Flannan

ON ST. FLANNAN, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR OF LAONIA IN MUNSTER IN IRELAND

Perhaps in the seventh century.

CRITICAL COMMENTARY.

ON ST. FLANNAN, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR OF LAONIA IN MUNSTER IN IRELAND

§ I. The place, his cult, fabulous Acts.

BY J. P.

Munster, a province of Ireland, Camden thus describes in his Britannia, The Saint of Laonia, whose situation is described, printed at London in the year 1607, page 736: Momonia, in Irish Mown, and in the context of speech Wown, in English Mounster, lying open to the Vergivian sea on the south, separated from Connacht now by the Shannon, or Schanon, and from Leinster by the river Nore in some places; of old divided in many ways …; but today in two ways, into western and southern Munster. He had premised at page 735 four archbishoprics, namely Armagh, Dublin, Cashel, and Tuam: but which bishoprics were subject to these he affirms that he subjoins from an old Roman Provincial, as they once stood, on the faith of the copy. Then at page 736 these things are noted: Under the archbishop of Cashel are the bishopric of Laonia of Kendalnan, and others which do not belong to this place. Ware, in the Commentary on the Prelates of Ireland, printed at Dublin in the year 1665, page 226, records these things in the article on St. Flannan: Laonia, commonly Killaloe, situated on the western bank of the river Shannon (near the cataract by which the river is hindered from carrying ships further), has its name from St. Molua the abbot, who lived there some time, at the beginning of the sixth century. And presently, His disciple, he says, St. Flannan, son of king Theodoric, consecrated at Rome by John IV the Pontiff about the year 639, was the first bishop of this see. While he sat, his father Theodoric endowed the church of Laonia with many estates, and, dying at last full of years, was solemnly buried in the same church by his son Flannan. Concerning the place, enough of this: now of his cult.

[2] Among the proper Masses of the patron and titular Saints of France and Ireland, general patron: a Mass proper to him published at Paris in the year 1734 by Nicolas Antonin O'Kenny, at the twenty-eighth day of August, on the feast of St. Flannan, bishop and confessor, and general patron of the church and diocese of Laonia, there is had this Mass: Introit. In his faith and meekness he made him holy, and gave him before all the precepts and the law of life and discipline. Psalm. Praise ye the Lord, for the Lord is good: sing to his name, for it is sweet. Glory be to the Father, etc. In his faith, etc. Prayer. O God, who didst kindle the flames of thy love in the heart of thy holy prelate Flannan, grant us that same affection of thy charity, that, desiring to possess thee alone and trembling to lose thee alone, we may equally despise all the prosperities and adversities of the world. Through our Lord, etc. A reading of the epistle of blessed Paul the Apostle to Titus: It is a faithful saying. Admonish them, etc. Gradual. I have laid help upon one that is mighty, and have exalted one chosen out of my people. ℣. I have anointed him with my holy oil, for my hand shall help him. Alleluia, alleluia. ℣. Bless the Lord, ye priests of the Lord; praise and exalt him above all for ever ✠. The continuation of the holy Gospel according to Luke: No man lights a lamp, etc.

[3] is produced: Offertory. As a shepherd feeds his flock, he shall gather the lambs in his arm, and shall lift them in his bosom, and shall himself carry those that are with young. Secret. Receive with kindly countenance, we beseech thee, merciful God, the gifts offered to thy majesty, that by the prayers of thy holy prelate Flannan they may be rendered salutary. Through our Lord Jesus Christ thy Son, etc. Communion. For I seek not the things that are yours, but you. Most gladly will I spend and be spent for your souls. Postcommunion. Grant us, almighty God, by the power of this Sacrament and by the prayers of St. Flannan, that, imitating him with sincere fruits of works, we may continually aspire to heavenly things.* Through our Lord Jesus Christ, etc. From these things the public and solemn veneration of this Saint is abundantly established: and for that cause we give him on this day, which is set at the head of the aforesaid Mass, even though he is not elsewhere noted here, and elsewhere an uncertain day is assigned him.

[4] For in Greven at the eighteenth day of December our Prelate, as I suspect, is announced as the same, although with the name somewhat changed or dislocated: In Ireland, of Flamianus the bishop. he is drawn back from the eighteenth of December to this day. In our transcript from the Salamanca codex, of which presently, the eighteenth of December is set down. In our manuscript collectanea on the Saints of England, Scotland, and Ireland, under the wrapper ✠ Ms. 167, there are read Saints to whom a certain day cannot be assigned, and among them is placed St. Flannan, bishop. Colgan in the Acts of the Saints of Ireland at the twenty-second day of January, on which he treats of St. Colman, abbot and bishop of Lismore, in the notes at page 155 makes mention of the Life of St. Flannan at the eighteenth of December. From these we see that in more than one place that day is assigned to the Saint, from which nevertheless we have drawn him back to this twenty-eighth day of August, as we have already advised. Now let us treat of the Man's deeds, such as they are.

[5] We have a manuscript codex on parchment, which the Rector of the college of the Society of Jesus at Salamanca gave as a gift to our Father Gilles de Smidt; his apocryphal Life: by whom, being given to Father Heribert Rosweyde, it passed into the use of our museum, and it is the codex which with us is P Ms. 11. In that same codex there is extant a Life of St. Flannan, bishop and confessor; but so ill coherent, and stuffed with so many marvelous and incredible things, that we plainly do not see what and how much of them can be believed; to say it in a word, they are to be relegated to old wives' fables. The history is long enough, in which there appears also king Theodoric, as is reported, the Saint's father, concerning whom there will be discussion below. Further, lest anyone should think that empty complaints about the aforesaid Life are formed by us, it has seemed good to cull some samples from it, distributing the matter into four classes, of which the first will say that the author of that Life wrote many centuries after the Saint; the second will treat of narrations of suspect credit; the third of incredible miracles; the fourth of the writer of this Life. Let us weigh therefore each in turn. And first indeed it seems to us that certain chronological marks must be premised from the persons who are named by the biographer. And I shall use our transcript from the aforesaid codex, which is divided into chapters, unless the text be (as in some places it is) mutilated.

[6] In chapter 1, therefore, the writer of the Life, treating of St. Flannan's upbringing, says: from the age of the persons inserted in it The Boy his father committed to holy Blathmet (perhaps Blathmac) to be brought up; to whom the sons of nobles … were sent from afar. But then that same Saint betook himself to the most holy elder Molua. Chapter 3: The aforesaid elder Molua … speaks according to the prophecy of the holy father Brendan. Chapter 5: He came (St. Flannan) to holy Bracanus. And that elder with much fervor of faith and charity nourished and taught the young men of the Saints of Ireland in weeping and tears for a long space of time. In another place of this Life are these words: King Theodoric himself also … fleeing to St. Colman, bishop of Lismore, etc. But from certain marks of time we shall in some fashion gather that St. Flannan lived in the sixth century. We read of various holy abbots named Blathmac in Colgan at the nineteenth day of January; but none of them belongs to the said century, because they are there placed partly in the ninth century, partly in the tenth. What of Molua? Ussher in the chronological index to the Antiquities of the British Churches, page 1146, at the year 580, says: There flourished among the Irish … Lugid, who is also Molua, disciple of Comgall, founder of the monastery of Clonfert in Offaly. He flourished in the sixth century, according to what we have said in the preliminary Commentary on his Life, volume 1 of August, at the fourth day, page 341. And this man seems either to be designated by the biographer, or to be aptly understood by us, until another more suitable is designated.

[7] There followed above St. Bracanus, whom we leave to others to trace out. there is treatment of the Saint's time, whose Life was written long after, Concerning St. Colman, bishop of Lismore, Colgan treats at the twenty-second day of January, attaching his death to the year 702. According to the things just alleged, we gather that St. Flannan lived in the sixth century, nay even in the seventh, if Ware speaks truly, who fixes his consecration in the year 639, as we saw before, and that indeed it was conferred upon him at Rome by John IV the pontiff. But now let us show that our biographer wrote separated from the Saint's age by a great interval of many centuries. After he had narrated in chapter 5 that St. Flannan, being about to seek Rome, was carried over the sea upon a stone instead of a ship, he adds these words: A notable miracle, a most firm argument of the Christian faith for all the peoples of southern Ireland, both prelates and all private persons, newly wrought, namely at the time in which Frederick, emperor of the Romans, an unconquered king, took Milan by force of arms, and by the right of war had destroyed it, etc. Frederick, the first emperor of this name, surnamed Barbarossa, was elected in the year of Christ 1152, crowned at Rome by Pope Adrian IV in the year 1155, and gained possession of Milan in the year 1162. From this passage of the biographer, therefore, in which he treats of the emperor Frederick, it is made out that he did not write before the middle of the twelfth century, and therefore deserves small commendation even from his age alone.

[8] and put together from things I had proposed to speak in the second place of the suspect narrations of the biographer. Behold for thee, reader, a few out of many which seem to me not to deserve historical credit. In chapters 1 and 2 he reports these things: But let us hear what the king's son (Flannan) did in that same city (of Laonia), his father's, before his parents, among the more noble, among his kinsfolk and acquaintances. For since the holy Youth was a man of the highest obedience, he stood by attentively at every command of the holy elder Molua before the king and queen, and before the whole army … without any blushing of countenance, despising present glory for that to come. Therefore the aforesaid rigid elder commanded that same Youth that, every occasion being removed, he should enter the mill alone, and there grind, and sift, and after the accustomed manner prepare bread for the brethren with his own hands by baking it. Entering therefore the aforesaid mill at earliest dawn, as he had been bidden, until the twilight of the following night he alone ministered, handing the grain to the mill: but when the daylight failed, and no one brought him a light from elsewhere, relying on divine help,

he breathed with his mouth upon the five fingers of his left hand, and after the manner and likeness of five lamps he lit up the whole mill with divine light through the whole night.

[9] of suspect In another place also of that same Life the anonymous author narrates not a few things concerning king Theodoric, the Saint's father, as he writes, which amid so great obscurity of the kings of Ireland will not obtain historical credit with the learned reader, as we suspect, unless they be more confirmed from elsewhere: The king, he says, Theodoric himself also … holding the glory of the world in hatred, with none accompanying him, to St. Colman, bishop of Lismore, the diadem of his kingdom being despised, … entered upon the monastic habit … But let us hear what brother Theodoric, now made small and poor to the world, rich in Christ, did. He humbly asked that most firm hammers and other iron tools, most apt for breaking stones, should be made for him. For that very place which … blessed Colman chose for himself to dwell in, on the bank of a great river, having most dense and lofty groves to the south, but to the north airy mountains, with crags and sheer rocks of a narrow valley jutting out on this side and that, had been inaccessible to carts and vehicles and to those carrying burdens. Therefore blessed Colman with the other servants of God took pains to break, split, and cut away the rocks in the way. To whom brother Theodoric, a most strong man, … coming with the aforesaid iron tools, attacking the rough rocks … alone, broke them through, divided them, leveled them … For in a short time he alone among the crags and sheer rocks made a hollowed and level road more than the multitude of the brethren had made through long times before. And he labored so far … that rivulets of sweat flowed down from his body … to the ground. Concerning the miracle wrought through this sweat, which the anonymous author subjoins, we shall speak below.

[10] In chapter 8 he writes that, three of Theodoric's sons having been cruelly slain by enemies, credit. Colman persuaded him to restore his surviving son to the kingdom: to whom he said, I will not go, unless … thou shalt have blessed me and my posterity … And when he had said this, stretching himself out he cast himself before the feet of the holy man: who, coming nearer, measuring seven feet along the side of the Man lying there, as it were the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, had said: Seven renowned kings of thy blood shall rule all Ireland … Which so came to pass … Of whom the first was Brian; the second his son Donatus O'Brien; the third Brian; the fourth Muirchertach O'Brien … From which first king … Brian, all the other kings, or those who possessed the whole or half of Ireland, were called Brianaei, as the Roman emperors were called Caesars; the Greeks, basileis; the Babylonians, admirable ones … Truly the Brianaean men were unconquered in war … And … all the nobility of all Ireland, and its warlike valor … was derived from the Brianaei. Will posterity believe these things, as well as those that follow in the same place? A raging bull … attacked the holy man brother Theodoric with his companions: which bull … he tore in pieces like a kid of the goats, and distributed to his companions … A yew trunk …, which none of the country folk could split with axes, lay in a road across the fields: which trunk brother Theodoric broke into small pieces with millstones, and prepared a most convenient fire for himself and his people. I am much deceived if these things will please a learned reader.

pascet*

§ II. Apocryphal miracles; the biographer; the Saint's death and its time; the translation of his body.

Miracles The third matter of which we determined before to treat is the miracles of suspect credit, written by the said anonymous biographer. Chapter 2: While the cellarer, he says, was calling to mind that he had sent no light after his custom to the Servant of God (St. Flannan) as he ground — concerning which matter we have spoken in §1 — he sent his messenger thither, that … he might cautiously note what the royal Youth … was doing there. But that same messenger …, looking through the chinks and crevices of the little door, had beheld the five fingers of the left hand of God's Friend lighting up the mill wholly, like five lights. But the Saint, always wishing this power of God to lie hidden, … being somewhat moved in mind, quickly imprecated that envoy, saying: Because … thou hast presumed, O young man, with rash eye to see me doing God's work in secret, may the tame crane which dwells with thee in the cell pluck out that same eye of thine when thou returnest. Which so came to pass. For … the aforesaid crane pierced with its beak one eye of the cellarer's boy in the door of the cell: at the pain of which wound that same boy, crying out and lamenting, etc. After these things, in chapter 3, he is sent by St. Molua the abbot to Flannan, that he should restore the pierced eye to its former use of seeing on this condition, that a scar, the mark of the wound, should always remain in that same eye without diminution of its sight: and with such swiftness, God so willing, he restored the eye to health as he had deprived it of light with sudden blindness. Would any prudent reader approve these things as historically true?

[12] That our Saint was carried over the sea on a stone we have indicated above at number 7 from the author of the Life. by no means The matter is narrated by him as having taken place in this manner between SS. Bracanus and Flannan, in chapter 5: The Men of God … going to the neighboring shores, earnestly beseech God with anxious prayers for a ship … And while they stretched out to one another with great fervor of faith their eyes and palms to the merciful Lord of heaven and sea, … behold, they see a huge stone, smoothed and level on its surface, swimming to the shores. Here the holy elder first addresses the Younger: Behold, he says, thy piety, behold thy desire has bent the ears of the divine power toward thee. Behold, a ship is given thee from heaven contrary to custom and contrary to the course owed by nature. Lay on thy little bundles confidently, lay on thy companions, steer the ship; it will bring thee whithersoever thy mind desires.

[13] credible These things the biographer; to which he tries to win credit by subjoining these words: But the Jew will say, the pagan will say, the unbelieving Christian will say: What is this that they say, that stones fly, that stones swim? It smacks of a fable. Who has heard such things told from the beginning of the world? But the true faith of Christians, meeting them, says: To the one and true God all things are possible, who made blessed Peter walk with dry feet upon the sea; could not the same God, at the prayers of the Saints, make a floating thing swim on the surface of the sea? We answer: God could indeed, he could, who can do all things, work this miracle and greater ones. But here it is asked whether God did in fact work it. The biographer affirms it: others will deny it: nor indeed, as I think, will those knowing in matters of this kind at once support him; but they will desire, in my judgment at least, for the confirmation of so rare and notable a miracle, testimonies of greater authority, and more fit for persuading, than is that of this single biographer, suspect on other grounds. Elsewhere he writes of the Saint's return from his Roman journey into Ireland, and records these things: Moreover the most blessed Flannan, the divine clemency favoring him, came through those same towns, country districts, and castles of Tuscany, Burgundy, and France to that same port in which he had left the stone of his vessel. Then the holy Man, undaunted, placing his hope in the Lord God, with his companions and all his goods, sitting upon that same stone, the divine power driving the stone on, landing with a most swift course on the paternal shores of Ireland, visited the holy father Bracanus, as he had promised.

[14] by the anonymous biographer In chapter 15 the same anonymous author reports things too marvelous to be admitted as true upon his wavering credit alone: Nine jesters, he says, men exceedingly deformed, horrible in countenance and habit, led on by a diabolical instigation, … tempting God and the Saint, all crying out together, demanded that there be given them by the blessed Man nine black mutilated rams, with a jesting and unfitting petition … And behold, nine black rams without horns … coming out of the sea … appeared: which they laid hold of. But … those sons of perdition, both they themselves and the wethers, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, cleaving to the ground before holy Flannan, were all changed into stones, and thus even to this present day they evidently appear to human sight. Nor are those things credible to us which the biographer had set forth in chapter 8 concerning Theodoric, the Saint's father, as is reported: At the same time a certain man, weighed down by a long and lasting sickness, running to St. Colman as to a heavenly physician, with tearful voice kept asking for the health of his own body: But Colman said, Go, my son, to that brother Theodoric, who more earnestly than the rest breaks strong stones, and wash thyself with the sweat of his countenance: trusting confidently in the Lord, thou shalt receive the strength of thy body. Which so came to pass. For that same man …, after he had moistened himself with the sweat … of the servant of God …, as though washed with a heavenly balsam, had received … his own vigor and his former health.

[15] And so, these things being accomplished, after he had for some years with the holy brethren reduced the slopes of the valley on this side and that to level ground, are reported: and had with marvelous power completed a road fit for those bearing * burdens; on a certain day, while alone he was leveling the surface of a native rock, upon that same stone there had fallen from heaven, while he himself looked on, three drops of most ruddy blood: which prodigy, he himself marveling at it, calling holy Colman and the whole multitude of the holy men, he most diligently inquired what this marvel … might portend, etc. But of these things more than enough. For neither shall we abuse the time and likewise the patience of the reader by describing more prodigies which the often-mentioned author, or rather fabler, records to have been wrought by St. Flannan: of whom, as we determined above, we must now treat.

[16] First of all, the things which concern this biographer altogether escape us, concerning whom namely his name, his fatherland, his manner of life, the time at which he wrote, and — what is the chief thing — sufficient authority for the documents from which he drew things so marvelous and incredible, since he himself of himself lacks fit authority for credit to be given to them. From this, however, that he says in chapter 3, Note therefore, men and brethren, someone might suspect that he was a monk; as also from chapter 8, dearest brethren. But that phrase, And thus even to this present day they evidently appear to human sight, as we have just reported from him at number 14, indicates indeed that he wrote after the Saint's death; but not in what century. But from another passage of his, which I reported above at number 7, it has already been indicated that he did not write the Saint's Life before the middle of the twelfth century.

[17] And these are the samples on account of which I have judged that the Life of St. Flannan, as it stands, must be kept out of our Work: we add some further things. and although we do not say that all things contained in it are false — since it could have happened that he reports false things mingled with true ones — yet, because the author is of no authority who records things so marvelous and not credible, therefore he deserves no credit in them. For a prudent man will not easily believe a fabling man, who is accustomed to deceive or to be deceived, even at the time when he speaks the truth. We grieve that better monuments concerning this holy Prelate have not come into our hands, who seems

to have been of no common name and sanctity, as it is permissible to gather from the Mass proper to him, and from his general patronage of the church and diocese of Laonia, as was said in §1.

[18] The time of the Saint's death, Concerning the holy Prelate's passing to the heavenly fatherland this biographer, such as he is, knows nothing, since he records only these things in chapter 20: But concerning the passing of the holy Father, lest I should pass over in silence a thing so celebrated, so famous, I shall for love of succinct brevity set forth a few things out of many. He would have said more rightly that he was silent about it for want of information, because he says nothing. For at once, turning to something else, he thus goes on: Meanwhile, while a very frequent abundance of miracles had made the holy Man famous throughout the bounds of the west; while the blind and the lame, and others afflicted with the various plagues of infirmities, were restored at the holy Man's sepulchre to their former health. There follows next the elevation of the body, of which we shall presently treat. The year of his death, concerning which I read nothing in the biographer, I have noted above as perhaps in the seventh century, according to what was said from Ware in §1, number 1; and at numbers 6 and 7 from the age of the persons who, as is reported, lived with St. Flannan. But since the things recorded concerning him are obscure and uncertain, I have restricted the time by the adverb perhaps.

[19] and the elevation of his body. What the anonymous author narrates in chapter 20 concerning the elevation of the body I reduce to fewer words: The prelates of the churches of the whole kingdom, with the king and the princes, having taken counsel, with the leave of the Roman Pontiff, lest a treasure so desirable should longer lie hidden in the bosom of the earth, decreed to elevate the bones of the venerable Father … And when fear and reverence … had gravely seized almost all from touching limbs so holy, two only … dug out the sarcophagus … and elevated the holy limbs. But … a vapor … breathing forth from the holy bones … blew upon them so far that it condemned one of them … to eternal blindness … for ever: but the other it so enfeebled by a dissolution of his limbs that … he was carried to his own house by the hands of others. After these things, gold and silver being collected by the princes, placing upon the altar a shrine put together with wonderful art and … gilded, they there enclosed the bones of the holy Father. The things which he mingles with these as done by means of the vapor we do not believe, nor do we know whether the rest are true.

perhaps ferendis*