This book is dedicated to the Serpents of Wisdom with thanks

Chapter Sixteen

Druidism and the Celtic Church
Tim Wallace, the British author of Hidden Wisdom; Secrets of the Western Esoteric Tradition writes that the beliefs, rituals and practices of the Celts had much in common with the recorded practices of the prophets and “certain esoteric groups in biblical Israel” - read Nazarenes and Essenes here. He goes on to say that there is a theory which links the early Druids with the Hebrew esoteric group known as the Kabeiri, a word I have seen variants of such as Kabirim, Kerub, Cherub and Cherubim. He wrote that they worshipped the pagan pantheons such as Apollo, Mars, Jupiter and Mercury. Just a reminder here, the worship of these deity figures would have been the exoteric worship, the Druids themselves would have been worshipping the one true God. The author also said that the Celts believed that the world they inhabited was permeated and controlled by the spiritual world, and they believed the Druids were the mediators between the two. To quote;
P 57 Druidism, shamanism and the Brahmanism of the Hindus have all been described as close variants on an identical theme. Diogenes Laertes equates the Druids with the Persian Magi. ...Their priestly role among the Celtic tribes was also highly dependent upon their gifts of prophecy. Druids were more than mere priests however they were also the sacred custodians of their culture, teachers, lawgivers, judges, bards and interpreters of the divine.
In the book Celt, Druid and Culdee the author quotes Dudley Wright;

P 87 It is established by the most unquestionable authority that the Celts were the original inhabitants of Europe, that the Celtic language was a dialect of the primary language of Asia, and that the Celtae had among them from the remote antiquity an Order of Literati called Druids, to whom the Greeks and Romans ascribed a degree of philosophic celebrity, inferior to none of the sages of the past. The spiritual character of Druidical teaching is illustrated in the following Triads: The three foundations of Druidism: Peace, Love, and Justice.

Celt, Druid and Culdee by Elizabeth Hill Elder is in the public domain, and is an excellent book on the title subjects, so I will be quoting her extensively. According to her, Druidism was;
P 51 The center and source from which radiated the whole system of organized civil and ecclesiastical knowledge and practice of the country. The Order constituted its church and parliament; its courts of law, its colleges of physicians and surgeons, its magistracy and clergy. The members of the Order were its statesmen, legislators, priests, physicians, lawyers, teachers and poets. The truth about the Druids, to be found amongst fragments of literature and in folk-memory, is that they were men of culture, well-educated, equitable and impartial in the administration of justice. These ancient leaders of thought and instruction in our islands had lofty beliefs as to the character of the one God, Creator and Preserver, and of man’s high origin and destiny. There is reason to believe that this doctrine included the need for atonement for sin and the resurrection of the body. To reverence the Deity, abstain from evil and behave valiantly were, according to Laertes, the three grand articles enjoined by the Druids. In Druidism the British nation had a high standard of religion, justice and patriotism presented to it, and a code of moral teaching that has never ceased to influence national character.

P 53 The educational system adopted by the Druids is traced to about 1800 BC when Hu Gadarn Hysicion (Isaacson), or Hu the Mighty, led the first colony of Cymri into Britain from Defreeobane, where Constantinople now stands. In the justly celebrated Welsh Triads, Hu Gadarn is said to have mnemonically systematized the wisdom of the ancients of these people whom he led west from the Summerland. He was regarded as the personification of intellectual culture and is commemorated in Welsh archaeology for having made poetry the vehicle of memory, and to have been the inventor of the Triads. To him is attributed the founding of Stonehenge, and the introduction of several arts including glass-making and writing in Ogham characters.

P 55 It required twenty years to master the complete circle of Druidic knowledge. Natural philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, geometry, medicine, jurisprudence, poetry and oratory were all proposed and taught natural philosophy and astronomy with severe exactitude. Caesar says of the Druids: “They hold aloof from war and do not pay war taxes; they are excused from military service and exempt from all liabilities.”
P 57 The theological students were given a particularly long course of training, and no Druidic priest could be ordained until he had passed three examinations in three successive years before the Druidic college of his tribe. The head of the clan possessed a veto on every ordination. By very stringent laws the number of priests was regulated in proportion to the population; and none could be a candidate for the priesthood who could not in the previous May Congress of the tribe prove his descent from nine successive generations of free forefathers. Genealogies, therefore, were guarded with the greatest care. This barrier to promiscuous admission had the effect of closing the Order almost entirely to all but the Blaenorion or aristocracy, making it literally a “Royal Priesthood.” Druidic physicians were skilled in the treatment of the sick; their practice was far removed from the medicine-man cult so unfairly ascribed to them by their contemporary enemies, and lightly followed ever since. They prayed to God to grant a blessing on His gifts, conscious that it should always be remembered that no medicine could be effective nor any physician successful without Divine help.

P 61 The primitive religion of Britain associated in so many minds with the worship of the heavenly bodies, was the worship of the Lord of Hosts, the Creator of the Great Lights, the sun and moon, not the worship of the heavenly bodies themselves. The Universe was the Bible of the ancients the only revelation of the Deity vouchsafed them. The wonders of nature were to them as the voice of the All-Father, and by the movement of the heavenly bodies they ordered their lives, fixed religious festivals and all agricultural proceedings. The way to Christianity for the early inhabitants of Britain was traced by Nature herself, and from Nature to Nature’s God. St. Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, writes, “Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.”

P 65 The stories that are told and believed of human sacrifice by the Druids are pure inventions of the Romans to cover their own cruelty and to excuse it. The Druids sacrificed sheep, oxen, deer and goats; charred remains of these have been found at Avebury, Stonehenge and in the vicinity of St. Paul’s Cathedral. No trace of human sacrifice has been discovered in Britain.

P 66 It is very generally believed that the Celts were nature worshippers, that they gave Divine honors to rivers, mountains and woods. It is entirely a mistake to believe that they did so. They were nature lovers - never nature worshippers; neither had they a multitude of gods and goddesses, as is often affirmed. The gods and goddesses were mere mascots, and even to their descendants mascots and charms have lost none of their popularity. Other nations never obtained a proper comprehension of Druidism of Britain, blending with it religions less pure. It is recorded by Caesar that those in Gaul who wished to be perfectly instructed in Druidism crossed the sea to what they believed to be its birthplace. In the Christian era St. Patrick used the shamrock to instruct the people in the doctrine of the Trinity, and in earlier days the Druids used the oak for the same purpose. They sought a tree having two principal arms springing laterally from the upright stem, roughly in the form of a cross. Upon the right branch they cut the name Hesus; upon the middle or upright stem Taranis; upon the left branch Belenis; over this they cut the name of God - Thau. The Hebrew prophets, it will be noted, referred to their expected Messiah as ‘The Branch.’

P 68 In the ancient British tongue Jesus had never assumed its Greek, Latin or Hebrew form, but remains the pure Druidic Yesu. It is singular that the ancient Briton never changed the name of the God he and his forefathers worshipped, nor has he ever worshipped but one God. In the Cornish folk-lore whole sentences were treasured up, and when written down were found to be pure Hebrew. Three of these rendered into English are: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in”: “Who is this King of Glory?” “The Lord Yesu, He is the king of Glory.”

Druidism with its self-evident Old Covenant origin, which later was, indeed, the great ‘oral secret’ transmitted by Druid sages from generation to generation, its doctrine of the Trinity, worship entirely free from idolatry, furtherance of peace and contribution to the settling of disputes among the laity, high moral tone, and insistence on the liberty and rights of the subject, was a perfect preparation for the reception of Christianity. Upon the introduction of Christianity the Druids were called upon, not so much to reverse their ancient faith, as to ‘lay it down for a fuller and more perfect revelation’. No country can show a more rapid, natural merging of a native religion into Christianity than that which was witnessed in Britain in the first century A.D. The readiness with which the Druids accepted Christianity, the facilities with which their places of worship and colleges were turned to Christian uses, the willingness of the people to accept the new religion are facts which the modern historian had either overlook or ignored.

P 71 The word ‘Magi’ - the Latin equivalent for ‘Druids’ - was used by early Irish writers and frequently by the Welsh; their synonymity in the modern mind appears to be almost entirely lost. The term ‘Magi’ conjures up a sacred meaning indicative of the exact opposite to that which we have been led to believe about the Druids. The Druids were, in Celtic Hagiology constantly termed Magi.

P 94 Moreover there are documents of no small credit, which have been discovered in certain places, to the following effect: No other hands than those of the disciples of Christ erected the Church at Glastonbury…for if Phillip the Apostle preached to the Gaul’s, as Freculphus relates in the fourth chapter of his second book, it may be believed that he also planted the word on the hither side of the channel. The first converts of the Culdees were Druids. The Druids of Britain, in embracing Christianity, found no difficulty in reconciling the teaching of the Culdees, or ‘Judean refuges,’ with their own teaching of the resurrection and inheritance of eternal life. Numerous writers have commented upon the remarkable coincidence which exists between the two systems.

P 95 From ‘Ecclesiastical Antiquities’ of the Cymry we learn that the Silurian Druids embraced Christianity on its first promulgation in these islands, and that in right of their office they were exclusively elected as Christian ministers, though their claims to national privileges as such were not finally sanctioned until the reign of Lles ap Coel (Lucius), A.D. 156. The Christian king Lucius, third in descent from Caradoc and grandson of Pudens and Claudia, built the first monastery on the site of a Druidic Cor at Winchester and at a National Council held there in A.D. 156 established Christianity the national religion as the natural successor to Druidism, when the Christian ministry was induced into all the rights of the Druidic hierarchy, tithes included.

Early in my research, I found that the Welsh and Hebrew languages were from the same source. The Welsh people call the Irish Iddew and the country Iddewan, which means Jewsland! St. Columba made the famous statement “Christ is my Druid.”

The author of Rule by Secrecy p 296 stated that in 190 C.E., Tertullian of Carthage wrote; “The extremities of Spain, the various parts of Gaul, the regions of Britain never penetrated by Roman arms, have received the religion of Christ.” Sabellius the heretic said in 230 AD; “Christianity was privately expressed elsewhere, but the first nation that proclaimed it as their religion was Britain.” Origen (185-254) Greek founding-father of the early church, said; “The power of the Lord is with those in Britain.” In 300 Dorotheus bishop of Tyre, said that the Aristobulus of St. Paul's epistle was bishop here - a statement confirmed by Greek martyrology and by old Welsh records who knew him as Arwystli.
The author goes on to make the interesting statement “Whoever came here brought an Asian, gnostic brand of the faith; he used the Phoenician trade-route and was probably employed by the Romans when they annexed British metal-mines, and was on friendly business terms, perhaps even related to, the British Silurian royal family who worked them, and who certainly had Phoenician ties of blood. Joseph, the wealthy man of the Gospels, may well have been a Phoenician tin-trader. He may well have been the 'noble Decurion' as Jerome calls him - an officer, we are told, often put in charge of mines.”
P 98 The British historian Gildas, writing in A.D. 542, wrote; “We certainly know that Christ, the True Sun, afforded His light, the knowledge of His precepts, to our Island in the last year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, A.D. 37.” Sir Henry Spelman wrote; “We have abundant evidence that this Britain of ours received the faith and that from the disciples of Christ Himself soon after the Crucifixion.” And Polydore Vergil observed that “Britain was of all kingdoms the first that received the Gospel.”

In the following, is further evidence of the early connection of Celtic Christianity with the Welsh/Britannic royal family. The author of The Holy Kingdom; the Quest for the Real King Arthur p 127 wrote that King Caradoc, also known as Caractacus, and his family are famous in Welsh records for welcoming the apostolic mission into Britain and helping the Culdee⁷³ church to become established there shortly after the Crucifixion. He wrote that the Welsh Triads and the Lives of the Saints documents contain “clear and accurate accounts.” He goes on to say that they describe the arrival of Christian missionaries led by St. Ilid, otherwise known as Joseph of Arimathea. He states that they came at the request of Caradoc’s saintly daughter Eurgain, “who is credited with being the first British convert to the new religion.”

Here we find another example of a name change in a different location, that of Joseph of Arimathea to Ilid. According to George Jowett, author of a book titled The Drama of the Lost Disciples p 132 Aulus Plautius, a Roman commander who was stationed in Britain, married Caradoc’s sister Gwladys. Like her niece Eurgain, Caradoc’s daughter, Gwladys was a Christian, but in deference to Roman customs, on her marriage she took the name Pomponia. He calls her a highly gifted and educated lady who could speak fluent Greek. In his Annals, the historian Tacitus tells the story of how she was tried for foreign superstition, which was a charge used at that time in Rome specifically to designate Christianity. Fortunately for Gwladys, the presiding magistrate was her husband, and she was acquitted!

The Roman emperor Claudius adopted Gwladys and she changed her name to Claudia. She later married a relative of the emperor named Aulus Rufus Pudens Pudentius. Pudentius had served in Britain under Aulus Plautius and he and Gwladys/Claudia were married at the Palatium Britannicum, the home of Caradoc and his family of exiles while they were held hostage in Rome. After Caradoc was set free and allowed to return home to Britain, he gave the Palatium Britannicum as a wedding gift to Claudia and her husband Pudens. The author wrote that their house was one of the most important centers of Christian worship in Rome. He relates that a frequent house guest of theirs seems to have been St. Paul, who sends them greetings at the end of his second Letter to Timothy. p 133 Linus, Claudia’s brother, is also mentioned in the Bible. He became the first Bishop of Rome, confirmed in the Apostolic Constitutions, “where St. Peter is recorded as writing that Linus set up the first church in Rome in AD 58” and “Of the church of Rome, Linus, brother of Claudia, was first ordained by Paul, and after Linus’ death, Clemens, the second ordained by me Peter.”

There is an interesting back story to Caradoc and his family being held hostage in Rome. Caradoc successfully resisted a Roman invasion of Britain for years. In fact, Rome never defeated Caradoc and his army, but Caradoc was betrayed by someone inside Britain. Caradoc and his family were paraded through Rome in chains before they were to be put to death. However, Caradoc was given the chance to speak before the Roman Senate. His speech was so eloquent, and as he pointed out, he hadn’t been defeated by the Romans, so the Senate ended up granting him a large estate in Rome where he was held ‘hostage’ for several years.
I find the following information from Celt, Druid & Culdee very interesting. To begin with, I once made the statement that I believed my ancestor Edward Mashborne likely descended from a King Edward. It was not a statement I had put any thought into. At the time, I had no idea if there ever was a King Edward! I haven’t been able to link the Mashburns up with him yet, but other family lines do link up to them. There was more than one king Edward. The author says this about Edward the III;

P 150 Edward III may be said to have forged another link in the chain of resistance to Rome’s claim to supremacy which culminated in the final secession under Henry VIII two hundred years later. The revival of the Arthurian traditions by Edward III along with the establishment of the British Order of the Goodly Fellowship of Chivalry had, as its founder, King Arthur, the first of the Knights. It is recorded how ‘Edward, king of England, at this time resolved to rebuild the great castle of Window formerly built and founded by King Arthur; and where first was set up and established the noble Round Table from which so many men have issued forth to perform feats of arms and prowess throughout the world.

King Arthur, it is said, modeled his Round Table Fellowship on the Table of the Last Supper. As a descendant of Joseph of Arimathea, who led a company of persecuted Christian-Judean refugees, or Culdees - to our shores, the details of those early days would be, to Arthur, family history, for most, if not all of his knights, were of the family of Joseph. The Round Table, which now hangs on the wall of Winchester Great Hall, is a reminder to the nation of the sacred nature of the foundation upon which the ‘Round Table Fellowship’ rests. Henry VIII, on the occasion of the visit of Charles V, had the table taken down and re-painted green and white, the liveries of the British Order and the rose of St. George in the center.

P 151 The names of the Companions of the Goodly Fellowship inscribed on the margin by the Tudor monarch have been identified, with but one exception, as owners of castles and estates in Monmouth shire, South Wales and Cornwall. We have thus, through Arthurian history, a link with the early British or Culdee Church and a very definite link with Palestine, a link which no other country holds in its historical records.

Barry Dunford, in his book The Johannine Celtic Church explains that “During the 1st century A.D. Alexandria was the founding center of the Christian Coptic Church (principally based in Egypt, Syria and Ethiopia) which, although traditionally founded by St. Mark, had leanings towards the Johannine corpus mystica. The Copts monastic counterpart in Western Europe, effectively the Celtic Church of Britain and Gaul, claimed its religious tenets were directly derived from the mystical teaching of St. John the Apostle.”
He goes on to say that in Britain, the Celtic monks were known as Culdees, from the Gaelic ‘Culdich’ which has been translated as ‘certain strangers’. They were also known by the Latin name Coli Dei which translates as “servants of God”. He stated that the Celto-Coptic connection was noted by the author Mary Caine who wrote, “For Copt and Celtic Christian, Christ restated the ancient Mysteries. And though the later Church suppressed this belief, the monks of Glastonbury secretly perpetuated it.”
I believe the term Culdee stems from the word Chaldean. Abraham was from “Ur of the Chaldees”. The Celtic Culdee connection with the Middle East is commented on by the French oriental scholar Henry Corbin, in The Imago Templi in Confrontation who wrote; “The Coli Dei are also included in the spiritual line of descent from the builders of the Temple of Solomon, the line of the Essenes, the Gnostics, even the Manichaean’s and the Ismail’s. They were established at York in England, at Iona in Scotland, in Wales, and in Ireland; their favorite symbol was the dove, the feminine symbol of the Holy Spirit.”
In an interesting essay that shows a link between Christianity and Paganism from a modern day adherent of the English Folk Church, the author states that the title Christos has its origins in Greek paganism and not Jewish Messianism. The Greek word Christos predates the New Testament and the Septuagint by centuries. He cites a prophecy by the Erythrean Sybil which reads “Iesous Chreistos Theou Huios Soter Staurus,” which literally translates as “Iesus, Christos, God, Son, Savior, Cross.” The author states that he believes this saying refers to the coming down to Earth of the Spirit of Truth (the Christos) “who will usher in a golden age in which God is revealed to humankind.” He states that this blessed condition is only reached through a process of crucifixion of the flesh, which the author believes refers to a process of asceticism where the worldly matter of flesh is subordinated to the Spirit. I will add too that this is the reason for the crucified/dying/rising Saviors - they are showing us that it is right to crucify the flesh - the physical - for the spiritual.
In the mystery religions, the act of anointing with oil was a symbol of initiation. It was an outward sign of a person having achieved spiritual enlightenment or union with the inner dwelling Spirit of Truth – the Christos. The person thus became a Christos following a long period of study and ascetic practice. The author writes; “We could say that a Christos is someone who has obtained Gnosis, knowledge of God and of themselves – spiritual enlightenment. A Christos is therefore someone who has fully joined with the Spirit of Truth. In esoteric Christian terms this can be seen as an expression of the human Jesus being fully united with the Spirit of God.  Through Jesus, God came amongst us (Emmanuel).” 
I have spoken previously of our soul group being the Elohim or assembly of gods (and goddesses) as spoken of in the Old Testament of the Bible and of our role in helping with the creation of life on Earth. I have also spoken of the verses in the Bible which mention the fact that Gods seventy-two sons were put over the different people of the Earth. The author from the English Folk Church speaks of these things;

God’s spirit resides within all created beings – more strongly within the folk gods and goddesses than us humans as they were the first created.  It is through the Spirit that we are connected to God and to our folk gods and goddesses. The ancient Greeks referred to God’s spirit as the Christos or ‘Spirit of Truth’. 

God has created a great many spirit beings that permeate the natural world around us.  These are our folk gods and goddesses, the Ælfe (or Elfs) and the land and water wights.  Although sometimes confused with angels in the popular mind, they are not angels as such as they have free will.  All peoples share a common humanity through the universal God.  But at the same time, all peoples have a unique relationship with their ancestral folk gods and goddesses who have shaped them physically, culturally and spiritually. Our folk gods and goddesses are assigned specifically to the native people of North Western Europe and our kin around the world. Similar beings are assigned to other peoples of the world. For instance, the English Folk Church considers Yahweh/Jehovah to be a folk god of the Israelites rather than the one God – who we do not give a name. 

According to the English Folk Church, the resurrection story is part of the birth, death, and rebirth cycle that formed the basis of their pre-Christian folk religion.  It tells us of how in God we will be raised out of death and be reborn into life.  But it also tells of how we will be raised up - perfected and made whole with God and in God. The author tells us that the natural law of God, which they call Orlog, is contained in the Holy Runes. Interestingly, he states; “It is through the Runes that we come to a meaningful understanding both of ourselves and of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.  This understanding, or Gnosis, leads us to a union with the Spirit of Truth (or Christos) so that we too become as one with Christ.  It is this Gnosis that Woden⁷⁴ searches for in mythology and which he finds in the Runes.”

Regardless of the names or the details, all the religions given to the people of the world are meant to bring them to the same place, i.e. enlightenment or at-one-ment with God. Regardless of whether the story mentions King Arthur or Osiris or Inanna or Buddha or Hiram or Jesus or Woden, the aim is always the same.
The English Folk Church does not believe in the doctrine of original sin, or in humanity’s inherent sinfulness. They believe that humankind’s inherent flaws are just a part of the imperfect creation we live in. I agree with them. This creation was meant to be imperfect. Only by experiencing imperfection, can we, as spirits, come to understand what perfection is, our ultimate goal being perfection through Christ. We come to the understanding of how to achieve that perfection through the teaching of the Christos or Christ. Jesus became the incarnate Christ at his baptism, but it is important to understand that the Christ Spirit has repeatedly incarnated on Earth, and so Mithras and Buddha and Mohammed and many others were probably incarnations of the Christ Spirit too.
The English Folk Church also does not accept the doctrine of atonement through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for the sins of humankind.  The author writes; “We are not inherently sinful and God did not need to die on the cross to redeem us from that sin.  Neither is salvation or union with God achieved simply through faith that Christ is God or simply through carrying out good deeds.  God came amongst us in the form of Jesus to teach us how to evolve spiritually so that we can achieve that goal.” The author says that the crucifixion and resurrection stories are about earthly death and the promise of rebirth in God. They are an invitation to travel a journey of spiritual evolution towards wholeness in God. The author reassures us by stating, “God helps us on this journey and ultimately will ensure that we succeed. Eternal life is at the end of the day a gift of God – the doctrine of Divine Grace.  The ‘blood of Christ’ we share in the holy Eucharist is God’s spirit or life force, freely offered to us to share in the divine energies.” 

I know that these last paragraphs have been hard for some of you to read. It took me six years and tens of thousands of hours of research, prayer and contemplation to accept them. When it comes down to it, where Christians have gone wrong is in thinking that belief in Jesus is all we need to do. That will give a soul eternal or ever-evolving life, but does not take away the need for that soul to be responsible for its own spiritual evolution. Even Jesus said that all a person needed to do to be forgiven by God was to ask! God does not require human sacrifice! Jesus’ death on the cross was a self-sacrifice in order to show us that it is needful that we too sacrifice the flesh and turn towards God, i.e. the spiritual. It was an example that we too can be made alive again after death on this earthly plane.

I agree with this author’s belief that humankind is not inherently sinful, because humankind, just as Paul stated in the Bible, is being controlled and manipulated by “spiritual wickedness in high (and low) places.” Demons and devils enter into people and cause them to do atrocious things. Evil beings can send thoughts into people’s heads. Humans are not fighting a fair battle. Most humans have no clue they are being manipulated to make bad choices all the time. Jesus affirms this in the Jeshua channelings. He says that it’s the fallen angels who have caused the wickedness in this world, not people. It’s those fallen angels and their demons who manipulate humankind to sin and cause all the violence in the Earth. Humans were made higher than the malevolent forces controlling them. Those malevolent forces have been trying to deny humankind’s knowledge of that for thousands of years! Finally, we have gotten to the era of mass communication when the truth can be made known. The Druids and Joan of Arc’s motto was “The Truth against the World”. I have made that my motto too. I know exactly what their reasons were for saying that.
The author of The Messianic Legacy p 118 writes; “The evidence of Irish contact with Egypt is too extensive to review in detail. ...discernible Egyptian and Syrian elements can be found in the liturgy of the Celtic church, and that episodes in an Irish ‘Lives of the Saints’ derive directly from an Alexandrian source. Masses and prayers from apocryphal works used in Egypt were also used in Ireland. The Celtic Church celebrated the feast days of the Virgin at the same time as the Egyptian Church rather than at the time decreed by Rome.” p 120 The author then says that in its organization and use of certain texts “the Celtic Church circumvented the Church of Rome and functioned as a repository for elements of Nazorean tradition transmitted from Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor.”
In 664 the Synod of Whitby effectively dissolved the Celtic Church and Ireland was brought into the Roman fold.