This might be deemed a purely imaginary description, if the collection of antiquities in the Royal Irish Academy did not prove beyond doubt that golden ornaments similar to those referred to in this passage were of frequent use in Ireland. In the year 1810 two neck torques of purest gold, the same as those described above, were found on the Hill of Tara itself, and are now to be seen in the Academy’s collection.

“Alas,” says an old writer, “Tara to-day is desolate; it is a green grassy land; but it was once a noble hill to view, the mansion of warlike heroes, in the days of Cormac O’Cuinn—when Cormac was in his glory.”

Everything at Tara, even its present desolation, is full of interest, and reminds us of the days “when Cormac was in his glory.” His house is there within the circle of the great Rath na Riogh. The mound where he kept his hostages may still be seen beside his Rath. The stream issuing from the well Neamhnach, on which he built the first mill in Ireland for his handmaiden, Ciarnaid, to spare her the labour of grinding with the quern, still flows down the eastern slope of Tara Hill, and still, says Petrie, turns a mill. Even the well on the western slope, beside which Cormac’s cuchtair, or kitchen, was built, has been discovered. The north-western claenfert, or declivity, where he corrected the false judgment of King Mac Con about the trespass of the widow’s sheep may still be traced. The Rath of his step-mother, Maeve, can be seen not far from Tara; and to the west of the Teach Miodhchuarta may be noticed Rath Graine, the sunny palace of his daughter, the faithless spouse of Finn Mac Cumhail.

O’Flaherty tells us on the authority of an old poem found in the Book of Shane Mor O’Dugan, who flourished about A.D. 1390, that Cormac founded three schools at Tara—one for teaching the art of war, the second for the study of history, and the third was a school of jurisprudence. It was, doubtless, the first regular college founded in ancient Erin, and like the school of Charlemagne, was within the royal palace. The fact is extremely probable, especially as Cormac himself was an accomplished scholar in all these sciences. This brings us to the literary works attributed to Cormac Mac Art by all our ancient Irish scholars.

The first of these is a treatise still extant in manuscript entitled Teagusc na Riogh, or Institutio Principum. It is ascribed to King Cormac in the Book of Leinster written before the Anglo-Norman Invasion of Ireland. It takes the form of a dialogue between Cormac and his son and successor, Cairbre Lifeachair; “and,” says the quaint old Mac Geoghegan, “this book contains as goodly precepts and moral documents as Cato or Aristotle did ever write.” The language is of the most archaic type; some extracts have been translated and published in the Dublin Penny Journal.

A still more celebrated work, now unfortunately lost, the Saltair of Tara, has been universally attributed to Cormac by Irish scholars. Perhaps we should rather say it was compiled under his direction. “It contained,” says an ancient writer in the Book of Ballymote, “the synchronisms and genealogies, as well as the succession of the [Irish] kings and monarchs, their battles, their contests, and their antiquities from the world’s beginning down to the time it was written. And this is the Saltair of Tara, which is the origin and fountain of the histories of Erin from that period down to the present time.” “This,” adds the writer in the Book of Ballymote, “is taken from the Book of Ua Chongbhail”—that is the Book of Navan—a still more ancient but now lost work. Not only do the writer in the ancient Book of Navan, and the copyist in the Book of Ballymote, expressly attribute this work to Cormac, but a still more ancient authority, the poet Cuan O’Lochain, who died in A.D. 1024, has this stanza in his poem on Tara:—

“He [Cormac] compiled the Saltair of Tara,
In that Saltair is contained
The best summary of history;
It is the Saltair which assigns
Seven chief kings to Erin of harbours,” &c., &c.

And it is, indeed, self-evident to the careful student of our annals that there must have been some one ancient “origin and fountain” from which the subsequent historians of Erin have derived their information—which existing monuments prove to be quite accurate—concerning the reign of Cormac and his more immediate predecessors in Ireland. The man who restored the Feis of Tara, and who, as we shall presently see, was also a celebrated judge and lawyer, was exactly such a person of forethought and culture as would gather together the poets and historians of his kingdom to execute under his own immediate direction this great work for the benefit of posterity. Keating tells us that it was called the Saltair of Tara because the chief Ollave of Tara had it in his official custody; and as Cormac Mac Cullinan’s Chronicle was called the Saltair of Cashel, and the Biblical Poem of Aengus the Culdee was called the Saltair na Rann, so this great compilation was named the Saltair of Tara. This, as O’Curry remarks, disposes of Petrie’s objection that its name would rather indicate the Christian origin of the book. The answer is simple—Cormac never called the book by this name, as surely the compilers of the great works known as the Book of Ballymote or the Book of Leinster never called those famous compilations by their present names.

Cormac was also a distinguished jurist—of that we have conclusive evidence in the Book of Aicill, which has been published in the third volume of the Brehon Law publications. The book itself is most explicit as to its authorship, and everything in the text goes to confirm the statements in the introduction, part of which is worth reproducing here.

The author then tells us how the spear of Aengus grazed the eye of Cormac and blinded him.

This proves beyond doubt that the greatest portion of this Book of Aicill was written by Cormac at Skreen, near Tara, when disqualified for holding the sovereignty on account of his wound. It was a treatise written for the benefit of his son unexpectedly called to fill the monarch’s place at Tara. The text, too, bears out this account. Cormac, apparently furnished the groundwork of the present volume by writing for his son’s use a series of maxims or principles on the criminal law of Erin, which were afterwards developed by Cormac himself, and by subsequent commentators. That the archaic legal maxims so enunciated in the Book of Aicill were once written by Cormac himself there can be no reasonable doubt; although it is now quite impossible to ascertain how far the development of the text was the work of Cormac or of subsequent legal authorities, who doubtless added to and modified the commentary, whilst they left Cormac’s text itself unchanged.

This Book of Aicill, the authenticity of which cannot, we think, be reasonably questioned, proves to a certainty that in the third century of the Christian era there was a considerable amount of literary culture in Celtic Ireland. These works are still extant in the most archaic form of the Irish language; they have been universally attributed to Cormac Mac Art for the last ten centuries by all our Irish scholars; the intrinsic evidence of their authorship and antiquity is equally striking—why then should we reject this mass of evidence, and accept the crude theories of certain modern pretenders in the antiquities of Ireland, who without even knowing the language undertake to tell us that there was no knowledge of the use of writing in Ireland before St. Patrick?

And is not such an assertion a priori highly improbable? The Romans had conquered Britain in the time of Agricola—the first century of the Christian era. The Britons themselves had very generally become Christians during the second and third centuries, and had, to some extent at least, been imbued with Roman civilization. Frequent intercourse, sometimes friendly and sometimes hostile, existed between the Irish and Welsh tribes especially. A British king was killed at the battle of Magh Mucruimhe in Galway, where Cormac’s own father was slain. The allies of Mac Con on that occasion were British. He himself had spent the years of his exile in Wales. Captives from Ireland were carried to Britain, and captives from Britain were carried to Ireland. Is it likely then that when the use of letters was quite common in Britain for three centuries no knowledge of their use would have come to Ireland until the advent of St. Patrick in the fifth century of the Christian era?

There is an ancient and well founded tradition that Cormac Mac Art died a Christian, or as the Four Masters say, “turned from the religion of the Druids to the worship of the true God.” It is in itself highly probable. Some knowledge of Christianity must have penetrated into Ireland even so early as the reign of Cormac Mac Art. It is quite a popular error to suppose that there were no Christians in Ireland before the time of St. Patrick. Palladius had been sent from Rome before Patrick “to the Scots,” that is the Irish, “who believed in Christ.” Besides that intimate connection between Ireland and Britain, of which we have spoken, must have carried some knowledge of Christianity, as well as of letters, from one country to the other. King Lucius, the first Christian King of the British, flourished quite half a century before the time of King Cormac. Tertullian speaks of the Isles of the Britains as subject to Christ about the time that Cormac’s father, Art, was slain at Magh Mucruimhe. There was a regularly organised hierarchy in England during the third century; and three of its bishops were present at the Council of Arles in A.D. 314.

Nothing is more likely, then, than that the message of the Gospel was brought from England to the ears of King Cormac; and that a prince, so learned and so wise, gave up the old religion of the Druids, and embraced the new religion of peace and love.

But it was a dangerous thing to do even for a king. The Druids were very popular and very influential, and moreover possessed, it was said, dreadful magical powers. They showed it afterwards in the time of St. Patrick, and now they showed it when they heard Cormac had given up the old religion of Erin, and become a convert to the new worship from the East. The king’s death was caused by the bone of a salmon sticking in his throat, and it was universally believed that this painful death was brought about by the magical power of Maelgenn, the chief of the Druids.

“They loosed their curse against the king,
They cursed him in his flesh and bones;
And daily in their mystic ring
They turned the maledictive stones.

“Till where at meat the monarch sate,
Amid the revel and the wine,
He choked upon the food he ate
At Sletty, southward of the Boyne.”[33]

So perished A.D. 267, the wisest and best of the ancient kings of Erin. Cormac, when dying, told his people not to bury him in the pagan cemetery of Brugh on the Boyne, but at Rossnaree, where he first believed, and with his face to the rising sun. But when the king was dead, his captains declared they would bury their king with his royal sires in Brugh:—

“Dead Cormac on his bier they laid;
He reigned a king for forty years,
And shame it were, his captains said,
He lay not with his royal peers.

“What though a dying man should rave
Of changes o’er the eastern sea;
In Brugh of Boyne shall be his grave
And not in noteless Rossnaree.”

So they prepared to cross the fords of Boyne and bury the king at Brugh. But royal Boyne was loyal to its dead king; “the deep full-hearted river rose” to bar the way; and when the bearers attempted to cross the ford, the swelling flood swept them from their feet, caught up the bier, and “proudly bore away the king” on its own heaving bosom. Next morning the corpse was found on the bank of the river at Rossnaree, and was duly interred within the hearing of its murmuring waters. There great Cormac was left to his rest with his face to the rising sun, awaiting the dawning of that Glory which was soon to lighten over the hills and valleys of his native land.

Cormac Mac Art was not only himself a lover of letters, but seems to have transmitted his own talents to his family. There is a very ancient poem in the Book of Leinster, which has been published by O’Curry, and has been attributed to Ailbhe, daughter of Cormac Mac Art. The language is of the most archaic character, and the sentiments expressed are not inconsistent with the origin ascribed to the poem in the Book of Leinster. Still critics will be naturally sceptical as to the authenticity of the poem. Meave (Meadhbh), step-mother of Cormac, who has given her name to Rath Meave at Tara, is credited with being the author of a poem in praise of Cuchorb, in which his martial prowess and numerous battles are duly celebrated. This lady seems to have been decidedly ‘blue’ in her tastes, for she built a choice house within her Rath, where the chief master of every art used to assemble. She was amorous too, and “would not permit any king to reign in Tara who did not first take herself as wife.” Perhaps there is some truth in the ancient and romantic story recorded in the same Book of Leinster, that when Cuchorb was killed, she was sorrowful in heart, and after they set up the grave stone of the fallen hero, she chanted his death song in presence of the assembled warriors, who stood around his grave.

Another pre-Patrician, if not pre-Christian poet, to whom some extant poems have been attributed, was Torna Eigas, the bard of Niall of the Nine Hostages. Niall died in A.D. 405, twenty-seven years before St. Patrick came to preach in Erin; so that even if Torna Eigas, as Colgan thinks, became a Christian, his training and inspiration must belong to the pre-Christian times. If the works attributed to him are even substantially genuine, they must have been interpolated by later copyists with Christian references and Christian sentiments. O’Reilly mentions four poems as passing under his name. The first is addressed to King Niall his patron, and foster son. The second was designed to effect a reconciliation between Niall and the foster child of the poet, King Corc of Munster, who, as we shall see hereafter, certainly lived to become a Christian. In the third the poet describes the pleasant life which he spent with these two kings, his foster children, who lavished upon him alternately during his visits their friendship and their favours. But the fourth is by far the most interesting, for it describes the famous burying place of the Pagan kings of Erin, Relig na Riogh, at Rath Cruachan in Connaught. It consists of twenty-eight stanzas, and enumerates the great kings and warriors who sleep on the hill of Royal Cruachan, ending with the valiant Dathi, whose grave is marked by a red pillar stone, which stands there to-day, even as it stood before St. Patrick crossed the Shannon to preach the Gospel to Laeghaire’s daughters on that famous hill. This poem has been published by Petrie in his Essay on the Antiquities of Tara Hill.

The history of the valiant King Dathi is full of charm for our Celtic poets, and several of them have sought, not unsuccessfully, to reproduce the spirit of the original poem by Torna Eigas. Better than all others poor Clarence Mangan tells in quite Homeric style:—

“How Dathi sailed away—away—
Over the deep resounding sea;
Sailed with his hosts in armour gray,
Over the deep resounding sea,
Many a night and many a day;
And many an islet conquered he,
Till one bright morn, at the base
Of the Alps in rich Ausonian regions,
His men stood marshalled face to face
With the mighty Roman legions....

But:— Thunder crashes,
Lightning flashes,
And in an instant Dathi lies
On the earth a mass of blackened ashes.
Then mournfully and dolefully
The Irish warriors sailed away
Over the deep resounding sea.”

Reference is made in our ancient extant manuscripts to several ‘Books’ now lost, which are said to have been written before the arrival of St. Patrick in Ireland. It is unnecessary, however, to refer to those in detail; because any statements about their character and origin can be little better than mere conjecture. O’Curry names several of them, and tells all that can possibly be known about them. The “Cuilmen” appears to have been one of the oldest and most celebrated, because it contained the great epic of ancient Erin known as the “Tain Bo Chuailnge.” Another famous ancient ‘Book,’ now lost, was the “Cin Droma Snechta,” or the Vellum Stave Book of Drom Snechta, as O’Curry translates it. It is quoted in the Book of Ballymote, and in the Book of Lecan.

Another lost work, to which we have already referred, was the Book of Ua Chongbhail. It was extant in the time of Keating, who quotes it as one of his authorities, but it has since been unfortunately lost, and nothing is now known of its contents.

II.—Sedulius.

It is said, however, that there were not only pagan writers and scholars, like Cormac Mac Art, in Ireland before the time of St. Patrick, but that several celebrated Christian writers, who flourished before the advent of our national Apostle, were of Irish birth or parentage. And this is the opinion, not merely of superficial writers, but of grave and learned men like Colgan, Usher, and Lanigan; and what is more, it has been admitted by foreigners as well as by our native authorities. These authorities have claimed for Ireland the great glory of having given birth to the celebrated Sedulius, the Christian Virgil, as he has been most appropriately called. The more doubtful honour of producing Caelestius, the associate of the heresiarch Pelagius, has been also claimed for Ireland; and according to others Pelagius himself was at least of Irish extraction. We propose to examine at some length the history of these writers, and especially to examine the evidence in favour of their alleged Irish origin. In the first place we shall give a full account, so far as it is now possible to ascertain his history, of the celebrated poet Sedulius.

In the best MSS. the name given is always “Caelius Sedulius,” and although the praenomen savours of Latin origin, and the nomen itself was not quite unknown in Rome,[34] still the name Sedulius gives decided indications of his Irish birth. At least two other distinguished Irishmen bore the same name. The first is that Sedulius of Irish origin, the Bishop of Britain, as he describes himself,[35] who subscribed the Acts of the Council of Rome held under Gregory II., in A.D. 721. The other, known as Sedulius the Younger, flourished in the first quarter of the ninth century, wrote a Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistles, and, as we shall see, has been frequently confounded with his more celebrated namesake, the poet. The old form of the name in Irish was Siadhal, or Siadhel, now pronounced Shiel. But in these older forms of the language the letters were not mortified in pronunciation; and thus Sedulius is naturally the latinized form of the Irish name. From the dawn of our history it was a name celebrated in Irish literature, especially in the department of medicine. Colgan refers to eight distinguished Irishmen who bore the family name of Siadhal, amongst others to Siadhal, son of Luath, Bishop of Dubhlinn, whose death on the 12th of February, 785, is recorded in the Martyrology of Donegal. The Danes, indeed, had not arrived in Dublin so early as A.D. 785, nor is there any satisfactory evidence of a diocese of Dublin at that time. He may, however, have been an abbot in the place, with episcopal orders.

The oldest writer[36] who distinctly asserts that the poet Sedulius was an Irishman is John of Tritenheim, or Trithemius, as he is more generally called.[37] This Trithemius, Benedictine abbot of Spanheim, flourished towards the end of the fifteenth century, and was certainly a very learned man. In some of the statements, however, made in this paragraph, he is not supported by any ancient authority that we know of. It is, moreover, evident from the list of the writings of Sedulius which he gives, that he confounds the poet with the commentator on St. Paul and St. Matthew, who, as all admit, was an Irishman, but flourished nearly four centuries later than the poet. Colgan, Usher, Ware, and a host of other writers at home and abroad, have followed Trithemius, and made the poet an Irishman.

It is, however, certain that, although there is some evidence that he was of Irish birth, there is absolutely no evidence that he was a native of any other country. It was, indeed, said that the poet was a Spaniard, and Bishop of the Oretani, but Faustinus Arevalus, himself a Spaniard, and author of a very able dissertation on Sedulius, prefixed to his splendid edition of the Christian Poets of the Fourth Century, published at Rome in A.D. 1794, declares that love of truth compels him to admit that the story of his preaching at Toledo, and of his Spanish episcopacy, is fabulous.[38]

Let us now try to ascertain what is known with certainty of this great Christian poet, whether Irishman or not.

In the “Palatine” Codex of the Vatican Library, No. 242, there is a paragraph which states that “Sedulius was a Gentile, but learned philosophy in Italy, was afterwards converted to the Lord, and baptized by the priest Macedonius, then came to Arcadia, or according to other MSS., Achaia, where he composed this book,” that is his Carmen Paschale.

In the Vatican Codex, No. 333, probably of the eleventh century, it is added that “St. Jerome, in his Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers, says that Sedulius was at first a layman, learned philosophy in Italy, and afterwards, by the advice of Macedonius, taught heroic and other kinds of metre in Achaia; he wrote his books in the time of Valentinian and Theodosius,” etc. Substantially the same statement is found in nearly all the twelve MSS. in the Vatican.

The scribe attributes to St. Jerome, who died in A.D. 420, that continuation of Jerome’s great Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers, which was really the work of Gennadius of Marseilles, who flourished in A.D. 495—the very time, as we shall see, that the writings of Sedulius were published. We find no statement of this kind about Sedulius in Gennadius’ Catalogue, as actually published, but Sirmond declares that he himself saw in some copies of Gennadius, that Sedulius died during the reign of Valentinian and Theodosius the Younger, to the latter of whom, as he alleges, he had dedicated his work.

We may then take it as certain that Sedulius flourished during their joint reigns, that is, at some period from A.D. 423 to 450, when Theodosius died; and in all probability Sedulius himself had died some years previously—that is, between A.D. 445 and 449. He is described as at first a layman and a Gentile, which is not at all unnatural, especially if he were a native of Ireland. There were indeed some Christians in Ireland before the time of St. Patrick, for Palladius was sent in A.D. 431, the year before the mission of St. Patrick “to the Scots who believed in Christ;”[39] but these Christians were not numerous. At the beginning of the fifth century, however, considerable intercourse, sometimes friendly, and sometimes hostile, existed between the Scots of Ireland and the natives of Roman Britain as well as of Roman Gaul. It would be very easy, therefore, for a young Irishman to join a band of his roving countrymen, and after learning Latin in the provincial schools of France or England, he would naturally in his search after philosophy, migrate to Italy, and there find the double treasure of faith and wisdom.

Sedulius is said to have penetrated from Italy to Achaia, where he became the pupil and intimate friend of the priest Macedonius. This much is manifest from his own writings, for in the dedication of his Carmen Paschale,[40] he touchingly alludes to the progress in Christian wisdom which he had made under the guidance “of his most holy father.” He adds that previously he had devoted to secular studies the energies of that restless mind—vim impatientis ingenii—which Providence had given him; and had made his literary training subservient, not to the profit of his soul and the glory of his Maker, but to the fruitless tasks of this fleeting life. Arevalus justly observes that if Sedulius had been baptized by Macedonius, he would not have omitted all reference to it in this dedication, whence we may fairly conclude that although he received most of his religious training from the venerable Macedonius, he must have been already a Christian when he came to Greece.

The same dedication leads us to infer that at this time he was a member of some kind of religious institute, which was under the guidance of Macedonius, and in which he himself taught rhetoric and poetry by the advice of his spiritual father. He gives, too, a very pleasing picture of the members of that religious association—of the Venerable Ursinus—a prelate full of priestly dignity—who had been once a soldier of Cæsar, and was then a soldier of Christ; of Laurence, the incomparable priest, who gave up his patrimony to the Church and the poor; of Gallicanus, likewise a priest, well read in secular books, yet meekest of the meek, teaching the rule of Catholic discipline by word, but still more by example; of Ursicinus, also a priest, and a man “of hoary patience and youthful old age;” of Felix, the truly happy; and of many others equally worthy of the dedication of his book. He makes special reference to the virgin Syncletice, who seems to have been a deaconess of the Church, noble by blood, but still more illustrious by her virtues, chastened by fasts, nourished by prayer, and spotless in purity.[41] Moreover, he adds, she drank so deeply of Scriptural lore, that had not her sex forbidden it, she was in every way qualified to become the teacher of others. Her sister, too, the young Perpetua, though her junior in years, was her rival in virtue, the chaste spouse of an honourable marriage. Such was the society of which Sedulius was a member during his sojourn at Achaia—holy, learned, and loving.

It seems very probable that it was during these happy years that Sedulius composed his great poem in some sweet valley under the shadow of the steep Arcadian Mountains, whose bold spurs are washed by the glancing waters of the Corinthian Gulf. Although the work was formally dedicated to Macedonius, and copies were doubtless multiplied for the benefit of his familiar associates, it does not appear that it was published for the literary world in general during the lifetime of the author. That publication seems to have taken place some years later, as we shall presently see, and under the direction of one who was eminently well qualified for the task.

How or where Sedulius ended his life, we have no means of ascertaining. Some say he returned to Rome, where he died about A.D. 449; others make him a bishop, but the see which he ruled cannot be ascertained; while many think he ended his life in Greece, amongst those dear associates of whom he speaks so tenderly in the dedication.

But although the poet himself seems to have been during his lifetime somewhat indifferent to worldly fame, his friends did not forget him.[42] There is a considerable variety of readings, but in substance all the MSS. agree that Sedulius left his poems scattered amongst his papers, and that the scattered portions of the Carmen Paschale especially were collected, arranged, and elegantly published by the ex-consul, Turcius Ruffus Asterius. We find two consuls of this name in the Fasti of the fifth century, one in A.D. 449, whose colleague was Protogenes, and the other in A.D. 494, whose colleague was Praesidius. Very many writers think that the publisher of Sedulius was that Asterius, whose consulate is fixed for A.D. 449. But as his praenomen was Flavius, it is much more probable that the consul of A.D. 494, who was also the editor of the splendid Medicean Codex of Virgil, must get the credit of collecting and preserving the poems of the great Christian poet who was perhaps Virgil’s closest imitator.

Asterius prefixed to his edition an epigram,[43] which, according to some authorities, is addressed to Macedonius, the spiritual father of Sedulius; but as Macedonius was at this time, in all probability, some forty or fifty years dead, it is much more natural to suppose that the dedication of Asterius is addressed to the Pontiff Gelasius (A.D. 492-496), especially as the Pope, about that very time, had passed a signal eulogy on Sedulius, to which we shall immediately refer. In the year A.D. 494, or as others think in A.D. 495, that Pontiff held a council of seventy bishops, most learned men, in which he published his famous decree, “De recipiendis et abjiciendis Libris,” which may be regarded as the first formal publication of an Index Expurgatorius. In this decree the Pontiff, after reciting the canonical books of the Old and New Testament, gives a list of the Fathers of the Church whose writings he particularly recommends to the perusal of the faithful. In this document emanating from the supreme teaching authority in the Church, we find the following honourable mention of Sedulius:—

After this formal and emphatic approbation of the writings of Sedulius by the Pope, his works speedily became popular in all the monastic schools. Cassiodorus (A.D. 470-562), the senator, statesman, and monk, closely studied the Christian poet in his far-famed retreat on the Calabrian shore, and proclaims him by excellence the “Poet of Truth.”[44] Fortunatus, the laureate of the royal and saintly Radegonde, himself the author of the Vexilla Regis and the Pange lingua, ranks the “sweet Sedulius” with Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine.[45] The cruel Chilperic, an unworthy grandson of the great Clovis, instead of trying to govern his people like a king, spent his time in vain attempts to imitate the stately muse of Sedulius, and of course failed miserably in the attempt. Gregory of Tours tells us that his verses had no feet to stand on, and were composed in defiance of all the laws of metre.

The Irish monks of Bobbio carefully copied the poems of their great countryman, and the oldest existing MS. of the poet, which is still to be seen in the Library of the Royal Academy of Turin, is inscribed with the words—Liber Sancti Columbani de Bobbio.

Isidore of Seville, the greatest scholar of his age, compares Sedulius with his own great countryman, Juvencus, and recommends the study of their works in preference to those of the Gentile poets.[46]

Ildelfonsus describes him as the ‘excellent’ Sedulius, the poet of the Gospel, an eloquent orator, and truly Catholic writer; and another author declares that Sedulius left nothing unlearnt necessary to make him a perfect theologian, as well as a brilliant poet.[47] And in a somewhat similar strain Sedulius has been eulogised by all subsequent critics, from Bede to the present time.

Our remarks on the writings of Sedulius must necessarily be very brief, and for convenience sake we shall follow the order of the excellent edition by Arevalus as given in Migne’s Patrology.[48]

His great work was the Carmen Paschale, as he himself calls it, which is preceded by that dedicatory epistle to which we have already referred. It is accompanied with a prose version which he furnished at the special request of Macedonius, and which he calls the Opus Paschale. The prose only serves to make the poetry more intelligible for half-educated scholars, like the similar prose translations in the Delphin editions of the Latin poets. The style, too, of the explanation is wordy and laboured, quite unlike the limpid elegance of the poetry. The Carmen Paschale in the MSS. is divided into five books. The first treats of the creation and fall of man as well as of the principal miracles recorded in the Old Testament; the second gives a beautiful account of the incarnation and birth of our Lord and the wonders of the Holy Childhood; the third and fourth deal with the miracles and noteworthy events of our Saviour’s public mission; whilst the fifth details the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ. It is thus a poetic history of the wonders of the divine revelation as contained in the Old and New Testament. Each of the books contains from three to four hundred lines of heroic metre, in which the style and language of Virgil are as closely imitated as the nature of the subject will permit. The language is chaste, elegant, and harmonious; the verse is sweet and flowing, with scarcely a single rugged line, although sometimes one meets with a harsh or limping foot. The prosody, however, is on the whole wonderfully accurate, and the sentences are constructed with true Virgilian simplicity. The author had to deal with very many delicate topics, and he was of course greatly restricted in his choice of language by the necessities of the metre; yet in no single instance that we are aware of, has any fault been found with the poet on the score of any want of theological accuracy. The tone is generally elevated, imparting dignity by choice language even to commonplace topics, as Virgil does in the Georgics; but we cannot say that he often reaches the sublime. His muse takes few bold and daring flights, but, on the other hand, she never descends to what is mean or trivial. We would take the liberty of strongly recommending the careful perusal of this beautiful poem to priests who are anxious to read the great events of sacred history, clothed in elegant language and adorned with becoming imagery.

We have next the “Elegia,” containing 110 lines in elegiac metre, which form a collection of moral maxims and examples borrowed from the personages and facts of sacred history.[49] Every second line is made to begin and end with the same clause, but used in different senses. The reader will probably agree with us in thinking that this style of composition is more likely to develop ingenuity than inspiration.

After the “Elegia” is the truly beautiful hymn beginning with the words, “A solis ortus cardine,” some portions of which are familiar to most of our readers. It is an abecedarian poem, the first stanza commencing with the first letter of the alphabet, A, the second with B, and so on through the letters. It contains 92 lines, or 23 stanzas, and details the leading facts of the life of Christ in language that is very terse and striking. The first seven stanzas are read by the Church in the Lauds of her greatest festival on Christmas Day; and the next four at first Vespers of the Epiphany, but in the first line for the latter feast the words—

Hostis Herodes impie
Christum,

are changed into—

Crudelis Herodes Deum
Regem.

It is noteworthy, too, that the Introit of the Mass of the Blessed Virgin—“Salve Sancta Parens enixa puerpera Regem,” as well as several other expressions in the Divine Office, are borrowed from the Carmen Paschale of Sedulius.[50] At the end of his poems the author adds a short epigrammatic prayer, in which he asks that the doctrines of the life of Christ, which he has written, may remain engraven in his heart, and so by doing the divine will he may secure a share in the joys of heaven.[51]

We have two double acrostic poems, eloquent with the praises of the great Sedulius, one attributed to a certain Liberius, of whom nothing further is known, and the other to Belisarius, if that be the true reading, who in some MSS. is described as a scholastic—that is, master or professor of a school of rhetoric. According to other critics this Belisarius, who so highly eulogises our Sedulius, was no other than the great general, the saviour of the Roman Empire, who was driven by the ungrateful master whom he had served to beg his bread.

What is most remarkable in these two poems, is that in both the acrostic represents our author as Sedulius Antistes. The latter term is usually applied, at least by Christian writers, only to bishops, and certainly goes to show that the poet was elevated to the episcopal dignity. Alcuin also attributes the hymn, “A solis ortus cardine” to the “Blessed Bishop Sedulius,” and Sigebert of Gembloux (died A.D. 1112), seems to have been of the same opinion. Yet, in several MSS. he is spoken of simply as a priest, and even of those authors who describe him as a bishop none has determined his see.

It is very doubtful, too, whether our poet has any claim to be venerated as a saint. Our latest Irish hagiologist,[52] following Colgan, gives a very full account of the venerable Sedulius, under date of the 12th of February. But the name does not occur in any Martyrology at home or abroad, for the “Siatal bishop” on the 12th February, of the Martyrology of Tallaght, is evidently the same as Siadhal, son of Luath, Bishop of Dublin, who, according to the Donegal Martyrology, died in A.D. 785. That the poet was, however, a holy and venerable man, is abundantly evident from his writings as well as from the high estimation in which he was held both by contemporary and subsequent writers. Asterius, his editor, calls him the “Just;” Alcuin calls him the “Blessed;” another ancient writer describes him as “Sanctus;” and our own Colgan justly designates him “the Venerable Sedulius.” That his fame as a Christian poet has been wide and enduring is sufficiently evident from the fact that no less than forty-one different editions of his works have been published at various times and places for the last four hundred years; and we cannot help endorsing the indignant exclamation of a German critic—“It is a shame that the Christian poets should be so much neglected, that the youth of our schools should know nothing even of the name of a writer like Sedulius, who with equal piety and learning transferred from profane to sacred subjects the style and sweetness of the Mantuan bard.”[53]

III.—Caelestius and Pelagius.

Ireland has also been credited with the doubtful honour of having given birth to Caelestius, the friend and associate of the celebrated heresiarch Pelagius. We believe that notwithstanding the authority of many eminent Irish scholars, we can show that Caelestius was not an Irishman, and that the idea of his being a ‘Scot’ arose from misunderstanding a passage in the writings of St. Jerome, which passage was the only authority ever alleged in favour of his Irish origin. This celebrated passage is contained in the Preface to the Saint’s Commentaries on Jeremias. Here it is—“He (Grunnius), though silent now himself, barks by the mouth of the Alban dog, a corpulent and unwieldy brute, better able to kick than to bite, who derives his origin from the Scottish nation in the neighbourhood of Britain.”[54] Now so far as we know, this solitary sentence is the only original authority for the Irish birth of Caelestius; yet as a matter of fact it does not appear to refer to Caelestius at all, but to Pelagius himself. Grunnius, to whom the context clearly shows that St. Jerome refers, was a nickname often given by the saint to Rufinus of Aquileia. Rufinus was then (mutus) silent, most probably in death, but still barks through his disciple Pelagius—not Caelestius—who in the vigorous controversial language of the saint is described as an Alban or Scottish dog, filled with the porridge of his native country in the neighbourhood of Britain. As a matter of fact, however, Jerome does not say that the person of whom he is speaking was a Scot (whether of Erin or Alba), but that he was of Scottish origin, which is a very different thing. His Words are—“Habet progeniem Scotticæ gentis.” He is of Scottish extraction, which might be very well said of Pelagius, even though he were a Briton by birth.

The great difficulty in the way of this explanation is that Pelagius is always described as a Briton, not as an Irishman or Scotchman. As a fact, however, at that time Scotland was included under the name of Britain; but whether it was or not, St. Jerome does not say that Pelagius was a Scot, but that he was of Scottish race, which is altogether different, and which is perfectly compatible with his British birth. The authorities indeed in favour of his being in some sense a Briton, are quite conclusive. St. Augustine, his greatest opponent, frequently speaks of Pelagius as a Briton.[55] St. Prosper of Aquitaine, who continued to assail him after the death of Augustine, describes him as a ‘British snake;’[56] and in another passage he speaks of him as nurtured amongst the ‘sea-girt Britons.’ Elsewhere he describes Britain as the native land (patria) of the Pelagian heresy, which can be true only in so far as it produced Pelagius himself. Marius Mercator says,[57] like St. Jerome, that the first author of the heresy was the Syrian Rufinus, but being too cunning to expose himself to danger, he propagated his doctrines through the agency of the ‘British monk’ Pelagius. Everything, therefore, points to the fact that Pelagius was of British birth, but of Scottish origin. St. Jerome’s expression—per Albinum canem—seems to point to a Scot of Alba rather than of Erin; but in any case the Scots of both countries, especially at this early period (A.D. 420), were of the same race. If Britain be taken to include Scotland, as it certainly did at that period, then ‘de vicinia Brittanorum’ must refer to Ireland; but it should be borne in mind that St. Jerome speaks not of Britain, but of the Britons—quite another thing.

But whether of Irish or Scotch descent, Pelagius was an able man. He appeared in Rome about the year A.D. 400. St. Augustine says he lived there for a long time and taught a school in that city. About the year A.D. 405 St. Chrysostom complained of the defection from his own supporters of the monk Pelagius, which would seem to imply that at that time he was known and esteemed at Constantinople, where he probably went to learn the Greek language, with which we know for certain that he was familiar. Before his departure from Rome, at the approach of Alaric in A.D. 410, he had published commentaries on the Pauline Epistles in which for the first time in expounding Rom. chap. v. verse 12, he gave expression to his heretical views. He had already acquired great influence in the imperial city, for Augustine says that he was learned and acute, and that his letters were read by many persons for the sake of their eloquence and pungency.[58] We have a very favourable specimen of his composition still extant in his Epistle to the noble lady Demetrias, who was quite as remarkable for her virtues as for her wealth and learning. Augustine found it necessary to caution her against the snares of Pelagius, and whoever reads this letter will readily admit that the caution was by no means unnecessary, for in graceful and elegant language he conveys excellent rules for the guidance of devout souls, just barely flavoured with the poison of his dangerous and subtle heresy, so flattering to the instincts of noble and generous natures.

On the other hand there is nothing known in connection with the history of Caelestius that could lead us to suppose that he was either a Briton or a Scot. He was, it is said, of noble birth—most likely a Gaul or Italian—but being from infancy a eunuch he spent his youth in a monastery which at that time (before A.D. 400) he certainly could not find in Ireland. From this monastery he wrote three letters to his relations, which as Gennadius tells us were of great utility for the guidance of all persons really anxious to serve God.[59] He afterwards became an advocate (auditorialis scholasticus) and was doubtless practising in the Roman Courts when, about the year A.D. 400, he first met Pelagius in the imperial city. The latter was very anxious to secure such an ally for his own purposes, for Caelestius was a man of great eloquence and courage, as well as of much keeness in disputation—acerrimi ingenii—just the very thing the ruder British Provincial wanted in his associate. Thus it came to pass that Pelagius succeeded in alluring to his own views the young and brilliant advocate, through whom he hoped to disseminate his own doctrines throughout the chief cities of the empire. But to suppose that such a man as Caelestius, born of noble Christian parents, whose youth was spent in a monastery, and who was able to write a spiritual treatise in Latin before he left it, and afterwards became an advocate in Rome—to suppose that he was born in Ireland some fifty years before the advent of St. Patrick is altogether out of the question. As a matter of fact there is not a shadow of ancient authority for any such assumption.

CHAPTER III

If St. Patrick himself could learn the Irish language during his captivity in Antrim, there was nothing to prevent Irish captives learning something of the Roman customs and Roman letters in Britain, and bringing that knowledge back with them to Ireland. Our ports were more frequented[60] by foreign merchants than the ports of Britain; our chieftains frequently harried their coasts and carried off both Gaulish and British Christians as captives; Irish princes were sometimes refugees in Britain, and British princes were sometimes allies and sometimes refugees in Ireland. It was, therefore, quite impossible that some knowledge of the language, and of the arts of the British provincials should not, during a period of three centuries, cross the British seas into Ireland. All our annals testify to the fact of this intercourse. Ireland was not surrounded by a wall of brass, or by a trackless sea, cutting off all communication with other lands. The wonder is not that something of Roman letters and civilization should penetrate to Erin—but the great wonder would be if the thing were otherwise.

The great defect in the Irish social system, as we have already observed, was the want of a strong central government. It is true that the Gaedhlic tribes in Erin recognised the supremacy of the High King of Tara; but that recognition was merely nominal. There was no really effective central government, strong enough to cause its authority to be enforced and respected throughout all the land. Able princes, like Cormac Mac Art, arose from time to time, who sought to correct this great evil. In proportion as they were successful in reducing the sub-kings to obedience, they were also able to extend the blessings of a yet imperfect civilization, which, however, could never come to perfection without an organized and settled government.

I.—St. Patrick’s Education.

But now a great change came over all the land. St. Patrick not only introduced the Christian religion into Ireland, but profoundly modified the laws, customs, and literature of the nation. To his influence in these respects we wish to call attention at present; but first of all, it is necessary to understand the sources of his own intellectual training, and the literary as well as the religious influences that moulded his own mind. We do not propose to enter at all into any of the manifold controversies that surround the facts and dates of the life of our great Apostle, but merely to reflect on those acts which his biographers generally admit.

It is agreed upon all hands that the Saint derived his literary aquirements, such as they were, from Gaul.[61] Reference is made to three distinct sources whence he derived his education—to St. Martin, to St. Germanus, and to Saints of some islands in the Mediterranean. His biographers are not agreed either as to the order in which our Saint visited those masters of a spiritual life, or the number of years he spent under each, but all unite in pointing to these three sources whence St. Patrick derived his learning and his holiness.

It must be borne in mind that Patrick was made a captive at the age of sixteen, and that he spent six years in captivity on the slopes of Slieve Mish, in the county Antrim. His education in his youth seems to have been much neglected, for he tells us himself that although born of noble parents according to the flesh—his father, Calphurnius, was a decurio, that is the head of a local municipium, most probably on the banks of the Clyde, in North Britain—still he had little or no knowledge of God, and could scarcely discern between good and evil. The years of his captivity served to open his mind to a higher spiritual life, but could afford him no opportunity of adding to his purely literary knowledge.[62] So when he succeeded under divine guidance in making his escape at the age of twenty-two, he was indeed a holy but certainly not a learned young man.

Escaping to France according to the generally received opinion, he first seems to have made his way to Tours, towards the closing years of the fourth century, for the date cannot be accurately fixed. At that time St. Martin, the soldier Saint, was Bishop of Tours, and led a life of extraordinary holiness and mortification at the monastery of Marmoutier, on the banks of the Loire, in the neighbourhood of that city. Many writers say that Patrick’s mother, Conchessa, was a niece of St. Martin, and this fact would easily explain why St. Patrick fled for refuge and guidance to his venerable relative, whose fame at that time was spread over all France. The story of the relationship is strange enough, seeing that St. Martin was a native of Sabaria, in Pannonia, where he was born about A.D. 316. But though strange, it is not incredible, and goes far to explain the great veneration in which St. Martin of Tours has always been held in Ireland. The authors of the Third and Fifth Lives of St. Patrick, as printed by Colgan, tells us that the young Patrick spent four years under the guidance of St. Martin, who gave him, according to Probus, the tonsure and religious habit in his monastery of Marmoutier. It is not easy to fix the exact period. According to the common opinion, Martin died in A.D. 397, so that Patrick must have made his escape to Gaul in A.D. 393. Others, however, fix the date of St. Martin’s death in A.D. 400 or 402, so that we shall not be far wrong if we suppose these years which Patrick spent under the guidance of St. Martin to have been the closing years of the fourth century.

They were certainly fruitful years for the young Apostle. In some respects the career of the soldier Saint was not unlike that of Patrick himself hitherto. His parents were gentiles, but Martin, in his youth, fled to the Church to become a catechumen and prepare himself for a life of holiness in the desert. Being, however, the son of a veteran—his father was a tribune in the imperial armies—they forced him at the age of fifteen to join the cavalry, and serve some twenty campaigns under Constantius and Julian the Apostate, before he recovered his freedom. He could, therefore, understand the dangers and difficulties that beset the path of his young relative, who was carried off a captive at the same age at which he himself had been forced to become a soldier. No one, too, was better qualified to guide the steps of Patrick up the steep ascent of virtue, and prepare him for his future apostolate than the aged soldier Saint.

The life of Martin and his monks at Marmoutier was the marvel of all the West. We have the picture drawn by one who witnessed it—by the eloquent, nobly-born, high-souled Sulpicius Severus, whose life of St. Martin is one of the most charming biographies ever penned.

He was indeed, the greatest example of saintly mortification hitherto seen in the West. When the people of Tours clamoured for Martin to become their Bishop, several prelates objected to his elevation, because his person was contemptible, his looks lowly, his clothes filthy, and his hair unkempt. The young soldier, it seems, had long before put off the mien and garb of a warrior, and put on that true nobility of soul, which so rarely accompanies gaudy apparel and lofty deportment. But in A.D. 371 they made him bishop all the same in spite of his mean appearance; yet Martin in no way changed his manner of life in consequence. He built himself a little cell close by his church, and there he spent his days, when he was not preaching to the people or traversing his diocese on foot.

But too many crowded round his cell in the great city, and then he betook himself to Marmoutier. It was at that time a lonely valley, less than two miles from Tours, on the right or north bank of the Loire, shut in on one side by a line of steep cliffs, and enclosed on the other by a sweep of the river, which at either extremity of the valley rushed close under the rocks and thus completely isolated the valley on both sides. Here Martin built himself a wooden cell, and was soon surrounded by a crowd of monks anxious to place themselves under his guidance. They lived for the most part in the damp caverns between the cliffs that overhung the stream. At one period he had eighty monks under his control in this desert valley. They had no property of their own, says S. Severus, but lived in common, neither buying nor selling anything. The younger members spent most of their time in writing and sacred study; the older gave themselves up to prayer. They seldom left their cells except to go to the Church, or to take their solitary meal in the evening, it would seem—post horam jejunii—and they never tasted wine except in sickness. They were clad in hair cloth—anything else they regarded as a criminal indulgence. Yet many of them were amongst the noblest in the land, and several of them afterwards became bishops of various cities.

Such was the society at Marmoutier of which our St. Patrick became a member. There is no doubt, that as one of the juniors, he gave himself up to prayer, penance, and sacred study in order to prepare himself for that high mission of which God as yet had only given him a dim vision. Many writers say that Martin must have been dead before Patrick’s arrival in Gaul, and that our saint did not come to Tours until several years later, probably about the year A.D. 409 or 410. It matters little for our argument whether Martin was himself alive or not—his spirit reigned in Marmoutier, his rule and his disciples were there:—

“Dead was the lion; but his lair was warm;
In it I laid me and a conquering glow
Rushed up into my heart. Discourse I heard
Of Martin still—his valour in the Lord,
His rugged warrior zeal, his passionate love
For Hilary, his vigils and his fasts,
And all his pitiless warfare on the Powers
Of Darkness.”[63]

When Patrick had learned the discipline and divine wisdom of Marmoutier he seems to have spent some years with his friends in Britain,[64] and then in order to perfect himself in sacred studies, he put himself under the guidance of the great St. Germanus of Auxerre, who at that time enlightened all the Gauls.

Germanus was of noble birth, and completed his studies in Rome, where he adopted the profession of the law and practised for some time in the Courts with great applause. He was eagerly sought after by the first society in the capital, and having married a rich and noble lady he settled at Auxerre, where he was made governor of the province. He was passionately devoted to the chase, and used to hang the spoils of his hunting expeditions on a stately pear tree that grew in the centre of the city, where they were eagerly scanned by an admiring crowd. The Bishop, St. Amator, not relishing this vain display, had the tree cut down in the absence of Germanus, who, hearing of this outrage on the chief magistrate of the city, sought out the prelate, breathing vengeance. But the Bishop seems to have disarmed his resentment, and shortly after, sensible of his own approaching end, and finding Germanus in the church, he ordered the doors to be closed, and the people crowding round the magistrate took off his fine clothes, while Amator tonsured him on the spot, cutting clean away all his flowing hair. The event proved that it was done by a divine inspiration.

After the death of Amator, Germanus became Bishop of Auxerre, and led a life of extraordinary virtue and austerity, as we know from his biography written by an almost contemporary author, Constantius.

From the moment he was tonsured, his wife became to him as a sister; he sold his property which was considerable, and gave the proceeds to the poor and to the Church. His food was the coarsest and scantiest; he never ate wheaten bread, nor used any wine, or oil, or even vinegar, or vegetables. Barley bread and water, or a little milk, was his only refection. Twice a year, at Christmas and Easter, he took a little wine with water. He tasted ashes before his food; and threshed and ground with his own hands the barley of which his bread was made. A tunic and hood over a hair shirt were his only clothing in winter and summer; his bed was made of planks strewn with ashes, which soon became as hard as the board itself. He slept in his clothes, seldom removing anything but his belt and sandals, and his only covering at night was a piece of coarse cloth. He had no pillow for his head, and spent a great part of the night in tears and prayers for the sins of his life. Such was the episcopal life of the brilliant Germanus, the statesman and orator, the delight of Roman society, the keen huntsman in the field, the accomplished magistrate in the court; and such was the second teacher of St. Patrick. The Irish Lives call him the ‘tutor’ of our apostle, and all our ancient authorities are agreed that Patrick spent several years under the guidance of this holy and learned man. Some think he spent thirty years under Germanus; this, however, is an impossibility, for Germanus became bishop in A.D. 418, and went to Britain with St. Lupus of Troyes to extirpate the Pelagian heresy in A.D. 429—three years before the date of St. Patrick’s own mission. Others say he spent fourteen years with Germanus, and this is more like the truth. One thing is certain, that our apostle owes to Germanus most of his sacred learning, which was very considerable as we shall see; and he learned not only “Queenly Science, and the forest huge of Doctrine,” but what is more, he learned the wisdom that rules, the prudence that moderates, the patience that spares, and above all and beyond all the life hidden with Christ in God.

Germanus had built a monastery beyond the river in view of his episcopal city, but completely cut off from its noise and bustle. Every day he was wont to cross the stream in his little skiff to visit and instruct his beloved monks, of whom St. Patrick was one for many years. Thus slowly and surely, under the guidance of the holiest and most learned men in the West, did God prepare His servant Patrick for the work before him.

The Scholiast on St. Fiacc’s Life of St. Patrick, which was written in the early part of the sixth century, tells us that Patrick accompanied Germanus on his journey to Britain in A.D. 429. If so, and the statement is highly probable, Patrick must have learned much during that memorable journey, and witnessed the famous ‘Alleluia Victory’ over the Saxons and Picts. These barbarians were just then making one of their usual incursions on the helpless Christians of Wales, when Germanus hearing of the approaching tumult, and learning the cause, led out on Easter Sunday his newly baptized catechumens, and having posted the mighty multitude amongst the steep hills that overlooked the valley through which the enemy had to pass, he calmly waited their approach. When they entered the valley, suddenly the mighty shout of the ‘Alleluia’ re-echoed through the mountains, and the affrighted barbarians thinking themselves surrounded by an immense army, fled in confusion without striking a blow. Germanus seems to have returned to France in A.D. 430 or 431.

It is said by most of our ancient authorities that it was Germanus who sent St. Patrick to Celestine to receive episcopacy and authority for the Irish mission.[65] Celestine at first refused, as he had already in A.D. 431 sent Palladius with authority to preach to the Scots, who believed in Christ—“Ad Scotos in Christum credentes.” But when news was brought to Rome by his disciples, Augustine and Benedict, of the failure of that mission and the death of Palladius, Germanus sent Patrick again to Rome accompanied by a priest called Segetius, who gave testimony of his merits and desires. Perhaps it was in the interval between these two journeys that St. Patrick went to the Island of Lerins, near Cannes, on the coast of the department, now called the Alpes Maritimes.

Very many of our ancient authorities mention this visit to Lerins, or some other of the rocky islets that abound in that part of the Mediterranean, and several of which were then inhabited by holy men. It is said expressly in the Hymn of St. Fiacc, the oldest of St. Patrick’s lives, that he studied the canons with Germanus, that the angel sent him across the Alps, and that he stayed in the islands of the Tyrrhene Sea. It is not easy to fix the date of this visit nor its duration; it is, however, in itself extremely probable, independently of the high authority of Fiacc’s Metrical Life as well as of the Third Life, and Probus’ Fifth Life. The Third Life represents our saint as spending several years in an island called Tamerencis, or, as Probus puts it, with the barefooted hermits in a certain island of the sea. This island in all probability was Lerins, and the barefooted hermits were the monks of St. Honoratus, who was thus the third teacher of St. Patrick.

When Honoratus, flying fame and friends, came to Lerins in A.D. 410, it was covered with dense shrubberies, through whose tangled masses innumerable serpents glided and scared away the fishermen, who chanced to land on the barren and inhospitable rock. But Honoratus was not to be daunted. With a few faithful companions he set to work, and soon cleared a space for their cells, and for such patches of agriculture, as would supply their scanty needs. The monks were patient and laborious; the soil was naturally not ungrateful. The serpents were banished, the brakes were all cut down, and fruit trees planted in their stead. There was a bright sky above, and glittering seas around; snow-capped mountains arose in the blue distance; orange groves wafted their delicious fragrance over the waters so that Lerins became an Eden, where the sights of nature were as fair, and the hearts of the men as pure, as they were in Paradise. There, too, St. Honoratus, afterwards raised in A.D. 429 to the See of Arles, founded a famous school which was long celebrated in the south of Europe, and produced some of the most distinguished scholars of the fifth century. Such were their piety and learning that all the cities round about strove emulously to have monks from Lerins for their bishops.

This was the last school in which St. Patrick made his final preparation before presenting himself to St. Celestine, and receiving his commission to preach the Gospel in Ireland. Not rashly surely, nor without due preparation in the greatest and holiest schools of the Continent, did Patrick undertake the work of God. Letters, borne by angels containing the voice of the Irish, had long been calling him; the wailings of the children from the wood of Focluth, by the shore of the western sea, whence he had escaped to France, were ringing in his ears night and day imploring Patrick to come and walk once more amongst them. He had prepared himself most carefully for his great mission; he was duly commissioned by St. Celestine, as both the Tripartite and the Scholiast on Fiacc’s hymn expressly inform us; he received the blessing of the beloved teachers under whose guidance he had lived so long; and thus full of courage and trust in God, he set out for the difficult and dangerous task of converting the Irish nation to the faith of Christ.