Brigid

ON ST. BRIGID, VIRGIN, THE WONDER-WORKER OF SCOTLAND, AT KILDARE AND DOWN IN IRELAND.

In the year of Christ 523.

Preliminary Commentary.

Brigid, Virgin of Scotland, in Ireland (St.)

BHL Number: 0000, 0198, 0199, 6517

By I. B.

Section 1. The feast day and celebration of St. Brigid.

[1] Two most holy virgins of the same era adorned the Church: Brigid in Ireland, Genevieve in Gaul. So that while the wisest of men were forming the most fierce peoples -- the Scots there, the Franks here -- by their learning and integrity of life to embrace the precepts of Christian discipline, these women both compelled the other sex by their own example, and indeed men themselves as well, to surrender to the truth by their wise innocence St. Brigid, a most celebrated virgin and the effective eloquence of miracles. Of Genevieve we have already treated on January 3. Brigid, however, is celebrated on the Kalends of February, with such accord of popular devotion that not only the Scots and the Irish, both of whom contend that she belongs to their own nation, but also the English, the Belgians, and the Germans venerate her with quite exceptional reverence. Among the Scots, Irish, and English. Concerning the Scots, English, and Irish, Hector Boethius testifies in book 9 of his History of Scotland: "The memory of this same virgin has become so celebrated for posterity, on account of her remarkable piety, that the Scots, Picts, Irish, and the English who have their settlements near those nations have always held her, among the women whom the Christian Church has enrolled in the number of the Saints, in the highest veneration after the Virgin Mother of God. Churches sacred to the name of Brigid among these peoples are almost as many as those of scarcely any of the saints -- with very many churches dedicated to her certain evidence of this fact." Even more extravagantly, John Leslie in book 4, under Conval, the 47th King: "The Scots, Picts, Britons, English, and Irish have everywhere pursued St. Brigid with such veneration that you may see more churches erected to God in her memory among all of them than in memory of all the rest of the saints combined." Following both, George Conn says: "The memory of this virgin has become so celebrated for posterity that no woman after the Mother of God has the Scots venerated with equal devotion." John Colgan, in appendix 4 to the Life of St. Brigid, chapter 16, enumerates nearly sixty places distinguished by the name of St. Brigid, drawn from the catalogues of only five Irish dioceses, although there are many more whose catalogues he had not obtained, and in those very places there are other churches, chapels, and altars dedicated to her, even though the towns or places themselves do not bear her name. He acknowledges, however, that some of the places he lists may have received their name from another Brigid. For in chapter 1 of the same appendix he enumerates many other Brigids, illustrious for holiness of life and the honor of public worship, of whom we shall mention some below. But most of the places listed by him are more likely to have been consecrated to this Brigid, by far the most celebrated of all. How many churches must have existed in all the rest of Ireland, in all of Scotland, in England, and in the surrounding islands, dedicated to her honor, before the madness of heretics destroyed the greater part of those monuments of ancestral piety! And yet the feeling of ancestral piety has not been entirely erased even from the minds of the heretics themselves. To this day in Scotland, not only Catholics but most of the heretics as well are accustomed, on the vigil of St. Brigid, to adorn one room in each house with exquisite neatness, and to furnish in it a bed as sumptuously as they can. A serious and trustworthy man who reported this to me said that he had asked them what that bedspread was supposed to mean, since they had already repudiated the veneration of saints according to the tenets of their newfangled sect. They replied that the bed was being prepared for the bride of Christ, Brigid, and that they retained the custom received from their ancestors. Would that they might some day resume all the rest of their ancestors' piety!

[2] Among the Belgians. Since very many religious men formerly migrated from Scotland and Ireland, and also from England, into the Belgian and German provinces -- some for the sake of disseminating the faith, others for the sake of more peacefully cultivating piety among strangers, and most of them trained in Scottish institutions -- the veneration of that holy virgin was propagated hither to peoples then, for the most part, devoted to pastoral and agricultural pursuits, and never long idle from the use and handling of arms, yet of such a character that their simplicity both strove to merit and was able to merit her help; for she had formerly performed very many miracles in connection with rustic produce -- milk, butter, lard, honey -- and with the herds themselves, or otherwise for the relief of country folk; and she professed, as is reported in the first Life, chapter 10, number 60, that she was more inclined to benefit common people and the humble, because all common folk serve God and all call upon Him as Father, while the powerful, with the exception of a few chosen by God, are serpents and children of blood and children of death. Yet she did not on that account abhor just wars, nor did she fail those who asked for help. By Ecclesiastical Office. Devotion to her was increased by new benefits continually conferred upon various peoples, so that most of the Belgian churches were accustomed to celebrate her feast with Ecclesiastical Office, as can be seen in the ancient Breviaries of the Canonical Hours: Antwerp, printed in 1496; Brussels, 1516; Saint-Omer, 1518; Liege and Bruges, 1520; Therouanne, 1542; Utrecht; and others.

[3] And also among the Germans. The same devotion exists among the Germans. Stephen White, a most learned priest of our Society, who taught Theology for many years in Germany, in his learned and notable work -- not yet published -- which he entitled Vindiciae of Old Scotland, or Ireland, has the following in book 3, chapter 12: "Among the Saints who are special patrons of Germany, Peter Cratepolius lists Brigid, saying that she is most celebrated in Germany; and truly so. For, even if there were no other evidence, it would be sufficient that there is not today, nor has there been for nearly a thousand years, any Cathedral church or diocese of Catholics in that most vast and extensive region where every year on February 1 the Office or Canonical prayers and the Mass are not publicly said in the choir and at the altar concerning the Virgin Brigid. Nor was I able to see in Germany any of the Calendars which are struck anew everywhere every year, both by heretics and by Catholics, for the variety of dioceses and provinces, in which I did not see the name of the Virgin Brigid." So says that man, inquisitive in no ordinary degree.

[4] That her memory was celebrated among other peoples as well is clear from all the Martyrologies which proclaim her name on this very day. The ancient Roman Martyrology, bearing the name of St. Jerome as its title in the Trier codex which we have used, but augmented (as is evident even from this), if it was originally begun by St. Jerome, mentions her thus: Inscribed in the Martyrologies on February 1. "In Scotland, of St. Brigid the Virgin." The same is found in the very ancient manuscript Martyrology of Bruges, the manuscript of St. Mary's Utrecht, the manuscript of Centula bearing the name of Bede; and the manuscript Florarium, but in the latter it is added: "who died in the year of salvation 518." The manuscript of the monastery of St. Martin at Trier, itself very ancient: "In Ireland, of Brigid the Virgin." Usuard: "In Scotland, of St. Brigid the Virgin, whose life was illustrious for miracles." With a notable encomium. The published text of Bede, Ado, and other manuscripts: "In Scotland, of St. Brigid the Virgin, whose life was illustrious for miracles. When she touched the wood of the altar in testimony of her virginity, it became green." This encomium is less satisfactory to us; for she did not touch the wooden foot of the altar in testimony of her virginity; rather, while the holy Bishop who had imposed the veil upon her was reciting prayers, she herself with bowed head held the wooden foot of the altar with her hand, "and from that hour that foot remains green forever, without any decay and without failure," as is said in the first Life, chapter 3, number 16. Better, therefore, the Roman Martyrology, Bellinus of Padua, Molanus in his additions to Usuard, and most of the Belgian Martyrologies inscribed under the name of Usuard: "In Scotland, of St. Brigid the Virgin; when she touched the wood of the altar, in testimony of her virginity it immediately became green." Maurolycus has the same and adds: "in the time of Justin I." Wandelbert, monk of Prum, who wrote over 800 years ago:

"Brigid, a powerful virgin, sanctifies for herself the first Kalends of February, To be celebrated with the wondrous favor of the Scots."

So reads the manuscript of Cusa. Molanus and others read: "celebrated with favor." Rabanus in his Martyrology mentions her thus: "Also in Ireland, the birthday of Brigid the Virgin, which birthday is proclaimed to be one of great merits and holiness." Better the manuscript of St. Maximin: "In Ireland, of St. Brigid the Virgin, who is proclaimed to be of great merits and holiness." For it is not apparent by what reasoning the birthday itself could be called of great merits and holiness, since her mother was still a pagan and was serving a magician -- unless someone should wish to assert what Jerome de Villavitis, a Canon Regular, in his book which he calls Daily Bread, has taught without any solid foundation: that she was sanctified in her mother's womb -- as though the miracles that soon occurred were arguments of her present holiness, and not rather of her future holiness. Notker has the same as the manuscript of St. Maximin, and adds: "so much so that when she touched the wood of the altar in testimony of her virginity, it became green." The ancient manuscript of Liessies: "In Scotland, the birthday of St. Brigid the Virgin, who from her earliest years was joined to Christ by love. She, living most holily in her chaste resolve, shone forth with many miracles." The ancient manuscript of the monastery of St. Martin of Tournai has nearly the same. In short, there is scarcely any Martyrology that does not proclaim her name. But some list her on January 31, the feast having been anticipated, no doubt, on account of the feast of St. Ignatius the Theophorus. In the Cologne Martyrology printed in 1490, under July 14, the following is found: "Likewise, on the third weekday after the feast of St. Margaret the Virgin, is the commemoration of St. Brigid the Virgin." That is to say, on that day -- or rather, as Gelenius writes in his work on the greatness of Cologne, book 3, Syntagma 29, section 3 -- on the third weekday after the feast of St. Peter in Chains, a procession and holiday of the parish of St. Brigid at Cologne is transferred.

Section 2. The Acts of St. Brigid.

[5] Brigid has obtained no less celebrity from the writers of her Life. So many have committed her deeds to writing. Her Life written by many. Chilienus, or whoever is the author of the metrical Life which we shall give in third place, attests this in the Prologue:

"Many have written the virtues of the nourishing Virgin: Doctor Ultanus, and Eleranus exulting. Animosus by name described many books Concerning the life and studies and merits of the Virgin."

Whether or not the works of these authors survive, and whether they were in Irish or in Latin, I would not wish to guess rashly. St. Ultan, Bishop of Ardbraccan in Meath, as John Colgan relates from an ancient writer, comprised the miracles of St. Brigid in one book; and Colgan holds this to be the same Life which he gives in third place and we give first. How sound the argument is on which he bases this conjecture

is not worth inquiring into at greater length. He says that the same Ultan died on September 4, in the year of Christ 656, and was enrolled in the number of the Saints. Ussher places his death in the year 657; others in 662 -- those who think that the hymn in praise of St. Brigid was composed by him in the time of the two sons of Aed Slane; for on the authority of the ancient annals, Dermitius II and Blathmac, sons of Aed II, assumed the kingship of Ireland in the year 658 and held it for seven years.