Llan Ddewi Brefi - Pelagian Heresy - Hu Gadarn - God of Agriculture
- The Silver Cup - Rude Tablet.
IT was about eleven o'clock in the morning when I started from
Tregaron; the sky was still cloudy and heavy. I took the road to
Lampeter, distant about eight miles, intending, however, to go much
farther ere I stopped for the night. The road lay nearly south-
west. I passed by Aber Coed, a homestead near the bottom of a
dingle down which runs a brook into the Teivi, which flows here
close by the road; then by Aber Carvan, where another brook
disembogues. Aber, as perhaps the reader already knows, is a
disemboguement, and wherever a place commences with Aber there to a
certainty does a river flow into the sea, or a brook or rivulet
into a river. I next passed through Nant Derven, and in about
three-quarters of an hour after leaving Tregaron reached a place of
old renown called Llan Ddewi Brefi.
Llan Ddewi Brefi is a small village situated at the entrance of a
gorge leading up to some lofty hills which rise to the east and
belong to the same mountain range as those near Tregaron. A brook
flowing from the hills murmurs through it and at length finds its
way into the Teivi. An ancient church stands on a little rising
ground just below the hills; multitudes of rooks inhabit its
steeple and fill throughout the day the air with their cawing. The
place wears a remarkable air of solitude, but presents nothing of
gloom and horror, and seems just the kind of spot in which some
quiet pensive man, fatigued but not soured by the turmoil of the
world, might settle down, enjoy a few innocent pleasures, make his
peace with God, and then compose himself to his long sleep.
It is not without reason that Llan Ddewi Brefi has been called a
place of old renown. In the fifth century, one of the most
remarkable ecclesiastical convocations which the world has ever
seen was held in this secluded spot. It was for the purpose of
refuting certain doctrines, which had for some time past caused
much agitation in the Church, and which originated with one Morgan,
a native of North Wales, who left his country at an early age and
repaired to Italy, where having adopted the appellation of
Pelagius, which is a Latin translation of his own name Morgan,
which signifies "by the seashore," he soon became noted as a
theological writer. It is not necessary to enter into any detailed
exposition of his opinions; it will, however, be as well to state
that one of the points which he was chiefly anxious to inculcate
was that it is possible for a man to lead a life entirely free from
sin by obeying the dictates of his own reason without any
assistance from the grace of God - a dogma certainly to the last
degree delusive and dangerous. When the convocation met there were
a great many sermons preached by various learned and eloquent
divines, but nothing was produced which was pronounced by the
general voice a satisfactory answer to the doctrines of the
heresiarch.
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