Columbanus’s grand peregrini vision reflected the nature of his august faith in the God he sought to proclaim. It was the scope of that vision and faith that took him to the European continent after nearly 30 years of dedicated monastic life in Ireland. Though it can be said that his monastic rule was a significant contribution to Irish Christianity at the time, it was this expansion of Celtic Christianity to Europe that made Irish monasticism more than just a solitary phenomenon, tucked away in a secluded corner of Europe. Given that Ireland had been perceived as being on the edges of civilisation (a European perspective that would continue for years to come), the influence that Celtic Christianity had in medieval Europe through the likes of Columbanus was certainly not in proportion to this reputation or status. Whereas St. Patrick most fully represents Christianity’s expansion from Europe to Ireland, Columbanus’s story is the fullest picture of the echoing back of Christianity from Ireland to the European continent a century later. In particular, there were two key elements inherent to Irish Christianity that contributed to the success of Columbanus, one of which was a cultural component and the other of which was an issue of character.
Inspired by the story of Abram in Genesis 12, Columbanus set off for Gaul with twelve Irish companions circa 590 and set up three monasteries in Burgundy. From these original three monasteries, Columbanus’s disciples founded fifty three monastic houses in the years to come. In all, Columbanus’s missional brand of peregrination resulted in at least sixty and possibly more than a hundred monasteries throughout the European continent in what is now known as France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy.
The timing couldn’t have been better for Columbanus’s arrival. While much is made of the conflict that Columbanus entered into with Queen Brunhilda and the Frankish bishops in later years, several Kings in the area at first actually welcomed him. In fact, it was at the request of King Guntram that Columbanus and his companions settled in his Frankish kingdom where they established their first monastic centre in the ruined Roman fort of Annegray. It may indeed be that these kings welcomed the strong, disciplined, moral character and stable spiritual maturity of this band of Irish monks due to the relative chaos that had enveloped the region since the fall of Rome and subsequent reign of Clovis and his successors. Needless to say, their first monastic centre in the Roman fort ruins was a symbolically fitting launch to the next thirty years of influence.
A key element in Columbanus’s monastic faith that allowed he and his companions to have the kind of impact that they did was the rustic nature of Irish Christianity. The Ireland that Columbanus had come out of was an arcadian, agricultural context. As the monastic movement grew in Ireland, the monasteries became the centres of learning and of social interaction while maintaining and even strengthening the agricultural and economic systems of rural Irish life. In Gaul, however, Christianity had seen growth in the urban centres but had not had notable impact outside of those settings other than some mild adherence. It was this rustic component of Celtic monasticism that allowed Columbanus to have more substantive success promoting Christian virtue in rural areas while supporting and building into the rural economic systems and cultural ways of life. Not being dependent on the economies of urban centres, the Irish monks provided manual labour and promoted economic self-sufficiency and subsequently had a greater platform from which to speak into the rural context.
The character of Irish Christianity was also a persuasive force on a continent whose population adhered to the basic tenets of Christianity, but lacked substantive commitment to the way of Jesus, particularly on an individual level. At that time, syncretism and outright paganism reigned on the continent. About a hundred years earlier, Clovis had nominally converted to Christianity and brought unity to Gaul, but when Columbanus and his band of twelve showed up on the scene, “the Christianity he imposed on his people was by now cracked by widespread relapses into paganism.” Lehane further notes the condition of Christianity in Gaul upon Columbanus’s arrival:
“The church – generally on a subtler level than others – joined in the prevalent ethic of murder, robbery, and sexual excesses. . . . The real meaninglessness of the distinctions is seen in the curious hybrid of Christianity and paganism that developed in country districts. Old habits of sorcery and magic persisted in new clothes. The Christian God was worshiped along with sun and moon. . . . Christian priests predicted the future from the entrails of birds and animals.”
The contrast between Irish monastic ways and the widespread pagan immorality to be found on the European continent is striking. The faith of Columbanus was marked by rigorous self-discipline and rigid austerity. The rule that he established for monastic life is even more severe than that of the Benedictine rule, requiring complete silence for monks and incurring harsh penalties for even the smallest of breaches to the elaborate monastic code. Columbanus and the members of his order avoided the vengeful power struggles of leadership in both religious and government circles and had very little concern for material wealth or territorial gain, except for where it might further aid them in their mission and message of ascetic religious life. As a result, it is likely that the humility, discipline, and moral stability that the Columbanian way of life brought from Ireland to the rural populations of Europe are what attracted so many to these men, their faith, and, most importantly, to their God. In fact the growth in numbers required them to begin new monastic centres that could accommodate them.
Fourteen hundred years later, much can be learned from the character and spiritual impact of this brand of intentional Irish monastic peregrination. On the one hand, the mix of historical trends (e.g., the scientific confidence of the Age of Reason, and the ideological struggles between metanarratives such as capitalism and Marxism) and current trends of globalization and technology have shaped our world and created a unique cultural mix, unprecedented in history, particularly in the West. However, there are two things that have not changed between historical eras since Columbanus: the human condition and the presence of a God who fills heaven and earth and is passionately committed to fulfilling his purposes in the world. While the finer details of Columbanus’s monastic rule reflect the human tendency to put human controls on religious faith (a tendency that Jesus himself consistently confronted and condemned in the religious leaders of his day), the spirit and the intention of that monastic rule is to be commended and even sought after in a world far different than 6th century Europe.
One of the strengths of Columbanian theology highlights a weakness of Christian theology in modernity. In one of Columbanus’s sermons, he speaks of God with an air of mystery and awe, exhorting his audience, “Therefore let no man venture to seek out the unsearchable things of God, the nature, mode and cause of His existence. These are unspeakable, undiscoverable, unsearchable.” At that stage in history, nearly six centuries removed from the teachings of Jesus and his Apostles, there would not have been the complex philosophical movements and paradigm shifts that were to come in the centuries ahead. Uninformed by these later intellectual shifts in society such as scientific reason, Columbanus’s understanding of God was far more open to the mysteriousness of the divine and the infinite chasm between God’s essence and the human capacity to fully grasp and master spiritual truth.
Since the Protestant Reformation, Christians have been protesting each other into countless doctrinal factions and splinter movements to this very day. This is due, at least in part, to one of the primary conclusions of the Enlightenment which says that not only is truth absolute (which of course, by definition, it is) but that mankind can know and understand and master truth absolutely. As a result, when one theological camp believes that it has the whole truth wrapped up in its theological system, it takes on a posture of arrogance and superiority and consequently condemns, splits from, and warns against other groups that disagree.
Contrary to this attitude, and at the risk of sounding presumptuous, it could be said that Columbanus’s simple epistemology included an element of “inaccessible absolutism,” a term used by British author/blogger and church leader, Kester Brewin. This kind of approach to revelatory truth says that, while truth does exist and is by nature absolute, no one person or group has access to the fullness of that truth. (I Corinthians 13:12) In a postmodern age where people are increasingly disillusioned by religious wars and the failure of the Enlightenment Project to solve mankind’s problems through science and rational thought, a “chastened epistemology” as such goes a long way in bringing humility and gentleness to Christian truth claims.
Another feature of Columbanian faith that we can learn much from and apply to Christianity in today’s world is a proper perspective on wealth and power and an appropriate consideration of the self. Columbanus was keenly aware of the source and centre of depravity as situated in the human ego. Again, while his rigid monastic system of penance may smack of man-made religion to some, there is something to be gleaned for today’s Christ-follower.
In a society driven by economic prosperity and consumerism, people today are constantly encouraged to find meaning and purpose in wealth, luxury, and social status. In modern day Ireland in particular, economic progress has brought unprecedented opportunity for financial success and power for individuals. Yet in the same way that Columbanus was uninterested in such wealth and power, due in part to the self-disciplined piety that kept his perspective and identity grounded in the Kingdom of God, Irish Christ-followers today have an immense opportunity to arrest the attention of an increasingly hedonistic society around them by placing the values of capitalism and economic prosperity squarely under the reign of God in their own lives and churches. In so doing, they demonstrate an alternative moral and spiritual economy of life with greater meaning and purpose and ultimately a connection with the life of God that every human being has been created for.
A third element of Irish monastic faith that has important implications for today’s church is proactive, intentional mission. Columbanus and his twelve companions were compelled to move outside of their familiar surroundings to take the message and example of their faith to other people groups in cultural settings different from their own. Whether or not they recognized the incarnational example of Jesus being sent out into the world by the Father (John 20:21), they certainly followed that pattern trusting that their robust, disciplined faith would not be tainted or perverted by the paganism that they might encounter.
The church is called to go into the world to announce and demonstrate God’s Kingdom just as much in the 21st century as it was in the 6th century. Often, however, there is a tendency for the church to retreat from the world out of fear and expect the world to come to us. We then create traditions and forms which are familiar and comfortable to those in the church but are alienating and obstructive to those who need to see and hear the life-giving truth that the church has to offer. In the process, we lose sight of the mission we have been given to serve as a change agent in the world. Noting a time in history when a segment of the church rediscovered this missional vision, the late David Bosch put it this way, “Just as one could not speak of the church without speaking of its mission, it was impossible to think of the church without thinking, in the same breath, of the world to which it is sent.” Judging from Columbanus’s journeys to Europe, it would appear that he and his companions had something of the same conviction.
The story of Columbanus and his journey to post-Roman Europe carries the hallmarks of God’s sovereign hand in the shaping of history. Not only did Celtic agricultural and rural ways of life bode well to contribute to the felt needs of a European continent struggling for stability on a very pragmatic level, but the soundness of moral character and an “other-worldly” system of values in the monastic order made an enormous impact on the spiritual landscape. While the pious severity of Celtic monastic ways may not translate well into modern day sensibilities, the passionate aims of Columbanus’s monastic rule leave the modern day Christ-follower inspired to live into the redemptive narrative of God’s plan in ways that resonate with 21st century people and point to the presence of another Kingdom on earth.
