St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh Part 13

Serm. i, - 6, where the story of -- 19-31 is briefly summarized.

[373] Armagh.

[374] _Quasi generationibus quindecim._ The "quasi-generations" are apparently the periods of office of successive coarbs. St. Bernard seems to have written "fifteen" in mistake for "twelve." See Additional Note B, p. 165.

[375] Adulterous, because it took possession of the church, which should have been married to true bishops. Cp. - 20, "the adultery of the church," Malachy "being joined to another spouse;" - 21, Malachy's "former spouse," and the vision of Cellach's wife.

[376] Matt. xii. 39; xvi. 4.

[377] On the statements in these sentences, see Additional Note B.

[378] That bishops were numerous in Ireland at this period is indubitable. Fifty attended the Synod of Fiadh meic Oengusa (_A.U._ 1111), and probably all of them came from the provinces of Ulster and Munster (above, p. x.x.xviii). But this cannot have been due to the irregularities at Armagh of which St. Bernard complains. There were many bishops in Ireland in its earliest Christian period. See Reeves, 123-136; Todd, 27 ff.

[379] Malachy was not of the Clann Sinaich, to which at this period the coarbs of Patrick belonged. See p. 6, n. 5, and Additional Note B, p. 165.

[380] 1 Sam. iii. 19, etc.

[381] Cellach died on April 1, 1129, and was buried at Lismore on April 4. On April 5, the day after his funeral, Murtough was appointed coarb (_A.U._).

[382] He was probably supported by Conor O'Loughlin, who was king of Oriel, the district in which Armagh was situated (_A.F.M._ 1136). On him see p. 40, n. 2. The "five years" are the period from Murtough's election to his death, September 17, 1134 (_A.F.M._)--nearly five years and a half.

[383] Geoffrey, St. Bernard's secretary, recalls a saying of his about "one of the saints," which actually appears in the first antiphon at Mattins in the office of St. Malachy, and which Geoffrey applies to St. Bernard himself: "Blessed is he who loved the law, but did not desire the chair [of dignity]." (_V.P._ iii. 8).

[384] On Malchus see p. 18, n. 6. He was now about eighty-five years of age.

[385] Gillebertus (as St. Bernard writes the name) is a latinized form of the Irish _Gilla espuig_ (servant of the bishop), which is anglicized Gillespie. With that Irish name he subscribed the Acts of the Synod of Rathbreasail (Keating, iii. 306); and we may therefore affirm with confidence that he was an Irishman. Gilbert was a friend of the famous thinker and ecclesiastical statesman, Anselm, who was archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. The two men met each other for the first time at Rouen, probably in 1087, when Anselm was called thither to the deathbed of William the Conqueror. Twenty years later, Gilbert, then bishop of Limerick, wrote a letter of congratulation to Anselm on his victory over Henry I. in the controversy concerning invest.i.ture (August 1107). In his reply Anselm intimates that the long interval had not blurred his recollection of their former companionship, from which we may infer that Gilbert's personality had made a considerable impression upon him. Anselm also states that he had learned (probably from the superscription of his friend's letter) that he was now a bishop. It would seem, therefore, that Gilbert had been consecrated recently, and not, like the contemporary bishops of Danish sees in Ireland, by the English Primate (see the letters in Ussher, 511, 512). He probably became bishop of Limerick about 1105.

Shortly after his correspondence with Anselm, and perhaps by his influence, he was appointed papal legate for Ireland, the first, as St. Bernard tells us, who had held that office. He was legate when in 1108 or 1109 he wrote his tract _De Statu Ecclesiae_ (see above, p.

x.x.x. ff.); and in 1110, as legate, he presided over the Synod of Rathbreasail. In 1139 or 1140, being old and infirm, he resigned his legatine commission and his see (- 38 and p. 73, note 1). He died in 1145. Gilbert was evidently a strong man, who had much influence on the affairs of the Irish Church. It is therefore surprising that the only reference to him in the native Annals is the notice of his death in the _Chronicon Scotorum_.

[386] _Senior._ This is almost a technical word for the head of a religious community. Malchus is called _ard senoir Gaoidheal_ (high senior of the Irish) in _A.F.M._ 1135.

[387] His dissimulation was his disregard of the divine call in the vision described in - 21.

[388] Cp. _A.F.M._ 1132: "Mael Maedoc Ua Morgair sat in the coarbate of Patrick _by the request of the clerics of Ireland_."

[389] Ps. lx.x.xiii. 12 (vg.).--See Additional Note B, p. 165.

[390] Gen. ix. 6.

[391] The diocese of Connor.

[392] Matt. xix. 2; Mark x. 2.

[393] Ezek. x.x.xiii. 30.

[394] Jer. l. 11.

[395] The church of Armagh.

[396] The "spouse" is primarily the diocese of Connor. His voluntary poverty is especially a.s.sociated with his episcopate there in Serm. i.

- 6.

[397] It can hardly be doubted that this means the diocese of Armagh (cp. p. 45, n. 4). Both - 19 and the t.i.tle "son of purity" (_A.U._ 1129) imply that Cellach was not married.

[398] Rom. ix. 19.

[399] That Malachy was in 1132 recognized by many as coarb of Patrick is confirmed by the Annals (see p. 48, n. 3). But that he exercised his episcopal office "throughout the entire province" is inconsistent with the fact that in 1133 Murtough "made a visitation of Tir Eoghain [counties of Derry and Tyrone] and received his tribute of cows and imparted his blessing" (_A.F.M._).

[400] September 17, 1134 (_A.F.M._). Sudden death is not suggested by the Annals.

[401] St. Bernard puns on the Latin name by which he represents Niall.

It is a diminutive of _niger_, black.

[402] Josh. ix. 24 (vg.).

[403] The meaning of this somewhat difficult sentence is made clear by the reference to the Gibeonites (Josh. ix). By their stratagem they "made provision for their lives," that is, that they should continue to live instead of being exterminated with the rest of the Canaanites.

In like manner Murtough provided that he should, as it were, live on and pursue his evil course, in the person of Niall.

[404] He was Murtough's cousin, and Cellach's brother. See the table, Additional Note B, p. 164.

[405] That the king was either Conor O'Brien or Cormac Mac Carthy is highly probable. To them Cellach had confided the duty of seeing that Malachy should be his successor (- 19), and in this very year they reached the border of the diocese of Armagh (p. 43, n. 5). See p. 53, n. 5.

[406] Ps. xxii. 16.

[407] The narrative of this and the next section is ill.u.s.trated by the Annals under the year 1134. _A.F.M._, after recording the obit of Murtough, proceed: "Niall, son of Aedh, was installed in the coarbate of Patrick. A change of abbots in Armagh, _i.e._ Mael Maedoc Ua Morgair in place of Niall." In _A.T._ we have the statement, "Mael Maedog o Mongair ascended Patrick's chair. The Cinel Eoghain of Tulach og conspired against Mael Maedoc, and a flash of lightning consumed twelve men of them on the spot where they conspired against him." Thus it seems that the conspirators came from the place now known as Tullaghoge, in the county of Tyrone, then, as now, in the diocese of Armagh. It was the district inhabited by the sept of the O'Hagans, and in it was the _lia na righ_, the inauguration chair of the O'Neills, kings of Ulster. The confirmation which St. Bernard's story receives from _A.T._ is the more important, because the two narratives are so far different that they must have come from independent sources.

[408] Ps. lii. 1 (vg.).

[409] Cp. John xviii. 2 (vg.).

[410] Ps. x. 8.

[411] Matt. xxiii. 35, combined with Rev. vi. 10; xix. 2.

[412] Ps. xcvii. 2.

[413] Ps. xviii. 11.

[414] Amos v. 8 (vg.).

[415] Rev. iv. 5.

[416] Ps. xi. 6, _horribilis spiritus procellarum_: apparently a conflation of the vg. with another rendering. A.V. has _an horrible tempest_.

[417] Virg., _Aen._ i. 91.

[418] Exod. iv. 19; Matt. ii. 20, etc.

[419] Job iii. 6 (vg.).