rehearsed, according to circumstances, either in Irish or in Latin; and it is not improbable that, in certain cases, they were repeated in both. It is quite certain that, long after the seventh century, prayers and litanies in the vernacular tongue were heard in Irish congregations.2 The intercourse with the adherents of Rome, which was carried on with increasing cordiality after the settlement of the Easter question, did not tend to elevate the character of the Church of the Emerald Isle. From this time new forms of superstition begin to make their appearance. The doctrine of Purgatory had before been unknown in Ireland; but when Hibernian doctors were led to admire Pope Gregory the Great, it was to be expected that they would soon adopt the dogma which he so vigorously maintained. Adamnan tells us, in his Life of Columbkille, how much importance was attached by his contemporaries to that good man's prayers; and how, when he was abbot of Iona, persons in danger or distress sought his intercession; but the biographer himself goes a step farther, and sanctions the invocation of saints departed.5 These prayers to the dead were now quite common. In an old Irish hymn, recently published for the 1 Thus, in some very old manuscripts, we have the Lord's Prayer in Latin and Irish-a clause in Latin being immediately followed by its translation in Irish. See Moran's Essays on the Early Irish Church, p. 247. Dublin, 1864. In like manner, in the Yellow Book of Lecain, we have a litany, said to have been used by Aileran of Clonard, who died A. D. 664, in Latin and Irish. See O'Curry's Lectures, p. 378. 2 Thus, among the original Irish tracts in the Leabhar Breac-the oldest and best Irish MS. relating to our church history now preserved--are "ancient copies and expositions of the Lord's Prayer and the ten commandments" and "ancient Litanies and Liturgies." O'Curry's Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History, p. 353. There is also extant a remarkable tract, in the native tongue, containing the ancient ritual for the consecration of a church or oratory." Ibid. p. 357. The celebrated Colgu of Clonmacnois, who died in A. D. 789, left behind him a work in Irish, to which he gave the rather extraordinary name of The Besom of Devotion, which contained prayers "apparently offered at mass time." Ibid. p. 379. 3 In the tract De Tribus Habitaculis, only three places-Heaven, Earth, and Hell-are recognised; and Purgatory is ignored. This tract was long ascribed to Patrick; but though not written by the apostle of Ireland, it may safely be regarded as an exposition of his views on the subjects of which it treats. See his Life by Adamnan, lib. ii. 40. Ibid. lib. ii. 45. first time,1-and said to have been written about A.D. 664, when disease was making sad havoc in the country-the author cries for aid to a whole crowd of deceased worthies. Abel, Eli, and Enoch-Abraham, Isaac, Moses, and Aaron—Job, David, and the Maccabees-John the Baptist, Mary, Joseph, the spirit of Stephen, and a host of others-are all invoked by him for protection against the Yellow Pestilence. But, in the midst of this folly, the Scriptures were studied more. assiduously in Ireland than in any other part of Europe; and, whilst the pulpit was almost silent elsewhere, the Irish clergy were still known as effective preachers. Sermons and homilies. prepared by them, with the texts prefixed, are yet forthcoming. This constant appeal to the authority of Scripture had a healthful moral influence; and served, in times of degeneracy, to secure to Irish theologians a position of comparative superiority. In one of the oldest ecclesiastical monuments of the country-written in the native tongue apparently after this period-it is refreshing to find a most impressive testimony to the excellence of the Word of God. According to this venerable witness, the Bible, instead of being a fomenter of divisions, is eminently fitted to promote the peace of the true body of Christ, to extinguish heresy and schism, and to advance the progress of spiritual enlightenment. It should be studied by all classes in the church. "One of the noble gifts of the Holy Spirit," says Dublin, 1869. The hymn of part ii. 123-136. It would 1 By the Irish Archæological and Celtic Society. St. Colman Mac Ui Clusaigh. Book of Hymns, appear that the writer was himself cut off by the plague, so that he appealed to the Saints in vain. He is said to have been the author of the poem on the death of Cummian already quoted, p. 67 and p. 82, and to have been his tutor. He was a strong adherent of the Roman party in Ireland; and has been described as at the head of the seminary founded by Finnbarr in Cork. O'Curry's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, by Sullivan, ii. 90, 91. 2 See O'Curry's Lectures on the MS. Materials of Ancient Irish History, pp. 352-357 3 "To be a Fer-Leighlinn, Drumchli, or chief master in a college or great school, the candidate was obliged by law to be a master of the whole course of Gaeheldic literature, in prose and verse, besides that of the Scriptures, from the ten commandments up to the whole Bible." O'Curry's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, by Sullivan, ii. 84. the Scriptures in the Irish tongue. There are various traces of ancient versions of this document, "is the Holy Scripture, by which all ignorance is enlightened, and all worldly affliction comforted; by which all spiritual light is kindled, and by which all debility is made strong. For it is through the Holy Scriptures that heresy and schism are banished from the Church, and all contentions and divisions reconciled. It is in them well tried counsel and appropriate instruction will be found for every degree in the Church. It is through them the snares of demons and vices are banished from every faithful member of the Church. For the divine Scriptures are the mother, and the benign nurse of all the faithful who meditate on them, and contemplate them, and who are nurtured by them until they are chosen children of God by their advice." 1 1 O'Curry's Lectures, p. 376-7. From an Exposition of the Ceremonies of the Mass, of which the original is preserved in the Leabhar Breac. CHAPTER V. FROM THE DEATH OF ADAMNAN TO THE FIRST ATTACK OF THE NORTHMEN ON IRELAND. A.D. 704 TO A.D. 795.1 THE aversion of the monks of Iona to the Roman mode of keeping Easter has been already noticed; and we have seen how, unmoved by all the arguments of their own abbot, they adhered to their ancient rule for celebrating the festival. But, about twelve years after the death of Adamnan, the monastery was brought over to conformity. Naitan, or Nechtan, king of the Picts, was mainly instrumental in effecting this revolution. Having carefully studied the subject, and ascertained clearly, as he thought, the superior claims of the Roman Easter, he determined to establish its observance throughout all his dominions. He was much assisted by Egbert, a learned monk, who repaired to the west of Scotland in A.D. 716, and laboured with great earnestness to recommend his views to the fraternity of Iona. Force was added to persuasion; and those members of the brotherhood who still refused to yield were banished from the island.3 All the monks in Ireland, subject to the jurisdiction of Hy, soon afterwards acceded to the new method of observance.1 1 This is the date adopted by O'Flaherty and Todd. See Todd's St. Patrick, p. 39, note; and The War of the Gaedhill with the Gaill. Introduction, xxxiv O'Donovan adopts the date A.D. 794. 2 Bede, v. 21. 3 In the Annals of Ulster this transaction is thus noticed :-" "The expulsion of the family of Hy beyond Drum Albin (i.e. the Grampian hills) by King Nectan." It has been thought that the refractory monks were transported to Abernethey. See Jamieson's Culdees, 292-294. 4 Bede, v. 22. In the beginning of the seventh century, as has already been stated, the missionaries recently arrived from Rome made their first approach to the bishops or abbots of Hibernia. Their advances were received with anything but cordiality; and yet, after an opposition kept up for upwards of one hundred years, the Italian Easter cycle and the Italian tonsure were at length adopted all over the country. We are not, however, to imagine that the Church of Ireland now. formally submitted to papal authority. Throughout the whole of the discussions relative to the Paschal festival, the bishop of Rome was rarely mentioned; the simple fact that the Irish and British long adhered to their ancient usages is sufficient to prove that they rejected his dictation; and the papal advocates well knew that it would be useless to appeal to his award, inasmuch as their opponents disowned his jurisdiction. They accordingly professed to draw all their arguments from Scripture-sustained by right reason and the practice of the Church universal. When, therefore, the Irish Christians adopted the Roman cycle and the Roman tonsure, they did not, as a matter of course, recognise the papa! supremacy. The Hibernian Church was thus, no doubt, brought into more friendly relations with the Church of Rome; and, from this date, its ecclesiastics had much intercourse with their brethren in England and on the Continent; but, for centuries afterwards, it retained almost all its other peculiarities of polity and worship. Long before this period the celibacy of the clergy had been strictly enforced wherever the bishop of Rome had sufficient power to exact obedience. The Eastern Catholics never adopted this ascetic discipline. The canons of a great Council held at Constantinople in A.D. 692, give express permission to presbyters and deacons to live in wedlock 2—an arrangement which the Greek Church has since uninter 1 One of the most elaborate vindications of the Roman mode of keeping Easter is the long letter of the Abbot Ceolfrid to the King Naitan. See Bede, v. 21. The argument there employed, at a late stage of the controversy, is very much of the character described in the text. 2 See particularly Canon 13. This Council has been called the Quini-Sextum Synod. In the Greek Church marriage is forbidden only to the bishops and higher dignitaries. |