succeeded in establishing their authority in Caledonia, they never attempted the reduction of Ireland.

During the fourth century natives of the Western Isle were often found in the Roman territory; for the Scots, who then joined the Picts in their raids into England, were unquestionably Irishmen. Hibernia was at that time called also Scotia or Scotland--a name which it retained for many centuries afterwards.1 The light of the Gospel had long before reached South Britain; and there are intimations that it had already dawned on Ireland. Shortly after the middle of the third century, according to the ancient annalists, Cormac, the chief monarch of the kingdom, provoked the wrath of the Druids because he turned from them "to the adoration of God" a statement which apparently implies that he had renounced the rites of paganism, and had, at least to some extent, adopted a purer theology. This prince was by far the most accomplished of the kings of heathen Ireland; and though his religious convictions may have been cherished by very few of his subjects, it is scarcely probable that his testimony in opposition to current errors was wholly uninfluential.

In the fourth century Christianity was recognised by the State in South Britain, and professed by the mass of the population. British Bishops were to be seen sitting in Councils assembled in Gaul and Italy. There was meanwhile much intercourse between England and Hibernia; and it is very unlikely that Irishmen remained all this time ignorant of a religious system which had produced such changes throughout the West of Europe, and which had been adopted by their immediate neighbours as the national faith. Nor are there wanting evidences that the Gospel had already some adherents among themselves. Coelestius-a prime mover in one of

1 North Britain was not called Scotia, or Scotland, until an advanced period of the Middle Ages. It was then called Scotia Minor, to distinguish it from Ireland, which was Scotia Major.

Annals of the Four Masters, A.D. 266. Cormac is said to have erected the first water-mill for the grinding of corn introduced into Ireland. He was the grandson of a famous Irish monarch, known as Conn of the Hundred Battles. See a remarkable passage relating to Cormac in Todd's St. Patrick, p. 197,

note.

Scori

the great controversies of the Church, and so well known as the companion of Pelagius-was a monk and an Irishman.' It is reported that, when abroad, he wrote letters to his parents in Hibernia; 2 and we may legitimately conclude that education had made some progress in the country, and that there were parties at home competent to read the correspondence.

Prosper, a Frenchman who flourished in the fifth century, informs us in his Chronicon that, in A.D. 431, "Palladius, being ordained by Pope Celestine, is sent to the Irish believing in Christ as their first bishop." This short sentence is one of the very few passages pertaining to the ecclesiastical history of Hibernia to be found in any Christian writer who lived on the continent of Europe, and who flourished within six hundred years after the birth of our Lord. But it is a pregnant announcement: and we may fairly infer from it, not only that there were believers already in the country, but also that they had in some way attracted the attention of the chief pastor of the metropolis of Western Christendom. Nor is it difficult to discover the channel through which Celestine obtained his knowledge of these Irish converts. In A.D. 429 two French bishops visited England for the purpose of assisting its orthodox clergy to suppress the Pelagian heresy; and whilst these strangers remained in South Britain, they had probably heard of a most hopeful religious movement going forward in the neighbouring island. There was then a constant correspondence kept up between Italy and Gaul; and, shortly after their return home, the good news from Hibernia must have reached the ears of the Roman Pontiff. Palladius, the agent selected by Celestine to set up a hierarchy in Ireland, was a deacon of the Roman Church; and if, as some assert, he was also a Briton by birth,3 we can the better understand why he consented to leave the ecclesiastical capital of Italy, and engage in this distant enterprise. The prospect of the highest spiritual dignity in a kingdom within sight of

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1 Jerome describes him as Scoticae gentis de Britanorum vicinia." Prol. ad. L. 3, Comment in Jeremiam.

2 Gennadius, c. 44.

3 See Lanigan's Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, i. 38. Dublin, 1829.

his native shores stimulated his ambition: and the mission, if successfully conducted, promised as much glory to the Pope as to Palladius. The new bishop is reported to have left Rome for Ireland accompanied by a number of clerical assistants, and bearing with him several copies of the Old and New Testament, as well as a goodly stock of relics.1

Prosper-whose testimony has been already quoted, and who supplies the earliest information respecting the designation of Palladius-was a keen controversialist, bent on the extinction of semi-Pelagianism. Aware of the influence of the name of the Roman Pontiff in the Western Church, he earnestly sought to accomplish his object by securing the countenance and co-operation of the great Patriarch. But Sixtus III., who occupied the Papal chair from A.D. 432 to A.D. 440, was unwilling to pronounce judgment on the new heresy and Prosper endeavoured to quicken his zeal by exaggerating the merits of his predecessor, the orthodox Celestine. The two French bishops who had gone into Britain to combat Pelagianism, had appeared there by invitation from the native clergy, and had been deputed to the service by a native council.2 Celestine may have been apprised of their intended. journey, and may have encouraged them to undertake it: but Prosper gives him the entire credit of the deliverance of England from the spiritual leprosy. He draws still more largely on his fancy when referring to the mission of Palladius. He could meanwhile have heard little of the proceedings of this bishop ordained for Ireland, save that he had landed there and entered on the work prescribed to him—but, writing about eighteen months after his departure, and

1 Lanigan, i. 38.

Bede. i. 17; Stillingfleet, Orig. Britannicae, p. 192.

3 He states that Celestine was induced to turn his attention to the state of Britain by his deacon Palladius. In the same style of adulation he ascribes to Celestine the deliverance of the Eastern Church from the Nestorian heresy, though he had very little to do with the matter.

According to Migne, the work Contra Collatorem was written about A.D. 432, the very year in which, according to many accounts, Patrick set out from Rome. See Migne's Patrol. Curs., tom. li. p. 215, note; and Lanigan, i. p. 195. It was evidently written very shortly after the death of Celestine, as it speaks of Sixtus as "nunc pontificem," xxi. 3.

assuming that he had achieved a series of spiritual victories, he tells us how he had "made the barbarous island Christian." 1 Little did he dream of the disaster which had befallen the emissary of Celestine. Palladius, with his attendants, reached his destination in safety; but, according to all accounts, he obtained so little encouragement that he soon relinquished the enterprise. Overwhelmed with disappointment, he embarked for North Britain, where, not long afterwards, he died of fever in what is now known as Kincardineshire.2

According to statements long received with implicit faith, when Celestine heard of the sad result of the mission of Palladius, he ordained Patrick and sent him to make another effort for the conversion of Ireland. This second papal agent, was, it is said, completely successful. But Prosper-who was well acquainted with what was passing in Rome, and who wrote shortly after the death of Celestine,3-knew nothing of Patrick's designation. Profoundly ignorant of the misfortunes of the first Romish missionary, he speaks as if success had crowned his exertions. And, for nearly two centuries after this date, no notice is taken of Ireland, either by the Pope or any of his officials. From A.D. 440 to A.D. 461, Leo I. a man of first-rate ability, was bishop of Rome; his watchful eye ranged over the whole Church, and upwards of one hundred and forty of his letters to correspondents in all parts of Christendom are still preserved: but not one of them relates to Hibernia. He was apparently totally unacquainted with a most prosperous mission, said to have been recently established there by one of his predecessors, with whom he had himself, at the very time of its supposed equipment, been on terms of the most confidential intercourse. It is acknowledged that, for one hundred and fifty years after the death of Leo, the Church of Ireland continued to be in a very flourishing condition; and yet there is not a shadow of evidence that

1 Contra Collatorem, xxi. 2. See also Lanigan, i. 38, 39, 43.

2 See Lanigan, i. 39, 44.

3 See above p. 7, note 4.

4 Leo was Celestine's archdeacon, and was thus one of his most important functionaries. See Dupin's Ecclesiastical Writers, art. "Leo."

meanwhile any Bishop of Rome addressed to any of its ministers so much as a single line of advice, warning, or commendation. If, all this time, it was in close communion with the chief pastor of the ecclesiastical metropolis of Italy, how are we to account for this strange reticence? Such a case has no parallel in the annals of the Church, and is susceptible of explanation according to no hypothesis which can be reasonably proposed. But, when the facts are more correctly exhibited, all the difficulties disappear.

According to the testimony of Prosper himself, there was a church in Ireland prior to the appointment of Palladius; for the Romish missionary was sent to the Hibernians, "believing in Christ." It would seem that the progress of the Gospel in the country had created quite a sensation in the West of Europe; and, in the best and oldest Irish manuscript relating to the ecclesiastical history of the island at present in existence, it is recorded that "Palladius was sent by Pope Celestine with a gospel for Patrick, to preach it to the Irish."3 This memorial reveals a state of things quite opposed to later traditions. It suggests that the representative of the Pope was seeking to enter into another man's labours, and to reap the fruits of a field which a more skilful workman had already cultivated. Christianity had ere this taken root in the island; and Celestine sent Palladius to found a hierarchy devoted to the papal interest. The stranger sought to conciliate the real Irish missionary by a present of a copy of the Gospels—a gift in those days of no little value. But the attempt proved a signal failure and Palladius, after a short residence in Ireland, was obliged to take his departure. The testimony of Patrick himself throws much light on this obscure passage of Irish history.

1 It is now admitted that even the letters of Gregory I. in Ussher's Sylloge, written about the close of the sixth or beginning of the seventh century, were addressed, not to Ireland, but to the East. See Lanigan, ii. 292, 3, and Cambrensis Eversus, ii. 741.

2 The Leabhar Breac. See O'Curry's Lectures on the MS. Materials of Ancient Irish History, pp. 352-353. An edition of the Leabhar Breac has just been published in 2 vols. Dublin, 1874, 1875.

3 See Dr. Petrie "On Tara Hill" in Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, xviii. part ii, 98, 103.