We find him some time after in Italy, acting as master of the great public school established at Pavia by Lothaire I.; with jurisdiction, too, over all the other subordinate schools which this prince founded in the different cities of Italy. How high was the station assigned to the Irish Professor, may be judged from a Capitular,t issued by Lothaire, in which, while the various cities where schools had been founded are enumerated, the name of Dungal alone of all the different professors is mentioned, and every institution is placed in subordination to that of Pavia. A work written by this eminent man about the year 827, in answer to an attack made by Claudius, Bishop of Turin, on the Catholic practice of honouring images and paying reverence to saints, is praised by a distinguished Italian writer, as displaying not merely a fund of sacred learning, but also a knowledge of polite literature, and of the classical graces of style. In opposition to Claudius, who, reviving the heresy of Vigilantius, maintained that saints ought not to be honoured, nor any reverence paid to images, the Irish Doctor contends zealously for the ancient Catholic practice, and, instead of resorting to the aid of argument on a point solely to be decided by authority and tradition, appeals to the constant practice of the church from the very earliest times, which has been, he says, to revere, with the honour suitable to them, the figure of the cross, and the pictures and relics of saints, without either sacrificing to them or offering them the worship which is due to God alone. In honour of his countryman St. Columbanus, Dungal bequeathed to the monastery of Bobbio a valuable collection of books, the greater part of which are now at Milan, having been removed to the Ambrosian Library by Cardinal Frederic Borromeo.{ We have now arrived at a crisis in the history of Ireland, when it was her destiny to undergo a great and disastrous change; when that long seclusion from the rest of the world, comprising a period commensurate with the whole of her authentic history, which, with a few doubtful exceptions, had kept her verdant fields untouched by the foot of an invader, was at length fiercely broken in upon; and a series of invasions, from the north of Europe, began to be inflicted upon her people, which checked the course of their civilization, kept the whole island for more than three centuries in a continued state of confusion and alarm, and by dividing, even more than by wasting, the internal strength of the kingdom, prepared the way for its final and utter subjugation by the English. Before we plunge, however, into the dark and revolting details of this period, which, marked as they are with the worst excesses of foreign aggression, are yet more deeply disgraced by the stain of domestic treachery and strife, it may not be amiss to infringe so far on the order of historical synchronism, as to complete the rapid review we have here commenced of the many peaceful triumphs achieved by Irish genius during this century, as well at home as in foreign countries, leaving the warfare and political transactions of the same interval to be treated separately afterwards. It should have been mentioned in the account of our celebrated scholar Virgilius, that in leaving Ireland he is said to have been accompanied by a Greek bishop, named Dubda; a circumstance which, coupled with the fact stated by Usher of there having been a Greek church at Trim, in the county of Meath,|| which was so called even to his time, proves that the fame of the schools and churches of Ireland had attracted thither several Greek ecclesiastics; and accounts for so many of her own native scholars, such as St. Columbanus, Cummian, and, as we shall presently see, John Erigena, having been so perfectly masters of the Greek language. One of the chief arguments, indeed, employed by Ledwich, in his attempt to show that the early church of Ireland was independent of According to Denina, not merely the management of these schools, but the credit of founding them also, is to be attributed to Dungal:- Fù nell 827 fatto venire di Scozia un monaco per nome Dungalo, famoso in quell' età pel suo sapere. Ebbe costui a reggere in particolare lo studio di Pavia, ma fù nello stesso tempo autore e quasi fondatore delle altre scuole d'Ivrea, di Torino, di Fermo, di Verona, di Vicenza, di Cividal del Friuli, alle quale dovevano concorrere ripartitamente gli scolari da tutte le altre città del regno Italico, sic. come ordinò Lottario in suo famoso capitolare."-Lib. viii. cap 12. †This Capitular, as given by Tiraboschi, thus commences: Primum in Papia conveniant ad Dungallum, de Mediolano, de Laude, de Bergamo, de Novaria," &c. &c.-Tom. iii. lib. 3. cap 1. Tiraboschi adds, “Chi fossero à Professori nelle altre città, non ce n'è rimasta memoria. Solo quel di Pavia si nomina in questa legge, cioè Dungalo."-lb. "Cæterum liber ille Dungali hominem eruditum sacrisque etiam literis ornatum prodit, at simul in grammaticali foro ac Prisciani deliciis enutrium."-Muratori. § A catalogue of the books belonging to the library at Bobbio, together with the names of the respective donors, has been preserved by Muratori (Antiq. Ital. vol. viii. Dissert. 43.,) and, in this document, supposed to be written in the 10th century, the name of Dungal is thus mentioned :-"Item, de libris quos Dungalus præcipuus Scotorum obtulit beatissimo Columbano;" meaning, to the monastery founded by Columbanus. Pontificem secum habuit proprium Dobdan nomine, Græcum, qui ipsum secutus erat ex patria. Mirarer vero ex Hiberniâ nostrâ hominem Græcum prodiisse, nisi scirem in agro Midensi apud Trimmenses ædem sacram extitisse, quæ Græcæ Ecclesiæ nomen ad hunc usque diem retinet.-Epist. Hibern. Sylloge, note xvi. the See of Rome, is founded on those traces of connexion, through Greek and Asiatic missionaries, with the East, which, there is no doubt, are to be found in the records and transactions of that period. Had such instances, however, been even numerous enough to prove more than a casual and occasional intercourse with those regions, it would not have served the purpose this reverend antiquary sought to gain: as, at the time when Christianity was first introduced into Ireland, the heads of the Greek church were on the best terms with the See of Rome; Asiatics and Greeks, during the very period to which he alludes, were raised to the chair of St. Peter; and it was not till many centuries after, that the schism of the Greeks divided the Christian world. In addition to the evidence of their merits furnished by recorded acts of the Irish missionaries themselves, it is but just to mention also some of those tributes of admiration, which their active piety and learning drew from their contemporaries. A curious letter addressed by the Saxon scholar Aldhelm, to his countryman Eahfrid, who had just returned from a long course of study in Ireland, though meant, in its inflated style of irony, to throw ridicule on the Irish schools, is rendered, by the jealousy which it so involuntarily betrays, far more flattering than the most prepense panegyric; "Why should Ireland," says the writer, "whither troops of students are daily transported, boast of such unspeakable excellence, as if in the rich soil of England, Greek and Roman masters were not to be had to unlock the treasures of divine knowledge. Though Ireland, rich and blooming in scholars, is adorned like the poles of the world with innumerable bright stars, it is Britain has her radiant sun, her sovereign Pontiff Theodore, nurtured from the earliest age in the school of philosophy: it is she possesses Adrian his companion, graced with every virtue... This is that Theodore who, though he should be surrounded by a circle of Hibernian scholars, as a boar in the midst of snarling dogs, yet as soon as he bares his grammatical tooth, puts quickly to flight the rebel phalanx."t The tributes of Bede to the piety, learning, and benevolence of the Irish clergy, have been frequently adverted to in these pages; and while justice was thus liberally rendered to them by the English, we find a French author of the ninth century, Eric of Auxerre, equally zealous in their praise. "What shall I say," he exclaims, "of Ireland, who, despising the dangers of the deep, is migrating, with almost her whole train of philosophers, to our coasts." Among the names that, early in the ninth century, adorn this list of distinguished Irishmen, are those of Sedulius and Donatus, the former the author, it is supposed, of the Commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul. From the many Irish scholars of this name that arose at different periods into reputation, considerable difficulty has been found in distinguishing their respective times and writings. But it appears pretty certain, though both were natives of Ireland, that the author of the poems mentioned in a preceding part of this work is to be considered as a distinct person from the commentator on St. Paul. In the subject and origin of one of the writings ascribed to the later Sedulius, may be found a proof of the constant prevalence among his countrymen of that tradition respecting their origin from Spain, to which I have had occasion, at the commencement of this volume, to advert. On account of the reputation he had acquired by his commentaries on St. Paul, this abbot was despatched by the pope, with the dignity of Bishop of Oreto, to Spain, for the purpose of reconciling some differences of opinion that had arisen among the clergy of that country. The Spaniards, objecting to the appearance of a stranger in such a capacity, made some difficulty as to receiving him; on which Sedulius, it is said, drew up his treatise entitled "the concordance of Spain and Hibernia," in which, refer *The instructor of Aldhelm was Maidulph, an Irishman; though Mr. Turner (unintentionally, as I am willing to think) suppresses the fact, merely saying that Aldhelm had "continued his studies at Malmsbury, where Maidulf, an Irishman, had founded a monastery."-Vol. ii. Aldhelm himself became afterwards abbot of the monastery. "Cur, inquam, Hibernia, quò catervatim istinc lectores classibus advecti confluunt, ineffabili quodam privilegio efferatur: ac si istic, fœcundo Britanniæ in cespite, didascali Argivi Romanive Quirites reperiri minimè queant, qui cœlestis tetrica enodantes bibliothecæ problemata sciolis reserare se sciscitantibus valeant. Quamvis enim prædictum Hiberniæ rus, discentium opulans vernansque (ut ita dixerim) pascuosâ numerositate lectorum, quemadmodum poli cardines astriferis micantium ornentur vibraminibus side rum; ast tamen," &c. &c.-Epist. Hibern. Sylloge. dente." &c. &c.-lb. "Etiamsi beat memoriæ Theodorus summi sacerdotii gubernacula regens, Hibernensium globo discipu. Jorum (ceu aper truculentus molossorum catastâ ringente vallatus) stipetur; limato perniciter Grammatico §"Quid Hiberniam memorem, contempto pelagi discrimine, pene tota cum grege philosophorum ad littora nostra migrantem."-Ad Carol. Calv. See, for the various authorities on this subject, the Ecclesiar. Primord. 769., where the result of the mass of evidence so laboriously brought together seems to be, that the commentator and the poet were decidedly distinct persons. Thus mentioned by Hepidanus, the Monk of St. Gall, under the year 818:-"Sedulius Scottus clurus habetur." HISTORY OF IRELAND. ring, no doubt, to the traditions of both countries, he asserted the claims of the Irish to be considered as Spaniards, and to enjoy all the privileges of the Spanish nation.* At the same period another accomplished Irishman, Donatus, having gone on a pilgrimage to Rome, was induced to fix himself in Italy, and became soon after Bishop of Fiesole. That he left some writings behind him, political as well as theological, may be collected from the epitaph on his tomb, composed by himself. But of these productions the only remains that have reached us are some not inelegant verses, warmly in praise of his native land.‡ But the most remarkable man that Ireland, or perhaps, any other country, sent forth, in those ages, was the learned and subtle John Scotus; whose distinctive title of Erigena, or, as it was sometimes written, Eringena, points so clearly to the land of his birth, that, among the numbers who have treated of his life and writings, but a very few have ventured to contest this point. At what period he removed from Ireland to France cannot be very accurately ascertained; but it is conjectured to have been about the year 845, when he had already reached the age of manhood, and was doubtless furnished with all the learning of his native schools; and such was the success, as well of his social as of his intellectual powers, that Charles the Bald, King of France, not only extended to him his patronage, but made him the companion of his most secluded and familiar hours. For the early travels of this scholar to Greece and into the East, there appears to be no other foundation than a wish to account for his extraordinary knowledge of the Greek and other languages, as well as for that acquaintance with the mystic theology of the Alexandrian school, which he derived, in reality, from his study of the writings ascribed A copy of these treatises had been sent as a present to to Dyonysius the Areopagite. Louis I., by Michael Balbus, the Greek Emperor; and as additional reverence was attached, in France, to their contents, from the notion that Dionysius, the supposed author, was the same as St. Denys, the first Bishop of Paris, Charles the Bald, with a view of rendering the work accessible to such readers as himself, who were acquainted with Greek, appointed Erigena to the task of translating it into Latin. The change effected in the theology of Europe by this book, as well as by the principles deduced from it afterwards in the translator's own writings, continued to be felt through a very long period. Previously to this time, the scholastic mode of considering religious questions had prevailed generally among the theologians of Europe;; but the introduction to the mystic doctrines of Alexandria, by John Scotus, infused a new * Harris on Ware's Writers, art. Sedulius. t "Gratuita discipulis dictabam scripta libellis "Finibus occiduis describitur optima tellus Insula dives opum, gemmarum, vestis et auri: Melle fluit pulchris et lacteis Scotia campis, Vestibus atque armis, frugibus, arte, viris," &c. &c. The translation of these verses given in O'Halloran's History, was one of the earliest pieces of poetry with which in my youth I was familiar; and it is purely in the indulgence of old recollections that I here venture to cite a few of the lines: "Far westward lies an isle of ancient fame, Her fruitful soil for ever teems with wealth, § By Brucker (tom. iii. De Scholasticis) the commencement of the scholastic theology is brought down so late as to the twelfth century; but it is plain from his own history that this form of theology had a much earlier origin; and by Mosheim the credit of first introducing it is attributed to the Irish of the eighth cen. tury. "That the Hibernians," he says, "who were called Scots in this century, were lovers of learning, and distinguished themselves in these times of ignorance by the culture of the sciences beyond all the other European nations, travelling through the most distant lands, both with a view to improve and to communicate their knowledge, is a fact with which I have been long acquainted; as we see them, in the most authentic records of antiquity, discharging, with the highest reputation and applause, the function of doctor in France, Germany, and Italy, both during this and the following century. But that these Hibernians were the first teachers of the scholastic theology in Europe, and so early as the eighth century illustrated the doctrines of religion by the principles of philosophy, I learned but lately from the testimony of Benedict, Abbot of Aniane, in the province of Languedoc." He then produces his proofs, to which I refer the reader, (Cent. viii. part ii. chap. 3,) and adds:-" From hence it appears, that the philosophical or scholastic theology among the Latins is of more ancient date than is commonly imagined." element into the theology of the West;* and the keen struggle which then commenced between those opposing principles has formed a considerable part of the history of religious controvesy down to the present day. It is not a little singular, too, that while, as an eminent church historian alleges, "the Hibernians were the first teachers of scholastic theology in Europe," so an Hibernian, himself unrivalled among the dialecticians of his day, should have been also the first to introduce into the arena the antagonist principle of mysticism. The want of that self-restraint acquired in a course of training for holy orders,for, by a rare fate in those days, Erigena was both a scholar and a layman,-is observable in the daring lengths to which his speculations respecting the nature of God are carried; speculations bordering, it must be owned, closely on the confines of Spinozism or Pantheism. Thus, "the soul," he says, "will finally pass into the primordial causes of all things, and these causes into God; so that, as before the existence of the world there was nothing but God and the causes of all things in God, so there will be, after its end, nothing else than God and the causes of all things in God." With the same Pantheistic view, he asserts that "all things are God, and God all things,—that God is the maker of all things, and made in all." It is plain that this universal deification is but another form of universal materialism; and the self-satisfaction, and even triumph, with which so good and pious a man-for such Erigena is allowed universally to have been-could come to such desolating conclusions, was but the result of that dangerous principle of identifying religion with philosophy, for which he has been so lauded by one of the most eminent of the modern apostles of rationalism.† The notions just cited are promulgated in his Treatise on the Division of Nature, or the Nature of Things; and though in that work, which was written subsequently to his translation of Dionysius, there is to be found, in its fullest force, the intoxicating influence of the fountain at which he had been drinking, it is manifest that, even before he had become the interpreter of the dreams of others, his mind had already been stored, by the study of the Platonic writers, with visionary notions of its own; as, in the share taken by him in the famous controversy with the monk Gotescalc, on the subject of predestination, he had, in the midst of those dialectic subtleties in which his chief strength and enjoyment lay, exhibited the same daringness of research into the mysteries of the Divine nature, which characterizes those later flights of his genius to which I have adverted.‡ Combating the doctrine of Gotescalc, who maintained, in accordance with the views of St. Augustine, and, afterwards, of Calvin, that the decrees of God had, from all eternity, preordained some men to everlasting life, and others to everlasting punishment and misery, Erigena denied that there was any predestination of the damned; contending that the prescience of God extended only to the election of the blessed; since he could not foresee that of which he was not the author, and, being the source neither of sin nor evil, could not foreknow or predestinate them. In truth, identifying, as he did, all things with God, it was not possible for him to admit of permanent pain or evil in the system, without making that Being a sharer in them. Hence his doctrine, that the punishment of the damned, and even the wickedness of the devils themselves, will, some time or other, cease, and the blessed and the unblessed dwell in a state of endless happiness, differing only in degree. While thus, in his notion of the final redemption even of the demons and the damned, "Illos enim Latinis auribus accommodando chaos simul Alexandrinum, quod plerosque hactenus in Occidente latuerat, notum fecit, ansamque dedit ut cum theologia scholastica, mystica quoque extolleret, rationi sanæ et philosophiæ non minus inimica quam illa ut supra dictum."-Brucker. De Philosoph. Christianor. Occident. And thus," adds Brucker, "that philosophic enthusiasm, which the Oriental philosophy brought forth and Platonism nursed, which Egypt educated, Asia nurtured, and the Greek church adopted, was introduced, under the pretext and authority of a great apostolic name, into the Western churches, and there gave rise to innumerable mischiefs." +"Remarquez qu'ils sont tous ecclésiastiques et leur philosophie est toute religieuse et tote chrétienne. C'est là leur commun caractère; ils no font tous, sous ce rapport, que commenter, cette belle phrase de Scot Erigène, il n'y a pas deux études, l'une de la philosophie, l'autre de la religion; la vraie philosophie est la vraie religion, et la vraie religion est la vraie philosophie.'"-Victor Cousin, Cours de Philosophie, tom. i. leçon 9. The original passage, here referred to, is as follows:-"Quid est aliud de philosophia tractare, nisi veræ religionis, qua summa et principalis omnium rerum causa Deus, et humiliter colitur et rationabiliter investigatur, regulas exponere? Conficitur inde veram esse philosophiam veram religionem, conversimque verum religionem esse veram philosophiam."-De Prædestinatione. Scott Erigène avait puisé dans son commerce (avec les écrits da Denis l'Areopagite) une foule d'idées Alexandrines qu'il a développees dans ses deux ouvrages originaux, l'un sur la Prédestination et la Grace, l'autre sur la Division de Etres. Ces idées, par leur analogie avec celles de S. Augustin, entrerent facilement dans la circulation, et grossèrent le trésor de la scholastique."-Cousin, ut suprà. It will be seen that the mistake into which the learned professor has here fallen, can only be accounted for by his not having made himself acquainted with the works of which he speaks; as it is not possible for two systems to have less analogy with each other than those of St. Augustine and John Erigena upon the subject of predestination. he revived one of the heresies of Origen, his assertion of the power of the human will, and his denial of the corruption of human nature, betrayed a coincidence between his creed and that of the heretic Pelagius, which he in vain endeavoured, by logical subtleties, to disguise. He had, in fact, gathered from almost every heresy some materials for his philosophy, and his philosophy, in turn, lent vigour and animation to effete heresy. Besides the labours of this ingenious man which I have here mentioned, he entered likewise into the controversy raised, at this period, respecting the manner in which the body and blood of Christ are present in the sacrament. The treatise written by him upon the subject no longer exists; but the general opinion is, that he denied the Real Presence; and the natural bent of his mind to run counter to prevailing and sanctioned opinions, renders it most probable that such was his view of this now, for the first time, con. troverted mystery. In stating, however, as he is said to have done, that the sacrament of the Eucharist is not the "true body and true blood," he might have had reference solely to the doctrine put forth then recently by Paschasius Radbert, who maintained that the body present in the Eucharist was the same carnal and palpable body which was born of the Virgin, which suffered on the cross, and rose from the dead; whereas, the belief of the Catholic church, on this point of doctrine, has always been, that the body of Christ is under the symbols, not corporeally or carnally, but in a spiritual manner.* The stories introduced into the general accounts of John Erigena, of his removing to England on the death of his patron, Charles the Bald, and acquiring a new Mæcenas in the person of Alfred, the great English king, are all manifestly fables; arising out of a confusion, of which William of Malmesbury and others availed themselves, between our Irish John-who, it is evident, remained in France till he died, and a monk from Saxony, much patronized by Alfred, called John of Atheling. At what period Erigena died is not clearly ascertained; but it is concluded that his death must have occurred before the year 875, as a letter written in that year by Anastasius, the Bibliothecarian, speaks of him in the past tense, as if then dead. The space devoted here to the account of this extraordinary person will hardly, I think, be deemed more than it deserves; since, in addition to the honour derived to his country from the immense European reputation which he acquired, he appears to have been, in the whole assemblage of his qualities, intellectual and social, a perfect representative of the genuine Irish character, in all its various and versatile combinations. Combining humour and imagination with powers of shrewd and deep reasoning,-the sparkle upon the surface as well as the mine beneath,-he yet lavished both these gifts imprudently, exhibiting on all subjects almost every power but that of discretion. His life, in its social relations, seems to have been marked by the same characteristic anomalies; for while the simplicity of his mind and manner, and the festive play of his wit, endeared him to private friends, the daring heterodoxy of his written opinions alarmed and alienated the public, and rendered him at least as much feared as admired. Another Irish philosopher, named Macarius, who flourished in France about this period, is supposed by some writers to have preceded the time of Erigena, but, more probably, was either his contemporary, or came soon after him, as the doctrine promulgated in a Thus explained, in perfect consonance, as he says, with the doctrine of the Council of Trent, by the cele brated missionary, Veron:-" Ergo, corpus Christi, seu Christus, est in symbolis spirituali modo seu spiritu aliter et non corporali seu carnali, nec corporaliter seu carnaliter."-Regula. Fid. Cathol. c. ii. sect. 11. †The antiquary Leland, though following the popular error in numbering John Scotus among those learned men who adorned the court of Alfred, yet expressly distinguishes him from that Saxon monk with whom Mr. Turner, among others, has strangely confounded him:-" Joannem monachum et Saxonia transmarina oriundum, Joannem Scotum qui Dionysii hierarchiam interpretatus est, viros extra quæstionem doctissimos, in pretio et familiaritate habuit."-Leland. Commentar. cap. 115. This long and curious letter may be found in Usher's Sylloge." It is wonderful," says the Bibliothecarian," how that barbarous man (who, placed at the extremity of the world, might, in proportion as he was remote from the rest of mankind, be supposed to be unacquainted with other languages.) was able to comprehend such deep things, and to render them in another tongue. I mean John Scotigena, whom I have heard spoken of as a holy man in every respect." § I cannot resist the desire of adding to the other notices of this Irish scholar the following, from an eminent German writer:-"On place dans un ordre beaucoup plus élevé Jean Scot, né en Irelande, (de là son surnom d'Erigène) homme fort lettre, esprit philosophique et indépendant, dont on ignore quelles furent les resources pour atteindre à cette supériorité.. ... On peut regarder comme des phénomènes singuliers pour son siècle ses connnissances en latin et en grec (quelques-uns y joignent la langue araoe) son amour pour la philosophie d'Aristote, sa traduction, si précieuse en Occident, de Denys l'Areopagite, ses opinions franches et éclairées dans les disputes de son temps sur la prédestination et l'eucharistie, sa manière de considérer la philosophie comme la science des principes de toute chose, science qui ne peut être distinguée de la religion, et son systême philosophique renouvolé du neoplatonisme, où domine ce principe,-Dieu est la substance de toutes choses, elles découlent de la plénitude de son être, et retournent enfin à lui. Tous ces résultats si extraordinaires d'études laborieuses, et d'une pensée forte et originale, eussent pu faire plus de bien, si leur influence n'eût été arrêtée par les proscriptions de l'orthodoxie."-Tenneman, Manuel de l'Hist. de la Phil. |