Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/266

248 memory, Ty Dewi, House of David, or St. David's. In those days, remarks Rees, abbats of monasteries were looked upon in their own neighbourhoods as bishops, and were styled such, while it is probable that they also exercised chorepiscopal rights in their societies (Welsh Saints, 182, 266; cf. Haddan and Stubbs, i. 142, 143). Such dignity David enjoyed before his elevation to the archbishopric of the Cambrian church. It was the Pelagian controversy that occasioned his advancement. To pronounce upon the great heresy then troubling the church, archbp. Dubricius convened a synod at Brefi, and David, whose eloquence put the troublers to confusion, made such an impression that the synod at once elected him archbp. of Caerleon and primate of the Cambrian church, Dubricius himself resigning in his favour. The locality of this synod, which holds a marked place in Welsh ecclesiastical traditions, was on the banks of the Brefi, a tributary of the Teifi; Llanddewi Brefi it was afterwards called, from the dedication of its church to St. David. It is 8 miles from Lampeter, and from recent archaeological discoveries has been identified with an important Roman station, the Loventium of the itineraries (Lewis, Top. Dict. of Wales; cf. Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, i. 117). The Pelagian heresy, however, still survived, and the new archbishop convened another synod, the issue of which was so decided as to gain it the name of the Synod of Victory. It is entered in the Annales Cambriae, "Synodus Victoriae apud Britones congregatur," under A.D. 569, but not with full confidence (M. H. B. 831). It is also mentioned, without a date, in the Annales Menevenses (Wharton, Angl. Sac. ii. 648). After residing for a while at Caerleon on Usk, where the seat of the primate was then established, David, by permission of king Arthur, removed to Menevia, the Menapia of the Itineraries, one of the ports for Ireland (Wright, Celt, Roman, and Saxon, 138). The Roman road Via Julia led to it; the voyage across was 45 miles; the Menapii, one of the tribes which held the E. coast of Ireland, were no doubt a colony from the opposite shore of Britain (ib. 43); David's baptism by the bp. of Munster indicates a religious connexion between Menevia and Ireland. The tradition of a mission of the British church to Ireland to restore the faith there, under the auspices of David, Gildas, and Cadoc (Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, i. 115) points the same way. May we not, therefore, assume that the see was removed because the tide of Saxon conquest drove the British church to cultivate closer relations with their Celtic brethren opposite?

As primate, David distinguished himself by saintly character and apostolic zeal, a glowing, not to say an overcharged, description of which is given in Giraldus. It is generally agreed that Wales was divided into dioceses in his time. Rees, in his learned essay on the Welsh saints, shews that of the dedications and localities of the churches of the principality, a large number terminate in David's native name, ddewi, or are otherwise connected with his memory (Welsh Saints, p. 52). These instances, moreover, abound in a well-defined district; and Rees has ingeniously used these circumstances as indicating the limits of the diocese of archbp. David's immediate jurisdiction (ib. pp. 197-199). David's successor was Cynog.

Jones and Freeman (St. David's, 246 seq.) conclude that we may safely accept as historical facts: that St. David established a see and monastery at Menevia early in the 7th cent., the site being chosen for the sake of retirement; that his diocese was co-extensive with the Demetae; that he had no archiepiscopal jurisdiction; that a synod was held at Brefi, in which he probably played a conspicuous part, but that its objects are unknown; and finally that of his immediate successors nothing is recorded (ib. 257). These writers convey a vivid impression of the "strange and desolate scenery" of the spot now named after St. David, and give some curious antiquarian details. Haddan and Stubbs (Councils, i. 115-120) give dates to the synod of Brefi and the synod of Victory, a little before 569 and in 569, later than Rees's latest possible date for David's death; and they regard the accounts given of the synods by Ricemarchus, and Giraldus after him, as purely fabulous, and directed to the establishment of the apocryphal supremacy of St. David and his see over the entire British church. They express much doubt as to the purpose of those assemblies being to crush Pelagianism. Valuable documentary information and references as to the whole subject of the early Welsh episcopate are given in Appendix C (op. cit.), and it is maintained that "there is no real evidence of the existence of any archiepiscopate at all in Wales during the Welsh period, if the term is held to imply jurisdiction admitted or even claimed (until the 12th cent.) by one see over another."

David was canonized by pope Calixtus c. A.D. 1120, and commemorated on Mar. 1 (Rees, op. cit. 201). [C.H.]  Decius. The reign of this emperor, though among the shortest in the Roman annals (A.D. 249-251), has gained a pre-eminence in ecclesiastical history altogether disproportioned to its place in general history. It was burnt in on the memories of men as a fiery trial, and occasioned many memorable controversies.

When Cn. Messius Decius Trajanus first appears in history it is with a grown-up son, himself between fifty and sixty, as a member of the Roman senate, in the last year of the reign of Philip the Arabian. The army elected him as emperor, and forced him to lead them into Italy. Near Verona they encountered Philip, who was defeated and slain (June 17, A.D. 249), and Decius began to reign. He associated his own son and Annius Maximus Gratus with him as Caesars.

The edict which made his name a byword of reproach may have been due to a desire to restore the rigorous morality of the old Roman life, and the old religion which gave that morality its sanctions. If we may judge by the confessions of the great Christian teachers, who owned that the church deserved its sufferings, the lives of its members did not then present a very lovely aspect. Christian men were effeminate and self-indulgent, trimming their beard and dyeing their hair; Christian women painted their faces, and brightened their eyes with cosmetics. The clergy were covetous and ambitious, looking 