ON SAINT TERNANUS,
BISHOP OF THE PICTS IN BRITAIN.
The boundaries, Apostles, and dioceses both of them and of the Scots.
Ternanus, Bishop of the Picts, in Scotland (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
The Picts, that is, Britons inaccessible to the Romans, When the Romans had subjected the better part of Britain to their Empire, but that part which they had not been able to subjugate the Emperor Hadrian first had separated off by a rampart drawn for protection; this not sufficing, Severus built another, less remote, and beyond it left those Britons whom from the fact it is credible were named in Latin Picts, according to the meaning of the old name Brith, because they dyed their bodies with a blue color. What lay beyond them to the West and North of those regions was held by the Scots who had crossed over,
the Scots brought over from Ireland; for that Ireland was their homeland Bede teaches; and the present-day language of the northern or wild Scots, still the same as the Irish, testifies the same. These, joined to the Picts, not only in common defended their liberty against the Romans, but also made themselves formidable by frequent inroads into the territories of these; together with the Scots brought over from Ireland, nor did they cause less trouble to the Anglo-Saxons who succeeded into the place of the Romans; using diverse kingdoms and kings for a long time, until the Scots prevailed over the Picts, and embracing in one kingdom whatever is beyond the rampart of Severus toward the North, made it be called Scotland; the name of the Picts being utterly abolished, except that the still-remaining traces of the aforesaid rampart are commonly called the Picts' Wall by the English.
[2] Made Christians by S. Ninian, a Bishop sent to them about the year 400 These being thus separated, and still persisting in heathenism, who first announced Christ is difficult to explain; except that the venerable Bede, book 3, chapter 4, about to treat of S. Columba's apostolate to the provinces of the Northern Picts, which are separated from their Southern regions by the steep and bristling ridges of mountains, says that the Southern Picts, who have their seats within those mountains, long before (as they report) having abandoned the error of idolatry had received the faith of truth, the Bishop Ninian preaching to them the word (others call him Niniarus), who had been regularly instructed at Rome in the faith and the mysteries of truth; and dedicated in honor of S. Martin the church of Candida Casa, S. Palladius sent to instruct the same more fully, today called Whithorn, at the estuary bordering on Ireland and England. Our Alford thinks he was consecrated by Siricius in the year 394, and lived beyond the year 430. Through him therefore not only the Southern Picts believed in the Savior, but also the Scots joined to them or even mixed with them, by their example; when S. Celestine the Pope was created Pontiff in the year 423; for thus the same Bede writes, book 1, chapter 13: Palladius is first sent as Bishop to the Scots believing in Christ by Celestine the Pontiff of the Roman Church, into the place, probably, of Ninian now dead.
[3] The same things, before Bede, Prosper of Aquitaine, a contemporary of Celestine, had written in his Chronicle: who also in his book against the Collator, chapter 41, commending the zeal of Celestine in purging his own homeland Britain from the Pelagian errors, to his praise adds also this, that having ordained a Bishop for the Scots, while he strove to keep the Roman island Catholic, that is, that part which obeyed the Romans, he also made the barbarian island Christian, namely that part in which there was only a slight knowledge of Christ, and held almost in name only, no Bishops yet ordained there to foster the remnants of Christianity, or to cultivate the new plantations. The same Palladius the Irish contend was sent chiefly to themselves; but because he did not reach the northern part of their island, and Patrick first traversed and converted the whole of it, they adorn the latter rather than the former with the title of their Apostle; indeed they draw the whole passage of Prosper to themselves, as though it ought to be understood of two islands: whom we do not care to contradict, provided they at least confess that he preached to the Scoto-Britons, and indeed also to the Picts.
[4] ordained in the year 431; Prosper notes the year of Palladius being sent across the sea, in the consulship of Bassus and Antiochus. This was the year of Christ 431: but those who had long since presumed to note the years of the Emperors in his Chronicle, while they number it the year of Theodosius the Younger from the death of Honorius the 8th, which was only the 6th, or from the Kalends of May the 7th, made even Bede err. It can be more difficultly defined how long Palladius preached in Britain while Celestine was Pontiff. For the Life of S. Patrick, published by Probus the Englishman in the 9th century or even later, and its compendium which Colganus published in the second place, persuaded that the author was some disciple of the Saint, asserts that the Apostolate of Palladius was very brief. For because, that author says, harsh and fierce men (he means the Irish) were unwilling to receive his doctrine, the Scots write that he preached among them for a long time, nor did he himself wish to pass a long time in a land not his own; but he disposed to return to him who sent him. And when he had crossed the sea, and reached the boundary of the Picts, there he departed; which his companions, returning to Rome, announced to Patrick—sent also by the same Celestine, but not yet a Bishop—in Italy. The Scots on the contrary (but no one, that I know, more ancient than the past century) for a very long time keep Palladius among them; when they follow Hector Boethius, asserting, at the end of book 7 of the History of the Scots, that he himself did not yield to fate until after pious sweat and religious works … but first he made Ternanus, whom he had washed as an infant in the baptismal font, and at last gave Ternanus as Bishop to the Picts. Archbishop of the Picts. In which place he seems to indicate that Ternanus was born of the Picts or Scots, and baptized among them; since Palladius, before his mission, was only a Deacon; and he must have lived in the Episcopate for thirty years or more, that he might ordain as an adult the one whom he had received in it as a little child.
[5] These things can be discussed on the 6th of July, on which Palladius is venerated. He is by anticipation called Archbishop in the ancient Calendars Concerning Ternanus, John Leslie, Bishop of Ross in Scotland, adds, that with such great zeal for advancing religion and piety he fulfilled the parts of his office, partly by tearing out the Pelagian heresy from souls (as if it had penetrated even to the Picts), partly by instilling purity of religion into their now-purged souls, that he was deservedly afterward esteemed the Apostle of the Picts. Certainly that Ternanus was for more than a century or two ascribed to this 12th of June in the Martyrologies or Calendars of the Scots, the Cologne Carthusians persuade us in their additions to Usuard, writing thus in the first place, In Scotland, of Termanus, Archbishop and Confessor: and by Dempster ascribed to Kincardine. which Ferrarius followed in his General Catalogue, and Canisius in the German Martyrology. Thomas Dempster too testifies that he saw the Calendars of his own nation, when, the letter K being added, he noted; At Kincardine, of Tarnanus, Archbishop of the Scots; he would have merited greater credit (for otherwise he has little, convicted of inventing many things for the favor of his nation's renown) greater credit, I say, he would have merited, and would have deserved better of Scottish history, if he had taught foreigners the situation of the place, and whether his body rested there; just as Hector teaches concerning Palladius, that he was buried at Fordun, and his Relics were translated there into a new shrine in the year 1494.
[6] As for what pertains to the Archiepiscopal title, although it were true what Hector says, and Palladius was not absolutely the first Bishop among the Scots, but the first of all who exercised a sacred Magistracy among them created Bishop by the Roman Pontiff; Scotland indeed had an Archbishop since before, by the suffrages of the people, the Pontiffs were taken from the Monks and Culdees; although, I say, that were true, yet it would not prove that there were other several Bishops there at once, ordained from elsewhere, whose Primate held the title of Archbishop, before this had begun to be used here among the Anglo-Saxons, under S. Gregory the Pope. Yet I would not say that the Scottish Archbishoprics were first instituted by Sixtus IV in the year 1571; but only that they were adorned with the honor of the Pallium, which until then they had neglected to seek. For the aforecited Additions of the Cologne men were printed long before Sixtus, before the 16th century, namely in the year 1521. It will therefore be permitted to presume that that title was known there many centuries before; although perhaps neither the Archbishops themselves, nor the Bishops subject to them, held the same Sees which are now named suffragan. Concerning which matter it would be worth the effort for someone to write professedly, just as Godwin wrote concerning the Bishops of England, explaining the various translations of the Sees and in what order each sat in it.
[7] Our Bolland gave on the 13th day of January the Life of S. Kentigern, first Bishop of the See of Glasgow, which is now Archiepiscopal, ordained in the 6th century. There at n. 13 it is read, that the holy youth, having departed from his master, lived in a place named Glasgow with much abstinence; but as yet none in the 6th century, until the King and Clergy of the region of Cumbria (that was the seat of the Picts, while their state and name remained) with all the Christians, although few (I would prefer to read, not few) elected him, much resisting, as Pastor and Bishop. And one Bishop being summoned from Ireland, after the manner of the Britons and Scots they had him consecrated Bishop. But what that manner was he explains thus: when, to ordain S. Kentigern after the old manner A custom had grown up in Britain, in the consecration of Pontiffs only to anoint the heads with the diffusion of sacred Chrism, with the invocation of the Holy Spirit, and blessing and imposition of the hand. For the Islanders, as if placed outside the world, with the infestations of the Pagans emerging, were ignorant of the Canons: ecclesiastical censure therefore, condescending to them, admits their excuse in this part. So that author in Capgrave, not S. Asaph the disciple of Kentigern, but another much later, when the homeland of the Picts (which the same Saint is said to have purged from idolatry and heretical depravity) or at least its more western part was now called Galloway, from the old name of the Gallo-Brigantes; but the rest of their kingdom was called Cambria or Cumbria. But these things seem to savor of the 10th century, in which that province at last yielded to the Anglo-Saxons, whose language too it still holds, before they were joined to the kingdom of the Scots, hitherto pushed back beyond the wall of Hadrian, except insofar as many of them lived mixed with the Picts.
[8] This it was necessary to note, lest I seem to attribute more authority to that Life than its age requires. Meanwhile I note, a Bishop had to be sought from Ireland. that Palladius indeed, most learned in the Roman Canons and rites, could by himself alone, without the assistance of two others, have consecrated Ternanus, necessity requiring it and the Pontiff indulging (concerning which matter perhaps his letters to Pope Celestine would teach us if they were extant) but that he could not omit those rites which the Roman Church preserves; unless he judged that the first Apostles of the Britons in the second or third century, and the Monks proceeding from their institution, masters of the Albanian Scots in sacred matters, who had long used that rite, were not to be reformed to the discipline of the Canons afterward established at Nicaea, while other more weighty matters in morals and faith remained. Moreover, supposing the truth of that Life, it seems to follow, that if a Bishop had to be summoned from Ireland to ordain Kentigern; there was no other among the Picts and Scots He first established the See of Glasgow, who could perform that office, Ternanus being now dead: whose See, whether it was called Kincardine, I would wish to be able to determine from elsewhere than from Dempster: this I say, that Kentigern is called the first who established the Cathedral see in the city of Glasgow.
[9] But his diocese (and therefore also the diocese of Ternanus) extended along the boundaries of the Cambrian kingdom, namely from that famous wall, embracing the Picts in his diocese, once constructed to ward off the enemies (Picts and Scots) from the Britons, from sea (Irish) to sea (German), up to the river
of the Forth, and the wall of Hadrian, which was on the isthmus of the two estuaries to the East and West, that is, up to the Scottish sea; but I think one should read, "and the Scottish sea," which namely the wall of Hadrian terminates at the west, just as it reaches the estuary of the Forth at the east. but his care extended also to the Scots and the rest of the Northerners. Moreover, when the same Life at n. 34 adds, that the same Kentigern converted Albany, that is, Scotland beyond the wall of Hadrian, built churches, and founded many monasteries; some of his disciples being sent to the Orkneys, Norway, and Iceland to be imbued with the light of faith; it is supposed that to his care belonged the rest of Britain to the North, and the Orkneys themselves, to which nevertheless the Scots say S. Sernanus, another of the disciples or companions, was consecrated Bishop by Palladius, and so they must also suppose that with Sernanus the seed of the Gospel, which both had previously sown there, also died and was choked.
[10] The old dioceses there. But whether in old and properly so-called Scotland Palladius (who is thought to have reserved it for himself, when he attributed Cumbria to Ternanus, and the more northern parts to Sernanus himself) whether, I say, Palladius established for himself the See of Abernethy; whence it was translated to the city of St. Andrews, now also Archiepiscopal, in the 9th century by Kenneth the subduer of the Picts; or whether farther to Aberdeen, which is also a most ancient Church, I would not divine: I suspect, however, that it was rather at Aberdeen; since Palladius died at Fordun in Mearns, in which that very city is.
[11] When Sixtus IV restored the Archiepiscopal dignity in the cities of St. Andrews and Glasgow, to the latter were attributed the churches of Candida Casa, Lismore, the more recent ones divided in two. and of the Islands situated to the West: of which the first, more ancient, refers its origin to S. Ninian, whom it venerates on the 16th of September; whose body too it possessed as far as the heresy allowed; so that it can be called the first Cathedral among the Picts, the second Glasgow; but where the third, Lismore, is, I have not yet learned; I suspect, however, that it was established beyond the river and estuary of the Forth; and that the Archdiocese of Glasgow extends along the Irish sea toward the North, up to the Bishopric of Ross and the 58th degree, which Bishopric, together with the rest of the North and the Eastern side of Scotland, belongs to the metropolis of St. Andrews: and thus it is understood how to the Glasgow one belong also the islands anciently called the Ebudae and lying opposite the western side of Scotland; but not the Orkneys, running out beyond all Scotland toward the North.