Berthan

ON ST. BERTHAN.

BISHOP IN SCOTLAND

ABOUT THE YEAR 839

Berthan, Bishop, in Scotland (St.)

G. H.

In the Breviary of the Church of Aberdeen in Scotland, the memory of one called in the title Bishop is celebrated with these words: "Of St. Berthan, Bishop and Confessor in Scotland, under King Kenneth, in the year 839, April 6."

Thomas Dempster in book 2 of the Ecclesiastical History of the People of the Scots, Sacred cult citing the Scottish Breviary, asserts that he flourished in the said year 839, and is venerated on April 6, with churches and altars erected to him throughout the kingdom: of which Church he was Bishop is uncertain, but he is thought to be of Orkney. The same Dempster in the Scottish Menology, whether Bishop of Orkney, says, "At Kirkwall, of Berthan, most holy Bishop of the Orkneys," citing the Calendar of Adam Regius. Ferrari listed the same in his General Catalogue in these words: "At Kirkwall in Orkney, of St. Berthan, Bishop," and in the Notes asserts, that Kirkwall is the Episcopal city of Pomona, the chief of the Orkney islands, which is also called Kirchua or Kirkua: by others it is also called Carcoviaca. David Camerarius celebrates him with a long elogium, would that it were a true one. "Saint Berchamus," he says, "or Berthan, Bishop of Orkney and Confessor. elogium of Camerarius. He was of great repute for sanctity in the province of Stirling. He passed the years of his adolescence in that celebrated monastery of Saint Columba, not far from Stirling or Strivling; Raised to the Episcopacy, he immediately applied himself diligently to the study of the Lives of the Saints, especially of Viro, Plechelm, and Kilian, Bishops, who among foreign nations were held famous both for the glory of miracles and for the sanctity of life; to extract their most illustrious sayings and deeds, and to have them always before his eyes; by frequent meditation on these, contemplating himself as in a mirror, he was carried with great desire to imitate them, and was suffused with most limpid sweetness from heaven. And certainly in imitation of those, Saint Berchamus performed very many and those most illustrious things." Thus he there. Dempster asserts that he wrote various books: whether books were written by him? but we fear, lest what Philippus Labbe relates in volume 2 On Ecclesiastical Writers concerning Martin Polonus, page 63, holds place here, namely that he, for the favor of his fatherland, patched together all fables. Wherefore we refer the curious reader of these things to his history: and we prefix the title, which the Breviary of Aberdeen proposes.