Content area
Full Text
Long before Columba there was a man called Nynia, a Briton, who built a church, initiated the monastic life in Galloway combining it with missionary work to the sourthern Picts. From the few extant sources the author builds up a picture of a none too well known saint.
Ninian is not as well known as he should be, and even the name we know him by is a copyist's mistake from the days of greater fame in the Middle Ages when Ninianus replaced Niniauus (Latin for his British name Nyniau). Where his name is known, he is often thought of as the first bringer of Christianity to what is now Scotland, but in fact he was born and baptised in Galloway, perhaps in the royal capital Rerigonium (Stranraer), son of a Christian British chieftain. His dates are a matter of disagreement among scholars; traditionally c.360-430, but perhaps about a hundred years later.'
Christianity, as elsewhere, had followed Roman arms, trade and culture, so that as early as 200AD Tertullian could boast that `parts of the island of Britain inaccessible to Rome, are now subject to Christ'. This must refer to the area north of Hadrian's wall, and, probably, south of the Antonine wall (Forth-- Clyde), the northern limit of British rule. Within this area the tribal chiefs and kings were generally pro-- Roman - indeed after about 370AD most of the top ones, like Quintilius Clemens in Strathclyde, actually were Romans, and may even have been Christians (as was the Governor of Britain at that time, the future emperor, Magnus Maximus). Some Latin-inscribed stones from the fifth and sixth century survive at Whithorn (Candida Casa) and Kirkmadrine, two out of several early Christian centres; one is a burial slab for two (? three) priests or bishops. The crosses on them resemble the southern Gaul style, pointing to a connexion.
How do we know about Ninian? There are three basic sources extant. First, there is what amounts to a footnote in Bede's Ecclesiastical History (iii 4), which tells us that `long before' Columba there was a man called Nynia, a Briton, `regularly instructed at Rome', who was bishop of 'a see and church dedicated to St Martin'. There he built a stone church, in...