CHAPTER XVI.

THE SCHOOL OF BANGOR.

"Our princes of old, when their warfare was over, As pilgrims forth wandered; as hermits found rest. Shall the hand of the stranger their ashes uncover, In Bangor the holy, in Aran the blest?" --_De Vere._

St. Comgall, who founded the famous School of Bangor, though not greatly celebrated for his own learning, was the founder of a school which of all others seems to have exercised the widest influence on the Continent by means of the great scholars whom it produced.

Bangor and Armagh were by excellence the great Northern Schools, just as Clonard was the School of Meath, Glendaloch of Leinster, Lismore of Munster, and Clonmacnoise and Clonfert of Connaught. For it must be borne in mind that Clonmacnoise was founded by St. Ciaran from Roscommon, that he was the patron saint of Connaught,[292] and that until a comparatively recent period it formed a portion of the Western Ecclesiastical Province. The influence of the other schools, however, was mainly felt at home, or to some extent in England, Scotland and Germany; but the influence of Bangor was felt in France, Switzerland and Italy, and not only in ancient times but down to the present day. There are great names amongst the missionaries who have gone from other monastic schools in Ireland to preach the Gospel abroad, but if we except St. Columba, who was trained at many schools in Ireland, there are no other names so celebrated as St. Columbanus, the founder of Luxeuil and Bobbio, and St. Gall, who has given his name to an equally celebrated Monastery and Canton in Switzerland. It is, then, highly interesting and instructive to trace the origin and influence of this famous Irish school.

I.--ST. COMGALL OF BANGOR.

St. Comgall, the founder of Bangor, was a native of the territory anciently called Benna Boirche,[293] or Mourne, the name of that wild but beautiful mountain district extending from Carlingford Lough to the Bay of Dundrum. There is some difference of opinion as to the exact date of his birth, and indeed as to the length of his life; although all admit that he died in the year A.D. 600 or 601. He seems to have been during his life from boyhood to old age a friend and companion of St. Columcille, and hence if we accept the length of his life given by the Bollandists[294] as eighty years, we may fix his birth at about A.D. 520--which was also the date, or near it, of Columcille's birth. Comgallus, the name by which he was baptized, has been frequently explained to signify the 'lucky pledge'--faustum pignus--because he was a child of benediction, the only son of his parents, and born, too, when they were advanced in years. As usual in the case of our Irish saints, several prodigies are said to have taken place both before and shortly after his birth. His father was Sedna, a small chief of the district then known as Dalaradia or Dalaray; his mother was a devout matron called Briga, who is said to have been warned before his birth to retire from the world, because her offspring was destined in future days to become a great saint of God. These pious parents took him to be baptized by a blind old priest, called Fehlim, who knew, however, by heart, the proper method of administering the Sacrament of Baptism. There being no water at hand a miraculous stream burst forth from the soil, and the old priest feeling the presence of the divine influence washed his face in the stream, and at once recovered his sight, after which he baptized the child and gave him the appropriate name of Comgall. This is only one of the numberless miracles recorded in the two lives of St. Comgall, given by the Bollandists, but it will not be necessary for our purpose to refer to them in detail.

The boy in his youth was sent to work in the fields, and seems to have assisted his parents with great alacrity in all their domestic concerns. When he grew up a little more he was sent to learn the Psalms and other divine hymns from a teacher in the neighbourhood, whose precepts were much better than his example. The young child of grace, however, was not led away from the path of virtue; on the contrary, he seems in his own boyish way to have given gentle hints to his teacher that his life was not what it ought to be. On one occasion, for instance, Comgall rolled his coat in the mud and coming before his master, the latter said to him, "Is it not shame to soil your coat so?" "Is it not a greater shame," replied Comgall, "for anyone to soil his soul and body by sin?" The teacher took the hint and was silent; but the lesson was unheeded, and so the holy youth resolved to seek elsewhere a holier preceptor.

This was about the year A.D. 545. At that time a young and pre-eminently holy man, named Fintan, had established a monastery at a place called Cluain-eidnech, now Clonenagh, near Mountrath, in the Queen's County. The fame of this infant monastery had spread far and wide over the face of the land; for although in many places in those days of holiness there was strict rule, and poor fare, and rigid life, yet Fintan of Clonenagh seems to have been the strictest and poorest and most rigid of them all. He would not allow even a cow to be kept for the use of his monks--consequently they had neither milk, nor butter; neither had they eggs, nor cheese, nor fat, nor flesh of any kind. They had a little corn, and herbs, and plenty of water near at hand, for the bogs and marshes round their monastic cells were frequently flooded by the many tributaries of the infant Nore coming down from the slopes of the Slieve-bloom mountains. They had plenty of hard work, too, in the fields tilling the barren soil, and in the woods cutting down timber for the buildings of the monastery as well as for firewood, and then drawing it home in loads on their backs, or dragging it after them over the uneven soil. The discipline of this monastery was so severe and the food of the monks so wretched that the neighbouring saints thought it prudent to come and beg the Abbot Fintan to relax a little of the extreme severity of his discipline, which was more than human nature could endure. The abbot, though unwilling to relax his own fearful austerities in the least, consented at the earnest prayer of St. Canice to modify the severity of his discipline to some extent for the others, and they were no doubt not unwilling to get the relaxation.

It speaks well for the love of holy penance shown by these young Christians of Ireland that in spite of its severe discipline this monastery was crowded with holy inmates from all parts of the country, and amongst the rest came Comgall from his far-off Dalaradian home to become a disciple of this school of labour and penance.

He remained a considerable time under the guidance of the holy Fintan, the Benedict, of our Irish Church, who, although his "senior," or superior in religion, was probably about his own age in years. There is little doubt that it was from Fintan, Comgall learned those lessons of humility and obedience which, as we know from his Rule and from his disciples, he afterwards taught with so much effect to others. His teacher then advised him to return to his own country, and propagate amongst his kindred in Dalaray the lessons of virtue which he had learned at Clonenagh.

Hitherto it seems Comgall had received no holy orders. He was a monk and a perfect one, of mature age too, but in his great humility he had hitherto declined the responsibilities of the priesthood. Now, however, he resolved to pay a visit to Clonmacnoise, which is about twenty miles to the north-west of Clonenagh. Its holy founder, Ciaran, was scarcely alive at this time, for he died in A.D. 544; but then, and long after, the fame of the school was great, and crowds of holy men were attracted to its walls. Here Comgall was induced to receive the priesthood from the holy Bishop Lugadius, and after a short stay he returned northward to his own country. This was probably about A.D. 550, or perhaps a little later.

Some authorities place the foundation of Bangor at this time; but it must be understood only in a very qualified sense at this early date. Comgall was now, indeed, a famous saint himself, and likely enough, companions came to place themselves under his spiritual guidance. But we are expressly told that for some time after his return he went about preaching the Gospel to the people, especially amongst his own kith and kin, and in all probability this took place before he established his monastery at least on any permanent footing at Bangor. But the holy man longed for the solitary life, and so we are told that he retired to an island in Lough Erin, called INSULA CUSTODIARIA, or, as we should now say, Jail Island, and there he practised such austerities that seven of the brethren who accompanied him died of cold and hunger. He was then induced to relax his penances and fastings; and shortly after, it seems, at the earnest prayer of his friends, he was again persuaded to leave Jail Island and return to Dalaray. This was about the year A.D. 559, which seems to be the most probable date of the founding of Bangor, although the Four Masters fix it so early as A.D. 552.

Bangor is very beautifully situated. It is about seven miles from Belfast, on the southern shore of Belfast Lough, in the county Down, and may be easily reached either by rail or steamer. It commands a fine view of Carrickfergus on the opposite shore of the bay, with the bold cliffs of Black Head further seaward; to the right, across the narrow sea the bleak bluffs of Galloway are distinctly visible, and far away due north in the dim distance, the Mull of Cantire frowns over a wild and restless sea. We saw this fair scene on a fine day in June, when the sun lit up the steeples of Carrickfergus, and glanced brightly over the transparent waters, so deeply and purely blue, whose wavelets played amongst the bare quartzite rocks, and we felt that if the old monks who chose Bangor to be their home loved God they loved nature also. Most of all they loved the great sea; it was for them the most vivid image of God; in its anger, its beauty, its power, its immensity, they felt the presence, and they saw, though dimly, the glory of the Divine Majesty. It was on the shore of this beautiful bay, sheltered from the south-western winds, but open to the north-east, that Comgall built his little church and cell. Crowds of holy men, young and old, soon gathered round him; they too, without much labour, built themselves little cells of timber or wattles; the whole was then surrounded by a spacious fosse and ditch, which was their enclosure, and thus the establishment became complete. If St. Bernard in his _Life of St. Malachy_ was rightly informed, it is clear that there were no stone buildings in ancient Bangor before the time of St. Malachy; and even he, when restoring the place, with some of his companions, only built a small oratory of wood which was finished in a few days.

Not its buildings, however, but its saints and its scholars, were the glory of Bangor. St. Columba from his home in Iona came more than once, with some of his followers, to visit Comgall and his good monks. On one of these occasions one of the brothers died during the voyage, and the corpse at first was left in the boat whilst the monks with Columba went to the monastery. Comgall received them with great delight, washed their feet, and on asking if all had come in, Columba said one brother remained in the boat. The holy man Comgall going down in haste to fetch the brother found him dead, and perhaps thinking it might have happened through his neglect, besought the Lord, and calling upon the monk to rise up and come to his brothers, the dead man obeyed. Walking to the monastery Comgall perceived that he was blind in one eye, and telling him to wash his face in the stream that still flows down to the sea from the church, he did so, and at once recovered his sight. St. Comgall brought back the brother from the grave, and, moreover, restored to him his eyesight. In this age of ours we are apt to smile at such miracles as these, because ours is not an age of faith; and the incredulity of the world around us make us incredulous also. Yet our Saviour said to his disciples (Luke xvii. v. 6), "If you had faith like to a grain of mustard seed, you might say to this mulberry tree, be thou rooted up, and be thou transplanted into the sea, and it would obey you." We doubt if any of our Irish Saints ever did anything apparently so foolish as this, yet even this they could do in the greatness of their faith.

St. Comgall paid a return visit to Columba, and it is said that he even founded a church in the Island of Heth, now called Tiree, one of the western isles to the north of Iona. He also accompanied Columba in the famous visit which he paid to King Brude, the Pictish King, who, at the approach of the saints, shut himself up in his fortress on the shore of the river Inverness. But Columba signed the sign of the cross, whereupon the barred doors flew open in the name of Christ; and the pagan King of the Picts, fearing with a great fear, allowed the saints to preach the Gospel to his subjects.

A man so famous for holiness and miracles, soon attracted great crowds to Bangor. St. Bernard in his _Life of St. Malachy_ says that "this noble institution was inhabited by many thousands of monks." Joceline, of Furness, a writer of the twelfth century, says that "Bangor was a fruitful vine breathing the odour of salvation, and that its offshoots extended not only over all Ireland, but far beyond the seas into foreign countries, and filled many lands with its abounding fruitfulness." In the time of the Danes we are told, on the authority of St. Bernard, that nine hundred monks of Bangor were slain by these pirates--an appalling slaughter, but not at all an unusual, much less an incredible massacre, for the North men to perpetrate. The second life given by the Bollandists says distinctly that in the various cells and monasteries under his care, Comgall had no less than three thousand monks; but this it seems is to be understood of all his disciples in other monasteries as well as in Bangor.

Amongst these disciples, besides Columbanus and his companions, of whom we shall presently speak, were Lua, called also Mo-Lua, the founder of Clonfert-Molua, now Clonfert-Mulloe, in the Queen's County, and St. Carthach, founder of the great School of Lismore, which became almost as famous as Bangor itself. Luanus from Bangor, who seems to be the same as Molua, is said by St. Bernard to have founded a hundred monasteries--a statement that seems somewhat exaggerated. Even kings gave up their crowns and came to Bangor to live as humble monks under the blessed Comgall.

Special mention is made of Cormac, King of Hy-Bairrche, in Northern Leinster. That prince had been freed from the fetters in which he was held by the King of Hy-Kinselagh at the earnest intercession of St. Fintan of Clonenagh. Before his death, however, he retired to Bangor, and in spite of great temptations to return to the world, he persevered to the end in the service of God, under the care of Comgall, to whom he gave large domains in Leinster for the endowment of religious houses. Comgall, according to some authorities, ruled over Bangor for fifty years, others say for thirty, which is more likely to be true, and died on the 13th of May, A.D. 600, at his own monastery of Bangor, in the midst of his children, after he had received the Viaticum from the hands of St. Fiacra of Conwall, in Donegal, who was divinely inspired to visit the dying saint, and administer to him the last rites of the Church. His blessed body was afterwards enclosed by the same Fiacra, in a shrine adorned with gold and precious stones, which subsequently became the spoil of the Danish pirates.

That literature, both sacred and profane, was successfully cultivated at Bangor, will be made evident from the writings of the great scholars whom it produced, even during the lifetime of its blessed founder. Humility and obedience, however, were even more dearly prized than learning. It was a rule amongst the monks that when any person was rebuked by another at Bangor, whether justly or not, he immediately prostrated himself on the ground in token of submission. They bore in mind that word of the Gospel, "If one strike thee on the right cheek, turn also to him the other." But the career of the great Columbanus will prove that when there was question of denouncing crime against God, or adhering to the traditions of the holy founders of the Irish Church, the monks of Bangor were men of invincible firmness, who felt the full force of the Apostolic maxim--we must obey God rather than man. In the question of celebrating Easter, according to their ancient usage, this firmness bordered on pertinacity; but it was excusable, seeing that it sprang from no schismatical spirit, but from a conscientious adhesion to the ancient practice of the Church of St. Patrick.

II.--ST. COLUMBANUS.

St. Columbanus was the great glory of the school of Bangor. He is one of the most striking figures of his age; his influence has been felt even down to our own times. The libraries which contain manuscripts written by his monks are ransacked for these literary treasures, and the greatest scholars of France and Germany study the Celtic glosses which the monks of Columbanus jotted down on the margins or between the leaves of their manuscripts.

We cannot dwell at length on the facts of his life, striking and interesting as his marvellous career undoubtedly is. His Life, published by Surius, was written by an Italian monk of Bobbio, called Jonas, at the request of his ecclesiastical superiors, and though full enough in details regarding his career on the Continent, it is meagre as to the facts of his youth in Ireland. It is, however, so far as it goes, authentic, for the informants of Jonas were the members of his own community of Bobbio, who were companions of the saint, and eye-witnesses of what they relate.

Columbanus, or Columba, was the Latin name given to the saint, probably on account of the sweetness of his disposition. For although in the cause of God he was impetuous, and sometimes even headstrong, we are told that to his companions and associates he was ever gracious and quiet as the dove. We know for certain that he was a native of West Leinster, and born about the year A.D. 543[295] if not earlier, for he was at least 72 years at his death in A.D. 615. In his boyhood he gave himself up with great zeal and success to the study of grammar, and of the other liberal arts then taught in our Irish schools, including geometry, arithmetic, logic, astronomy, rhetoric, and music. He was a handsome youth, too, well-shaped and prepossessing in appearance, fair and blue-eyed like most of the nobles of the Scots. This was to him a source of great danger, for at least one young maiden strove to win the affections of the handsome scholar, and wean his heart from God. Old Jonas, the writer of the life, shudders at the thought of the danger to which Columbanus was exposed, and the devilish snares that were laid for his innocence. The youth himself was fully sensible of his danger, and sought the counsel of a holy virgin who lived in a hermitage hard by. At first he spoke with hesitation and humility, but afterwards with confidence and courage, which showed that he was a youth of high spirit, and therefore all the more in danger. "What need," replied the virgin, "to seek my counsel. I myself have fled the world, and for fifteen years have remained shut up in this cell. Remember the warning examples of David, Samson, and Solomon, who were led astray by the love of women. There is no security for you except in flight." The youth was greatly terrified by this solemn warning, and bidding farewell to his parents, resolved to leave home and retire for his soul's sake to some religious house where he would be secure. His mother, with tears, besought him to stay; she even threw herself on the threshold before him, but the boy, declaring that whoever loved his father or mother more than Christ, is unworthy of Him, stepped aside, and left his home and his parents, whom he never saw again.

He went straight to Cluaninis (now Cleenish), in Lough Erne, whose hundred islets in those days were the homes of holy men, who gave themselves up to prayer, penance, and sacred study. An old man named Sinell,[296] was at that time famous for holiness and learning, and so Columbanus placed himself under his care, and made great progress both in profane learning, and especially in the study of the sacred Scriptures.[297]

At this time the fame of Bangor was great throughout the land: so Columbanus leaving his master, Sinell of Lough Erne, came to Comgall, and prostrating himself before the abbot, begged to be admitted amongst his monks. The request was granted at once, and Columbanus, as we are expressly informed, spent many years in that great monastery by the sea, going through all the literary and religious exercises of the community with much fervour and exactness. This was the spring-time of his life, in which he sowed the seeds of that spiritual harvest, which France and Italy afterwards reaped in such abundance. His rule was the rule of Bangor. His learning was the learning of Bangor. His spirit was the spirit of Bangor.

When fully trained in knowledge and piety, Columbanus sought his abbot Comgall, and begged leave to go, like so many of his countrymen, on a pilgrimage for Christ. It was the impulse of the Celtic mind from the beginning--it is so still--the Irish are a nation of apostles. It is not a mere love of change, or of foreign travel, or tedium of home; no, the pilgrimage, or _peregrinatio_, was essentially undertaken to spread the Gospel of Christ. The holy abbot Comgall gladly assented. He gave him his leave and his blessing, and Columbanus, taking with him twelve companions, prepared to cross the sea. Money they had none: they needed none. The only treasure they took with them was their books slung over their shoulders in leathern satchels, and so with their staves in their hands, and courage in their hearts, they set out from their native country, never to return. At first they went to England, and traversing that country, where it seems, too, they were joined by some associates, they found means to cross the channel and came to Gaul, about the year A.D. 575, when he himself was about thirty-two years of age.

The apostolic man with his companions at once set about preaching the Gospel in the half-Christian towns and villages of Gaul. Poor, half-naked, hungry, their lives were a sermon; but moreover, Columbanus was gifted with great eloquence, and a sweet persuasive manner that no one could resist. They were everywhere received as men of God, and the fame of their holiness and miracles even came to the court of Sigebert, king of Austrasia, of which Metz was the capital. He pressed them to stay in his dominions, but they would not. They went their way southward through a wild and desert country, preaching and teaching, healing and converting, until they came to the court of Gontran, grandson of Clovis, at that time king of Burgundy--one of the three kingdoms into which the great monarchy of Clovis had come to be sub-divided.

Gontran received the missionaries with a warm welcome, and at first established them at a place called Annegray, where there was an old Roman castle in the modern department of the Haute-Saone. The king offered them both food and money, but these things they declined, and such was their extreme poverty, that they were often forced to live for weeks together on the herbs of the field, on the berries, and even the bark of the trees. Columbanus used from time to time to bury himself alone in the depths of the forest, heedless of hunger, which stared him in the face, and of the wild beasts that roamed around him, trusting altogether to the good providence of God. He became even the prince of the wild animals. The birds would pick the crumbs from his feet; the squirrels would hide themselves under his cowl; the hungry wolves harmed him not; he slept in a cave where a bear had its den. Once a week a boy would bring him a little bread or vegetables: he needed nothing else. He had no companion. The Bible, transcribed, no doubt, at Bangor with his own hand, was his only study and his highest solace. Thus for weeks, and even months, he led a life, like John the Baptist in the wilderness, wholly divine.

Meanwhile the number of disciples in the monastery at the old ruined castle of Annegray daily increased, and it became necessary to seek a more suitable site for a larger community. Here, too, the Burgundian King Gontran proved himself the generous patron of Columbanus and his monks. There was at the foot of the Vosges mountains, where warm medicinal springs pour out a healing stream, an old Roman settlement called Luxeuil. But it was now a desert. The broken walls of the ancient villas were covered with shrubs and weeds. The woods had extended from the slopes of the mountains down to the valleys covering all the country round. There was no population, no tillage, no arable land; it was all a savage forest, filled with wolves, bears, foxes, and wild cats. Not a promising site for a monastic settlement, but such a place exactly as Columbanus and his companions desired. They wanted solitude, they loved labour, and they would have plenty of both. In a few years a marvellous change came over the scene. The woods were cleared, the lands were tilled, fields of waving corn rewarded the labour of the monks, and smiling vineyards gave them wine for the sick and for the holy Sacrifice. The noblest youths of the Franks begged to be admitted to the brotherhood, and gladly took their share in the daily round of prayer, penance, and ceaseless toil. They worked so long that they fell asleep from fatigue when walking home.[298] They slept so little that it was a new penance to tear themselves from the mats on which they lay. But the blessing of God was upon them; they grew in numbers, and in holiness, and in happiness, not the happiness of men who love this world, but the happiness of those who truly serve God.

But now a sore trial was nigh. God wished to purify his servants by suffering, and to extend to other lands the sphere of their usefulness. The first trial came from the secular clergy. Those Irish monks were men of virtue and austerity, but they were also in many respects very peculiar. They had a liturgy of their own somewhat different from that in use around them; they had a queer tonsure, like Simon Magus, it was said, in front from ear to ear, instead of the orthodox and customary crown. Worst of all, it sometimes happened that they celebrated Easter on Palm Sunday, so that they were singing their alleluias when all the churches of the Franks were in the mourning of Passion time. Remonstrance was useless; they adhered tenaciously to their country's usages. Nothing could convince them that what St. Patrick and the saints of Ireland had handed down to them could by any possibility be wrong. They only wanted to be let alone. They did not desire to impose their usages on others. Why should others impose their usages on them? They had a right to be allowed to live in peace in their wilderness, for they injured no man, and they prayed for all. Thus it was that Columbanus reasoned, or rather remonstrated, with a synod of French bishops that objected to his practices. His letters to them and to Pope Gregory the Great on the subject of this Paschal question are still extant, but he cannot be justified in some of the expressions which he uses. He tells the bishops in effect in one place that they would be better employed in enforcing canonical discipline amongst their own clergy, than in discussing the Paschal question with him and his monks. Yet here and there he speaks not only with force and freedom, but also with true humility and genuine eloquence. He implores the prelates in the most solemn language to let him and his brethren live in peace and charity in the heart of their silent woods, beside the bones of their seventeen brothers who were dead, "Surely it is better for you," he says, "to comfort than to disturb us, poor old men, strangers, too, in your midst. Let us rather love one another in the charity of Christ, striving to fulfil his precepts, and thereby secure a place in the assembly of the just made perfect in heaven."

Language of this character, used, too, in justification of practices harmless in themselves, but not in accordance with the prevalent discipline of the Church at the time, was by no means well calculated to beget affection towards the strangers in the minds of the Frankish clergy. Other troubles, too, soon arose. The young king of Austrasia, Thierry, encouraged by Brunehaut, his infamous grand-mother, repudiated his lawful wife and gave himself up to the most scandalous debauchery. Columbanus admonished, remonstrated, rebuked in vain. Finding his efforts fruitless, he denied the guilty pair admission to his monastery, and thereupon they resolved to expel him and his monks from the kingdom.

For the time, however, he was only made a prisoner, and conducted to Besançon, where he was kept under surveillance, until one day, looking with longing to his beloved Luxeuil, and seeing no one at hand to prevent him, he descended the steep cliff which overhangs the river Doubs, and returned to his monastery. When the king heard of his return, he sent imperative orders to have him and all his companions from Ireland and Britain forcibly removed from the monastery, and conveyed home to their own country. The soldiers presented themselves at Luxeuil when the holy man was in the choir with his monks. They told him their orders, and begged him to come voluntarily with them--they were unwilling to resort to force. At first he refused; but lest the soldiers might be punished for not resorting to that violence which they were unwilling to make use of, he finally yielded. He called his Irish brethren around them: "Let us go," he said, "my brothers, in the name of God." It was hard to leave the scene of their labours, their sorrows, and their joys; hard to leave behind them the graves of the seventeen brethren with whom they had hoped to rest in peace. But go they must; the soldiers would not for a moment leave them. It was a brief and sad leave-taking. Wails of sorrow were heard everywhere for the loss of their beloved father; brother was torn from brother, friend from friend, never to meet again in this world. Thus it was that Columbanus and his Irish companions left that dear monastery of Luxeuil, and were conducted by the soldiers to Nevers. There, still guarded by the soldiers, they embarked in a boat that conveyed them down the Loire to its mouth, where they would find a ship to convey them back again to Ireland.

But it was not the will of Providence that Columbanus and his companions, when driven from Luxeuil, should return to Ireland: other work was before them to do. Accordingly, when they came to the mouth of the Loire, their baggage, such as it was, was put on board, and most of the monks embarked. But the sea rose mountains high, and the ship[299] which Columbanus intended to rejoin when under weigh, was forced to return to port. A three days' calm succeeded, and the captain, apprehensive of a new storm, caused the monks and their baggage to be put on shore, for he feared to take them with him. Thus left to themselves, Columbanus and his companions went to Soissons to Clotaire, King of Neustria, by whom they were received with every kindness and hospitality. The king cordially hated Brunehaut and her grandson--his mother, Fredegonda, had murdered Brunehaut's sister--and he was anxious to keep Columbanus in his own kingdom, but the latter would not stay. He pushed on, with his companions, to Metz, the capital of Austrasia, where Theodebert, the brother of Thierry, then reigned. Here he was joined by several of his old monks from Luxeuil, who preferred to follow their father in his wanderings, to remaining behind in the kingdom of his persecutor.

Columbanus now resolved to preach the Gospel to the pagan populations on the right bank of the Rhine and its tributary streams. So embarking at Mayence, after many toils and dangers, they came as far as Lake Zurich in Switzerland, and finally established themselves at Bregenz, on the Lake of Constance, where they fixed their headquarters. The tribes inhabiting these wild and beautiful regions--the Suevi and Alemanni--were idolaters, though nominal subjects of the Austrasian kingdom. Woden was their God, and they worshipped him with dark mysterious rites, under the shadow of sacred oaks, far in the depths of the forest. Discretion was not a gift of Columbanus, so he not only preached the Gospel amongst them, but axe in hand, he had the courage to cut down their sacred trees; he burned their rude temples, and cast their fantastic idols into the lake. It was not wise; the people became enraged, and the missionaries were forced to fly. After struggling for three years to convert this savage people, Columbanus, perceiving that the work was not destined to be accomplished by him, crossed the snow-covered Alps by the pass of St. Gothard, though now more than seventy years of age,[300] and after incredible toil, succeeded, with a few of his old companions, in making his way to the Court of the Lombard King, Agilulph, whose Queen was Theodelinda, famous for beauty, for genius, and for virtue.

At this time the Lombards were Arians, and Agilulph himself was an Arian, although Queen Theodelinda was a devout Catholic. Mainly, we may assume, through her influence the Arian monarch received the broken down old man and his companions with the utmost kindness, and Columbanus had an ample field for the exercise of his missionary zeal amongst the rude half-Christian population. But first of all it was necessary to have a permanent home--and nowhere could he find rest except in solitude. Just at this time[301] a certain Jucundus reminded the King that there was at a place called Bobbio a ruined church once dedicated to St. Peter; that the place round about was fertile and well watered with streams, abounding in every kind of fish. It was near the Trebbia, almost at the very spot where Hannibal first felt the rigours of that fierce winter in the snows of the Appenines, so graphically described by Livy. The king gladly gave the place to Columbanus, and the energetic old man set about repairing the ruined church and building his monastery with all that unquenchable ardour that cleared the forests of Luxeuil, and crossed the snows of the Alps. His labours were regarded by his followers as miraculous. The fir trees, cut down in the valleys of the Appenines, which his monks were unable to carry down the steep and rugged ways, when the old man himself came and took a share of the burden, were found to be no weight. So, speedily and joyfully, with the visible aid of heaven, they completed the task, and built in the valley of the Appenines a monastery, whose name will never be forgotten by saints or scholars.

The holy old man lived but one year after he had founded Bobbio. His merits were full; the work of his life was complete; he had given his Rule to the new house; he left behind him some of his old companions to complete his work, and now he was ready to die. To the great grief of the brotherhood, Columbanus passed away to his reward on the eleventh day before the Kalends of December, in the year A.D. 615, probably in the seventy-third year of his age. He was buried beneath the high altar, and long afterwards the holy remains were enclosed in a stone coffin, and are still preserved in the crypt of the old monastic Church of Bobbio.

It is not too much to say that Ireland never sent a greater son than Columbanus to do the work of God in foreign lands. He brought forth much fruit and his fruit has remained. For centuries his influence was dominant in France and in Northern Italy, and even in our own days, his spirit speaketh from his urn. His deeds have been described by many eloquent tongues and pens, and his writings have been carefully studied to ascertain the secret of his extraordinary influence over his own and subsequent ages. His character was not indeed faultless, but he was consumed with a restless untiring zeal in the service of his Master, which was at once the secret of his power and the source of his mistakes. He was too ardent in character, and almost too zealous in the cause of God. In this respect he is not unlike St. Jerome, but we forget their faults in our admiration for their virtues and their labours. A man more holy, more chaste, more self-denying, a man with loftier aims and purer heart than Columbanus, was never born in the Island of Saints.

The writings of Columbanus still extant are--a Monastic Rule, a Penitential Treatise, sixteen short Sermons or Instructions, six Letters, and a few Latin Poems.[302]

The _Regula Coenobialis_ or Monastic Rule is divided into ten short chapters which treat of the fundamental virtues of the monastic life. It is especially valuable in so far as it affords points of comparison and contact with the more complete and systematic Rule of St. Benedict. In some things it is exceedingly rigorous and very minute in the penances which it imposes, even on the most venial and semi-deliberate faults. The first six chapters are devoted to the essential virtues of the monastic state--obedience, silence, self-denial in the use of meat and drink, poverty and chastity. The maxim--_cibus monachorum sit vilis et vespertinus_--seems to allow the poor monks only one plain meal in the day, and that after vespers. He inculcates also a daily fast, daily prayer, daily labour, and daily reading[303]--thus including in one sentence the whole routine of monastic life. The _Liber de Paenitentiarum Mensura Taxanda_ is equally rigorous and minute in prescribing penances proportionate to the guilt of the sinner. In those days when there were no elaborate scientific treatises on moral theology, it was very useful to have a work of this kind which apportioned its own penance to almost every class of sin. The confessor, or soul's friend, was thus enabled to form an estimate sufficient for most practical purposes of the magnitude of the crimes from the amount of the penance. To fast for a number of days, weeks, or even years, on bread and water was the stern penance imposed on the sinner, according to the measure of his guilt, by the rigid directors of the early Irish Church. Drunkenness was punished with a comparatively light penance--only a week on bread and water. That same would be even now of great service if it were rigorously enforced.

The _Sermons_ have nothing specially characteristic to recommend them. They are, however, brief and to the point, which is more than can be said of many volumes of more modern discourses.

The _Six Letters_ are perhaps the most valuable of the literary remains of Columbanus, because they reflect most clearly the character of the man and the genius of the Celt. We have already spoken of his letters to Pope Gregory the Great, and to Pope Boniface. Whilst full of respect for the Holy See they exhibit an uncompromising spirit of resolute independence and conscious integrity. The letter on the Paschal question to a certain synod of French Bishops is written in the same spirit, and reminds the Gallican prelates of some unpleasant truths, which they must have regarded as a very great impertinence coming from a mere Irish monk, who had uninvited taken up his quarters in the hospitable land of France.

The Latin poems show considerable acquaintance with the language, and are especially valuable as exhibiting the classical culture of our Irish schools in the sixth century. Most of them are in hexameter verse, but contain few classical allusions. The prosody is sometimes faulty; but on the whole it is perhaps better than the pupils or even the professors of our colleges would produce at present if called upon at short notice.

The shorter Adonic verses are simply marvels of ingenuity, and it shows great familiarity with the Latin language to be able to write an entire letter of about 150 lines in this metre.

The two most celebrated literary monuments of St. Columbanus and the School of Bangor that have come down to our time are the _Bobbio Missal_, and the _Antiphonary of Bangor_, both of which are at present preserved in the Ambrosian Library at Milan.

The Missal which was brought from Bobbio to Milan by Cardinal Frederic Borromeo is undoubtedly of Irish origin, and was probably brought from Bangor by St. Columbanus himself, or by some one of the Irish monks who accompanied him. We shall not here repeat the critical arguments used by scholars to prove that it was brought from Ireland in the sixth or seventh century. The fact, indeed, is no longer questioned. This Missal is particularly interesting, because it gives us so early a specimen of the liturgy in use in our Irish Church. The _Missa Cotidiana_ of this Bangor Missal has practically the same Canon as that now found in the Roman Missal, and used throughout the entire world. There is greater variety in the prayers, and our Celtic forefathers were fond of inserting a greater number of them in the Mass after the _Gloria in Excelsis_. They were inclined too to canonize their own local saints, and even sometimes inserted their names in the Litanies and in the Canon of Mass without any authority but their own devotion. This led not only to variety in the public liturgy but sometimes to other grave abuses, which were not eradicated until the time of St. Malachy and other great reformers of Church discipline in the twelfth century.

Now that we have the Stowe Missal accessible to scholars in the Royal Irish Academy, we may hope for a minute and careful comparison of these two ancient books, in order to trace the beginnings of these discrepancies in the liturgy which were first introduced into Ireland by the Second Order of Saints, and afterwards led to so much inconvenience.

The Stowe Missal, which is so called, we presume, because it was kept so long locked up in the Duke of Buckingham's Stowe Library, is considered to have belonged to the ancient Monastery of Lorrha, in Lower Ormond, Tipperary. Dr McCarthy, a very competent judge, thinks it represents the ancient Patrician liturgy used by the First Order of the Saints of Erin, whilst Bangor may be supposed to have the Mass in its Missal derived from Wales, or more likely from Candida Casa.[304] The question is a very intricate one, and full of interest, but cannot be discussed at length in these pages.

The _Antiphonarium Benchorense_, or Bangor Hymnal, is a collection of ancient hymns in the Latin language, which were in common use in the ancient Church of Ireland. Many of them are contained in the _Book of Hymns_ edited by Todd, to which we have already referred so often. Some of them were in general use throughout the Latin Church, or at least in the early Gallican Church, like the Hymn of St. Hilary. But others seem to have been peculiar to Bangor, and hence have a special interest for us at present. Such was the _Hymnus Sancti Comgilli Abbatis Nostri_; also the _Hymnus Sancti Camelaci_, and another entitled _Memoria Abbatum Nostrorum_, which has considerable historical interest, inasmuch as it gives a metrical list of the abbots of Bangor down to the time of the writer. These poems, and also the _Missa Cotidiana_ of the Bobbio Missal may be seen in the second volume of Father O'Laverty's excellent _History of the Diocese of Down and Connor_.

There is nothing specially interesting in subsequent history of the School of Bangor down to the time of St. Malachy. It was totally destroyed by the Danes, although a nominal succession of abbots was still kept up, whose names are sometimes mentioned in our annals.

III.--DUNGAL.

Dungal, however, after Columbanus was, perhaps the greatest glory of the School of Bangor. This distinguished theologian, astronomer, and poet, was one of the Irish exiles of the ninth century who were so highly honoured in the Court of France. His name is not widely known to fame; yet few men of his time held so high a place in the estimation of his contemporaries, or rendered more signal service to the Church. The controversy concerning image worship was carried on with great warmth in the Frankish Empire during the first quarter of the ninth century, and in this contest Dungal was the foremost champion of orthodoxy. He gave the _coup de grace_ to the Western Iconoclasts; after his vigorous refutation of Claudius of Turin, they troubled the Church no more. It is well, therefore, to know something of his history.

That Dungal was an Irishman is now universally admitted. The name itself is conclusive evidence of his nationality. It was quite a common name in Ireland, and seems to have been peculiarly Irish. We know of no foreigner who was called "Dungal;" but we find from the index volume of the _Four Masters_, that between the years A.D. 744 and 1015 twenty-two distinguished Irishmen bore that name.

In a poem which he composed in honour of his friend and patron, Charlemagne, Dungal calls himself an Irish exile--_Hibernicus exul_. There can hardly be a doubt that he was the author of this beautiful poem to which we shall refer further on. At the close of his life he retired to the Irish monastery of Bobbio, in the north of Italy, founded by Columbanus, to which he left all his books, as we know from Muratori's published list. One of them, according to the opinion of Muratori, was the famous _Antiphonary of Bangor_, which Dungal brought from that great school at home, and fittingly restored to Irish hands at his death.

Yet unfortunately we cannot fix the place or date of his birth in Ireland, although the possession of the _Bangor Antiphonary_ leaves little room to doubt that he was educated in the monastic school of St. Comgall. Not a cross, nor even a stone, now remains to mark the site of the famous monastery whose crowded cloisters for a thousand years overlooked the pleasant islets and broad waters of Inver Becne;[305] but the fame of the great school which nurtured Columbanus and Gall, and Dungal and Malachy can never die.

In all probability Dungal left his native country in the opening years of the ninth century. Two causes most likely induced him to leave Ireland, the fame of Charlemagne, as a patron of learned men, and the threatened incursion of the Danes, who were just then beginning their long career of pillage and slaughter in Ireland.

However, in A.D. 811, we find Dungal in France. In that year he addressed a remarkable letter to Charlemagne on the two solar eclipses which were said to have taken place in the previous year, A.D. 810. He is described at this time as a _recluse_, that is, one who led a monastic life in solitude; he seems, however, to have had some connection with the community of St. Denis, for he evidently recognised the Abbot Waldo as his superior. From the tone of this letter we can also infer that the Great Charles honoured the Irish monk with his intimacy and confidence, and the monarch seems to have the highest opinion of Dungal's learning. He accordingly requested the Abbot Waldo to ask the Irish monk to write an explanation of the two solar eclipses, which are said to have happened in A.D. 810. It is well known that Charles took a great interest in the advancement of knowledge, and was himself a diligent student. Hence he was anxious to understand that portion of divine philosophy, of which Virgil sang--

"Defectus solis varios lunaeque labores."

Moreover, although there certainly was a solar eclipse on the 30th of November, A.D. 810, visible in Europe, it was alleged by many persons that there had been another eclipse in the same year on the 7th of June, if not visible in Europe, yet certainly visible in other parts of the world. This last point especially seems to have staggered the scientific faith of the royal scholar, and hence he appealed to his friend Dungal for an explanation.

The letter of Dungal in reply is exceedingly interesting. It is addressed to Charles, and is entitled, "Dungali Reclusi Epistola de duplici solis eclipsi, anno 810 ad Carolum Magnum." We have read it over carefully. It is written in excellent Latin, and shows that the writer was intimately acquainted with many of the classical authors, especially with Virgil and Cicero. But we cannot guarantee its scientific accuracy in all points. He starts with an explanation of the celestial sphere according to the Ptolemaic system, and hence some of his statements seem very strange to those acquainted with the Copernican theory only of the heavenly bodies. In the main, however, his explanation of the eclipses of the sun and moon is accurate enough.[306] "The Zodiac," he says, "or space through which the planets revolve, is bounded by two lines," which he takes care to explain are imaginary. "A third line drawn between them is called the ecliptic, because when the sun and moon during their revolution happen to be in the same straight line in the plane of this ecliptic, an eclipse of one or the other must of necessity take place; of the sun, if the moon overtake it in its course--_ei succedat_; of the moon, if at the time it should be opposite to the sun. Wherefore," he adds, "the sun is never eclipsed except the moon is in its thirtieth day; and in like manner the moon is never eclipsed except near its fifteenth day. For only then it comes to pass that the moon, when it is full, being in a straight line with the earth opposite to the sun receives the shadow of the earth; while in the other case, when the moon overtakes the sun (is in conjunction), by its interposition it deprives the earth of the sun's light. Therefore when the sun is eclipsed, the sun itself suffers nothing, only we are robbed of its light; but the moon suffers a real loss by not receiving the sun's light through which it is enabled to dispel our darkness." We think it would require an intermediate exhibitioner to give as lucid an exposition of the cause of the eclipse as was given by this Irish monk of the ninth century, and we are quite certain he would not write it in as good Latin.

As for determining the exact dates of the eclipses of the sun, and, therefore, the possibility of having two in the year A.D. 810, Dungal cannot undertake to compute them, not having near him Pliny the Younger, and some other necessary works. However, the thing is quite feasible, and many ancient philosophers knew and foreknew--_scierunt et praescierunt_--all about these eclipses. He concludes his letter with an elegantly written eulogy of Charles the Great, imploring all Christians to join with him in beseeching God to multiply the triumphs of Charles, to extend his empire, preserve his family, and prolong his life for many circling years. The language in the original is exceedingly well chosen and harmonious.

After this time we lose sight of Dungal for several years. Charlemagne died in A.D. 814, and was succeeded by his son Louis the Pious, and on the 31st of July, A.D. 817, Louis associated with himself his son Lothaire in the Imperial Government. Lothaire, young and energetic, was crowned King of Lombardy in A.D. 821, and next year proceeded to put his kingdom in order. The warlike Lombards, though conquered by Charlemagne, and kept in restraint by his strong arm, were a restless and turbulent people. Lothaire, believing that education and religion would be the most efficacious means to keep them in order, and consolidate his own power, induced Dungal and Claudius of Turin, as well as several other scholars of the Imperial Court, or the famous Palace School, to accompany him to Italy. Claudius, a Spaniard, of whom we shall have more to say again, was made Bishop of Turin; and Dungal opened a school at Pavia. In a short time it became famous; for the master was the first scholar in the Court of the Emperor. Students flocked from every quarter--from Milan, Brescia, Lodi, Bergamo, Novara, Vercelli, Tortona, Acqui, Genoa, Asti, and Como.[307] This was about A.D. 822, the very year, or as others say, the year after Claudius became Bishop of Turin. About the same time Lothaire himself went on to Rome, where he was crowned emperor by the Pope, Pascal I., with great solemnity in A.D. 823.

Dungal and Claudius were thus immediate neighbours. Both were ripe scholars, both held high and responsible positions; but Claudius, who had long held erroneous doctrines, now thought it safe to throw off the disguise. The wolf showed himself, and at once the Irish wolf dog sprang upon his foe. In order to understand this struggle, which was the last effort of Western Iconoclasm, we must go back a little and trace the chain of events which led up to the crisis.

The Seventh Æcumenical Council, and Second of Nice, was concluded at that city in A.D. 787. This Council, accepting the teaching propounded by Pope Hadrian I. in his letter to the Empress Irene, and her son Constantine, explained and defined the Catholic doctrine concerning the worship of images. It was distinctly declared that supreme worship was due to God alone; but that an inferior worship should be rendered to the Blessed Virgin and the saints; and, finally, that a relative worship was due not only to the sign of the Cross, but also to the pictures and images of the Blessed Virgin, of the angels, and of the saints of God. This relative worship was not, however, paid to the images on account of _their own_ supernatural excellence; it was only a token of the love and honour which Christians have for the originals represented by the images.

The acts of this famous Synod were, of course, in Greek, so Pope Hadrian had them translated into Latin, and sent a copy to Charlemagne, apparently in A.D. 789 or 790.

Unfortunately the Latin version was very faulty in many respects. Anastasius, the Roman Librarian, a most learned scholar and competent authority, declares that the translator knew very little of the genius either of the Greek or Latin language; that he made a word-for-word translation, from which it was frequently impossible to ascertain the real meaning; and hence, in his time, about sixty years later, few persons were found to read or transcribe this faulty copy. So Anastasius himself found it necessary to make a new and correct translation. The French theologians, therefore, at whose head was the keen-eyed Alcuin, found in this translation many things to censure, in which they were right, and many other things they censured in which they were clearly wrong. The result of their labours is known to history as the famous Caroline Books--_Libri Carolini_. They were published under the name of Charles himself, but Alcuin is generally regarded as the real author.[308]

The emperor was so pleased with his work that he resolved to send this treatise to the Pope himself. Meantime, however, he convened the Synod of Frankfort in A.D. 794, at which some three hundred Bishops of the Frankish Empire are said to have assembled.[309] Here, again, the great monarch, following the example, but scarcely imitating the modesty of Constantine at Nice in A.D. 325, presided in person, and resolved to prove himself a theologian. The Synod met in the great hall of the Imperial Palace. The emperor was on his throne; the bishops were seated round in a circle; an immense throng of priests, deacons, and clerics filled the hall. Rising up from his seat Charles advanced, and standing on the step of the throne pronounced an elaborate harangue, mainly on the heresy of the Adoptionists, but referring also to the errors of the last Greek Synod regarding image worship, and he called upon the prelates present to judge and decide what was the true faith.

The Council did so, at least in their own opinion, after ten days' discussion. They very properly condemned the heresy of the Adoptionists, and the condemnation was approved in Rome; but in the Second Canon they very improperly censured the Second Council of Nice, as if it declared that the same worship and adoration were due to the images of the saints, as are paid to the Holy Trinity. Of course the Council of Nice in their authentic acts had declared exactly the reverse. Moreover, the prelates of Frankfort added that they would give neither _servitus_ nor _adoratio_ to the images of the saints; and, no doubt, they were right in the sense in which they used these terms.

It seems probable that the Caroline Books, written about A.D. 790 or 791, were approved of in this assembly before they were sent to the Pope. But when Hadrian received them he very promptly and effectively refuted them. To each censure of the Council of Nice he gave an elaborate answer, in which the Pope convicts the authors of the Caroline Books, from the extracts sent to him, of grave errors in doctrine, as well as of misquotations and misrepresentations of the Fathers. He shows that they did not understand the true meaning of the Sacred Scriptures in those passages which they cited, that they attributed to the Nicene Fathers errors which they never taught, and that it was the Pope, not the French bishops, who had received authority to teach the Universal Church.

The authors of the Caroline Books richly deserved this castigation. They went so far as to declare that the Synod of A.D. 754, which ordered images to be broken, as well as the Synod of A.D. 787, which commanded them to be worshipped, were _infamae_ and _ineptissimae_. God alone is, according to them, to be _adored_ and _worshipped_, and the saints may be _venerated_; but no kind of adoration or veneration may be paid to the images of the saints, because they are lifeless, and made by the hands of men. It is evident the Frankish theologians did not understand what is meant by relative worship. They admit, however, that the images of the saints may be retained for adorning churches, and also as memorials of the past; but it is not lawful to worship them even by such veneration as is paid to men, _salutationis causâ_. Such is the substance of the doctrine put forward by the authors of the Caroline Books.[310] Pope Hadrian died on Christmas Day A.D. 795, and the controversy concerning image worship seems to have been lulled for some years in the West. It broke out again, however, with greater warmth in A.D. 824. In the month of November of that year an Embassy arrived at Rouen, where Lothaire was then holding his court, bearing letters and presents from the Greek emperor, Michael the Stammerer, to his western brother.

Michael was an Iconoclast, but not an extreme one; and wrote a very plausible letter, in which he complains of the superstitious excesses of the image-worshippers at Constantinople. He represents himself as the friend of peace and harmony, anxious to repress the excesses of both the extreme parties; and he beseeches his brother Lothaire to lend him his aid, especially by his influence with the Pontiff of the old Rome, to whom he sends several presents with a view to gain his good will and co-operation for the same laudable purpose. Lothaire, ignorant of the real facts of the case, and misled by this most deceptive document, promised his assistance to the Greek ambassadors in Rome, and resolved to aid in the good work of reconciling the extreme parties in the East. He wrote to Pope Eugenius II. to that effect, and asked his permission to appoint a conference of the prelates of his empire, with a view to sift the question thoroughly. The Pope seems to have consented to this course; and the conference met at Paris on the 1st of November, A.D. 825.

These gentlemen issued a most elaborate production addressed to the emperor, by him to be forwarded to the Pope. They begin by attacking the letter of Hadrian to Constantine and Irene, in which letter, as they allege, he ordered images to be superstitiously adored--_quod superstitiose eas adorari jussit_. In support of his doctrine he cited the Fathers, but according to them it was _valde absona_ what he cited, and _ad rem non pertinentia_.

Then they attack the Second Council of Nice which gravely erred by ordering images to be worshipped, as the Great Charles had clearly proved in the books sent to Rome by the Abbot Angilbert. And Hadrian, too, in his answer to this treatise, when defending the Synod, wrote what he liked, not what he ought--quae _voluit_, non tamen quae _debuit_.

This was not enough for this Paris Conference; they had the assurance to dictate to the Pope what he was to write in reply to the Greek emperor; and to Lothaire himself they recommended what he ought to write to the Pope. On the point of doctrine they declare that nothing made by the hands of man is to be adored or worshipped; and to prove their position they quote St. Augustine, who, according to them, says that image worship had its origin with Simon Magus, and a _meretricula_ called Helen!

When the Emperor Lothaire received these precious documents from the two prelates, Halitgar and Amalarius, deputed to present them, and ascertained their contents, he told them, as might be expected from a sensible man, that the letter to the Pope especially contained some things that were superfluous and more that were impertinent. He therefore commissioned Jeremias of Sens, and Jonas of Orleans, to make extracts from the report which would be more to the point and less likely to give offence in Rome; telling them, at the same time, to show every respect to the Pope, as they were bound to do; that although much might be gained by deference, nothing could be effected by exasperating the Pontiff. If, he adds, the _pertinacia Romana_ will make no concessions, but the Pope is prepared to send an embassy to Constantinople, then let them try at least to induce him to allow the emperor also to send an embassy in conjunction with that of the Pope.

The emperor himself wrote a respectful and plausible letter to the Pope, urging upon him to send ambassadors to the Greek court, adding that he might send with them the two bishops who bore the report of the Paris Conference to His Holiness; and that thus he might be instrumental in restoring peace to the distracted Churches of the East.

Things were at this pass when Dungal appears upon the scene. The prelates of France were, many of them at least, not quite sound on the question of image worship; but Claudius of Turin, just about this time, brought things to a crisis.

This Claudius was a Spaniard, educated in his youth by Felix, Bishop of Urgel, in Spain, one of the leaders of the Adoptionist heretics. The mind of Claudius was infected with this as well as several other errors; but especially with the most extreme form of Iconoclasm.

Like Dungal, he seems to have been in high favour at court; but he kept his errors at that time to himself, at least in their extreme form. When appointed to the See of Turin he threw off the mask. On his first or second visitation he removed the crosses from his cathedral, he broke the images of the saints, and the holy pictures on the walls; he declaimed from the pulpit even against the worship of the saints themselves, or their relics in any shape or form; and finally, heartily denounced the pilgrimage to Rome, which even then was customary with the faithful, as unnecessary and superstitious.

These rash and violent proceedings gave great scandal to the faithful of the diocese. They were divided into two factions; for the bishop had numerous partisans of his own, but they were in a minority; and on one occasion the prelate very narrowly escaped being torn to pieces by the mob. The wily Claudius, however, by his representations to the emperor, in which he threw all the blame on the turbulence of the superstitious Lombards, succeeded in maintaining his ground.

About A.D. 824 a friend of his, the pious Abbot Theodemir, wrote a remonstrance to Claudius on his proceedings, in which he adjured him, by the memory of their former friendship, to discontinue these odious proceedings, reminding him how unworthy it was of a Christian bishop to dishonour the Saints of God, to insult the Cross of Christ, and break the images of His saints and martyrs.

This gentle remonstrance only made the Iconoclast more furious. He wrote a reply to the holy abbot, a considerable portion of which has come down to us, and shows Claudius in his true colours.

It is entitled--"Apologeticum atque Rescriptum Claudii Episcopi adversus Theutmirum Abbatem."

It was this work brought out Dungal. He had hitherto been much pained at the proceedings of Claudius; for being then in Pavia he could scarcely be ignorant of what took place in Turin. Most of the French prelates, however, themselves more or less infected with unsound doctrine, held aloof; and even Agobard of Lyons wrote in favour of Claudius, so Dungal, although probably only a deacon, if, indeed, at all in holy orders, felt it his duty to come forward as the champion of the truth. He got his teaching not in France or Germany, but in Ireland; so he was not tainted with the errors of the Frankish theologians.

Dungal's treatise against Claudius is entitled: "Dungali Responsa contra Perversas Claudii Taurinensis Episcopi Sententias."

In the prologue of the book Dungal declares that for God's honour, and with the sanction of Louis and his son Lothaire, he undertakes to defend, on the authority of the Holy Fathers, the Catholic doctrine against the frantic and blasphemous trifling of Claudius, Bishop of Turin. Many times since his arrival in Italy he had just cause to complain, whilst he saw the field of the Lord oversown with tares, yet he held his peace in grief and pain. He can, however, do so no longer, when he sees the Church distracted, and the people seduced by deceivers. He first sets forth very clearly the points at issue between the rival parties, and then proceeds to refute Claudius, and prove the Catholic doctrine, observing at the outset that it was astonishing insolence for any man to presume to "censure and blaspheme that doctrine and practice which for 820 years or more was followed by the blessed Fathers, by most religious princes, and by all Christian households up to the present time."

After proving that these practices were not only not forbidden, but sanctioned by God Himself in the Pentateuch, he goes on to establish this tradition of the Catholic Church, quoting most of the Greek and Latin fathers, the poems of Paulinus, Prudentius, and Fortunatus, the Acts of the Martyrs and the Liturgy of the Church. He quotes, moreover, the Apocalypse, the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, at great length, to prove the same doctrine, and alleges that it was the universal belief and practice in the East and in the West from the days of the Apostles down to his own time. The Greeks lately erred; but their errors were retracted and condemned.

It is impossible not to admire the great knowledge of Sacred Scripture and Patristic literature displayed by the author. He reasons, too, clearly and cogently; and writes in a limpid and flowing style. Indeed, we know no writer of that age who excels Dungal in Latin composition, whether in poetry or prose; and this is generally admitted by those acquainted with the Latin literature of the period. Muratori observes that this work shows that Dungal was a man of wide culture.[311] This is high testimony from such an authority. Papirius Massonus, in his address to the prelates and clergy of Gaul prefixed to the treatise of Dungal, calls him an excellent theologian--_Theologus excellens_--and Alzog declares that the sophistical reasoning of Claudius, Bishop of Turin, was refuted by Jonas, Bishop of Orleans, but much _more ably_ by Dungal, an Irish monk of St. Denys, and subsequently by Strabo and Hincmar of Rheims.

Dungal's was not only the ablest, but also the first work that was written on the subject; for in it he alludes to the Synod or Conference of Paris in A.D. 825, as held two years before. So it must have appeared in A.D. 827, long before the refutations published by Jonas, Eginhard, Strabo, or Hincmar. Henceforward Iconoclasm began to lose ground in the West; and soon entirely disappeared, until revived in the sixteenth century.

As was observed before, towards the close of his life, Dungal retired to the monastery of Bobbio, to which he bequeathed his books. From Bobbio they were transferred to Milan, in A.D. 1606, by Cardinal Frederic Borromeo, and are now in the Ambrosian Library of that city. Among them were three Antiphonaries, one of which seems to have been the famous Bangor Antiphonary. Dungal, no doubt, procured these ancient rituals in order to quote them against Claudius in support of the Catholic doctrine. He appropriately dedicated the work to his countryman St. Columbanus.[312]

Columba, as Lanigan observes, was the real name of Columbanus, the founder of Bobbio, and in all probability, when Dungal calls himself an _incola_ of the saint, he rather means fellow-countryman, than inmate of his monastery.[313]

We cannot stay to criticise the poetry of Dungal. His best poem is an elaborate eulogy on Charlemagne, written in hexameter. Some critics have questioned if Dungal were the author; the style, however, even of the opening lines of the poem, compared with the first lines of the epitaph which he wrote on himself leaves no doubt that the "Irish Exile" was Dungal. The smaller poems that survive, are written in elegiac metre, and display considerable taste, although not much imagination.

There is every reason to think that Dungal, who died about the year A.D. 834, was buried in the crypts of Bobbio. He sleeps well with the friendly saints of Erin; and we earnestly join in his own humble prayer, that he may live for ever with those saints in heaven, even as their dust has long commingled in their far-off graves under the shadows of the Appenines.[314]

IV.--ST. MALACHY.

We cannot close the history of the School of Bangor without giving a sketch of the life of its greatest abbot, St. Malachy, who may, indeed, be regarded as its second founder. We refer to him here, not because he was a great scholar or a distinguished writer, but rather because the Abbot of Bangor was the great reformer of the Irish Church in the twelfth century--a man pre-eminent for the zeal, energy, and holiness of his apostolic career in the face of the greatest difficulties and dangers. He was, says the _Chronicon Scotorum_, the man who restored the Monastic and Canonical rules of the Church of Erin; and that sentence is really a summary of his whole life.

St. Malachy--in Irish Maelmeadhog--was born probably in the neighbourhood of Bangor or Armagh in the year A.D. 1095. The family name was O'Morgair, or O'Mongair, which it is said was afterwards changed into O'Dogherty. His father was a lay professor or lecturer in the School of Armagh; but his mother seems to have come from the neighbourhood of Bangor, of which her brother, the uncle of Malachy, was afterwards titular abbot or perhaps airchinnech. The boy was thus fortunate not only in having the advantages of a famous school and a learned father; but also in attaching himself as a personal friend and disciple to the great and holy Imar O'Hagan, who then lived as a recluse in Armagh. It was doubtless under his holy guidance that Malachy acquired that fund of solid virtue which he afterwards exhibited throughout his life.

In consequence of his eminent virtues whilst still very young, Malachy was promoted by Celsus of Armagh to deacon's orders; and shortly afterwards, before he had attained the then canonical age of thirty, he was ordained a priest by the same great prelate.

Wishing to perfect himself in sacred learning, and especially in the laws and discipline of the Church, St. Malachy next went to the great College of Lismore, which was at this period under the presidency of the venerable Malchus, Bishop of Waterford, and apparently also of Lismore. St. Bernard describes him as then an old man full of days and virtues, and richly endowed with divine wisdom. He was an Irishman by birth, but had been trained in the monastery of Winchester to a more accurate knowledge and observance of ecclesiastical discipline than were to be found at that time in Ireland. Under the influence and direction of this prelate the School of Lismore became, perhaps, the first in Ireland,[315] and St. Malachy fully availed himself of its great advantages.

On his return from Lismore in A.D. 1125, he was at once appointed to the Abbacy of Bangor. His uncle, the lay or titular abbot, gave up to Malachy peaceable possession of the ruined monastery and its wide domains, and became himself an humble monk of the new community--yes, a new community--the abbey lands were there, and a nominal abbot who enjoyed the revenues, but no church, no school, no community.[316] The ancient home of the saints had become a wilderness, the stones of the sanctuary were scattered, no sacrifice was offered on its altars.

It was the work of the Danes, who made a more complete ruin of Bangor than of any monastery elsewhere; because it was on the sea-shore of that narrow channel between Down and Galloway, which was the highway of the pirates. St. Bernard says that it was reported that in one day they slew nine hundred monks at Bangor.

Malachy now took twelve brethren with him and began to build an oratory once more at Bangor. It was finished in a few days, for it was an humble building in the Irish style--opus Scoticum--constructed of planed boards, but closely and firmly put together. Cells for the monks were built around it, and thus Bangor again began to flourish.

Then Malachy most unwillingly was taken from his infant monastery and made Bishop of Connor, that is of the entire County Antrim. At this time things were in a dreadful state in Antrim. There is no reason to question the testimony of St. Bernard. He is an independent and impartial witness, who got his information from St. Malachy and the disciples, whom he had left at Clairvaux. No doubt St. Bernard is rhetorical in style, but he is definite in statement. The natives were indocile and immoral. They neglected to go to confession, contracted illegitimate marriages, paid no tithes or first fruits. There were few priests, and no preaching in the churches. Malachy girt up his loins for the work before him. He went amongst the people on foot, accompanied with a few disciples. He admonished, he instructed, he ordained priests, he preached the Gospel everywhere. He had to endure much, but in the end he succeeded. The face of the country was soon changed, the desert bloomed as a garden, and the people that were not the Lord's became once again the chosen people of God.

It was during these years that Malachy went to the south of Ireland on a visit to his friend Cormac Mac Carthy, King of Cashel, and there founded the monastery which St. Bernard calls monasterium Ibracense, on land given him by King Cormac for that purpose. St. Celsus, Archbishop of Armagh, had been driven by usurpers out of his See and was now in the south of Ireland, at Ardpatrick, in the co. Limerick, over which, as heir of St. Patrick, he claimed certain rights. Feeling his end approaching, and knowing that St. Malachy was, of all others, best fitted to succeed him in the Chair of St. Patrick, he sent him his crozier as a token of his wish to have Malachy as his successor.

But Malachy was unwilling to be transferred to the primatial See, and not without good reason. First of all he wished the translation to be made in a canonical way by the bishops of the province with the sanction of Gilbert the Papal Legate. This, however, was soon accomplished, the temporal princes also giving their cordial adhesion to the proposal. Then Malachy consented on one condition, that when things were put in order in Armagh, he might be free once more to return to his own diocese and his beloved monastery of Bangor.

Malachy now found that he had even a more difficult and dangerous task to accomplish in Armagh than had awaited him in the County Antrim.

For more than two hundred years a family of usurpers had established themselves at Armagh, and held the land and See of Armagh, transmitting it from father to son, or grandson, in regular hereditary succession. Most of them were laymen and married men; but they paid regularly ordained prelates to perform all necessary episcopal functions, keeping for themselves the lands, the nomination to the churches, and even the titles of Bishops and Abbots of Armagh.

It has been said that some of these married men were regularly consecrated prelates duly recognised by the Irish Church. There is not a shadow of evidence for the statement, except _the name of bishop_ which is given to some of them. On the other hand, we have unexceptionable testimony that these men were laymen, and that the title of bishop was given to them, although they were laymen. St. Bernard settles the question. He says that this wicked and adulterous generation were so obstinate in asserting this right of hereditary succession, that although clerics of their blood were wanting, bishops were never wanting--that is bishops who were not even clerics. Of these, he says, before Celsus there were eight married men, learned enough but without orders.[317] "Denique jam octo extiterant ante Celsum viri uxorati, et absque ordinibus, litterati tamen." Gerald Barry tells exactly the same story--that various churches in Ireland and Wales had lay abbots.[318] He explains too, how it came to pass. Certain powerful men in the parish, who were at first the stewards of the church lands, and defenders of the clergy, afterwards usurped the ownership of the lands, and in order to secure them for themselves, their children, or their relations, they called themselves abbots and owners of the lands, leaving only to the clergy such chance offerings as they might happen to receive.

Such a system was of course the fruitful root of many evils. St. Malachy resolved to expel these usurpers from the See of Armagh. It was a long and difficult task; and frequently his life was in deadly peril. But God visibly protected him; he was patient, too, and prudent, as well as zealous; and in the end was completely successful. After three years of patient toil, he was universally recognised as Primate; and having thus banished the usurpers, he resigned the See to the care of the learned and saintly Gelasius, and retired once more to his beloved Bangor, keeping only the charge of the episcopal Church of Down.

We cannot follow St. Malachy through his subsequent glorious career. He went to Rome and was specially honoured by Pope Innocent II., who put his own mitre on his head, and his own stole around his neck in presence of his court, and appointed him his Legate for all Ireland. On his way to Rome he stopped at Clairvaux, where he had the good fortune of meeting St. Bernard, who became his dearest and most intimate friend. In him too, St. Malachy, more fortunate even than St. Columba, found a biographer who made the virtues and merits of the Irish saint known to posterity, and to the entire Church of God.

The saint also left at Clairvaux four of his disciples to be trained there under the eyes of St. Bernard himself in the discipline of the great Cistercian Order. It is to them we owe the introduction of that order into Ireland in A.D. 1142, and all the great religious houses which the Cistercians founded throughout the length and breadth of Ireland.

After his return home, armed with the plenary powers of Papal Legate, Malachy devoted himself with even more zeal and success than before to the reformation of his own diocese, and the general restoration of ecclesiastical discipline throughout the kingdom. He was ably supported by the Irish prelates both in the North and in the South; and he would have changed the face of the Church before many years, but it pleased God to call him to Himself all too soon for Ireland. In A.D. 1148 he went to France to meet Pope Eugene III., who was then at Clairvaux. Before Malachy, however, arrived, the Pope had departed, but he was consoled by the warm welcome which he received from St. Bernard and his monks. Shortly after the Irish saint fell sick to the great sorrow of the community, but Malachy consoled them, and told them that there was no chance of his recovery for it was God's will that he should die at Clairvaux. Feeling his strength failing he caused all the brethren to be summoned to his bedside. At once they came--St. Bernard at their head. "With longing I have longed," said the dying man, "to eat this pasch with you"--that is the holy Viaticum--"before I die, and I thank my God that my longing has been gratified." Blessing them one by one he said, "Remember me, and please God I will not forget you." So saying he rested a little; but towards midnight the community was summoned again, and while they wept and prayed around his bed, he fell asleep in the Lord, and "the Angels carried his soul to Heaven." It was at midnight between the 1st and 2nd of November, but the latter being All Souls' Day, his Feast is kept on the 3rd of November. He was canonized by Pope Clement III., about the year A.D. 1190.