ON ST. INAN OR EVAN, CONFESSOR,
IN SCOTLAND.
Ninth century.
CommentaryInan or Evan, confessor, in Scotland (St.)
J. B. S.
A certain St. Inan, a hermit of Wruinum in Scotland, Expressed under a different name and place whom I had found for the XVIII day of July in the Menology of Dempster, not daring to trust him sufficiently, I remitted hither from the Aberdeen Breviary, in which, unless I am mistaken, he was better marked on this day, in case perchance something should meanwhile have occurred whence the Saint might become better known. But hitherto to no purpose, so that, whatever I have sought, I have found almost only the name expressed, and that inflected in different ways, and assigned also to different days and to a different place, although he seems to be only one and the same, and indeed wholly identical. In our manuscript Benedictine Calendar on this day is read simply: Likewise of St. Evan, abbot in Scotland. Now hear Dempster, who, when he had placed his Inan at Wruinum on the said XVIII day of July, on this day announces the very same at Drouorum, with this added: Who freed Argyll from a pestilential disease. Out of Inan Ferrari formed Janus, explaining his Argyll in his own way.
[2] he must be called one and the same. But since Inan is said to have flourished under Kenneth I, otherwise II, it does not seem doubtful that he is the same as he who is related under the name Junanus by Camerarius on the second day of December, with this very brief eulogy: who with Kenneth, the second king of Scotland of this name, had very great authority. And this is without doubt the same who in the Aberdeen Breviary is placed among the Saints on this very day, although, contrary to the custom of that Breviary, not a whit is related of his deeds. Here are the words of the Breviary: Of St. Inan, confessor, at Irvine in Scotland, under King Kenneth the First, in the year DCCCXXXIX, August XVIII. But do not think that different kings are here indicated; the king in question is he who subdued the Picts, as they call them, whose destruction, as Dempster notes, the Saint had foretold, and at whose exhortation King Kenneth courageously undertook the war.