What is Celtic Christianity? How and to what extent is it Celtic? The essays in this
volume – which were originally given as lectures at the Centre for the Study
of Christianity and Culture – aim to take a fresh look at the saints,
scholars, nature poets and religious thinkers who shaped the early forms of
Christianity in Britain and Ireland.
‘This attractive volume of essays is perhaps the best introduction now available to what might be described as the new ‘‘middle way’’ that has emerged in the study of Celtic Christianity… this volume can be recommended to readers who… will discover that the beauties of this complex set of traditions are enhanced, not diminished, by careful attention to texts in their historical and literary particularity.’ Anglican Theological Review
‘This is a thought-provoking book which deserves to be well-known and studied. The basically academic approach to the texts is balanced by profound convictions about spirituality today, this providing a timely balance, preventing ‘celtic’ from becoming a laughable fantasy, while affirming the sources as life giving for all . . . ’ (Regent’s Reviews)
‘Celts and Christians is an appealing and rewarding collection, a welcome demonstration that ‘Celtic Christianity’ can be explored in ways which are not only balanced and cautious, but also imaginative, sensitive and penetrating.’ Reviews in Religion and Theology
Beginning with discussions of the problematic term ‘Celtic’, its origins and usefulness, the essays in the first part of the volume discuss issues of ethnicity, location and national identities. The second part considers texts of the tradition from a theological point of view and also examines the role of the literary text in the mediation and dissemination of a Celtic religious sensibility.
Celts and Christians provides new approaches to the texts of the Celtic world which do justice to their uniqueness as well as placing them in their theological and historical contexts. It will appeal to all those interested in Celtic Christianity, Celtic Studies and early medieval literature and history.
Mark Atherton is Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture, Regent’s Park College, Oxford. He has published widely in the field of Anglo-Saxon literature and is the editor of Hildegard of Bingen: Selected Writings.
‘ . . . Y mae hon yn gyfrol sylweddol o ran cynnwys, a’r trafod ysgolheigaidd a goleuedig sydd ynddi yn gosod ein cefndir Cristnogol Celtaidd mewn cyd-destun ehangach, ac yn dadansoddi ei berthnasedd i’n hoes ni.’ Cristion
Introduction Dr. MARK ATHERTON
Part I Identities
Celtic Christianity: texts and representations
OLIVER DAVIES (Reader in Systematic Theology at the University of Wales,
Lampeter)
The Idea of the Celt
Dr. JONATHAN WOODING (Lecturer in Theology, University of Wales, Lampeter)
The 'pagan' and 'Christian' identities of the Irish female saint
Dr. ELVA JOHNSTON (Lecturer in Medieval History, University College
Dublin)
Saxon or Celt? Cædmon, The Seafarer, and the Irish tradition
MARK ATHERTON
Part II Theologies
'There is no resurrection where there is no earth.' Creation and resurrection as seen in
early Welsh poetry
A. M. ALLCHIN (Honorary Professor, University of Wales, Bangor)
Muirchú’s theology of conversion in his Vita Patricii
Dr.THOMAS O'LOUGHLIN
(Lecturer in Theology, University of Wales, Lampeter)
Incarnate glory: the spirituality of D. Gwenallt Jones
DENSIL MORGAN
(Professor of Theology and Dean of Arts, University of Wales, Bangor)
The natural world in early Irish Christianity: an ecological footnote
Dr. MARY LOW
(Freelance writer)