ON ST. GERMANUS THE BISHOP,
IN MAN OR MONA, AN ISLAND OF THE IRISH SEA.
FIFTH CENTURY.
Notice from the Life of St. Patrick.
Germanus, Bishop in Man, an island of the Irish Sea (S.)
J. B. S.
[1] It is familiar to the Irish hagiologists to ascribe to the number of their Saints most of the disciples or companions of St. Patrick, on this title almost alone, that they adhered to that great apostle of Ireland. I confess that I do not acquiesce in that reasoning, Set up bishop of Man by St. Patrick, as I have indicated more than once, unless it be established from elsewhere concerning the sanctity and settled cult of the disciples or companions. Thus at one time I doubted whether a place in this work was owed to Germanus, the first Bishop of the island of Man, although in Jocelin, of the edition of Colgan, number 92, he is named a disciple of St. Patrick, nay, a holy and wise man. But since other testimonies concerning his cult are added, he was not to be excluded hence. Let first the text of Jocelin at the cited place be heard: St. Patrick, seeing in Ireland the harvest indeed great, but the laborers few, crossed over into Britain, to acquire for himself co-adjutors into the Lord's field and fellow-workers … Sailing back into Ireland, he turned aside to convert the islands of the sea: of which Eubonia, that is, Man, then indeed subject to Britain, he converted to Christ by salutary preaching and the exhibition of signs … A certain one of the disciples of St. Patrick, a holy and wise man, named Germanus, being promoted to Bishop, he set over the newly-planted church of that people to rule it, and on a certain promontory (which is still called the island of Patrick, because he himself tarried there a little while) he set the episcopal see.
[2] This passage of Jocelin Bollandus adduces on the 1st of February, in the commentary on St. Brigid, he had a cult long ago, page 104, number 27, rightly proving that St. Patrick first imbued the island of Man with the Christian religion. He notes then that Ussher, in his Chronological index, places the beginnings of the episcopate of St. Germanus in the year 447. Then proceeding: The bishop of Man, he says, who is called of Sodor, now has his see in a tiny island; and Camden, page 839, writes, near Ruffin, or the town of Castletown, on the southern shore of the island. Whether here holy Germanus sat, or on the western side, over against the port of Strangford, I do not sufficiently define. Here certainly, in the map of Man in Speed, Kirk-Jarman, or the church of Germanus, is seen; near the castle of Pyle, girt about on every side by the sea, and not far thence at the promontory of Kirk-Patrick (the church of Patrick), which place perhaps Jocelin indicates. The death of Germanus Ussher assigns to the year 474; he is venerated on the 3rd of July, says Colgan. That he is reckoned among the Saints is clear from the same Jocelin, number 152, writing thus: There were (in the island of Man) two holy Bishops, called Connidrius and Romulus, whom Patrick himself had consecrated, and had destined thither, to rule the people of that island and to instruct them in the faith of Christ, after the death of St. Germanus, the first Bishop of the same island. I add to the notice of the place what Ussher subjoins, in his Antiquities of the British Churches, page 643: In later times, however, Man being occupied by the English, from one the Bishops of Sodor became two; the see of the one being placed here, of the other, in the name of the remaining islands, in Iona, or the island of St. Columba.
[3] a church dedicated to his name. To the cult of the Saint pertains what the same Ussher has, page 644: Simon, Bishop of Sodor, died on the day before the Kalends of March, at the church of St. Michael the archangel, and was buried in the Island of St. Patrick, in the church of St. Germanus, which he himself had begun to build. Whence is confirmed what has been said above concerning the church dedicated to St. Germanus, perhaps not one only. From the more ancient Martyrologies nothing is had which can be ascribed to him with sufficient certainty: Castellanus makes mention of him, under the name of Jarmans; but elsewhere nothing occurs, unless the vague announcement of Greven on the 9th of July be somehow adapted: In Ireland, St. Germanus the confessor. But more certain things are wanting, which are to be applied determinately to St. Germanus of Man. Thus the Note of Colgan 103 to the aforesaid text of Jocelin is such that it does not seem it can easily be admitted, whatever Ussher, page 842, cite to that matter, the offices of the Canons of the Lateran, published at Venice in the year 1586. For our present Germanus was promoted to the episcopate not at Rome by Pope Celestine, but by St. Patrick himself, not obscurely. Behold the words of Colgan: This Germanus seems to be the one whom the office of the Canons regular, in words to be produced below in the second appendix, reports to have been a Canon of the Lateran, and to have been ordained at Rome together with St. Patrick by Pope Celestine. See what is to be said of him on the 3rd of July. Would that there had come to us the things which he promises he will say of St. Germanus on the 3rd of July; I have nothing besides either of the Saint's deeds or of his virtues and miracles, which I could hand down, nor would I have known to record it on this day rather than on any other, unless the aforesaid Colgan had indicated it: rightly or wrongly, I do not think it worth the labor to inquire at length in this place.