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Very interesting! I've been fascinated by the early struggles of the Celtic church against Rome for some time now, so this article was right up my alley... I suppose it's a little odd to claim that there were Calvinists a thousand years before Calvin was born, but hey, the Baptists claim an honorable pre-Reformation pedigreed! Why shouldn't Presbyterians have the same privilege? I don't really have anything to add, but I'll be watching the conversation... bump!

Actually, if you read the statements of the Culdee Presbyters carefully, you'll note that they are actually closer to Martin Luther's "strong" Predestinarian doctrine of total depravity, which holds that the Fall totally enslaved the human Free Will to sin.

"God is the author of all that is good in man; that is to say, both of good-nature and goodwill, which, unless God do work in him, man cannot do, because this good-will is prepared by the Lord in man, that, by the gift of God he may do that which by himself he could not do of his own free-will."

Likewise the Waldensian Independents and AnaBaptists:

"All those that have been, and shall be saved, have been elected of God, before the foundation of the world. It is impossible that those that are appointed to salvation, should not be saved. Whosoever upholds free-will denieth absolutely predestination, and the grace of God."

John Calvin's more nuanced "moderate" Predestinarian doctrine of total depravity, which affirms the Freedom of the Will while also affirming that All Natural Wants are depraved (thus man is free, but only wants to sin, and so sins freely), is essentially unknown to these pre-Reformation Christians.

Their doctrine of Total Depravity is the more simple doctrine of Luther: the Fall destroyed human Free Will, and now humans possess only a Sin-Enslaved Will.

For myself, I hold to the Calvinist view; but it is not exactly correct to call these Christians "Calvinists before Calvin". Their doctrines of Predestination ran more closely parallel to Luther's strong view of Predestination, than to Calvin's slightly more moderate view.