time many from the region of the Scots came daily into Britain, and with great devotion preached the word of faith to those provinces of the Angles over which King Osuald reigned; and those among them that had received priests' orders administered to the believers the grace of baptism. Churches were built in several places; the people joyfully flocked together to hear the Word; possessions and lands were given of the king's bounty to build monasteries; the younger Angles were by their Scottish masters instructed; and greater care and attention were bestowed upon the rules and observances of regular discipline.'59 Church of of Ireland The same year which brought to Segine this important A.D. 634. request from King Osuald of Northumbria brought him like- the southwise a letter of not less importance, but one of a very differ- ern Scots ent tenor, from the head of one of the dependent monasteries conforms in Ireland. This letter 60 was written by Cummian, one of to Rome. the most learned of the Irish ecclesiastics, and believed to have been abbot of the monastery of Durrow in King's County, founded by Columba shortly before he passed over from Ireland to Iona; and it is still extant. It is addressed to the abbot 'Segine, successor of Saint Columba, and other holy men, and to Beccan the anchorite, his dear brother according to the flesh and in the spirit, with his wise companions.' In this letter he tells him that, when the Roman mode of computation was first introduced into Ireland, he did not adopt it; but, retiring in private for a year, he entered into the sanctuary of God, that is, the holy Scripture, and examined it as well as he was able; after that, works on history; lastly, whatever cycles he could meet with. He then gives a very learned summary of 59 Bede, Hist. Ec., B. iii. c. 3. 60 The title of the letter is-'In nomine Divino Dei summi confido. Dominis sanctis et in Christo venerandis Segieno abbati, Columbæ Sancti et cæterorum sanctorum suc cessori, Beccanoque solitario, charo the result of his investigations which led him to adopt the Roman system as correct. When the year had expired, he says, he applied to the successors of our ancient fathers, of Bishop Ailbe, of Kieran of Clonmacnois, of Brendan, of Nessan and of Lugidus, that they might tell him what they thought of the excommunication directed against them from the Apostolic See; and they having assembled together, some in person, others by representatives, at Magh Lene, or the plain of Lene, in which the monastery of Durrow was situated, came to the resolution that they ought to adopt without scruple the more worthy and approved practice recommended to them by the successors of the apostles of the Lord. They accordingly enjoined him to celebrate Easter in the following year with the universal church. Not long after, however, there arose up a certain whited wall, pretending that he was for upholding the traditions of his elders, which caused disunion and partly rendered void what had been agreed to. Upon this it was determined by our seniors' that if questions of a more weighty character should arise, they ought to be referred, according to the decree of the synod, to the head of cities. They therefore sent some that they knew to be wise and humble, as children to a mother, and having a prosperous journey by the will of God, and some of them having come to the city of Rome, they returned in the third year, and they saw everything accord with what they had heard, or rather they obtained a much clearer view of the matter, as seeing instead of hearing; and, being in one lodging with a Greek and a Hebrew, a Scythian and an Egyptian, they all celebrated their Easter together in St. Peter's Church, while they differed from them by a whole month. And they solemnly assured him of this, saying, This Easter is celebrated to our knowledge all the world over. 'These statements,' adds Cummian, 'I have made, not with a view to attack you, but to defend myself.' Such is the substance of Cummian's letter;61 and as the times for celebrating Easter according to the Roman and to the Irish computation would be separated by the interval of a month in the year 631,62 the synod must have been held about 630, the return of the deputies taken place in 633, and the letter have been written in the following year. According to Bede, Pope Honorius in this year' wrote to the nation of the Scots, whom he had found to err in the observance of Easter, earnestly exhorting them not to esteem their small number, placed in the utmost borders of the earth, wiser than all the ancient and modern churches of Christ throughout the world, and not to celebrate a different Easter, contrary to the Paschal calculation and the synodical decrees of all the bishops upon earth;' 63 and the result was that, as Bede tells us, 'the Scots which dwelt in the southern districts of Ireland, by the admonition of the bishop of the Apostolic See, learned to observe Easter according to the canonical custom;' while the northern province of the Scots and the whole nation of the Picts adhered to the old custom of the country. 64 The distinction here drawn by Bede between the Scots. inhabiting the southern districts and the northern province of the Scots obviously refers to the old traditional division. of Ireland into two parts, termed severally Leth Mogha and Leth Cuinn, which were divided from each other by a ridge extending from the mouth of the Liffey to Galway, and termed Eisgir Riada.65 The southern districts were Munster and Leinster south of the Liffey. The northern division contained the rest of Leinster, Ulster and Connaught. Durrow, though a Columban monastery, was situated in the 61 The letter is printed at length in Usher's Veterum Epistolarum Hibernicarum Sylloge, p. 24, and in Migne's Patrologia, vol. xxxviii. 62 According to the Irish method Easter in 631 fell on 21st April, acVOL. II. cording to the Roman on the 24th of March. 63 Bede, Hist. Ec., B. ii. c. 19. 64 Ib., B. iii. c. 3. 65 Keating's History of Ireland, cap. ii. § 7. L southern division, and probably now broke off from the jurisdiction of Iona and, along with the rest of the Irish Church in the southern division of Ireland, conformed to Rome. We meet with a passing notice of the monastery of Lismore in the following year, when Tighernac records the death of its abbot Eochaidh; and in the same year Abbot Segine appears to have founded a church in Rechrann, or the island of Rathlin off the north coast of Ireland.66 Some years after a letter appears to have been sent from the Irish Church to Pope Severinus, who succeeded Honorius in 640, but died within the year, which called forth a reply from his successor John, while Pope-elect, by the person who had taken the letter, which Bede tells us was 'full of great authority and erudition for correcting the same error,' and at the same time admonished them to be careful to crush the Pelagian heresy, which, he had been informed, was reviving amongst them. Bede gives us the opening of this epistle thus:-'To our most beloved and most holy Tomianus, Columbanus, Cromanus, Dinanus, and Baithanus, bishops; to Cromanus, Ernianus, Laistranus, Scellanus, and Segenus, priests; to Saranus and the rest of the Scottish doctors or abbots, greeting from Hilarius, the arch-priest and keeper of the place of the holy Apostolic See; from John, the deacon and elect in the name of God; from John the chief secretary and keeper of the place of the holy Apostolic See, and from John the servant of God and councillor of the same Apostolic See.' 67 These Scottish doctors or abbots, with Tomianus, who was bishop of Armagh, at their head, all belonged to the northern province, and this appeal had no effect in altering their relation towards the Church of Rome. But it is instructive to observe that Segenus or Segine, abbot of Iona, is placed among the clergy of the 66 635 Seigine abbas Ie ecclesiam Recharnn fundavit. Eocha abbas Lismoir quievit.—Tigh. 67 Bede, Hist. Ec, B. ii. c. 19. Irish Church, of which his monastery, with its dependent monasteries in Scotland, was ranked as forming a part. Ten years afterwards news came of the death of Aidan, after a sixteen years' episcopate over the church of Northumbria; and Finan, 'who had,' says Bede, 'been sent from Hii, the island and monastery of the Scots,' succeeded him.68 A.D. 652-657. Suibhne, Cuirtri. Segine's own death followed a year after. His successor was Suibhne, of whom we know nothing except that his father's name was Cuirtri, but it is unlikely that at this son of early stage any one who did not belong to the tribe of the patron saint could be elected an abbot, and the only notice we have of him is his death after having been five years in the abbacy.69 657-669. of Ernan. He was succeeded in the abbacy by Cummene Ailbhe, A.D. the nephew of his predecessor Segene, whose tenure of Cummene office was signalised by equally important events. His first Ailbhe, son year is coincident with the extension of the dominion of Osuiu, the Northumbrian king, over the Britons of Strathclyde, the southern Picts and the Scots of Dalriada; but, though the latter ceased for a time to possess an independent king, the rule of Northumbria could not have affected the church to which her own church was affiliated. Accordingly, when Finan, the successor of Aidan, died, we find that Colman was also 'sent out of Scotia,' and succeeded him as bishop.70 Tighernac records, in the same year, the death of Bishop Finan and of Daniel, bishop of Cinngaradh or Kingarth, in Bute; and in the following year, a visit of Abbot Cummene to Ireland;71 and, as Bede says of Finan that he was ordained and sent by the Scots, while, in the case of Colman, he uses the expression that he was sent 70 Bede, Hist. Ec., B. iii. c. 25. 68 Bede, Hist. Ec., B. iii. c. 17. 651 Quies Aidain episcopi Saxan. -Tigh. 69 652 Obitus Seghine abbas Iea .i. filii Fiachna.-Tigh. 657 Quies Suibne mic Cuirthre abbatis Iea.-Tigh. 71 660 Obitus Finain mac Rimeda episcopi et Daniel episcopi Cindgaradh. 661 Cuimine abbas ad Hiberniam venit.-Tigh. |