Colman

CONCERNING ST. COLMAN, BISHOP OF LINDISFARNE IN ENGLAND,

A.D. 676

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Colman, Bishop of Lindisfarne in England (St.)

By G. H.

Section I. The feast of St. Colman. The conversion of King Penda, his martyrdom, and Benedictine monasticism falsely attributed to him. Whether the conversion of King Ferquhard of the Scots is rightly attributed to him?

[1] William of Malmesbury opens Book III of his work on the Deeds of the English Bishops with these words: "Paulinus was the first Archbishop of York, who received the pallium from Pope Honorius, as is well known. After he was driven out, the Scots -- Aidan, Finan, St. Colman, Bishop of Lindisfarne Colman -- chose to be exalted neither by the pallium nor by the nobility of the city, hiding away on the island of Lindisfarne." They are venerated: Paulinus on October 10, Aidan on August 31, both inscribed in the Roman Martyrology. We gave St. Finan on February 17, and we treated then both of the island of Iona, on which these three Scottish Bishops had previously led the monastic life according to the Rule of St. Columba, and of the island of Lindisfarne and the episcopal office exercised throughout Northumbria, which we do not wish to repeat here. He is called Colman, Colmanus, Colmannus, Colemanus, and Colomannus.

[2] Hermann Greven in his Supplement to Usuard, published in 1515 and 1521, commemorates Saints Finan and Colman, the former on February 17, the latter on February 18 of the same month, in these words: venerated on February 18. "Likewise of Coloman, Bishop and Confessor." In the ancient Breviary of Aberdeen, the same Colman is assigned to this day. We shall give from it an epitome of his Life, in which it is said that he rested in blessed peace on the twelfth day before the Kalends of March. On this day David Camerarius adorns him with a lengthy eulogy in his Scottish Menology. But Dempster

in his likewise Scottish Menology, citing the Calendar of Adam the Royal, has the following: also assigned to October 13 with St. Coloman the Martyr, "In Scotland, of Colman the Confessor," judging him to be different from St. Colman the Bishop, whom he placed together with another Coloman the Martyr on October 13: "In Austria," he says, "of Coloman, son of the King, Martyr. At Lindisfarne, of Colman, Archbishop." Molanus is cited for Coloman the Martyr, Arnold Wion for Colman the Bishop. The same Dempster, Book 3, History of the Church of the Scottish Nation, Chapter 239, asserts that St. Colman, the third Bishop of Lindisfarne, is to be counted among the most splendid ornaments of Scotland, and is venerated on October 13, citing the English Martyrology. But this author, following Wion, conflated two Colmans into one by confusing their deeds. We give the words of Wion: Their deeds being confused in the English Martyrology and Wion's: "At Vienna in Austria," he says, "of St. Colman, Bishop and Martyr. He, from being a monk of Lindisfarne, was called to the episcopate of that same city, and reclaimed a very great multitude of Saxons, and among the rest King Penda of the Mercians, from the servitude of paganism and heathenism into the liberty of the Gospel; finally, leaving Britain, traveling through many regions of Germany, sowing the Word of God, and converting very many to the Christian faith, when he was returning through Austria, he was impiously slain by certain enemies of Christ and obtained the glorious palm of martyrdom, and is venerated there with great devotion of the people." So he writes, not without other errors as well. For Penda, King of the Mercians, although in the last years of his life and reign he did not prevent, as Bede testifies in Book 3, Chapter 21, the Word of God from being preached in his own Mercian nation to any who wished to hear it, he did not convert King Penda of the Mercians, nevertheless he himself did not embrace the Christian religion and died a pagan in A.D. 655. But his son Peada, King of the Middle Angles (that is, of the inland Angles), was baptized by St. Finan in A.D. 653; that is, eight years before St. Colman succeeded St. Finan after his death.

[3] What led Wion into that error was, in the first place, Hector Boethius, whom he cited, who in Book 9 of the History of the Scots, folio 177, writes: "After Finan died, Colman was brought as Bishop to the Church of Lindisfarne, who by his sacred admonitions and above all by the innocence of his life brought an enormous multitude of Saxons, and among them Penda, nor Peada his son: son of the elder Penda, to the worship of true piety. Nor are there wanting those who wish that the elder King Penda was admitted to the sacred font by Finan." So he writes, and in order to transfer more easily the conversion and baptism of Peada from St. Finan to St. Colman, he added the newly fabricated tale that others report that his father Penda was baptized by St. Finan; nor did he explain who those others are. The other author cited by Wion is John Leslie, who in Book 4 of the Deeds of the Scots, page 160, writes the following: praised by Leslie, but with deeds wrongly attributed to him: "Scotland nourished at that time Finan and Colman, Bishops, two lights of virtue and religion, who, having previously followed the footsteps of St. Benedict, by their zeal and diligence achieved that the illustrious examples of all virtues shone forth in their lives and conduct. Their temperance in food, their lowliness in clothing, their prudence in the greatest affairs of state, many churchmen of that age followed, but few equaled. Colman, not long afterward summoned to the Church of Lindisfarne in England, reclaimed a very great multitude of Saxons, and among the rest King Penda, who succeeded his father Penda in the kingdom, from the servitude of paganism and heathenism into the liberty of the Gospel. To him as a companion in this holy labor Finan was joined, who traversed laboriously with Colman nearly all the shores of Britain recently occupied by the Saxons, and produced great fruits for the Church with happy success. Colman finally, leaving Britain, traveled through many regions of Germany, sowing the Word of God and converting very many to the Christian faith -- Bohemia, Hungary, and a great part of Greece. But returning through Austria, he was impiously slain by certain enemies of Christ and obtained the glorious palm of martyrdom, and is venerated there with great devotion of the people. His life and martyrdom, besides other most ancient writers, Johann Stabius, historian of Emperor Maximilian I, elegantly depicted in Sapphic verse."

[4] So writes Leslie, whose words Wion preserves and, in Book 2, Chapter 25, claims him for his Benedictine Order, and among the Archbishops of Lindisfarne, or of Northumbria, records the following: "III. St. Coloman, a Scot, monk of Iona, not rightly ascribed to the Benedictine Order by Wion and Abbot of Amaribac, presided for three years. His temperance in food, his lowliness in clothing, his prudence in the greatest affairs of state, many churchmen of that age followed, but few equaled. At length, having left the episcopate, he returned to his monastery in A.D. 664." And shortly afterward: "Having left Britain, he disseminated the Word of God through many regions of Germany, and in Austria, impiously slain by certain enemies of Christ, he flew to heaven through martyrdom on the third day before the Ides of October." So Wion, who, omitting Leslie there, cites Demochares, Boethius, and Trithemius. The words of Boethius we have partly given already, and will partly give below. Demochares, in Volume 3 on the Sacrifice of the Mass, Chapter 15, page 46, lists the Bishops of Lindisfarne and has only this: "III. Colman, a Scottish monk, presided over the same Church for three years and left it in order to return to a monastery in his homeland." Trithemius has similar things in Book 4 on the Illustrious Men of the Order of St. Benedict, Chapter 153: "Coloman," he says, "a monk of Iona, a Scot by nation, and after Sinan" (so he had previously named St. Finan) "Bishop of the Northumbrians, and by Trithemius: a man indeed learned and distinguished for the honor of his morals, but in the Paschal observance of his time reprehensible according to the Scottish custom. He flourished in the year of the Lord's nativity 664. And in the same year, in the seventh Indiction, abandoning the episcopate, he returned to his monastery." So Trithemius, who led Wion into this one error: that he ascribes those holy Bishops of Lindisfarne -- Aidan, Finan, and Colman -- to the Order of St. Benedict, whom we proved to have lived according to the Rule of St. Columba, the first Abbot of Iona, in the Life of St. Finan. He was not, however, Abbot of Iona, he was not Abbot of Iona, or the Ionian monastery, as is read in the Life of St. Gerald the Abbot in Colgan at March 13. Bede records in Book 4, Chapter 4, that he was sent from the island of Iona to preach the Word of God to the English nation, as other writers followed. In the seventh century there flourished the Abbots of Iona: Fergna, created in A.D. 598; Segenius; Suibne; Cummine the White; Failbe; Adamnan, who lived until A.D. 704. Ussher compiled their catalogue in his work on the Origins of the British Churches, Chapter 16, page 701. whether of Amaribac? As for Wion's calling him Abbot of Amaribac, we have not read this elsewhere.

[5] Finally, the same Wion in his Notes to the Martyrology, besides the authors cited thus far, cites Peter Cratepolius on the Bishops of Germany, The other St. Coloman, killed in Austria, is different from him, but we believe he meant to write about the Saints of Germany, where the following is found: "St. Coloman, Martyr of Christ. He was born in Scotland and was journeying through Upper Germany for the sake of a pilgrimage toward Jerusalem. But when he reached the borders of Austria, he was taken and apprehended as a spy of the land. The innocent man is led to prison, is severely beaten, is pierced with a spit, and finally cruelly martyred." So it reads there. But this St. Coloman the Martyr is nowhere called a Bishop, nowhere a monk, either of Iona or Benedictine; and he is the one whom Johann Stabius celebrates in Sapphic verse, mentioned above by Leslie and also by Wion in his Notes. The first part is found in Surius, but without any mention of episcopate or monasticism. Erchenfrid, the third Abbot of the monastery of Melk, in which his sacred body is preserved, wrote the life and martyrdom of this Coloman, in the reign of St. Henry. and he is said to have suffered martyrdom during the reign of the most glorious Emperor Henry, who, after the death of Otto III, held the Roman Empire. Hence Wion wrongly reproaches Baronius, who in his Notes for this day, October 13, asserts that he suffered in A.D. 1012; Baronius again in his Annals at the same year records his death from Thietmar and Cuspinian. Therefore St. Colman, appointed Bishop of Lindisfarne in A.D. 661, of whom we are treating here, is a different person from that one, although Benedict Dorganius in the Benedictine Calendar also makes him a Martyr at October 13: "Of St. Colman," he says, "Bishop and Martyr, who converted a very great multitude of people to the faith." Prudently, Menard has only this: but neither was that one a monk "In Austria, of St. Colman, Martyr," and then in Book 1 of his Observations confesses that

whether he was a monk has not yet been ascertained by him. Therefore St. Coloman and St. Colman are very different persons: the former was neither a monk, nor a Priest, nor a Bishop, and was killed in Austria at the beginning of the eleventh century; the latter always lived in the British Isles -- England, I say, Scotland, and Ireland -- a monk of Iona, then Bishop of Lindisfarne, and afterward Abbot of two monasteries erected according to the Rule of St. Columba.

[6] But what credence should be placed in Boethius, when he enumerates the enormous crimes of King Ferquhard, relates that the bond of excommunication was imposed upon him by Saints Colman and Finan, and records that the King was aided by Colman in the final period of his life, let others judge. From Boethius I extract the following: "Having obtained the kingdom," he says, "Ferquhard [Whether St. Colman the Bishop excommunicated the impious Ferquhard, King of the Scots?] openly showed himself to all as an extortioner of goods, an enemy of religion, a bloody executioner, a sordid and insatiable whirlpool... The priests of Christ, whom rumor reported to be wealthy, he never ceased to subject to judicial examination and torture, until they confessed all the silver they possessed, if any, and transferred it to his purse. Whence several of the pious, unable to endure the tortures, perished utterly. Accused more harshly by the Bishops for such monstrous crimes, by Colman and Finan (these were at that time held in especial veneration among the Scots), and because with a contumacious spirit he did not obey their admonitions, he was at last prohibited from the sacred rites; spurning religion while others attended the churches, he betook himself to hunting... The holy Bishops pursued him, hateful to all by these deeds, with dreadful execrations because he scorned the Church of Christ; their authority being despised, he went on to greater crimes, violated his own daughters, and murdered his wife with his own hands because she dissuaded him from the atrocity. But when the tyrant's madness had lasted for several years, certain men began to think about his death. whether he predicted his amendment? Colman prevented the plan, which had been communicated not without the knowledge of the chief men of the kingdom, from being carried out, repeatedly declaring, taught by the divine spirit, that King Ferquhard would vehemently detest the crimes he had committed and would shortly pay the worthy penalties to God the avenger. Nor was his judgment found to be in vain. For scarcely a month having elapsed thereafter, while Ferquhard was hunting a wolf, and the beast, driven more fiercely by the dogs, raged against the King and cruelly bit him in the side. The King, whether from the wolf's bite or from some other occasion, fell into the most loathsome disease of all...

[7] And when, afflicted by these evils for two continuous years, he was tormented more and more each day, and was detestable to all, having come to himself, dissolved in tears, he cried: 'Colman, and called upon by the penitent King in his final illness, Colman, had I obeyed your admonitions, I would not have been struck by divine vengeance with so foul a disease, hitherto unknown in this nation, with my living flesh turning to worms, and I would not have appeared detestable to all mortals and to myself. These unaccustomed plagues teach, these inflicted torments teach, that I, destitute of all human and divine aid unless God at last has mercy on me, have most grievously offended against God and against men. Wretched me, who, while it was permitted, scorned to obey those who rightly admonished me. By worms born from my own flesh and devouring the same, I shall die far more wretchedly than the vilest creatures of nature.' At these words, which were followed by great lamentations, servants ran to ask whether he desired the service of a Priest. The King, suppressing his sobs, said: 'I implore the aid of Colman.' And so Bishop Colman, summoned with utmost speed (he was at that time more than twenty thousand paces distant from that place), relieved the penitent from excommunication; he absolved him, then kindly consoling the man as he confessed his sins, urged him to be of strong spirit, to hope for eternal salvation, and to understand that, however great the atrocities he had perpetrated, the mercy of God would not be wanting to him. This the law of Christ, this all divine and human law promised. This was declared from the mouth of God most good and most great, so that it might be more believed by all, when he called mortals to repentance, saying: 'Turn to me, and you shall be saved.' Isaiah 45:22 Ferquhard, raised by these words to the hope of pardon, imploring divine mercy with many tears, falling prostrate on the ground, at the command of the holy Colman reverently received the sacred communion of Christ. Then wrapped in a coarse sackcloth and carried by a few attendants to the nearest field as the end pressed upon him, while Colman performed the rites befitting the best of Priests and attended his pious death? at the passing of the Prince, looking toward heaven he breathed out his spirit, in the eighteenth year since he had begun to hold the Scottish realm, in the year of Christ the Lord 664."

[8] So Boethius, and Leslie also reports the same in abridged form. After Ferquhard, Boethius adds, Malduin succeeded to the kingdom of the Scots, in whose times fell the transfer of Bishop Colman to the See of Lindisfarne. But these dates do not agree. That St. Colman left the See of Lindisfarne in A.D. 664, the year in which they claim King Ferquhard died, will be established below from Bede. Perhaps on account of this difficulty, Camerarius in the Scottish Menology at February 18, after narrating the episcopate administered by him at what time he performed these things? and then relinquished, adds the conversion of the King of the Scots, whom he calls Ferchard, as though he had lived long after A.D. 664; around which time, however, John Major in Book 2 of the Deeds of the Scots, Chapter 12, records that after the death of Malduin, King of the Scots, his nephew Eugenius IV succeeded him; Major makes no mention of Ferquhard, or Ferchard, so that we may fear that the criminal life and pious death of that King may be counted among the fables which Leland, Humphrey Lhuyd, and others charge that Boethius mixed into his history in large numbers. We prefer, with the same Scot Major, to cite, as he asserts in Chapter 10, the Englishman Bede rather than the Scottish Annals, and to dwell at greater length on what Bede has about St. Colman. We also omit what is read in the Life of St. Gerald, where he is said to have come to England, expelled from the island of Iona, or Hy, by a conspiracy of the chief men.

Section II. The holy life of Colman in the episcopate of Lindisfarne. The controversy over the celebration of Easter.

[9] Bede, Book 3, Chapter 25, says: "When Finan died and Colman succeeded to the episcopate, he too having been sent from Scotland, a more serious controversy arose St. Colman succeeds St. Finan, concerning the observance of Easter and also concerning other disciplines of the ecclesiastical life." We shall treat of this presently. The time of this controversy and of the episcopate of St. Colman is explained by the same Bede in the following chapter. "This question," he says, "arose in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 664, which was the twenty-second year of King Oswiu and the thirtieth year of the episcopate of the Scots, which they held in the province of the English. For Aidan held the episcopate for seventeen years, Finan for ten, and Colman for three." And after some intervening matter, he sits for three years: he records the following concerning the manner of living of St. Colman and others in England at that time:

[10] "Moreover, how great was his parsimony and continence, as also that of his predecessors, even the place which he governed testified, where after their departure lover of poverty, very few buildings were found besides the church -- that is, only those without which civilized life could not exist at all. They had no money except livestock; for if they received any money from the wealthy, they immediately gave it to the poor. For there was no need to collect money or provide houses for the reception of the powerful of the world, who never came to the church except only for the sake of prayer and hearing the Word of God. The King himself, when occasion demanded, came with only five or six attendants, of divine worship, and when prayer was finished in the church, departed. But if it happened that they took refreshment there, they were content with the simple and daily food of the brethren and sought nothing more. For the whole concern of those teachers at that time was to serve God, not the world; the whole care was to cultivate the heart, not the stomach. Whence also the garb of religion was held in great veneration at that time, so that wherever any cleric or monk arrived, he was joyfully received by all as a servant of God; and even if he were found traveling on the road, they would run up and, bowing their necks, rejoice to be signed by his hand

or blessed by his lips. They also gave diligent attention to their words of exhortation. And on Sundays they streamed eagerly to the church or to the monasteries, not for the sake of refreshing the body, but for hearing the word of God; and if any of the priests happened to come to a village, the villagers, immediately gathered together, and of zeal for souls. took care to seek from him the word of life. For the priests and clerics had no other reason for visiting the villages than to preach, to baptize, to visit the sick, and, to say it briefly, to care for souls; they were so purged from every plague of avarice that no one would accept lands and possessions for building monasteries unless compelled by the secular powers. This custom was observed in every respect in the Churches of Northumbria for some time after these events." So Bede concerning the manner of pious and holy living established by St. Colman and his Scottish predecessors among the English in the See of Lindisfarne.

[11] In the midst of this, in the said year 664, the question concerning the observance of Easter was raised more seriously, Lest they celebrate a different Easter in A.D. 665, because in the following year 665 there would be a double Easter: that of the Alexandrians, which the English observed with the Romans on the eighth day before the Ides of April, and that of Victorius and of these Scots, on the very Ides themselves, eight days later -- which the Canon of Victorius also offers as found in our Bucherius, who in his Commentary disputes this Scottish reckoning and shows that the Canon of Victorius was observed by them in many respects. Concerning this question debated in that year, one should read Bede, Book 3, Chapter 25, who asserts that in those times it sometimes happened that Easter was celebrated twice in a single year, and that when King Oswiu was celebrating the Lord's Easter with the fast broken, the Queen with her attendants, still persisting in the fast, was celebrating Palm Sunday. For St. Eanfleda, wife of Oswiu, St. Eanfleda the Queen with the English, as Bede had previously said, observed with her attendants the Alexandrian Easter (which Bede calls the Catholic one), according to what she had seen done in Kent, having with her from Kent a Priest of the Catholic observance named Romanus. This question therefore moved the minds and hearts of many who feared that, having accepted the name of Christianity, they might be running or might have run in vain. It reached even to the ears of the Princes, namely of King Oswiu and his son Alchfrid; and King Oswiu with the Scots, because Oswiu, taught and baptized by the Scots and also perfectly imbued with their language, thought nothing better than what they had taught. But Alchfrid, having as his teacher of Christian learning Wilfrid, a most learned man (for he had previously gone to Rome for the sake of ecclesiastical learning and had spent much time at Lyon with Archbishop Dalfinus of the Gauls, among Saints Wilfrid, Agilbert, and others from whom he had also received the ecclesiastical tonsure in its round form), knew that his teaching was rightly to be preferred to all the traditions of the Scots... "At that time Agilbert, Bishop of the West Saxons, a friend of King Alchfrid and of Abbot Wilfrid, had come to the province of Northumbria and was staying among them for some time; he had also, at the request of Alchfrid, ordained Wilfrid a Priest. Moreover, he himself had with him a Priest named Agatho. When the question was then raised there concerning Easter, or the tonsure, or other ecclesiastical matters, it was arranged that a Synod should be held in the monastery called Streaneshealh, which is interpreted 'Bay of the Lighthouse' (over which Hilda, a woman devoted to God, then presided as Abbess), and that this question should be settled there. And both Kings came thither, and it is disputed among Saints Colman, Cedda, and their associates in A.D. 664 father and son, that is; Bishop Colman with his clergy from Scotland; Agilbert with Agatho and Wilfrid the Priests; James, formerly Deacon of St. Paulinus, and Romanus were on their side; Abbess Hilda with her followers on the side of the Scots, on which side was also the venerable Bishop Cedda, long since ordained by the Scots, who also stood out as a most vigilant interpreter for both parties in that council." So much for the cause and arrangement of that assembly. The site of that Synod is situated on the coast of the northern Yorkshiremen, in the Pharensian monastery, today called Whitby, or White Bay, that is, the White Inlet. St. Hilda, who is venerated on December 15, had built that monastery. We treated of that monastery on February 8 in the Life of St. Elfleda, daughter of King Oswiu, who lived there under St. Hilda and succeeded her in the governance of the monastery. St. Wilfrid, later Archbishop of York, is venerated on October 12; the day before, Agilbert, later Bishop of Paris, is inscribed in the Gallican Martyrology of Saussay; and the Acts of Cedda, Bishop of London, we gave on January 7. Eanfleda too is numbered among the Blessed at December 5, and indeed the commemoration of Oswiu is also inserted in the English Martyrology at February 15, as we then noted among those Passed Over.

[12] So much for the sanctity of those by whom this Paschal controversy was debated in that assembly; the state of which is written thus by Stephen Eddius, a contemporary author, in the Life of St. Wilfrid, as Ussher reports in Chapter 17, page 931: "Whether, All these celebrated Easter on the Lord's Day, according to the custom of the Britons and the Scots and the entire Northern region, Easter should be celebrated from the fourteenth moon when the Lord's Day came to the twentieth; or whether it is better, according to the reckoning of the Apostolic See, to celebrate the Paschal Sunday from the fifteenth moon to the twenty-first?" Into the arena descended the champions to contend each for his own side: St. Colman the Scot and St. Wilfrid the Englishman, but neither, as Bucherius rightly observes, was sufficiently instructed in the decrees of the Latins. For, as the latter says on page 125 and elsewhere, The Latins formerly not before the sixteenth moon, all the Latins for several centuries most unanimously held that the Paschal Sunday of the Resurrection should never be appointed before the sixteenth moon, chiefly moved by the reasoning that they judged the Passion of Christ should by no means be commemorated before the fourteenth moon -- no less exceeding the Catholic limits of Easter, as they called them, by one day than the Scots anticipated them by one day also. Hence Victorius in his Prologue to the Paschal Canon says: "If among the Latins the fourteenth moon of the first month falls on a Friday, let the following Sunday, that is, the sixteenth moon, be assigned without ambiguity to the Paschal festival. But if the full moon should happen to fall on a Saturday and the fifteenth moon is found on the following Sunday, that week being passed over, they said Easter should be transferred to another Lord's Day, that is, to the twenty-second moon." But this Latin Paschal method was rejected in the sixth century of Christ, from the sixth century with the Alexandrians from the fifteenth moon: and the Alexandrian, which is also called the Dionysian, was adopted, and the Paschal Sunday began to be celebrated from the fifteenth to the twenty-first moon, which formerly Pope St. Victor of Rome had prescribed to St. Desiderius, Bishop of Vienne, asserting that Peter and Paul had established this teaching at Rome. This letter of St. Victor survives, published by Jean du Bois in his Holy Vienne, page 24. Now the Britons, Irish, and Picts disagreed in this, that they counted the Paschal Sundays from the fourteenth to the twentieth moon, the Scots and others from the fourteenth moon, meanwhile establishing the Paschal Cycle of eighty-four years with the ancient Latins. Thus Bede, Book 2, Chapter 2, says that the Britons observed the Lord's Paschal Day from the fourteenth to the twentieth moon, with a cycle of eighty-four years, and that this computation is contained in a cycle of eighty-four years. How a difference of two days arose from this, Ussher shows on page 927, concerning which St. Cyril of Alexandria in the Prologue to his Cycles, as found in Petavius in the Appendix of Volume 2 of the Doctrine of Times, page 883, and in others, says: "The moon which they improperly call the third or sixteenth or twenty-third, this St. Theophilus confirms to be the first or fourteenth or twenty-first, as heaven demonstrates."

[13] St. Aldhelm calls this method the rule of Sulpicius Severus, which method, handed down from Sulpicius Severus, St. Patrick taught, according to which they celebrate the Paschal sacrament on the fourteenth moon and the course of eighty-four years is described. So he writes in his letter to King Geraint, published among the letters of St. Boniface, Archbishop of Mainz, number 44. St. Patrick, the fellow student of this Sulpicius (whom his Acts relate to have been instructed for four years under St. Martin), is believed to have introduced this method of the Paschal solemnity into Ireland. Let the reader consult the Catalogue of the Saints of Ireland according to different periods, published by Ussher from page 913: in it the first order had one head, Christ, and one leader, Patrick, and one Easter on the fourteenth moon after the vernal equinox. The second order also had one Easter on the fourteenth moon. But the third order had a diverse Paschal solemnity: for some celebrated the Resurrection on the fourteenth moon, his successors observed it, or the sixteenth, or as others read, the thirteenth, with fierce contentions. These three orders lasted from St. Patrick to approximately the times of St. Colman, when it is noted that among the Irish from A.D. 658 Dermitius II and Blathmac, St. Colman defended it, sons of Aed II, reigned. But let us return to St. Colman, whose words in the Pharensian

assembly will now be more easily understood, when he asserts the following: "This Easter which I am accustomed to celebrate, I received from my elders, who sent me here as Bishop; all our Fathers, men beloved of God, are known to have celebrated it in the same manner." And after more intervening matter: "Surely we must not believe that our most reverend Father Columba and his successors, men beloved of God, on account of the sanctity and miracles performed by them: who celebrated Easter in the same manner, held or acted contrary to the divine Scriptures? Since there were many among them to whose sanctity heavenly signs and the miracles of virtues which they performed bore testimony; I myself, not doubting that they are Saints, never cease to follow their life, customs, and discipline."

[14] He took refuge moreover in the authority of St. John the Evangelist and of St. Anatolius, Bishop of Laodicea in Syria, since they had observed a similar method of the Paschal solemnity. he confirms it by the authority of St. Anatolius, Bucherius explains the Paschal Canon of St. Anatolius and teaches in Chapter 3, page 462, that it admits the Paschal Sunday on the fourteenth moon and never extends it beyond the twentieth moon. Concerning the authority of St. John, as well as of Saints Peter and Paul, which St. Wilfrid opposed, Socrates, Book 5 of the Ecclesiastical History, Chapter 21, records the following: "The Quartodecimans

say that the observance of the fourteenth day was handed down to them by the Apostle John. But those in Rome and the Western regions say that the Apostles Peter and Paul handed down the custom there. and of St. John the Evangelist: But none of these can produce a written document concerning the matter."

of these can produce a demonstration. The Quartodecimans say that the observance of the fourteenth moon was handed down to them by the Apostle John; but those who inhabit Rome and other parts of the West affirm that the Apostles Peter and Paul left them the custom which they hold there. But none of these can produce a testimony concerning these matters committed to writing -- that is, by the Apostles themselves. For that St. John in Asia observed Easter on the fourteenth moon, St. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna and a disciple of St. John, is a witness. [whom Saints Polycarp, Irenaeus, report to have celebrated Easter on the fourteenth moon,] We said in the Life of this Polycarp on January 26, Section 3, that he came to Rome in A.D. 161 to Pope St. Anicetus and proposed to him this custom handed down from St. John; and there we also gave as a second witness St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon, a disciple of St. Polycarp, who in his letter to Pope St. Victor writes that Anicetus could not persuade Polycarp not to observe that method of celebrating Easter which he knew had been observed by John, the disciple of Christ our Lord, and the other Apostles with whom he had lived. At the same time there lived Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, Polycrates. who, as Eusebius testifies in Book 5, Chapter 23, presided over a Synod of Bishops of Asia, and in his synodical letter to St. Victor, among other apostolic men and Martyrs who celebrated the day of Easter on the fourteenth moon, he counts St. John, who reclined upon the breast of the Lord, who was a Priest, Martyr, and Doctor, and who finally died at Ephesus.

[15] We know finally from St. Athanasius, in his work on the Synods, that not only the Asians, but also the Cilicians, Syrians, and Mesopotamians celebrated Easter on the fourteenth moon, other peoples of the East also observed it, and that they departed from the ancient practice only for the sake of common concord, having been induced by the Fathers of Nicaea. Whence also St. John Chrysostom delivered a discourse among his Antiochenes against those who fasted on the first or ancient Easter, against whom St. Chrysostom spoke: where, after he had earnestly commended charity and concord, he resolved this objection raised against him: "Did you not," they say, "observe this fast before?" "But it is not for you to say this to me; rather I might rightly say this to you: that we also fasted in this way before, but we judged that concord was to be preferred to the observance of times." This discourse survives in Volume 4 of the works published by our Fronto Ducaeus, from page 702. Far different from these most holy Fathers were the Quartodeciman heretics, from these others were the Quartodeciman heretics, Judaizers: who together with the fourteenth moon also imposed the obsolete ceremonies of the Jews as still necessarily to be observed by divine law; Tertullian in his book on Prescriptions, Chapter 46, lists Blastus as the author of this heresy.

[16] Bede separates the Scots from these in Book 3, Chapter 17, where he records the following concerning St. Aidan, the first Bishop of Lindisfarne: "In the celebration of his Easter, Bede excuses the Scots, he held nothing else in his heart, venerated, and preached nothing other than what we do -- that is, the Redemption of the human race through the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension into heaven of the Mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ. Whence he celebrated this not, as some falsely suppose, on the fourteenth day on whatever weekday with the Jews, but always on the Lord's Day, from the fourteenth to the twentieth moon, on account of his belief in the Lord's Resurrection, which took place on the first day of the week, and on account of the hope of our resurrection, which he believed together with the holy Church would truly occur on the same first day of the week, which is now called the Lord's Day." In the same way as Bede excuses St. Aidan, and others so also the Scots and with them St. Colman are excused by Peter, Abbot of Cluny, in his letter to St. Bernard, Book 4, Letter 17; John Major, Book 2, on the Deeds of the Scots, Chapter 11; John Colgan on January 9 in the Life of St. Finan, number 4; Cardinal Baronius at the year 664, number 5; and Bucherius, Chapter 10, on the Canon of Victorius, where he says: "The ancient Scots, or Irish, a people certainly far from evil and of praised simplicity and sanctity, we generously, as is fitting, free from the stain of heresy which some wish to impute to them, and we attribute all occasion of error to the deficient Cycle, which they had received from their holy ancestors when it was not yet erring, and which they observed in good faith."

Section III. After leaving the episcopate, the return of St. Colman to the island of Iona and Ireland: monasteries built, death.

[17] In the Synod of the Lighthouse (Whitby), St. Wilfrid, contending on behalf of the English, prevailed, asserting the following: "The Easter which we celebrate, we saw celebrated by all at Rome, where the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul lived, taught, suffered, and were buried; this we observed being celebrated by all in Italy and in Gaul, through which we traveled for the sake of learning or praying. The authority of St. Peter proposed by St. Wilfrid, This we found being observed throughout Africa, Asia, Egypt, Greece, and the whole world, in one and the same order of time and not a diverse one -- except only these Scots and the accomplices of their obstinacy, I mean the Picts and the Britons, with whom they fight with foolish labor from two islands at the edge of the Ocean, and not even from the whole of those, against the entire world." After St. Wilfrid had peroration these and other arguments for the authority of the Apostle St. Peter and the Apostolic See, King Oswiu said: "Is it true, Colman, that these words ('You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven') Matthew 16:18 were spoken by the Lord to that Peter?" He replied: "It is true, O King." Then the King said: "Have you, questioned by the King, St. Colman professes, anything of so great a power to produce, given to your Columba?" He replied: "Nothing." The King again said: "Do both of you agree in this without any controversy, that these words were spoken principally to Peter, and that the keys of the kingdom of heaven were given to him by the Lord?" They answered: "Indeed, both of us do." Then the King thus concluded: "And I say to you: since this is that Doorkeeper whom I am unwilling to contradict, but as far as I know and am able, I desire to obey his statutes in all things, lest when I arrive at the doors of the kingdom of heaven, there be no one to open them, the King adhering to St. Wilfrid, since he who is proved to hold the keys has turned away." When the King had spoken thus, all who were seated or standing by gave their assent, the greater together with the lesser; and renouncing the less perfect institution, they hastened to transfer themselves to those things which they recognized as better. So Bede, Chapter 25. And in Chapter 26 he adds: "When the conflict was ended and the assembly dissolved, Agilbert returned home -- indeed, he proceeded to Gaul and received the episcopate of the city of Paris -- to whom St. Wilfrid was then sent by King Alchfrid, with the counsel and consent of his father Oswiu, after the sect of the Scots had been detected and expelled, as Bede says in Book 5, Chapter 20, and was ordained Bishop by him and eleven other Bishops. But St. Cedda, as Bede continues in the first passage, having abandoned the practices of the Scots, returned to his See of London, having acknowledged the observance of the Catholic Easter."

[18] "Colman, seeing that his teaching was spurned and his sect despised, taking with him those who wished to follow him -- that is, he abandons the episcopate: those who were unwilling to accept the Catholic Easter and the tonsure

of the crown (for this too was no small question) -- returned to Scotland, to consult with his people about what should be done concerning these matters. When Colman had returned to his homeland, Tuda, a servant of Christ, who had come from Scotland while Colman still held the episcopate, received the pontificate of the Northumbrians in his place, and diligently taught all things pertaining to faith and truth by word and deed. Moreover, for the brethren who preferred to remain in the Church of Lindisfarne after the departure of the Scots, a most reverend and gentle man, Eata, was placed over them with the rights of an Abbot; [from the King he obtains that Abbot St. Eata be given to his followers in the monastery:] he was Abbot in the monastery called Melrose; and they say that Colman, about to depart, had requested and obtained this from King Oswiu, because the same Eata was one of the twelve boys whom Aidan, in the first period of his episcopate, had accepted from the English nation to be educated in Christ. For the King greatly loved Bishop Colman for the prudence innate in him... But Colman, departing for home, took with him part of the bones of the most reverend Father Aidan, he carries with him some relics of St. Aidan: but left the other part in the church over which he had presided, and ordered it to be deposited in its sacristy." So Bede. St. Eata, after him Bishop of Lindisfarne, is venerated on October 26.

[19] What St. Colman accomplished splendidly thereafter, the same Bede continues in Book 4, Chapter 4: he takes Scots and 30 Englishmen with him: "Meanwhile Colman," he says, "who was a Bishop from Scotland, leaving Britain, took with him all the Scots whom he had gathered on the island of Lindisfarne; but also about thirty men of the English nation, both of whom were imbued with zeal for the monastic life. And having left some brethren in his church, he comes to the island of Iona, he first came to the island of Iona, whence he had been sent to preach the Word of God to the English nation. Then he withdrew to a certain small island which, remote and secluded in the western region from Ireland, is called in the Scottish tongue Inis-Bofinde, that is, the Island of the White Cow." In the Ulster Annals, as found in Ussher, page 964, the voyage of Bishop Colman with the relics of Saints to the island of the White Cow is noted at the year 667, and in A.D. 667 to the island of the White Cow: on which he founded a church. This island belongs to the Diocese of Tuam in the western tract of Connacht, in the very Ocean, as Colgan observes in Note 167 on the seventh Life of St. Patrick. But Bede continues:

[20] "Arriving therefore at this island, Colman built a monastery he builds a monastery, and placed there the monks whom he had brought, collected from both nations. When they could not live in harmony with each other, because the Scots during the summer, when the fruits were to be gathered, left the monastery and wandered dispersed through places known to them; but then when winter came they returned and desired to share in common what the English had prepared; Colman sought a remedy for this dissension and, going about through all places near and far, another for the English in Ireland, found a place in the island of Ireland suitable for building a monastery, which in the Scottish tongue is called Mayo; and he purchased a small portion of it for building a monastery there from the Count to whose possession it belonged, on the added condition that the monks residing there would also offer prayers to the Lord for the very man who provided them the place. And when a monastery was immediately built, with the assistance of the Count and all the neighbors, he placed the English there, leaving the Scots on the aforementioned island. This monastery, called Mayo: which indeed is now made great from a small beginning, is commonly called Mayo, and is held to this day by English inhabitants. And now that all have long since been converted to better practices, it contains an outstanding swarm of monks who, gathered there from the province of the English, live by their own manual labor, following the example of the venerable Fathers, under a canonical rule and Abbot, in great continence and sincerity."

[21] So far Bede. Now Mayo, or Magio, commonly called Mayo, is a town of Connacht, still celebrated today and the chief town of the County of Mayo. The monastery under St. Gerald, the successor of St. Colman, was subsequently so enlarged that three thousand three hundred monks are said to have lived there under him. After the death of St. Gerald, St. Adamnan presided over the same monastery for seven years, then St. Muredach, son of Indrecht, King of Connacht. Ussher observes in the place indicated above that an episcopal See was also established there, annexed in the past century to the Archbishopric of Tuam; he dies in A.D. 676, he adds that the repose, or end of life, of the same Colman on the island of the White Cow is recorded in the Ulster Annals at the year 676, as he specifies in the Chronological Index. But Colgan assigns the year 674 and the day August 8, venerated among the Irish on August 8, and perhaps also on February 18 and asserts that he is venerated as a Saint on that island, and that it pertains to the County of Mayo. The same Colgan inscribed St. Colman the Bishop at this February 18 from the Martyrologies of Tallaght, of Marianus Gorman, and of Oengus, and the Calendar of Cashel, in which he is said to be venerated in Ardboe in the region of Cinel-Eoghan, a place which he locates near Lough Neagh on the borders of Tyrone, to which perhaps (and it is not far distant) some of his relics were transferred. Colgan notes, however, that the St. Colman who is venerated at Ardboe and February 21 is assigned by other cited authors to February 21, on which day he makes no mention of him; and yet in the Martyrology of Tallaght the following is read: "Colman of Ardboe on Lough Neagh." And in Marianus Gorman: "Colman in Ardboe in Ulster." So the copies communicated to us by Colgan.

[22] Bede finally records the following concerning the English who went to Ireland, Book 3, Chapter 27: "There were at that time on the island of Ireland many Instruction of the English attributed by Bede to Ireland, both noble and of middle rank from the English nation, who in the time of Bishops Finan and Colman had left their native island and withdrawn thither, either for the sake of divine learning or of a more continent life; and some indeed soon faithfully devoted themselves to the monastic life, while others preferred to go about through the cells of masters and to give themselves joyfully to reading. All of whom the Scots most willingly received, taking care to provide them with daily food at no charge, books also for reading, and gratuitous teaching." So Bede, whose passage Camerarius, citing it at February 18, greatly blunders, when he writes that these things happened on one of the Orkney Islands, which he calls Magio, wrongly transferred to the Orkneys by Camerarius, where St. Colman, having left the Scots on the island of the White Cow, placed the English in a monastery he had built in a suitable location. But on the contrary, Dempster in the Ecclesiastical History of the Scottish Nation, Book 3, Chapter 239, fabricates that after the great contest over the observance of Easter with St. Wilfrid, whom he calls the Bishop of York, St. Colman returned without grief and without regret to Scotland with his followers, and soon from Scotland to the Hebrides, of which he is considered by some to be the Apostle, having founded a college there. All of which, whether said by Dempster to the Hebrides by Dempster, or by Camerarius, when compared with the words of Bede, collapse of their own accord. Of the same grain are these additions by Dempster: "He wrote one book on the matter disputed on behalf of his Quartodeciman associates, by which name he derided those who celebrated Easter according to the Roman rite." But we praised a different prudence and modesty in him from Bede. He continues: "On the Tonsure of Clerics, one book. For that question was by no means a minor one at that time, says Bede. Fabrication about books written by St. Colman. An Exhortation to the Hebrideans, one book, in manuscript in the library of the Most Christian King." When the defenders of Dempster have published this exhortation and the other treatises attributed by Dempster to the ancient Scots, they will be subjected to the judgment of learned men.

[23] Most English writers treat of St. Colman: the Worcester chronicler at the years 661 and 664, English writers have commemorated St. Colman. the Anglo-Saxon Chronologist published with Bede, and the Westminster chronicler at the same year 664; Huntingdon, Book 3 of his Histories; Simeon of Durham on the Bishops of Durham, Book 1, Chapter 5; Richard of Hexham on the Bishops of Hexham, Chapter 6; John Bromton in his Chronicle on the Kingdom of Northumbria under King Oswald; Gervase of Canterbury on the Bishops of Canterbury under St. Deusdedit; Thomas Stubbs on the Bishops of York under St. Cedda; and others who generally agree with Bede. We add here an epitome of his Life from the Aberdeen Breviary, whose title is as follows: "Life of St. Colman, Bishop and Confessor, successor of St. Finan, in the year 689, February 18." The author of this Epitome had previously erred by thirteen years in assigning the death of St. Finan, so that Epitome of his Life from the Aberdeen Breviary he records as having lived until A.D. 674 the one whom it is certain died in A.D. 661. In the same way he writes that St. Colman, whose death we reported above at the year

676, died also thirteen years later.

EPITOME OF THE LIFE OF ST. COLMAN,

from the Aberdeen Breviary.

Colman, Bishop of Lindisfarne in England (St.)

BHL Number: 0000

[1] When the English nation had long remained inconstantly in the error and unfaithfulness of paganism, now pursuing the faith of Christ, now the worst idolatry, after the reverend Father and outstanding shepherd of souls, Finan the Scot, St. Colman succeeds St. Finan, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Bishop of Lindisfarne, had died, they received the holy man of God Colman, also a Scot, who was sent from the Scots to convert and instruct them; by these same Scots he had not long before been elevated to the episcopate, and he converted very many to the Christian faith, taught and instructed them by evangelical preaching. But as he was setting out for the English, meanwhile, while the report of the death of the most holy Father and outstanding shepherd of souls, Finan the Scot and Bishop, was spreading, the Northumbrian nation sought the holy man of God Colman, also a Scot, as his successor; and it is read that he presided over them for only three years, because of the envy of the English.

[2] Having taken with him part of the bones and relics of the holy Father Bishop Aidan, he returned again to Scotland. The most devout place which he governed itself testifies how great was his parsimony, frugality, and continence, together with that of his most holy predecessors. he returns to Scotland When he came to Scotland, many of the English nobles, as well as those of middle rank, who had heard the teaching of this holy man, with various Englishmen, leaving parents, homeland, and riches, withdrew thither for the sake of divine learning and of pursuing a more continent life. Some voluntarily devoted themselves faithfully to the monastic life; others, going about, applied themselves to the lectures of masters, whom St. Colman instructed gratuitously with all chastity and diligence in the divine law; he instructed and aided them: he also provided books and other necessities of life for Christ's name with a joyful and benevolent spirit.

[3] Meanwhile, from among the Scots whom he had brought from England, and indeed also from the English who had followed him, men of most tested life, about thirty in number, who were imbued with the precepts and teachings of true religion and monastic discipline, with whom he transferred himself to an island

called Hibofund, he builds monasteries, on the island of Hibofund, secluded not far from Ireland. On this island he built a monastery at his own expense, in which he placed the religious men of both nations whom he had brought with him; but they could not live in harmony with each other because of the disparity in their way of living. Seeing this, Blessed Colman built another monastery in a place and at Mayo called Mayo, leaving the Scots there and ordering the English to dwell separately; after these things were accomplished, he returned again to Scotland. The reverend Bishop Tuda, also a Scot, succeeded to preside in his place, and deservedly received the governance of the people.

[4] But although during the entire time of preaching by the man of God Colman in England, firm peace and common concord were held and maintained without the din of contention, nevertheless when the clergy of the English nation proper had grown and multiplied through the teaching of Blessed Colman and other Saints springing from the Scottish nation, those same ungrateful English became indignant against the holy teachers and Blessed Colman and strove to seek out false pretexts against them; patient in enduring calumnies, these the Saints returned with all patience and thanksgiving, suffering and rendering good for evil. But through these most holy men -- Bishops Aidan, Finan, and Colman, sent to the English by the Kings of the Scots and the chief men of their clergy -- nearly four kingdoms were converted to the faith of Christ: namely those of the Northumbrians, the Mercians, the Middle Angles, and half the kingdom of the East Saxons; with other Scots he labored in the conversion of the English: and their Kings and inhabitants were baptized in the name of the holy and undivided Trinity and faithfully taught and formed in the works of faith. For the first King of the English baptized by the Scots was called Audfrid, who, having received the inviolate faith unworthily, returned like a dog to his vomit and to idolatry, and persisted in it. But the Northumbrian nation, at the request of Blessed Oswald, was converted to the faith by the preaching of the blessed Father Aidan. The Middle Angles and Mercians received the faith from Bishop Vinna. For the fewness of priests compelled one Bishop to be placed over two peoples of different regions. Moreover, Suethertinus, King of the East Saxons, was informed by the grace of the Holy Spirit through Blessed Cedda, as the history of the Venerable Bede records.

[5] When Blessed Colman returned to Scotland with the other most holy Fathers, he preserved hospitality toward the poor of Christ above all things; whatever errors in faith he found, he performs pious works, he uprooted in a wondrous manner by divine power. Churches, monasteries, and other pious places he built most honorably for the love and reverence of God, and consecrated them by endowing them with solemn provision. But at last, full of grace and sanctity, he dies on February 18. and of the powers of miracles, on the twelfth day before the Kalends of March he rested in blessed peace.

a Bede, Book 3, Chapter 1: Eanfrid, son of Ethelfrid, King of the Bernicians, an exile during the reign of King Edwin among the Scots or Picts, was baptized according to the teaching of the Scots, but when he became King he lost the sacraments of the heavenly kingdom by anathematizing them.

b Rather Diuma, a Scot by nation, of whom Bede narrates the following in Book 3, Chapter 21; while Wini was Bishop of the West Saxons, whose language he knew, ordained in Gaul, as Bede states in Book 3, Chapter 7.

c In Bede, Suidhelm, or Suidhelin, whose conversion he treats in Chapter 22, and we in the Life of St. Cedda, January 7, Chapter 2, number 7.