From Cædmon’s _Metrical Paraphrase_ (10th cent.).]
However, his example was the signal for revolt. King Sebert died and was succeeded by his three sons, “still pagans.” Therefore the conversion of the East Saxons, at least, had not been complete. These princes “immediately began to profess idolatry, which during their father’s reign they had seemed a little to abandon”; they also granted liberty to the people to serve idols. Therefore the conversion had been by order of the King. The people, then, nothing loth, returned to their ancient gods and their old practices.
Some, however, remained faithful, and the services of the Church were still carried on at St. Paul’s, with sorrowful hearts.
We now chance upon a glimpse of the East Saxon mind, for the three princes, though they were no longer Christians, desired to get what they could for their own advantage out of the new religion. They observed that the most important part of the Christian ritual was the celebration of the Eucharist, in which the communicants received each a morsel of white bread. Clearly this was magic: the white bread was a charm: it protected those who received it from dangers of all kinds. They therefore called upon Mellitus to give them this charm, but without the profession of the Christian faith. In the words of Bede, they said, “Why do you not give us also that white bread, which you used to give to our father Saba (for so they used to call him), and which you still continue to give to the people in the church?” To whom he answered, “If you will be washed in that laver of salvation, in which your father was washed, you may also partake of the holy bread, of which he partook; but if you despise the laver of life, you may not receive the bread of life.” They replied, “We will not enter into that laver, because we do not know that we stand in need of it, and yet we will eat of that bread.” And being often earnestly admonished by him, that the same could not be done, nor any one admitted to partake of the sacred oblation without the holy cleansing, at last they said in anger, “If you will not comply with us in so small a matter as this, you shall not stay in our province”; and accordingly they obliged him and his followers to depart from their kingdom.