Virgin Saints and MartyrsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
Virgin Saints and Martyrs
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Christian women saints; Martyrs
That was not all. The Celtic monks had a different tonsure or mode of
cutting of the hair from the Latin monks. Instead of shaving the top of
the head, and leaving the hair as a crown, they shaved the front of the
head from ear to ear. Now, the reason of the use of the tonsure among
the Celts was this. The cutting of the hair signified adoption, and
there is some reason to believe that every tribe or clan clipped its
hair in its own peculiar fashion. The Ecclesiastical tribe adopted the
shaving of the front of the head; and every one so shaven belonged in
the ecclesiastical clan.
When S. David settled in the valley where is now the Cathedral that
bears his name, there was an Irish Pict invader living in a camp hard
by. He had seized on that bit of Pembrokeshire. His name was Boia, and
he was a pagan. His wife was highly incensed at Christian monks settling
on their land and near at hand, and she tried to goad her husband to
murder them. But he was a good-natured man, and he absolutely refused to
do her will. Then she resolved to get her heathen gods to strike them
dead, and in order to gain the favour of the gods she must offer them a
sacrifice of one of her children. But she had none of her own; so she
called to her a little girl, a daughter of her husband by a former wife,
and told her she would cut her hair. She took the girl down into a sunny
place in a hazel grove on the slope of the hill, and there, with her
shears, cut her hair. Now, as cutting the hair was esteemed to be
adoption, by this act she had made the child her own; so she instantly
with the shears cut the girl’s throat as an offering to the gods. Now
the British clergy, by their form of cutting the hair, regarded
themselves as adopted into the family of God, or the Ecclesiastical
tribe.
Augustine and the Latin clergy could not understand this. Instead of
arguing with the native Christians they denounced them. They called them
Judaisers because they observed Easter at the wrong time, which was
false; and they called the tonsure of the Celts that of Simon Magus,
which was nonsense.
There were other peculiarities. The British Church used unleavened bread
at the Eucharist, and the Latin Church at that time only such bread as
was leavened. Also, another high misdemeanour was that, instead of
employing a single collect before the Epistle and Gospel, there were
more than one said. In these two last particulars the Latin Church has
altered now her practice; in the matter of the unleavened bread, the
change took place in the tenth century.
Now, the matter of Easter was very vexing, for whilst those who followed
the Roman rule were singing Allelujah and were rejoicing, the Celtic and
Northumbrian and Mercian Christians were still keeping Lent. Precisely
the same thing occurs in Russia, where in English and Roman chaplaincies
Easter is kept whilst the Russians are still fasting.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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