medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
> Today (19. September) is the feast day of:
>
> 3) Theodore of Tarsus (d. 690). We know about T. (also T. of Canterbury)
> chiefly from Bede and, to a lesser but important extent, from his own few
> surviving writings and from those of his students. A learned Greek monk
> from Cilicia who appears to have been educated at Antioch on the Orontes
> and at Constantinople, he was plucked from a monastery at Rome by pope St.
> Vitalian (acting on the recommendation of St. Hadrian of Nisida) and
> elevated in 668 to the vacant archiepiscopal see of Canterbury. T.
> arrived in England in May of 669. He was a vigorous and principled
> ecclesiastical administrator and a successful educator of exceptional
> scholarly attainments that bore fruit in his students' extensive glosses
> on the Bible. Today is his _dies natalis_. <
There is another aspect of Saint Theodore's administration and the reaction
it provoked from the older element of Christians in Britain...
......"Elsewhere, however, matters were not so benignly worked out. Theodore
of Tarsus, on his arrival in 669, found it necessary to use forceful
measures to quell the remnants of the Celtic heresy. Despite
the direct and immediate effects of Whitby on the central Celtic house at
Lindisfarne, it may be remembered that the Picts and Scots, including at
this point the Columban motherhouse at Iona, remained unwilling to accept
Roman orthodoxy. Theodore's 'Penitential' clearly announced his views on the
issues. He recognised neither episcopal consecration nor baptism as
performed by the Celtic Church. Eddius tells us that he insisted on
reconsecrating Chad, "through every episcopal grade," and demanded the
rebaptism of converts of the Celtic Church. He also ordered a year's penance
for anyone receiving communion from Celtic priests.
......"The hostility along the Welsh and Cornish borders was apparently
mutual. Aldhelm of Malmsbury wrote that the Welsh bishops considered the
clergy of Rome to be excommunicated until they should individually perform
forty days penance, and refused to pray with them or join them at meals. The
leftovers of food touched by Roman priests were ordered thrown to swine so
that Celtic Christians would not suffer spiritual contagion. Their vessels
were to be purified with fire or sand,and they were to receive neither
salutation nor the kiss of peace." Carol Neuman, "The Northumbrian
Renaissance", Associated University Presses, N.J., 1987, ISBN:
0-941664-11-2.
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