Gildas the Sage: Part Six

Last year, when I was hosting an educational program on the Mormon Channel called, “Insights,” I interviewed Dr. C. Wilfred Griggs on Christianity in the fourth and fifth century A.D. Egypt.  During this interview I learned the distinction between the “Apostles,” “The Apostolic Fathers,” and “The Church Fathers.”  Of course, the “Apostles” are the original 12 Apostles whom the Lord called to lead His church and take the gospel to all the world.  The “Apostolic Fathers” come later, during the 4^th and 5^th centuries.  In my interview with Dr. Griggs, it became clear these Apostolic Fathers still understood many correct and original truths, but they KNEW the church was in serious decline and a state of apostasy from the original teachings of the Savior and His Apostles.  When we get to the Church Fathers, the apostasy appears to be complete.

In my view, Gildas of Great Britain, writing in the mid-sixth century, can be classified with the Apostolic Fathers.   And perhaps he was something more.

When I finally understood what he was telling the clergy of his day, that if they did not change and repent, doing what they were supposed to be doing as Shepherds of the Lord, they would lose revelation, and loose the Church, I flipped towards the end of his book to see how he would wrap this up.

And here is what he wrote that just amazed me.

“I am clear and clean from the blood of all: for I have not forborne to declare unto you all the counsel of God.” 

I’ve tried to look this phrase up in the Old and New Testament, but I’m only finding it in LDS cannon.  Gildas claims he is quoting an apostle.  Where ever it may come from, it is definitely here in the works of Gildas, and I find that extremely significant.  It is such a Book of Mormon thing to say!  Look it up in Mosiah, chapter 2.  King Benjamin, a righteous, God fearing man, proclaims the gospel to his people, teaches the right way to live and behave, then says in verse 28:

“I say unto you that I have caused that ye should assemble yourselves together that I might rid my garments of your blood, at this period of time when I am about to go down to my grave, that I might go down in peace, and my immortal spirit may join the choirs above in singing the praises of a just God.”

Gildas does everything a prophet does. 

1.       He warns the people of their sins.

2.       He tells them what they are doing wrong.

3.       He admonishes them to turn to Christ, to repent.

4.       He warns them of the consequences of their actions.

5.       He rids his garments of their blood. 

Shortly after Gildas publishes his warning book, according to the Book of Saints, he becomes an aesthetic and lives on a rocky island somewhere in the English Channel until some fishermen find him and take him to France.  He lives in a cave near a river, then, towards the end of his life, about 565 A.D., he is rumored to go to Ireland.  By all accounts, he dies in the year 570 A.D. 

Personally, I think, like John the Apostle, Gildas was exiled to his rocky island and the fishermen rescued him.  And he is not the only prophet during desperate times to spend part of his life living in a cave.  Ether is the first that comes to mind, and probably Mormon and Moroni as well. 

I shall end my essay on Gildas with this.  A few years ago, I came across this passage in the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible.  It’s in Revelation, chapter 12, the one about the woman being forced to flee into the wilderness where God had a place prepared for her for a period of time.  In verse 5, Joseph Smith changed “a thousand two hundred and threescore days” to “years.”  Well, my little brain started thinking about that and I took out a calculator.  I knew the gospel had been restored in the year 1830.  The Church of Christ was starting to come out of obscurity.  So I took that number, subtracted 1260 and got… 

570 A.D.   

The year the Church went INTO obscurity.  The same year Gildas is reported to have died.   

And I just find that extremely interesting!

To listen to my interview with Dr. C. Wilfred Griggs, “Christianity in Egypt,” visit mormonchannel.org/insights/9.