Truth Triumphant - Benjamin G. Wilkinson

when this historian wrote, the papacy had not yet
made up its mind to claim Patrick.
When the pope had sent Augustine with his
forty monks to convert the heathen Anglo-Saxons,
Augustine, with the help of Bertha, the Catholic
wife of King Ethelbert of Kent, immediately began
war on the Celtic Church in Wales. He demanded
submission of the Christian society of nearly three
thousand members at Bangor in north Wales.[29]
Augustine addressed the president of this society in
these words: “Acknowledge the authority of
Rome.” He promptly received the answer that the
pope was not entitled to be called the “Father of
fathers” and the only submission that they would
render to him would be that which they owed to
every Christian. Augustine threatened them with
the sword, and, as will be noted later, twelve
hundred of these British Christians were
slaughtered by a pagan army.[30]
As further evidence of the gulf between the
Roman and the Celtic Church, another episode
occurred in England in 664 When the papacy by
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