Drostanus

ON ST. DROSTANUS, CONFESSOR,

IN SCOTLAND.

From Scottish monuments.

About the Year 600.

Drostanus, Confessor in Scotland (S.)

BHL Number: 2338

BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.

Thomas Dempster, elsewhere in this work painted in his native colors, mentions St. Drostanus in his Scottish Menology on the day November 9 in these words: Of Drostanus the monk, uncle of King Eugenius; and again on December 14: In Scotland at St. Andrew's, From the Scottish Menologies of Drostanus the monk, no reason anywhere being given, why on those different days and with a different phrase he thus announces the Saint; whether he is one, or two synonymous men. I would believe that this man, a patcher-together of many matters, arranged all these things almost at his own discretion: and yet they seemed to Ferrarius worthy to be inserted into the General Catalogue in nearly the same words, which we could wish had been done by him more sparingly elsewhere also. Otherwise judged Camerarius, I know not whether supported by greater authority, whom we here follow, when he placed St. Drostanus on this day, wrongly calling him Drastanus. His words are: Saint Drastanus, abbot and confessor: concerning whom very many, especially Leslie in book 4 of his history, and Major in book 2; but who constantly read Drostanus or Dronstanus, not Drastanus; as also the rest who speak of him, as of a true Saint, such as Wion does not seem to have recognized, numbering him among the sons of kings who were monks, whose place of profession is unknown, in the Wood of Life, book 4, chapter 26, although otherwise sufficiently munificent in lavishing titles of Saints.

[2] These things brought a doubt, whether it were safe to give a place here to a Saint not altogether undoubted; it is shown from other monuments that he had a cult. but since, by the testimony of Sirin, his memory is had in the often elsewhere cited Breviary of Aberdeen, from which he himself relates a brief history, to be subjoined below; and since Dempster in the ecclesiastical history of the Scottish nation, number 375, calls it the consensus of the Scottish churches; finally since in both editions of the English Martyrology, by the author Wilson, he is inscribed on this very day; I thought these things sufficient in some way to assert a cult to St. Drostanus. Thus Wilson has it, rendered into Latin by Sirin: In Scotland, the commemoration of St. Drostanus the confessor, who, born in that same kingdom of royal blood, and being uncle of King Aidan, in his youthful age spurned the vanities of the world, and entering a monastery there, took the habit of St. Benedict; in which state he so excelled in humility and perfection, that in Albanian Scotland and Ireland he was of most celebrated fame, until, full of sanctity and miracles, he closed his day about the year of Christ 600; where in ancient times were many altars and chapels dedicated in his honor. It is strange that these last words are absent in the later edition of Wilson of the year 1640.

[3] Sirin laughs at the Benedictine Order here found by Wilson in the sixth century in Scotland, The testimonies of Major and Leslie concerning him. where up to that point he rightly says that the rule of St. Columba of Iona chiefly flourished; and certainly among the Benedictines Mabillon did not recognize St. Drostanus. But to the commendation of his sanctity are added the testimonies of the popular writers: and first of John Major, book 2 of the deeds of the Scots, chapter 7, thus speaking: Aidan, King of the Scots, so grieved at the death of St. Columba that he survived him little: to whom Eugenius succeeded in the kingdom. In his times St. Drostanus, the king's uncle, leading the monastic life, was renowned for miracles. Major leaves it doubtful whether St. Drostanus was the uncle of Aidan, or of Eugenius, in which we saw Dempster above stumbling: But Leslie explains it more clearly, page 152: Drostanus also, uncle of King Aidan, sending back at this time a farewell to the fleeting things of this world, shut himself within the bounds of a monastery, and by the example of his sanctity led many to good fruit. Things not inferior to these the praised Sirin recites from Hector Boëthius; refuting furthermore the title of the Breviary of Aberdeen, prefixed to the aforesaid lessons, from this, that it would have St. Drostanus be the uncle on the mother's side of King Achaius, where nevertheless it clearly expresses that the Saint flourished in the year 587, whereas that Achaius, according to Buchanan, first ruled the Scots to the year 809.

[4] In this the Scottish writers already enumerated agree, that St. Drostanus flourished toward the end of the sixth century, He is claimed for the Irish by Sirin, and by what title. and the beginning of the seventh, Dempster connecting his happy end with the year 606, Wilson, as we have already seen, more roundly marking the six-hundredth year. And these things indeed the Scots with plainly unanimous consent; so that at first I wondered why Sirin, wont to treat only of his own countrymen, had joined a Saint of this kind to the Irish. Understand the reason of the matter from him: This man, he says, is not here to be passed over (namely St. Drostanus), because he was born and educated in Ireland, as also his sister Fedhelmia, the mother of King Aidan, but the daughter of Fethelmius, a noble man descending from the royal stock of the Connacians, as is had both in the book on the mothers of the kings and illustrious men of Ireland, and in the life of St. Cornac the abbot, to be seen on March 26. Whence it is probable that this Drostanus dwelt chiefly in Ireland, and is he to whom is thought dedicated a parish church of the diocese of Elphin in Connacia, by the name Kill-Drostin, or the cell of Drostanus.

[5] He is said to be buried among the people of Aberdeen, I have nothing whence to call these things into doubt, or from elsewhere to confirm them more, although I cannot dissemble that in the Irish Catalogues of Saints which we have, collected diligently enough by our Henry Fitzsimon and Stephen White, no memory of St. Drostanus occurs. Let Sirin's argument nevertheless be valid, provided the Scots do not object; and let each nation glory in St. Drostanus for the various titles already brought forward by the praised writer. Nor is it my intention to investigate anything more scrupulously about his age or deeds, in so great a poverty of Acts: I would have wished to be taught a little more accurately in what place or in what church our Saint was once buried, or was venerated with peculiar veneration, since that more general consensus, asserted by Dempster, is of very slight authority with me, no more than his announcement recited above; In Scotland at St. Andrew's. Whether rightly or wrongly the church of Aberdeen celebrates St. Drostanus on December 14, you would investigate in vain, since it is most expressly said toward the end in its Breviary (which Sirin says is sufficiently faulty): But the bones of the most holy confessor Drostanus are laid up among the people of Aberdeen in a stone tomb; where many, weighed down with diverse languors of diseases, are restored to health by his merits. Now have the rest, which Sirin described from the aforesaid Breviary.

[6] who recite a brief compendium of his life in the Breviary. Blessed Drostanus, sprung of the royal lineage of the Scots, when he had come to mature age, having heard of the mystery of the Lord's Incarnation and passion, in his very boyish years filled with the Holy Spirit, was zealous to serve almighty God with the whole affection of his mind. His parents therefore, recognizing the boy Drostanus to be devoted to God with the highest desire, handed him over to blessed Columba his uncle, dwelling in Ireland, to be imbued with the liberal studies. And when afterward he had taken the habit of religion at Dal-quongale [*], its abbot having died, blessed Drostanus was elected abbot of that same place; where, remaining for some time, he was zealous to profit much, by the example of his life and doctrine, the monks whom he then governed. Some time having elapsed, not deserting the care of the flock committed to him, but committing it to the highest shepherd Christ, he betook himself to the secret places of the desert in the parts of Scotland; where, leading the eremitic life, in the place which is called Glenu-Eske, he built a church. He left all things for Christ, according to the Gospel, who cared not for earthly dignity, or royal honor, which he could have obtained by hereditary right, [and] renouncing the earthly kingdom, refused human sovereignty, that he might flee to the service of Christ. A certain priest, named Sion, deprived of sight, was given light by the merits of Drostanus. This man became a despiser of the world, a follower of Christ, a cultivator of the desert, a triumpher over the ancient enemy; against the snares of the hidden foe he always invoked the divine help; to whom nevertheless, as he tended to the heights, the crafty enemy stretched the snares of temptations. He endured in body and heart the hard martyrdom of compunction and maceration, that he might never yield assent to the devil. And because through the way of the present life he followed the rewards of eternal life, the Bestower, he deserved to enter into the abiding life, who, in all sanctity and purity, the course being consummated, migrated to the Lord.

* Dal-Congaile