14 addressed Boniface IV. as 'the holy lord and 14 Apostolic Father in Christ, the Pope.' He tells him that he had long desired to visit in spirit and confer with those who preside in the apostolic chair, the most beloved prelates over all the faithful, the most revered fathers by right of apostolic honour.' He vindicates the doctrine of his church as no way differing from that of other orthodox churches, but claims to be regarded as still in his fatherland, and not bound to accept the rules of these Gauls; but as placed in the wilderness and, offending no one, to abide by the rules of his seniors;' and he appeals to 'the judgment of the 150 fathers of the Council of Constantinople, who judged that the churches of God established among the Barbarians should live according to the laws taught them by their fathers.' This was the second œcumenical council held at Constantinople in the year 381. The second canon directs that the bishops belonging to each diocese shall not interfere with churches beyond its bounds. It then regulates the jurisdiction of the great patriarchates, and concludes by declaring that the churches of God among the Barbarian people—that is, beyond the bounds of the Roman empire-shall be regulated by the customs of their fathers.15 The position which Columbanus took up was substantially this 'Your jurisdiction as Bishop of Rome does not extend beyond the limits of the Roman empire. I am a missionary from a church of God among the Barbarians, and, though temporarily within the limits of your territorial jurisdiction, and bound to regard you with respect and deference, I claim the right to follow the customs of my own church handed down to us by our fathers.' It is unnecessary for our purpose to enter further into the life and doings of Columbanus. They have been referred to here at the very outset, because it was by his mission that the churches of the extreme west were again, for the first 14 Domino Sancto et in Christo apostolico patri Papæ.'-lb. col. 226. 15 Hefele, Concilien Geschichte, vol. ii. p. 16. Three time, brought into contact with the Roman Church; and he has left behind him authentic writings which present to us at once the points of contrast between the two churches, and the relation they bore to each other, and thus afford us a fixed point from which to start in our examination of the early history and peculiar characteristics of these Celtic churches during the dark period of their isolation, when all intercourse with the Continent was cut off. There are two ancient documents, both belonging to the eighth century, which afford us, at the outset, a view of the early Irish characteristic features of the early Irish Church. One is a Church; Secular, Monastic, and Eremitical. 'Catalogue of the Saints of Ireland according to their different periods,' in which they are arranged in three classes corresponding to three periods of the church; 16 and the other is the Litany of Angus the Culdee, in which he invokes the saints of the early church in different groups.1 17 The Catalogue of the Saints proceeds thus:-'The first order of Catholic saints was in the time of Patricius; and then they were all bishops, famous and holy and full of the Holy Ghost; 350 in number, founders of churches. They had one head, Christ, and one chief, Patricius; they observed one mass,18 one celebration, one tonsure from ear to ear. They celebrated one Easter, on the fourteenth moon after the vernal equinox, and what was excommunicated by one church, all excommunicated. They rejected not the services and society of women,' or as another Ms. has it, 'they excluded from the churches neither laymen nor women; because, founded on the rock Christ, they feared not the blast of temptation. This order of saints continued for four 16 This Catalogue was first published by Usher from two MSS., and is believed to be the work of Tirechan, the author of the annotations on the Life of Saint Patrick in the Book of Armagh. His period is the eighth century. 17 The Litany of Angus is contained in the Leabhar Breac, and also in the Book of Leinster. 18 This was certainly the Roman or Western Form. 21 reigns.19 All these bishops were sprung from the Romans, and Franks, and Britons, and Scots. The second order was of Catholic Presbyters. For in this order there were few bishops and many presbyters, in number three hundred. They had one head, our Lord; they celebrated different masses,20 and had different rules, one Easter on the fourteenth moon after the equinox, one tonsure from ear to ear; they refused the services of women, separating them from the monasteries. This order has hitherto lasted for four reigns. They received a mass from Bishop David, and Gillas and Docus, the Britons.22 The third order of Saints was of this sort. They were holy presbyters, and a few bishops; one hundred in number; who dwelt in desert places, and lived on herbs and water, and the alms; they shunned private property,' or, as the other MS. has it, 'they despised all earthly things, and wholly avoided all whispering and backbiting; they had different rules and masses, and different tonsures, for some had the coronal and others the hair (behind); and a different Paschal festival. For some celebrated the Resurrection on the fourteenth moon, or on the sixteenth with hard intentions. These lived during four reigns, and continued to that great mortality' 23 in the year 666. This document presents us with a short picture of the church prior to the year 666, and it is hardly possible to mistake its leading characteristic features during each of the three periods. In the first period we find churches and a secular clergy. In the second, the churches are superseded by monasteries, and we find a regular or monastic clergy; and in the third, we see an eremitical clergy living in 19 The names of the kings are given, but it is unnecessary to add them. They reigned till the year 534. 20 Some retained the Roman Form, others adopted the Gallican introduced by David, Gillas, and Docus. 21 The kings mentioned reigned to the year 572. 23 This is followed by the names of twenty-five saints of this order. 23 The names of seven bishops and eight presbyters are given. The Church of solitary places. But while this seems to indicate, and may to some extent have arisen from, a deepening asceticismthe clergy passing from a life under the ordinary canonical law of the church, through the discipline and strict rule of monastic observances, to a solitary life of privation and selfdenial in what was called the Desert-there were probably causes connected both with the social state of the wild people among whom they exercised their clerical functions and with the result of their labours, which led to the church being reconstructed from time to time on a different basis, and thus presenting a different outward aspect. The distinction in order between the bishop and the presbyter, however, seems to have been preserved throughout, though their relation to each other, in respect to numbers and jurisdiction, varied at different periods. The first order of Saints representing the Church during the first period had Christ for their head, and St. Patrick for their leader or chief. They claimed therefore to be peculiarly the Church of Saint Patrick. And here we are struck at the outset by the fact that there is no mention whatever of the mission of Palladius; and if we turn to the few notices of the early Irish Church in contemporary writers of other countries, we find the equally striking contrast that, while they record the mission of Palladius, they make no mention of Patrick. The life of Patrick, as usually told and accepted in history, is derived in the main from his acts, as contained in Lives of the Saint compiled at different times ranging from the eighth to the twelfth century. Seven of these lives were published by Colgan in his Trias Thaumaturga, and he has attempted to assign fixed dates to those which are anonymous; but it is obvious that they are, to a large extent, composed of legendary and traditional matter. The Book of Armagh, which was compiled about the year 807,24 24 The Book of Armagh has been very inaccurately printed by Sir William Betham in his Irish Antiquarian Researches. An edition of presents us with two older narratives. One was compiled by Muirchu Maccumachtheni, or the son of Cogitosus, at the suggestion of Aedh, bishop of Sletty, who died in 698; the other by Tirechan, who is believed to be the author of the Catalogue of the Saints. Both, therefore, belong to the same period. Muirchu's life is imperfect, as we only possess a short summary of the first part;25 and we can gather from it that Patrick had gone to Rome to prepare for his mission, but went no farther than Gaul, as he there met the disciples of Palladius, at a place called Ebmoria, who reported the death of Palladius, who, having failed in his mission, had died on his return to Rome in the territory of the Britons; and that Patrick then received the episcopal degree from Matho the holy king and bishop, and proceeded on his mission to Ireland, 26 Tirechan's account is more precise. He says, '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 fortysecond bishop of the apostolic 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.' 27 This account of his mission also appears in all the Irish Annals, and is this most valuable мs. has long been promised by the then Dean of Armagh, now Bishop of Down, and it is hoped that he will still accomplish it. It would be an invaluable boon to all students of Church history. See Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. iii. pp. 316, 356, for an account of this Ms. and of the authors of the lives. 25 The author adopts the theory that the summary of Aidus appended to the annotations of Tirechan con- 27 Ibid. App. xxxv. xxxvi. In was therefore 431, and his ninth 432. |