Gildas, The Ruin of Britain (8)

Therefore let us take refuge, as usual, in the pity of the Lord and in the words of his holy prophets; let them instead of us direct the shafts of their oracles at imperfect shepherds, as they did before to the tyrants, so that they can sting and so heal them. Let us see what threats the Lord sends through his prophets to idle and dishonest priests who give evil instruction to the people by word and example…

These few testimonies out of many from the prophets, which serve to restrain the pride and laziness of stubborn priests, may suffice to prevent them supposing that it is by my own fabrication rather than the authority of law and the saints that I bring such denunciations against them…

It is quite clear, then, that anyone who calls you priests knowingly and from his heart is no excellent Christian. I will tell you what I feel. My reproach might be gentler; but what is the point of merely stroking a wound or smearing it with ointment when it already festers with swelling and stink, and requires cautery and the public remedy of fire? – if indeed it can be cured at all when the sick man is not looking for a cure and shrinks right away from this doctor.

O you are enemies of God and not priests, veterans in evil and not bishops, traitors and not successors to the holy apostles or ministers of Christ: you have heard the sound of the words in the second reading from the apostle Paul, but you have in no way retained their warnings or virtue…You desire a bishopric greatly, because of your avarice and not on the pretext of the spiritual advancement it offers, and you do not at all regard good work as suitable to it…

And how will you bind anything on earth that will be bound above the world also, except for yourselves, who are held bound so tight with iniquities in this world that you cannot at all ascend to heaven, but must fall into the dreadful dungeons of hell, if you do not turn o the Lord in this life?

Translation Michael Winterbottom

As Gildas had previously marshaled the evidence of Scripture to condemn the rulers of Britain, now he does the same with respect to the clergy, ranging sequentially throughout the Old and New Testaments, highlighting passages that speak to the situation in Britain of his day.

His charges are many: Britain’s clergy have “eaten up” the Lord’s vineyard, and they “destroy” and “tear apart” the Lord’s sheep, enriching themselves while neglecting and bilking the flocks of God. They “have failed to know him who sees, they have been ignorant of judgment.” That is, they have conducted their lives and ministries without faith and with no regard for what God expects of them. Thus they put their hope in lies, pursuing material comforts and status rather than the edification of Christ’s Church.

The shepherds of Britain have ignored God’s Law and neglected His Word. The “have been foolish and not sought the Lord. Therefore they have no understanding and their flock has been scattered.” “You have dispersed my flock and failed to visit them.” They are responsible for a famine of truth having engulfed the land, “eating out the vitals of your souls in the very kitchen.”

And they will not be corrected: “they made their hearts immoveable, so as not to hear [God’s] Law and the words which the almighty Lord sent in his Spirit and in the hands of former prophets”. Consequently, God’s wrath has “piled up on the shepherds”. Even His lambs will feel the blows of His wrath, because the priests of Britain have “strayed from the way and caused many to stumble in the law and invalidated the covenant with Levi”. They are “unskilled shepherds, who abandon their sheep and pasture them on folly and do not have the words that the skilled shepherd has.”

He calls the priests of his native country to “examine their consciences in a true balance; only thus will they be able to determine if it is right for them to sit in the chair of priest.” For who, he asks, “among the priests of today, plunged as they are in the blindness of ignorance, could shine like the light of the clearest lamp to all those in a house by night, with the glow of knowledge and good works?”

The result of the faithlessness of Britain’s clergy is that “a dense cloud and black night” of sin looms over the island and “diverts almost all men from the straight way and makes them stray along the trackless and entangled paths of crime; and by their works the heavenly Father is intolerably blasphemed rather than praised.”

Gildas’ aim is to call the priests to repentance; he writes for their healing, not their condemnation. But since they refuse to consider their need, he has little hope that anything other than judgment will come upon them. Considered in the light of Britain’s Gospel beginnings, the condition of priests and the Church in Britain in Gildas’ day represents a “dire change! What a dreadful trampling underfoot of the precepts of heaven! You never tire, do you, of snatching up every weapon of word or deed to attack or rather overthrow [the commands of God], when you might be ready, if need be, to offer yourselves for punishment and even lay down your life to preserve and strengthen them”.

Gildas sees no hope of the Kingdom of heaven advancing in Britain as long as these priests and bishops continue on their present course.

It’s no wonder, therefore, that Gildas writes with such conviction and passion. The clergy of Britain were standing in the way of the kind of revival Ireland had begun to experience, just as they tried to stand in Patrick’s way, a generation earlier, as that revival was beginning to gather steam.

Pastors in every generation need to search themselves diligently to make sure they are seeking the Kingdom of God and His righteousness in every area of their lives and ministries. The state of the Church depends on the condition of her shepherds. If they are imperfect, they may be revived, renewed, and restored. But if they are hardened of heart, refusing even to consider that they might be the reason why the Church in their day – in a day such as ours – is so ineffectual in almost every way, then the ruin of the Church and of their nation will continue apace, even as it did in Gildas’ day.

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