Two Lives of Saint Brigid

 

It's always a pleasure to see new translations of medieval Lives of Irish saints being issued and so I was delighted to receive this notice of a forthcoming publication by Four Courts Press. Even better, I see that the Latin originals of both texts are included. It will be interesting to see how these new translations differ from those I already have by Seán Connolly and J.M. Picard. Have to get my order in!

 

St Brigid is the earliest and best-known of the female saints of Ireland. In the generation after St Patrick, she established a monastery for men and women at Kildare which became one of the most powerful and influential centres of the Church in early Ireland.

The stories of Brigid’s life and deeds survive in several early sources, but the most important are two Latin Lives written a century or more after her death. The first was composed by a churchman named Cogitosus and tells of her many miracles of healing and helping the poor. The second source, known as the Vita Prima, continues the tradition with more tales of marvellous deeds and journeys throughout the island. Both Latin sources are a treasure house of information not just about the legends of Brigid but also about daily life, the role of women, and the spread of Christianity in Ireland.

This book for the first time presents together an English translation of both the Life of Brigid by Cogitosus and the Vita Prima, along with the Latin text of both, carefully edited from the best medieval manuscripts. With an Introduction by Professor Freeman, this book makes these fascinating stories of St Brigid accessible to general readers, students and scholars.

Philip Freeman received his PhD in Classics and Celtic Languages from Harvard University in 1994. He has written extensively on Christianity in early medieval Ireland, as well as the Roman world in late antiquity. He currently serves as Fletcher Jones Professor of Humanities at Pepperdine University in California.

 For further details see the publisher's website here: https://www.fourcourtspress.ie/books/2024/two-lives-of-saint-brigid/

 

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Told of St Brigid: Some Legends

One of the most popular types of story associated with the Irish saints are those involving their interactions with the animal creation. The vogue for 'Celtic Christianity' in recent decades has tended to give the impression that Irish saints are unique in this. Yet such stories are associated with saints of the universal church and ultimately go back to the tradition of the Desert Fathers of the east. The Irish however, did put their own stamp on stories involving saints and beasts and in his 2008 study Saints and Animals in the Middle Ages, modern scholar Dominic Alexander devoted a chapter to what he titled 'The Irish Variant'. He includes the story below, which shows how Saint Brigid is as wily as the fox she rescues, taken here from an Australian newspaper account of 1926, but whose original can be found in the seventh-century Life of Saint Brigid by Cogitosus and repeated in some other later Lives. Alexander argues that this story probably originated as a secular tale, as it doesn't quite fit the usual pattern of the animal's 'wild' nature being overcome in its interaction with the saint. As he remarks:

Now this story, it can be argued, exemplifies Christian morality: the saint shows compassion, and the king, who does not, is therefore tricked and punished as a result. Yet the story violates basic patristic parameters when it comes to animal miracles. The animal is obedient to God and the saint up to a point, but its wild nature is clearly in no way compromised by the service it renders the saint. Indeed the proverbial cunning of the fox provides the punch-line of the story. This story looks very much like a secular morality tale than one that would have emerged directly from the ecclesiastical context of hagiographic writing. 

Dominic Alexander, Saints and Animals in the Middle Ages (Boydell Press, 2008), 72.

He goes on though to suggest that due to the popularity of this tale Cogitosus may have felt obliged to include it in his Vita and it remains one of the most popular of the many stories told about Saint Brigid:

Told of St. Brigid.

SOME LEGENDS.

Many legends testify to St. Brigid's power over the lower creation. Now it is a story of some wild animal pursued by hunters flying for protection to the convent lands, and living ever afterward in a domesticated state with Brigid's flocks and herds. Again it is a picturesque scene, such as the Saint on the brink of a pond with a flight of wild ducks fluttering round her, coming at her call, and allowing themselves to be stroked by her hand. A legend in which Reynard makes a creditable figure is one of the fairest of all.

While cutting firewood one day on the outskirts of a forest, a workman employed by St. Brigid saw a fox straying about, and thoughtlessly killed the animal, not knowing that it was a tamed creature, in whose tricks and gambols the king of the territory took great delight. On learning what had happened, he became exasperated, ordered the poor man to be put to death, and directed that his wife and children should be reduced to slavery.

Shocked at the cruelty of the sentence, the man's friends ran to the Abbess and told her of the unhappy fate awaiting her retainer and his family. Immediately she ordered her chariot to be yoked, and drove across the plain in the direction of the royal rath. 

Passing through the forest, the Saint called to her a fox which she saw running in the distance; and, instantly obeying, it jumped into the chariot and quietly lay down, nestling in the skirts of her habit. Having arrived at the king's residence, she earnestly entreated that the poor man should be liberated from his chains, while she represented that he was not really accountable for what he had done, and pointed out how disproportionate was the heaviness of the chastisement to the lightness of the offence.

The king, however, was inexorable, and declared that the prisoner should not be set free unless a fox equal in cunning and tricks to the one he had lost should be procured. Then, continues the legend, our Saint set before the king and his courtiers the fox which had accompanied her in the chariot, and which appeared to rival the former one in gambols and devices. Seeing this, the king was greatly pleased, and forthwith commanded the captive to be set at liberty.

The Abbess drove to her convent with a glad heart, leaving her late travelling companion in high society at Court, but with no injunction laid on him to give up his free life in the woods and dwell in bondage in the house of kings. So, when Reynard had finished his feats, playing and sporting for the great folks, he adroitly mingled with the outer crowd, and, in an opportune moment, scampering off to the wilds, with the hosts of Leinster behind him, both foot and horse and hound, he speedily regained his freedom and his den. But the king did not go back on his 'bargain, and St. Brigid was held in greater esteem than before.

"Told of St. Brigid." Freeman's Journal, 28 January 1926.

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Saint Colum Cille's Blessing of Assaroe

Yesterday we saw how the curse of Colum Cille impacted upon the fishermen of Mulroy Bay, today, by contrast, we see the effect of his blessing on the fish stocks at County Donegal's Assaroe Falls. Assaroe, Eas-Aedha-Ruaidh, the Waterfall of Red Hugh, owed its name to a local king who came to a watery end while attempting to cross by one of the fords. Victorian traveller William Allingham (1824-1889), gave a vivid description of the fishermen and their boats at work on the Falls and of the rich bounty to be gained:

The total take may probably be averaged at 500 salmon a day, during the latter half of the season (which closes in August); but as many as 2,000 have been taken in a day, and above 400 in a single haul.

'Patricius Walker' (pseud. William Allingham) Rambles (London, 1873), 125.

In the Life of Colum Cille by sixteenth-century Donegal chieftain Manus O'Donnell, these aquatic riches owed their origin to the blessing of our saint:

134. Then Columcille fared onward to Assaroe. And him seemed it great damage to all in general and to his own dear kinsman in especial to the which he bare great love, to wit, the clan of Conall Gulban, that there should not be abundance [of fish] in the waterfall [of Assaroe] and the whole Erne. And he saw there could be none such abundance except the fish be free to go and come across the waterfall from the river to the great sea. And it was by reason of all this that Columcille blessed the waterfall. And he bound the stones and the rocks of the northern side to abase them that the fish might pass, as we have said afore. And these dumb things did obeissance to Columcille and did abase them, as is manifest to those that visit the waterfall [of Assaroe] today, for the south side is high and rugged, and the north side thereof is low. And by reason of that blessing of Columcille's it is the best river for fish in Erin today. And every feast day of Columcille from then till now, his successor hath the fishing of Assaroe in remembrance of that great miracle.

A. O'Kelleher and G. Schoepperle eds. and trans. Manus O'Donnell, Betha Colaim Chille - Life of Colum Cille, (Illinois, 1918), 135.  

Sadly, the river found itself the subject of a mid-twentieth century hydro-electric scheme but a campaign has been launched to restore the historic salmon leap, so far without success. Read more on that here. Perhaps it too needs Saint Colum Cille's blessing?
 
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Saint Colum Cille Wins Tory Island

Yesterday we looked at an account derived from oral tradition preserved in the archives of the Irish Folklore Commission on how Saint Colum Cille came to bring Christianity to Tory Island. Below is another account derived from the Life of the saint written in the sixteenth century by Donegal chieftain Manus O'Donnell. The essentials of the story remain the same in that Saint Colum Cille wins the territory by imitating the miracle of saint Brigid's cloak, but here he has some opposition from other holy men:

E.Getty, U.J.A. Vol. 1 (1853)

It is generally understood that Saint Columba, influenced, most probably, by a desire of securing a safe and calm retreat in his own part of Ireland, first introduced Christianity into this remote island of the ocean.  Colgan, in the Trias Thaumaturga, introduces what he denominates " the fifth life of the holy Columba, briefly extracted from the one that Magnus O'Donnell, chief of Tirconnell, wrote out from the original volume in Irish : — translated into Latin and divided into three books."  From this work it may be interesting to extract the account of the dedication of this island. "This servant of Christ," says the legend,  departed thence, [Gartan,] into the part of the country commonly designated Tuatha, (the territories,) in the northern plain on the sea coast of Tirconnell. Being there admonished by an angel of the Lord to cross into Tory, an island in the open sea of those parts, stretching northward from the mainland; and, having consecrated it, to erect a magnificient church; he proceeded towards it accompanied by several other holy men. On reaching, however, Belach-an-adhraidh, "the way of adoration, — a high precipitous hill that lay in his course, whence Tory is ob- scurely visible in the distance,— there arose dissension amongst these holy men, with respect to the individual who. should consecrate the island, and thereby acquire a right to it for the future: — each renouncing, from humility and a love of poverty, the office of consecrator and right of territory. After discussing the question in its several bearings, they all assented to the opinion of Columba, that such a difference was best settled by lot; and they determined on his recommendation to throw their staves in the direction of the island, with the understanding that he, whose staff reached it nearest, should perform the office of consecration, and acquire authority over Tory. Each throw his staff, but that of Columbkille, at the moment of issuing from his hand, assumed the form of a dart or missile, and was born to the island by supernatural agency. The saint immediately called before him Alidus, the son of Baedain, toparch of the island, who refused to permit its consecration, or the erection of any building. He then requested him, at least, to grant as much land as his outspread cloak would cover. Alidus readily assented, conceiving the loss very trivial; hut he had soon reason to change his opinion, for the saint's cloak, when spread upon the ground, dilated and stretched so mueh; by its divine energy, as to include, within its border, the entire island. Alidus was roused to frenzy by this circumstance, and incited or hunted upon the holy man a savage, ferocious dog, unchained for the purpose, which the latter immediately destroyed by making the sign of the cross. The religious feelings of Alidus were awakened by this second miracle, — he threw himself at the saint's feet  asked pardon, and resigned to him the entire island. No further opposition being made, the blessed father consecrated Tory, and built a magnificent church, which he placed under the control of Ernanus, one of his disciples, surnamed, from this circumstance, Torracensis. Amongst other things, the saint commanded that no dog should ever again be introduced into the island.

E. Getty, The Island of Tory; Its History and Antiquities, Part III. Ecclesiastical Period, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Volume I (1853), 149-150. 

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Jocelin and his Vita Patricii: 'undervalued for far too long'

We conclude the octave of posts in honour of the feast of Saint Patrick with a final tribute to Jocelin of Furness and his Life of Patrick by one of the current generation of scholars who are reassessing the author and his work. I was only recently able to find an affordable copy of Helen Birkett's study of Jocelin and his Vitae and am finding it a fascinating read. In the extracts below, Birkett lays out her conclusions, first on the Life of Patrick and then more generally. Her initial thoughts reminded me that one of the basic rules of the modern approach to hagiography laid down by Pére Delehaye is 'that whatever a vita tells us, it tells us more about the time of its composition - its theology, spirituality, politics - than of the time of the saint, and more about the mind of the hagiographer than of the mind of the saint':

The Vita Patricii was not commissioned to document the life of a fifth-century missionary but to record the legend of a twelfth-century saint. It offered a carefully crafted version of Patrick as a figure who was recognizable in both word and deed but also as one who was clothed in contemporary fashions and values and .... whose face was turned firmly towards a twelfth century present... 

...The Vitae can now be recognised for the complex, carefully constructed and communicative texts that they are. Jocelin too, must be reconsidered. As an author whose movements and patronage have been shown to straddle various geo-political, ecclesiastical and cultural boundaries, he emerges from this study as a potentially significant figure for our understanding of wider British history during this period, a time which saw the increasing permeability of these borders. This is not to make an extravagant claim about Jocelin's importance but merely to bring greater attention to the work of a writer who has been undervalued for far too long.

Helen Birkett, The Saints' Lives of Jocelin of Furness: Hagiography, Patronage and Ecclesiastical Politics ( York Medieval Press, 2010), 51-2, 285.

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Saint Patrick's Aunt

We have seen that Jocelin's Life of Saint Patrick provided our patron with an extended family, with an emphasis not on the line of the father and grandfather named in Saint Patrick's own writings but on the matrilineal. In the opening chapter of his Life, Jocelin introduces not only the French mother of Saint Patrick but her unnamed sister who is to play a part in the saint's childhood. Both of these women are depicted as having been brought to Britain as slaves, but Conchessa rises above this station to marry Patrick's father:

THERE was once a man named Calphurnius, the son of Potitus, a presbyter, by nation a Briton, living in the village Taburnia (that is, the field of the tents, for that the Roman army had there pitched their tents), near the town of Empthor, and his habitation was nigh unto the Irish Sea. This man married a French damsel named Conchessa, niece of the blessed Martin, Archbishop of Tours; and the damsel was elegant in her form and in her manners, for, having been brought from France with her elder sister into the northern parts of Britain, and there sold at the command of her father, Calphurnius, being pleased with her manners, charmed with her attentions, and attracted with her beauty, very much loved her, and, from the state of a serving-maid in his household, raised her to be his companion in wedlock. And her sister, having been delivered unto another man, lived in the aforementioned town of Empthor. (Chapter I, p.135)

As we saw yesterday, the anonymous aunt is actively involved in the care of her nephew Patrick and his sister Lupita:

And Patrick, the child of the Lord, was then nursed in the town of Empthor, in the house of his mother's sister, with his own sister Lupita. (Chapter IV, p.138)

Auntie is also depicted as being involved in agriculture and in the episode below she falsely accuses her nephew of being negligent in his duties as a shepherd. In true hagiographical style our saint patiently bears the injustice and by his faith is able to vindicate himself:

WHILE Saint Patrick was a little boy, his aunt entrusted him with the care of the sheep, and to these he diligently attended with his aforementioned sister. ...But as the boy Patrick was one day in the fields with his flock, a wolf, rushing from the neighboring wood, caught up a ewe-lamb, and carried it away. Returning home at evening from the fold, his aunt chided the boy for negligence or for sloth; yet he, though blushing at the reproof, patiently bore all her anger, and poured forth his prayers for the restoration of the ewe-lamb. In the next morning, when he brought the flock to the pasture, the wolf ran up, carrying the lamb in his mouth, laid it at Patrick's feet, and instantly returned to the wood. And the boy gave thanks to the Lord, who, as he preserved Daniel from the hungry lions, so now for his comfort had saved his lamb uninjured from the jaws of the wolf. (Chapter VIII, p.142-143)

In a second episode involving the young Patrick and his aunt's livestock, she is presumably rather happier that he is on hand to deal with an outbreak of mad cow disease:

THE aunt who had nursed Saint Patrick had many cows, one of which was tormented with an evil spirit; and immediately the cow became mad, and tore with her feet, and butted with her horns, and wounded five other cows, and dispersed the rest of the herd. And the owners of the herd lamented the mishap, and the cattle fled from her fury as from the face of a lion. But the boy Patrick, being armed with faith, went forward, and, making the sign of the cross, freed the cow from the vexation of the evil spirit; then drawing near to the wounded and prostrate cows, having first prayed, he blessed them and restored them all even to their former health. And the cow, being released from the evil spirit, well knowing her deliverer, approached with bended head, licking the feet and the hands of the boy, and turned every beholder to the praise of God and the veneration of Patrick. (Chapter IX, p.143-144).

Overall, I am left with the impression that although the aunt remains anonymous she is nonetheless an important part of the extended family supplied by Jocelin for Saint Patrick. And with her 'many' cows she also appears to have been of some means. It leaves me wondering therefore, why the writer was unable to furnish a name for her.

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Saint Patrick Heals His Sister Lupita

As we have already seen, Jocelin's Life of Saint Patrick supplies our patron with a trio of sisters and goes on to name their offspring as his willing cooperators in the mission to Ireland. Jocelin features one of the sisters, Lupita, in the earlier section of the Life dealing with Patrick's childhood, where he presents the pair as having been raised together in the home of their maternal aunt:

And Patrick, the child of the Lord, was then nursed in the town of Empthor, in the house of his mother's sister, with his own sister Lupita. (Chapter IV, p.138)

Lupita then features in her own miracle story in Chapter VI when she suffers a bad fall. Although other family and friends rush to offer assistance, needless to say there is really only one person able to heal her - her brother Patrick:

 How the Sister of St. Patrick was healed. 

 ON a certain day the sister of Saint Patrick, the aforementioned Lupita, being then of good stature, had run about the field, at the command of her aunt, to separate the lambs from the ewes, for it was then weaning time, when her foot slipped, and she fell down and smote her head against a sharp flint, and her forehead was struck with a grievous wound, and she lay even as dead; and many of the household ran up, and her kindred and her friends gathered together to comfort the maiden wounded and afflicted; and her brother came with the rest, compassionating his sister, but confiding in the divine medicine; for, drawing near, he raised her, and, touching with his spittle the thumb of his right hand, he imprinted on her forehead, stained with blood, the sign of the cross, and forthwith he healed her; yet the scar of the wound remained as a sign, I think, of the miracle that was performed, and a proof of the holiness of him who, by his faith in the cross of Christ, had done this thing. (Chapter VI, p.141)

Tomorrow I will look a bit more at the figure of the aunt in Jocelin's Life of Patrick.

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How Saint Lumanus Sailed against the Wind and the Stream

Yesterday we were introduced to the extended family of Saint Patrick as recorded by Jocelin of Furness in his Life of the saint. Today we look at the account of a miraculous voyage by one of the reputed nephews of Saint Patrick, Lumanus, in the service of his uncle's Irish mission:

CHAPTER LI.

How Saint Lumanus Sailed against the Wind and the Stream. 

AND Saint Patrick, having sailed over from Ulidia, came unto the territory of Midia, at the mouth of the river Boinn, among barbarians and idolaters; and he committed his vessel and its tackle unto his nephew, Saint Lumanus, enjoining him that he should abide there at the least forty days, the while he himself would go forward to preach in the interior parts of the country. But Lumanus, abiding there the messenger of light, and being made obedient through the hope of obtaining martyrdom, doubled the space of time that was enjoined unto him, which no one of his companions, even through the fear of their lives, dared to do. Yet was not this child of obedience disappointed of his reward. For while he received the seed of obedience, he brought forth unto himself the fruit of patience, and deserved to fertilize strange lands, even with the seed of the divine Word, to the flourishing of the flowers of faith and the fruits of justice; and the more devotedly he obeyed his spiritual father, the more marvellously did the elements obey him. And having fulfilled there twice forty days, and being wearied with the continual expectation of the saint's return, on a certain day, the wind blowing strongly against him, he hoisted the sails, and, trusting in the merits of Saint Patrick, even by the guidance of the vessel alone passed he over unto the place where he was appointed to meet him. O miracle till then unheard and unknown! The ship, without any pilot, sailed against the wind and against the stream, at the bidding of the man of God, and bore him with a prosperous course from the mouth of the Boinn even to Athtrym; and He who formerly turned back the stream of Jordan unto its fountain did, for the merits of Patrick, guide the vessel against the wind and against the stream.

Rev. James O'Leary, The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick including the Life by Jocelin, (New York, 1904), 191.

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Extending Saint Patrick's Family

The Life of Saint Patrick by Jocelin of Furness added to the stock of stories surrounding our patron saint. This included the development of an extended family for Saint Patrick, who in his own writings had mentioned only the names of his father and grandfather. As we will see in the extract below, Jocelin supplies a trio of sisters for our patron and their offspring in turn become Uncle Patrick's willing helpers in his Irish mission:

CHAPTER L.
Of the Sisters and the Nephews of St. Patrick.  

AND the saint had three sisters, memorable for their holiness and for their justice, and they were pleasing unto the Lord; and of these the names were Lupita, Tygridia, and Darercha. And Tygridia was blessed with a happy fruitfulness, for she brought forth seventeen sons and five daughters. And all her sons became most wise and holy monks, and priests, and prelates; and all her daughters became nuns, and ended their days as holy virgins; and the names of the bishops were Brochadius, Brochanus, Mogenochus, and Lumanus, who, with their uncle, Saint Patrick, going from Britain into Ireland, earnestly laboring together in the field of the Lord, they collected an abundant harvest into the granary of heaven. And Darercha, the youngest sister, was the mother of the pious bishops, Mel, Moch, and Munis, and their father was named Conis. And these also accompanied Saint Patrick in his preaching and in his travel, and in divers places obtained the episcopal dignity. Truly did their generation appear blessed, and the nephews of Saint Patrick were a holy heritage. 

Rev. James O'Leary, The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick including the Life by Jocelin, (New York, 1904), 190-191.

 
In his 1985 study of medieval households, which includes a chapter on Ireland, scholar David Herlihy puts Jocelin's account of Patrick's family into context:

The Irish lives make frequent mention of the avunculate tie, and of other relationships running though women. In the life of St Patrick written by the English Cistercian Jocelin of Furness (after about 1180), Patrick is represented as the great-nephew of St Martin of Tours; his mother Conquessa is Martin's niece.  Jocelin is the first to claim that the two saints were related, and significantly, he runs their blood tie through two women.  Still according to Jocelin, to his cognatus Patrick, Martin gives  the monastic habit and his rule. As a boy, Patrick had been reared in his aunt's house in a town called Nemphtor (presumably Clyde) in northern Britain. The aunt was his mother's sister. Patrick himself had three sisters, one of whom, Lupita, had seventeen sons and five daughters. They all become priests and nuns, and all come to help Patrick on his mission; so also did his other nephews, sons of sisters. "Truly the offspring of these [sisters] appears blessed... and a holy inheritance was the nephews of St Patrick". The embellishments, which Jocelin added to the ancient legends of Patrick, are extraordinarily rich in matrilineal allusions.

David Herlihy, Medieval Households (Harvard and London, 1985), 41.

Tomorrow we will look at a miracle recorded in Jocelin's Life which involved one of these reputed nephews, Bishop Lumanus.


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Jocelin's Secular Patron: John de Courcy

We continue the series of posts on the Life of Saint Patrick by Jocelin of Furness with a look at the secular authority who commissioned its writing - the Anglo-Norman adventurer, John de Courcy. In 2012 I attended a conference on the theme of John de Courcy and the Normans in Downpatrick at which I was privileged to hear several leading scholars in the field talk about this compelling yet still enigmatic figure in our history. The term adventurer is a particularly apt one for de Courcy as he was a man who seems to have made his own luck. He was the son of a younger son of the de Courcy family and thus whilst he had the family name he had no prospect of inheriting the family land. John arrived in Ireland in the autumn of 1176, landing in Dublin with a small group of 22 knights and 300 other soldiers. He left the garrison without permission and led his band northwards, passing peaceably through two Irish kingdoms and possibly even recruiting Irish auxiliaries en route. He appears to have exploited the rivalries between native rulers and arrived unannounced in Downpatrick, taking the town the following summer after two bloody battles. The entire enterprise was undertaken without the consent of King Henry II and as his newly-conquered Ulster territory did not adjoin any other Anglo-Norman lands, de Courcy was free to run it as his personal possession. This independence eventually caused him to fall foul of King Henry's successor, King John, and by 1204 John de Courcy drops out of the historical record, with even the date and circumstances of his death uncertain.

So where does the commissioning of a Life of Saint Patrick fit into all of this? Well, for one thing John de Courcy may well have been aware of the cult of Saint Patrick before he ever set foot in Ireland. Steve Flanders has established in his research that a network of family ties stretching from the de Courcy family seat in Somerset through to Cumbria and back to their original homeland in Normandy was of vital importance to John. The cult of Patrick was known in Normandy, it was also known in Somerset at Glastonbury, near the family seat of Stogursey (Stoke Courcy) and it is also reflected in the place names of northern Britain, in Gospatrick in Cumbria, for example. Jocelin himself alludes to de Courcy's reputation as an admirer of Saint Patrick as he lays out the reasons behind the writing of his work saying that he has been 'enjoined by the commands of the most reverend Thomas, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland, and of Malachy, the Bishop of Down; and to these are added the request of John de Courcy, the most illustrious Prince of Ulidia, who is known to be the most especial admirer and honorer of St. Patrick, and whom we think it most becoming to obey' (Proeme, p.133).

Certainly the commissioning of the Life was but one example of John de Courcy's promotion of the cult of Saint Patrick in Down. Another tangible expression was the issuing of a coin bearing the inscription Patricius, which is today used as the logo of the Down Museum, as their website explains:

The Down County Museum logo is based on a coin minted by John de Courcy, about 1190, probably in Downpatrick. It has the name of Patrick, with a crozier, on one side and of de Courcy on the other. It was a symbolic linking of the religious and political associations of the area and because it did not bear the head of Prince John, Lord of Ireland, it was a declaration of independence by de Courcy.

The other main evidence for de Courcy's adoption of Saint Patrick is the role which he played in the discovery of the bodies of the three patrons at Down in 1185. His fellow Norman, the chronicler Gerald of Wales, placed John at the centre of the action writing in his Expugnatio Hibernica:

John de Courcy having discovered a precious treasure, the bodies of three Saints, Patrick, Bridget and Columba, at Down, these relics were by his care translated. (Chap. XXXIV, p. 77).    

Scholar Helen Birkett, however, feels that the primary role in this great discovery was played by Malachy, bishop of Down,  but to examine that will require a separate post.

I find John de Courcy's relationship with Saint Patrick and with Saints Brigid and Colum Cille a fascinating one. Obviously there seems to be more than a touch of self-interest involved in his desire to talk up and appropriate the Patrician associations with Down, the territory he conquered. He was doubtless spurred on by what seems to have been a genuine belief  that he was the 'white knight on the white horse' who would be the first to conquer Ulster, spoken about in a book of prophecies attributed to Saint Colum Cille and which Gerald of Wales tells us de Courcy was supposed to carry on his person as one of his prized possessions.  He remains for me one of the more interesting historical characters to have had a relationship with Ireland's patron saints.


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The Life of Saint Patrick by Jocelin of Furness

We begin the octave of posts in honour of the feast of Saint Patrick with a look at the late twelfth-century Life composed by the English monk Jocelin of Furness. Jocelin was commissioned by the Norman conqueror of Ulster, John de Courcy, to write a Life of the Irish patron in connection with the 1185 finding and later translation of the relics of not just Patrick but those of his two co-patrons, Brigid and Colum Cille. Inevitably, this later work has never enjoyed the same status as the earlier Lives by Muirchú and Tírechán, the nineteenth-century English hagiologist, Sabine Baring Gould, for example dismissed it as "of little historical value compared with the earlier and more authentic sources of information, which it not unfrequently contradicts on the authority of some idle legend." But understanding of hagiography has developed since Baring Gould's day and in the last decade a scholarly reappraisal of Jocelin's work has begun. A project at Liverpool University has sought to bring out a new edition of Jocelin's Life of Patrick and to better establish the cultural context in which he was working. It is perhaps worth remembering that despite any sniffiness about this Norman upstart, Jocelin's Life was for centuries a much-used source in both English and Irish language biographies of the saint, as a scholar has recently reminded us:

The Life of Patrick written by Jocelin of Furness in the twelfth century experienced continual popularity among both language communities throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. First popularised for an Irish audience in Thomas Messingham's Florilegium Insulae Sanctorum (1624), Jocelin's Life subsequently could be found in an English translation by the Franciscan Robert Rochford as The Life of the Glorious Bishop S. Patricke, Apostle and Primate of Ireland (1625); another English translation was published by Edmund Swift in Dublin in 1809. In Rockford's publication, Patrick's life was also paired with a life of Bridget...Indeed, these two lives - that of Jocelin and Cogitosus - dominated the hagiography in circulation among eighteenth and nineteenth century scribes. In particular Jocelin's Life of Patrick - who as a subject was in turn the most often cited in these Irish language texts, about twice as often as Bridget- made up approximately half of the surviving lives of this saint in this time period.

N.M. Wolf, An Irish-Speaking Island: State, Religion, Community and the Linguistic Landscape in Ireland, 1770-1870 (Univ. Wisconsin Press, 2014), 200.

Jocelin's Life was also a source for the seventeenth-century Trias Thaumaturga compiled by this blog's hero, Friar John Colgan, where it formed the Vita Sexta or Sixth Life the great hagiologist used.

Over the coming days of the octave of the Feast of Saint Patrick I will bring some more selections and commentary on Jocelin's Life.

Further Resources:

In the absence of a modern, scholarly edition of Jocelin's Life, that of Father James O'Leary contained in his collection The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick is the most accessible. Read it at the Internet Archive here.

One of the scholars involved with the Jocelin project, Dr Clare Downham, has made an article on Jocelin available to read through the academia site here.

Boydell and Brewer have published a 2010 study by Helen Birkett on The Saints' Lives of Jocelin of Furness. Details here.

Proceedings of the Liverpool University's Project 2011 Conference on Jocelin have also been published. Details here


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Eithne's Cloak

December 7 is the Feast of the Birth of Saint Colum Cille. In the opening chapter of Book 3 of his Life of Saint Columba, Saint Adomnán records a beautiful vision which was granted to Saint Colum Cille's mother, Eithne, while she waited for his birth:

ON a certain night between the conception and birth of the venerable man, an angel of the Lord appeared to his mother in dreams, bringing to her, as he stood by her, a certain robe of extraordinary beauty, in which the most beautiful colours, as it were, of all the flowers seemed to be portrayed. After a short time he asked it back, and took it out of her hands, and having raised it and spread it out, he let it fly through the air. But she being sad at the loss of it, said to that man of venerable aspect,  "Why dost thou take this lovely cloak away from me so soon?" He immediately replied, "Because this mantle is so exceedingly honourable that thou canst not retain it longer with thee." When this was said, the woman saw that the forementioned robe was gradually receding from her in its flight; and that then it expanded until its width exceeded the plains, and in all its measurements was larger than the mountains and forests. Then she heard the following words: "Woman, do not grieve, for to the man to whom thou hast been joined by the marriage bond, thou shalt bring forth a son, of so beautiful a character, that he shall be reckoned among his own people as one of the prophets of God, and hath been predestined by God to be the leader of innumerable souls to the heavenly country." At these words the woman awoke from her sleep.

William Reeves, D.D., M.R.I.A., ed., Life of Saint Columba, Founder of Hy, Written by Adamnan, Ninth Abbot of That Monastery, The Historians of Scotland, Vol. VI. (Edinburgh, 1874), 78-79.

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Saint Fintan and the Miracle on the Feast of Saint Brigid

November 15 is the feast day of Saint Fintan of Rheineau, one of the Irish saints who laboured in continental Europe. In a paper on the life of the saint which I have today reproduced in full at my other site here, Father J.F. Hogan records how Saint Fintan carried devotion to the three Irish patrons with him to his new home in Switzerland. On Saint Brigid's Day he once performed a miracle which would have indeed gladdened the heart of our national patroness by providing bread to the poor in a true feeding of the five thousand fashion:

It was usually on the feast days of St. Patrick, St. Bridget, St. Aidan, and St. Columbkille, that the most important manifestations of the will of Heaven were made to him. Once on the feast day of St. Bridget* he multiplied, by a miracle, his small allowance of bread, and supplied with it a large number of people who suffered from the famine which then decimated the country.

*"In festivitate quippe Sanctae Brigitae virginis, non modicam pauperum turbam, ut sibi mos erat, collegit. Carnem totam quam habuit juxta numerum adgregatorum, particulatim incidi praecipit: hoc autem facto ecce tanti pauperes ut aderant improvise venerunt. Vir vero beatus in adventu eorum Deo gratias agens, particulas quas ad numerum prius commeantium parare jussit, in Dei largitate confisus, qui quinque panes inter quinque millia virorum multiplicavit, distribui fecit. Sed licet numenis geminaretur egenorum ut nihil de carnibus vel ab illo vel a quoquam adderetue, unicuique tamen sua particula ex eadem caruncula inveniebatur."— Vita apud Mabillon.

J.F. Hogan, 'Saint Fintan of Rheinau' in Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Vol. XIV (1893), 393.

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Hagiography and Saint Colum Cille

Although the Life of Columba by Saint Adamnan is one of the most famous works of hagiography, it is not the sole one written about our saint. The Betha Colaim Chille, written by the sixteenth-century Donegal chieftain Manus O'Donnell, contains many stories and local lore not found in its more famous predecessor. The editors and translators of the 1918 edition made this observation about the hagiographical traditions relating to Saint Colum Cille as O'Donnell found them:

In the miracles, prophecies, and visions of Columcille, there is much that is of familiar hagiographical pattern. Those who loved his memory, like those who treasured that of other saints, would permit their favorite to yield to none in sanctity and power. Fair traceries from the shrines of many another holy man are borrowed to deck that of the beloved patron. There are stories of the holy men that were Columcille 's friends, and of those who were his teachers and pupils.  Visits to France and pilgrimages to Rome have been added, and other practices conforming to the habits of saints of later date. Local legends explain the origin of land grants and taxes which readers of the Life were paying—or neglecting to pay—to Columcille's successors. Many an anecdote testifies to the genuineness of relics in this place or that — the Golden Leaf in Iona, the Red Stone of Gartan, and not a few others.

Many a miracle of Patrick or of Bridget, of the apostles and of Hebrew prophets, is told and retold of Columcille. Was he not like them in life and in works, and what the others did, should not he do also? And so Columcille, like other saints, strikes fountains from rocks, blesses stones and salt to heal maladies, illumines dark places with his hands, and by a thousand miracles already told a thousand times of other holy men, proves that indeed "there hath not come patriarch nor prophet, nor evangelist, nor apostle, nor martyr, nor confessor, nor virgin, that we may not liken Columcille to him or set him in some degree of perfection above all of them. "

A. O'Kelleher and G. Schoepperle eds. and trans. Manus O'Donnell, Betha Colaim Chille - Life of Colum Cille, (Illinois, 1918), xiv.  

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Vignettes from the Lives of the Irish Saints: Saint Brigid Exonerates Saint Brón

June 8 is the feast day of Saint Brón of Kilaspugbrone whom hagiography links with both Saint Patrick and Saint Brigid. In the Patrician texts Brón is depicted as an early disciple of our national apostle, appointed by him to found a church in the County Sligo district of Cassell-Irra, now known as Killaspugbrone, literally 'the church of Bishop Brón'. In the Irish Life of Saint Brigid, however, Brón is accused of raping a woman and of being the father of her child. Fortunately, although Saint Patrick is present at the gathering where this accusation is made, Saint Brigid arrives with another of her episcopal mentors, Bishop Mel, and saves the day. There are a number of charming aspects to this account. First, the ever-modest Saint Brigid is depicted as being reluctant to perform a miracle in the presence of Saint Patrick but nevertheless deals firmly with the issue. The mother's sins very publicly find her out and she is ultimately condemned by her own child. Then while the onlookers clamour for the woman caught in the lie to be burned, Saint Brigid is content for the sinner to do penance. Thus she demonstrates her characteristic virtues of modesty and mercy. The last line really says it all: 'The people are delighted, the bishop is liberated, and Brigit is glorified’.

42. INFANT DECLARES ITS FATHER.

Thereupon they come to Tailtiu. Patrick was there. They were debating an obscure question there, namely a certain woman had come to accuse a priest of Patrick’s household of being the father of her child. Brón was the priest’s name. ‘How has this been made out’, said everyone. ‘Not difficult’, said the woman, ‘I had come to Brón to have the veil blessed on me and to offer my virginity to God. This is what this wicked priest did, he debauched me, so that I have borne him a son.’ As they were debating thus, Brigit was coming towards the assembly. Then Mel said to Patrick: ‘The holy maiden Brigit is approaching the assembly and she will find out for you by the amount of her grace and the proximity of her miracles whether this is true or false; for there is nothing in heaven or earth which she might request of Christ which would be refused her. And this is what should be done in this case: she should be called apart out of the assembly about this question, for she will not perform miracles in the presence of holy Patrick. ‘ Brigit comes thereupon. The crowd rises up before her. She is immediately called aside out of the assembly to address the woman, and the priests except Patrick accompany her. ‘Whose is this child?’ [said Brigit] to the woman. ‘Brón’s’, said the woman. ‘That is not true’, said Brigit. Brigit made the sign of the cross over her face and immediately her head and tongue began to swell. Patrick then comes to them into the great hall. Brigit addresses the child in the presence of the people of the assembly, though it had not yet begun to speak. ‘Who is thy father?’ said Brigit. ‘Brón the bishop is not my father but a certain ill-shaped man who is sitting in the outermost part of the assembly; my mother is a liar.’ They all return thanks to God and demand that the guilty one be burned. But Brigit refuses saying: ‘Let this woman do penance’. This was done and the head and tongue lost their swelling. The people are delighted, the bishop is liberated, and Brigit is glorified’.

M.A. O’Brien, ‘The Old Irish Life of St. Brigit: Part I. Translation’, in Irish Historical Studies, Volume 1, no.2 (1938), 132-133.

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Vignettes from the Lives of the Irish Saints: Saint Brigid's Easter

23

1.     As Easter Day was approaching, Saint Brigit wanted to give a banquet for all the churches which were near her in the surrounding towns of Mide.

2.     However, she had not the wherewithal for a banquet except for a single vat of beer, for there was a shortage of provisions in those parts at the time.

3.     Now she put the beer from the vat into two basins, for she had no other vessels.

4.     And the beer was divided up and taken by Brigit to the eighteen surrounding churches and there was enough for them all for Holy Thursday and Easter Sunday and the week up to the end of Easter.

5.     The same Easter a leper came to saint Brigit and as he was covered with leprosy he asked Brigit for a cow.

6.     Not having a cow she said to him, ‘Would you like us to pray to God for you to be cured of your leprosy?’ He replied,  ‘That to me would be the best gift of all’.

7.     Then the holy virgin blessed water and sprinkled it on the leper’s body and he was cured.

8.     He gave thanks to God and stayed with Brigit till his death….

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Radegundis and Brigit

One of the saints most closely linked with the Veneration of The Cross is the Merovingian princess, Radegund of Poitiers. Reading the entry at Pilgrim on the saint's feast day prompted me to dig out the notes I had made from a paper by Walter Berschin on 'Radegundis and Brigit', in which the author explores the possiblility that Cogitosus, author of the Vita Secunda S. Brigidae, may have been acquainted with the late sixth-century Vita S. Radegundis of Venantius Fortunatus. Venantius, the first 'professional hagiographer' of Latin literature, wrote his Life of Radegund shortly after the saint's repose in the year 587. The biography of Cogitosus, on the other hand, was one of a group which came out of Ireland a century later, when lives of all three of Ireland's patrons - Patrick, Brigid and Columcille - were written in Latin. Whilst the chronology of these lives is still the subject of debate, Muirchú, author of a life of Saint Patrick, acknowledges his spiritual father, Cogitosus, as having pioneered the way for him. Berschin suggests that despite the great differences between the Life of Brigit and that of Radegund, there is a coincidence which leads him to wonder if the Irishman Cogitosus was aware of the work of Venantius. One of the similarities between the two Vitae is that neither records the actual death of the saint, Cogitosus instead giving a description of the monastery at Kildare and Brigit's continuing presence there by her working of miracles post mortem, just as Venantius does not conclude his Life of Radegund with an account of her death but of one of the many miracles she worked after leaving this world. Indeed, in his presentation of the Life of Saint Brigid as a 'rapid series of miracles', Cogitosus may well have been imitating the 'narrative technique developed by Venantius Fortunatus, who was the Merovingian master of biography'. But the differences are also there:

Radegundis is a saint living under the spell of the Cross. Indeed, the Veneration of the Holy Cross has evoked Radegundis's story throughout fifteen centuries and, for as long as Pange, lingua gloriosi proelium certaminis and Vexilla regis prodeunt, fulget crucis mysterium are sung, it will continue to do so. These two poems were composed by Venantius Fortunatus for Radegundis and her nuns in honour of the Holy Cross venerated by them. In the last stanza of Vexilla regis, in the lines Salue ara, salue uictima de passionis gloria, we find the most succinct summary of Radegundis's career, her 'glory of passion'.

The Holy Cross is almost absent from Brigit's Life, as are mortification and asceticism. How are we to form an impression of Brigit's monastery? Was she an abbess? Was she, who is so often sitting in her carriage (in curru sedebat) not subject to stabilitas in congregatione? Do we encounter something Celtic in the fascination with her carriage? Celtic princes on the Continent even took their carriages with them to their graves. Cogitosus's Brigit seems to live in an archaic world, surrounded by animals, 'praising the invisible Creator of everything through his visible creation, the Creator to whom the animals are subject and for whom they live'.

Walter Berschin, 'Radegundis and Brigit' in J. Carey, M. Herbert and P.Ó Riain, eds., Studies in Irish Hagiography, Saints and Scholars (Dublin, 2001), 72-76.

In saying that 'The Holy Cross is almost absent from Brigit's Life, as are mortification and asceticism', the author is, of course, speaking only of the written Life of Cogitosus and not Saint Brigit's actual life. As an Irish monastic, asceticism was very much a part of her life, some of the other sources record, for example, that she practiced the discipline of being immersed overnight in cold water as she prayed. And, she is associated with her very own distinctive cross, which still remains a feature of Irish life to this day. I will leave the last word to an Englishwoman who loved the patroness of Ireland:

Her religious work comes close on the heels of Patrick; she was one of the many who consolidated the structure he had brought into being. And Brigit's more intimate, feminine, touch probably meant a great deal at that time to the infant Celtic Church: if Patrick the British stranger had spread the Faith far and wide over Ireland it remained for Brigit, the Irishwoman, to really take it into the homes of her fellow countrymen and weave it, like the strands of the rush crosses, into the pattern of their lives.

D.D.C. Pochin Mould, Ireland of the Saints (London, 1953), 65.

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The Life of Saint Columba by Saint Cuimine the Fair Part 2

CHAPTER XIII.

He enjoys celestial visions during three days.

LIKEWISE, on another occasion, when staying in the same island, the grace of the Holy Spirit was abundantly and incomparably poured out upon the holy man, and dwelt with him in a marvellous manner for the space of three days, so that for three days and three nights he neither ate nor drank, nor permitted any one to approach him, but remained in his house, which was shut up and filled with celestial brightness. At night rays of surpassing brilliancy were seen to burst from the house through the chinks in the doors and through the key-holes, and spiritual songs were heard being chanted by him, and songs before unheard. And as he afterwards openly confessed, he was deemed worthy to learn in that place many things, both obscure things of the Scriptures and mysteries unknown to men.

CHAPTER XIV.

He relieves the want of a poor man by a spit he blessed.

ON one occasion there came to the Saint a certain peasant who was very poor, complaining bitterly that he had not anything wherewith to feed his wife and little ones. Sympathising with him, the merciful servant of God said: "Poor man! Take a stake from the neighbouring wood and bring it to me quickly." He obeyed, and went and brought one. And the Saint taking it, sharpened it into a spit, and with his own hand blessed it and gave it to him, saying: "Watch carefully over it, it will hurt neither man nor cattle, but only beasts and game and fish, and so long as thou keepest it, there will be no want whatever of venison in thy house." On hearing this the poor man returned to his home rejoicing; he also fixed the spit in remote parts of the country which the beasts of the forest were in the habit of frequenting, and when the night was passed, went with the first dawn of day to visit it, and found a stag impaled upon it. But why say more? Not a day passed but the stake caught a buck, a doe, or some other animal. His whole house, as it were, was overflowing with the flesh of wild animals. But not many days after, his foolish wife, overcome by the persuasion of the devil, spake thus to him: "Take the stake from the ground; for if any of the men or domestic cattle should be killed upon it, thou and I with our children will be led captive or reduced to slavery." "It will not be so," replied the husband; "for the Saint of God has interdicted it from hurting man or beast." Nevertheless, yielding to his wife, he took the stake out of the field, and placed it beside the wall of his house, when immediately his house dog, running against it, died. On this his wife again said: "One of thy sons will fall upon the stake and die." At this the husband removed it from beside the wall, and carrying it into the wood, placed it among thick bushes, so that it might hurt no one. But when he returned on the following day, he found a huge salmon, which he was hardly able to carry alone, impaled upon it. Then he placed the stake upon the roof, when a crow flying by chance against it, was killed. Whereupon the poor man, who was now prosperous, led astray by the counsel of his wife, took the stake from the roof, seized his axe, cut it into many pieces, and threw it into the fire, and immediately became poor.

CHAPTER XV.

He is suffused with Heavenly Light in the Church.

ONE winter night S. Fernaus entered the Church alone to pray, and was devoutly praying at a certain seat. S. Columba, ignorant of this, entered the church a little after for the same purpose, and along with him there entered a golden light, which descended from heaven and filled the whole church. Moreover, the heavenly light filled also the chapel, though it was shut off, where Fernaus was lying hid in great alarm; and as no man can look at the summer sun at noontide with steady unblinking eyes, so also Fernaus could not endure that heavenly splendour. At length having seen the lightning brilliancy no strength remained in him. After a short prayer, however, S. Columba left the church, and on the morrow he called Fernaus to him and addressed him in these consoling words: "O my child, last night thou didst that which was pleasing in the sight of God in bending thine eyes down to the earth for fear of the light. For if thou hadst not so done, thine eyes would have been blinded; but while I live, take care to keep this vision secret."

CHAPTER XVI.

The Life of Columba is prolonged in answer to the Prayers of the Church.

ON another occasion, also, when the man of God was staying in the Island of Iona, his face glowed with a sudden joyfulness, and lifting his eyes to heaven he rejoiced greatly; but after a little he became sad. Two brethren, however, who were standing at the door inquired the reason of this sudden joy and the following grief. To whom the Saint replied: "Go in peace. I may not tell you." But when they were too troublesome to him concerning this occurrence, he said: "If you will keep it secret, I will tell you, for I love you." And when they gave their word, he spoke thus to them: "Up to the present day thrice ten years of my pilgrimage in Britain have been fulfilled. Moreover, I have asked from the Lord that in the end of this thirtieth year I might pass away and be with Him. And this was the cause of the joy concerning which ye trouble me. I also saw the angels coming to meet my soul as it was about to leave the body. But lo! they stand afar off, being suddenly held back and not suffered to approach nearer, because He who granted that what I besought should happen on this day, hearkening to the prayers of many churches concerning me, has changed more quickly than I could tell; for in answer to the prayers of the churches, it has been granted by the Lord that four years from this day shall be added to my continuance in the flesh. Now this delay was the cause of my grief. But when these four years are ended, I shall joyfully pass to the Lord by a sudden death."

CHAPTER XVII.

He predicts the Hour of his Death; and blesses Iona.

ACCORDING therefore to these words the man of God lived in the flesh for four years more, which being ended, one day in the month of May, infirm with age and conveyed in a waggon, he went to visit the brethren who were labouring in the fields and began to address them as follows: "During the Easter festival, in the month of April just past, I earnestly desired to pass away to Christ, but that the festival of joy might not be changed for you into sorrow, I preferred to delay the day of my departure longer." At these words the brethren were exceeding sorrowful. But the man of the Lord, as he sat in the vehicle, turned his face towards the East, and blessed the island with the islanders who dwelt therein, and from that day there was no viper in it hurtful to man or beast. At length after the words of benediction, the Saint was borne back to his monastery.

CHAPTER XVIII.

He sees an Angel.

BUT when a few days were passed, while the solemnities of the Mass were being celebrated according to the custom on the Lord's Day, suddenly, his eyes being lifted up, the face of the blessed Columba was seen to be overspread with a bright glow. At the same moment he alone beheld an angel of the Lord hovering above within the walls of the oratory. For this was the cause of that sudden joy, concerning which when those present inquired, the Saint made to them this reply: "Wonderful and incomparable is the subtilty of the angelic nature! For lo! an angel of the Lord sent for the safe-keeping of some one dear to God, looking down upon us within the church and giving his benediction, has returned again through the roof of the church, and left no trace of such exit." These things the Saint said signifying them concerning himself; nevertheless at the time the brethren knew it not; but afterwards they understood.

CHAPTER XIX.

He indicates the Day of his Death to Diormit.

ACCORDINGLY the holy man at the end of the same week, that is on the Sabbath day (i.e., our Saturday), privately called his servant Diormit to him, and thus spake: "In the Sacred Writings this day is called Sabbath, which, being interpreted, is Rest. And truly to me this day is a Sabbath, because to me it is the last day of life, in which, after the afflictions of my labours, I take my rest, and on the coming Lord's day night, shall go the way of my fathers. For already Christ invites me, and so it is revealed to me by Him." At this the servant was much grieved, but was consoled by the father. Thence going out and ascending to the summit of a hill overlooking his monastery, the Saint of God stood a little, and with uplifted hands blessed his community, and prophesied many things concerning the present and the future which the event afterwards confirmed.

CHAPTER XX.

When the Hour of Death is near, he makes a division of a Psalm.

AFTER these things, descending from the hill and being returned to the monastery, he was sitting in his cell writing a psalter. Coming at length to that verse of the thirty-third Psalm, where it is written: "They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing," he said: "Here I think I must stop. Baitheneus must write the words which follow." Now the verse which the Saint had just written applied very fitly to him to whom verily the good things of eternity will never be lacking. But to his successor, that is to the father of his spiritual sons, the following suited not less fitly; "Come, my children, hearken unto me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord." For, as his predecessor enjoined, he continued, not only in writing but also in labouring in the rule of the monastery.

CHAPTER XXI.

The Last Words of Columba.

ACCORDINGLY, after he had finished writing this verse, which completed the page, he went into the holy church to celebrate the Mass of the Lord's Day night. Returning to his dwelling as soon as it was ended, he sat all night on his bed, where for straw he was wont to have the bare floor, for a pillow a stone, which even to this day remains beside his sepulchre, as it were the inscription on his monument. So then sitting there he commended his last words to his children, saying: "Among yourselves have always mutual and unfeigned charity with peace; but the Lord, the Comforter of the good, will be your aid, and I, abiding with Him, will intercede for you, that the good things of time and eternity may arise to you." After these words were said, S. Columba was silent for a little.

CHAPTER XXII.

Columba Dies in the Church.

THEN straightway at midnight, when the bell rang, rising hurriedly, he went to the church, and running more quickly than the rest, he entered alone, and fell down before the altar on bended knees in prayer. But Diormit, his servant, having followed more slowly, saw from afar at that moment the whole church filled from within with angelic light; as he drew near to the door the same light quickly vanished, but not before it had been seen by some of the brethren. But Diormit, entering the church, cried out repeatedly with tearful voice: "Where art thou, father?" And as lights had not yet been brought in by the brethren, he groped about in the darkness, and found the Saint lying upon his back before the altar. He raised him a little, and sitting beside him laid the holy head in his lap. But the other brethren running up and seeing that the father, whom they had loved while living, was dying, mourned exceedingly as he died. But the Saint, whose life had not yet passed away, raised his eyes to both sides, looked around with a joyful countenance, and saw the holy angels near. Diormit, having raised his right hand, signified that he should bless the brethren; but the holy father nodded to him and raised his hand himself as far as he could. And after his holy benediction thus signified, he straightway gave up the ghost. His face meanwhile remained ruddy, and in a wonderful degree enlivened by the angelic vision, so that it seemed to be the face not of the dead but of the sleeping.

CHAPTER XXIII.

His Burial .

MEANWHILE, after the departure of the holy soul, the hymns at Matins being finished, the sacred body was borne with the melodious singing of the brethren back from the church to his dwelling, where for three days and three nights his honourable obsequies were duly performed. When these were finished to the praise of God, the holy body, wrapped in clean linen cloths, was buried with due reverence, to be sometime raised in eternal glory.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A Storm occurs during the Days of his Obsequies as the Saint predicted.

FOR once one of the brethren said to the Saint: "All the people of the provinces will come after thy decease to thy obsequies." "No," said the Saint, "the event will not turn out as you say; for a mixed crowd will not be present at my obsequies; only my own monks with whom I have lived will fill my grave and honour my funeral with their attendance." And so it came to pass, for during those three days and nights of his obsequies, a great storm of wind without rain blew, so that no vessel was able to cross the sea to take part in the last rites of the man of God. At length, when the Saint was buried, the wind falling and the tempest being stilled, the waves of the sea became quiet. Glory to Thee O God. Amen.

CHAPTER XXV.

Eulogy of Columba. He raises the Dead. A Wonderful Stone. He Slays a Boar with a Word. He Blesses the Cows. He beholds souls received into Heaven. He appears to King Oswald. He predicts concerning King Aidan.

LET the reader therefore consider what and how great were the merits before God in the highest of him whom God so magnified by the prerogative of signs and the privileges of merits, and on whom, next to the Apostles, he bestowed the gift of his grace. For in the flesh, as an angel living, he stilled tempests, calmed seas, a Church not opened to him, he very often unlocked without a key, the bolt being uninjured, imprinting upon it only the sign of the Lord's cross. After kneeling some time, when he had poured himself out in prayer, rising from the ground, in the name of the Lord he brings to life the dead son of some common man, and after his obsequies are celebrated, he presents him alive to his father and mother. Also a stone dipped by him in water, in a wonderful way, contrary to its nature, floated upon the surface of the water, nor could this which the holy man had blessed be ever afterwards sunk. A sick man drank of the water in which it was swimming and immediately returned from the brink of death, and recovered soundness and health of body. Accordingly the same stone, afterwards preserved in the treasury of the King, wrought many cures among the people by the finger of God, by whom it had been blessed by the hand of Columba, the man of God. Again, when he has entered a wood, a boar of marvellous size, which the hounds chanced to be pursuing, meets him. At the sight of the Saint it stopped, and having raised his holy hand, said: "Come no further; die where thou art;" and it died. He also blessed five cows belonging to a poor man and commanded their number to increase to a hundred and five; and this rich blessing was upon the man's sons and grandsons. This Saint, too, very often beheld the souls of just men carried by angels into heaven, and those of wicked men taken down by demons to hell. Moreover, he spake to King Oswald, who had marked out his camp, in preparation for battle, and was sleeping in his tent on a cushion, and commanded him to go forth to battle. He obeyed the command and obtained the victory. Moreover, returning afterwards he was ordained by God Emperor of all Britain, and all the nation, who before that were unbelieving, were baptized. He likewise examined the whole world, clearly perceiving it as if collected under a single ray of the sun, its bosom being wonderfully opened to his merits. One day, also, the Saint of God instructed his servant to suddenly toll the bell. Aroused by the sound, the brethren forthwith entered the Church. The Saint said to them: "Pour out your prayers to the Lord for Aidan and his people." After a time he went out, and looking to heaven, said: "Now the barbarous host is turned to flight, and the victory is yielded to Aidan." Also in the spirit of prophecy he told them of the number of three hundred and three men of the army slain.

CHAPTER XXVI.

A Miracle Wrought by his Tunic.

AFTER the death of the man of God, a great drought occurred in the spring time. And the brethren fearing an approaching plague raised in the air the white tunic in which the blessed man was clad in the hour of death, and shook it thrice. They also read the books written by his own hand. When all these things were duly performed, wonderful to relate, on the same day a violent rain falling watered the thirsting land, and in the same year it produced rich crops.

CHAPTER XXVII.

AGAIN, once when the Saint was annoyed by a press of the brethren, a boy, very mean in countenance and dress, secretly near behind, that he might touch the fringe of the coat with which the Saint was clad without him knowing. But this was not hidden from the Saint; for reaching his hand behind him, he held the boy's neck. To whom, trembling, the Saint said: "Open thy mouth and put out thy tongue;" which doing, the Saint blessed him with outstretched hand, and said to those standing by: "This boy, now despicable to you, will from this hour be famous in all Ireland, and excel in wisdom, eloquence, in good manners, and in fruitfulness of virtues." Which, indeed, God fulfilled according to the prophecy of His Saint, to the praise and glory of His name, to whom is honour and glory for ever. Amen.

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