ON SAINT DONAN,
ABBOT IN SCOTLAND.
11TH CENTURY.
CommentaryDonan, Abbot in Scotland (St.)
G. H.
[1] The Breviary printed at Edinburgh, the royal city of Scotland, in the year 1509, for the use of the Church of Aberdeen and the rest of Scotland, leads us into the most certain cult and veneration of St. Donan the Abbot in Scotland, when on April 17 it prescribes that at Matins there be nine lessons from the Common of one Confessor and Abbot, Sacred cult in the Aberdeen Breviary and this in the church dedicated to him, when it falls within the Passion of the Lord; but if after Easter, let there be only three lessons of him, with the regimen of the choir of the Paschal time. Everything from the Common, with the following oration: "Almighty and eternal God, because we raise our souls to thee, forget the offences of our youth, we beseech thee, by the intercession of Blessed Donan thy Confessor and Abbot; deign to pardon clemently the things we have negligently done amiss." In the title he is said to have lived under King Machabius in the year 640, or rather 1046 or thereabouts.
[2] Encomium from Camerarius David Camerarius composed this encomium for him in his Scottish Menology: "St. Donan, Abbot of Tangland, who in the religious palaestra had so much advanced in the school of Christ in a brief space of time, and had so ardently run the way of Christ, that he left his equals at a long interval behind him in the heap of all virtues; he submitted himself to all, and thought himself blessed if he were despised by all; nor was any voice sweeter to his ears than one chiding and reprehending; and far more ardently St. Donan thirsted for insults and ignominies than others for glory and the honor of their name. In the subduing and mortifying of the body, there was no end with Donan. And as he was of weak health, even in those very sicknesses, in which the mind of the sick is wont to be more broken, he both kept constancy and equanimity of mind always in such a way, that he was not broken by the inconveniences of a more bitter illness, nor did he desert the accustomed duties of piety and devotion. Donan the Saint was held in high esteem for the ornaments of his virtues by Duncan, King of the Scots, who, by the example of Saint Donan, is said to have been of wonderful mildness of mind, and most ready to forgive. Donan the Saint departed to the heavens in the year of Christ 1044. Concerning him see the Regius Calendar and others."
[3] From the same cited Regius Calendar, and Dempster Thomas Dempster has this in his Scottish Menology: "Of Donan the Abbot in Achterles, whose staff carried around cured any sickness." The same Dempster in book 4 of the Ecclesiastical History of the Scottish Nation, number 377, has this: "St. Donan the Abbot, in that golden age of the Saints, shone with incomparable sanctity of life; the staff the heretics destroyed, which carried around used to cure fever and jaundice. He lived in the year 640. He is venerated on April 17, Scottish Breviary. Patron in Achterles, the Barony of Thomas Dempster, whose holy Relics were elevated on April 18, and the fair is frequented all through that tract." So Dempster, with a little index of the books published by him, which, as spurious, we omit. Ferrarius in the general Catalogue celebrates the same Donan, and in the Notes cites some things from Dempster.
[4] Time of his life Thus the said authors. The aforementioned King Machabius, by others Machabaeus, is set by John Leslie as having reigned from the year 1046 to the year 1061 of the same century. There succeeded Malcolm III, Donald VI, then Duncan I from 1093 to 1109, with whom Camerarius says St. Donan was held in great esteem. But these things are far from the year 640, which Dempster took from a corrupt impression of the Breviary. Whether he was pleasing to Duncan as already King, or rather as still a youth (which last would be more fitting to the earlier relation), we leave to the reader's judgment.