and often even interested in the success of the spoilers, could oppose but a feeble check. For a missionary, therefore, like Columbanus, full of courage in the cause of Christ, there could not have been selected a more inviting or productive field of enterprise. Proceeding to the province which has been since called Franche Comté, one of the first acts of his ministry was to erect a monastery on a spot named Luxeuil, in a thick part of the forest, at the foot of the Vosges. From hence so widely was the fame of his sanctity diffused, and so great the concourse of persons, of all ranks, but more especially, as we are told, of young nobles, who came to profit by his instructions, and devote themselves to a religious life, that he found it necessary to establish a second monastery in the neighbourhood, to which, on account of the abundance of its springs, he gave the name of Fontaines. In times, however, when the priest alone could present any effectual countercheck to the soldier, so active and daring a mind as that of the Abbot of Luxeuil could not long remain uninvolved in public strife; and his courageous frankness in reproving the vices of the young Thierry, King of Burgundy, drew upon him the enmity as well of that prince as of the fierce vindictive queen-dowager, Bruenehaut. The details of the scenes and transactions in which, so perilously to his own safety, the Irish Saint was brought into collision with these barbarian potentates, besides that they belong more properly to foreign history, would usurp a space, perhaps, disproportionate to their interest. They will be found worthy, however, of a brief, passing notice, less as history, than as pictures for the imagination, in which the figure of the stern but simple and accomplished missionary stands out to the eye with the more force and dignity from the barbaric glare and pomp of the scenes and personages around him. Thus, on one occasion, when the queen-dowager, seeing him enter the royal courts, brought forth the four illegitimate children of King Thierry to meet him, the saint emphatically demanded what they wanted. "They are the king's children," answered Brunehaut, "and are come to ask your blessing."-"These children," replied Columbanus, "will never reign: they are the offspring of debauchery." Such insulting opposition to her designs for her grand-children roused all the rage of this Jezebel, and orders were issued withdrawing some privileges which the saint's monasteries had hitherto enjoyed. For the purpose of remonstrating against this wrong, he sought the palace of the king; and, while waiting the royal audience, rich viands and wines were served up for his refreshment. But the saint sternly refused to partake of them, saying, “It is written, 'the Most High rejects the gifts of the impious;' nor is it fitting that the mouths of the servants of God should be defiled with the viands of one who inflicts on them such indignities." Another scene of the same description occurred subsequently at Luxeuil. The monastic Rule introduced into France by Columbanus, though afterwards incorporated, or rather confounded with that of St. Benedict, was derived originally from the discipline established at the monastery of Bangor, in Ireland; and one of the regulations most objected to, in the system followed both at Luxeuil and Fontaines, was that by which access to the interior of these monasteries was restricted. On this point, as on many others, an attempt was made, by the revengeful Brunehaut, to excite a persecution against the saint; and the king, envenomed by her representations, was induced to join in her plans. Resolved to try the right of entrance in person, he proceeded, accompanied by a train of nobles, to the monastery; and finding Columbanus himself at the gate, said, as he forced his way in, "If you desire to derive any benefit from our bounty, these places must be thrown open to every comer." He had already got as far as the Refectory, when, with a courage worthy of a St. Ambrose, Columbanus thus addressed him:-"If you endeavour to violate the discipline here established, know that I dispense with your presents, and This state of things is acknowledged by the saint's biographer, Jonas:-" Ubi tunc vel ob frequentiam hostium externorum, vel negligentiam præsulum, religionis virtus pune abolita habebatur; fides tantum remainebat Christiana. Nam pœnitentiæ medicamentum et mortificationis amor vix vel paucis in illis reperiebatur locis "-S. Columban. Vita. "The clergy of the Roman church," says Mr. James, (Hist. of Charlemange, Introduct.)" thickly spread over every part of Gaul, without excepting the dominions of Aquitaine and Burgundy, had already courted the Franks, even when governed by a heathen monarch; but now that he professed the same faith with them. selves, they spared neither exertions nor intrigues to facilitate the progress of his conquests." In speaking of this monastery, the Benedictines say, "Fontaines n'est plus aujourdhui qu'un Prieuré dépendant de Luxeu." On the latter establishment they pronounce the following eulogium:-"Les grands hommes qui en sortirent en bon nombre, tant pour gouverner des églises entières que de simples monastères, répandirent en tant d'endroits les maximes salutaires de ce sacré désert que plusieurs de nos provinces parurent avoir changé de face. Et à qui doit revenir la principale gloire de tous ces avantages, sinon à leur premier Institeur le B. Columban ?" See, for several instances in which the two rules are thus confounded, Usher's Ecclesiar. Primord. 1050. "Non quod una eademque esset utriusque Regula; sed quod Columbani sectatores, majoris profectus ergo, duas illas celleberrimas asceticæ vitæ normas conjunxissent, quæ mediis hisce temporibus in Italia, Gallia, et Germania solæ enitebant et apparebant."-Usser. HISTORY OF IRELAND. with every aid that it is in your power to lend; and, if you now come hither to disturb A speech attributed to the Burgundian monarch, on this occasion, betrays no want either of tolerance or of the good sense from which that virtue springs. "I perceive you hope," said he to Columbanus, "that I shall give you the crown of martyrdom; but I am As your system, however, differs from not so unwise as to commit so heinous a crime. that of all other times, it is but right that you should return to the place from whence you came." Such a suggestion, from royal lips, was a command; but the noble Scot was not so easily to be separated either from the companions who had followed his fortunes from home, or those friendships he had formed in a strange land. "If they would have me depart," said he, "they must drag me from the cloister by force :"-and to these violent means it was found necessary, at last, to have recourse; a party of soldiers having been ordered by his royal persecutors to proceed to Luxeuil, and drive him from the monastery. The whole of the brotherhood expressed their readiness to follow their abbot to any part of the world; but none were allowed to accompany him except his own countrymen, and such few Britons as had attached themselves to the community. 610. A corps of guards was sent to escort them on their route towards Ireland, and it was to the commander of this escort that, on their arrival at Auxerre, Columbanus pronounced that terrible prediction, as it has been called, of the union of all the crowns of France on the single head of Clotaire :-"Remember what I now tell you," said the intrepid monk; "that very Clotaire whom ye now despise will, in three years' time, be your master." A. D. On the arrival of the saint and his companions at Nantes, where it was meant to embark them for Ireland, a fortunate accident occurred to prevent the voyage; and he was still reserved for those farther toils in foreign lands to which he had felt himself called. Being now free to pursue his own course, he visited successively the courts of Clotaire and Theodobert, by both of whom he was received with marked distinction, and even consulted on matters vital to the interests of his kingdom by Clotaire. After an active course of missionary labours throughout various parts of France and Germany, the saint, fearful of again falling into the hands of his persecutors, Brunehaut and Thierry, whose powers of mischief their late successes had much strengthened, resolved to pass with his faithful companions into Italy; and, arriving at Milan, at the court of Agilulph, King of the Lombards, received from that sovereign and his distinguished queen, Theodelinda, the most cordial attentions. It is supposed to have been during his stay at Milan that Columbanus addressed that spirited letter to Boniface IV., respecting the question of the Three Chapters, in which, distinguishing between the Chair of Rome and the individual who may, for the moment, occupy it, he shows how compatible may be the most profound and implicit reverence towards the papacy, with a tone of stern and uncompromising reprehension towards the pope. The decision of the Fifth General Council, held in the year 553, which condemned the writings known by the name of the Three Chapters, as heterodox, had met with considerable opposition from many of the Western bishops; and those of Histria and Liguria were the most obstinate in their schism. The Queen Theodelinda, who had so much distinguished herself in the earlier part of her reign by the vigour with which she had freed her kingdom from the inroads of Arianism, had, not many years before the arrival of Columbanus at Milan, awakened the alarm of the Roman court by treating with marked favour and encouragement the schismatic Bishops of Histria; and it was only by a course of skilful management that St. Gregory averted the danger, or succeeded in drawing back this princess to her former union with the church. It would appear, however, that, after the death of that great pope, the Lombard court had again fallen off into schism;-for it was confessedly at the strong instanee of Agilulph himself, that Columbanus addressed his expostulatory letter to Pope Boniface; and the views which he takes of the question in that remarkable document, are for the most part, those of the schismatics or defenders of the Three Chapters. Setting aside, however, all consideration of the saint's orthodoxy on this point,f his letter cannot but be allowed the * Among other passages, to this purport, in his letter, is the following:-" A rege cogor ut sigillatim sng. geram tuis piis auribus sui negotium doloris. Dolor namique suus est schisma populi pro regina, pro folio, forte et pro se ipso." †The Benedictines thus account for the part which he took on this question:-" St. Columban, au reste, ne parle de la sorte dans cette lettre que parcequ'il était mal instruit de la grande affaire des Trois Chapitres ; et qu'il avait été sans doute prévenu à ce suget par Agilulfe, qui s'en était déclaré le fauteur, et peut-être par quelques uns des schismatiques de Lombardie."--Hist. Litt. de la France, tom. iv. A letter of Pope Gregory, on the subject of this now-forgotten controversy, has been erroneously supposed praise of unshrinking manliness and vigour. Addressing Boniface himself in no very complaisant terms, he speaks of his predecessor, Pope Vigilius, with bitter and, in some respects, deserved reproach; declaring that pope to have been the prime mover of all the scandal that had occurred. With national warmth, too, he boldly vindicates the perfect orthodoxy of his fellow-countrymen, the Irish, assuring Boniface that they had never yet swerved from the apostolic doctrines delivered to them by Rome; and that there had never been among them any heretics, Jews, or schismatics. Having received permission from King Agilulph to fix himself in whatever part of the Lombard dominions he should think fit, Columbanus selected a retired spot amidst A. D. the Appennines; and, founding there the monastery of Bobbio, passed in that retreat the brief remainder of his days; dying on the 21st of November, A. D. 615. 615.‡ The various countries and places with which the name of this great saint is connected, have multiplied his lasting titles to fame. While Ireland boasts of his birth, and of having sent forth, before the close of the sixth century, so accomplished a writer from her schools, France remembers him by her ancient abbeys of Luxeuil and Fontaines; and his fame in Italy still lives, not only in the cherished relics at Bobbio,-in the coffin, the chalice, the holly staff of the founder, and the strange sight of an Irish missal in a foreign land, but in the yet fresher and more every day remembrance bestowed upon his name by its association with the beautifully situated town of San Columbano, in the territory of Lodi. The writings of this eminent man that have come down to us display an extensive and varied acquaintance, not merely with ecclesiastical, but with classical literature. From a passage in his letter to Boniface, it appears that he was acquainted both with the Greek and Hebrew languages; and when it is recollected that he did not leave Ireland till he was nearly fifty years of age, and that his life afterwards was one of constant activity and adventure, the conclusion is obvious, that all this knowledge of elegant literature must have been acquired in the schools of his own country. Such a result from a purely Irish education, in the middle of the sixth century, is, it must be owned, not a little remarkable. Among his extant works are some Latin poems, which, though not admissible, of course, to the honours of comparison with any of the writings of a classic age, shine out in this twilight period of Latin literature with no ordinary distinction. Though wanting the free and fluent versification of his contemporary Fortunatus, he displays more energy both of thought and style; and, in the becoming gravity of his subjects, is distinguished honourably from the episcopal poet.** In his prose writings, the style of Columbanus is to have been addressed to the Irish:-"Gregorius universis Episcopis ad Hiberniam," as the epistle is headed in some old editions of Gregory's works. But it is plain that "Hiberniam" has been substituted, by mistake, for "Histriam," in which latter country the schism on this point chiefly raged. See Dr. Lanigan, chap. 13, note 57. Vigila, quia forte non bene vigilavit Vigilius, quem caput scandali ipsi clamant. Nullus hæreticus, nullus Judæs, nullus schismaticus fuit: sed tides catholica, sicut a vobis primum, sanctorum scilicet apostolorum successoribus, tradita est, inconcussa tenetur. Among the poetical remains of Columbanus are some verses, of no inconsiderable merit, in which he mentions his having then reached the years of an eighteenth Olympiad. The poem is addressed to his friend Fedolius, and concludes as follows: "Hæc tibi dictâram morbis oppressus acerbis § Dr. O'Connor supposes this missal to have been brought from Luxeuil to Bobbio by some followers of St. Columbanus:-"Ad horum vagantium (episcoporum) usum, codicem de quo agimus exaratum fuisse vel inde patet, quod fuerit Misale portabile, quod allatum fuerit seculo viimo, ex Hibernorum monasterio Luxoviense in Gallia, ad Hibernorum monasterium Bobiense in Alpibus Cottiis.-Ep. Nunc. La Lumière que S. Columban répandit par son sçavoir et sa doctrine dans tous les lieux où il se montra l'a fait comparer par un écrivain du même siècle au soleil dans sa course de l'orient à l'occident. Il con. tinua, après sa mort, de briller dans plusieurs disciples qu'il avait formés aux lettres et a la piété."-Hist. Litt. de la France. The same learned writers, in speaking of the letters of St. Columbanus still extant, say,-" On a peu de monuments des vi. et vii. siècles où l'on trouve plus d'érudition ecclésiastique qu'il y en a dans les cinque lettres dont on vient de rendre compte." On voit effectivement par la lecture de son poëme à Fedolius en particulier, qu'il possédait l'histoire et la fable. Quoique sa versification soit bien éloignée de la perfection de celle des anciens, elle ne laisse pas néanmoins d'avoir son mérite; et l'on peut assurer qu'il y a peu de poëtes de son temps qui aient mieux réussi à faire des vers."-Hist. Litt., &c., par des Religieux Benedictins. **Those who are at all acquainted with the verses of this bishop, written, most of them, "inter pocula,"— as he himself avows, in his Dedicatory Epistle to Pope Gregory,-will be inclined to agree that it was not difficult to surpass him in decorum. somewhat stiff and inflated; more especially in the letters addressed by him to high dig nitaries of the church, where the effort to elevate and give force to his diction is often too visible to be effective. In the moral instructions, however, written for his monks, the tone both of style and thought is, for the most part, easy and unpretending. CHAPTER XIII. DISPUTES RESPECTING THE PASCHAL COMPUTATION.-LEARNED IRISH MISSIONARIES OF THE SEVENTH, EIGHTH, AND NINTH CENTURIES. On the question respecting the time of keeping Easter, which, about the beginning of the seventh century, produced such a contest between the British and Irish clergy on one side, and the church of Rome and her new missionaries in Britain upon the other, some letters were addressed by Columbanus to the Gallican bishops and the pope; in which, defending the Paschal system, as it had been always observed by his countrymen, he requests" to be allowed to follow the tradition of his elders, in so far as it is not contrary to faith." Though upon a point by no means essential as regarded either faith or discipline, yet so eagerly was this controversy entered into by the learned Irish of that day, and with so much of that attachment to old laws and usages which has at all periods distinguished them, that a brief account of the origin and nature of the dispute forms a necessary part of the history of those times. Very early in the annals of the Christian church, a difference of opinion with respect to the time of celebrating Easter had arisen; and it was not till the great Council of Nice, A. D. 325, had prescribed a rule by which the day of this festival was to be fixed, that, throughout the Asiatic and Western churches, a uniformity of practice in the time of celebrating it was observed. Owing to the difference, however, of the cycles, used by different churches, in making their calculations, it was soon found, that to preserve this desired uniformity would be a matter of much difficulty. By the decree of the Council of Nice it was fixed, that the Paschal festival should be held on the Sunday next after the fourteenth day of the first lunar month. In determining this time, however, the church of Rome and the church of Alexandria differed materially; the former continuing to compute by the old Jewish cycle of eighty-four years, while the latter substituted the cycle of nineteen years, as corrected by Eusebius; and the consequence was a difference, sometimes of nearly a month, between the Alexandrian and Roman calculations. When St. Patrick came on his mission to Ireland, he introduced the same method of Paschal computation, namely, by the cycle of eighty-four years, which was then practised at Rome, and which the apostle taught as he had learned it in Gaul from Sulpicius Severus, by whom a change only of the mode of reckoning the days of the moon was introduced into it. To this method the Irish as well as the British churches continued to adhere, until subsequently to the arrival of Augustine upon his mission to Britain. In the mean time, the Romans, having in vain endeavoured, by conference and concession, to adjust the differences between the Alexandrian calculations and their own, thought it advisable, for the sake of peace, to try a new method; and the cycle of Dionysius Exiguus, framed about 525, being in agreement with the Alexandrian method and rules, was adopted by them about the middle of the sixth century. From the little communication that took place between the churches of the British Isles and Rome-owing to the troubled state of the intervening nations, and the occupation of the coasts of Britain by the Saxons-nothing was known in these countries of the adoption of a new cycle by Rome; and, accordingly, when Augustine and his brethren arrived, they found both the British and the Irish in perfect ignorance of the reformation which had, in the interim, been made, and computing their Easter by the old cycle of eighty-four years, as formerly practised at Rome. In one particular alone, the change introduced by Sulpicius, did the Irish church-to which my remarks shall henceforward be confined-differ from the system originally pursued by the Romans; and this difference, which was, in reality, rather a correction of the old Roman cycle than a departure from it,* consisted in their admission of the fourteenth day of the month, as fit for the cele. bration of Easter, if falling on a Sunday. The fourteenth day had long been in disrepute throughout Christendom, both as being the day on which the Jews always celebrate their Pasch, and as having been also the time chosen for that festival by the Quartodeciman heretics. But there was this material difference between their practice and that of the Irish, that, while the Jews and Asiatic heretics celebrated Easter always on the fourteenth day of the moon, let it fall on whatever day of the week it might, the Irish never held that festival on the fourteenth, unless it were a Sunday. The Roman missionaries, however, chose to keep this essential difference out of sight; and unjustly confounding the Easter of the Irish with that of the Judaising Quartodecimans, involved in one common charge of heresy all who still adhered to the old Roman rule.t A. D. With their usual fondness for ancient usages, the Irish persisted in following the former rule; and, in the spirit with which Columbanus, as we have seen, took up the A. D. question against the Gallican bishops, he faithfully represented and anticipated the 609. feelings of his fellow-countrymen. The first we hear, however, of the dispute, in Ireland, occurs on the occasion of a letter addressed, in 609, by Laurence, the successor of Augustine and his brother missionaries, to the Irish bishops or abbots. In this Exhortatory Epistle, as Bede styles it, Laurence expresses the disappointment felt by himself and his fellow bishops on finding that the Scots, equally with the Britons, had departed from the universal custom of the church. The warmth with which the dispute was, at this time, entered into by some of the clergy of Ireland, appears, from a circumstance mentioned in this letter, of an Irish bishop, Dagan, who, on visiting the Roman missionaries, refused not only to eat in company with them, but even under the same roof. From this period the question seems to have been left open for more than twenty years: some few among the clergy of Ireland being not unwilling, as it seems, to adopt the new Roman discipline; while others thought it sufficient to conform so far to 630. Rome, as to substitute the 16th day of the moon, in their Paschal Canon, for the 14th; and the great bulk of the clergy and people continued attached to their old traditional mode. At length, the attention of the Roman See was, in the year 630, drawn to the dispute; and a letter was addressed by Honorius to the nation of the Scots, in which he earnestly exhorts them "not to consider their own small number, placed in the utmost borders of the earth, as wiser than all the ancient and modern churches of Christ through. out the world; nor to continue to celebrate an Easter contrary to the Paschal calculation and to the synodical decrees of all the bishops upon earth." In consequence of this admonitory letter, a Synod was held in Campo-lene, near Old Leighlin, where it was agreed, after some strenuous opposition from St. Fintan Munnu, of Taghmon, that Easter should, in future, be celebrated at the same time with the universal church. This decree, however, having been rendered abortive by some subsequent intrigue, it was resolved by the elders of the church, that, in pursuance of an ancient canon, by which it was directed that every important ecclesiastical affair should be referred to the Head of Cities, some wise and humble persons should be, on the present occasion, sent to Rome, " as children to their mother." A deputation was accordingly despatched to that city, who, on their return within three years after, declared that they had seen, in the see of St. Peter, the Greek, the Hebrew, the Scythian, and the Egyptian, all celebrating 633. the same Easter Day, in common with the whole catholic world, and differing from that of the Irish by an entire month. In consequence of this report of the deputies, which must have been received about the year 633, the new Roman cycle and rules were, from that period, universally adopted throughout the southern division of Ireland. However disproportioned to the amount of discussion which it occasioned was the real importance of the point of discipline now at issue, the effects of the controversy, in as A. D. Usher thus explains this correction:-"Quum autem Sulpitius Severus bi lui illum inter Cycli Alexandrini et Romani neomenias observavisset discrepantiam, vidissetque Romanis decimamsertam lunam numeratam que Alexandrinis, cælo etiam demonstrante (uti ex Cyrillo retulimus) erat tantum decimaquarta, hunc Romani calculi errorem ita emendandum censuit, ut non jam amplius a xvi. ad xxI., sed a xiv. luna ad xx. ex antiquo illo annorum 84 laverculo Dominic Paschales excerperentur. Thus, in the letter of the clergy of Rome, cited by Bede (1. ii. c. 19, Reperimus quosdam provinciæ vestræ, contra orthodoxam fidem novam ex veteri hæresim renovare conantes, Pascha nostrum in quo immolatus est Christus nebulosa caligine refutantes, et quartodecima luna cum Hebræis celebrare nitentes." Either ignorantly or wilfully, Dr. Ledwich has fallen into the same misrepresentation, and, unmindful of the important difference above stated, accuses the Irish church at this period, of quartodecimanism. 1 " Misimus quos novimus sapientes et humiles esse, velut natos ad matrem ; et prosperum iter in volun. tate Dei habentes, et ad Romam urbem aliqui ex eis venientes, tertio anno ad nos usque pervenerunt; et sic omnia viderunt sicut audierunt: sed et vaide certiora, utpote visa quam audita invenerunt; et in uno hospi tio cum Græco et Hebræo, Scytha et Ægyptiaco, in Ecclesia sancti Petri simul in Pascha in quo mense inte. gro disjuncti sumus) fuerunt."-Epist. Cummian. Hibern, ad Segienum Hucnsem, Abbat. de Controvers. Paschal See Usiror's Vet Epist Hibernie Syllog |