Adapted from various sources, including Butler's Lives.
St. Cedd, Bishop of London and Apostle of England († 664; Feast – January 7)
St. Cedd was brother to St. Chad, Bishop of Litchfield, and also to St. Celin and Cynibil, apostolic priests, who all labored
zealously in the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, their countrymen. St. Cedd long served God in the monastery of Lindisfarne,
founded by St. Aidan, and for his sanctity was promoted to the priesthood. Peada, the son of Penda, King of Mercia, was appointed
by his father King of the middle Angles
; by which name St. Bede distinguishes the inhabitants of Leicestershire, and part of
Lincolnshire and Derbyshire, from the rest of the Mercians. The young king, with a great number of noblemen, servants and soldiers,
went to Walton, the seat of Oswi, King of Northumberland, and was there baptized with all his attendants, by Finan, Bishop of Lindisfarne.
Four priests – St. Cedd, Adda, Betta, and Diuma (the last a Scot, the rest English – i.e., Anglo-Saxon) – were sent to preach the Gospel
to his people, among whom great multitudes received the Word of life with joy. King Penda himself never obstructed these missionaries
in preaching the Faith in other parts of Mercia; rather, he hated and despised those who falsely embraced the Gospel, yet did not live
up to it, saying: Such wretches deserve the utmost contempt, who would not obey the God in Whom they believe.
St. Cedd, after laboring there for some time with great success, was called from this mission to a new harvest.
Sigebert, King of the East Anglo-Saxons (Essex), paying a visit to King Oswi in Northumberland, was persuaded by that prince
to forsake his idols, and was baptized by Bishop Finan. When he returned to his own kingdom, he entreated King Oswi to send him
some teachers, who might instruct his people in the Faith of Christ. Oswi called St. Cedd out of the province of the middle Angles,
and sent him with another priest to Essex. When they had traveled over that whole province, and gathered numerous churches to Our Lord,
St. Cedd returned to Lindisfarne, in order to confer with Bishop Finan about certain matters of importance. That prelate consecrated
him Bishop of Essex, having called two other bishops to assist at his consecration.
St. Cedd going back to his province, pursued the work he had begun, built churches, and ordained priests and deacons.
Two monasteries were erected by him in those parts, which seem afterward to have been destroyed by the Danes and never restored.
The first he founded near a city then called Ythanceaster, seated upon the bank of the river Pante. This town was seemingly
swallowed up by the gradual encroaching of the sea, but a chapel built by St. Cedd, called St. Peter-by-the-Wall, is still extant
(image below). His other monastery was built at what is now called Tilbury, near the river Thames. It is here that some
believe St. Cedd chiefly resided – as the first English bishops often chose to live in monasteries. But others believe that London,
then the seat of the King, was the ordinary place of his residence – as it was of the ancient bishops of the province, and of all
of St. Cedd's successors.
In a journey which St. Cedd made to his own country, Aethelwald, the son of St. Oswald, who reigned among the Deiri
in Yorkshire, finding him to be a wise and holy man, desired him to accept some parcels of land to build a monastery, to which the
King might resort to offer his prayers with those who should attend the Divine Service without intermission (the monks),
and where he might be buried when he died. The King previously had with him a brother of our Saint – called Celin – a priest of
great piety, who administered the Divine Word and the Sacraments to him and his family. St. Cedd chose a place amidst craggy and
remote mountains, which seemed more fit to be a retreat for robbers, or a lurking place for wild beasts, than a habitation for men.
Here he resolved first to spend forty days in fasting and prayer, to consecrate the place to God. For this purpose he retired
thither in the beginning of Lent. He ate only in the evening, except on Sundays, and his meal consisted of an egg and a little milk
mingled with water, with a small portion of bread – according to the custom of Lindisfarne, derived from that of St. Columba;
by which it appears that, for want of legumes so early in the year, milk and eggs were allowed in that northern climate,
which in most places were forbidden during Lent.
Ten days before the end of Lent, the Bishop was called to the King for certain pressing affairs, so that he was obliged
to commission his brother, Cynibil, to complete it. This monastery, being founded in 658, was called Lestingay. St. Cedd placed
in it monks with a superior from Lindisfarne; but continued to superintend the same, and afterwards made several visits thither from
London.
Our Saint excommunicated a certain nobleman among the East Anglo-Saxons for an incestuous marriage, forbidding any
Christian to enter his house, or eat with him. Notwithstanding this prohibition, the King went to a banquet at his house.
Upon his return, the holy Bishop met him on his way. As soon as the King saw St. Cedd, he began to tremble, and lighting from
his horse, prostrated himself at his feet, begging pardon for his offense. The holy Bishop touched him with a rod which he held
in his hand, and said: O King, because thou wouldst not refrain from the house of that wicked excommunicated person,
thou thyself shalt die in that very house.
Accordingly, some time after, the King was basely murdered there in 661,
by this nobleman and another – both his kinsmen – who alleged no other reason for their crime, than that the King was too
easy in forgiving his enemies.
In 664, St. Cedd was present at the Synod of Whitby, already mentioned in the article on St. Wilfrid, during which
he forsook the Scotch-Irish custom, and agreed to receive the canonical observance of the time of Easter. The proceedings of the
council were hampered by the participants' mutual incomprehension of each other's languages, which probably included Old Irish,
Old English, Frankish and Old Welsh, as well as Latin. St. Bede recounts that St. Cedd interpreted for both sides. His facility
with the languages, together with his status as a trusted royal emissary, made him a key figure in the negotiations.
We should note here another difference that existed between the two factions of this Synod (the Roman
on one side,
and the Scotch-Irish or Celtic
on the other) – that is, the difference that necessarily existed in the structure of dioceses,
or the lack thereof. To understand this difference, we must take a glance at ancient ecclesiastical history.
It is impossible to determine what rules were followed at the origin of the Church in limiting the territory over which
each bishop exercised his authority. Universality of ecclesiastical jurisdiction was a personal prerogative of the Apostles;
their successors, however – the bishops, enjoyed only a jurisdiction limited to a certain territory: thus St. Ignatius was Bishop of
Antioch, and St. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna. The first Christian communities were established in towns. The converts who lived
in the neighborhood naturally joined with the community of the town for the celebration of the Sacred Mysteries. Exact limitations
of episcopal territory could not have engrossed much attention at the beginning of Christianity; it would have been quite impracticable.
As a matter of fact, the extent of the diocese was determined by the domain itself over which the bishop exercised his influence
(in other words, there were no lines drawn on a map; rather, the territory extended as far as there were Christians subject to that
particular bishop). It seems certain on the other hand, that, in the East at any rate, by the middle of the third century each
Christian community of any importance had become the residence of a bishop and constituted a diocese.
The number of dioceses was quite large in some parts of the Western Church, i.e. in Southern Italy and in Africa.
The structure of the Roman Empire helped to form the boundaries of many of the dioceses in those areas which were more Christianized.
In other regions of Europe, either Christianity had as yet a small number of adherents, or the bishops reserved to themselves supreme
authority over extensive districts. Thus, in this early period but few dioceses existed in Northern Italy, Gaul, Germany, Britain,
and Spain. A word of mention is here due to the missionary or regional bishops – episcopi gentium, (archi)episcopi in gentibus –
still found in the eleventh century. They had no fixed territory or diocese, but were sent into a country or district for the purpose
of evangelizing it. Such were, as we have seen, St. Boniface in Germany,
St. Augustine of Canterbury and St. Aidan in England,
St. Willibrord and St. Swithbert in the Netherlands and so many others.
They were themselves the organizers of the diocese, after their apostolic labors had produced happy results. In Ireland, the diocesan
system was introduced by St. Patrick, though the diocesan territory was usually coextensive with the tribal lands, and the system
itself was soon modified by the general extension of monasticism. In Scotland, however, the diocesan organization dates only from
the twelfth century.
At the time of the Synod of Whitby, much of the Anglo-Saxon regions were just beginning to adopt the Roman
ways;
but in the Celtic
areas, the activity of bishops was still to a large extent missionary, and based in a particular monastery,
rather than a particular city with a cathedral. Add to this the fact that St. Augustine had been sent from Rome to Canterbury by
Pope St. Gregory the Great; while St. Aidan had been summoned from Scotia to Northumbria by the King, St. Oswald. Their differing
customs were bound to clash; but as both sides were motivated by the love of God and the salvation of souls, these problems were
quickly resolved or at least overcome.
Soon after the Synod of Whitby, a great pestilence broke out in England. St. Cedd died from it in his beloved monastery
of Lestingay, in the mountainous part of Yorkshire – since destroyed by the Danes, so that its exact location is not known.
He was first buried in the outdoor cemetery; but, not long after, a stone church being built at the same monastery in honor of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, his body was disinterred and laid at the right side of the altar. Thirty of the Saint’s religious brethren in Essex,
upon the news of his death, came to Lestingay, in the resolution to live and die where their spiritual father had ended his life.
They were willingly received by their brethren; but nearly all were carried off by the same pestilence. St. Cedd died on October 26,
but is commemorated in the English Catholic Martyrology on January 7.
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