Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum Part 27

And going thence the saint ascended the hill that overlooks the monastery (now called Cnoc-na-Carnan), and standing on its summit he raised his two hands aloft and blessed his monastery, and foretold that the kings of the Scots, and even the rulers of rude and foreign nations with their subjects would yet pay much honour to his poor monastery, and that the saints of other churches too would hold it in veneration.

Then he came down the hill and went straight to his cell, and sat there copying the psaltery. But as soon as he came to that verse of the thirty-third psalm where it is written--_Inquirentes autem Dominum non deficient omni bono_--"Here I must stop," he said, "at the end of this page--let Baithen write the rest." And it was an appropriate verse for him to end with, as the next was an appropriate one for his successor to begin with--_Venite filii, audite me, timoren Domini docebo vos_.

Having written his last verse the saint went to the church to join in the first vespers of the Sunday, which are chanted on Sat.u.r.day evening; and when the office was over he returned to his little cell and sat down upon his bed during the night--that bed was a naked rock with a stone for a pillow--the stone that now stands beside his grave as the t.i.tle of his monument. Whilst sitting thus on the rocky bed he gave his last instructions to his monks in the hearing of Diarmait alone. "My little children," he said, "my last words to you are:--Cherish mutual and unfeigned love for each other, and G.o.d will never let you want the necessaries of life in this world, and you will have, moreover, eternal glory in the world to come."

And now, as the happy hour of his departure was quickly approaching, he became silent for a little. But as soon as the bell for matins struck at the midnight hour, he rose up quickly, and going to the church before the others he entered it alone and threw himself on his bended knees in prayer near the altar. Diarmait, his attendant, followed a little more slowly to the church, and at that moment as he approached the door, he saw the church lit up with a bright angelic light as if shining over the saint.

Others saw it too at the same moment, but when they came nearer it disappeared. Diarmait then entered the church, and groping through the darkness--for the lights were not yet brought in--he found the saint stretched before the altar, and raising him gently, he sat down beside him and took his holy head and laid it in his bosom.

The crowd of monks now coming up with lights, and seeing their father dying, broke out into lamentation. But the saint, as we heard from those who were present, lifting his eyes towards heaven, looked around him on both sides, and his face was full of a wondrous heavenly joy, as if he were looking at angels. Then Diarmait raised the saint's right hand to bless the circle of monks, and our holy father moved his hand as well as he could, so that he might with the motion of his hand give them that blessing which he could not utter with his voice. Having thus blessed them, he immediately expired; yet his face remained still bright-coloured, so that he did not look like one that was dead but only sleeping.

Meanwhile, the whole church was filled with wailing.

So pa.s.sed away the blessed Columba, as he had foretold, on Sunday night a little after 12 o'clock, the 9th of June, in the year of our Lord 597. It was the seventy-seventh of his age, and the thirty-fourth of his pilgrimage in Iona.

As soon as matins were finished, the blessed body of the saint was carried back to the hospice, accompanied by all the brethren chanting psalms.

Thereafter for three days and three nights the obsequies of the saint were celebrated with all due and fitting rites. After which the venerable body of our holy patron was wrapped up in clean linen and buried in a coffin with all reverence--but Ad.a.m.nan does not mention the exact spot, where it was laid.

IV.--THE WRITINGS OF COLUMBA.

Many writings have been circulated under the name of the great St.

Columba--some few of which are genuine, but most of them spurious. We shall very briefly call attention to both. There are three Latin poems published in the second volume of the _Liber Hymnorum_ by the late Dr.

Todd, which are generally regarded by critics as genuine. The first and most celebrated is the _Altus Prosator_. It was first printed by Colgan from the Book of Hymns preserved at St. Isidore's. A splendid edition has also been lately printed by the Marquis of Bute, who has good reason to regard Columba as the patron saint of his family, which is sprung from the early Dalriadan Kings.

The _Altus Prosator_ is beyond any doubt a very ancient poem, written in rather rude Latinity, but syntactically correct, that is, if we make allowance for the errors and ignorance of the copyists. It consists of twenty-two _capitula_ or stanzas, each stanza consisting of six lines, except the first which being in honour of the Holy Trinity has seven, and each line has sixteen syllables. The meter is a kind of trochaic tetrameter, with a pause after the eighth syllable, and a rhyme or a.s.sonance at the end of the lines. The first word of each of the twenty-two stanzas begins with one of the letters of the alphabet in regular order according to the Hebrew letters.

There is a preface, or introduction, to the whole poem, and a brief notice of the t.i.tle and subject matter at the head of each stanza. The preface which is substantially the same both in the _Book of Hymns_ and in the _Leabhar Breac_, sets forth as usual the time, place, motive, and author of the poem, but gives two different accounts. The author was, according to all accounts, Columcille, and he wrote the poem in the Black Church of Derry after much careful preparation. His motive was to praise G.o.d and do penance for the sins he had committed, especially in causing the b.l.o.o.d.y battle of Cuil-Dreimhne. The time was during the reign of Aedh Mac Ainmire in Erin, and of Aidan, son of Gabhran in Dalriada. The other account represents the poem as written in Iona, while Columba was grinding a bag of meal in the mill for the entertainment of some clerics who came from Rome to present him, in the name of Pope Gregory, with a richly enshrined relic of the true Cross, known afterwards as Morgemm, and long, it is said, preserved at Iona. This is a much less plausible explanation than the former, and probably invented by some foolish admirers of the saint, who did not relish the idea of Columcille having to do penance for grave faults of anger and indiscretion.

The poem is the production of a fervent and pious spirit that feels the power and mercy of G.o.d's all-ruling Providence in the past, and in the present. It describes the Trinity, the Angels, the creation of the world, and the fall of man, also the deluge and other noteworthy events in sacred history, ending with a vivid description of the terrors of the last judgment. Many graces are promised to those who recite it worthily: Angels will attend them while chanting it; the devil shall not know their way to lie in wait for them, nor their enemies to destroy them; there shall be no strife in the house where it is sung; it protects against sudden and violent death; and there shall be no want where it is regularly recited.

Columba's second Latin Hymn, known, as the _In te Christe_, is merely the complement of the _Altus Prosator_. Columba sent that latter Hymn to Pope Gregory in Rome in return for the portion of the Cross which he had sent to Columba. When it was recited before the Pope he was greatly pleased with it, especially as he was privileged to see the Angels listening to it at the same time. He observed that there was only one fault in it--that the praise of the Trinity was too scanty, being confined to the first stanza alone. Columcille hearing this resolved to supplement the _Altus_ by another poem in praise of the Holy Trinity--Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It contains fifteen rhyming couplets of the same character as those in the _Altus_, but its authenticity is by no means so certain. The fact that it is contained in the _Book of Hymns_ proves, however, that it is a very ancient poem, although even there in the preface some doubt is thrown on its authenticity.

The third Latin Hymn attributed to Columba is the _Noli Pater_ containing seven rhyming couplets, with sixteen syllables in the line. It is found in the _Book of Hymns_. The short preface says that it was composed by the saint in Daire Calgaich at the time that he received the grant of that place from Aedh Mac Ainmire; and the messengers came at the same time announcing Mobhi's death, and bearing his girdle as the token of the saint's permission for Columcille to found his church. But just then the place took fire, and Columcille composed the hymn to stay the ravages of the flames. And it has been sung from that time forward as a protection against fire, and lightning, and the wrath of the elements.

The following is the first stanza of the _Altus_ which shows the metre.

"Altus prosator, vetustus dierum et ingenitus, Erat absque origine primordii et crepidine, Est et erit in saecula saeculorum infinitus, Cui est unigenitus Christus et Spiritus Sanctus Coaeternus in gloria Deitatis perpetuae; Non tres Deos depromimus, sed unum Deum dicimus Salva fide in personis tribus gloriosissimis."

The two princ.i.p.al Irish poems attributed to Columcille are the "Dialogue of Columcille and Cormac in Hy"--and his pathetic "Lament for his Native Land"--to both of which we have already referred. There is a third poem known as his "Farewell to Aran," which has been rendered into English verse by another true poet, Aubrey de Vere. T. D. Sullivan has given a very beautiful rendering, if not of the words, at least of the spirit of Columba's "Lament for his Native Land." "The 'Dialogue' and the 'Lament'

may not," says Reeves, "be genuine, but they are poems of very considerable antiquity, and the first shows the early notions which existed in Ireland about Cormac's adventures, and his relations to Columba." Colgan is inclined to think them genuine, and has given them amongst the reputed writings of the saint. They may have been retouched by some bard later than Columba's time; but in our opinion they represent substantially poems that were really written by the saint. They breathe his pious spirit, his ardent love for nature, and his undying affection for his native land. Although retouched perhaps by a later hand, they savour so strongly of the true Columbian spirit that we are disposed to reckon them amongst the genuine compositions of the saint.

That Columba was indeed a true prophet, to whom G.o.d made known to some extent things future and things distant, is clearly shown by his biographer Ad.a.m.nan. It was probably his fame in this respect that gave some countenance to the "forgeries" that were circulated under his name, not one of which appears to have the smallest claim to be considered genuine: although some of them are undoubtedly very ancient. O'Curry found one of them in the _Book of Leinster_, purporting to be a prophecy of the coming of the Danes on Lough Ree, and their occupation of the abbacy of Armagh. Reference is also made to the death of Cormac MacCullinan, and the destruction of Aileach by Mortogh O'Brien, and to similar historical events that were manifestly foretold (and sometimes with mistakes) after they had happened. But in the MS. Columcille is described as narrating these things in cold Iona to Baithen, his friend and successor. Both Reeves and O'Curry justly denounce the spirit of greed and impiety, that would in recent times try to palm off on simple-minded people certain impudent forgeries as the genuine oracles of the saints of G.o.d. Such fraudulent practices are injurious to religion: they dishonour the saints, and are unworthy of any publisher who calls himself a Catholic.

V.--LIVES OF COLUMCILLE.

Of these Colgan with his usual industry and erudition has published five.

The author of Colgan's _First Life_ is unknown, but Colgan believed that it was written by some contemporary or disciple of the saint, and he therefore placed it first in order. The _Second Life_ is attributed by Colgan to Cuimine the Fair[267] (Cuimineus Albus), seventh abbot of Hy; who, if he did not himself see the saint, was in daily intercourse with those who did. Ad.a.m.nan cites this author by name, and embodies the work in his own splendid biography. The _Third Life_ is that published by Capgrave, and taken by him from John of Teignmouth--a learned Benedictine monk, who flourished about the year A.D. 1366. He was a mere compiler, not an author. Colgan's _Fourth Life_ is the celebrated one by Ad.a.m.nan, to which we shall refer at length a little later on. The _Fifth Life_ is a lengthy one written in Irish. Its author was Ma.n.u.s O'Donnell, chief of Tir-Connell, as the writer distinctly sets forth in his Preface:--"Be it known to the readers of this Life, that it was Ma.n.u.s, son of Hugh, son of Hugh Roe, son of Niall Garve, son of Torlogh of the Wine O'Donnell, that ordered the part of this Life, which was in Latin to be put into Gaelic, and who ordered the part that was in difficult Gaelic to be modified so that it might be clear and comprehensible to every one; and who gathered and put together the parts of it that were scattered through the old books of Erin; and who dictated it out of his own mouth, with great labour and a great expenditure of time in studying how he should arrange all its parts in their proper places, as they are left here in writing by us; and in love and friendship for his ill.u.s.trious Saint, Relative, and Patron, to whom he was devoutly attached. It was in the castle of Port-na-tri-namad (that is Lifford--the Port of the three enemies) that this Life was indited when were fulfilled twelve and twenty and five hundred and one thousand years of the age of the Lord (A.D. 1532)."

What may be called the autograph copy--it has never yet been printed--exists, says Dr. Reeves, in all its original dimensions, beauty, and material excellence written in large vellum folio in double columns, and is preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Colgan's edition is merely an abstract of the Irish life rendered into Latin. It may be safely said that O'Donnell's Life comprises everything that has been written, or handed down by tradition, concerning Columcille. Some of the miraculous stories which he gives were deemed so extravagant even by Colgan, that he omitted them in his own compilation. Still, this Life is of great value, and we hope to see it soon fitly edited by some competent Irish scholar.

VI.--OTHER SCHOLARS OF IONA.

Besides Columba himself there were several other distinguished scholars connected with Iona. Of these the most distinguished was the celebrated Ad.a.m.nan, ninth abbot of Hy. Before, however, giving an account of Ad.a.m.nan, it will be useful to give a brief sketch of some of his predecessors in the abbatial chair.

"Let Baithen write the rest," said Columba, when he was attacked with his last illness, and dropped his pen at the end of the page in the middle of the thirty-third psalm. The saying was taken as an indication of his wish that Baithen should succeed him as head of the Columbian Houses. He was a cousin of the founder, and had been for many years prior of Iona.

Moreover, he was in every way fitted for the high office by his virtues, his learning, and his prudence. Kinship with the founder, too, was deemed at the time an indispensable qualification for holding the abbacy. The monastic family formed, as it were, a kind of spiritual clan or tribe, and as connection by blood with the head of the tribe was deemed necessary for the chieftaincy in the temporal order, so also was it deemed for many generations to be essential in the spiritual order likewise.

Baithen from his boyhood was the pupil of Columba himself, and inherited all his virtues. He was especially remarkable for his spirit of prayer.

When walking his hands were clasped in prayer beneath his habit: when working at the harvest he prayed whilst he was carrying his handful of oats to the sheaf; even at his meals he said, _Deus in adjutorum meum intende_, between every two morsels of food. He was a monk in Derry, when chosen by Columba to accompany him to Iona. There he was appointed a general overseer of the work done by the monks in the field, but being an accomplished scribe, he was often engaged in reading and writing. Like his friend and master, whatever time he did not spend in relieving the wants of others, he gave to reading, or prayer, or bodily labour; so his Life expressly states.

His great virtues marked him as a fitting person to be sent to govern the monastery, which Columba had founded at Magh-Lunga--the Plain of the Ships--in the Island of Heth, called also Ethica, 'the low lying land of the barley,' as it is called in an ancient Gaedhlic poem. It was situated about twenty miles to the north-west of Iona, from which it is of course distinctly visible. It is a low, sandy tract, about eleven miles long, and varying in breadth from one to three. He, however, maintained a constant connection with the parent house, which he frequently visited; for twenty miles even of that wild sea were as nothing to the hardy sailor monks, who knew that G.o.d watched over them on sea as well as on land. He wrought many miracles, and possessed in a very striking manner that power, which our Saviour gave His apostles, of casting out devils.[268] He is also recognized either as the founder or patron saint of Taugh-boyne (Teach-Baeithin), in the barony of Raphoe, county Donegal. It is not unlikely that this was his native district, and was afterwards placed under his special protection.

Baithen's rule as Abbot of Iona was very brief--from A.D. 597 to A.D.

600--three years exactly, if these dates are correct; for he died on the same day of the month as his beloved master Columcille. He was seized near the altar with a fainting fit on Tuesday, the 4th of June. The brethren crowded round him in tears, for they thought he was going to die, and Dermitius, Columba's old attendant, said to them, "You see, my brothers, what a small interval will separate the feast-days of our two abbots."

Thereupon Baithen opened his eyes, and prayed earnestly to G.o.d not to take him out of the world until the feast-day of his beloved master. His prayer was heard; he died like Columba on the 9th of June, and, doubtless, was buried beside him in that church, where they so often joined in prayer before the same altar.

The very last sentence in the Life, as given in the Salamanca MS., states that the intense pains, which he suffered, did not prevent the sick monk from continuing his constant occupation of writing, praying, and teaching, up to the very moment of his happy death.

Writing, praying, and teaching--truly fit occupations for the head of a great monastic school. No wonder that Fintin, son of Lippan, when asked about the learning of St. Baithen, replied--"Be a.s.sured that he had no equal on this side of the Alps in his knowledge of sacred Scripture, and in the profundity of his science."[269] There is an old Irish poem still extant, purporting to be a dialogue between Columcille and Baithen, which has been attributed to the latter; and some verses eulogistic of Columba have also been circulated under his name. That he was a man of great learning is undoubted; and that he left his spirit behind him in Iona will be seen from what follows.

Columba used to say that Baithen was like St. John the Beloved in his innocence and simplicity of heart, and that even in the rigorous discipline of perfection they were not much unlike; but that it was very different with their fosterers--he himself was very far indeed from being like unto Christ.

Laisren, who had been Abbot of Durrow during Columba's lifetime, was now called to succeed Baithen in Iona. We know little of his history, except that he was uncle of Seghine, the fifth abbot, who ruled from A.D. 623 to A.D. 652, during the stormy period of the Paschal Controversies. The latter was an ardent defender of the ancient discipline both as to the tonsure and paschal observance. He had been a pupil of Columba in Iona; and was of his knowledge able to testify to many things concerning the saint in presence of the Abbot Falveus, the immediate predecessor of Ad.a.m.nan.

In literary history Seghine is chiefly remarkable as the person to whom c.u.mmian addressed his celebrated Epistle on the Paschal Question in the year A.D. 634, to which we have referred at length already.[270] The superscription is "Segieno Abbati Columbae Sancti et Caeterorum Sanctorum Successori"--a high testimony to the reputed sanct.i.ty of his predecessors.

Seghine was also one of those to whom the Roman clergy during the vacancy of the See in A.D. 640, addressed an important letter on the same subject.

This shows that from his high official position, as head of the Columbian monasteries, and, doubtless, also from his high personal character, it was deemed of the greatest importance to secure the adhesion of Seghine to the Roman discipline. In this, however, the authors of both the letters were disappointed. Seghine, who was animated with the unyielding and somewhat, haughty spirit of Conal Gulban's line, could not bring himself to believe that his sainted predecessors, whose holiness was proved by so many miracles, could by any possibility be wrong in the discipline which they followed. The monks who were trained under him, like Aidan and Colman of Lindisfarne, were animated with the same spirit; so that even after the Conference of Whitby the aged Colman preferred to leave his beloved retreat in Lindisfarne, and sail back again to his stormy home on the coast of Mayo, rather than adopt the new discipline; and we know that the Irish monks of Lindisfarne followed him to a man.

Seghine was succeeded by Suibhne, the first "outsider" whom the monks of Iona elected as head of their Order. Colgan observes that his genealogy is not recorded in our native annals; whence we may infer that he owed his elevation to his merit rather than to the accident of his birth. He died in A.D. 657. His successor, Cuimine, was of the Cenel-Conail line, for he was nephew of Seghine, the fifth abbot. He wrote a tract, _De Virtutibus S. Columbae_, which is cited by Ad.a.m.nan. It really forms the groundwork of Ad.a.m.nan's _Third Book_, into which it has been bodily transferred. It has been also published by Colgan, and the Bollandists, though from different sources. It is also to be found in the recently published _Salamanca Codex_. This life shows that Cuimine was an excellent Latin scholar, and although scarcely possessing the wide culture of Ad.a.m.nan, he is little inferior to that celebrated writer, in the graphic account which he gives of the miracles and virtues of St. Columba.

The Paschal Epistle already referred to has been attributed to this Cuimineus Albus, as Ad.a.m.nan calls him. We have shown elsewhere that the real author was c.u.mmian Fada, Bishop of Clonfert; and it is well known that during the whole of the seventh century the entire community of Iona was vehemently opposed to the adoption of that discipline, which the author of the Paschal Epistle advocates and defends. This of itself proves that the Abbot of Hy was not its author. We are now come to Ad.a.m.nan, the ninth abbot, whose history we must narrate at greater length.

VII.--Ad.a.m.nAN, NINTH ABBOT OF HY.

In the year 1845 Dr. Ferdinand Keller was poking with a German's pertinacity through the shelves of the Town Library of Schaffhausen, in Switzerland. In a corner of the room he found a high book chest filled with all kinds of old MSS., without t.i.tle or number of any kind, and at the very bottom of the heap he came upon a dark brown parchment ma.n.u.script, bound in moth-eaten beech wood, covered with calf skin, carefully clasped in front, and very neatly and curiously sewed at the back. It was a goodly quarto of 68 leaves, with double columns, written on dark coloured goat skin parchment in large heavy drawn letters of the character known as minuscular. Everything about the MS. showed great antiquity--the cover, the parchment, the lettering, and the ornamentation.

Dr. Keller at first thought he had come upon a hitherto undiscovered treasure; but in this he was mistaken. He only recovered a lost treasure, and secured its preservation for the learned world. On examination, the MS. turned out to be the oldest and most authentic copy of Ad.a.m.nan's _Life of St. Columba_, made in Iona either during the life time of Ad.a.m.nan himself, or certainly within a few years after his death.

The monastery of Richenau in the ninth century appears to have had many Irish inmates; and this is not unnatural, for the great Irish monastery of St. Gall was within a few miles of the sh.o.r.e of Lake Constance, and considerable intercourse would naturally take place between the two houses. Walafridus Strabo, Abbot of Reichenau, from A.D. 842 to A.D. 849, had been previously Dean of St. Gall, and in his writings shows an intimate knowledge of many things connected with Ireland, which he could have learned only from Irishmen.[271] We know, too, from other sources, that crowds of Irishmen came to France and Germany in the beginning of the ninth century, and that many of them brought their books from their schools at home along with them, as Dungal brought the books which he bequeathed to the monastery of Bobbio. It is thus easy to understand how some of the monks of Iona, driven from home by the Nors.e.m.e.n, who so often plundered the Island about the beginning of the ninth century, would migrate to some friendly monastery on the continent, carrying their literary treasures with them.

There can, however, be no doubt that the Schaffhausen MS. of St. Columba's Life was written in the Island of Hy by one of the Family, so early as the beginning of the eighth century. The character is of that peculiar kind of which we have almost contemporary specimens the _Book of Kells_, and the _Book of Durrow_, and which is now universally acknowledged to be purely Irish; the ornamentation of the chapters and of the capital letters is Irish; the orthography is Irish, and what is stranger than all, the Lord's Prayer is written in Greek on the last page of the MS., and in Greek, of which we have other specimens remaining in old Irish MSS. with the same peculiar spelling, in the same semi-uncial character, without accents, and without breathings--a fact which of itself indisputably proves that the Greek tongue was taught and written in the Irish School of Hy, 1170 years ago.

The Colophon, or superscription, in rubric, at folio 136, at the end of the life, records, according to the usual custom, the name of the scribe:--"Whoever reads these books on the virtues of St. Columba, let him pray to the Lord for me, Dorbbeneus, that after death I may possess eternal life."

In A.D. 713, Tighernach records the death of Dorbene, Abbot of Hy, the very year of his election to that high office. There can be no doubt that this Dorbene was the writer of the Schaffhausen MS.; there is no mention of any other of the same name in our annals except of one Dorbene, whose son Failan is said to have died in A.D. 724. This Dorbene was as Dr.

Reeves thinks, a layman; and, if his son died in A.D. 724, he himself in the course of nature must have lived and died before Ad.a.m.nan. But the Abbot who died in A.D. 713, would have outlived Ad.a.m.nan only nine years, and in all probability had been for many years scribe of the monastery, and may have written the book at the dictation of Ad.a.m.nan himself.