Finan

ON ST. FINAN, BISHOP OF LINDISFARNE IN ENGLAND

THE YEAR OF CHRIST 661.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Finan, Bishop of Lindisfarne in England (St.)

By the author G. H.

Section 1: The sacred veneration of St. Finan, his studies, and his episcopate.

[1] The author of the English Martyrology celebrates St. Finan on February 17 with this eulogy, which, rendered from the English into Latin, Colgan published in the Acts of the Saints of Ireland for the same February 17 in approximately these words: St. Finan venerated on February 17 in the English Martyrology At Lindisfarne, in the kingdom of Northumbria, the deposition of St. Finan, Bishop and Confessor: who, having first been a monk of the monastery of St. Columba on the island of Iona in Scotland, was made Bishop, and succeeded St. Aidan in that See: where in every kind of good conduct and sanctity of life he ended his blessed days around the year of Christ 660. He is called the Apostle of the Mercians, or Midland English: by whose industry and effort in preaching, a great part of that kingdom was converted to the Christian faith, together with their Prince Peada, son of Penda the great persecutor: who, at the urging of St. Oswin, King of the Northumbrians, together with many great Earls and Lords of the kingdom of the Mercians, was baptized by the same St. Finan at the place called "At the Wall," as Bede and other English historians relate. Many churches in both England and Scotland are dedicated in his honor. So it reads there. That place, or royal estate "At the Wall," drawn from the Emperors Alexander and Severus, Camden thinks is now called Walton. Colgan interpreted it as Berwick, which town, however, is situated far beyond the wall at the borders of modern Scotland. Moreover, it would be useful to specify the churches dedicated to St. Finan, for greater confirmation of his ancient veneration. Hermann Greuen in his supplement to Usuard, published in the years 1515 and 1521, and the supplement of Hermann Greuen appears to treat of him when, after the St. Fintan mentioned above, he reports: In Scotland, of St. Fimianus the Bishop. Thus in the Chronicle of John Bromton, Finianus is frequently written; by others also Finnanus, and more corruptly Sinanus and Sinnanus.

[2] The Scots venerate the same Finan on February 17 in the Breviary of Aberdeen, among the Scots on February 17 and 16 from which his eulogy will shortly be given: a certain summary of which Camerarius inscribed in the Scottish Menology, citing the Royal Calendar, the Aberdeen Breviary, and others: but on the preceding day, or February 16, Dempster writes: In England, of Finnan the Bishop and Apostle of that nation, and with the appended letter K he indicates that he follows the Calendar of Adam King or a similar one. The same, citing the Scottish Breviary, which is the Aberdeen one, in his Ecclesiastical History of the Scottish Nation, chapter 508, says he is venerated on February 16: Ferrarius follows Dempster in the General Catalogue, also citing the English Martyrology, in which, however, it has already been shown that he is celebrated on February 17. The Irish also celebrate St. Finan in their sacred Calendars, among the Irish on January 9 not, however, on February 16 or 17 but January 9, on which day Colgan appended his Life to the Acts of the Saints of Ireland, asserting that in the Martyrologies of Tallaght and Marianus Gorman it is called the feast of St. Finian the Saxon, that is, Bishop or Apostle of the Saxons in England. So much for his veneration.

[3] Colgan very extensively argues in chapter 2 of the Appendix to his Life on January 9 that St. Finan was Irish by birth, and in note 12 reports from the Irish Chronicles that he was the son of Rimedius. Concerning his education in adolescence, the following is read in the ancient Breviary of Aberdeen: In the year of the Virgin Birth 650, a man of venerable life and great holiness, a Bishop and honey-flowing Teacher of the infidels, Finnan by name, of the Scottish nation and their noble family, distinguished from boyhood, nurtured in virtues, and given over from infancy to liberal studies. This man, by the light or barely perceptible admonition of his Teachers, was so devoted to letters of this kind and applied his mind to them piously nurtured in the liberal arts that he ventured to emerge as a most learned man: and he studied so diligently that he easily merited the insignia of a higher dignity: so that almost the entire people, prophesying, acclaimed this man of God as worthy of the Episcopate, and frequently predicted it: to each of which things he paid the least attention. But he surpassed all his contemporaries in every gravity of character, knowledge, circumspection, and prudence: above all, however, he gave the most apt example of good works and virtue, being most obedient to his superiors, a servant to his equals, and a most humble companion to the least and lowest. After this, Blessed Finnan above all applied his mind to be steeped in the Divine law, instructed in theological studies and hastened untiringly to the pursuit of heavenly contemplation, while spurning other pleasures of the world. He sought out Teachers and the most holy men learned in the Christian faith wherever he could find them, with all patience, humility, and submission, by questioning them, and what he learned from them of divine things, he committed with a keen and diligent mind to memory for preaching to others. So it reads.

[4] At that time the monastery built by St. Columba on the island of Hy, or Hu, also called Iona, now commonly Columbkill, among the modern Scots, was famous: in which also St. Aidan, Finan's predecessor in the Episcopate of Lindisfarne, had lived, which Bede in book 3 of his Ecclesiastical History of England, chapter 3, thus records: They were mostly monks who had come to preach. with St. Aidan his predecessor The monk himself, Bishop Aidan, was sent from the island called Hy. The monastery of which for no small time held the preeminence among almost all the monasteries of the northern Scots and all the Picts, and had authority over their peoples. This island indeed belongs to the jurisdiction of Britain, separated from it by no great strait, but was long ago given over to the monks of the Scots by a donation of the Picts who inhabit those regions of Britain, because through their preaching they had received the faith of Christ. So Bede concerning St. Aidan, the predecessor of St. Finan, who also writes the following about Finan's successor Colman in book 4, chapter 4: and Colman his successor Meanwhile Colman, who was a Bishop from Scotland, leaving Britain, took with him all the Scots he had gathered on the island of Lindisfarne, and leaving some Brethren in his Church, he first came to the island of Iona, from which he had been sent to preach the word of God to the English nation, etc. We shall treat of St. Colman on the following day, February 18, and of St. Aidan on August 31. Between these two, Bishop Finan administered the Church of Lindisfarne, and he himself, as Bede relates in book 3, chapter 17, was sent from Iona, the island and monastery of the Scots, and in book 3, chapter 25, was ordained and sent by the Scots: having become a vigorous emulator of the deeds of St. Aidan. he lived in the monastery of Iona

[5] The occasion for calling these men from Northumbria to the Episcopate was as follows. Edwin, King of the Northumbrians, in the eleventh year of his reign, the year of Christ 627, as Bede testifies in book 2, chapter 14, was baptized on the holy day of Easter, the day before the Ides of April, at York: he was (as they were) Bishop of Northumbria in which city he also gave to his Teacher and Bishop Paulinus a See of the Episcopate, to whom Pope Honorius, having confirmed the right of Metropolitan, sent the pallium, as the same Bede relates in chapter 17. But when King Edwin was killed in the year 633, Paulinus withdrew, leaving the Church of York, which for 30 years, as Simeon of Durham observes, did not have its own Bishop, but the Bishops of the Church of Lindisfarne -- Aidan, Finan, Colman, and Tuda -- administered the Pontificate of the province of the Northumbrians: and for that reason St. Finan in the Breviary of Aberdeen is called Bishop of Northumbria and Confessor. And William of Malmesbury, in book 3 of the Deeds of the English Bishops, condensing the words of Stephen the Priest, a contemporary of Bede, says that when Paulinus was expelled, Aidan, Finan, and Colman, Scots, refused to be exalted either by the pallium or by the nobility of a city, hiding themselves on the island of Lindisfarne.

[6] Bede in book 3, chapter 3, narrates that these things happened thus: Oswald (who, as he had said in chapter 1, had been in exile among the Scots or Picts during the time of King Edwin), when he received the kingdom, desiring that the entire nation over which he had begun to rule should be imbued with the grace of the Christian faith, of which he had already experienced the greatest proofs in defeating the barbarians, sent to the elders of the Scots, among whom he himself, while in exile, had obtained the sacrament of baptism together with the soldiers who were with him, asking that a Bishop be sent to him, by whose teaching and ministry the English nation which he ruled might learn and receive the gifts and sacraments of the Lord's faith. Nor did he at all slowly obtain what he requested. the See of Lindisfarne assigned to St. Aidan at his request: For he received as his Bishop Aidan, a man of the greatest gentleness, piety, and moderation, having zeal for God, though not fully according to knowledge. For he observed the Lord's day of Easter, according to the custom of his nation, from the fourteenth moon to the twentieth... When therefore the Bishop came to him, the King granted him a place for the episcopal See on the island of Lindisfarne, where he himself requested. Which place, with the rising and falling of the tide, is twice daily encircled by the waves of the sea like an island, and twice, when the shore is laid bare, it is restored as contiguous to the land. The King, humbly and willingly heeding his admonitions in all things, took great care to build and expand the Church of Christ in his kingdom. Where it often happened by a most beautiful spectacle that when the Bishop was preaching the Gospel, since he did not perfectly know the English language, the King himself became the interpreter of the heavenly word to his chieftains and ministers: for during so long a time of his exile he had already fully learned the language of the Scots.

[7] From that time, many began to come from the region of the Scots to Britain day after day, among his co-workers and to preach the word of faith with great devotion to those English provinces over which King Oswald reigned, and to administer the grace of baptism to believers, as many as were endowed with the priestly grade. Churches were therefore built throughout the various places, the people gathered joyfully to hear the word, estates and territories were given by royal gift for establishing monasteries, St. Finan instructed the English: and under Scottish teachers, the young English children, together with their elders, were imbued with studies and the observance of regular discipline. That among these preachers of the Divine word, St. Finan was preeminent is suggested by his election as Bishop after the death of St. Aidan. For, as the Acts of the Aberdeen Breviary have it, when the most holy Aidan, Bishop of the English of Northumbria, who is read to have presided over and governed that Church for seventeen years, had completed his most blessed life, he also being of the Scottish nation in origin and name, elected Bishop by them: with the assemblies of clergy and people gathered together, of men and women of both sexes, they unanimously and insistently requested that St. Finnan be elected as Bishop of Lindisfarne by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and they solemnly assumed him. St. Aidan, who had been made Bishop in the year of Christ 634, died, as Bede testifies in book 3, chapter 17, in the seventeenth year of his Episcopate, on the day before the Kalends of September, in the year of Christ 651. And Finan succeeded him in the Episcopate, he himself also sent from Iona, the island and monastery of the Scots, and he remained in the Episcopate for no small time, Oswy being then King of the Northumbrians.

Section 2: The deeds of St. Finan in his Episcopate. The Rule of St. Columba prescribed for monks in Northumbria. The death of St. Finan.

[8] What labor St. Finan expended in building the church at Lindisfarne, Bede thus narrates in chapter 25 of the same book 3: Meanwhile, when Bishop Aidan had been removed from this life, Finan had received in his place the grade of Episcopate, ordained and sent by the Scots: who on the island of Lindisfarne made a church suitable for the Bishop's See. He builds a church at Lindisfarne Which, however, in the manner of the Scots, he composed entirely not of stone but of hewn oak, and covered it with reeds. Which in the following time the most reverend Archbishop Theodore dedicated in honor of Blessed Peter the Apostle. dedicated by St. Theodore And the Bishop of that same place, Eadbert, having removed the reeds, took care to cover it entirely with plates of lead, that is, both the roof and also the very walls themselves. covered with lead by St. Eadbert: St. Theodore is venerated on September 19, having been sent to England by Pope St. Vitalian after the death of St. Finan, and he arrived at the Church of Canterbury on the sixth day before the Kalends of June of the year 669. But St. Eadbert was made Bishop of Lindisfarne in the year 688, and died on May 6 of the year 698.

[9] In the times of this same Finan, as Bede continues, a frequent and great question arose concerning the observance of Easter, with those who had come from Kent or from Gaul confirming that the Scots celebrated the Lord's day of Easter contrary to the custom of the universal Church. Among these was a most fierce defender of the true Easter, named Ronan, he observes Easter in the manner of the Scots a Scot indeed by nation, but instructed in the rule of ecclesiastical truth in the regions of Gaul or Italy: who, in contending with Finan, corrected many or at least kindled them to a more diligent inquiry into the truth; but was by no means able to correct Finan, and rather, because the man was of a fierce temperament, he rendered him all the more bitter by his reproving, and an open adversary of the truth... This disagreement in the observance of Easter was patiently tolerated by all during the lifetime of Aidan, following the example of St. Aidan his predecessor: who clearly understood that, although he could not celebrate Easter contrary to the custom of those who had sent him, he nevertheless took diligent care to carry out the works of faith, piety, and love, according to the manner customary to all Saints. John Major in book 2 of the Deeds of the Scots, chapter 11, writes that Finan followed the footsteps of this Aidan in faith and morals without blemish.

[10] In the same way as St. Aidan, St. Finan excelled in the chief duties of piety, having become an outstanding Teacher of Evangelical truth: who, as it is said in the Aberdeen Breviary, having been consecrated as Bishop, an outstanding herald of the word of God: professed the seeds of the word of God to all everywhere, and converted many from the error of paganism to the faith, turning them away from idolatry and false superstitions. Indeed he baptized Peada, King of the Midland English, with all his Earls, Barons, and all his subjects, and signed them with the holy chrism of the orthodox faith, and firmly instructed them in it. Bede narrates this conversion thus in book 3, chapter 21: In those times, the Midland English, under their Prince Peada, son of King Penda, received the faith and sacraments of truth. He converts Peada, King of the Midland English He, being a most excellent youth and most worthy of the name and person of a king, was preferred by his father to the rule of that nation: and he came to Oswy, King of the Northumbrians, requesting that his daughter Alchfleda be given to him as his wife: nor could he obtain what he asked in any other way unless he should accept the faith of Christ and baptism, together with the nation over which he ruled. But he, having heard the preaching of the truth and the promise of the heavenly kingdom, and the hope of the resurrection and future immortality, freely confessed that he wished to become a Christian, even if he should not receive the maiden... He was therefore baptized by Bishop Finan, together with all the earls and soldiers who had come with him and all their servants, he baptizes: at the distinguished royal estate which is called "At the Wall." And having received four Priests who seemed suitable by both their learning and their life for teaching and baptizing his nation, he returned with much joy. The Priests were Cedd, Adda, Betti, and Diuma: of whom the last was a Scot by nation, while the others were English... When King Penda was killed and the most Christian King Oswy received his kingdom, Diuma was made Bishop of the Midland English as well as the Mercians, he consecrates Diuma as Bishop of the Midland English and Mercians: ordained by Bishop Finan. For the scarcity of Priests compelled one Bishop to be placed over two peoples. So it reads. Peada was baptized in the year 653, but two years later Penda also perished and the Mercians became Christians. We gave the Life of St. Cedd on January 8. When Sigbert, King of the East Saxons, was converted to the faith, Cedd was sent to convert his people, and was then ordained Bishop by St. Finan. Bede relates the matter thus in chapter 22.

[11] Therefore King Sigbert, having now been made a citizen of the eternal kingdom, sought again the seat of his temporal kingdom, requesting of King Oswy that he would give him some Teachers who would convert his people to the faith of Christ and wash them in the font of salvation. Oswy, sending to the province of the Midland English, summoned to himself the man of God Cedd, and giving him as a companion another Priest, sent them to preach the word of God to the nation of the East Saxons. When, having traversed all the region, they had gathered a great Church for the Lord, it happened at a certain time that the same Cedd returned home and came to the Church of Lindisfarne to confer with Bishop Finan: and St. Cedd as Bishop of the East Saxons who, when he learned that the work of the Gospel had prospered for him, made him Bishop among the nation of the East Saxons, calling to himself for the ministry of ordination two other Bishops. Having received the grade of Episcopate, he returned to his province, and completing the work he had begun with greater authority, built Churches throughout the various places, and ordained Priests and Deacons to assist him in the word of faith and the ministry of baptizing. So Bede. Simeon of Durham relates the same in summary in book 1 of his History of Durham, chapter 4, and adds the following about St. Cedd and his brother Chad: St. Cedd also built a monastery in the province of the Northumbrians at Lastingham, and established it with religious customs according to the rites of Lindisfarne, formerly a monk of Lindisfarne where he had been educated. In which monastery, dying himself, he left it to be governed by his brother Chad: who was himself also a monk of Lindisfarne, one of the disciples of Aidan, who afterward at the command of King Oswin was ordained Bishop of the Church of York: as also St. Chad, Bishop of York, then of Lichfield and not long after, by the direction of Archbishop Theodore, was placed over the province of the Mercians, and had his episcopal See in the place called Lichfield. St. Chad is venerated on March 2.

[12] Concerning St. Finan and the other Bishops of Lindisfarne, Trithemius and Wion treat them as having professed the Rule of St. Benedict. The former in book 4 on the Illustrious Men of the Order of St. Benedict, chapter 152, writes the following: Sinanus, a monk of Iona, St. Finan did not live according to the Rule of St. Benedict once a disciple of Blessed Aidan, and after him Bishop of the Church of Lindisfarne, a man no less distinguished in religion than in knowledge of the Scriptures, was ordained in the year of the Lord 642, Indiction 15. Rather in the year 651, as Wion more correctly observes in book 2, chapter 25: St. Finan, he says, or Sinanus, a Scot, monk of Iona, following Aidan in the year 651, remained in the Episcopate for a short time: for in the tenth year of his administration, the year of Christ 661, he left this mortal soil, seeking the heavenly. He wrote a book on the rite of the ancient Easter. So Wion, after Trithemius. But that they are mistaken, and that the monks of Northumbria then had rites different from the Rule of St. Benedict, is shown by St. Wilfrid, Archbishop of York, in William of Malmesbury's book 3 on the Deeds of the English Bishops, introduced into Northumbria by St. Wilfrid: where he asserts that he was the first to teach the true Easter in Northumbria after the Scots were expelled, the first to institute antiphonal ecclesiastical chanting, and the first to command that the Rule of St. Benedict be observed by monks. The same Wilfrid, not yet a Bishop, at the Synod held in the presence of St. Hilda the Abbess at the monastery of Whitby, described by Bede in book 3, chapter 25, disputing with St. Colman, St. Finan's successor, indicates what Rule they then followed: but he professed the Rule of St. Columba Concerning your Father Columba and his followers, whose holiness you profess to imitate and whose Rule and precepts, confirmed by heavenly signs, you profess to follow, I can reply, etc. James Ware in book 1 on the Writers of Ireland, chapter 2, writes: Columba wrote a monastic Rule, which survives and is commonly called the Rule of Columb-Kille, that is, of the monastery of Iona built by St. Columba. Ussher on page 919 testifies that he found in a very ancient codex four Rules, written in the ancient Irish language, almost unintelligible in our times: of these, the first is called that of Columba-killi, to which it is reasonable to believe that all the Columban monasteries, both in Ireland and Scotland and in England itself, were directed. The Bishops of Lindisfarne, therefore -- SS. Aidan, Finan, and Colman, whom we have said came from the said monastery of Iona of St. Columba to Northumbria -- introduced this monastic way of life into that kingdom.

[13] As for the fact that the previously cited Wion reports that St. Finan wrote a book on the rite of the ancient Easter, Possevinus inscribed the same in his apparatus, Whether he wrote books and Dempster in his Ecclesiastical History of the Scottish Nation, who adds that he also wrote salutary admonitions to King Ferquhard, and that those most holy admonitions are found in Hector Boece's book 9 of the History of the Scots, page 177, where only the following is read: King Ferquhard did not cease to subject to questioning and to torture the priests of Christ, whom rumor reported to be wealthy, and excommunicated Ferquhard, King of the Scots? until they confessed all the silver they had, if any, and transferred it to his own purse. More harshly accused of such monstrous crimes by the Bishops, by Colman and Finnan (these were then held in the highest veneration among the Scots), and because he did not obey their warnings with a contumacious spirit, he was finally prohibited from the sacred rites, and while others attended the churches, having despised religion, he betook himself to hunting. Which Lesly, in book 4 of the Deeds of the Scots, concerning Ferquhard II, the 54th King, thus briefly touches upon: Since Colman and Finnan, Bishops distinguished for holiness, had often in vain inveighed against his life, covered with every kind of vice, they prohibited him from the sacred rites. We would wish these things to be confirmed by the testimonies of ancient writers.

[14] Bede in book 3, chapter 26, reports that Finan held the Episcopate in the province of the English for ten years; he died in the 10th year of his Episcopate he is silent about the day and month of his death, as are the other more ancient writers: his death is assigned with veneration to February 17 in the Breviary of Aberdeen: but there in the title of this Life the year 674 is noted: the year of Christ 661 although it is established that he died in the year 661: but perhaps in the summer, when he had completed about ten years. Thus Bede assigns three years to the Episcopate of St. Colman his successor, who nevertheless, having left the Episcopate, returned to the island of Iona after the Synod of Whitby held in the first part of the year 664, in which St. Colman was opposed by Agilbert, Bishop of the West Saxons, and St. Wilfrid the Priest, who in the same year was still sent from England to Gaul to the same Agilbert, who had been made Bishop of Paris, and was by him ordained Bishop.

[15] That St. Finan died in the year 661 was also noted by Dempster, but he incorrectly adds that he had not discovered what he did after laying down his Episcopate: he seems to have been deceived by the words of the Westminster chronicler writing in his Flowers at the year 651 that when Aidan had then died, Finan, a Scot by nation, succeeded him in the Episcopate of Lindisfarne, he remained Bishop of Lindisfarne until death but remained in the Episcopate for a short time: namely for ten years, as we have said from Bede, who in chapter 17 asserts that he remained in the Episcopate for no small time, and in chapter 25 says that when Finan died, Colman succeeded him in the Episcopate. In the Life of Colman on the following day, February 18, some things about St. Finan related by others will be reported. The previously mentioned Dempster writes that his relics and memorials were frequented with great solemnity before the heretical fury within the memory of our fathers eliminated Christian piety from that kingdom.