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But the explanations kindly given by those who approved our action soon put a stop to that. There is a list of Archbishops of London before Augustine's time, beginning about the year 180 and ending with Theonus, whose date may be put about 580. In those four centuries, sixteen names are given, a number clearly insufficient for 400 years.
Published by Robortelli in Basel in 1554, it was reissued three times, once with a Latin translation, before Langhorne edited it at Oxford. Farnaby cites an imposing list of sources. "Greek: Aristotle, Hermogenes, Sopatrus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Demetrius Phal, Menander, Aristides, Apsinus, Longinus De sublimitate, Theonus, Apthonius.
But remarks of this character are misplaced; they disregard or are ignorant of the political facts of the time. Theonus of London was a British bishop in a British city. London had not fallen. Most difficult of access in the then state of land and water, of marsh and mud, whether from north or south or east or west, it held out to the last.
There were two names in the traditional list which it was thought we might at least have included along with Restitutus. One was that of the last on the list, Theonus. But the evidence for him, though quite sufficient for ordinary purposes, was not of the highest order. The other was that of Fastidius, the last but two on the list.
His date for he was a real and well-known man was much earlier than that position would indicate, for he was described, among illustrious men, by a writer who lived a full century before Theonus, the last on the list. This writer, Gennadius of Marseilles, informs us that Fastidius was a British bishop.
In the twenty years immediately preceding the arrival of Augustine, the long line of British Bishops of London came to an end. It has been a subject of remark, and of moralising, that Theonus, the last bishop, lost heart and fled just when the chance was coming for which it is presumed that he had been waiting, the actual beginning of the conversion of the English.
It seems probable that Matthew of Westminster was not far wrong when he wrote that in 586 Theonus took with him the relics of the saints, and such of the ordained clergy as had survived the perils, and retired to Wales. Others, he says, fled further, to the continental Britain. Thadioc of York, he adds, went at the same time.
But it is not necessary for our purpose. The date of the flight of Theonus has been said to be 586. It is probable that this is about the date of Ethelbert's vigorous action northwards, by which he made himself over-lord of his East Saxon neighbours and of London their most recent conquest, which they appear not to have occupied for some years after its fall.
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