This subject is being dealt with as a component of my series on The Princes, the Priests and the Prophets hence the preface of PPP. The link here is provided to connect with the main article.

Background to his faith

Men like Aidan/Aiden did not bring the gospel to the lands in which they laboured but like the apostles before them they organised the Church so that the gospel spread with consistency and accuracy. In this Aiden was like an apostle to the true Church in England, but it was built on the efforts of Christians that preceded him, men like Patric, Dinooth and Columba. The gospel was spread by word of mouth and by the time such men as these came on the scene, was already thriving. It must also be understood that the Bible was around by these early times to be used to provide a consistent message.

‘Whence came that marvelous missionary activity of the church of the East for a thousand years? It originated in the regions of Antioch and Edessa. How great was the difference between apostolic Christianity and its perversion at Alexandria in the early history of the church is shown in the following quotation from Bigg: “The Church of the second century rang with alarm, and the consequence was that all the Christian writers of that period except Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria, shrank with horror from the name of philosophy.”

Shortly after the death of the apostles, the New Testament was translated into Syriac. This noble version, called the Peshitta, meaning “simple,” had for centuries a wide circulation in the East. It is still the authoritative Bible in large Eastern communities’.WilkinsonTRUTH TRIUMPHANT, chapter 3 p. 22

I must declare that my approach to church history is biassed towards Sabbath keepers and so I have gravitated to the writings of Wilkinson and his book TRUTH TRIUMPHANT. It is most decidedly not the only view and I offer you the Anglican or Episcopalian view labelled The Anglican Timeline by Ed Friedlander, MD, further edited and formatted for the web by Brian Reid found at http://justus.anglican.org/resources/timeline/02monks.html. For a view of the timeline from the Catholic perspective you could check the website of Catholic World Mission https://catholicworldmission.org/catholic-church-timeline/ and you can check the internet for the patron saint Aiden in both the Episcopalian and Catholic Churches. I have formed my preference based on behaviour of the candidates having been, either condemned by the Bible (which would form a basis for exclusion) or commanded (which would form a basis for inclusion) by the Christian scriptures.

Wilkinson goes on to establish that the Galatians were Celtic.

. . . the Galatians, a numerous branch of the Gauls from France, had pushed their way into Asia Minor. With all the fiery nature of the Celtic race, they had invaded and subdued Italy and sacked Rome in the fourth century before Christ. Not satisfied with this success, they broke into Asia Minor, and, settling there, became the founders of the province of Galatia.WilkinsonTRUTH TRIUMPHANT, chapter 3 p. 23

He also cites an incident to support his contention that the Gauls of France and the Irish came from the same stock as those in Asia Minor.

About seventy years after the death of the apostle John, the churches in southern France suffered a terrible persecution at the hands of the pagans. The distressed believers in 177 sent a pathetic account of their afflictions, not to Italy or to Africa, but to their brethren in Asia Minor.WilkinsonTRUTH TRIUMPHANT, chapter 3 p. 24

I have seen a claim that all Celts were therefore of the lost tribes of Israel, but the facts do not support that in my opinion. Both Peter (1 Peter 1:1) and Paul (Galatians 1:1-2) preached the Gospel in Asia Minor and hence had preached to the same stock of people living in England at that time. All Celts did not come from France. The Celts spread throughout western Europe—including Britain, Ireland, France and Spain—via migration. The Anglo Saxons came much later and are the current dominant race in Spain, France and England. If we are consistent about how war operated in agrarian economies, the victors did not kill the natives but dominated them. They placed themselves as overlords but the bulk of the workers were the natives. It is however true that the descendants of the Anglo Saxons have repeatedly indulged in settler colonisation and ethnic cleansing. There is no question that some Celts are of the Lost Tribes but to me it is ridiculous to claim that all French and English people are of the lost tribes, based on this evidence. First it is unlikely that the Celts were only of the Lost Tribes and when we consider the approach of Anglo Saxons towards others the situation is at best that some Celts survived among them.

The Romans had conquered most of Britain in the first century and by 125 AD had created the Province of Britannia within the Roman Empire, with capital Camulodunum Londinium. The Celts were driven to the North into the island of Ireland (the land of the Scots) and Scotland (the land of the Picts). Thats not to say that each individual fled but that control of the territory went to Rome. A summary of the situation at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_Britons shows that some of these Britons remained throughout Britain and some went back to Europe and established significant settlements in Brittany (now part of France) as well as Britonia in modern Galicia, Spain. The final Roman withdrawal from Britain occurred around 410 and that opened the way for the Anglo Saxon colonisation of the Celts. By this evidence Aiden and Columba were in the transition from Roman to Anglo Saxon while Patric preceded them and was during the time of Roman domination of Britain. The Romans never took Scotland or Ireland.

Patric of Ireland

The map here showing Strathclyde, the birthplace of Patric, is from Wikimedia Commons.

You may notice that Patric is called Patric of Ireland but he was actually born in Strathclyde. The tip of Ireland is shown on the map to the bottom left labelled Nordlige Irland. Two of Patricks writings, his Confession and the Letter against Coroticus are readily available. You may use this link https://www.confessio.ie/etexts/epistola_english# or https://www.iampatrick.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/IAmPatrick-St.-Patricks-Epistle-to-Coroticus.pdf or search for Patrick's Letter To Coroticus. For the confession you can also use http://catholicplanet.com/ebooks/Confession-of-St-Patrick.pdf. These will humble you and show that he was no Catholic but was called directly by God. The fictitious St. Patrick is not at all the person of this letter. According to Wilkinson, Patricks grandfather was a presbyter and his father was a deacon in the church, a town counsellor, a farmer and a husband. Some of this information is easily gleaned from the letter to Coroticus. The position of presbyter corresponds to a bishop in the papacy. If his grandfather was a catholic bishop then he would have been celibate hence no Patrick.

Some may differ on this point but I refer you to the website Catholic Online @ 2018-09-19, Celibacy of the Clergy, https://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=2726

In the history of clerical celibacy conciliar legislation marks the second period during which the law took definite shape both in the East and in the West. The earliest enactment on the subject is that of the Spanish Council of Elvira (between 295 and 302) in canon xxxiii. It imposes celibacy upon the three higher orders of the clergy, bishops, priests, and deacons. If they continue to live with their wives and beget children after their ordination they are to be deposed. This would seem to have been the beginning of the divergence in this matter between East and West. If we may trust the account of Socrates, just quoted, an attempt was made at the Council of Nicaea, (perhaps by Bishop Osius who had also sat at Elvira) to impose a law similar to that passed in the Spanish council. But Paphnutius, as we have seen, argued against it, and the Fathers of Nicaea were content with the prohibition expressed in the third canon which forbade mulieres subintroductas.

Patrick was born about 360 AD (the First Council of Nicaea was May 325 AD) and according to Wilkinson the weight of evidence plainly indicates that his birthplace was in the kingdom of Strathclyde in the north-western part of England, which would make him a Roman citizen by birth, and he says that his father was a a decurion. Patric was stolen from his homeland by Irish raiders. When Patrick speaks of the island from which he was carried captive, he calls it the Britains. Apparently Patrick escaped slavery, became a Christian and went back to seek the conversion of his former master. He did not succeed in this but the family of the master became Christians as a result of his efforts. When he came back to Ireland around the end of the fourth century he found Celtic Christianity already well established there, so he was not the one that brought it but he is noted for becoming its outstanding proponent. At the age of sixteen, Patrick was carried captive to Ireland by freebooters. During his seven years of slavery in Ireland, Patrick acquired the Irish form of the Celtic language.

Patric saw no evidence of God in the general religion of Rome or of the Celts at large. Coroticus was a local tyrant. Here is an extract from Patric's letter to him. I have vowed to my God to teach these people, though I should be despised by them, to whom I have written with my own hand to be given to the soldiers to be sent to Coroticus—I do not say to my fellow-citizens, nor to the fellow-citizens of pious Romans, but to the fellow-citizens of the devil, through their evil deeds and hostile practices. They live in death, companions of the apostate Scots and Picts, blood-thirsty men, ever ready to redden themselves with the blood of innocent Christians, numbers of whom I have begotten to God and confirmed in Christ. You will notice that he describes these Picts and Scots as apostate. That word is used to describe some one who renounces a religious or political belief. That indicates that these Celts knew better while the Romans were just always ignorant of the Gospel. The true Picts and Scots never in league with the Romans. Later on we will see that the Romans would force their version of the Gospel (the Catholic version) on the rest of the peoples of Britain.

It is to be understood that at the time of Patrick the Catholic beliefs were by no means globally accepted in popery far less Christianity. For example Constantine II did not agree with his father's position adopted in the first Council of Nicaea. He opposed arianism and rejected homoousion. Arianism was a heresy started by the Alexandrian priest Arius ( c. 250 AD c. 336 AD) and maintained that the Son of God was created by the Father. Homoousion is a term adopted at the First Council of Nicaea. The Nicene Creed adopts homoousion (identity of substance) a doctrine fundamental to the Trinity and is the official doctrine of most Christian churches including the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox churches and Anglican. Even the emperor disagreed with his own version of the religion. At that time the gospel was already thriving in China (the land of the Seres).

These issues of doctrinal sleight of hand were nothing like what the Apostles taught and would not have been what Patric taught as will be brought out later with the Synod at Whitby. The branch of Christianity that was in Asia Minor travelled to Britain via France. It was the Celtic, or Galatian type of the New Testament Church which brought God's truth to Great Britain before the days of Patrick. Wilkinson in Truth Triumphant p. 23-24, claims that its source was the work of Paul, not Peter, who would also have preached in Asia. Paul took the message to gentile Christians but Peter was sent to strangers. Even so, he also submits that it was of the school of John who would have ruled over all the Churches in Asia Minor after the other apostles had died. History indicates that Patrick began his ministry in Ireland about 390 AD. i.e. about ten years shy of 300 years after the death of the apostle John. Patrick founded Christian schools in Ireland from which graduated a star student of Christianity called Columba. By this time Diocletian (284-305) and Constantine I (324-337) had re-founded the Roman state which eventually fell to barbarian invaders in 476 AD. Roman Catholicism was in full swing but these stalwart Christians boldly preserved the faith of Christ.

Columba in Scotland

Columba was an Irishman born in Donegal December 7, 521 AD and died June 9, 597 AD. He founded a famous college on the small island of Iona which beamed the light of truth through Europe for centuries. The race that populated the British Isles was Celts not Latin, and their Christianity came via the Celtic language from their brothers in Asia Minor. I think that it is important to stress that this is no claim that all Celts were Christian but that Christianity existed among them. This is also not a claim that the Celts were all of the lost tribes of Israel but that some element of them was. Bear in mind what happened to Paul in Asia.

Paul was sent to some of these people but restricted from others. At the same time Peter reveals this.

So it appears that Peter, who was sent to the lost tribes of Israel, preached in the excluded parts. The word strangers does not have the same meaning as Gentile. It means a resident foreigner, literally, an alien alongside. Peter tells us that the Israelites were resident aliens not that they exclusively occupied the area. They did appear to be most concentrated in the part that Peter went but he Gospel was preached to the whole area, to both gentiles and Israel.

There is also a reference in Josephus which you can check online at https://lexundria.com/j_aj/11.133/wst . The Antiquities of the Jews, 11.133 by Flavius Josephus says:

And came to Babylon, as very desirous of going down to Jerusalem; but then the entire body of the people of Israel remained in that country; wherefore there are but two tribes in Asia and Europe subject to the Iomans, while the ten tribes are beyond Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude, and not to be estimated by numbers.

In this passage by Josephus Iomans refers to Romans. He believed that only two tribes remained west of the Euphrates (Judah and Benjamin) and these essentially comprised the Jews of his day. Some people use this to say the a tribe of Israel were exclusive tenants of some area in Asia minor, but but that could only be Jews according to the passage. The bulk of them were still east of the Euphrates. This makes a great deal of sense in light of what Peter wrote.

Peter had gone to Babylon to preach the Gospel and was sending greetings from there. While Josephus understood part of the truth it was not complete based on scripture (Leviticus 26:33; Deuteronomy 4:23–27; 28:25, 37, 64) because it shows them scattered all over the world. Isaiah also confirmed that this is where God would recover them from (Isaiah 11:11-12). The Council of Constantinople (553 AD) was being held at about the time Columba graduated from one of the the schools established by Patrick in Ireland to go to Scotland. It is at this council that the Roman Empire united with the Papacy.

Columba travelled to Scotland to begin his ministry. He reached the small island of Iona with his company of pilgrims in 563 AD. Columba was of royal blood and it appears that, the lord of the island of Mull was a relative of his and granted him ownership of Iona. His followers held the island for six hundred and forty-one years, until they were driven out of it in 1204 by the Benedictine monks. They were not Catholic. There is no record of them ever digging for relics or obtaining any from Rome.

In Truth Triumphant it states that the last hours of Columba are recorded as follows:

Having continued his labors in Scotland thirty-four years, heclearly and openly foretold his death, and on Saturday, the ninth of June, said to his disciple Diermit: This day is called the Sabbath,that is, the day of rest, and such will it truly be to me; for it will put an end to my labors.TRUTH TRIUMPHANT, chapter 8 p. 101

Dinooth in Wales

You can get a good grasp of the divergence between the Celtic church and the Roman church by certain events in the life of Dinooth and I have fund an excellent outline at https://lineagejourney.com/read/dinooth-and-the-celtic-church-in-wales/. The real source for me is Truth Triumphant Chapter 11. The climactic issue as far as I am concerned is with regard to Augustine and we begin to see that unfold from Truth Triumphant Chapter 11 page 150.

Wilkinson makes a crucial point about the trip. He says:

On landing, Augustine went to Canterbury, the metropolis of Kent. Heand his companions drew near, “furnished with divine, not with magic virtue, bearing a silver cross for their banner, and the image of our Lord and Savior painted on a board; and singing the litany.” 10 It was a severe affliction upon the Christianity introduced among the Anglo-Saxons to make them believe that the ineffable Eternal could be represented by an image on a board, and to teach them license with God’s commandment against images while proclaiming obedience to Christ, for had not the prophet declared of God: “To whom then will ye liken Me?”(Isaiah40:25.)

These Christians began to teach the gospel by breaking the very commands that define us as Christs servants.

It is impossible to feed God's sheep without God's love and the only way to show that love is to keep His commandments, all of them. Some people want to know what commandments Christ is talking bout but He has given us an example of the ones that He is talking about in Matthew 19 and it is repeated in Luke 18:19-20.

The example that Christ gave assumed that the ruler even knew God because that body of commands were given in Exodus 20 and includes a command to keep the Sabbath and not to make images of God or worship them. This lot that came to tear down the Sabbath began by breaking the command of how to worship God.

It is Whales that we find the real King Arthur. He had fought against the Anglo-Saxons to preserve Celtic Christian culture and created that environment for the growth of the Church that existed before the advent of Augustine. It is with Augustine that we see the stalwart faith of Dinooth shining brightest.

Augustine influenced King Ethelbert of Kent to gather the Celtic teachers from the surrounding area of the Britons to Augustine’s Oak. The summons was sent to the Celtic illustrious training school at Bangor in Wales to which Dinooth was attached. The churches were organised such that Bangor wold be the ecclesiastical center of the Britons and as president of the preeminent college there Dinooth would be supreme director also of the churches in Wales.

Dinooth is noted as being alive at the earliest a.d. 500 and 54 but also to be in attendance at this council in 602 or 603. According to the Lineage website, DINOOTH AND COLUMBANUS, https://lineagejourney.com/read/dinooth-and-columbanus/, Thursday, December 14th, 2023, Dinooth lived from 530-610 AD and rose to the leadership of the Celtic church at a very young age. Learned delegations of the doctors or teachers came in attendance to this conference. The Roman Catholics proceeded to hurl accusation of disrupting the unity of the faith at the Celts. Augustine insisted that they abandon their method of keeping Passover and adopt Easter. A long disputation followed. The ensuing lengthy discussions made it clear that this unity that Augustine craved meant that they would no longer be independent of the Papacy and free to pursue the apostolic faith. They refused to be swayed. According to Bede, Ecclesiastical History of England, b. 2, ch. 2. the Britons response was, that they could not part from their ancient customs without the consent and leave of their people. Consequently a second conference was arranged.

With regard to this first conference that StudyLight.ord website sheds some light on the personage of Dinooth.

Dinooth, Dinothus, abbat of Bangor Iscoed, a Welsh saint, placed by Rees between a.d. 500 and 542. Originally a North British chieftain, reverses drove him into Wales, where he found a protector in Cyngen, prince of Powys. Like many other British chieftains who lost their lands in the Saxon conquest (Rees, Welsh Saints , 207), Dinooth embraced a life of religion, and, under Cyngen, founded, in conjunction with his sons, Deiniol, Cynwyl, and Gwarthan, the monastery of Bangor on the Dee, of which he was the first abbat. Wace's Dictionary of Early Christian BiographyDinooth, Dinothus, Abbat of Bangor IscoedStudyLight.orghttps://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hwd/d/dinooth-dinothus-abbat-of-bangor-iscoed.html Thursday, December 14th, 2023

The article goes on to say:

. . . A later statement makes the founder of Bangor alive in a.d. 602 or 603, and brings him to the conference, though he must have been in extremest old age, and would have had a mountain journey from the Dee to the lower Severn (see D. C. A. "Augustine's Oak"; also Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 40, 41, on Augustine's journey); it even reports the speech he is said to have made in the name of the British church in answer to Augustine. For this document see Haddan and Stubbs ( Councils , i. 122). . .

I am attempting to point out the resolute determination that he displayed in taking the gospel to where it was needed so that in spite of advanced age and horrible conditions he travelled to the first conference. I have seen nothing about his attendance at the second conference but I dare to say that it is the example and sound Christian teaching of people with such sterling character as Dinooth that motivated the Welsh teachers to resist Rome in spite of extreme violence and hostility from the establishment. Following is a list of matters on which the Welsh Church would not budge:

1. That the decrees of the first four general councils of the Roman church were of equal inspiration with the gospels.
2. On the advice of Gregory, Augustine was correct when he sanctified rather than abolished, the idolatrous festivals he found in Wales.
3. That they must accept the supremacy of a foreign Italian bishop as ordained of God to be a universal head of the church by virtue of apostolic succession.
4. They retained the original understanding of the New Testament, that a bishop was a pastor over a church, a presbyter, and not a spiritual overlord.
5. No to celibacy of the clergy
6. The seventh day as the Sabbath

Aidan and the Church in England

Aiden lived from varying reports about somewhere between 550 to 590 until 31 August 651 AD. A date of birth in 590 seems to be most well accepted. A casual reading of the information on the internet about Aiden would give the impression that he was a good Catholic. Aiden was not a Catholic.

PATRICK in Ireland, Columba in Scotland, and Dinooth in Wales were apostles to a people using the Celtic tongue. Aidan, on the other hand, a disciple of Columbas Celtic school, was called to be an apostle to a different race the pagan Anglo-Saxons of England. During its six- hundred-year Anglo-Saxon period, the conversion of England stood as a monument to the missionary, zeal of Aidan. . . TRUTH TRIUMPHANT, chapter 12 p. 159

He had also witnessed the conversion of his pagan father to the superficial Christianity advocated by Paulinus, a priest sent from Kent. Later the priest fled when, at the death of Oswald's father, the Northumbrians lapsed into idolatry. Oswald himself was compelled to flee his own land and find an asylum at Iona. Then the love of his countrymen for his family revived, and Oswald was summoned to the throne. Paulinus, the Roman bishop, was still alive and near at hand, but Oswald wanted his people in Northumbria to walk in the ways of Columba, so he passed this priest by and sent to Iona for a leader. . .TRUTH TRIUMPHANT, chapter 12 p. 160

Of Oswald of England Wikipedia says under Oswald of Northumbria @ 2018-05-20 (emphasis mine), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_of_Northumbria.

Oswald (c 604 – 5 August 641/642) was King of Northumbria from 634 until his death, and is venerated as a saint, of whom there was a particular cult in the Middle Ages.

Oswald was the son of Æthelfrith of Bernicia and came to rule after spending a period in exile. After defeating the British ruler Cadwallon ap Cadfan, Oswald brought the two Northumbrian kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira once again under a single ruler, and promoted the spread of Christianity in Northumbria. He was given a strongly positive assessment by the historian Bede, writing a little less than a century after Oswald's death, who regarded Oswald as a saintly king; it is also Bede who is the main source for present-day historical knowledge of Oswald. After eight years of rule, in which he was the most powerful ruler in Britain, Oswald was killed in the Battle of Maserfield...

Hence Oswald was Germanic Anglo-Saxon while Aidan was Celtic Irish. There is an amazing story @ 2018-05-20 on Mail Onine News caption Amazing story of the Anglo-Saxon warrior saint whose struggle to claim his rightful place as king inspired Tolkien's Aragorn, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2522449/Amazing-story-Anglo-Saxon-warrior-saint-struggle-claim-rightful-place-king-inspired-Tolkiens-Aragorn.html

Apparently the character of Aragorn in Lord of the Rings was inspired by Oswald, the seventh-century king of Northumbria, according to archaeologist Max Adams. Oswald was a true Christian. Oswald’s father Æthelfrith was king in Bernicia and also became king of Deira, the constituent kingdoms of Northumbria, and married Acha Oswald’s mother. Oswald’s father Æthelfrith, was killed in battle around 616. Edwin (Acha's brother), became king of Northumbria, and Oswald and his brothers fled to the Scottish kingdom of Dál Riata in northern Britain, where he was converted to Christianity. Remember that the Christianity of Scotland was of Columba, a true Christian.

Cadwallon ap Cadfan, the king of Gwynedd, in alliance with the pagan Penda of Mercia, killed Edwin and Oswald's brother Eanfrith became king of Bernicia. He was also killed by Cadwallon in 634. Adomnán in his Life of Saint Columba (Columba the real Christian in Scotland i.e. the Celtic Church) says that Columba had a vision the night before the battle, in which he was told that Oswald would return victorious. Oswald described his vision to his council and all agreed that they would be baptised (not sprinkled) and accept Christianity after the battle. The British were routed despite their superior numbers and Cadwallon himself was killed. Oswald is reputed to have united all the kingdoms of Britain. This would have opened the door to the spread of Christianity in the seventh century. It is possible that Islam, through Muhammad, would have had its inspiration from this.

Other notable Christians of the day were Hilda (a Deirian like Oswald) and Caedmon. God has never left out or marginalised women. James Kiefer is known to Christians for his hagiographies (biography that idealizes its subject) of Church figures, passed away on April 18th, 2015. He worked as a mathematician. His biographies are collected in several places, including a Rowan university site curated by Darren Provine http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/, and on the website of The Society of Archbishop Justus http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/index.html. In a biographical sketch of Hilda , http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/285.html we find:

The Celtic peoples of Britain had heard the Gospel well before 300 Ad, but in the 400's and 500's a massive invasion of Germanic peoples (Angles, Jutes, and Saxons) forced the native Celts out of what is now England and into Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. The invaders were pagans, and missionaries were sent to them in the north and west by the Celts, and in the south and east by Rome and other churches on the continent of Europe.

Roman and Celtic traditions differed, not in doctrine, but on such questions as the proper way of calculating the date of Easter, and the proper style of haircut and dress for a monk. It was, in particular, highly desirable that Christians, at least in the same area, should celebrate Easter at the same time; and it became clear that the English Church would have to choose between the old Celtic customs which it had inherited from before 300, and the customs of continental Europe and in particular of Rome that missionaries from there had brought with them. In 664 the Synod of Whitby met at that monastery to consider the matter, and it was decided to follow Roman usage...

The facts are there but we have to be careful and expect obvious Catholic bias, which would interpret apostolic Christianity (things like worship on the Sabbath) as subtle deceitfulness. He says that the matter was not doctrinal. Easter vs Passover is doctrinal and so is tonsuring. Notice the issue of Easter as opposed to Passover. Hilda kept Passover and not Easter. Wikipedia says that Bede resumes Hilda's story at a point when she was about to join her widowed sister at Chelles Abbey. At the age of 33, Hilda decided instead to answer the call of Bishop Aidan of Lindisfarne and returned to Northumbria to live as a nun. Lindsfarne had no nuns in the modern sense since celibacy was rejected by the Celtic Christians. By reading the various accounts of Hilda we discover a devout Christian woman who was responsible for the construction of Christian schools and a counsellor to Christians like Aiden.

Aiden was not educated by Catholics but at the university in Iona his hometown.

Bede, while expressing plainly his disapproval of Aidan’s refusal to accept papal doctrines, takes great pleasure in saying that this missionary was careful to omit none of the things which he found in the apostolic and prophetic writings, but that to the utmost of his power he endeavored to perform them all...”TRUTH TRIUMPHANT, chapter 12, p. 163

There is no account of any ordination to the service of the Catholic Church although they prominently proclaim him a saint and attach honours to imply that he was in their service. Compare

http://www.lineagejourney.com/reformation/aidan-missionary-england/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aidan_of_Lindisfarne

indeed from the Lineage site @ May 12, 2018, Caption Aiden: Missionary to England, we find, http://www.lineagejourney.com/reformation/aidan-missionary-england/:

Aiden was born around 590 AD in Ireland and from a young age was a part of the training school at Iona. He was called by God to take the gospel to the Anglo-Saxon tribes of the British Heptarchy. The Heptarchy was a collective of seven kingdoms ruled by the Anglo-Saxons for 600 years and was made up of the kingdoms of Essex, Sussex, Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria, and Kent...

What is so striking about that quote to me is that Aiden was not Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-Saxons were marauders who had slipped into the vacuum left by the fall of the Roman empire and were colonising Britain from Germany/Scandinavia and driving out the natives. They were the tormentors of his people. Both Anglo-Saxons and Vikings Germanic pirates and raiders. The main difference was that the Anglo-Saxons targeted Britain, while the Vikings travelled more extensively. The Anglo-Saxon colonisation is evident int he English language. They share the religion of the Vikings and it is well represented in the English days of the week and months. Instead of condemning their paganism wholesale Augustine sanctified it and we have the legacy with us until today: Thor in Thursday, Odin in Wednesday. So we have the evidence that the Gospel as preached by Aidan, was in England by the 7^th century AD. It might not have become the religion of the upper class (the Anglo-Saxons) whom it appears rejected the Gospel and preferred the frills of popery. God opened the door through a line of Anglo-Saxon royalty i.e. King Oswald, and there is no evidence that it ever was closed. The connection to Aiden and the Bible in English is made through Lindsfarne.

David Nash Fords (see note at bottom) Early British Kingdoms site @ May 12, 2018, caption: St. Aidan, Bishop of Lindisfarne presents, http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/adversaries/bios/aidan.html:

It must have been late in the year AD 635 when Aidan arrived from Iona. King Oswald, at once, assigned him, as his episcopal see, Lindisfarne (alias Holy Island), off the Northumberland coast, a few miles north of his own rocky fortress of Bamburgh. Here the bishop made his home, to which he loved to retire from time to time, for the sake of private prayer and solitude; but his active work was done on the mainland, where he ever found a ready and willing helper in the King.

This establishes Lindisfarne as his home and later we find on the Wikipedia site @ May 12, 2018, caption: Bible translations into English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_translations_into_English:

Although John Wycliffe is often credited with the first translation of the Bible into English, there were, in fact, many translations of large parts of the Bible centuries before Wycliffe's work. The English Bible was first translated from the Latin Vulgate into Old English by a few select monks and scholars…
.
.
.
In the 10th century an Old English translation of the Gospels was made in the Lindisfarne Gospels: a word-for-word gloss inserted between the lines of the Latin text by Aldred, Provost of Chester-le-Street.[3] This is the oldest extant translation of the Gospels into the English language.

I find this to be clear evidence of the legacy of Aiden.

Wilkinson makes a stunning point in Truth Triumphant p. 81-82 when speaking of Bede (the venerable Bede) and Patric of Ireland.

One is struck by the absence of any reference to Patrick in the Ecclesiastical History of England written by that fervent follower of the Vatican, the Englishman Bede, who lived about two hundred years after the death of the apostle to Ireland... Though a great collector of facts, Bede makes no reference whatever to Patrick. The reason apparently is that, when this historian wrote, the Papacy had not yet made up its mind to claim Patrick...

History of the Church needs to be read critically. Wilkinson also explains, particularly on p. 164 -165, that the chief instrument of Aidans success was the training school. These evangelical colleges are referred to as monasteries, by writers using the term in its ancient sense. These were institutions where married men trained and were trained in the ministry and nothing like the celibate organisations of today.

At this point I must give credit to James Keifer. I am not an Anglican but have found his work to be inspiring. I am reproducing this information below found on a webpage dedicated to Keifer (at least it was when I first came across it) http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/chbook.html .

Some of the readers of my biographical sketches of memorable Christians of the past have asked whether there is available on the internet a short, simple, introduction to Church History. I call their attention to a book called Sketches in Church History , by Canon J. C. Robertson. Long out of copyright, it is stored here in the Christian Classics Electronic Library and is also available online here.

The Canon is a Victorian clergyman of the Church of England, writing for young readers (evidence: he speaks of "pirates," and explains that the word means "sea-robbers"), probably intending his book to be used in connection with a catechism class. He covers the period from 33 AD to 1500 AD, stopping just short of the Reformation. I assume that there is a sequel, but I have not seen it. In presenting the various disputes that have occurred in the Church from time to time, the author never hesitates to tell his readers which side is right and which is wrong. (Hint: the closer we get to 1500, the likelier the Pope is to be wrong.) However, he seems to have his facts straight. If anyone finds factual errors, please let me know. (Letting the author know is another matter.)

Just in case the above links do not work I am listing them below

Keifers bios: http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/biocal.html

the e-book mentioned:

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/robertson/history.html

http://bible.christiansunite.com/schindex.shtml

I find these to be good starting points for research even when the opinions are pagan by my understanding of the Bible. In other words I may not always share these opinions but the facts are valuable nevertheless, however beware. I noted earlier the he claimed that the matters of the Synod at Whitby were not doctrinal but by his very words they were.

I conclude by pointing out that the Gospel came to the current ruling class of England by Aiden. They of course rejected it. We will resume this matter later in the series.

Acknowledgements

The basic template for my maps was acquired from Wikimedia Commons

. By STyx - Own work , Public Domain, Map