Corpreus

CONCERNING SAINT CORPREUS, OR CARBREUS, BISHOP OF CLONMACNOISE IN IRELAND,

IN THE YEAR 899.

Corpreus, or Carbreus, Bishop in Ireland (Saint)

[1] Clonmacnoise was in the borders of Western Meath, as Colgan attests; and in it Corpreus, or Corbreus, surnamed Crom, celebrated with outstanding praise for sanctity, was appointed to the place of the Bishop Moeldarius, Saint Corbreus, Bishop, who died, as the Irish annals report, in the year 886. Colgan reasonably thinks that some Acts and a Life of his exist: for the illustrious testimonies about him adduced by Colgan from native hagiologies argue this, which we shall not hesitate to transcribe from him. The first is taken from the Martyrology of Donegal, as he names it: because it was recently compiled in the Donegal convent by the Irish Franciscans, about which he himself writes much in the preface to volume 1 on the Saints of Ireland. The words of this Martyrology at this 6th day of March are as follows:

[2] "Corpreus, surnamed Crooked, Bishop of Clonmacnoise, head of the religion of nearly all Ireland in his time. The soul of King Malachy appearing, He is the one to whom the spirit of Malachy, son of Moelruanacius, King of Ireland, appeared. For when one day after Vespers he was alone at prayer in his church, someone appeared to him in human and very black form, and stood before him. The Bishop asked him and in the power of God commanded him to declare who he was. He answered that he was King Malachy, son of Moelruanacius; and he explained to him what great torments of punishment he was suffering, and for what reasons he and his Confessor were suffering such torments in Purgatory. The Bishop turned to the other Priests of his Church, and it was agreed among them that, with a fast proclaimed, the Bishop should intercede with the divine majesty for the King, and the Priests for his priestly Confessor, for their liberation from the punishments. They did so according to the agreement, remaining in prayers for half a year."

[3] "After half a year, the King appeared to the Bishop while he was fervently praying, [He requests a year's prayers for himself and his Confessor to be freed from purgatory,] bearing a form that was shining on one half and black on the other, as before: and he gave thanks to the Bishop, by whose merits he had been freed to such an extent; and he asked him to continue his prayers for the remaining part of the year, and thus he would be completely freed. The Bishop consented: and when the year was completed, the King again appeared to him in beautiful and resplendent form: and he rendered due thanks to the holy Bishop for the benefits bestowed: and he related that he would soon fly to heaven on that very day, and that the Priest would follow the next day. When the Bishop asked why they would not ascend together, he replied that the reason for his earlier liberation had been the excellence of the prayer and merits of his intercessor compared with the merits and prayers of the twelve Priests who were interceding for his Confessor." So much there, which deserve all the more credit with us because they are reported more fully and exactly by the ancient Scholiast of the Festilogy of Aengus, or the author of the supplement to the same Festilogy: from which Colgan copied the following:

[4] "There was at Clonmacnoise an outstanding Bishop, who was called Corpreus the Crooked; In a black form, and he was the head of Religion among nearly all the Irish in his time. It happened, when he was at prayer in his church after Vespers, that he saw someone appearing in a very black form and standing before him; and in such a shape that a bright circle encircled his neck, and he was clothed in a single tunic lacking one sleeve. The holy man said to him: 'Who are you? I do not know you.' He replied: 'I am a spirit.' 'What,' said the Bishop, 'has so blackened you?' 'The multitude of my sins,' he said, 'and the severity of my punishments.' 'Were prayers poured out for you?' said the Bishop. 'And did you have spiritual friends from the clergy while you lived?' 'It has profited me more,' he said, 'that I was buried at Clonmacnoise than what they did for me: for I shall appear on the day of judgment according to the intercession of Saint Kieran.'"

[5] "'It is wretched,' said the Bishop, 'if you did not have And in a garment indicating few alms, some spiritual director, and did not perform good works at his judgment.' 'I had,' said the spirit, 'a certain spiritual director, namely a Priest of the Clergy of Clonmacnoise: nor however did I render him many services, except that I had a golden ring made, which I gave to him. But what good did this do, when I am now tortured with great torments? Woe to the man who puts on flesh and does not have a spiritual director, and does not do good works in life.' 'What is the point of this?' said the Bishop. 'Did you have the means to perform good works?' 'Oh! Woe, woe to me,' he said, 'Lord Bishop. I am Malachy, grandson of Dunchad through his son Moelruanacius, King of Ireland; who did not lack the means for doing good.' 'Oh, the miseries!' said the Bishop. 'What is happening to the Priest who was your Confessor, and have the alms given done any good?' 'He himself,' said the King, 'is tortured with immense torments, and the ring which I gave him, like a single circle of fire, encircles his neck; he cannot, alas, help me; indeed he himself is in a worse state.'"

[6] "'Why then do you also,' said the Bishop, 'have Namely, of a ring and a single tunic, that very bright circle around your neck?' 'This,' he said, 'is the reward and pledge of the ring I gave to the Priest.' 'But why are you clothed in such a tunic?' The King replied: 'On a certain occasion, some scholars of this Church came to me, supplicating that I provide clothing to cover the nakedness of a certain poor and half-naked student whom they presented. But I (since I did not have at hand anything else from which to help) commanded the Queen to see that a certain precious tunic of mine be given to him: and this is the reason for my tunic-like covering. But what was the reason for this apparition of yours?' said the holy man. The King answered: 'When a little before I was being tortured in the air among demons flagellating me on every side, the sound of the psalmody of your Lordships praising the Lord was heard, by which, terrified and scattered here and there through the air, the demons were put to flight. For the evil spirits cannot stay in any place, whether on earth or in the air, where they hear your psalmodies.'"

[7] The Saint refuses the treasure offered by him, "After these conversations the King said: 'O woe, woe to me, I must now return to those same torturers: but I would store up for you some reward for this small refreshment, if it pleased you to accept it.' 'How?' said the holy man. 'On a certain occasion,' he said, 'when I had attacked Dublin to engage in battle with the Norse enemies, among the spoils I received a hundred ounces of gold and a thousand of silver; which I hid, concealed in a certain place underground, in the presence of one of my servants, whom I afterwards had killed lest he reveal or carry off that treasure. But those moneys, with no one surviving who knows of them, lie there to this day: I will point out the place to you, and dispose of the money as you please.' 'I declare,' said the holy man, 'that I will not accept more from one whom a lesser almsgiving, which he bestowed in life, did not profit; and therefore I absolutely renounce your treasures.' Then that spirit leaped away wailing and saying: 'Woe, woe to him who does not do good works while the time for doing good is granted.'"

[8] "After this the holy man assembled the Priests of his Church, who were twelve in number: and he narrated to them the series of this deplorable case, [And he undertakes to pray for the King himself, and his Priests under him for his Confessor,] and asked whether they were willing to cooperate with prayers and intercession, so that the King and his Confessor might be freed from such great torments. They answered that the Bishop should undertake to free the King, and the Priests the fellow-priest, from the punishments. It was so concluded; and prayers and fasts were proclaimed by them to that end. After they had persevered in these for half a year, the King again appeared to the Bishop, bearing a form that was white and splendid on one half, and black and dark on the other. And when the holy man asked him in what state he now found himself, he replied that things were indeed going better; but that he was still tortured with such torments that, at the summit of a certain tree, above the dreadful height of the abyss below, he was tormented without rest or intermission amid the blasts and cold of the winds: and it was a wonder that there was anyone among those who were assigned to undergo punishments in the next life, however small, who did not think himself tortured in hell." Having said these things, he vanished.

[9] "The holy man continued in the proclaimed fasts and prayers until the end of the year: He appears to his benefactor, now freed, and when the year had thus passed, while he was alone and devoted to prayer in the same place, the same spirit appeared to him for the third time in a bright and beautiful form: and thinking it to be the aforesaid King who appeared thus, he asked him in what state he then was. He replied that he was in an excellent state; and that he would soon ascend to heaven in white and shining form; and that his Priest Confessor would follow him on the very next day. And when the man of God asked why he would not rather go in company, he replied that the excellence of his merits and prayers compared with the merits and prayers of the Priests interceding for his Confessor had been the cause of his earlier release. Then the King, giving thanks and blessing him, flew to heaven before his eyes."

[10] "Our Annals also report," says Colgan, continuing these accounts, The Connaughtmen, on account of the injury inflicted upon him, "a certain vengeance divinely taken upon the army of the Connaughtmen, who rashly inflicted violence upon the sacred place over which this holy Bishop had presided; which is rightly judged to be attributed equally to the merits of both himself and Saint Kieran: for the Connaughtmen in the year eight hundred and ninety-four invaded the borders of Western Meath with a strong force: nor did the soldiers refrain from plundering and pillaging, until they finally invaded a certain island of Lough Ree, called Inis-Angin, in which, together with the sacred shrines of Saint Kieran, there were then Saint Corpreus the Bishop and the Clergy of the Church of Clonmacnoise: in whose sight they slaughtered some, Are punished with a great defeat: with no reverence for the holy Bishop or the sacred relics. But with God avenging the injury done to His own and the sacrilege committed, the same army on the same day suffered a great defeat and was routed at the town of Athlone."

[11] "The man of God, renowned for merits and virtues, in the year of restored salvation eight hundred and ninety-nine, gave up his spirit to heaven on the sixth day of March, His veneration proved from the Calendars, on which day his birthday is celebrated in the church of Clonmacnoise, as the domestic Festilogies record" — namely (for thus far Colgan) the Tamlacht Martyrology, in which no one younger than Saint Corbreus is found named; whence its antiquity is established, and therefore its great authority in the present matter; since it can be believed to have been written not many years after the death of Saint Corbreus, or at least in the tenth century. Likewise the Martyrologies of Marian Gorman and Cathal Maguire: from which and from the eulogies related, it seems sufficiently certain that one in whose life such illustrious things were reported was not left without public veneration among a people quite liberal in decreeing it.

[12] The age of King Malachy, As for King Malachy: he died in the year 860 according to the Four Masters, in the Annals at the same year, and in the Catalogue of the Kings of Ireland, where they write about him thus: "Malachy the First, son of Moelruanacius, son of Dunchad, etc., after having reigned sixteen years, died in the year 860." In the native Irish tongue he is called Moeleachlainn, and Giraldus Cambrensis in the Topography of Ireland, distinction 3, chapter 40, erroneously calls him O'Maclachelin and King of Meath. For he was King of Meath when he arranged for Turgesius, the Norwegian chieftain and the first disturber of both the Irish Church and the commonwealth, to be removed, before he assumed the kingdom of Ireland in the year 845. The killing of Turgesius the Norwegian. The Four Masters in the Annals refer the death of Turgesius to the year 843: whom they report was not cut down with knives by certain youths, as Giraldus relates, but captured and drowned in Lough Owel, as the most wicked tyrant, the subverter of public peace, the burner of hundreds of churches, the slayer of several thousands of Priests and Clerics, and an insatiable devourer of Christian blood, deserved.