference to Num. 20:12. 10 Ibid., 1.3–4 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 87), with reference to Lev. 10:1–2; Ex. 14:22; 16:15;

17:6, 11; and Jos. 7:1. 11 Ibid., 1.4 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 87), with reference to 2 Sam. 21:1. 12 Ibid., 1.4–6 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 87–88), with reference to Lam. 1:1; 4:1–2, 6.


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Testament. Following on from the legacy of fourth- and fifth-century chroniclers, such as Eusebius of Caesarea and his translator Rufinus, Augustine’s student Orosius, and Salvian of Marseilles, who each, in different ways, providentially linked Christianity to divine destiny, Gildas clearly viewed the present, the past, and the future as being directly informed by the relationship of Christians to God. This philosophy, predicated on temporal rewards and punishments, powerfully linked the religious and political spheres and viewed the providential judgement of God within a temporal world defined by respect for romanitas and by obedience to God’s law.

The second claim, relating the former Roman province of Britain and the Britons to the chosen people of God, is utterly original. This is the first western ‘history’ to make such a specific, divinely sanctioned, geo-political claim. What Gildas alludes to in his praefatio, he claims in his subsequent historia: Britain is praesens Israel.13 The relocalisation of the covenant between God and his chosen people to Gildas’s natio and gens has the effect of not only isolating the island of Britain, like biblical Israel, between the potent and heathen powers of Egypt and Babylon, but of dramatically enhancing Gildas’s lament: the fate of Christianity, itself, rests on the fate of Britain. This rhetorical device places enormous pressure and prestige on those addressed by this letter: the Britons, as divinely chosen by God, are responsible for the survival and ultimate implementation of God’s law. Gildas’s crisis, the imminent moral and physical collapse of Britain, has been recast into the wider and more catastrophic setting of an imminent collapse of romanitas and Christianity.

The third claim, the identification of Gildas with the prophet Jeremiah is significant. Gildas has already called upon the authority of the Bible in laying out the providential nature of the relationship between God and the chosen people. Gildas, in being bold rather than “silent,” delivers, just as Jeremiah did, God’s warning of the imminent destruction of that chosen people because of sin.14 This comparison with Jeremiah is particularly inspired. In seeking the authority of Jeremiah, Gildas is pre-empting the attacks made on Jeremiah by the secular and church leaders of biblical Israel. Any attack on Gildas by British secular and church

13 Ibid., 26.1 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 98): “… ut in ista gente experiretur dominus solito more

prasesentum Israelem.” 14 Ibid., 1.2 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 87): “… silui, fateor, cum immenso cordis dolore, ut mihi

renum scrutator testis est dominus, spatio bilustri temporis vel eo amplius praetereuntis.”


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leaders as a result of his letter would simply enhance the prestige of his message.15

The potent combination of providential history, the Britons as the chosen people of God and the personal role of the prophet within this paradigm have clearly had a significant revelatory effect on Gildas and his vision of Britain: he admits it has reshaped his view of the New Testament:

I gazed on these things and many others in the Old Testament as though on a mirror reflecting our own life; then I turned to the New Testament also, and read there more clearly what had, previously, perhaps, been dark to me: the shadow passed away, and the truth shone more brightly.16

The New Testament passages that Gildas quotes in his preface, mainly from Matthew, focus on the contrasting final judgements on those who obey God’s law (the faithful) and those who disobey God’s law (the faithless or the unfaithful) within a dramatic context of the possible imminence of Christ’s return.17 These contrasting judgements are clearly drawn back by Gildas into Jeremiah and then forward into his immediate present: in declaring that he “saw how clearly the men of our day have increasingly put care aside, as though there was nothing to fear,”18 Gildas drew directly on the description of biblical Israel as laid out in Jeremiah 3: 6–11. Biblical Israel is divided into two kingdoms, Judah and Israel: these two kingdoms are, in turn, unfaithful (poor Jews) and faithless (idolaters); God instructed Jeremiah to warn unfaithful Judah but they ignored his warnings, with God, preferring faithless Israel, abandoning and destroying unfaithful Judah. The revelation for Gildas was clear: Britain, as praesens Israel, was also divided into unfaithful Judah (as the ‘British west’) and faithless Israel (as ‘Saxon east’ and ‘Pictish north’). If Gildas’ unfaithful Britons did not mend their ways, God would abandon and destroy them. 15 Jeremiah was attacked by his own brothers (Jer. 12:6); beaten and put into the stocks

by a priest and false prophet (Jer. 20:1-4); imprisoned by the king (Jer. 37:18; 38:28); threatened with death, (Jer. 38:4;) thrown into a cistern by Judah’s officials (Jer. 38:6); and opposed by a false prophet (Jer. 28). O’Loughlin, Gildas and the Scriptures, 24–25, also notes Gildas’ claim to prophecy.

16 Gildas, De excidio 1.7 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 88): “Ista ego et multa alia veluti speculum quoddam vitae nostrae in scripturis veteribus intuens, convertebar etiam ad novas, et ibi legebam clarius quae mihi forsitan antea obscura fuerant, cessante umbra ac veritate firmius inlucescente.”

17 Matt. 15:24-26; 8:11–12; 23:13; 7:23; 25:10–12; and Luke 23:29. 18 Gildas, De excidio 1.12 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 88): “Videbam e regione quantum

securitatis hominibus nostri temporis, ac si non esset quod timeretur, increverat.”


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In claiming the prophetic revelation of Jeremiah, Gildas has, from the outset, providentially inserted himself into his own letter: Gildas the prophet foretells the divine fate of “British Judah”; Gildas the prophet “rejoices in remedies” to deflect the divine fate of “British Judah.”19 The judgement for repentance that Gildas anticipates, like that anticipated in Jeremiah, is a reuniting of Judah and Israel into the restored biblical kingdom of Israel, significantly led by the house of David, the royal line of Judah.20 The judgement for sin that Gildas anticipates, like that described by Jeremiah in Lamentations, is that God will destroy and abandon unfaithful Judah, ultimately preferring faithless Israel. It is an extraordinary religious and political claim and one likely to cause consternation within the secular and church leaders he is addressing. In order to legitimate his divine message, a message that calls for both religious and political reform, Gildas deliberately constructs his prophecy within the providential conventions of the Bible and the legal conventions of romanitas.

Gildas and Legitimation From the opening sentence of his praefatio, Gildas immediately draws on the secular legitimising conventions of romanitas via his Latinity and the legal structures inherent in rhetoric, as well as the divine legitimising conventions of the Bible via his use of exempla and the structural emphasis inherent in ‘biblical style.’21

Foremost of these legitimising conventions is language; De excidio is written and structured in Latin.22 This late Latin, bearing no trace of the vernacular, is strictly correct, the concise language of church and government.23 Gildas consistently uses late Latin military descriptors with

19 Ibid., 1.1 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 87): “… sed condolentis patriae incommoditatibus

miseriisque eius ac remediis condelectantis edicturum putet.” 20 P.R. Davies, The Origins of Biblical Israel (London: T & T Clark, 2007), 124 and 151. It is,

perhaps, significant in this context that Gildas, De excidio 31.1 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 101), compares the tyrant Vortipor and his unnamed father to the reigning house of Judah in Jeremiah, “Mannaseh son of Hezekiah”: “… boni regis nequam fili, ut Ezechiae Manasses, Demetarum tyranne Vortipori.”

21 ‘Biblical style,’ as defined by D. Howlett, The Celtic Latin Tradition of Biblical Style (Dublin: Four Corners Press, 1995), 1–28, is a structuring of Latin shaped by the chiastic structure of Hebrew poetry.

22 It is significant that Gildas, De excidio 23.3 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 97), terms Latin as “ lingua … nostra.”

23 Lapidge, “Gildas’s Education,” 34–35.


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precision.24 He is familiar with the precise, technical vocabulary of late-Latin law courts.25 The epistola is structured within the literary conventions of romanitas: a personal preface detailing the reasons for his complaint (written within the ‘modesty’ convention of the epistolary genre); a selective, detailed background to his complaint, written as a narrative history of Britain; a current complaint against the tyrants, backed up by argument; a current complaint against the clergy, backed up by argument; a final exhortation and prayer for the victory of those that support the complaint, the good clergy.26 This structure marries neatly with rhetorical legal conventions, which require an exordium, followed by a narratio (in the form of a historia, fabula, argumentum, or iudicialis asserto), a propositio, an argumentatio, and finally an epilogus.27 The effect of this legally correct use of Latin and rhetoric is to draw on the authority and legitimation of the highest cultural forms of romanitas: Gildas, clearly educated by both a grammaticus and a rhetor, is drawing on this tradition to have his case judged by those, similarly educated, who also drew on these legitimations.28

The second of these legitimising conventions is the use of exempla; De excidio is written and structured within the religious and moral tradition of the Bible. Gildas, by comparing and contrasting recent and contemporary events in Britain with those contained in the Bible, sets out, in his own distinctive way, to prove his case that God’s judgement of a sinful Britain is a providential reality. In doing so, Gildas, recalling the chiastic structures of the Bible, uses symmetrical repetition and parallelism of words and statements to construct a tightly knit and interconnected structure, which encloses his narrative and gives it divine legitimacy.

24 J. Morris, The Age of Arthur: A History of the British Isles from 350 to 650 (London: Weidenfeld

and Nicolson, 1973), 132: foederati (allies bound by treaty), annona (supplies), hospites (billeted troops), praepositi (commanders), consilium (councils), consiliari (advisors), and cuneus (formation).

25 Lapidge, “Gildas’s Education,” 46–47: testes (witness), respondio (evidence), and comprobo (establish by means of judicial evidence).

26 Howlett, The Celtic Latin Tradition, 79, against the assertion of Winterbottom, “Gildas,” 3, that Gildas knew nothing of rhythm, notes that Gildas has composed his first two sentences in alternating clausular and cursus rhythms.

27 Lapidge, “Gildas’s Education,” 41–42: exordium (author’s reasons), narratio (historia (history), fabula (story), argumentum (argument) or iudicialis asserto (judicial assertion), propositio (a brief statement of the case), argumentatio (the detailed argument of the case), anaphalaeosis (the recapitulation of the case), and finally epilogus (inciting the audience to indignation or mercy).

28 See Lapidge, ‘Gildas’s Education,” 27–28, for a discussion of the traditional system of Roman education. He observes on 49 that schools in Gaul offering this type of classical education did not survive the fifth century.


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Symmetrical repetitions of equally spaced words or synonyms are used to define both distinct sections (for example, books 1–3) of De excidio, and the work as a whole; parallelism and chiasmus are used to define more discrete sections within it.29 As both David Howlett and Karen George have noted, Gildas’ praefatio is not only defined by a chiasmus, but also by a symmetrical repetition that, in turn, emphasises a centrally placed parallelism:30

lacrimosis querelis (1.1) mournful complaint spatio bilustris temporis (1.2) the space of ten years

legebam nihilominus (1.3) I could not help reading (in the Old Testament)

videbamque etiam nostro tempore (1.5) and I could see that in our time too legebam inquam (1.8) I read, I say (in the New Testament)

non parvo tempore (1.15) for no short time cum lacrimis (1.16) with the tears

lacrimosis (1.1) tears temporis (1.2) time

admirandum (1.3) revered societate (1.10) society

misericordiam (1.11) merciful iudicium (1.11) judgement gratia (1.11) grace

redditionem (1.11) reward31 communia (1.12) in common

summo (1.14) important tempore (1.15) time

lacrimis (1.16) tears

29 George, Gildas’s De Excidio Britonum, 29-47. George devotes a chapter to discussing the

structuring of the DEB according to the ‘Biblical Style’ in the Book of Lamentations. Parallelism is a statement followed by a restatement in identical order; chiasmus is a statement followed by a restatement in reverse order.

30 Howlett, Celtic Latin Tradition of Biblical Style, pp. 72-81. George, Gildas’s De Excidio Britonum, 46. The numbers relate directly to the verses in Winterbottom’s edition of the DEB. For a caution on ‘Biblical Style’ as a methodology, see R. Flechner, review of Gildas’s De Excidio Britonum and the Early British Church, by K. George, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 109 (2010), 523–525. See also C.D. Eckhardt, review of British Books in Biblical Style by D. Howlett, Speculum, 75 (2000), 700–702.

31 Gildas, De excidio 1.11 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 88): “Sciebam misericordiam domini, sed et iudicium timebam; laudabam gratiam, sed redditionem unicuique secundum opera sua verebar.”


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This central parallelism emphasises a biblical phrase from both the New Testament—Romans 2:6 (“qui reddet unicuique secundum opera eius”)—and the Old Testament—Jeremiah 50:29 (“reddite ei secundum opus suum”).32

Gildas’ linking of Romans and Jeremiah is striking: Gildas leads up to this central parallelism with Paul’s metaphor of the Christian church as an olive tree, itself directly influenced by Jeremiah.33 This metaphor, describing God cutting off and/or grafting on olive branches (as gentes or nationes) to the olive tree (as the church or covenant), relates directly to the same metaphor used in Jeremiah (as it relates to Israel and the covenant). It is possible that this equation of the New Testament Paul, from the tribe of Benjamin and apostle to the nations, and the Old Testament Jeremiah, from the tribe of Benjamin and prophet to the nations, lies at the heart of Gildas’ biblical revelation: Britain’s immediate future reflects Judah’s immediate future—destruction and abandonment by God.

In emphasising this biblical phrase from Jeremiah 50:29 (“reddite ei secundum opus suum”), Gildas is strikingly recalling the last biblical quote in Salvian’s great providential work written around the middle of the fifth century—De gubernatione Dei—as he comments on the province of Africa being punished as a result of sin.34

Gildas, in his praefatio, appears to have placed himself and his work as following directly from Salvian’s De gubernatione Dei. In doing so, Gildas draws on another form of legitimation for his prophecy, that of the classical and patristic traditions of both romanitas and the Christian church.

32 See also Ps. 61(62):13: “… et tibi, Domine, misericordia quia tu reddes unicuique iuxta

opera sua.” Also Rev. 22:12: “Ecce uenio cito, et merces mea mecum est, reddere unicuique secundum opera sua.” The phrase of Rom. 2:6 is matched by a fuller quote of Rom. 2:5–6 in De excidio 98.1 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 136); whether this is part of any Biblical symmetry is, as yet, untested. Higham, The English Conquest, 27 and 83, also notes the influence of Paul on Gildas.

33 Gildas, De excidio 1.10 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 88): Rom. 11:17–21; and Jer. 11:16. The parallels between Rom. 11 and Jer. 11 have been noted by biblical scholars. See, for instance, C.J. Collins, “Echoes of Aristotle in Romans 2:14–15: Or, Maybe Abimelech Was Not So Bad After All,” Journal of Markets and Morality, 13 (2010), 123–173, at 132.

34 Salvian, De gub. 8.5.25 (Sources Chrétiennes [= SC] 220.526): “Iustus ergo est dominus et iustum iudicium suum; quae enim, ut scriptum est, seminarunt, haec et metunt, ut uere uideatur de improbitate illius gentis dixisse dominus: Reddite ei secundum opus suum [my emphasis]; iuxta omnia quae fecit facite illi, quia contra dominum erecta est.” De gubernatione dei is generally dated from internal evidence to the first half of the 440s. See D. Lambert, “The Uses of Decay: History in Salvian’s De gubernatione dei,” Augustinian Studies 30 (1999), 115–130, at 115, n. 1. Salvian is the only patristic author quoting this phrase from Jeremiah.


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Gildas and Tradition

Gildas, as well as quoting from the Bible and its translations, the Vulgate, the Vetus Latina, and possibly the Septuagint, also quoted from illustrious Romans, Christian and classical, such as church historian Eusebius and his translator Rufinus, the ascetic aristocrat Sulpicius Severus, Augustine’s student Orosius, the biblical scholar Jerome, the ascetic monks Evagrius and John Cassian, as well as classical authors Vergil and Cicero.35 In doing so, Gildas found legitimation for his prophecy within both the classical traditions of romanitas and the patristic traditions of the Christian church.

Gildas’ emphasis on Jeremiah and Paul as authorities for his prophecy for Britain introduces the possibility of further examining his patristic choices; only two commentaries on Jeremiah are extant for the period where Gildas draws his patristic influences, those of Jerome (who died before he could finish the work) and the third-century theologian, Origen (whose homilies on Jeremiah were translated by Jerome from Greek into Latin). Jerome and Origen have different perspectives on Jeremiah’s prophecy in 3:6–11. Jerome, referring to Ezekiel, 1 Kings, and 1 Corinthians, focuses on heresy:

According to anagogy, it is a prophecy about heretics: deceived by heretical subtlety, they think they are pursuing the knowledge of the Name, but in fact they are going up the hill of pride … having been seduced by the pleasures of the flesh. 36

35 See F.C. Burkitt, “The Bible of Gildas,” Revue Benedictine 46 (1934), 206–215.

In addition to this, E.S. Duckett, The Gateway to the Middle Ages (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1961), 113, believes that Gildas, in quoting from the Septuagint, knew Greek. For a study of Gildas’ patristic influences see F. Kerlouégan, Le De excidio Britanniae de Gildas: les destine es de la culture latine dans l'ile de Bretagne au VIe siecle (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1987). N. Wright, “Gildas’s Reading: A Survey,” Sacris Erudiri, 32 (1991), 121–162, at 152, has a useful table. It is significant that none of Gildas’ patristic influences detected to date lived beyond the fifth century.

36 Jerome, In Hier. 3.6–10 1.55.5 (Corpus Christianorum, series Latina [= CCL] 74.33: “Secundum ἀναγωγὴν autem de hereticis prophetia est, qui, falsi nominis scientiam dum se arbitrantur heretica subtilitate sectari, ascendunt montem superbiae et carnis huius uoluptatibus deliniti ...” English translation in M. Graves (trans.) and C.A. Hall (ed.), Jerome: Commentary on Jeremiah, Ancient Christian Texts (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2011), 21.


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Origen sets his homily within the context of God’s judgement as it relates to the “very few who attain the selection of God.”37 In doing so, Origen refers directly to Romans:

When the events which refer to Israel and the mistakes of that people are known, we should be fearful and say: “If he did not spare the natural branches, how much more will he not spare us.” If the kind and at the same time benevolent God, who does not spare those rooted firmly in the root of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, cuts off those who boast to be cultivated, “how much more will he not spare us!” 38

Gildas, like Origen, dwells on the metaphor of the olive tree;39 like Origen, he is fearful of God’s judgement for a “lack of fear”;40 and again, like Origen, he dwells on the fact that God did not spare the Jews:

This, and much more besides that I have decided to leave out in the interests of brevity, I frequently pondered, my mind bewildered, my heart remorseful. For (I said to myself) when they strayed from the right track the Lord did not spare a people that was peculiarly his own among the nations, a royal stock, a holy race, to whom he had said: “Israel is my first-born son,” or its priests, prophets and kings, over so many centuries the apostle, minister and members of that primitive church. What then will he do with this great black blot on our generation? 41

37 Origen, Hom. in Ier. 4.3.2 (Sources Chrétiennes [= SC] 232.266: “οἱ καταντῶντες ἐπὶ τὴν ἐκλογὴν τοῦ θεοῦ” English translation in J.C. Smith (trans.), Origen: Homilies on Jeremiah, Homily on 1 Kings 28, Fathers of the Church, vol. 97 (Washington, DC.: Catholic University of America Press, 1998), 34. Matthew 22.14

38 Ibid., 4.4.1 (SC 232.266): “Ὅτε ἀναγινώσκονται τὰ τῷ Ἰσραὴλ συμβεβηκότα καὶ τὰ πταίσματα <τὰ> περὶ ἐκεῖνον τὸν λαόν, δέον ἡμᾶς φοβεῖσθαι καὶ λέγειν· ‘Eἰ τῶν κατὰ φύσιν κλάδων οὐκ ἐφείσατο πόσῳ πλέον οὐδὲ ἡμῶν φείσεται’· εἰ ἐκείνους τοὺς αὐχοῦντας εἶναι καλλιέλαιον, τοὺς ἐρριζωμένους εἰς τὴν ῥίζαν τῶν πατριαρχῶν Ἀβραὰμ καὶ Ἰσαὰκ καὶ Ἰακὼβ μὴ φεισάμενος ὁ χρηστὸς ἅμα καὶ φιλάνθρωπος θεὸς ἐξέκοψε, ‘πόσῳ πλέον ἡμῶν οὐ φείσεται’.”

39 Gildas, De excidio 1.10 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 88). 40 Ibid., 1.12 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 88). 41 Ibid., 1.13 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 88): “Haec igitur et multo plura quae brevitatis causa

omittenda decrevimus cum qualicumque cordis compunctione attonita mente saepius voluens, si, inquam, peculiari ex omnibus nationibus populo, semini regali gentique sanctae, ad quam dixerat: ‘primogenitus meus Israel,’ eiusque sacerdotibus, prophetis, regibus, per tot saecula apostolo ministro membrisque illius primitivae ecclesiae dominus non pepercit, cum a recto tramite deviarint, quid tali huius atramento aetatis facturus est?” The phrase illius primitiuae ecclesiae is an echo of Cassian, Conlatio 17.20 (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum [= CSEL] 13.481. See Wright, “Gildas’s Reading: A Survey,”


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Gildas appears to draw on Origen’s homilies on Jeremiah rather than Jerome’s. It is possible that Origen’s homilies formed the basis of his subsequent linking of Jeremiah and Paul. This preference for Origen over Jerome, with its emphasis on sin rather than heresy, appears to place Gildas within a specific tradition, one that builds on his other influences. This line of patristic influences—Origen, Evagrius, Sulpicius Severus, Cassian, and Salvian—is quite distinct, drawing on an eastern ascetic tradition that highlighted individual salvation within a more literal eschatological tradition based on both faith and works, a tradition that emphasised a Christian’s struggle against sin.42 In the fifth century, this tradition was challenged and then replaced by a perspective, shaped by Augustine’s conflict with the arch-heresiarch Pelagius, which highlighted communal salvation within a more allegorical, eschatological framework emphasising faith over works, a tradition that emphasised the Christian community’s struggle against dissent.43

This eastern ascetic tradition, a tradition resistant to the ‘novelties’ of Augustine, came to be influential within the clerical order of the Gallican church as well as Gallican monastic centres such as Lérins located near Marseilles. Indeed it is the former monk of Lérins and, subsequently,

137. Significantly, Cassian is talking about the apostle Paul at this point. It is also, perhaps, significant that Gildas describes Israel as the “primitive church” rather than its more common usage as a descriptor of the early apostolic church.

42 See R. Weaver, Divine Grace and Human Agency: A Study of the Semi-Pelagian Controversy, Patristic Monograph Series, vol. 15 (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1996), 235–238. Cassian is, perhaps, integral to the movement of Origenistic ideas to the West: a student of the ascetic monk Evagrius and a refugee from the Origenistic controversy in Alexandria c. 400, he fled first to the patriarch of Constantinople, John Chrysostom, where he was ordained a deacon, and then, with the exile of Chrysostom, he fled to Rome c. 404, where he presented himself to Pope Innocent I. Sometime between 405 and 415 he founded two monasteries at Marseilles; it is, perhaps, likely that he brought with him Origen’s works. See B.R. Rees, Pelagius: Life and Letters (Rochester: Boydell Press, 1998), 105, for a brief account on Cassian. His move to Gaul was crucial in restoring credibility to the ascetic movement there. See C. Leyser, Authority and Asceticism from Augustine to Gregory the Great (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 35; and R. Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 213, for an overview of the influence of Cassian on the Gallican church.

43 The base point for this subtle split in emphasis was, arguably, the Origenist controversy at the end of the fourth century fuelled, perhaps, by the translations of his works from Greek into Latin by Rufinus. Origen’s translated works, for instance, influenced Pelagius. For a discussion of Pelagius’ reception of Origen’s writings see T.A. Scheck, Origen and the History of Justification: The Legacy of Origen’s Commentary on Romans (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008), 83–85.


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priest of Marseilles, Salvian, and his critique of secular and church leaders, De gubernatione Dei, which provides the closest literary parallel to Gildas. As O’Sullivan notes:

It is clear, considering the likenesses of matter and manner, that the De excidio must be closely bracketed with the De gubernatione Dei of Salvian by the literary historian. 44

Salvian, like Gildas, emphasised de praesenti iudicio—judgement in the here and now. He, like Gildas, also considered that the punishments of his praesens Israel, the Roman empire, are predicated by sin.45 For Salvian, however, hope lay with those external to a corrupt Roman empire: the heretic and heathen barbarians. For Gildas, the destructive barbarians, as represented by the heathen Saxons and Picts, are clearly not the answer. Hope can only be found from within a corrupted Israel, significantly, a corrupted Britain herself. In order to convince his audience that Britain is praesens Israel, Gildas sets out to present conclusive evidence from providential history.

Gildas and Providential History

In setting out his case for Britain as praesens Israel, Gildas calls on all the legitimating powers of both romanitas and the Bible as laid out in his praefatio. Drawing on the Christian historiography of Eusebius, Rufinus, and Orosius, who, between them, developed a progressive chronology—a ‘history of salvation’—centred on Rome as a triumphant Israel, and drawing on the urgency of Salvian’s immediate, literal view of the Roman empire as a failed Israel, Gildas radically structures his chronology, not within the thematic of progressive salvation, but within that of a reactionary ‘fall of Israel.’46 Selectively ordering and emphasising events that reinforces his patria’s direct and often tested providential relationship with God, Gildas builds a unique case for Britain as praesens Israel. In doing so, he merges the historiographical traditions of Eusebius, Rufinus, Orosius, and Salvian and the historical traditions of Britannia into an immediate and literal, biblical Israel singularly representing both salvation and romanitas. This historia is, perhaps, the most original and challenging

44 O’Sullivan, The De Excidio of Gildas, 61. 45 P. Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in

the West, 350–550 AD (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 441–442. 46 R. Hanning, The Vision of History in Early Britain: from Gildas to Geoffrey of Monmouth

(New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), 20–43, discusses the evolution of the Roman Christian historiographical tradition.


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section of De excidio: Gildas, in constructing a providential chronology–a ‘grand narrative’—that identifies Britannia as praesens Israel, is drawing on the traditional legitimacy of a set historical narrative, one that is agreed and one that cannot be manipulated without damaging his legal case.47 Deferring to this legitimacy, Gildas pauses to point to the ‘legal difficulties’ caused by the lack of historical sources:48

I shall do this as well as I can, using not so much literary remains from this country (which, such as they were, are not now available, having been burnt by enemies or removed by our countrymen when they went into exile) as foreign tradition: and that has frequent gaps to blur it.

Briefly acknowledging an ancient and pagan past, Gildas begins his history of Britain with the conquest by the Romans. Moving quickly to the introduction of Christianity and subsequent persecutions by Diocletian in the early fourth century, as exemplified by the local martyr of St Alban, Gildas charts and equates the rise of heresies and tyrants, as exemplified by the local usurper, Magnus Maximus, and the arrival of Arianism in the late fourth century. Britain’s subsequent role as a natio responsible for its own defence (both secular and spiritual) within a context of nationes and romanitas brings the reader up to Gildas’ present-day. The dating of the chronology of this subsequent role, lacking in figures and events that can be properly contextualised, is particularly

47 J.R. Morris, “Literary evidence,” in M.W. Barley and R.P.C. Hanson (eds), Christianity

in Britain 300–700 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1968), 63, reinforces the importance of historical legitimacy: “[Gildas] may talk nonsense about Magnus Maximus or the date of the Roman walls in innocence, for these lay outside living memory; but when he complains that the generation who won the war has died out, so that the country is now run by a generation ignorant of past troubles, that has only known present security, he cannot be wrong because his readers knew ... so when he says that the Britain of his day is governed by important rectores and overmighty duces, who assume the style of reges, by duly consecrated bishops and ordained priests, that the island is partitioned but has been at peace for more than a generation, we have to believe him because his audience would.”

48 Gildas, De excidio 4.4 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 90): “quantum tamen potuero, non tam ex scriptis patriae scriptorumve monimentis, quippe quae, vel si qua fuerint, aut ignibus hostium exusta aut civium exilii classe longius deportata non compareant, quam transmarina relatione, quae crebris inrupta intercapedinibus non satis claret.”


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opaque from a modern perspective.49 Right at the start of his historia, Gildas charts the chronological sequence of his ‘grand narrative’:50

Cause: de contumacia Obstinacy of the Britons Effect: de subiectione Subjection by the Romans

Cause: de rebellione Rebellion Effect: de subiectione Second subjection

Cause: de religione Rise of Christianity Effect: de persecutione Persecution of Christianity de martyribus The holy martyrs

Cause: de haeresibus Rise of heresies Effect: de tyrannis Rise of tyrants

Cause: de duobus gentibus vastatricibus Picts/Scots plunder Britain Effect: de defensione Roman military aid

Cause: de vastatione Second devastation Effect: de secunda ultione Second Roman military aid

Cause: de tertiaque vestatione Third devastation Effect: de fama Famine

Cause: de epistola ad Agitium Letter to Agitius Effect: de victoria Victory of the Britons

Cause: de sceleribus Sinfulness of the Britons Effect: de nuntiatis subito hostibus Announcement of an old enemy de famosa peste Memorable plague

Cause: de consilio Council calls in Saxons Effect: de saeviore multo primus hoste Saxons as savage enemies de urbium subversione Destruction of cities

Cause: de reliquiis The survivors Effect: de postrema patriae victoria Final victory of our country

From the outset, Gildas has constructed his chronology as a providential ‘cause and effect,’ directly linking the failures of his patria to stubbornness, heresy, tyranny, and sin, and the successes to romanitas and faith in God.51 This providential scheme is further enhanced by the ‘biblical style’ established in the praefatio. Howlett has detected a series of 49 For a discussion of the problems dating Gildas’ narrative from the time of Magnus

Maximus onwards, see D.N. Dumville, “The Chronology of De Excidio Britanniae, Book I,” in Lapidge and Dumville, Gildas: New Approaches, 61–84.

50 Gildas, De excidio 2 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 89). The cause and effect scheme is my own, and is indicative only. It is based on the 22 (eleven pairs) verses in Lam. 1–2.

51 O’Loughlin also details Gildas’ providential methodology. See O’Loughlin, Gildas and the Scriptures, 94-97.


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grand parallelisms that bring biblical symmetry and legitimation to Gildas’ providential argument:

Grand parallelism in De excidio 14–18: Rome rescues Britain

14 departure of legions 16 departure of legion 14 first attacks by Scots and Picts 16 reappearance of enemies 15.1 first appeal to Rome 17.1 second appeal to Rome 15.2 despatch of legion 17.2 despatch of military forces 15.2 success of legion 17.2–3 success 15.3 order to construct turf wall 18.1–2 order to construct stone wall 15.3 failure of wall 18.2–3 superiority of wall

Grand parallelism of De excidio 19–26: Britain delivers itself 19.1 emergence of old enemies 22.1 rumours of old enemies 19.1 occupation of north 22.1 intention to occupy island 19.2 foolish reaction 22.1 foolish reaction 19.2 death to many 22.1 death for many 19.4 waste by famine 22.2 waste by plague 20.1 appeal to the consul 23.1 decision of consularii 20.1 barbarians waste country 23–24 Saxons waste country 20.2 famine 25.1 hunger 20.2 resistance 25.1 resistance 20.2 retreat of enemies 25.2 retreat of enemies 21.2 abundance 25.3 victory 21.2–3 decline in morality 26.2 decline in morality 21.3 hatred of truth 26.3 subversion of truth 21.3 reception of Satan 26.3 the rush to hell52

The effect, as Howlett shows, is discretely to arrange Gildas’ historia into five sections: a praefatiuncula (De excidio 2); a descriptio (De excidio 3); a history of Roman Britain (De excidio 4–13); a history of Britain as a natio dependent on Rome (De excidio 14–18); a history of Britain as a natio independent of Rome (De excidio 19–26). The result appears to be a portrayal of Britain moving from childhood to adulthood under the auspices of Rome. Britain’s stubbornness as a child results in stern punishment from its parent; Britain’s tentative steps as a ‘young adult,’ result in constant rescue by its parent; Britain’s proud steps as a ‘foolish adult’ totally independent of its parent has resulted in a loss of territorial possessions. The implication is that Gildas foresees a loss of all Britain’s territorial possessions unless his patria forms a proper, adult relationship with its parent, Rome. Clearly Gildas sees this loss as imminent: his emphasis on Britain as a natio has resulted in a denser and more urgent

52 See Howlett, The Celtic Latin Tradition of Biblical Style, 74–78.


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and dramatic chronology as Gildas approaches his present-day, emphasising the dangerous fluidity of the present.

Gildas, through his carefully structured historia, has successfully translated the judgements of God on biblical Israel into his recent past. In doing so, he gives a dramatic and historically supported vision of the anticipated outcomes of the prophecy he established in his praefatio. Karen George’s proposed structure of book 1 of De excidio, based on the 22-verse structure of Lamentations 1 and 2, is reinforced directly by 22 paired words or phrases.53 In order to discern a narrative, George’s structuring has been adjusted to 11 paired phrases:

1 malorum cumulum … matris ecclesiae filios (Lam. 4:2) a corrupt church 2 Israel … reliquae (Matt. 15:14; 25:11) Christians unprepared for judgement

3 oves … sacerdotibus (Ex. 4:22) lay and priests will not be spared by God 4 scelerum … cruda (Ps. 118:61; Num. 22) immature sins

5 insipientibus … nuntiatis foolish teachings 6 praepollenti … ingrata flourishing of ingratitude to God

7 montes … romanorum? return to pagan rituals 8 imbellem … vinciendae the silencing of Christians

9 militum? … historia (Hist. eccl.) defence of Christ 10 barbarorum … trans? (Passio Albani?) coming of pagans

11 tirones … perfidia (Ps. 132:1) corruption of clerics 11 periurii…iuuventute (Paganos 14.1) perjury of leaders

10 trans? … inimici coming of enemies 9 historia … auxiliares allied victories

8 vinciendas … segnis defeat of the lazy 7 Romanae? … montibus (Ep. ad Agitium?) refuge in strongholds

6 bella … praepollenti flourishing of war 5 rumoris…insipienti (Prov. 29:19) foolish rumours

4 crudam…scelerum cruel crimes 3 sacerdotibus … oves (Ps. 43:12) murder and exile of priests and lay

2 reliquiarum … Israelem (Jgs. 3:4) divided Britain 1 mater ecclesia filios … cumulo malorum (Hist. eccl. 8.1.6) corrupt Christian reges

Gildas appears to be structurally reinforcing his own narrative with both biblical and patristic authors, subtly drawing attention to the

53 George, Gildas’s De Excidio Britonum, 31–32. Some phrases have been adjusted. George does

not detail her methodology, aside from indicating that the paired words are some 100 words apart. Some occur too frequently in the praefatio to be considered anything but problematic: these have been marked with a question mark. The numbering system is for presentation only. The 11-paired phrases have been referenced to the sources that have been detected to date using Winterbottom’s list of biblical and patristic quotes (Gildas, 156–159) and Wright’s survey of Gildas’ reading (‘Gildas’s Reading: A Survey,’ 121–152). George, Gildas’s De Excidio Britonum, 38–40, has also noted a pattern of Gildas pairing secular events with biblical quotations within his accusations of the tyrants.


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convergence of biblical history with the history of Britain. The patristic sources (detected to date) in the historia—Rufinus’ translation of Eusebius’ Historia ecclesiastica and Orosius’ Historia adversum Paganos, and the two anonymous and, likely, British texts of Passio Albani and Epistolae ad Agitium—appear to be as important as the biblical sources in emphasising and legitimising Gildas’ providential narrative.

Central to Gildas’ structural emphasis is the pairing of the political treason of the British-based usurper Magnus Maximus (acknowledged in the West from 383 to 388), and the rise of the spiritual treason, the heresy of Arianism, perhaps indicative of a view that these paired events signal the beginning of a contemporary era of error and sin that will lead to the last judgement.54 The structural emphasis appears to chart both the spiritual and secular history of Britain in this contemporary era: corruption of Christianity leads to the re-emergence of superstition, which leads to ingratitude, poor teaching, and sin, which, in turn, leads to the spiritual death of clerics and their congregations and a sinful church unprepared for judgement; the corruption of secular leaders leads to military defeat and retreat to strongholds which, in turn, leads to war, a climate of fear and crime, the murder and exile of Christians, a divided country, and an unchallenged, immoral secular leadership.

Also apparent in the application of this structure is what Gildas chooses to emphasise: the disobedient and foolish British, having betrayed God, were slaughtered, enslaved and scattered by heathens in the same way as their direct counterpart Israel was punished for its disobedience and foolishness in the past. The emphasis is on sin and judgement, and judgement for sin is directly related to loss of territorial sovereignty. Britain has been reduced to the kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem. It is the ultimate punishment of Judah as described by Jeremiah—the destruction of Jerusalem, the loss of the covenant, and the exile of its people—and the ultimate punishment for the Jews—abandonment by God—which Gildas anticipates for his sinful patria and gens.

54 Gildas, De excidio 44.1 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 109) (die iudicii) and 104.1 (Winterbottom,

Gildas, 138) (nouissimis diebus), refers to the imminence of the last judgement. Gildas reports that the heresy of Arianism impacted Britain at De excidio 12.3 (Winterbottom, Gildas, 93): “… donec Arriana perfidia, atrox ceu anguis, transmarina nobis evomens venena fratres in unum habitantes exitiabiliter faceret seiungi.”


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Conclusion: Gildas and his Prophecy for Britain

Gildas, through his praefatio and historia of book 1 of De excidio, has constructed and legitimated an extraordinary case for Britain as praesens Israel. The strength of this case, built on a personal revelation linking his divided Britain to a divided biblical Israel as related in Jeremiah, has allowed Gildas to claim the divine legitimacy of prophet. Further, his linking of Jeremiah and Romans, both centred on the creation of a new covenant and warning that God will abandon those who are unfaithful to Him, has confirmed Gildas’ contemporary reinterpretation of Jeremiah’s prophecy of the divine destruction of Judah. Gildas, preceded and legitimated by Jeremiah, prophet to the nations, and Paul, apostle to the nations, has set his prophecy not only within the providential history of ‘Britain as Israel,’ but also within a pan-national context of Christianity and romanitas. The effect, like Paul’s Letter to the Romans, is the creation of a letter to a gens or natio directly relevant to gentes and nationes: the fate of the covenant rests on the fate of Britain.

Gildas’ prophetic emphasis, within a prevailing context of sin, is on a divine punishment based on deeds: sed redditionem unicuique secundum opera sua verebar, “but I was afraid of the reward of every man according to his deeds.” This phrase, drawn from Jeremiah and Romans, links Gildas to Salvian’s De gubernatione Dei.55 The effect is to place Gildas’ prophecy and the Britons he addresses within a literal eschatological tradition, one that emphasises sin and de praesenti iudicio, and one that precludes the ‘innovations’ of Augustine that defined a more allegorical eschatological tradition emphasising faith and the threat of heresy.

Gildas draws on an extraordinary array of legitimations in constructing his message: his use of the legal conventions of romanitas via his Latinity and rhetorical structures; his use of the divine conventions of biblical exempla, exegesis and styles; his select use of patristic fathers; his construction from legitimate sources of a narrative history that reinforces a providential judgment for sin. These legitimations, predicated on a classical education and the distinct ascetic and historiographical lineage of Origen, Evagrius, Cassian and Rufinus, Orosius, and Salvian, point to the intellectual culture of the fifth-century Gallican church, a culture that sought a compromise between traditional church teachings and the ‘novelties’ of Augustine. The legitimacy of this intellectual culture did not long survive the ascension of the great Augustinian prelate and papal vicar, Caesarius, to the episcopacy of Arles in 502.

55 Rom. 2:6; and Jer. 50:29.


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Jeremiah’s prophecies, like all Biblical texts, were not written casually. As Mark Leuchter points out, Israel was primarily a conservative culture that resisted new works boasting authority: rather, they arose from pressing historical circumstances.56 Gildas’s prophecy, too, had to arise from pressing historical circumstances. De excidio makes more thematic sense as a prophecy responding to a crisis in romanitas and Roman Christianity in western Europe in the last quarter of the fifth century, a crisis intensified by the cessation of the office of western emperor around 476, a rise in militant Arianism and paganism amongst the emerging elites, and a formal schism between the papacy and the eastern church between 484 and 519. This prophecy, describing a future fall of Britain, was addressed to a society still confident in its own future and with the capacity to restore the institutions of romanitas. Subsequent chroniclers have retrospectively read into Gildas’ prophecy a narrative of the fall of Britain that, like Lamentations, had already come about, and, accordingly, placed memories of his narrative in the second quarter of the sixth century, a time that confirmed this retrospective reading, potentially in the time of a later Gildas.

56 M. Leuchter, Josiah’s Reform and Jeremiah’s Scroll: Historical Calamity and Prophetic

Response (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2006), 15.

Gildas and his prophecy for Britain

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