Plotinus, I have a question, but it's more historical than theological -- still worth a shot, I guess. Is there anything you can tell me about the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons? The impression that I've got is that it took place fairly rapidly once it began, was done largely for political reasons, and was probably heavily associated early on with a significant degree of syncretization between Germanic paganism and western Christianity. But that's all terribly generic -- is there anything that can't basically be gleaned by a fairly cursory reading of Bede? How did the Roman Catholic Church handle syncretization/minor "backsliding" in other formerly pagan areas?
I'm not going to try to answer this for Plotinus, since most of what I can speak to comes from Bede anyway. But most of the problems of syncretism came not from 'paganism', although Bede and other authors make the standard complaints about that. Several Anglo-Saxon kings, and even one notable queen apparently, were Bad, Bad Pagans even after the good missionaries from Canterbury came to spread the Truth and so Suffered Horribly. Surprise. What was more interesting was the clash between 'Roman' and Irish interpretations of Christianity. This manifested itself historically in the synod at Whitby in 664, one of the centerpieces of Bede, where the Northumbrian kings jettisoned Irish advisors and agreed to pay heed to Rome.
It's worth noting that 'paying heed to Rome' didn't mean the same thing in 664 that it did in 1664, obviously. Bede pushed the line of a papacy that rightfully dictates doctrine in the
Ecclesiastical History, but back in the Mediterranean, nobody was even close to deciding that this was a good idea. After all, the RCC didn't exist yet in any meaningful sense.
Anyway, in the pages of Bede this Irish problem manifested itself over obviously silly minutiae like the style of tonsuring monks and the calculation of the exact date of Easter. What was more important to the dudes at Whitby was who held the reins in Northumbrian Christianity. When guys like Wilfrid got up to 'persuade' the Northumbrian king Oswiu (who had probably already made his decision, but whatever) of the rightness of the Roman cause, they didn't waste a whole lot of words talking about how important it was that Easter be celebrated on the correct day, that's for damn sure. Irish arguments focused on how they were basically there first, and had the older tradition of Christianity in Britain.
It's hard to guess at exactly why Oswiu sided with the 'Romans', although there are any number of possible reasons, like Roman Christianity being more prestigious, or the immense distance from the central religious authorities. Maybe he realized that the other side was, you know, the friggin'
Irish. Who knows. Anyway, the whole "I love the Irish Christians for their piety and conversion efforts but they were WRONG WRONG WRONG" line of discussion runs through Bede more than whining about "backsliding" to paganism, and is arguably second only to the "I love Wilfrid for driving out the Irish but he was WRONG WRONG WRONG" line of discussion in terms of importance to Bede's work.
