1

THE GOLDEN AGE OF IRELAND - A LAND OF SAINTS AND SCHOLARS

1) INTRODUCTION This was the most incredible period of history for Ireland. It lasted for 500 years from the beginning of the 5th century to the end of the 9th. One great tragedy about all of this is that the majority of the Irish People are not aware of what took place in these centuries and what Ireland contributed to Western civilisation. This is the equivalent of the Greeks deciding to ignore the time of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, thinking it to be an irrelevant period in Greek history. What madness and neglect that would be? Even worse, it is my belief that that which produced that greatness has not been lost to the Irish people but lies dormant within our hearts and minds. With the right environment, there is no reason that Ireland could not rise to that greatness again. By studying this period we can be inspired and more importantly come to understand the factors which facilitated its flourishing thus allowing for the possibility of creating these factors again so that, in the best context, history might repeat itself. Firstly, let us hear what certain respected foreign commentators have said about the Golden Age of Ireland. Renan, the French commentator, said, Nowhere, perhaps, has God been worshipped in spirit and in truth more than in the Great Communities of Iona, Bangor, Clonard and Lindesfarne. Nora Chadwick said, A golden age of innocence and piety which has never been surpassed and perhaps been equalled only by the ascetics of the eastern deserts. Kenneth Clarke wrote, It is hard to believe that for quite a long time almost a hundred years (late 5th century to late 6th century) western Christianity survived by clinging to places like Skellig Michael, a pinnacle of rock eighteen miles from the Irish coast, rising seven hundred feet out of the sea. This was a period in which great characters lived on earth. Pope Leo the Great was elected about a dozen years after St. Patrick landed in Ireland. St. Augustine of Hippo died about two years before St. Patrick started his

2 mission. St. Columbcille was born in 521, 8 years before the inauguration of the Benedictine order, the success of which order eventually brought about the cessation of the Irish way of monastic living. Emperor Justinian died close to when Columbcille went to Iona. St. Kevin predeceased Mohammed by 14 years. St. Fintan remained in his hermitage in Schaffhaussen on the Rhine for 27 years, a period which saw the coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor in 800 and his death in 814 and also the period in which Europe enjoyed a brief renaissance. Early medieval Ireland offers something unique and interesting to students of history: the record of a people untouched by the Roman Empire. Ireland alone of all the modern countries in Western Europe enjoyed a period of a 1000 years and more until the first Viking raiders during which she evolved and developed an indigenous and unbroken culture different in many ways from any that existed on the continent. The Roman Church romanised most of Europe but the Irish took Christianity in its purity and gave it a unique Irish flavour. So long before theological and political conflicts tragically divided Christianity, one of the most ancient and creative churches grew to prominence. During its time it kept classical learning alive while the so called Dark Ages were casting their shadows across Europe.

2) BEFORE CHRISTIANITY Ireland was rural in an almost absolute sense. There were no villages even. It was still a country of isolated holdings, organised in a tribal, familial culture kinship binding these holdings together. Irish society was divided into four classes. It was aristocratic, a hierarchical system of individual, autonomous units. No single nation or state confronted Patrick as there was no state, or nation, or king over all. There were, however, kings, tribal chieftains; and under them warriors and as their equals, "men of special gifts," - druids, bards, doctors, historians (for the most part in one) - and finally there were ordinary freemen. The Druids whole system of belief was based on the wonder of nature and so they were very much in touch with the earth. The Druids were effectively the priests of their religion. They were well educated, usually literate and had an excellent grasp of matters environmental and astrological. The Druids used nature to see into the future by reading signs. The bards were historians, legislators, judges, poets and warriors. So great a force were they that they were able to challenge the authority of the king himself.

3 In the sixth century, the great Welsh bard Taliesin claimed: "Christ, the Word from the beginning, was from the beginning our Teacher, and we never lost his teaching. Christianity was in Asia a new thing; but there never was a time when the Druids of Britain held not its doctrines. Legend also tells us, for instance, that Irish sages attended the events on Golgotha "in the spirit" and felt, by what means we cannot tell, "the groans and travails of creation cease." Yeats notes a similar story in which on the day of the Crucifixion King Conchubar and Bucrach the Leinster Druid are sitting together. Conchubar notices "the unusual changes of the creation and the eclipse of the sun and the moon at its full"; he asks the Druid the cause of these signs, and Bucrach replies, "Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is now being crucified by the Jews. Though the society was an oral one, it nevertheless by any standards embodied a high culture. There were schools, and a great body of traditional knowledge and lore. As Ludwig Bieler commented: Ireland is unique in the medieval western world in having not only a native literature but also a native tradition of professional learning. Thus, once having acquired a written script, the Irish were culturally well prepared to preserve not only their own traditions, but those of classical Greek and Latin literature also. This they did, thereby ensuring the continuity of European culture. 3) ST. PATRICKS MISSION This thirty-year span of Patricks mission in the middle of the fifth century encompasses a period of change so rapid and extreme that Europe will never see its like again. By 461, the likely year of Patricks death, the Roman Empire is careering in chaos, barely fifteen years away from the death of the last western emperor. For as the Roman lands went from peace to chaos, the land of Ireland was rushing even more rapidly from chaos to peace. The origins of Christian Ireland are highly mysterious and we do not know when or how Christianity was introduced into the island. When Saint Patrick reached Auxerre in 415, he found an Irishman among the clerics of St. Amator. There must then have already been Irish Christians, who had perhaps been converted by the slaves captured on the shores of Britain. Historically speaking, the Christian origins of Ireland go back to PALLADIUS who came in 431 and died the following year. His mission was restricted to the south of the country. Five bishops are often mentioned who were certainly of Irish

4 birth and belonged to the days before Patrick Ibar and his disciple Abban, Declan, Ailbe and Ciaran the elder. It seems almost certain that SAINT IBAR, whose activities were of a local kind, and did not stretch beyong the town of Wexford, was consecrated bishop before Saint Patrick. Patrick is calculated to be around 47 when he came to Ireland. He refers to a sin he committed and this was probably around age 15. Let us say this was 400. He was kidnapped the following year and escaped perhaps in 407, but was not ordained till about 430, since he did not return to Ireland till about 432, when he would have been-at least, according to this reckoning-fortyseven. It was Germanus who decided to consecrate Patrick as Bishop for Ireland, who had been preparing for this hour in retreat, study and prayer for not less than fifteen years. His mission initially concentrated on the north of the country. The traditional chronology in regard to Saint Patrick is that died in A.D. 461. There are however a number of objections to this which cannot be easily set aside. Thus the Irish Annals, a document which in general deserves to be accepted, tells us of the death of Patrick in 461, and then mentions him again as living in 492! It has been thought that there may have been two Patricks in succession to each other, and that legend may in consequence have mixed up the facts about the two men and their actions, in order to produce the fictitious figure of one, single Patrick, which would thus account for his long life!

What is strikingly different about Patricks missionary activities is the fact that he went, as he himself put it, even to outlying regions beyond which no man dwelt, and where never had anyone come to baptize or ordain clergy, or confirm the people. By the time of his death Ireland had been fundamentally Christianized. What is remarkable is that it is the only country in the history of Christianity in which no blood was shed in its establishment. Why was this so? Patricks main work, of course, was, that of conversion, establishing bishops, churches and the seeds of monasticism. His success in this seems to have resided in his willingness to accept the indigenous traditions and conform his teaching to them. His description of God which follows is very much the God of Nature which would have appealed to a people with a Druidic culture. There is the story of the conversion in Connaught of the daughters of the High King of Tara. When these questioned him as to who the New God was, and where he dwelt, Patrick replied:

5 Our God is the God of all men, the God of Heaven and Earth, of sea and river, of sun and moon and stars, of the lofty mountain and the lowly valley, the God above Heaven, the God in Heaven, the God under Heaven; He has his dwelling round Heaven and Earth and sea and all that in them is. He inspires all, he quickens all, he dominates all, he sustains all. He lights the light of the sun; he furnishes the light of the light; He has put springs in the dry land and has set stars to minister to the greater lights. Patricks view is that reality is a continuum, and all Gods creatures are theophanies of God himself, for God speaks in them and through them. St. Patrick would have been impressed by the natural mysticism of the Irish which told them that the world was holy all of it, not just parts of it. For St. Patrick God was both transcendent and immanent. This was in contrast to Rome where increasingly God was only a transcendent God. Everywhere in Celtic Ireland we find a holy intimacy of human, natural and divine. In hermitages and monasteries, on rocky promontories and lonely hillsides, we find everywhere a tremendous proximity of the human and divine in nature, an abandonment to spiritual work and simultaneously a cultivation of the earth. Because Patrick established a church in perfect conformity with the existing spirituality of Ireland, the Druids and Bards, being converted, learnt Latin and incorporated their own traditions into the existing Christian ones. Like all aristocratic societies they had set great store on memory, learning, genealogy. Thus the bards now became synchronizers and so, by the seventh century as Robin Flowers notes, the monks had accepted the pagan traditions and put it on one level with the historical material which came to them from the Church. We know that St. Patrick destroyed nothing in the national traditions save the little that was vicious and erroneous. He had a tender regard for what was genuinely human and natural in his converts, except in so far as it was opposed to the faith he came to teach. And his fellow saints and their successors followed suit, so that it is one of the glories of Irish monasticism that it was tolerant and broadminded in the best sense of the words. Thanks to this deep understanding, the heroic literature of the ancient regime was never destroyed.

6 Patrick held out to these warrior children, in his own person, that it is possible to be brave-to expect "every day ... to be murdered, betrayed, enslavedwhat- ever may come my way" -and yet be a man of peace and at peace, a man without sword or desire to harm, a man in whom the sharp fear of death has been smoothed away. He was "not afraid of any of these things, because of the promises of heaven; for I have put myself in the hands of God Almighty." Patrick's gift to the Irish was his Christianity-the first deRomanized Christianity in human history, a Christianity without the sociopolitical baggage of the Greco-Roman world, a Christianity that completely inculturated itself into the Irish scene. Through the Edict of Milan, which had legalized the new religion in 313 and made it the new emperor's pet, Christianity had been received into Rome, not Rome into Christianity! Roman culture was little altered by the exchange, and it is arguable that Christianity lost much of its distinctiveness. But in the Patrician exchange, Ireland, lacking the power and implacable traditions of Rome, had been received into Christianity, which transformed Ireland into Something New, something never seen before-a Christian culture, where slavery and human sacrifice to a large degree became unthinkable, and warfare, though found impossible for humans to eradicate, diminished markedly. Indeed, the survival of an Irish psychological identity is one of the marvels of the Irish story. Unlike the continental church fathers, the Irish never troubled themselves overmuch about eradicating pagan influences. The pagan festivals continued to be celebrated, which is why we today can still celebrate the Irish feasts of May Day and Hallowe'en. As late as the twelfth centuryseven centuries after the conversion of the Irish to the Gospel-a husband or wife could call it quits and walk out for good on February 1, the feast of Imbolc, which meant that Irish marriages were renewable yearly, like t.v. licences or insurance policies.

This broadmindedness was, of course, in line with the attitude of official Christendom; but, whereas, even in Rome, the important principle at stake had to fight long and fight hard for recognition, its acceptance in Ireland seems to have been as peaceful as it was widespread. Celtic spirituality was very much the child of the pagan culture which preceded it. It valued learning, science, literature, poetic imagination and artistic creativity. It was spiritually profoundly affected by nature and its beauty

No race adopted Christianity with so much originality as did the Irish. The fundamentals of the faith they received from outside like the rest of the nations, but from the first they grafted this stem on the national stock with extraordinary thoroughness. This is why Renan remarked that the Irish family of Christians drew everything out of itself; it lived entirely on its own capital.

From an initially standard administrative system adopted from the western church, in which bishops ruled over dioceses whose territorial boundaries were clearly defined, the Irish churches appear to have been transformed into a quite different but distinctive organization in which most of the important churches are monastic houses, united to lesser daughter houses in a confederation or paruchia under the overall control of the abbot of the mother church. In stark contrast to the earlier continental pattern, the paruchia was not a territorial unit with fixed boundaries, for the monastic churches comprising it might be widely scattered. This and another distinctive feature marked off the Irish church as different: administrative power was in the hands of the abbot, not the bishop. Bishops there were still, of course, since the ecclesiastical dignities and sacramental functions of the bishop could never be dispensed with. But his administrative jurisdiction was apparently a thing of the past; that now rested in the hands of the abbot.There were, of course no archbishops in the Celtic Church, and a bishop had no authority in the economy or organization of the monastery which was ruled by an abbot. There was nothing like this on the continent. There is no denying the crucial importance of the fact that Ireland was never a province of the Roman Empire and never acquired the apparatus of the Late Roman government and administration which has left its stamp on Western Europe and Christianity to this day.

3) THE MONASTIC SCHOOLS "The Church has known days more resplendent and more solemn, days better calculated to raise the admiration of sages; but I knew not if she has ever breathed forth a charm more touching and pure than in the springtime of monastic life."

8 Thus said Montalembert in his great work The Monks of the West. Nowhere, with the possible exception of Egypt, did the monastic idea develop so rapidly or produce types so singular as in Ireland. For this we must take into account that Ireland was evangelised, in the first instance, by one who had been trained in a monastery and secondly, the liveliness and independence of the Celtic temperament. Although St. Patrick was able to speak of the multitude of his converts who had retired from the world, Irish monasticism was not properly established until some fifty years after his death. From that time onwards, dedication to a life of seclusion and prayer was the chief feature of the national religious life. St. Patrick's influence was established earliest in the north, the monastic movement first entered the country from the south. There is reason to think that whereas the Patrician Church passed directly from Britain to Ireland, perhaps under stimulus from the Church in Gaul, the monastic Church penetrated from Munster, where powerful monasteries were founded at an early date. This area, and in particular the monastery of Lismore and others on the Blackwater and the Barrow, were evidently in direct intellectual intercourse with the Continent in the sixth century, especially with Aquitaine and most probably with Spain also. It is from these progressive Munster centres that the prominent anchorite foundations of the following period, notably Tallaght, Finglas, and Terryglas, drew their founders and their origin. There were both external and internal factors which brought about manasticism in Ireland. Externally, after Patrick, with the collapse of the Roman Empire, the Irish experienced an influx of anchorites and monks fleeing before the barbarian hordes. "All the learned men on this side of the sea," claims a note in a Leyden manuscript of this time, "took flight for transmarine places like Ireland, bringing about a great increase of learning"-and, doubtlessly, a spectacular increase in the number of books -"to the inhabitants of those regions." But not a few of these men were ascetics from such Roman hinterlands as Armenia, Syria, and the Egyptian desert. The Ulster monastery of Bangor, for instance, claimed in its litany to be "ex Aegypto transducta" ("translated from Egypt"); and the convention of using red dots to adorn manuscript initials, a convention that soon became a mark of Irish manuscripts, had first been glimpsed by the Irish in books that the fleeing Copts brought with them.

9 The primary internal factor which facilitated the flourishing of monasticism in Ireland was that the Irish of the late fifth and early sixth centuries had a thing which they called the Green Martyrdom, opposing it to the conventional Red Martyrdom by blood. The Green Martyrs were those who, leaving behind the comforts and pleasures of ordinary human society, retreated to the woods, or to a mountaintop, or to a lonely island-to one of the green no-man's-lands outside tribal jurisdictions-there to study the scriptures and commune with God. For among the story collections Patrick gave them they found the examples of the anchorites of the Egyptian desert, who, also lacking the purification rite of persecution, had lately devised a new form of holiness by living alone in isolated hermitages, braving all kinds of physical and psychological adversity, and imposing on themselves the most heroic fasts and penances, all for the sake of drawing nearer to God. The monasteries emerged because of an impulse for religiously-minded men to escape from the real world. They wanted time by themselves, and started living as hermits. In many cases these hermits developed a popular following, and these groups often formed the basis of the monastery and thus, the wished-for extremes of the Green Martyrdom were largely-and quicklyabandoned in favor of monasticism. Since Ireland had no cities, these monastic establishments grew rapidly into the first population centers, hubs of unprecedented prosperity, art, and learning. These austere ascetics, without intending it, conferred a boon upon their age which has no parallel in the history of any other country. This boon was the establishment of the Termons ( from which we have nameplaces such as Termon feckin today) or districts recognised alike by law and custom as sacred, immune from legal imposts, and from all invasion even in the course of a civil war. Termon was a sanctuary and these sanctuaries were so revered by the body of the Irish nation that they were unmolested for three hundred years, their violation being regarded as infamous as well as unlucky. To this" Truce of God," Ireland owed the comparative repose that enabled students and scholars from every land to come and go at their pleasure. Monasteries of a thousand men were no rarity and three thousand was not unknown. St. Finnian found his famous monastic school near the Boyne and became known as the Tutor of the Irish Saints and at one period had three thousand pupils. Many of these left him in order to set up monasteries of their own, so that Clonard became " a mighty tree with innumerable branches." In Glendalough, there were said to be 2000 monks at one stage. On a plain to the east of the Lower Lake, the monks built what would become in time a kind of university city, to which came thousands of hopeful students

10 first from all over Ireland, then from England, and at last from everywhere in Europe. There was certainly no family in the country which had no monks amongst its sons, and the women rivalled the men in their pious ardour. One of the first famous monasteries was established by Enda. Enda was born in Meath, and had been a military man until his sister St Fanchea convinced him that he should give his life to God. Enda founded his first monastery in Ireland on the Aran Islands, and his followers would spread out and set up ten further monasteries in his name. He had many disciples who would be key figures in Irish religious life, such as Colum Cille, Brendan, Ciaran, Kevin and Finnian. The big three monasteries, and the most famous, appeared during the sixth century: Clonard, Clonmacnois, and Clonfert. These became famous as the leading educational monasteries that trained Irish men (and foreigners) to be brilliant scribes, artists, and thinkers. These were the religious equivalents of the Ivy League Colleges: only the best and brightest went there, and once trained, they went round the world to spread the word. The great monasteries were headed by remarkable and powerful abbesses or abbots, such as Brigit of Kildare, Columcille of Iona, Finnian of Clonard, Ita of Killeedy, Brendan of Clonfert, Kevin of Glendalough, Ciaran of Clonmacnois, and David of Wales. Many of the first male founders and abbots of these monasteries, as the early hagiographies maintain, were probably celibate priests and bishops. Women founders and abbesses also lived celibate lives within religious communities. The male monastic leaders who followed the early pioneers might have been either ordained or lay. Many were evidently married, since the marriage of priests throughout the entire early church was commonplace and the Celtic church was no exception. In some Irish monasteries, in fact, the abbacy descended from father to son. The monasteries were estates, small farms with livestock and fields. They were publishing houses, with scriptoria; and finally they were schools. Thus the work of compilation, and spiritual investigation, were both carried out in the monasteries. Whereas Egyptian monasticism produced nothing but naked sanctity, its Hibernian counterpart from first to last clothed itself in the graceful garment of art, and became a veritable citadel of culture throughout the Dark Ages again reflecting the belief in both a transcendent and immanent God as opposed to a God who was only transcendent. The primary purpose of these, of course was contemplation and the practice of the presence of God but more "scholarly" activity was not seen to conflict with this. "Live in Christ, that Christ may live in you." Columbanus told his students: "Taste and see, how lovely, how pleasant is the Lord." Continuous prayer was

11 the ideal, to "pray in every position." A gloss asks, "What is prayer without ceasing?" and it replies: "The answer is not difficult. Some say it is celebrating the canonical hours, but that is not the true meaning. It is when all the members of the body are inclined to good deeds and evil deeds are put away from them. Though ascetic, then, the Irish monks were hostile to neither learning nor nature and practised greatly the contemplation of both of these. Indeed, these two - Scripture and nature - were according to John Scottus Eriugena the two shoes of Christ, whose latchet John the Baptist was not yet ready to undo. Without over emphasising it, this reflects once more the transcendent and immanent God. Here, the Seven Liberal Arts were practised while the rest of Europe was still in the "dark ages" of transition; the Trivium of grammar, rhetoric and logic (which in practice meant Latin and Greek) and the Quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. These, however, were not ends in themselves, but were merely the preliminaries and prerequisites for the study of Scripture and theology. "What is best in the world?" asked Columbanus, author of the most severe and ascetical Rule, and he answered: To do the will of its maker. What is this will? That we should do what he has ordered, that is, that we should live in righteousness and seek devotedly what is eternal (note: righteousness to have the proper relationship with the immanent God and seeking devotedly the eternal so that we may have the true relationship with the the transcendent God). How do we arrive at this? By study. We must therefore study devotedly and righteously. What is our best help in maintaining this study? The Intellectus, which probes everything and, finding none of the world's goods in which it can permanently rest, is converted by reason into the one good which is eternal. Thus, the monasteries assimilated and superseded the ancient bardic and druidic foundations. They welcomed people into the monastery who wanted to learn from the resident monks. The picture of native scholars imparting their learning to foreign students from Britain and the Continent, free of charge, is one of the most oft-cited passages in the Venerable Bede's History of the English Church and People: The Irish welcomed them all gladly, gave them their daily food, and also provided them with books to read and with instruction, without asking for any payment. From the careful Bede we learn, therefore, that the Irish

12 monastic universities accepted commoners as well as noblemen and those who wished for learning but not the cloister. From the top to the bottom of the social scale, all ranks and classes are represented. St. Cormac of Cashel was a king as well as a bishop. Adamnan was eighth in descent from the immortal Niall himself. Fintan could make a similar though not quite so strong a claim. St. Columcille, had royal blood in his veins. On the other hand, St. Dichu, Patrick's first convert, was originally a swineherd. Tassach, who gave St. Patrick the Last Sacraments, had been a sort of smith or mechanic. Padraic Pearse wrote of these schools: It seems to me that there has been nothing nobler in the history of education than this development of the old Irish plan of fosterage under a Christian rule, when to the pagan ideals of strength and truth there were added the Christian ideals of love and humility. And this, remember, was not the education system of an aristocracy, but the education system of a people. It was more democratic than any educational system in the world today. At Clonard Kieran, the son of a carpenter, sat in the same class as Columcille, son of a king. To Clonard or to Aran or to Clonmacnoise went every man, rich or poor, prince or peasant, who wanted to sit at Finian's or at Enda's or at Kieran's feet and to learn of his wisdom. Most of the monasteries and convents had a bard attached to the community, and St. Brigit used to make him play and sing whenever her nuns showed signs of depression. Not infrequently these monastic singers and players were to be found amongst the members of the community. St. Colman of Cloyne was a bard before becoming a monk, and the oldest bardic composition extant is the Psalter of Cashel which was compiled by Cormac MacCullenan, bishop of Cashel and king of Munster. As for Columcille, he was the Troubadour of Ireland, who made music and poetry an integral part of religion. The plain historical fact is that the monastic enclosures of these detached ascetics became the sanctuaries of cultivation at a time when it stood in desperate need of an asylum in which to recuperate its failing energies. It was by means of their culture that the spiritual susceptibilities of the ancient Greeks were prepared for the reception of the Gospel. The same may be said of Ireland, whose accomplishments earned for her the title of the Christian Greece. When all seemed lost, salvation was imminent; and it came chiefly through the monasteries, and first of all through the Irish monasteries. When

13 the walls of the Eternal City were being breached by the battering rams of the barbarians, either destroying culture or bringing it to a standstill, the Muses sought and found an asylum in Ireland. These teachers left a lasting impression on their own and succeeding generations. Not only were they the chief professors of grammar, poetry, astronomy, music and geography, when these branches had no other, or scarcely any representatives elsewhere, but also they profoundly influenced the course of thought in matters of philosophy and theology. Of course, the two oldest of Europes universities, Paris and Pavia, may almost be said to have been founded by Irishmen. As Christopher Dawson says: "If the culture of the Dark Ages was a culture of schoolmasters, they were the schoolmasters of Europe." The work accomplished was educational rather than literary, the transmission of the classic and patristic literature to the new peoples. Ireland is the outstanding instance of this work. Before her conversion she possessed a very vigorous native culture, a vernacular culture which she did not lose in her contact with Latin Christianity. Moreover the Irish missionaries started the ball of vernacular culture rolling elsewhere-in Northern England and in Germany. The monks were among the first people to start researching and writing a history of Ireland. The suddenness and vigour with which monasticism took root in the newlyconverted island is usually traced in some part to the clan system. Irish society had been organised on a tribal basis under paganism, and it remained so organised for more than ten centuries after the country had been Christianised. Very wisely, the first missionaries exploited this organisation for their purposes, addressing themselves first of all to the head of the clan, and through him getting at the people. Usually, when a chief was converted, he set aside part of his territory as a monastic enclosure which was recruited from the clan. These new monks found themselves living under much the same social condition, the abbot being the chieftain to whom they swore obedience and allegiance. When later new communities branched off from the mother house, they were grouped under the name of the original founder in a free federal union identical with that of the clan system. The monasteries in Ireland advanced a rational and reasoned approach to understanding the Bible that had previously been lacking. There are some things that might have raised a flutter in continental circles, for the Irish were still using biblical apocrypha and pseudepigrapha long since lost or forgotten in the rest of Europe. They had a deep love for St. Johns gospel considered to

14 be the mystical gospel and containing the highest teachings of Christ. As unconcerned about orthodoxy of thought as they were about uniformity of monastic practice, they brought into their libraries everything they could lay their hands on. They were resolved to shut out nothing. Not for them the scruples of Saint Jerome, who feared he might burn in hell for reading Cicero. Once they had learned to read the Gospels and the other books of the Holy Bible, the lives of the martyrs and ascetics, and the sermons and commentaries of the fathers of the church, they began to devour all of the old Greek and Latin pagan literature that came their way. These monks respected the classics, especially Virgil. The writings of St. Columban are enlightened by classical quotations and allusions. He seems to have been particularly fond of the poems of Sappho. In their unrestrained catholicity, they shocked conventional churchmen, who had been trained to value Christian literature principally and give a wide berth to the dubious morality of the pagan classics.

It was not that the Irish were uncritical, just that they saw no value in selfimposed censorship. To John T. McNeill, the church historian, it was precisely "the breadth and richness of Irish monastic learning, derived from the classical ... authors" that was about to give Ireland its "unique role in the history of Western culture." Though these early Irish literates were intensely interested in the worlds opened up to them by the three sacred languages of Greek, Latin, and-in a rudimentary form-Hebrew, they also loved their own tongue too much ever to stop using it. Whereas elsewhere in Europe, no educated man would be caught dead speaking a vernacular, the Irish were very happy to do so. The Irish in the sixth century were in a position unique in the history of western Europe: their conversion to Christianity had forced upon them the necessity for learning a foreign language with which they were not in frequent contact'." Unlike their continental counterparts, who at least spoke Vulgar Latin as their everyday language, the Irish were confronted with an entirely new language: 'an Italian or Spaniard who had studied no grammar would write bad Latin; an Irishman without grammar could write no Latin at all'. A knowledge of Latin was essential for the understanding of church liturgy and ritual, for reading and interpreting the Scriptures, as well as for the dayto-day business of ecclesiastical administration in a church which saw itself as part of the international community of western Christendom. But with the

15 exception of the occasional British clerics they might come into contact with, the Irish had no regular exposure to spoken or written Latin; they had to start from scratch. In these circumstances the only available source of information about Latin grammar was in books. There was no such thing as a latin grammer (so far as we know) at the beginning of the sixth century. By the end of that century, however, a new kind of Latin grammar, the elementary grammar designed specifically for beginners with no previous knowledge of Latin, had come into being, and the credit for producing it is due in large part to the Irish. The monks of the time were recognised as some of the best people at writing and speaking Latin. They developed a set of new graphic conventions designed to make it easier for non-Latin-speakers to read manuscripts written in that language. This 'grammar of legibility', as it has been called led them to introduce for the first time word-separation, capitalization of initial letters, and punctuation, together with a system of signs which they used to indicate the grammatical relationship of the words in Latin. Latin literature would almost surely have been lost without the Irish and illiterate Europe would hardly have developed its great national literature without the example of the Irish who, as said before, were the first to write down their literatures in their native tongue. Beyond that, in the West, there would have most likely perished not only literacy but perhaps all the habits of mind that encourage thought. And when Islam began its medieval expansion, it would have encountered scant resistance to its plans just scattered tribes of animists, ready for a new identity. The title of the book How Ireland saved civilisation may, in fact be not too off the mark.

The only alphabet the Irish had ever known was prehistoric Ogham, a cumbersome set of lines based on the Roman alphabet, which they incised laboriously into the corners of standing stones to turn them into memorials. These rune-like inscriptions, which continued to appear in the early years of the Christian period, hardly suggested what would happen next, for within a generation the Irish had mastered Latin and even Greek and, as best they could, were picking up some Hebrew. As has been said, they devised Irish grammars, and copied out the whole of their native oral literature. In terms of writing, the Irish combined the stately letters of the Greek and Roman alphabets with the talismanic, spellbinding simplicity of Ogham to produce initial capitals and headings that rivet one's eyes to the page and

16 hold the reader in awe. Although the art of illumination was foreign to Ireland, they brought it to as high a degree of perfection as it attained anywhere. As late as the twelfth century, Geraldus Cambrensis was forced to conclude that the Book of Kells was "the work of an angel, not of a man." Even today, Nicolete Gray in A History of Lettering can say of its great "ChiRho" page that the three Greek characters-the monogram of Christ-are "more presences than letters. This sense of balance in imbalance, of riotous complexity moving swiftly within a basic unity, found its most extravagant expression in Irish Christian art-in the monumental high crosses, in miraculous liturgical vessels such as the Ardagh Chalice, and, most delicately of all, in the art of the Irish codex. Astonishingly decorated Irish manuscripts of the early medieval period are today the great jewels of libraries in England, France, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Italy, and even Russia. THE MONASTIC RULES The practice of penance was one of the most definite contributions which the puzzling spectacle of Irish monasticism brought to the Church and to Christianity. In order to fix the customs, the leaders of the Irish Church had special treatises drawn up, regular catalogues of sins and faults and the necessary acts of expiation, the famous Penitentials, which have always been proverbial for their severity. It is certainly true that the penances laid down were heavy and bear no relation to the ten Hail Marys with which the confessors of our day are satisfied! For being drunk once the penalty was a forty days' fast on bread and water, and one lustful look at a pretty woman had to be paid for in the same way! For the monastic rules of the period which follows let us turn to that of Luxeuil, which owes its direct inspiration, under the guidance of Saint Columbanus, to the Rule of Bangor. The latter, which has disappeared, seems to have been a synthesis of the best Irish Regulae of the sixth century. It is dominated by the three fundamental requirements of prayer, manual labour and study, with the addition of fasting and various ascetic practices. The aim of the Rule is to support souls who are seeking after perfection; the idea underlying it all the time is that self-denial is the most certain road to sanctity. Herewith are three examples from the Rule of Luxeuil. 1) the food be frugal and taken in the evening; it should never lead to overeating or the drink to inebriation; the object is to restore one's strength, not to make oneself ill.

17 2) The perfect monk should live in the monastery, under the rule of one Father, in the company of numerous brothers, so that he may learn his examples of humility or of patience from others, of silence from one, of gentleness from another; he should never follow his own will; he should eat what is set before him and not withhold for himself that which is entrusted to his care; he should complete his tasks with exactness; he should be subject to one whom he has not chosen; by the hour of rest he should be dropping with fatigue; at the hour of waking he should still have the desire to sleep, rather than be driven from his bed by excessive slumber; he should bear in silence any injuries he receives; he should respect the superior of the monastery as his master and love him as a father, and should have confidence in him that he has good reasons for the orders which he gives; he should never permit himself to pass judgement on the commands of his superiors; his duty is to obey, to do that which is right. 3) He who, when he has received the blessing, has not made the sign of the cross, and has not turned towards the cross, shall be punished with twelve strokes. In the same way, he who has forgotten to pray before or after work, deserves to receive twelve strokes. He, who eats without asking a blessing, shall receive twelve strokes. He, who, at the beginning of the psalm, does not adequately control his cough, deserves to receive six strokes. In the same way, he who touches the Chalice of salvation with his teeth, shall have six strokes. He, who does not respect the order of the Sacrifice as it should be followed, shall receive six strokes. The priest who has not clipped his nails properly before celebrating, and the deacon who is not well shaved, shall receive six strokes. He who replies to a remark from one of his brothers 'this is not true' (except in the case of a senior monk saying it gently to one of the young men) shall be sentenced to silence or to fifty strokes. " THE PENITENTIALS Alongside the Rules strictly so called, the Penitentials came to have a recognized status, the famous Irish penitentials, which exerted an influence throughout the whole of Christendom, and also provoked violent reactions on the Continent, to the point of being met with strongly worded interdicts. The Councils of Chalon in 813 and of Paris in 829 formally condemned them. Professor Gabriel Le Bras concluded that with these writings "the Irish have contributed more than any other people in the Dark Ages to the progress of the moral conscience in the West."

18 The earliest of these penitentials is that of Finnian of Clonard, which takes us back to the first half of the sixth century. Closely connected with it are the directions attributed to two companions of the holy Abbot, Gildas and David. These three monks directly inspired the celebrated Regula Coenobialis, which was drawn up at Luxeuil by Saint Columbanus. This penitential, which is divided into two parts, is of the first importance, since he it was who introduced the Irish penitential customs to the Continent, where penalties for fairly serious offences were concerned. Below are a translation of extracts from various penitentials. "35. If a layman is converted to the Lord from evil deeds, and if he has formerly committed some grave sin, such as fornication or murder, he shall do penance for three years and shall travel without arms, though he may carry a stick in his hand; and he may not live with his wife. Only during the first year must he live on bread and water, but he may not live with his wife. After three years' penance, he must give some money for the redemption of his soul, placing the price of his repentance in the hands of the priest, and he shall give a feast for the servants of God on the day when his penance ends. He shall then receive Holy Communion and may resume relations with his wife. "47. If a child dies without Baptism, owing to negligence, great is the guilt of those who have caused the loss of its soul. Expiation by penance is possible, however, for there is no guilt which penance cannot expiate. The parents must do penance for a whole year on bread and water, and may not sleep in the same bed. " From the Penitential of Columbanus , we have: "12. Gossips shall be sentenced to silence, disturbers of the peace to gentle behaviour, gluttons to fasting, sluggards to keeping vigil, the proud to imprisonment, the unjust to banishment: all as they deserve, in proportion to their offences, so that they may make good and live once again in the right way. "31. If a layman steals an ox, a horse, a sheep, or any other animal: should this offence have been committed once or twice, he must compensate his neighbour for the loss he has undergone, and do penance for three periods of forty days on bread and water. If, however, he has been guilty of more frequent thefts, and is not in a position to make restitution, he must do penance for a year and three periods of forty days, and then promise to steal no more. He will then be able to receive Holy Communion once in two years;

19 he must give alms to the poor, and give an offering to the priest who acts as judge in his case; he will then be given absolution. "32. If a layman has committed perjury: if he has acted out of covetousness, he must sell all his property, distribute the money among the poor, offer himself to God, receive the tonsure, and serve God in a monastery for the rest of his life. If he has not acted out of covetousness, but under the threat of death, he must go into exile for three years and live on bread and water; for the next two years he must abstain from meat and wine; then, for two further years (when he may eat anything except meat), he must set a soul at liberty in payment for his own, that is to say he must free a male or female slave, and at the same time distribute alms. At the end of seven years he may receive Holy Communion.

5) THE WANDERING SCHOLARS Irish spirituality spread throughout Western Europe. This happened because, instead of remaining confined within their enclosures of bare stones, the Celtic monks were from the start, and throughout the centuries, great travellers, the most astonishing wanderers for Christ. "The monasteries", says Georges Goyau, "were mission stations. Scarcely were men baptized than they wished to become monks, and this was in order to preach, to bring in more candidates for Baptism, to raise up more monks." This was certainly a feature of the Irish character, a people in whom one cannot fail to see a wandering tendency but with whom the spirit of the apostolate was also very strong. For six centuries these Irish monks can be seen engaged in endless adventures, setting up their crosses everywhere, first in the islands near their own, then moving further and further from their bases, always tireless, always fearless, real heroes of legend, bearing a likeness to the prophets of Israel and to Saint John the Baptist, whose dress they wore. From the fifth century to the ninth, Celtic monks travelled to seek in the unknown after solitude for their prayer. On Achill and the Arans, on the Great Skellig of St. Michael and the Great Blasket, on countless islands and lonely rocks off Ireland's western coast; on the Hebrides and the Orkney Isles of northern Scotland; on the English islets of the Bristol Channel, Steepholm and Flatholm; off England's northern shores, on the Farnes and on the Isle of Man; on tiny islands in the English Lakes; on islets near the coast of Wales, they made hermit homes, their cells with rounded roofs, like old-fashioned beehives, their distant communities. As late as the ninth century, when Irish

20 wandering saints were turning into Irish wandering scholars and the ascetic life of solitude was giving way to resounding debate and controversy on matters of doctrine and of grammar, we find three Irishmen drifting over the sea from Ireland for seven days in a boat without any oars ( so that they could not direct its course but surrendered to the will of God), its framework made secure by hides tightly drawn, coming to shore in British Cornwall and going thence to King Alfred of Wessex, to tell him that" we stole away because we wanted for the love of God to be on pilgrimage, we cared not where." For the Celtic peoples the primary impulse, the depth of the spirit of wandering is reached in the word peregrinatio. To become a peregrinus, a stranger and an exile, was " for the love of Christ" to leave one's home, to strip oneself of family and possessions, to root out from heart and mind all one's own aims and desires, and - for a Celt the uttermost self-denial-to forsake one's native land for some lonely, far remote spot, there to abide with no thought of return, with no plan, not even a plan of mission of penance or of pilgrimage. It was to hear in one's own ears the words spoken by the Lord to Abraham: "Go forth from thy land and thy kin and thy father's house into a land which I shall show thee of." Nothing must stay the adventurer; not even his entire ignorance of the time or place at which his wandering was to end. Such wandering into exile was, it was said, born in the Irish spirit so common was it among their men of sterner discipline. The Irish had never known the constraint of Roman governors and their officials and cohorts; the Celtic British developed their monastic life in its fullness amid their mountains, valleys, and moors in Wales and Cornwall, after the Romans had abandoned Britain. The monk trained in Roman ways of order and government, in Italy, in Gaul, might well attain what he sought for his life in a community disciplined by a common rule. The Celt dedicated to religion felt himself, instead, an individual free to wander. And not only was he free. He was inspired by the voice of God Himself, bidding him to travel from place to place, over earth and sea, pursuing new knowledge, new love of things spiritual. Release from the world; solitude for the following of the ways of prayer; a lively seeking after knowledge; a passion for sacrifice and selfdenial; a driving concern for the souls of their fellow-men-these were the marks of early medieval saints. For these ends they wandered wherever their time called them. Heiric of Auxerre exclaimed in 870, Almost all Ireland, despising the sea, is migrating to our shores with a herd of philosophers." Decade after decade the stream of learned immigrants continued, bringing with them "divine and human wisdom." "White martyrdom" was when a man for God's sake parted from everything he loved, and suffered and fasted thereby. Thus came into

21 being the consuetudo peregrinandi. The kings and chieftains of Europe loved these peregrini; they were as welcome at court as at church or in the monastery. Their habits of thought in science, music, literature, as well as theology, were to have far-reaching and profound effects. Alcuin and John Scotus Erigena are only the brightest of these lights and the lesser lights were probably equally effective in the immediate transformation of European culture. "If anyone desires wisdom, we have it to sell," announced two peregrini arriving at the court of Charlemagne, who called them into his presence and inquired the price of their wisdom. The two's answer was "suitable places and ready students, and food and clothing without which our peregrination cannot continue." These two are described as "incomparably erudite both in secular matters and in Holy Scripture. Dicuil, an Irish scholar of this same ninth century, dwelling in France at the Court of Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, tells that he himself knew of anchorites who had made their way to the islands of northern Europe before the Vikings of Scandinavia descended upon these to plunder and to settle. These islands near the Arctic Ocean allowed them the solitude for which they longed. When at last the coming of the Vikings drove them out, Dicuil writes that" they left behind them books and bells and pastoral staffs, from which one could conclude that they were Irishmen." The Celtic heritage formed the Golden Age of Europe - monasteries, cathedrals, universities - upon whose riches we all still feed. The western empire was scarcely a memory now. The last Latin emperor had fallen just a few years after Patrick died all the great continental libraries had vanished. The first three public libraries had been established at Rome under the reign of Augustus, and by the time of Constantine there were twentyeight. By the end of the fourth century, if we are to believe one writer, Ammianus Marcellinus, who wrote "The libraries, like tombs, were closed forever". By the end of the fifth century, at any rate, the profession of copyist had pretty much disappeared, and what books were copied were copied personally by the last literate nobles for their own dwindling libraries. In the sixth century, Pope Gregory established a kind of library at Rome. His library was a poor one. Even so, the resentful, illiterate mob tried to destroy its few books during a famine, for by now the Catholic bishops had become like islands in a barbarian sea. In Italy and Gaul, some book trading continuedmuch of it with wandering Irish monks-and by century's end Isidore was building a real library in Seville, which consisted of about fifteen presses (or book cabinets), containing perhaps some four hundred bound codices, an amazing number for the time. The only other continental library known to us in this period was in Calabria at Cassiodorus's monkish estate, which he called

22 Vivarium, but the fate of this library is lost in the blood and smoke of the sixth century. Gregory of Tours wrote this sad epitaph on sixth-century literacy: "In these times when the practice of letters declines, no, rather perishes in the cities of Gaul, there has been found no scholar trained in ordered composition to present in prose or verse a picture of the things which have befallen." Ireland, at peace and furiously copying, thus stood in the position of becoming Europe's publisher. While Rome and its ancient empire faded from memory and a new, illiterate Europe rose on its ruins, a vibrant, literary culture was blooming in secret along its Celtic fringe. It needed only one step more to close the circle, which would reconnect Europe to its own past by way of scribal Ireland. St Columba or Columcille, perhaps the greatest of these or at least the best loved of these, provided that step. Columcille was born in 521, in Donegal, probably on December 7, a Thursday, for tradition holds Thursday to be the day of Columcille. His father was the local chieftain, his grandmother the daughter of King Ere, his mother the daughter of the ruling house of Leinster. Columbcille was thus of royal blood, and it is always said that he could have been King of Ireland. But he was great in other ways also; Patrick had prophesied his coming while baptizing a chieftain of his tribe: A manchild shall be born of his family, He will be a sage, a prophet, a poet, A loveable lamp, pure, clear. Who will not utter falsehood. He will be a sage, he will be pious, He will be King of the royal graces, He will be lasting, and will be ever good, He will be in the eternal Kingdom for his consolation. Just before he was born, his mother was visited by an angel bearing a beautiful coloured mantle; she took it from him, but the angel took it back, and it seemed to expand until it crossed and covered valleys, mountains and even seas. Columcille's mother was sad at losing such a gift, but the angel comforted her, saying she would have a son who would "blossom for heaven and lead innumerable souls into heaven's own country. " Though he could have been a king, maybe even high king, Columcille chose to become a monk. His real name, Crimthann, or Fox and he was probably redhaired. The name Columcille, or Dove of the Church, was his later monastic nickname. It was, in any case, romanized as Columba, the name under which he usually appears in accounts written outside Ireland.

23 After studying reading and writing with a local teacher, Columcille went to Finian of Clonard, one of the masters of Scripture and the saintly life at that time; thence to Gemman, Bard of Leinster, master of the ancient ways. Indeed, in his youth, Columcille was as much poet as monk. But then he travelled to Clonard on the Boyne where he was ordained. He journeyed as far as Gaul to visit the tomb of St. Martin of Tours. Returning to Ireland, he founded a monastery in 545, at Derry: prayer, fasting, charity, agriculture were the order of the day. But Columcille realized that the times required something more. He began to travel, preaching, healing, teaching and founding churches at Durrow, Kells and many other places- about three hundred are ascribed to him. And so he continued until his fortieth year took him across the sea to Scotland. Why exactly he went is unknown. One tradition is as follows: Columba was a great scribe and lover of sacred writing. Finian of Clonard, returning from Italy, brought with him a rare and beautiful book - perhaps a manuscript of Jerome - and kept it to himself. However, finally Columcille managed to obtain permission to read it - and not only read it, but surreptitiously made a copy. When Finian found out about this, he demanded the copy as his by right. But Columcille refused to comply. Thereupon, Diarmait, King of Meath, ruled: "To every cow her calf, to every book its copy." But Columcille still would not return the copy he had made and war broke out. The men of Ulster slew three thousand men of Meath at the Battle of Cooldrevny with the loss of one on their side.. But Columcille's victory had less pleasant consequences for him. For a time he was excommunicated, the customary punishment for a monk who takes up arms, and his penance was permanent exile from his beloved Ireland: he must now reach heaven by a voyage of no return, and in his exile he must save as many souls as perished in the battle he precipitated. Columcille set out with twelve doughty companions, sailing north beyond the horizon and finally reaching the island of Iona, off the west coast of the land we call Scotland - just far enough north so that (as Columcille insisted) there is never a view of Ireland. By stepping into the coracle that bore him beyond the horizon, he entered the Irish pantheon of heroes who had done immortal deeds against impossible odds. As he sailed off that morning, he was doing the hardest thing an Irishman could do, a much harder thing than giving up his life: he was leaving Ireland. All who followed Columcille's lead were called to the White Martyrdom, they who sailed into the white sky of morning, into the unknown, never to return.

24 Columcille arrived on Iona on the eve of Whitsun in 563 with his twelve companions. His first act on landing was to climb to high ground to make sure that Ireland was no longer visible. Seeing that it was not, the monks then dug a deep tomb and buried their coracle. Upon this rock Columcille and the twelve built their monastery, church and guest - house, and set about cultivating the earth. The fame of the place grew, and soon Columcille's family contained upwards of 150 souls. These were of three ranks: the seniors, who transcribed, chiefly, and studied; the working brethren, who tilled the fields and took care of the animals; and the juniors, who were still on probation. There was no personal property, and humility and compassion were continuously exercised in both human and natural companionship. The most perfect story of Columcille, however, is the telling of his death. Columcille knew he was to die, and he knew when. And on the day that he was to die, he told the brothers he was about to leave them, and then went out onto the road to return to the monastery, stopping to rest halfway back: And while the Saint, feeble with age, as I said before, sat down for a little' while and rested in that place, behold! there comes up to him the white horse, that faithful servant, mark you, that used to carry the milk-pails between the cow-pasture and the monastery. This creature then coming up to the Saint, wonderful to say, putting its head in his bosom, as I believe under the inspiration of God, in Whose sight every animal is endowed with a sense of things, because the Creator Himself hath so ordered it; knowing that his master would soon depart from him, and that he would see his face no more, began to utter plaintive moans, and, as if a man, to shed tears in abundance into the Saint's lap, and so to weep, frothing greatly. Which when the attendant saw, he began to drive away that weeping mourner; but the Saint forbad him, saying, "Let him alone! As he loves me so, let him alone; that into this my bosom he may pour out the tears of his most bitter lamentation. Behold! thou, even seeing that thou art a man, and hast a rational soul, couldest in no way know anything about my departure, except what I myself have lately shown to thee; but to this brute animal, destitute of reason, in what way so ever the Maker Himself hath willed, He hath revealed that his master is about to go away from him." And, so saying, he blessed his sorrowing servant the horse, then turning about to go away from him. Columcille then went and blessed the Island; blessed the granary; blessed the animals, blessed the monks and passed away, by the altar: Then, in the next place, in the middle of the night, at the sound of the ringing of the bell, he rises in haste and goes to the church; and, running more quickly than the rest, he enters alone, and on bended knees falls down in

25 prayer beside the altar. Diarmit his attendant, following more slowly, at the same moment sees from a distance that the whole church is filled within, in the direction of the Saint, with angelic light. But when he approaches the door, the same light that he has seen, which was also seen by a few other of the brethren, as they were standing at a distance, quickly disappeared. So Diarmit, entering the church keeps on asking, in a lamentable voice, "Where art thou, father?" And feeling his way through the darkness, the lights of the brethren not yet being brought in, he finds the Saint prostrate before the altar; and, lifting him up a little and sitting beside him, he placed the holy head in his bosom. And meanwhile, the congregation of monks running up with the lights, and seeing their father dying, began to weep. And, as we have learnt from some who were there present, the Saint, his soul not yet departing, with his eyes opened upward, looked about on either hand with a wonderful cheerfulness and joy of countenance; doubtless seeing the holy angels coming to meet him. Then Diarmit lifts up the holy right hand of the Saint so that he may bless the choir of monks. But also the venerable man himself, so far as he could, at the same time moved his hand, so that, mark you, he might still be seen, while passing away, to bless the brethren by the motion of his hand, though he was not able to do so with his voice. And, after his holy benediction thus expressed, he immediately breathed out his spirit. Which having left the tabernacle of the body, his face remained ruddy, and wonderfully gladdened by an angelic vision; so that it appeared not to be of one dead, but of one living and sleeping. Meanwhile, the whole church resounded with mournful lamentations. In the way of Columcille, the Irish monastic tradition began to spread beyond Ireland. Already, the Irish monasteries had hosted many thousands of foreign students, who were bringing back Irish learning to their places of origin. Now, Irish monks would themselves colonize barbarized Europe, bringing their learning with them. Scotland, their first outpost, was peopled by indigenous Picts and Irish colonists who had already established themselves in Patrick's time. Never interested in impressive edifices, Irish monks preferred to spend their time in study, prayer, farming - and, of course, copying. So the basic plan of the Iona monastery was quickly executed: a little hut for each monk; an abbot's hut, somewhat larger and on higher ground; a refectory and kitchen; a scriptorium and library; a smithy, a kiln, a mill, and a couple of barns; a modest church-and they were in business. Soon they found they needed one more building, the surprising addition of a guesthouse, for the never-ending stream of visitors had begun - Scots, Picts, Irish, Britons, even Anglo-Saxons-attracted by the reputation of the larger-than-life abbot of lona.

26 They began to pour into this remote island, and many of them never went home again. From here Columcille himself effected the conversion of the Picts and had his famous contests with the Druids. Among the rugged Scots and the scary Picts, especially, Columcille's reputation spread like wildfire. There were one hundred and fifty monks in the Iona community, and after they had exceeded that, twelve and one monks would set off to establish another foundation in a new setting. Fresh applicants kept arriving in droves. Typical among these was Cormac, who was the first to bring the Gospel to the wild people of the Orkneys. Later, in the eighth century, other monks from Iona, according to Dicuil, reached the Shetlands or even the Faroe islands. Finally, we are told by the same geographer, there were once again monks from Ireland who discovered Iceland about the year 795, some three-quarters of a century before the date claimed by the Scandinavians for its discovery. Whatever the true facts may be, the presence of Irishmen in Iceland is confirmed by Icelandic documents. Meanwhile the victorious pagan princes had brought ruin to Christianity in England. From the time of their arrival, Oswald, who was in exile with the Scots and had been baptized by the monks of Iona, had set his heart on restoring Christianity in his states. When he was finally able to return to Northumbria, therefore, his first act was to send to lona for a bishop. Corman came first, but he was too hard; so Aidan, an Irishman, went, a gentle, beautiful figure, who was immediately consecrated Bishop. Dom Gougaud says of Aidan's monastery that it "was the most powerful centre of religious influence in England." When Aidan died in 651 another Irishman, Finan, succeeded him. Aidan in a way is the last pure Celt: his successors were already part of the Roman-European venture. On the day of his death a young boy herding sheep on a lonely hillside had a vision of a great stream of light breaking through the sky, and a choir of angels descending and gathering up a soul of exquisite brightness. The boy was Cuthbert. Cuthbert, in fact, was the first Roman Bishop of Lindisfarne, presiding over the monastery in the period of adjustment following the Synod of Whitby. Though he took little part in ecclesiastical disputes, his position seems to have been that the unity of the Church was primary. St Augustine of Canterbury, the missionary from Rome, landed the year Columcille died, AD 597. By 664 and the Synod of Whitby, the Celtic Church as a visible entity was over. But this is not to say that its work was done.

27 The Irish monks launched a spiritual invasion of England from their island monastery of Lindisfarne in the northeast corner of Northumbria, establishing new monasteries in brisk succession. On account of this activity, Aidan, Columcille's beloved disciple and first abbot of Lindisfame, has far better claim than Augustine of Canterbury to the title Apostle of England, for, as the Scottish historian James Bulloch has remarked, "All England north of the Thames was indebted to the Celtic mission for its conversion." Lindisfarne in its turn sent its monks across England. The monasteries of Coldingham, Mailros, Lastingham, Ripon, Whitby and Saint-Bees in Northumbria, Burgh Castle in East Anglia, Basham, founded by Dicul, in Sussex, Malmesbury, founded by Maeldub, and Glastonbury "of the Gaels" in Wessex, are usually placed to its credit. The Irish monks were on good terms with the British Celts and began to set up bases in the western territories as well. After Scotland and England, monks from Ireland began to set off in every direction, bent on glorious and heroic exile for the sake of Christ. They were warrior-monks, of course, and certainly not afraid of whatever adversities they might meet. Where did they go? Better to ask where did they not go? Some went north, like Columcille. Others went northwest, like Brendan the Navigator, visiting Iceland, Greenland, and North America, and, as it is asaid in legend, supping on the back of a whale in mid-ocean. St. Brendan of course went here, there and everywhere. Fordun, the chronicler, says that the Island of Bute derives its name from the old Gaelic word for a cell, the cell being the one erected by Brendan. At Eassie in Forfarshire there is a church dedicated to him. One of these amazing travelers was Columbanus (c. 543-615), twenty years or so the junior of Columcille, born in the province of Leinster about the year 543, and subsequently a monk at Bangor for twenty-five years. About 590 he departed, with the requisite twelve companions, for Gaul, where he founded in quick succession three forest monasteries among the barbarous SuevesAnnegray, Fontaines, and Luxeuil, one of the most important foundations of the early Middle Ages. Such astounding activity could only mean that Columbanus was having similar success to Columcille in attracting local talent. But before long he clashed with the region's bishops, who were upset by his presence. Still employing the old Roman episcopal pattern of living urbanely in capital cities and keeping close ties with those who wear crowns, the bishops tend their local flocks of literate and semiliterate officials, the ghostly remnants of the lost society. These churchmen never ventured beyond a few

28 well-tended streets into the rough-hewn mountain settlements of the simpler Sueves. To Columbanus, however, a man, who took no step to proclaim the Good News beyond the safety and comfort of his own elite circle, is a poor excuse for a bishop. In 603 the bishops summon the saint to appear before them in synod at Chalon-sur-Saone. Columbanus, who cannot be bothered to take part in such a travesty, sends a letter in his stead To the holy lords and fathers-or, better, brothers-in Christ, the bishops, priests, and remaining orders of holy church, I, Columba the sinner, send greeting in Christ I give thanks to my God that for my sake so many holy men have gathered together to treat of the truth of faith and good works, and, as befits such, to judge of the matters under dispute with a just judgment, through senses sharpened to the discernment of good and evil. Would that you did so more often! The Irishman goes on to take the bishops to task for their worldly laxity and lack of industry and for trifling with his mission. He couches his criticisms in the language of deference ("if you are willing for us juniors to teach you fathers"), but there is no mistaking his meaning. He recommends his own way of life to their reverences ("if we all choose to be humble and poor for Christ's sake") and urges them, after "the Gospel saying," to become as little children: "For a child is humble, does not harbor the remembrance of injury, does not lust after a woman when he looks on her, does not keep one thing on his lips and another in his heart." It almost sounds as if the saint knows each bishop's secret sin-and means to reveal it to him. Columbanus and his Irish monks are forced to bid farewell to their thriving communities, now populated with local Germanic monks, and to travel under royal escort to Nantes, the port from which they will be put on board a ship bound for Ireland. On their way to Nantes, one of their number, the aged Deicola, finds that he cannot keep up. He drops behind and builds himself a hut in the wilderness at a place called Lure, which will become in time another historic monastery. When Columbanus's party is at last put on board the ship at Nantes, the ship sinks, and Columbanus and four companions escape. Now a double exile (from Burgundian Gaul as well as Ireland), Columbanus means to make his way to northern Italy to convert the Lombards. But while journeying over the Alps, he is forced to stop at Arbon, near Bregenz on Lake Constance, because Gall, his expert in Germanic languages, falls ill with fever and refuses to go farther. After a heated altercation, Columbanus leaves Gall behind, and with his remaining companions heads for the plain of Lombardy, where they will build at Bobbio the first Italo-Irish monastery. Vigorous Columbanus, now in his early

29 seventies, takes his part in the construction, happily carrying wooden beams on his shoulders. At Columbanuss death in 615 he left behind a considerable body of workletters and sermons, notable for their playful imitation of such classical writers as Sappho, Virgil, Ovid, Juvenal, Martial, and even Ausonius; instructions for the brethren; poems and lyrics, including a jolly boat song; and the even larger legacy of his continental monasteries, busily engaged in reintroducing classical learning to.the European mainland. At this great distance in time, we can no longer be sure exactly how many monasteries were founded in Columbanus's name during his lifetime and after his death. If we may believe Jonas, the biographer of Saint Columbanus, no less than 620 missionaries must have left Luxeuil, in Germany, to concentrate on Bavaria alone! They naturally would not all have been Irish, but a large number of them must have been. At least, two hundred abbeys owed their existence to his labours, and we cannot tell how many souls were brought to Christ. In France alone, more than two hundred places of worship, mountains and local populations bear the name of the great Irishman. And how many more throughout Western Europe! One monastery on which we have some information is that of Saint Gall in the Alps, founded by the monk Columbanus had quarreled with and' who went on to become the central figure in the founding of the Swiss church. Finding himself, after Columbanus's departure, alone among wolves, bears, and illiterate Alemans, Gall, a more patient man than Columbanus, went about visiting his neighbors, instructing them in faith and letters. We possess only one work from his hand, a sermon of such honesty, simplicity, and generosity that we can still grasp what touched the Germans. In 615, as Columbanus lay dying, there came a knock on Gall's door: brethren from Bobbio had arrived with Columbanus's abbatial staff, Columbanus's apology and implicit acknowledgment that Gall was the greatest of all his spiritual sons. In 616, Gall, whose labors were becoming well known, refused the offer to become bishop of Constance and in 627 the invitation to return to flourishing Luxeuil as its abbot. Thinking no doubt of his Irish home, the scribe also writes down this sentence from Horace: "Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare current" ("They change their sky but not their soul who cross the ocean"). A good maxim for all exiles and, in this context, a reminder of the constancy of the Irish personality. On the Continent there were scores of Irish settlements reaching from Cologne in Germany to Taranto in the south of Italy. The White Martyrs, fanned out cheerfully across Europe, founding monasteries that would

30 become in time the cities of Lumieges, Auxerre, Laon, Luxeuil, Liege, Trier, Wiirzburg, Regensburg, Rheinau, Reichenau, Salzburg, Vienna, Saint Gall, Bobbio, Fiesole, and Lucca, to name but a few. "The weight of the Irish influence on the continent," admits James Westfall Thompson, "is incalculable." According to St. Bernard's testimony, given six centuries later, St. Luan, the Irishman, a contemporary of St. Colomcille, lived to establish no fewer than one hundred monasteries in Scotland. Saint Fursa the Visionary went from Ireland to East Anglia, then to Lagny, just east of Paris, then to Peronne, which would be known in time as Peronna Scottorum, Peronne of the Irish and City of Fursey. Virgil the Geometer, an Irish satirist, became archbishop of Salzburg. Saint Cathal (or Cahill, to use the modern spelling), widely venerated to this day in southern Italy as San Cataldo, was surprised on his way back from pilgrimage in the Holy Land to find himself elected bishop of Taranto, a city on the arch of Italy's boot. Brittany received numbers of them and at their behest was converted. So, also, did the Champagne of Saint Tresain, the Poitou of Saint Fridolin, the Ile de France of Saint Fursy, the Brie of Saint Fiacre, the Picardy of Saint Algis and Saint Gobain. But they went further yet, Saint Fridolin set out for Baden, Saint Killian for Thuringia, Saint Foillan for Belgium, Saint Donat for Tuscany, St. Sunnifa, daughter of a 10th century Irish king, for Norway, while Saint Cathaldus (Cathal) from Lismore went as far as Taranto.

St. Findan went to Rome, returning, stopped at Schaffhausen on the Rhine and tarried there for twenty-seven years until his death in 878. St. Gunifort got as far as Pavia, St. Fiacre as far as Meaux, St. Kilian as far as Arras; while it is said of St. Cathal that his effigy was painted on one of the pillars of the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem. If St. Begh did not actually make her way to Norway, her cult reached that country alright. There and elsewhere she was famed in folk-lore for her charity to the poor St. Briach was born in Ireland, was a monk in Wales, built a monastery in Brittany and died at Bourbiac. St. Colman met his death near Vienna and is venerated yet as one of the martyr patrons of Austria. The memory of St. Erentrude is still cherished at Salsburg, that of St. Erkemloden at St. Orner, and that of St. Fintan on the island in the Rhine which he sanctified with his presence. St. Malachy died at Clairvaux; and the village of Ecclefechan, where Thomas Carlyle was born, derives its name from the Irish abbot St. Fechin. Boys in Scotland are still christened Angus, thanks to St. Aengus, and Adam, thanks to St. Adamnan.

31 Of Italy, Fra Tomassini writes that, even in remote and obscure villages, traditions and legends of the Irish Saints still linger. No fewer than thirty-four parishes in that country are dedicated to St. Columbanus. Women exiles went forth as well; and though we know even less about them than we know about the men, the continental churches dedicated to Brigid in France, Germany, Austria, and Italy offer some evidence of their presence. More than half of all our biblical commentaries between 650 and 850 were written by Irishmen. Before the end of the eighth century, the exiles had reached Modra in Moravia ( in the Czech Republic), where an old church has been dug up that looks just like the little church at Glendalough; and there are traces of the White Martyrs as far as Kiev. But an adequate list of missionaries and their foundations would fill another chapter. By the second half of the seventh century the Irish missionary impulse was at high tide, supplemented in its force by fresh waves of English missionaries, who in imitation of their elder brothers burst upon the Germanic lands whence their ancestors had once come. Wilfrid, the leader of the winning party at Whitby, turned his zeal on Frisia. Willibrord founded the monastery of Echternach in Luxembourg (whence the Echternach Gospels, spectacular companion to the Lindisfarne Gospels, would spring), and he and Boniface established sees at Utrecht, Wiirzburg, Erfurt, Eichstadt, and Passau. Boniface founded the great abbey at Fulda, established other monasteries at Disbodenburg, Amoenaburg, Fritzlar, Buraburg, and Heidenheim, and restored the see of Mainz, of which Boniface became archbishop. By the middle of the eighth century most of Frisia, Saxony, Thuringia, Bavaria, and part of Denmark had received the Gospel. To many of these new foundations came the books of the insular scribes. Boniface and Alcuin (the Northumbrian monk at Charlemagne's court who in 782 took over direction of the Palatine School, which would one day turn into the University of Paris) could never find the books they needed on the continent and were always sending urgent requests to British foundations for basic works. In truth, the art of the scriptorium was virtually unknown in the indigenous monasteries of Italy and Gaul. Monastic manuscript art had traveled from the workshops of Syria and Egypt by way of Ireland and Britain and, at last, to the continent of Europe. But now, the depleted store of continental codices rose steadily. By the middle of the eighth century, Fulda, in Germany, for instance, was employing forty full-time scribes.

32 The Irish connections of these English monks were not incidental. Besides having profited substantially from the intellectual atmosphere that the Irish foundations had established in Britain, many had studied in Ireland (Willibrord had spent twelve years there) or were assisted in their labors by Irish monks (such as Kilian and his eleven companions, who evangelized Franconia and Thuringia). Alcuin's first master, Colgu, had been Irish, as was his best friend, Joseph, who accompanied him to France and died beside him; and he was succeeded at the court school by the Irish scholar Clement Scotus. Charlemagne, after his surprise coronation by the pope on Christmas Day 800 as Holy Roman Emperor, presided over medieval Europe's first Renaissance, a short-lived cultural flowering that barely outlasted his reign. His enduring influence lay in the gradual revival of literacy, for he repeatedly urged (and supported) the raising of standards in the few poor continental schools that remained. That he himself was an illiterate, who late in life laboriously learned to decipher some simple texts but could never get the hang of writing, is proof enough of the standards of the age. Without the previous (and continuing) influx of Irish codices, the Carolingian Renaissance would have been impossible. For this reason, as Charlemagne's biographer Einhard tells us, Charlemagne "amabat peregrines" ("loved the wandering monks").

6) CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CELTIC CHURCH The nature of the Irish is perhaps excellently epitomized by the spirits of Newgrange. There is no circle; there is only the spiral, the endlessly reconfigurable spiral. There are no straight lines, only curved ones. For the Romans there were only straight lines and circles. And so, by the seventh century a distinct form of Christianity had emerged. While there was much diversity within the universal church from its earliest days - differences rooted in racial, cultural, and historical developments which affected the leadership of the local churches and their understanding of Christianity-the early Celtic church was unique. The Celtic church was made up of a great variety of churches in such places as northern England, Cornwall, Wales, Scotland, Brittany, the Isle of Man, and of course, all of Ireland. Although these churches were never united administratively into one externally visible church, they experienced a large measure of unity among themselves through their monastic lifestyle,

33 friendship among the early saints, respect for women's gifts, and common spirituality. Renan admitted that in losing the monastic institution the world had lost a great school of originality. Certainly Irish monasticism was original in the fullest sense of the word. Columba, Kevin, Finnian, Aidan, Gall and Columban were all originals. Influenced greatly by the values of the Celtic pagan culture that preceded the arrival of Christianity on its shores, as well as the ideals of the early desert Christians who valued simplicity of life and the equality of all in the eyes of God, this Celtic church frequently found itself in conflict with other churches, including the church in Rome, over issues specifically related to church governance and sexuality. 1) Many of the other Western churches, adopting the social structures of the declining Roman Empire as their own, divided church territory into dioceses, headed by bishops who lived primarily in urban areas. The early Celtic church, however, was located more often in rural or remote areas and influenced by the tribal system of the pagan Celts. Monastic leaders who emerged at the great Celtic monasteries were eventually more powerful than the bishops who lived in their midst. 2) Education, pastoral care, and liturgical leadership were provided by the monks or religious women; in turn, lay people and their families helped the monasteries grow their crops, manage their farms, fish, plant trees, and keep their bees. All benefited from this mutual sharing of gifts, including those who only came for a short stay. It was largely owing to the example and precepts of the great national saints that hospitality came to be regarded throughout Ireland as one of the first of virtues. In all the monastic writings it is inculcated as a religious duty. One of the Brehon laws states that the reception of strangers is incumbent on 'every servant of the Church, and an old poem in one of the Irish manuscripts preserved at Brussels conveys a warning note to the churlish and the

34 inhospitable. "0 King of Stars! Whether my home be dark or bright, Never shall it be closed against anyone, Lest Christ close His home against me." As one of the earliest hagiographers, Cogitosus, writes about those who visited the monastery of St. Brigit at Kildare: "Who can list the chaotic crowds and countless folk who flock in from all the provinces: some for the abundance of food, others who are feeble seeking health, others just to look at the mobs, and still others who come with great gifts to the festival of Saint Brigit." 3) While other ecclesial bodies came to value large churches and basilicas for their communal liturgies, the Celtic churchs noble austerity was manifested even in their building activities-a particularly heroic exercise of restraint. The new-born monasteries of the Irish were of the greatest simplicity. Walls of withes or branches supported upon wooden props formed the chief element in their architecture; and, to serve the purpose alike of protection and of ornamentation, creepers were planted, particularly ivy. Celtic monastic construction in general disdained the use of stone, at any rate for a long time. Even when the membership in the monasteries increased, the Celtic Christians, wanting to maintain greater intimacy among their members, continued to build more numerous and smaller church dwellings rather than larger structures for worship e.g. Glendalough. 4) Also, as the continental churches grew increasingly more materialistic, dressing their bishops in fine vestments and having them ride on golden thrones, the Celtic church valued a more ascetic lifestyle. Inspired by the stories of the desert father St. Antony (251-356) and of the anchorite bishop of Tours, St. Martin (316-97), the Celtic church was characterized by intense missionary outreach, a pastoral ministry among the common people, and leaders who ate sparsely and spent long hours in prayer, sometimes immersed nightly in the ocean's frigid waters. The early Celtic monastic

35 bishops themselves, such as David of Wales and Aidan of Lindisfarne, dressed simply, clad in coarse robes in the manner of St. John the Babtist, usually carrying with them on their pastoral visits only a walking-stick and a bell, which, as they approached, would be rung loudly to alert the local people. 5) Differences between the churches related to sexuality arose. While the other Christian churches increasingly isolated women from positions of authority and relationships of friendship with males, the Celtic church, influenced by the pagan Celts' belief that women were equal to men and had similar legal rights, encouraged their leadership. Contrary to the prevailing dualistic tendencies found among desert Christians and the inhabitants of countries bordering the Mediterranean, the early founders of the Celtic church "did not reject," according to a ninth-century manuscript, Catalogue of the Saints in Ireland, "the service and society of women." Women were valued and not ignored, judging from one of the earliest Irish martyrologies, that of Gorman, which lists over two hundred female saints. Monastic communities, which arose in Ireland shortly after the death of Patrick in 461, were also headed by women. The oldest and best known of the monasteries of women recorded in Ireland are those of Brigit of Kildare, Moninne at Killeavy, and Ita at Killeedy. Many of these women leaders held powerful ecclesial positions in communities consisting of both women and men. These "double monasteries" were evidently a normal feature of the earliest monastic life in Ireland and England. The most well-known abbesses over these double monasteries were Brigit of Kildare, Ireland, and Hild of Whitby, Northumbria. (Hild, of Anglo-Saxon origins, received her religious formation from Aidan of Lindisfarne). The origins of these double monasteries of monks and nuns is unclear although Cogitosus, the seventh-century biographer of Brigit, describes the one at Kildare as a double monastery that must have originated at least one hundred years before he wrote. There the monks and nuns lived in separate quarters, but worshipped together in a common church in which the lay people joined them for liturgies. St. Moninna went first of all to submit herself to the spiritual direction of Saint Ibar at Wexford; several years later, however, followed by fifty nuns, she

36 left Leinster and established herself at Killeavy, near Newry, in the County Armagh. It was at the very time when Brigid had just founded Kildare; in the course of her journey Moninna visited her young imitator who was to become so famous. The story of Moninna does not come to an end there, because after Killeavy, where "the rule was strict," she is said to have founded at least six more monasteries in Ireland, seven in Scotland, and again others in Great Britain, notably at Calvechif near the Trent. 6) The power of the druids, who had lived and worshiped in sacred groves, had been easily handed over to the Green Martyrs, who also lived and worshiped in sacred groves. But the access of the new, literate druids (the monastic successors of the Green Martyrs) to the books of the Greco-Roman library - that is, to the whole of the classical sciences and the wisdom of the ancients - gradually created new centers of knowledge and wealth such as Ireland had never known. Christian Ireland, in particular, was the place where monastic schools flourished and where the original pagan Celtic legends and stories of the saints were first written down in the monastic scriptoria. We can see this respect for study and yearning for wisdom in the frequent references to books in the hagiographies of the early Celtic saints. We also find those characteristics in specific stories; for example, in Aidan's encouraging all those who travelled with him to study for some time each day, and in Columcille's spending so much time alone in his cell to study and write. Irish missionaries, like Columbanus (c. 543-615), brought this love of learning to France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, where they founded other great monastic schools that kept Celtic wisdom alive for generations after the deaths of the original saintly pioneers. 6) Respect for differences was written into the rule books of the Irish monasteries. And though the abbacy often passed from father to son, another irregularity that would have alarmed the Romans, the Irish balanced the aristocratic preoccupation with lineage by a refreshingly democratic principle: "A man is better than his descent," insists a law of this period, thus asserting the primacy of individual spirit over common blood. Perhaps nothing would have distressed the Romans as much as the way these monks shrugged off the great Roman virtue of Order. In an instruction to his brothers, Columbanus, whom we shall soon meet, affirmed the great Gospel

37 virtue over all else: Love has nothing to do with order". 7) The Celtic Church is especially remarkable for the austere form of its discipline. In those days monks everywhere claimed to be Christ's Standing Army - Milites Christi. Of these soldiers, the Irish were the Spartans par excellence. St. Kiaran of Clonmacnoise slept on the bare clay with a stone for his pillow. He would wear nothing soft next his skin, drank neither ale nor milk, and his daily bread was one-third sand - a kind of permanent war-time ration. The Rule of St. Columbanus required even the sick to thresh the corn, and no one was allowed to rest until he actually fell asleep from exhaustion. His followers were bound to an almost perpetual silence, to restrict themselves to one meal taken each evening and to confine their diet to pulse, meal, bread and water. This one meal a day seems to have been the common practice in the Irish monasteries, an exception being made in favour of the farm labourers. Of St. Columcille we are told that his weekly allowance collected on one plate was just about enough to make a square meal for a pauper. This was in his palmy days; towards the end his sole nourishment was nettle soup, a restriction which he imposed upon himself in consequence of his meeting with an old woman gathering the herb, who assured him that her poverty was such as to forbid her all other food. Burning with shame, he returned to tell his startled monks that they were living in luxury. St. Finnian added a chain around the body until it sank into the flesh. We do not know what sort of pillows St. Brigit favoured, but the metrical Life, written by St. Breccan Cloen remarks in passing that" she was not given to sleep." "Persuade the angels to go to sleep," was the reply of a monk to those who advised him to take just a little nap. Of St. Kevin the chronicle says that no man knew what he lived on for none had ever seen him eat, and he kept the secret to himself. St. Aengus made three hundred prostations daily and there was the custom of praying with arms wide outstretched. St. Kevin is supposed to have remained in this difficult posture for seven years without closing an eye, while the birds nested in his open palms-a legendary tit-bit which indicates the importance attached to this form of penance, the" Cross Figell." As for the practical side, here are a few items from the so-called Rule of St. Columcille:

38

"Forgiveness from the heart for everyone. Follow almsgiving before all things. Take not food till thou art hungry. Sleep not till thou hast to. Speak not except on business. Thy measure of prayer shall be until thy tears come. Thy measure of labour shall be until thy sweat comes. Three labours in the day-prayer, work, reading." It was to one of the greatest extremists amongst them, St. Dicuil, that Columbanus addressed the question: "What makes you be always smiling?" The answer was: "Because no one can take God from me." It is important to note that all this discipline within the Celtic Church was directed not to the detriment of nature, but rather to the healing of its wounds, to its perfecting. 8) The Irish are also distinctive in their liking for Pelagius, the 'reluctant heretic'. Pelagius, after all, was Morgan, a Welshman; he was the first English Christian to write a book, his Commentary on Romans; and the Irish always provided, as did the Orthodox east, something of a refuge for Pelagianism in its semi-Pelagian form. Best known for his views on predestination and original sin, Pelagius was the last of the great heresiarchs, doing battle in titanic struggle with Augustine, Jerome, and their followers. Jerome indeed appears to have thought that his arch-rival was Irish, and snorted that Pelagius was 'stuffed with Irish porridge'. But Pelagius's belief that children are born innocent without the stain of original sin; that baptism is consequently not necessary for salvation, but that man's inherent good nature and reason could lead him to God (so that even pagans might be saved) proved too much for St. Augustine of Hippo. With Pelagius finally succumbing to the combined blows of his opponents, his writings and doctrines were condemned in AD418, but his commentary on the Letters of St Paul was still widely read and highly regarded by Irish scholars, and in fact he retained his popularity in Irish schools from the seventh century to the

39 twelfth; this is striking evidence of the Irish ability to see the good and useful elements in a work which was doctrinally suspect. In addition,, there are some things that might have raised a flutter in continental circles, for the Irish were still using biblical apocrypha long since lost or forgotten in the rest of Europe. In many ways this Celtic spirituality has a great affinity with the spirituality of the Eastern Orthodox. Thus, the spirituality of the Christian Celts has great ecumenical value, for it transcends the differences which have divided Christians in the East and the West since before the Reformation. It also has special appeal for those today that are concerned about the ecological survival of our planet, the revitalization of the churches, and the quality of spiritual life. 9) Love of and respect for the physical environment. Their daily life was lived in close proximity to nature, and their spirituality reflected a sense of wonder and awe at the divine residing in everything. Their pagan ancestors had a deep respect for nature, regarding the earth as mother. Their spiritual leaders, the druids and druidesses, believed that the spiritual pervaded every aspect of life: in ancient trees and sacred groves, mountaintops and rock formations, rivers, streams, and holy wells. Influenced by that pagan spiritual heritage, Celtic Christians found it natural to address God as "Lord of the Elements," and to experience communion with God in their natural surroundings. In the stories of the saints, they are often found establishing their monasteries and oratories in places where the druids and druidesses had once taught and worshipped - in the midst of oak groves or near sacred springs, on the shores of secluded lakes, or on misty islands far out at sea. And in a little poem traditionally ascribed to a poet who died in 665 we have a picture of the ideal monastery as he conceived it: I wish, 0 Son of the living God, 0 ancient, eternal King, For a hidden little hut in the wilderness that it may be my dwelling. An all-grey lithe little lark to be by its side,

40 A clear pool to wash away sins through the grace of the Holy Spirit. A southern aspect for warmth, a little brook across its floor, A choice land with many gracious gifts such as be good for every plant A pleasant church and with the linen altar-cloth, a dwelling for God from Heaven; Then, shining candles above the pure white Scriptures This is the husbandry I would take, I would choose, and will not hide it: Fragrant leek, hens, salmon, trout, bees. Raiment and food enough for me from the King of fair fame, And I to be sitting for a while praying to God in every place.! For all the poetry that was in him, Columba loved still better the things that inspire poets. At Derry he rose up in wrath and forbade them to lay the axe to the roots of his precious oaks, on the plea, no doubt, that "A poem is made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree." Speaking alike of the legends and the authentic facts connected with St. Brendan, the Frenchman Renan declared in a fine outburst of admiration: "never has a gaze so gentle and tender been cast upon this earth of ours. All is lovely, pure and innocent." As for St. Patricks breast- plate: "I bind unto myself to-day The virtues of the star-lit heaven; The glorious sun's life-giving ray, The whiteness of the moon at even; This attitude of deep respect for the environment was also manifest in their quiet care for all living things. As we will see, the Celtic saints seem to have had a special affinity and reciprocal relationship with animals: Kevin shelters in his hands a blackbird which probably sang for him; Ciaran meets a wild boar that helps him clear land for his monastery; Animals are portrayed as

41 fellow creatures of the earth, and once befriended, they become helpers to the saints. Again, as said previously, Columcille's white horse sheds great tears at his master's approaching death. This white horse which had been employed to carry milk from the dairy to the monastery, came towards him and put its head upon his shoulder as if to take leave of him. The eyes of the old horse had an expression so pathetic that they seemed to be bathed in tears. Diarmid would have sent the animal away, but the good old man forbade him. "The horse loves me," he said, "leave him with me : let him weep for my departure. The Creator has revealed to this poor animal what He has hidden from thee, a reasonable man." Upon which, still caressing the faithful brute, he gave him a last blessing. Fra Tommassini remarks the similarity of the story of St. Gall's encounter with the bear to that of St. Francis and the wolf of Gubbio. The former had chosen a place of solitude in the forest and proceeded to pass the first night in prayer. Towards morning a bear descended from the mountain to collect the remains of the hermit's meal. Gall threw him a loaf, and on the strength of it entered into a compact with him. "Do you in Christ's name withdraw from the valley. As for the mountains, we shall share them in common, but on condition that you do no further harm to man or beast." So well was the compact observed that the bear fetched and carried all the wood needed for the winter's fire which, no doubt, explains the presence of this animal in pictures of the Saint. Tradition has it that St. Domnoc or Modomnoc, who died at Kilkenny, brought the bees from the East and over the sea to Ireland- his feast is kept on February 8th. His life, we are assured, was spent between the chapel and the garden, where he had care of the hives. This was in Wales. When he was ordered back to his own country, he blessed each hive and took leave of his charges with a heavy heart. When the boat was far out at sea, however, the sky suddenly became dark. The bees had followed and alighted on the boat. Three times the Saint returned to Wales and discharged the contraband

42 cargo; three times the bees got the better of him. At last the abbot, like a sensible man, told him to be off bees and all. And so they reached the Irish coast and lived happily together ever after. Never surely was the choice or selection more strange than that of St. Colman. His pets were a cock, a mouse, and a fly-the cock to waken him for matins, the mouse to bite his ear in case he over-slept, and the fly to settle on the line of the Psalter where he had left off and so serve as a book-marker. The three departed this life together it seems; and what does Colman do? He sits down, takes a sheet of paper - whether black-edged or no is not stated and writes to break the sorrowful news to St. Columba. At Iona the far-famed abbot receives the doleful tidings, and with good-humoured sarcasm pens a reply more or less to the effect that human nature is a mystery, since here is a man who renounced all the ties of this world breaking his heart over a cock, a mouse, and a fly.

10) Innate yearning to explore the unknown. As said before, in the Celtic Church there are three kinds of martyrdom which are counted as a cross to man, that is to say, white martyrdom, and green martyrdom, and red martyrdom. White martyrdom is when when he separates for the sake of God from everything he loves, although he suffer fasting or labour thereat. Green martyrdom is when by means of them (fasting and labour) he separates from his desires, or suffers toil in penance and repentance. Red martyrdom is when he endures the cross or destruction for Christ's sake, as has happened to the apostles in the persecution of the wicked and in teaching the law of God. Perhaps this wanderlust was due to the migratory nature of their pagan ancestors, who in the third century B.C.E. had been the dominant race of all of Europe; perhaps it was their living in such close proximity to the sea and the natural rhythm of its tides; perhaps their Christian spiritual heritage unconsciously inspired them with its own stories of of Abraham and Sarah's travel to a foreign land, of Moses' exodus out of Egypt, and of Peter's and Paul's missionary journeys. Whatever the reason, many of them shared the

43 desire to travel and, in contrast to the" red martyrdom" of giving one's life up for Christ or the" green martyrdom" of participating in severe penitential practices, they faced the "white martyrdom" of living far from home and hearth for the sake of the gospels. (The Celts had a specific word, hiraeth, for the extreme yearning for home associated with this latter form of martyrdom; because of their deep love of family, it was considered the hardest of all to endure.) Beginning with St. Patrick, Celtic missionaries (called peregrini) chose this way of life out of deep devotion to Christ, but also perhaps because of their own desire to see the holy places and meet people different than themselves. Whatever the reasons for their travel, the theme of pilgrimage is one of the key elements of the early saints' spirituality. For them, to make a journey for Christ brought - despite the hardships - unexpected blessings, increased intimacy with God, and the healing of body and soul.

11) Love of silence and of solitude. Considering the widespread travel of so many peregrini and the extensive pastoral work of all the Celtic saints, it is intriguing and somewhat paradoxical how much the early Christian Celts also valued solitary places and times of silence. An atmosphere of silence was encouraged within their monasteries and certain quiet times were strictly observed-as we find in the stories of David of Wales. It may be that they sought out places of solitude precisely because of their intense involvement with people. Many of the Celtic monasteries also had a place apart - a cell, retreat, or dysert-in which a monk or nun could retire when he or she needed to be alone. Sometimes the Celtic saints chose a cave for shelter and reflection, as did Columban and Ninian of Whitham (362-432). Others moved to a hill or mountaintop to fast and pray. Many, as is clear in the stories of Aidan, Columcille, and Cuthbert, seemed especially drawn to be near the ocean's waves. Whatever their reasons for treasuring silence and seeking the solitary life, the early Christian Celts shared what the scholar John Ryan calls a "surprising" combination of" apostolic and anchoretical ideals."

44 The Rule of Columban calls silence "the practice of justice," a curious definition which provides abundant food for thought. It adds, that this "practice of justice" must be preserved at every task and in every place, and it requires even the abbot, when he has to speak, to do it sparingly and without beating about the bush. "It seems to me," Carlyle lamented, "that the finest nations of the world are going all away into wind and tongue," through repudiation of that reticence which is "the eternal duty of man." Here is a quaint record found in the Silva Gadelica. Three penitents, it seems, resolved to dedicate themselves to this life of solitude. After one year of silence the first whispered to the other: "This is a good life we lead." However, it took Number Two twelve months to make up his mind to answer. "That is so," he whispered a year later. Another twelve months pass and this time the silence is broken by Number Three: "If I can't find peace here, I shall go back to the world." The distant places to which they had been first led by a love of solitude changed rapidly into rural colonies and served as centres of culture and civilisation. "To this day," says Dr. Healy, "the land about a monastic site is known to be the greenest and best in the district." Like many another town, Cork originated in the cells the monks built on piles in the marshes of the river Lee.

12) Understanding of time. The early saints appreciated time as a sacred reality blessed and already redeemed by God's overflowing compassion. This awareness of the sacred dimension to time is not the same as modern Western culture's frantic preoccupation in which" every minute counts." Rather, the Celts' perception was that there is a fullness now to all of time. With this perception of time as a gift from God, time in a chronological sense (with one historical event following another) was disregarded by the early Celts. For them, the present contains within itself both past events, which continue to live on, as well as the seeds of future events waiting to be born.

45

Without clear demarcations between past, present, and future, Celtic Christians interpreted history differently than we do. They made contemporaries of those who historically could never have been. In some of the early legends, for example, Brigit and Ita are portrayed as midwives to Mary, the mother of Jesus. As soul friends they help bring Jesus to birth and they nurse him. In certain stories Brigit and Patrick are described as intimate friends-when in fact they probably never met. (If the traditional dates of their lives are relied upon, Brigit would have been about six years old at the time of Patrick's death.) That did not matter to the early Christian Celts, for, from their point of view, people with the qualities and holiness of Patrick and Brigit would naturally be friends - even if they lived at different times in the chronological sequence of history. In many ways Celtic Christians saw the larger truths of myth and the lasting effects of relationships of love standing outside of time, having an eternal quality that certainly cannot be understood fully by considering chronological time alone. 13) Appreciation of ordinary life. The Celtic saints valued the daily, the routine, the ordinary. They believed God is found not so much at the end of time when the reign of God finally comes, but now, where the reign is already being lived by God's faithful people. Theirs was a spirituality characterized by gratitude, and in their stories we find them worshipping God in their daily work and very ordinary chores. Another quality, their joy, is apparent in the last words of David of Wales to his friends: "My brothers and sisters, be joyful, keep your faith and belief, and perform the small things which you have learned from me and have seen in me." 14) Belief in the great value of kinship relationships, especially the spiritual ties of soul friends. The pagan Celts in Ireland and throughout Europe valued their families and their tribal affiliations. They developed a fosterage system in which children

46 of one family were brought up by another family or tribe. They believed that such exchanges not only strengthened alliances but introduced each child to a wider world of learning. The pagan Celts' druids and druidesses also acted as teachers of the tribes and advisers to the kings. They functioned as mediators between the tribes and the spiritual realm: the world of tribal gods, goddesses, and spirits. These types of mentoring relationships survived when Christianity arrived. The hagiographies tell numerous stories about younger people being guided and educated by the Celtic saints at their monasteries or cells. As the story of Ciaran of Clonmacnois and his mentor Enda shows, each of the early saints seems to have had at least one personal mentor, a wiser, more experienced, sometimes older teacher, confessor, or spiritual guide. Holiness, not age, was a more important criterion of such a person. This soul friend was not necessarily male or ordained. Some of the greatest and most well-known of the soul friends in the early Celtic church were women, such as abbesses Ita, Brigit, Samthann, and Hild. Not only were these women teachers, administrators, guides, preachers, and confessors who, as in the stories of Ita, did not hesitate to give out penances, but at least two of them, according to early hagiographies, had in their possession religious articles traditionally associated with a bishop. Brigit, in Cogitosus's Life, receives a pallium (a bishop's mantle), and in a later hagiography, she is said to have been ordained; Samthann had a marvelous crozier (a bishop's staff), which was able to perform miracles. One of the greatest discoveries of the Christian Celts, according to scholar Nora Chadwick, is "the range and significance of individual experience, and the interest and the humor of little things, and how exciting and valuable it is to share them with one another." This, of course, is what many would equate with the value and joy of having a soul friend, a person with whom we can share the significant and often insignificant experiences of our lives and discover, often in the telling, that the seemingly insignificant events are really the most important of all, the times when and places where God speaks. 15) The Irish also developed a form of confession that was exclusively private and that had no equivalent on the continent.

47 In the ancient church, confession of one's sins - and the subsequent penance (such as appearing for years by the church door in sackcloth and ashes) - had always been public. Sin was thought to be a public matter, a crime against the church, which was the Mystical Body of Christ. Some sins were even considered unforgivable, and the forgivable ones could be forgiven only once. Penance was a once-in-a-lifetime sacrament: a second theft, a second adultery and you were "outside the church," irreversibly excommunicated, headed for damnation. By Patrick's day, a kind of private confession was not entirely unknown, but it was still linked to some form of public revelation and liturgical penance. The Irish innovation was to make all confession a completely private affair between penitent and soul mate-and to make it as repeatable as necessary. This adaptation did away with public humiliation out of tenderness for the sinner's feelings, and softened the unyielding penances of the patristic period so that the sinner would not lose heart. But it also emphasized the Irish sense that personal conscience took precedence over public opinion or church authority. The penitent was not labeled by others; he labeled himself His sin was no one's business but God's. Though one's confession was made to a human being, he or she was chosen by the penitent for qualities of true priestliness - holiness, wisdom, generosity, loyalty, and courage. So one did not necessarily choose one's "priest" from among ordained professionals: the act of confession was too personal and too important for such a limitation. One looked for an anmchara, a soul-friend, someone to be trusted over a whole lifetime. Thus, the oft-found saying "Anyone without a soul-friend is like a body without a head," which dates from pagan times. The druids, not the monks, had been the first soul-friends. In a discipline where eremitism and penance played so large a part it is not surprising to find that as early as the seventh century- a system of private penance had already developed, though it is believed that it was not instituted on the Continent till much later. In the Celtic Church, as a part of this system of private penance, a monk living an eremetical life had as a companion sharing his cell his anmchara, or 'soul-friend' to whom he made his confession and who prescribed his penance.

48 The system, which does not appear in the Roman Church of the period, would seem to be a natural development among the desert solitaries of the East, and may possibly be related to the syncellus, 'one who shares a cell' in the Greek Church. To the Irish, the pope, the bishop of Rome who was successor to Saint Peter, was a kind of high king of the church, but like the high king a distant figure whose wishes were little known and less considered. Rome was surely the ultimate pilgrim's destination-especially because there were books there that could be brought back and copied! But if your motive was holiness: To go to Rome Is little profit, endless pain; The Master that you seek in Rome, You find at home, or seek in vain.

7) THE END OF THE CELTIC CHURCH The stricter Roman Christianity of St. Augustine of Canterbury was slowly spreading north and west through the English territories, and was bound eventually to meet Celtic Christianity, marching in the opposite direction. A clash of custom and sensibility was as unavoidable as it had been between Columbanus and the Burgundian bishops. The "Romans" did not even trouble to draw up an extended list of charges, as would once have been the case in the church's great councils but confined themselves to such issues as when Easter should be celebrated and what form of tonsure or hairstyle should be worn by the ordained. The Romans had adopted the tonsure of St Peter, which left a circle, symbolic of the crown of thorns, around the top of the head. The Irish, however, used what they took to be the tonsure of St John, from ear to ear, which their opponents called the tonsure of Simon Magus, perhaps because it was associated with the Druids who were, in Latin, called Magi. Then there were differences in baptism and rites of episcopal confirmation, but all these, though of symbolical importance, were not what really counted. However, the overall ethos, which was reflected in organizational habits arising from the tribal background, was the true bone of contention. These made the Celtic Church independent. threatening the growing organizational

49 power of the Romans. In Ireland the spiritual adviser or soul friend (anamchara) was primary, rather than the ecclesiastical authority of the bishops. The authority of the bishops was threatened further by the fact that, though the bishops still held all ecclesiastical jurisdiction. the actual power lay with the abbots. Connected to this, Irish monasteries had a large lay, and noncelibate, family population attached to them. Also, the Irish had many peculiar customs, encouraged diversity, enjoyed pagan literature, were unconcerned about uniformity of monastic rule, and, perhaps worst of all, sometimes allowed a woman to rule over them. Most important, however, was the fact that these habits gave extreme autonomy and individuality to each foundation: they were more like Zen monasteries, one-pope Churches. Rites, customs and so forth differed locally, and there was no central organization. The clash between the two Churches was bound to come. The form of Christian organization introduced into Kent by St. Augustine was unlike that of the Celtic Church. It made no claim to be either independent or selfgoverning. It was in all matters directly under obedience to Rome. But while the Celtic countries shared to the full the orthodox views of the Church of Rome, their remote position made them conservative. They were failing to keep pace with modifications in the Continental Church. It came to a head at a synod, held in 664 at the Abbey of Whitby in Northumbria, at which the Northumbrian king ruled in favor of the "Roman" party-that is, the party who were heirs to Augustine's papal mission. This ultimately resulted in the submersion of the Celtic church in Ireland by the Roman ecclesial system in the twelfth century. Still, despite that" reform," which was a triumph for ecclesial administrators but a tragedy for Irish culture and creativity, Celtic Christian spirituality survived in various geographical locations where the saints had once lived or journeyed. It is said to have deeply affected directly or indirectly certain religious traditions and wisdom figures, including Hildegard of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, Joan of Arc, Evelyn Underhill, and Thomas Merton.

8) THE GREAT IRISH THINKERS OF THE GOLDEN AGE

A section needs to be dedicated at this stage to those Irishmen who have had a definite influence on medieval thought and have really contributed

50 something of value to learning in the eighth and ninth centuries. Irishmen were in fact to be found among the most brilliant minds of that time. From the first days of Christianity in Ireland, bishops and priests gave a high place to study. We must above all remember that the majority of the native Irish clergy mainly belonged to the class of the filidh, who were the learned men of the country. Saint Patrick, as if with a magic wand, had transformed their druids and the filidh, into priests of the true faith. These filidh were already well versed in the sciences and the arts, at least as much as the druids. They preserved the tradition and, from the time of Saint Patrick, the earliest monastic foundations had a school attached. As men of their age, the great Abbots of Ireland, Finnian of Clonard, Ciaran of Clonmacnois, Fintan of Clonenagh, Comgall of Bangor, Brendan of Clonfert, Columcille of Iona, all have a high reputation as men of learning. It was in the schools of these men that Clement Scotus, Joseph Scotus, Dunchad, John Scotus Eriugena, Sedulius Scotus and other Irishmen who emigrated to the Continent and soon became celebrated, received their formation. The AngloSaxons and the Continentals were quite ready to attend these schools, such as Agilbert the Frank, who became Archbishop of Paris. Charlemagne did not fail to include several Irishmen among the foreign masters whom he collected together in order to restore studies. VIRGIL Among these learned men from Ireland there are six whom we specially have in mind. The Irishman Fearghal, his name had by then been latinized to Virgilius became Abbot of a Bavarian monastery, then Administrator of the diocese of Salzburg, and eventually becoming Bishop. His disputes with Boniface, the apostle of Germany, are quite famous; the least we can say is that the two prelates never agreed with each other. In any case, Virgil appears on the scene as a forerunner. In the middle of the eighth century he seems to have already had an idea that the earth is round, at least that it has another side, which is inhabited, from which the sun and moon are also to be seen. DICUIL Dicuil belongs both to the eighth and the ninth centuries, for he died in 825. He came of completely Irish stock, and had received his formation in the school of Clonmacnois under the rod of Abbot Suibhne. His great work, written in Latin, as may be imagined, bears the title De Mensura Orbis

51 Terrarum. It is a treatise on geography. He makes use of the works of the ancient geographers, both in Greek and Latin, and also the accounts given by the Irish monks who had been travellers and navigators. He is the first writer to mention Iceland, which he calls Thule, and of which he gives a description. He is also the first to provide us with reliable information about the Faroe Islands. This geographer, astronomer and poet, who died as Abbot of Pahlacht, had a wide influence on the revival of education in the Carolingian age. DUNGAL Not much is known of the life of Dungal, another Irish master of the ninth century. He probably came from the school of Bangor. He was an astronomer of distinction, and in 811 wrote a letter to Charlemagne announcing a double eclipse of the sun and explaining the process by which this took place. In 825 the Emperor Lothair placed Dungal at the head of the great school of Pavia, the ancestor of the famous university, which was attended by students from all over Northern Italy. He is still celebrated for his controversy with Claudius, the Spanish Bishop of Turin, who was an iconoclast. With spirit and also with authority, Dungal came forward as the defender of the holy images, and in doing so gave proof of his sound theological learning. SEDULIUS THE YOUNGER Sedulius the younger belonged to the Irish colony at Liege, in the reign of Lothair. A talented prose-writer, he was also a poet and a grammarian. His chief work, De Rectoribus Christian is, is a treatise on the theory of political government which prepares the way for Saint Thomas, Colonna and Dante. It was written at Liege in 855. With Lothair II in mind, he explains his views as to the duties of every Christian sovereign. JOHN SCOTUS ERIUGENA There can be no question that the most famous of these Irish thinkers and learned men in the Middle Ages is the man known as Iohannes Scotus Eriugena. His name means John the Irishman who was born in Ireland. He was a great philosopher, well in advance of the ideas of his age and at the same time very bold in his conceptions. He was born about the year 807 or 808 and is said to have died in 877. From 845 onwards he was to be found at the court of Charles the Bald, who placed him in charge of the palace school.

52 Charlemagne's grandson also wished to follow in the footsteps of his renowned ancestor, and he greatly encouraged the immigration of scholars from Ireland. Colonies of Irish were so numerous on the Continent in those days that hostelries, and even monasteries, had to be built in order to house them. Eriugena had made his mark from the start owing to his remarkable knowledge of languages and of palaeography. He was able to translate, without difficulty the works of the Pseudodionysius the Areopagite, which nobody up to then had succeeded in doing. His translation was so elegant and so exact that the pontifical librarian, Anastasius, wrote specially to the king of France expressing his admiration. He was, in fact, wondering, not without some amazement, how this "barbarian", born at the far ends of the world, could be so well versed in the subtleties of the Greek language! John Scottus first came to fame in his use by the church to refute of the teachings of Gottschalk. Gottschalk boldly claimed that men were predestined not only to good but also to evil. There was consternation among the bishops and in the ensuing uproar scholars across Europe took sides, some for some against. Faced with the prospect of victory for Gottschalk's party Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims commissioned John, who had been teaching at the palace school, to refute the heresy, but 'before the Irish philosopher could be checked, he had refuted Sin and Hell'. John Scottus said that as everything arises from the One it is predestined to return to the one. Thus, there was no eternal damnation. Also, the concept of heaven, where man returned to the presence of God but did not fully unite with Him remaining separate from him and worshipping him, was rejected by John Scottus. He said that it did not make sense that man would stop just short and not complete the journey by uniting with That from which he had originated. There followed further writings: a commentary on Luke and another on John, poems in Greek and Latin, a commentary on Martianus Capella and extracts from Macrobius. It was not in philology, however, but in philosophy that Eriugena was to excel. His chief work, written in 866, bears the title De divisione naturae and consists of fIve books. He wrote another treatise, De egressu et regressu animae ad Deum, of which only a fragment remains to us and a commentary on the De nuptiis Mercuri et philologiae of Martianus Capella,. It was his chief work, De divisione naturae, which provoked most discussion, and in this he really gives us what we may call his philosophic doctrine. In Book I he lays out a plan, proposing a division of nature into four parts: nature which creates and is not created (which means God who is both uncreated and creator); created nature which creates (primary causes, ideas); created

53 nature which does not create (creation); un created nature which does not create (God, seen as the end of all things, to which they all return). His wine soaked dinners with the emperor were full of parrying wit. When sitting opposite John Scottus at the the dining table, the emperor asked playfully What seperates a fool (sottum) from an Irishman ( scottum)? Only the table came John Scottuss reply.

9) THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF IRELAND The standard answer given for the reason for the ending of the Golden Age of Ireland is the relentless attacks of the Vikings on the monasteries and it certainly was severe in its effects. Attacks on magical Lindisfarne began in the last decade of the eighth century. Monks were stripped and tortured; and the raiders came again in 801 to set the buildings afire, in 806 to kill scores of monks, in 867 to burn the rebuilt abbey. In 875 the harried survivors left Lindisfarne for good. In the first decade of the ninth century it was the turn of Columcille's lona, where "a great number of layfolks and clerics were massacred" in repeated raids. The great foundation had at last to be abandoned. Inis Murray was destroyed in 802, never to rise again. Even remote Skellig Michael was raided repeatedly, its harmless abbot Etgal carried off for ransom but dying "of hunger on their hands." Glendalough was pillaged on countless occasions and, between 775 and 1071 , destroyed by fire at least nine times. Bangor, Moville, Clonfert, Clonmacnois, Brigid's Kildare-each was laid waste in turn. In 840, even the extensive buildings of Patrick's Armagh were burned to their foundations. As a second reason for the end of the Golden age of ireland, it is also said that the lack of organisation, uniformity and centalised power as compared to the Roman church is what cost the Celtic church its existence. However, if that was true, then both Hinduism and Buddhism which have these same features as the Celtic church would also have ceased to exist. I have a personal theory, for which I have no evidence, that the end of the Golden Age has to have been for more subtle and powerful reasons: that the extinction of something so great must have occurred not by physical causes but because of some deep hidden spiritual flaw. The theory is that, because of the belief in both the transcendent and immanent God, the Irish had in effect one eye on the transcendent ( the formless spirit) and one eye on the immanent (the creation) which is obviously excellent. However, with the passage of time, the eye on the transcendent began to weaken and more value was given to the immanent. This is intimated in how White Martrdom

54 was valued by the Irish as the supreme sacrifice. I cannot believe that with both eyes equally on the transcendent and the immanent such a valuation would have come about. The one who finds the transcendent finds Him everywhere and equally everywhere and not more in Ireland than in any other place on earth. If what is proposed is true, as the source of the immanent is the transcendent, the Irish thus lost their strong contact with the source of all which they had enjoyed and it is this spiritual and not physical reason that the Golden Age of Ireland came to an end. If true, the significnce of this is that it shows the way back for the Irish to re-establish a new Golden Age of Ireland in todays modern world. What a contribution this would be to the world.

10) WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN? 1) A church that was individual centred rather than Rome centred with the strength in the individual and not the institution of the church. A mystical based religion where direct experience or communication with God was the emphasis rather than a relationship with clerics or the church. Thus, a spirituality based on experience much more so than faith. Through the belief in both a transcendent and immanent God, the absence of a division between God and the creation. H.J. Massingham wrote, If the Celtic Church had survived, it is possible that the fissure between Christianity and nature widening through the centuries would not have cracked the unity of western mans attitude to God and the world. The love of mother earth, the strong value of ecology, etc, etc. The state of the earth, the level of greed and excess might have been markedly different. The practice of everybody having an anamcara or spiritual direction (somewhat like the guru/disciple relationship) with which to find ones way back to God. A spirituality/religion that was absolutely in harmony with the fundamental nature of the Irish people, where spirituality mattered more than loyalty to the institutional aspect of a church.

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

55 7) Ireland may have remained a leading spiritual light and a living example to the rest of the world as to how man might live on this earth in harmony with mother earth, his fellow man and in union with his Creator.

There is no reason why a new Golden Age of Ireland should not come into being. It is my belief that this is our destiny as yet unfulfilled. We will never be an economic giant: we will never be a political giant but it is our destiny to be a spiritual giant, an educational giant and a cultural giant in this world.