Celtic Scotland

One of the most striking features of the organisation of the early Monastic Church in Ireland and Scotland was its provision for the cultivation of learning and for the training of its members in sacred and profane literature; so that it soon acquired a high reputation for the cultivation of letters, and drew to it students from all quarters, as the best school for the prosecution of all, and especially theological, studies. The fathers and founders of this Monastic Church had, as we have seen, been themselves taught, some in the monastic school of Candida Casa, where they were trained in the rules and institutions of monastic life and in the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures,^[786] and others in the monasteries in Wales, presided over by David, Gildas and Cadoc, wise and learned men, where they were instructed in learning and religion, and studied with assiduity.^[787] The school of Clonard, founded by Finnian, who had himself been trained in the Welsh monasteries, soon equalled them in reputation, and from it issued those fathers of the Monastic Church termed the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. We are told in the life of one of them, Ciaran of Saighir, that he with other saints of Ireland went to Finnian of Clonard, renowned for his wisdom, and in his holy school used to read in the divine Scriptures, and that he lived both to learn and to hear the holy Scriptures.^[788]

The Monastic Church of Ireland soon became so celebrated as a school of learning that students flocked to it from all quarters; and in the seventh and eighth centuries, when intercourse between it and the continental churches was renewed, it certainly occupied in this respect the first position among them. Bede tells us that, when the great pestilence devastated Ireland in the year 664, ‘many of the nobility and of the middle ranks of the Anglic nation were there at that time, who, in the days of the bishops Finan and Colman, forsaking their native island, had retired thither, for the sake either of divine studies or of a more continent life; and some of them presently devoted themselves faithfully to a monastic life, others chose rather to apply themselves to study, going about from one master’s cell to another. The Scots most willingly received them all, and took care to supply them gratuitously with daily food, as also to furnish them with books to read and their teaching, without making any charge;’^[789] and of Aldfrid, son of King Osuiu, who succeeded his brother Ecgfrid, when he was slain by the Picts in 685, as king of Northumbria, Bede says that ‘he was a man most learned in Scripture,’ ‘that he at that time lived in exile in the islands of the Scots for the sake of studying letters,’ and that, previous to his accession to the throne, ‘he had for a considerable time gone into voluntary exile in the regions of the Scots, for the sake of acquiring learning, through the love of wisdom.’^[790] We hear, too, in the Life of Senan, of ‘fifty Roman monks who came to Ireland for the purpose of leading a life of stricter discipline, or improving themselves in the study of the Scriptures then much cultivated in Ireland, and became pupils of those holy fathers who were most distinguished for sanctity of life and the perfection of monastic discipline.’^[791]

The Monastic Church, founded by Columba in Iona, was not behind its mother church of Ireland in this respect; and we are told by his biographer, Adamnan, that Columba ‘never could spend even one hour without study, or prayer, or writing, or some other holy occupation.’ He tells us, also, of a book of hymns for the office of every day in the week, which had been written by Columba, and of his transcribing the Psalter. We read also of a prefect ‘learning wisdom with them.’^[792] Columba, too, appears to have cultivated his own language and not to have despised his native literature; for, according to a quatrain quoted in the old Irish life,

And we learn, from the anonymous Life of Cuthbert, that when King Aldfrid of Northumbria had, before his accession to the throne, resorted to the islands of the Scots for study, one of these islands was that of Iona.^[793]

The remains of the literature of this period of the Monastic Church which have come down to us bear ample testimony to the intellectual development which characterised it. Of these perhaps the most complete are the works of Columbanus. Besides his monastic rule, we possess six of his letters connected with important questions regarding ecclesiastical matters, seventeen instructions or sermons addressed to his monks, and one or two poetical pieces. They are all written in Latin, and show a mastery of that language as it was then used by ecclesiastical writers, a thorough acquaintance with the holy Scriptures, with the spirit and language of which they are indeed saturated, and a perfect knowledge of the contemporary history and literature of the church. He places the holy Scriptures as the highest standard of authority in all matters of Christian faith. As we have seen, he gives as the character of his church that ‘it received nothing beyond the teaching of the Evangelists and Apostles;’ and the same spirit is manifested in one of his instructions, when he says, ‘Excepting those statements which either the Law or the Prophets or the Gospels or the Apostles have made to us, solemn silence ought to be observed, as far as other authorities are concerned, with respect to the Trinity. For it is God’s testimony alone that is to be credited concerning God, that is, concerning himself.’^[794] Cummian’s letter regarding the Easter festival, also written in Latin, shows a perfect mastery of his subject, and may compare with any ecclesiastic document of the time. Then we have the Latin lives of Columba by two of the abbots of Iona; and, besides Adamnan’s Life, we also possess his tract on the Holy Places, works which give proof of his classical attainments as well as his acquaintance with ecclesiastical writings.

The seventh century, which had seen the church distracted by the Easter controversy, the withdrawal of the Columban monks from Northumbria, and the conformity of the church of the northern Scots of Ireland to Rome, likewise witnessed some other changes in its intellectual life. One was the appearance, in the end of this century, of a functionary in the monasteries, termed in Irish Scribhnidh, or Scribhneoir, and in Latin ‘Scriba,’ a learned man among the monks, who was selected for the purpose not only of transcribing and preserving the ancient records of the monastery, but likewise of exercising the functions of teacher and public lecturer.^[795] One of the earliest monuments of their industry is the MS. termed the Book of Armagh. It was compiled by Ferdomnach, ‘a sage and choice Scribhnidh of the church of Armagh,’ at the instance of Torbach, abbot of Armagh, who had himself been a scribe and lector of the church; and, as he was only one year in the abbacy, and died in the year 808, this fixes the date of the compilation of the book at the year 807.^[796]

The contents of this MS. will show somewhat of the literature of the church at the time. The volume commences with certain memoirs of St. Patrick, which are the oldest we now possess, and they are followed by the Confession of St. Patrick, an undoubtedly genuine work. After this comes St. Jerome’s Preface to the New Testament; and then the Gospels in their usual order. In the enumeration of the apostles in the Gospel of St. Matthew, the name of Judas has opposite to it, on the margin, the Irish word trogaun or wretch, and at the end of the Gospel is the following prayer of the writer, in Latin:—‘O God, whose mercy is unbounded, and whose holiness passeth speech, with humble voice have I boldness to implore that, like as Thou didst call Matthew to be a chosen Apostle, from being a receiver of customs; so, of Thy compassion, Thou wilt vouchsafe to direct my steps during this life into the perfect way; and place me in the angelic choir of the heavenly Jerusalem, that, on the everlasting throne of endless joy, I may be deemed worthy to join with the harmonious praises of archangels in ascribing honour to Thee; through Thy only-begotten Son, who liveth with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, throughout all ages. Amen.’ After the Gospels follow St. Paul’s Epistles, to which are prefixed prefaces chiefly taken from the works of Pelagius. Between the Epistle to the Colossians and the First Epistle to Timothy is inserted the spurious Epistle to the Laodiceans, which is found in a great variety of Latin MSS. of the New Testament; and in the First Epistle of St. John the passage concerning the witnesses (v. 7) is omitted, as it also is in the oldest copy of the Vulgate. The Epistles are followed by the Apocalypse, after which comes the Acts of the Apostles, an order peculiar to this MS.; and the Book of Armagh closes with the Life of St. Martin of Tours, written by Sulpicius Severus, and with a short litany, or intercession, on behalf of the writer.^[797] This MS., compiled at Armagh in 807, probably contained the only memoirs of its patron saint which were then known to exist.

The oldest lives of the Irish saints belong to the seventh century, and the rise of the hagiology of the Irish Church corresponds with that of the Easter controversy and with the conformity of the church to that of Rome. It was followed in the next century by the enshrining of the relics of the saints most venerated. Prior to the conformity of part of the Monastic Church to Rome in that century, we do not find much appearance of the memory of the early fathers of the church having been preserved in written memoirs. The early Monastic Church, as we have seen, either knew or said little about St. Patrick as the great apostle of Ireland; and Cummian, who first mentions him in this century, belonged to the Roman party, and does so in connection with the Easter controversy. The oldest memoir of St. Patrick in the Book of Armagh consists of what are called Annotations by Tirechan, a bishop, who calls himself pupil of Bishop Ultan, son of Conchubar, that is, of the bishop of Ardbraccan, whose death is recorded in 657.^[798] The second is a life of which part only of the first book is preserved; but the second book appears to be entire, and the headings of the chapters of the whole of the first book are fortunately given, which affords us some indication of the contents of the missing leaves. It bears to be written by Muirchu Macumactheni, at the dictation of Aedh, bishop of Sleibhte; and the names of both appear among the subscribers to the Synod of Tara in 697, while the death of the former is recorded in 699.^[799] Muirchu, however, prefaces his memoir by the following statement, addressed to Bishop Aedh:—‘Forasmuch as many, my lord Aedus, have taken in hand to set forth in order a narration, namely this, according to what their fathers and they who from the beginning were ministers of the Word have delivered unto them; but by reason of the very great difficulty of the narrative, and the diverse opinions and numerous doubts of very many persons, have never arrived at any one certain track of history; therefore (if I be not mistaken, according to this proverb of our countrymen, Like boys brought down into the amphitheatre), I have brought down the boyish rowboat of my poor capacity into this dangerous and deep ocean of sacred narrative, with wildly-swelling mounds of billows, lying in unknown seas between most dangerous whirlpools—an ocean never attempted or occupied by any barks, save only that of my father Cogitosus. But, lest I should seem to make a small matter great, with little skill, from uncertain authors, with frail memory, with obliterated meaning and barbarous language, but with a most pious intention, obeying the command of thy belovedness and sanctity and authority, I will now attempt, out of many acts of Saint Patrick, to explain them, gathered here and there with difficulty.’^[800] Now both Ultan of Ardbraccan and Aedh of Sleibhte belonged to that part of the Church of Ireland which had conformed to Rome; and this party seems to have fallen back upon the traditions of the earlier church, which had preceded the Monastic Church, and to have revived the veneration of its great founder St. Patrick. The oldest lives of St. Bridget, the other great saint of this earlier church, belong also to the same period, and are attributed, one to Bishop Ultan, and another to Cogitosus the father of Muirchu.^[801] The oldest memoir of Columba is that by Cummene, who was abbot of Iona from 657 to 669, and it too was, as we have seen, called forth by the Easter controversy, but was written to maintain the authority of Columba, as the father of the Columban Church against that of Rome, and to claim for him a high position by the sanctity of his character and the possession of miraculous power and spiritual gifts. Adamnan too, who writes the second life, was the first abbot of Iona who gave his adhesion to the Roman party; and it seems to have been called forth by his connection with the Northumbrian Church. These early lives gave rise to a great hagiologic literature, consisting of the lives of all the leading saints and founders of churches, in which every effort was made to magnify their power and sanctity by a record of so-called miracles and prophecies. It is to this literature that we are obliged in a great measure to resort for the early history of the Celtic Church; but, for historic purposes these lives must be used with great discrimination. There is nothing more difficult than to extract historical evidence from documents which confessedly contained a mixture of the historical and the fabulous; but the fiction, in the form in which it appears, pre-supposes a stem of truth upon which it has become encrusted; and it is only by a critical use of authorities of this kind that we can hope to disentangle the historical core from the fabulous addition.

The Lives of St. Patrick afford a good illustration of this. There is a continuous series of them from the seventh century to the twelfth. Space will, of course, not admit of anything like a complete analysis of them, but a comparison of the lives, in the order in which they appear to have been compiled, will show the growth of the legendary and fabulous additions to the real facts of his life, and the process by which it passed, from the few leading features of it which can be extracted from his own authentic writings, to the extraordinary mixture of fact, legend and fable which now makes up the popular conception of his life. The oldest memoirs of St. Patrick are the Annotations of Bishop Tirechan, ‘written from the mouth or book of Ultan the bishop, whose pupil and disciple he was.’ He tells us that he ‘found four names given to Patricius in the book of Ultan: Magonus, which is “clarus;” Succetus, which is Patricius; and Cothirthiac, because he served four houses of “magi,” and one of them, whose name was Miliuc, bought him, and he served him seven years.’ That he was taken captive in his seventeenth year, and obtained his liberty in his twenty-second year, which corresponds with his own statement in his Confession; but Tirechan adds ‘that in seven other years he walked and sailed over the waves, and over country parts, and through valleys and over mountains, through Gaul and all Italy, and the islands which are in the Terrene sea, as he says in the commemoration of his labours.’ There is no foundation, however, for this in his Confession, except his sixty days’ wanderings through the desert before he reached the house of his parents. Tirechan then adds, ‘He was in one of these islands, which is called Aralanensis, for thirty years, as was testified by Bishop Ultan.’ He then gives us the following chronological data:—‘All things which happened you will find clearly written in his history, and these latest wonders were fulfilled and brought to a close in the second year of the reign of Loigaire mac Neill. From the passion of Christ to the death of Patricius are four hundred and thirty-six years. Loigaire reigned two or five years after the death of Patricius. The whole period of Loigaire’s reign was thirty-three years, as we think.’ Now we may assume as a fixed point the death of Loigaire in the year 463.^[802] His reign, therefore, commenced in 430. His second year brings us to 432 for the termination of St. Patrick’s wanderings in foreign countries; and his death, if it occurred five years before that of Loigaire, would fall in the year 458, or, if two years only, in 461; but the Irish Annals agree in placing under the year 458 the death of Sen Patraic,^[803] or old Patrick, which identifies him with the Patricius of Tirechan’s Annotations. It is unnecessary for our purpose to advert to Tirechan’s account of his proceedings in Ireland; but he adds at the end some further data. He says ‘the age of Patricius, as it was delivered to us, may be thus stated:—In his seventh year he was baptized. In the tenth year (after) he was taken captive. Four years he served. Thirty years he studied. Seventy-two years he taught. His whole age was one hundred and twenty. In four points he resembled Moses: 1st, He heard an angel from a bush of fire. 2d, He fasted forty days and forty nights. 3d, He accomplished one hundred and twenty years in this present life. 4th, Where his bones are no one knows. In the XIII year of Theodosius the emperor Patricius the bishop was sent by Bishop Celestine, Pope of Rome, for the instruction of the Irish, which Celestine was the forty-second bishop of the apostolical see of the city of Rome after Peter. Palladius the bishop was the first sent, who is otherwise called Patricius, and suffered martyrdom among the Scots, as the ancient saints relate. Then the second Patricius was sent by an angel of God, named Victor, and by Pope Celestine, by whose means all Ireland believed, and who baptized almost all the inhabitants.’ Now here Tirechan betrays at once the party in the church to which he and Ultan belonged, by asserting that St. Patrick, as well as Palladius, had been sent by Pope Celestine; and he gives us the important fact that Palladius was also known to the Irish by the name of Patricius. If St. Patrick had taught for seventy-two years, and died in 458, it is plain that his mission to the Irish must have long preceded that of Palladius; but at the same time, as Palladius is termed by a contemporary writer the first bishop sent to the Scots, St. Patrick could not have been consecrated a bishop till after him. He himself tells us that he was forty-five when he was consecrated a bishop; and, if this took place in the year 432, it would place his birth in the year 387; and, if he died in 458, the period of seventy-two years would thus represent his entire life. Tirechan has thus, by interpolating his thirty years’ study in Gaul, and by taking seventy years as representing his teaching in Ireland, lengthened out his life to one hundred and twenty-three years, and thus obtained his parallelism with Moses in this respect. If Palladius and Patricius were known to the Irish by the same name, it is hardly possible that, when the traditions regarding them were first collected and formed into a regular biography in the seventh century, they should not have been confounded together. The mission from Pope Celestine and the thirty years’ study in Gaul and Italy are entirely inconsistent with St. Patrick’s account of himself, and no doubt truly belong to the acts of Palladius.

The next life is that by Muirchu. The first membrane of the Book of Armagh, containing the commencement of the life, is unfortunately wanting; but the preface and the headings of the chapters have been preserved in a different part of the MS. The preface has already been given, and the headings of the missing chapters are these:—

‘Concerning the birth of St. Patrick and his first captivity.

Concerning his journeys and sea voyage to the Gentiles, and his sufferings among the nations ignorant of God.

Concerning his second captivity, which he suffered for sixty days from hostile men.

Concerning his reception by his parents when they recognised him.

Concerning his age when going to visit the apostolic see where he wished to learn wisdom.

Concerning his discovery of holy men in Gaul, and that therefore he went no farther.’

The fragment of the first book commences with his journey to the apostolic see at Rome, and mentions that Germanus ‘sent an elder with him, that is Segitius, that he might have a companion and witness, because he was not as yet ordained by the holy lord Germanus to the pontifical degree.’ It then mentions the mission of Palladius, and that ‘his disciples Augustinus and Benedictus and the rest, returning, related in Ebmoria the circumstance of his death.’ Patrick then proceeds no farther, but goes to a certain man, an illustrious bishop Amathorex,^[804] living in a neighbouring place, and receives from him the episcopal degree, after which he returns to Britain. This statement, taken in connection with the heading of the chapter, implies that St. Patrick, though he intended to go to Rome, went no farther than the town of Ebmoria, which must have been in Gaul, and near it was consecrated bishop by Amathorex. St. Patrick is in this life also brought into contact with Germanus; but the connection with Rome is less directly stated than in the previous life. The chronological summary at the end of the life is as follows:—‘Patrick was baptized in his sixth year, taken captive in his twentieth, served in slavery twelve years, studied forty years, taught sixty-one. His entire age was one hundred and eleven years.’ These dates, however, when added together, make up a period of one hundred and thirty-three years, and the process by which his life is thus lengthened is apparent enough. His captivity is placed in his twentieth in place of his sixteenth year. The period of his slavery is doubled. The period of his study with Germanus is increased from thirty to forty years, and his mission reduced from seventy-two to sixty-one years. But, if this latter period is deducted, his life prior to his mission is here made to have been seventy-two years. In the life itself, however, St. Patrick is said to have died ‘on the sixteenth day of the Kalends of April, having attained the age of one hundred and twenty years, as is celebrated every year over the whole of Ireland, and kept sacred;’ and in the last paragraph it is more correctly stated ‘that he was taken captive in the thirteenth year of his age, and was in bondage six years.’ If these two numbers are substituted for the twentieth year and the twelve years of the summary, the entire years of his life will be reduced from one hundred and thirty-three to one hundred and twenty. This life also distinctly states that St. Patrick was buried at Dunlethglaisse, or Down, while Tirechan as distinctly states that ‘where his bones are no one knows.’ The tradition, therefore, which places his relics at Down must have arisen after the time when Tirechan wrote. In some additions to Tirechan’s Annotations, which appear to have been made about the time when the rest was written, another tradition is given. It is there said that ‘Columbcille, instigated by the Holy Spirit, pointed out the sepulchre of Patrick where he lies, that is to say, at Sabul Patricii,’ or ‘Saul Patrick, in the nearest church next the sea, where the relics or bones of Columcille were brought from Britain, and where the relics of all the saints of Ireland will be brought in the day of judgment.’^[805] The Annals of Ulster contain the following curious entry under the year 552:—‘I have found what follows in the Book of Cuanach,’ a chronicle the date of which is unknown, but which cannot be much earlier than the eighth or ninth century. ‘The reliques of St. Patrick were deposited in a shrine, sixty years after his death, by Columcille. Three precious swearing reliques were found in his tomb, viz., the Coach, or cup, the Gospel of the Angel, and the Bell of the Testament. The angel thus showed to Columcille how to divide these reliques, viz., the Coach to Down, the Bell to Armagh, and the Gospel to Columcille himself; and it is called the Gospel of the Angel because Columcille received it at the angel’s hands.’ The church of Saul is on the sea-shore in the immediate neighbourhood of Down; but that either Saul or Down could have been marked out as the place where St. Patrick’s bones were enshrined prior to the eighth century is quite inconsistent with the distinct statement, by his first biographer, that no one in his day knew where they were. As we have seen, Cellach, abbot of Iona, appears to have taken the relics of Columba to Ireland on the slaughter of the community by the Danes in 806; and, as the Book of Armagh was transcribed in 807, and the name of Cellach appears on the margin of one of the leaves, it is probable that this tradition owes its origin to him.^[806]

About the same period when the Book of Armagh was transcribed, or not long after, was written the short Life of St. Patrick, by Marcus the Anchorite, annexed to Nennius’ History of the Britons. Marcus is said by Heric, in his Life of St. Germanus, to have been a Briton by birth, but educated in Ireland, where he was for a long time a bishop, and to have at length settled in France, where he died;^[807] and his notices of St. Patrick show that he was acquainted with the lives in the Book of Armagh. He states, correctly enough, that Patrick had been captive in Ireland seven years; but, when he says that ‘when he had attained the age of seventeen he returned from his captivity,’ he confuses his age when he was taken captive with that of his liberation. He says that ‘by the divine impulse he was afterwards instructed in sacred literature, and went to Rome, and remained there a long time studying the sacred mysteries of God’—here agreeing with Tirechan in bringing him to Rome; but he adopts the statement of Muirchu in regard to the mission of Palladius, substituting the land of the Picts for that of the Britons as the place of his death.^[808] He also follows Muirchu in Patrick’s being sent by Germanus with Segerus to the bishop Amatheus, by whom he is consecrated bishop; but he follows Tirechan in his statement that in four particulars he resembled Moses, that he lived one hundred and twenty years, and that no one knew where his sepulchre was, adding that ‘he was buried in secret no one knowing.’^[809] He concludes his life by saying that ‘he was sixteen years in captivity,’ here confusing the duration of his captivity, with his age when made captive, that ‘in his twenty-fifth year he was consecrated bishop by King Matheus,’ and that he was eighty-five years ‘apostle of the Irish,’ which would give him a life of one hundred and ten years only; but in another passage in Nennius four hundred and five years are said to have elapsed from the birth of Christ to the arrival of Patrick among the Scots, and sixty years from his death to that of St. Bridget. As the latter event, moreover, is said to have taken place four years after the birth of Columba, which gives us a fixed date of 521, this would place the death of Patrick in 465, and his birth, if he was taken captive in 405, in 389, dates which very nearly correspond with those of Tirechan, and of the older Patrick termed Sen Patraic.

The next biography of the saint introduces some new features into the legend. It is the hymn in praise of St. Patrick, attributed to St. Fiacc of Sleibhte, who is said to have been ordained by him. So early a date, however, cannot be assigned to the poem, and it belongs in reality to the ninth century.^[810] This poem has formed the nucleus around which a number of floating legends, whether founded on genuine tradition or the fruit of supposititious narrative, have clustered in the shape of a commentary or scholiasm, which is, of course, of even later date;^[811] and the two together have given an entirely different aspect to the legendary life of the apostle of Ireland. The so-called Fiacc commences his hymn by giving a new name to the place of St. Patrick’s birth. He tells us that