ON ST. MUNNU OR FINTAN, ABBOT OF TAGHMON, IN IRELAND,
IN THE YEAR 635.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Munnu, abbot of Taghmon, in Ireland. (S.)
With Conchenna, his sister, a virgin, in Ireland. (S.)
BY E. C.
§ I. On the monastery of Teachmunnu and the town of Taghmon. The names and cult of the Saint. He goes to the monastery of Iona in Scotland.
Taghmon, formerly Teachmunnu Below, number 15., that is, the house of Munnu, On the monastery of Teachmunnu and the present town of Taghmon. is a town of ancient Leinster, now of the county of Wexford in Ireland, populated by more than three thousand inhabitants. It has its name and beginning from St. Munnu, or Fintan, who at the end of the sixth century or the beginning of the following founded a monastery there and was the father of many monks. After about three hundred years, the Danes bursting into Leinster, it was laid waste in the year 917; but the monks returned, if Lewis Lewis, a topographical Dictionary of Ireland, under Taghmon and Ferns. is to be trusted: for he writes that the monastery was united around the year 1160 by the last king of Leinster, Dermod MacMurrough, or Darmitius, to the abbey of Ferns of the Canons regular of St. Augustine, which he had erected. He adds that the charter of the royal donation still exists; about which matter, however, and consequently also about the first assertion, there is room for doubt; since to the editors both of the new [Novum Monasticon anglic., London, 1830, volume VI, page 1141 and following. Cf. Allemand, Hist. monastique d'Irlande, page 13.] and of the old Monasticon Anglicanum no other has become known than the charter of foundation of the monastery of Ferns, in which the name Teachmunnu, or another equivalent, does not appear. I suspect, therefore, that the name Tagh-Moling, which is read in the diploma and indicates the monastery of St. Moling Colgan, Acta SS., pages 215 and 218. in Leinster, was to Lewis the same as Taghmon, which is certainly erroneous. For the rest, nothing further becomes known about the monastery of Teachmunnu, but today in the town itself the Catholic cause seems to flourish, and it rejoices in a sufficiently ample and elegant church.
[2] The names of the Saint. But the name of the town and various monuments show that the name Munnu was more frequently given to our Saint than that of Fintan Cf. Hibernia Dominicana, page 728, etc.. The abbot of Tegmunna, says Colgan Acta SS., page 452, and Trias thaum., page 373, number 20., by name Fintan, but by a surname more often used Munna, or Mundus; and by this latter name, writing in Latin, he prefers to call him. John Lanigan conjectures that his other name or surname Munnu is to be derived An ecclesiastical history of Ireland, volume II, page 406. from the name of the family Maine, to which Fintan's mother belonged See the Acts below, number 1.; but I would scarcely believe it, since similar names, such as Munis Colgan, Trias thaum., page 692., Mundus [Acta SS. volume II of April, number 388; David Camerarius (Dempster) at 15 April; Colgan, loc. cit., etc.], Munessa Colgan, ibid., are sometimes met with in the writings of the Irish and especially of the Scots, and our Saint is not rarely called Mundu in manuscript monuments [The Martyrology of O'Clery, Index; the Annals of Tigernach, in Lanigan, volume II, page 408; below in the Life, number 18.]. And Lanigan does not seem to have attended to these things. However that may be, this name may have been used in preference to the other to distinguish him from the many Fintans who are recorded by Irish writers Acta SS. February volume III, page 16, number 5; Colgan, Acta, page 355.. As regards the name of Fintan, it is established to me that the Irish words finn, finnen designate something white [Acta SS. September volume VII, page 142, on St. Finbarr; O'Reilly, Irish-English dictionary.], and in the Acts (below, number 1) our Saint is said to have been white, and it is sufficiently implied that the name of Fintan was understood in this sense by the biographer. Yet the same words also signify beauty, which sense is admitted in the shorter Life, as will be said in the Annotations.
[3] His cult, from the Irish Martyrologies Fintan Munnu is venerated on this day, the 21st of October, on which still in the town of Taghmon a fair is held in the Saint's memory Carlisle, a topogr. Dictionary of Ireland, under Taghmon.. The Martyrology of Oengus, or of Tallaght, announces him in these words: 21 October. Fintan son of Tulchan, or Munna, with his monks who were under his yoke, whom the fire of judgement will not burn, whose names are these: Lasrian and Coman, etc. [Manuscript codex of the Brussels Library number 5104; Colgan, Acta SS., page 453, number 6.]. My apograph adds: I have written the names of the others in the great one. I found them, arranged alphabetically, in a certain codex which was for the use of the Rev. Mr. Lynch, with the following title Brussels codex 5305, page 235; cf. Colgan, loc. cit.: The family, or monks, of St. Fintan, or Munna the abbot, 233 in number, whom the fire of judgement will not burn (From the parchment Martyrology of Tallaght, 21 October): Adomnan, Aedan or Aidan, Aedgnius, etc. But there are in the said codex only 219 names, instead of 233. To proceed now with the Martyrologies to be brought forward, the same Oengus in his metrical Festology of the Saints, in which he inscribes only one or another for each day, at 21 October likewise records Fintan son of Tulcan Brussels codex 5102.. And the Martyrology of Donegal Brussels codex 4639. on the same day: Munna, bishop and abbot of Cluain-edhnech in Leinster. Fintan was another name of Munna. Tulchan the name of his father. Two hundred and thirty was the number of his monks in his congregation. And it was Mochua, son of Lonan, who healed (Fintan or Munnu) of the leprosy which he had from the beginning. Of the pretended episcopate and prelacy of Cluain-ednech, and of the healing from leprosy, it will be said below. Finally the fourth of the principal Irish Martyrologies, which were left by the Irish Franciscans formerly living at Louvain after the Convent in Belgium was suppressed, namely the Martyrology of Marianus Gorman Brussels codex 5103., reports St. Fintan likewise inscribed at the 21st day of October. Finally it is not to be omitted here that in the English Litanies, which you would better call British, of the seventh century, published by Mabillon Vetera Analecta, edition of 1723, page 68., among other Irish and British Saints St. Munna too is invoked.
[4] and from foreign ones. From these Martyrologists, and at the same time from the passage of the Life of St. Columba to be brought forward presently, which has as its author the almost contemporary Adomnan, the announcement of St. Fintan or Munnu passed into the more recent Martyrologists. Greven in his Usuard, published at the beginning of the sixteenth century, has this about our Saint, expressing the name Munnu corruptly: In Ireland, of Nummus, Confessor Sollerius, Martyrologium Usuardi, page 618.. For the rest, the memory of the Saints of the Irish of Greater Britain, and especially of the Irish who did not pass to the continent, is rare among the same Martyrologists. Castellan however records St. Munnu: In Scotland (present-day), St. Munnu, fourth abbot of Iona, in the year 634 Martyrologe universel, Paris, 1709.. The place and dignity are false, and the year 635 is to be preferred, as will be said below; but he rightly notes in the margin that the name Munnu is not declined; and in the general Index Page 1150. a certain Munnas meets him, from what monuments I do not know, whom he conjectures to be the same as St. Munnu. In England, where he became known to the Martyrologists later, the British Martyrology, published in the vernacular in the preceding century A memorial of ancient British piety or a British Martyrology, London, 1761., adorns him with a eulogy, and Butler The lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, etc., London, 1813, volume X, page 454. and Challoner Britannia sancta, volume II, page 213. present a compendium of his life.
[5] The passage of Adomnan on St. Fintan. St. Columba of Iona We now bring forward a sufficiently ample passage of Adomnan, from his Life of St. Columba, where he records the latter's prophecy about St. Fintan and its fulfilment. But he calls him Fintenus, not Fintanus, in which he has had no imitator, and I think that should be attributed to the Anglo-Saxon pronunciation, in which the letters a and e were scarcely distinguished. Further, that this passage of Adomnan treats of our Fintan, who is venerated on this day, no one has ever doubted, and it will become manifest from the whole Commentary and the Acts. Now hear Adomnan Volume II of June, page 200, number 5 and following.: St. Fintenus, who afterwards was held very well known throughout all the Churches of the Scots (that is, of the Irish; for by this name until the ninth or tenth century were designated not the present-day Scots, but the Irish [Pinkerton, An enquiry into the hist. of Scotland, edition of 1814, volume II, page 223 and following; Acta SS. volume II of March, page 517, number 1 and following, and passim in the Acts.]), keeping from his boyish age, God helping, integrity of flesh and soul, devoted to the studies of divine wisdom, while living in the years of his youth had this purpose in his heart, that, leaving Ireland, he should go as a pilgrim to our St. Columba. Burning with this same desire, he goes to a certain elder, a friend of his, a most prudent and venerable cleric among his people, who in Scotic (i.e., Irish) was called Columb-crag, that he might hear some counsel from him as from a prudent man. And when he laid bare his thoughts to him, he received from him this answer: Your desire, inspired, as I judge, by God and devout, who can forbid, that you should not sail across to St. Columba?
[6] he desires to visit, and, he having died, At the same hour by chance two monks of Columba arrive, who, asked about their journey, say: Lately rowing from Britain, today we have come from the Oak-grove of Calgach. Is he safe, said Columb-crag, your Columba, the Holy Father? They, bursting into tears, said with great sorrow: Truly safe is that patron of ours, who in these days has lately passed to Christ. Hearing this, Finten and Columba and all who were there, their faces prostrate on the ground, wept bitterly. Fintenus thereupon inquires, saying: Whom has he left as successor after him? Baithene, they say, his foster-son. All crying out: Worthy and due; Columba says to Fintenus: What will you do at this, Fintene? He answering said: If the Lord permits, I will sail to Baithene, a holy and wise man, and if he receives me, I will have him as abbot. Then thereupon, having kissed the above-mentioned Columba and bidding him farewell, he prepares the voyage, and, sailing across without any delay, he came to the island of Iona. And up to that time his name was not yet known in these places: whence also at first he was received hospitably as a certain unknown guest.
[7] he goes to his successor Baithene, by whom he is sent back On another day he sent a message to Baithene, wishing to have speech with him face to face. He, as he was affable and approachable to strangers, orders him to be brought to him. He, at once brought, first, as was fitting, prostrated himself on the ground with bended knees, and, ordered by the holy Elder, rises; and, sitting, is further asked by Baithene about his people and province, and his name and manner of life, and for what cause he had entered upon the labour of the voyage? He, thus asked, relating everything in order, humbly requests that he be received. To whom the holy Elder, having heard these things from the guest, and at the same time recognizing that this was the man of whom St. Columba had some time before prophetically foretold: I ought indeed, he said, to give thanks to my God at your coming, son; but know this without doubt, that you will not be our monk. Hearing this the guest, greatly saddened, says: Perhaps I, unworthy, do not deserve to become your monk? The Elder thereupon says: Not because, as you say, you were unworthy, did I say this, but although I would have preferred to retain you with me, yet I cannot profane the command of St. Columba my predecessor, through whom the Holy Spirit prophesied of you. For on another day, speaking thus to me alone apart with prophetic mouth, he said among other things: These my words, O Baithene, you must hear more attentively: for immediately after my awaited and much desired passing from this world to Christ, a certain Brother from Scotia, who now, governing well his youthful age with good morals, is sufficiently imbued with the studies of sacred reading, by name Fintenus, of the race of Moccu moie (See the Annotations to the Acts, number 1), whose father is called Tailchan; coming, I say, to you, will humbly request that, receiving him, you number him among the other monks; but this has not been predestined in the foreknowledge of God, that he should become the monk of any abbot, but he has been chosen by God of old to be an abbot of monks and a leader of souls to the heavenly kingdom. You will not, therefore, retain this aforesaid man with us in these our islands, lest you seem also to go against the will of God; but, making known to him these words, you shall send him back in peace to Scotia, that he may build a monastery in the borders of the Leinstermen (a province of Ireland) near the sea, and there, feeding the flock of Christ's sheep, may lead innumerable souls to the heavenly fatherland.
[8] to Ireland. On St. Adomnan and how much this narrative of his is worth. Hearing these things, the holy younger man, shedding tears, gives thanks to Christ, saying: Let it be done to me according to the prophecy and wonderful foreknowledge of St. Columba. In those days, finally, obeying the words of the saints, and receiving a blessing from Baithene, he sailed across in peace to Scotia. These things I learned without doubt from the narration of a certain religious old priest, a soldier of Christ, named Oissene, son of Ernan, of the race of Mocu-Niethcorb; who testified that he had heard all the above-mentioned words from the mouth of the same St. Fintenus, son of Tailchan, being his monk. Thus far St. Adomnan, abbot of Iona, as it seems, the eighth after St. Columba Acta SS. volume VI of Sept., page 644, number 13.. His Acts were given by our predecessors at the 23rd day of September, from which we excerpt these few things. Adomnan, whom they reckon to have been born around the year 625 Lanigan, volume III, page 12., in the year 677 (or rather 678, since the Four Masters, from whose Annals this number is taken, are accustomed to take away one year), or, as more prefer Ware, Ussher, Lanigan, volume III, page 97., in the year 679, was made abbot of Iona, and thus, though only a priest, yet the primate and head of all the Columban monks, both bishops and priests and others, who lived in present-day Scotland and Ireland. Of which unusual order, as Bede says, an explanation has more than once been given in our Acts See loc. cit., number 15 and following.. He discharged an embassy to Aldfrith, king of Northumbria, and afterwards to the Irish, to teach the lawful time of celebrating Easter. And he died in the island of Iona in the year 703 or 704, after at least twenty-five years of prelacy. These things being laid down, everyone sees that what Adomnan, almost his contemporary and instructed by his disciple Oissene, relates of St. Fintan is to be preferred to all the other narratives, which are more recent.
§ II. He was not a disciple of St. Columba of Iona. On his masters, and the monasteries founded by him, and on his pretended episcopate.
St. Fintan went to the monastery of Iona as a young man; From Adomnan, therefore, we deduce first that St. Fintan, immediately after the passing of Columba of Iona from this world to Christ, sailed from Ireland to the island of Hy, in order to embrace the institutes of St. Columba. Now St. Columba departed from among the living, as our Baert showed at length after Ussher and Ware Volume II of June, page 193, number 17 and following., in the year 597, on the 9th day of June, at which his Acts were given. In this same year, therefore, as is altogether probable from the words of Adomnan, Fintan came to the monastery of Iona, governing a youthful age indeed, especially considered in respect of Columba, who was an old man (above, number 7), yet mature enough to be able to build a monastery in the borders of the Leinstermen, in Ireland, and to preside over it. These things therefore are to be firmly held, that St. Fintan went to the island of Hy, or Iona, while still almost a young man, namely in the said year, and that in Ireland before that time, as appears from the whole narrative of Oissene, or Adomnan (number 6), he did not found monasteries. From which Papebroch is to be corrected, who conjectures from the Acts of St. Laisren Acta SS. volume II of April, page 544. that St. Fintan was already living as a monk in the island of Hy in the year 566, and adds other things which will be examined in the Annotations to chapter IV of the Life to be published. Then it is likewise plain from Adomnan that St. Fintan was unknown in the island of Hy before his arrival (above, number 6, at the end), and to Baithene himself, or Baitheneus, abbot of Iona (number 7); whence there falls again what is related in Acts of slight credit, yet to be printed because others are lacking, about Baithene's association in Ireland with St. Fintan (below in the Acts, number 4). But whether he was seen in Ireland by St. Columba of Iona himself, as the same Acts assert, must be examined a little.
[10] The Acts, namely, relate in number 4 that he was taught in the school of St. Columba, He was not a disciple of St. Columcille, while this Saint was living at Hykille mair diathrib, a monastery of Ireland. But from Baert Acta SS. June, loc. cit. and others who have illustrated the Acts of St. Columba we learn for certain that he crossed over in the year 563 as an exile to England, and lived there until the year of his death, 597. From elsewhere we know that in the year 597 St. Fintan had not yet passed his youth (preceding number). But if he was in the school of St. Columba while he lived in Ireland, that certainly took place before the year 563, and he must then have been at least twelve years old, and so been born around the year 550. From which it would be deduced that in the year of St. Columba's death, 597, he was not a young man but a man of mature age, namely of 47 years; which, from Adomnan, a witness worthy of credit before all who are available to us, can in no way be admitted. And this will also be confirmed from what follows.
[11] nor is it probable that he ever saw him. There is also another little narrative of our Acts in which St. Columba, making a journey in Ireland and carried in a chariot, is shown meeting the boy Fintan and prophesying about him (Acts, number 1). It is indeed established from the life of St. Columba that at some time, after the monastery of Iona in Scotland had been erected, he made a journey through Ireland Acta SS. June, loc. cit., page 225, number 78., but it is probable that the rest which is added rests on no foundation: first from the silence of Adomnan.
For he was in Ireland several times Acta SS. volume VI of September, page 645, number 16, and page 647, number 26., visited its monasteries Ibid., and from the knowledge he had received could say that St. Fintan was well known throughout all the churches of the Scots (that is, of the Irish), and yet nowhere brings forward anything of these prophecies of his most glorious predecessor Columba. Then, and this proof alone is to me in place of all, from the fact that the religious old priest Oissene, Fintan's own monk, who testified to Adomnan that he had heard everything from the mouth of St. Fintenus, said not even a word about all these things, although they would redound very greatly to the praise of SS. Fintan and Columba. This too, therefore, must be held, that these Saints were probably not known to each other either in Ireland or anywhere else, and moreover that it can scarcely be admitted that St. Fintan, who in the year 597 was still a young man, had already been born in the year 563, in which St. Columba departed from Ireland.
[12] On the masters of the Saint Inquiry must also be made into the masters of St. Fintan, if indeed there were any besides the Cleric and old man Columb-crag, who becomes known from Adomnan. For that St. Columba was not his master has just been shown. Other names then come forward (in the Acts, number 2 and following), but partly unknown from elsewhere, and about which, since our Acts are not sincere enough to be trusted, it will be enough to have said a few things in the Annotations. Finally St. Fintan is said to have lived in the schools of St. Comgall of Bangor and of St. Sinell. He could have been the disciple of St. Comgall, who is said to have been born in the year 516 and to have departed from life in the year 601 [Acta SS. May, volume II, page 580, number 5; Lanigan, loc. cit., volume II, page 61 and following.], but we have no other authority than the said Acts of the slightest credit, whose narrative, if it were admitted, would have St. Fintan, before the journey to Iona of the year 597, passing almost perpetually from school to school and from master to master: which it is not probable was done by a holy man, and which in the asserted mastership of St. Columba of Iona we have found manifestly false. Whether, therefore, St. Fintan lived in the school of St. Comgall, that is, in the monastery of Bangor, which St. Comgall more probably founded around the year 559 Ussher, Antiquitates, in the chronological Index; Lanigan, loc. cit., page 66., and in which he ruled countless monks, there is very much room for doubt, since moreover neither Adomnan (above) nor the biographers of St. Comgall Acta SS. May, loc. cit. in any way record it.
[13] with several. The same perhaps is to be pronounced about the mastership of St. Sinell, about which Ussher writes in this manner: He (Munnu), called by another name Fintan, born of his father Tulcan and his mother Fedelmia, after he had stayed 18 years with St. Synell mac Maynacur, abbot of the monastery of Cluayn-ynis in Lough Erne, undertook the journey to the island of Hy at the same time in which St. Columba ended his life there [Loc. cit., page 485, edition of 1687; Lanigan, loc. cit., pages 233 and 404; cf. Carlisle, loc. cit., under Cleenish.]. But Ussher adduces no authority here except our very Acts of St. Fintan, which he too had at hand. And we know the itch of many hagiographers of Ireland to entangle the Acts of the Saint whom they celebrate with the history of all the illustrious Saints of the same epoch Cf. Lanigan, ibid., page 407.; which fraud, or rather simplicity ready to take up the little stories of the common people, has been very frequently detected, chronology and geography above all lighting the way, by our predecessors and by the learned man Lanigan. Yet the mastership of St. Sinell over St. Fintan is perhaps to be admitted more easily than that of St. Comgall, because his name, less known from elsewhere, could with more difficulty have been borrowed.
[14] Teachmunnu founded by him because of the exhortation of St. Columba. St. Fintan, departing from the monastery of Iona, was sent to the borders of the Leinstermen in Ireland, near the sea (above, number 7), to found a monastery there. He will not long have put off, says John Lanigan, undertaking the foundation of this monastery, which from his name was called Teach-Munnu, or the house of Munnu Ibid., page 406.. We likewise say both that the monastery of Teach-Munnu, or Taghmon, was founded by St. Munnu, and that it is the very one which St. Columba of Iona had ordered to be built in Leinster and near the sea. Both we judge to be demonstrated by these four reasons. First, from the site, which Adomnan learned from Oissene, the monk and disciple of St. Fintan himself (above, number 7), and it agrees entirely with the place of Teach-Munnu. Then from the very name of the monastery. Third, from the Life of St. Aidan, or Maedoc, bishop of Ferns in Leinster, a contemporary of St. Fintan or Munnu, in which there is talk of St. Munna the abbot, dwelling in his monastery which is called Teach-Munnae. The passage will be recited entire in the Annotations to the Life (Annotation n to the last chapter of the first Life). Fourth, finally, from our Acts translated from the Irish language into Latin, not indeed according to our version, but according to that which Colgan had at hand. The passage which he brings forward Trias thaum., page 461., and which corresponds to number 5 of our Acts, is this: You shall say to him (they are the words of St. Columba to Baithene): Return, son, to Ireland, because you will be the head of a great people there; and let him go to the part of the Leinstermen which is called Censelach, because there will be his honour and resurrection. Which words Ussher also read in his copy Loc. cit., page 485.. Further, Taghmon, or Teach-Munnu, exists in that very part of southern Leinster which was formerly called Censelach or Kenselach. From all of which it is manifest that the monastery of Taghmon is the very one which St. Munnu was ordered by St. Columba of Iona to build.
[15] Whether he founded others is uncertain. But will this be the only monastery erected by St. Fintan in Ireland? If we believe the Acts, whose assertions in this matter Colgan embraces with his usual confidence Acta SS., page 606., he would have founded several monasteries, whose names will soon be met with in the Acts themselves. This could have happened, yet two things are to be observed. First, it is not to be admitted, as the Acts relate (below, numbers 8, 9, 10 and 14), that the holy man travelled long in Ireland and founded monasteries, and indeed dwelt for five years at Helensis, before he obeyed the command of St. Columba by founding the monastery of Teachmunnu in the borders of the Leinstermen. Then, if any monasteries besides that of Taghmon were founded, this at least was the principal one, indeed seems to be the only one which St. Fintan governed. For Oengus the Culdee in the Litanies Colgan, Acta SS., page 453. records that only a hundred and fifty monks were under him, while the much more recent Martyrology of Donegal says two hundred and thirty or thirty-three Above, number 3; cf. Lanigan, volume II, page 407, number 77.: which numbers can easily be attributed to one and the same monastery, which St. Fintan ruled for a long time, and other fathers of Irish monks presided over many more. Thus under St. Gerald, successor of St. Colman, in the monastery of Mayo in Connacht Acta SS. volume III of February, page 87, number 21., three thousand three hundred monks are related to have lived; in that of Bangor and a few neighbouring ones under St. Comgall about three thousand Lanigan, volume II, page 63.; under St. Laisren in a single monastery fifteen hundred See below, number 28.. Moreover, that it was the only one which St. Fintan ruled is implied by the passage of the Life of St. Maedoc already indicated, in which St. Maedoc is said to have visited St. Munna the abbot, dwelling in his monastery which is called Teach-Munnae: as if he did not dwell in others. Wherefore what is narrated in the Acts about so many monasteries founded by St. Fintan is to be received cautiously, and I, if Adomnan did not speak so magnificently of the man's celebrity, would not undeservedly doubt that these things are false.
[16] He was not bishop of Cluain-edhnech Colgan in the Appendix to the Life of St. Fintan of Cluain-edhnech, treating in chapter IV Acta SS., page 356. of the Prelates who after him ruled the monastery of Cluain-edhnech, numbers among them in the fifth place the Saint who is venerated on this day: St. Munna, son of Tulchan, who is also called Fintan, bishop and abbot of Cluain-ednech. Which episcopate and prelacy John Lanigan deservedly calls a fable Volume II, page 408., adding these things: whence Colgan received these things he does not indicate, but they are perhaps to be attributed to some scholiast who, having found one or another Fintan at Clonenagh, or, as it was formerly called, Cluain-edhnech, and moreover another Fintan who was a bishop, believed that these things should be thrown together upon St. Munnu, because he too bore the name of Fintan. This last seems probable to me. For as regards Colgan, whatever the author just reported says, he does indicate in some manner whence he drew his material; for he writes a little after the words brought forward above: These abbots of Cluain-edhnech receive from the menologies and lives of the saints, and the following from the annals of the Four Masters. Further, the Irish menologies, that of Tallaght excepted, and the Lives of the saints written in Ireland, as has so often been said by our predecessors, are not universally safe monuments, and yield far, as regards commanding belief, to some books of Annals of the same country. Colgan seems to me to have had in view only the Martyrology of Donegal, whose announcement of St. Fintan we brought forward above at number 3, in which the same words come forth as are used by Colgan. For we have found no other monuments in which these things are met with, nor do the annals of Donegal themselves, or of the Four Masters, as Colgan indicated above, although they were made in the same monastery as the Martyrology of Donegal, have these things; nor finally did the often-praised Colgan, although he mentioned St. Fintan or Munnu in many places, anywhere else adduce his pretended episcopate or prelacy of Cluain-edhnech.
§ III. The controversy about celebrating Easter. Whence it arose, and the synod on it, at which St. Fintan is present. On the same, the letter of Cummian. The chronological order of his deeds.
The controversy about Easter. Four epochs We must now treat of the synod at which St. Fintan is said in the Acts (number 22) to have been present, and which was held about Easter, to be celebrated according to the Roman computation. For a long time indeed, and for more than a whole century, a controversy of this kind lasted in England and Ireland; for it arose when St. Augustine, at the exhortation and sending of Gregory the Great, began to preach the Gospel to the English, and in the year 731, when Bede was completing his History, the Britons had not yet bidden farewell to the old error Bede, book V, chapter 22.. And so that on what matter this controversy was held
we may briefly set it out, it will not be useless to distinguish several epochs in the method of determining Easter, which was done in different ways at different times.
The First comprises the space of time that elapsed from the death of Christ to the Council of Nicaea, in which Christians universally used the cycle of 84 years, which they had received from the Jews. By this method all would have kept the same lunar month in which Easter was to be celebrated, but they differed in fixing the days of the months of March and April, between which the new moon had to fall, so that it might be the new moon of the paschal month. Thus it came about that for some Easter sometimes fell even before the vernal equinox, just as with the Jews: which is said to have been forbidden by the Nicene Fathers; others allowed that it could fall on the very day of the equinox, which was likewise proscribed by later generations. They differed very greatly also in the other canons: thus some celebrated the Jewish Pasch on the fourteenth moon itself, on whatever day it fell, with the Quartodecimans On their manifold kinds see Petavius, de Doctr. temp. book II, chap. 58.; others indeed on the Lord's day, but even then when the fourteenth moon itself coincided with that day, which was forbidden by the Nicene synod, so that Easter should never be celebrated on the same day as the Jews.
[18] in the use of the paschal cycles In the Second epoch, then, the Nicene Fathers contributed much toward bringing in unity, yet without prescribing the use of any cycle, but by setting forth a few canons, as has just been said, and by entrusting to the church of Alexandria, on account of the skill of the Egyptians in this matter, the task of announcing the paschal Sunday each year to the other churches. Not long afterward Eusebius of Caesarea introduced a new cycle of 19 years, borrowed from Meton and Anatolius [Petavius book VI, chap. 1; Daunou, Cours d'études, vol. III, Chronologie, page 302.], which, as though it had been composed in the name of the Council of Nicaea, was gradually admitted not only by the church of Alexandria but by the whole East [Smith in the Appendix to Bede, in Migne, vol. XCV, col. 319; Bucherius, de doctrina temporum, Antwerp, 1664, page 205.]. But at Rome and in the whole West they used the cycle of 84 years until the times of Leo the Great; at which time Victorius of Aquitaine, by order of Hilarus, archdeacon of Rome, first, in the year 457, ingeniously converted the nineteen-year cycle, partly bent to the canons of the Latins, as Smith puts it Loc. cit., carried round through twenty-eight cycles, into a period of 532 years. Hence it came about that on both sides the paschal month was the same, but the other canons for determining the paschal Sunday itself were not yet the same on both sides.
[19] are to be distinguished. The Third epoch begins from the year 525, in which Dionysius Exiguus published at Rome the cycle of Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria, of 95 years, or rather the Victorian of 532 years reformed to the canons of the Alexandrians [Petavius, loc. cit. book II, chap. 68; Daunou, Cours d'études historiques, vol. III, chronologie, page 358.], which the Roman church embraced. In the lapse of centuries this was found not yet to be free of every fault, and in the year 1582 the Calendar was reformed for the last time, by the authority of Gregory XIII, from whom we may date the Fourth epoch, in which we are now running our course.
[20] St. Patrick used the cycle of 84 years, To return to the Irish, they say that St. Patrick came to their island in the year 432 Lanigan, vol. I, page 207.. Now at this time difficulties not seldom arose in determining Easter, and besides, there was not so great a unity of method in the West that St. Ambrose and the Milanese were not permitted to use the Alexandrian cycle of 19 years. Accordingly, in the age of St. Patrick, a certain change was introduced into the old Latin method, admitted by some, by which the differences with the eastern church might be removed: namely, they reckoned the paschal Sundays no longer from the 16th to the 22nd moon, as the other Latins did, but from the 14th to the 20th. Ussher Brit. Eccl. Antiq. page 482. probably ascribes this change to Sulpicius Severus, from the letter of Aldhelm of Malmesbury to Geruntius Among the Bonifatian letters, XLIV, in which he says that the Irish celebrated the paschal sacrament according to the rule of Sulpicius Severinus (Severus), who described a course of 84 years. And this can be confirmed by the fact that Sulpicius Severus is actually found to have been devoted to the computistic art [Daunou, loc. cit. page 456; Petavius, book II, chap. 68, vol. I, page 117, ed. 1757.]. He, however, if he was its author, took that change from the canon of Anatolius, from which also the Scots and the Irish in the seventh century defended their method [Smith loc. cit. col. 326; Bede, book III, chap. 25; cf. Petavius, book VI, chap. 11.].
[21] according to the method of Sulpicius Severus. Patrick, then, who was a fellow disciple of Sulpicius Severus under St. Martin of Tours and brought very many heads of discipline from Gaul into Ireland, taught there the Latin cycle of 84 years with the addition of Sulpicius. From here the method passed over to the Irish monastery of St. Columba on the island of Iona, which lies off the coast of present-day Scotland, and then to all the Britons. For that these had previously held the Latin cycle simply, with the paschal moons 16 to 22, seems sufficiently established from the letter of Constantine the Great Eusebius, Life of Constantine, chap. 3., in which he writes that among the Britons too, whom he knew well, Easter was celebrated at the same time as at Rome.
[22] Before the coming of St. Augustine, the Britons and Irish But afterward, namely in the fifth and sixth centuries, the Saxons, having occupied the whole eastern and southern coast of Britain, closed off from the Irish and the Britons the way of communication with the Roman church until the times of Gregory the Great and the coming of St. Augustine [Prideaux, Connection of the history of the Old and New Testam. part II, Book 4, in Lanigan, vol. II, page 383.]. Hence it came about that both were ignorant of the cycle of Victorius of Aquitaine, which was published at Rome in the middle of the fifth century, and likewise of its reformation undertaken in the sixth century by Dionysius Exiguus, but persisted in the use of the cycle of 84 years, which they had learned before the invasion of the Saxons from the Roman church, and then somewhat altered or augmented from St. Patrick and his disciples. St. Augustine, therefore, arriving with his companions in A.D. 596, taught the Saxons, together with the Catholic faith, the more correct Dionysian cycle, which was at that time in use at Rome. But the Britons and the Irish, accustomed to the old cycle of 84 years, gave their assent to the emendation with difficulty; and this is the origin of that celebrated paschal controversy, about which many synods were held, and which was at last almost laid to rest in the year 729, when the monks of Iona gave way, the Britons, however, as Bede complains Book V, chap. 22., still resisting.
[23] were ignorant of the new cycles. St. Fintan defends the old As regards Ireland, its southern inhabitants, on the authority of Bede Book III, chap. 3., were the first to acquiesce in the Roman method brought in by St. Augustine; Adamnan then, abbot of Iona, who had not been able to persuade his own monks to embrace it, taught it with happier result about the year 703 to most of the northern Irish; and 25 years afterward, the monastery of Iona now acceding, as has been said, and with it all the Columban monks of Ireland, who had held out last, the whole nation was at length brought to the use of the Dionysian cycle. But in the time of St. Fintan Munnu, who flourished at the beginning of the seventh century, when the Roman missionaries had recently arrived, it is far from the case that even the southern Irish themselves, among whom he spent his life, had yet embraced the still unknown cycle. It was in use only among their enemies and those of the Britons, namely the Saxons; and moreover it announced an Easter different from their own only at certain intervals, and since they were separated from the Saxons by the sea and by a language wholly different, no one will wonder that the new cycle was slowly spread among the Irish. Saint Fintan, therefore, revering above all the great Columba of Iona and his disciples, by whom he had been taught, followed the old Easter and, when a synod was held on the matter, defended it. In this, for the reasons just stated and because it was a question only of a matter of discipline, he will easily be excused from sin, at least grave sin: into which question, which is common to very many Saints of England and Ireland, our Baert inquired a little in the Acts of St. Columba of Iona Vol. II of June, page 192, num. 14., whom consult, if you please. Concerning that Synod the Acts to be published below relate, among other things, the following.
[24] in the synod held on the matter, to which seems to be referred Now at a certain time there was a great council of the peoples of Ireland in the plains of Ailbe (In Ussher Page 485., Colgan Acta SS. page 409. and in the shorter manuscript Life: in the white plain), among whom there was a great contention throughout the whole year between the new Easter and the old Easter. For Laserian of Leighlin with his followers defended the new Easter and the new order. But the other elders of Ireland praised the old Easter and the old order. Saint Fintan did not come at once to this council, and all the people were waiting for him; for he was the first and chief of those who defended the old Easter. But far safer is another document, namely the letter of Cummian to Segienus, abbot of St. Columba, concerning this very controversy, in which he tries to induce the Columban monks, who opposed the new order more than others, to embrace it. From this letter we learn that when the Dionysian cycle of 532 years was introduced into Ireland in place of the other of 84 years which the Irish had retained until then, we learn, I say, that a synod was then held in the plain of Lene, and that after the synod, because some were unwilling to yield to its decrees, an embassy was undertaken to Rome. The envoys were at Rome in the church of Saint Peter at Easter (in which, says Cummian, we were separated from the Roman Easter by an entire month, namely on account of the old reckoning). He adds that they had returned in the third year. Now the year in which the southern Irish, from the use of the cycle of 84 years Cf. Bucherius, loc. cit. page 419, chap. 9, on the Latin cycle of 84 years., differed from the Romans in fixing the feast of Easter by almost an entire month See below, num. 27. was the six hundred and thirty-first, when at Rome it was celebrated on March 24, but in Ireland on April 21. In the year 631, therefore, the envoys were at Rome, and the synod had been held a year or two before; which will presently be inquired into more closely; but since it is very likely that this synod, mentioned by Cummian, does not differ from that which has just been indicated from the Acts of St. Fintan, or at least that they were certainly held in the same controversy and could scarcely be separated by an interval of a few years, it has seemed worth while to insert here Cummian's narrative in his own words.
[25] the letter of Cummian the Irishman For I, says Cummian Migne, Patrologia, vol. LXXXVII, col. 969 and 976., in the first year in which the cycle of five hundred and thirty-two years began to be observed by our people (namely the Victorian, adjusted by Dionysius to the Alexandrian canons), did not accept it, but kept silent: I dared neither to praise nor to blame it… Then for a year, withdrawing in secret, I entered the sanctuary of God, that is, the sacred Scripture, and, as far as I was able, I studied it closely; then the histories, and lastly the cycles that I could find. When the year, as I said before, had run its course, according to Deuteronomy (Deut. XXXII) "I asked my fathers that they might declare to me, my elders that they might tell me," namely the successors of our former fathers, of Bishop Ailbe (of Emly) Ussher, Antiquitates, page 484; Lanigan, vol. II, page 390., of Queranus of Coloniensis (or Kieran of Clonensis, that is, of Clonmacnoise), of Brendan (of Birr), of Nessan (of Mungret), of Lugid (of Clonfert), what they thought of our excommunication made by the aforesaid apostolic sees. And they, gathered into one, some in person, some by a legate sent in their stead, decreed in the plain of Lene, and said: "Our predecessors commanded, through suitable witnesses, some living, others sleeping in peace, that we should humbly and without scruple take up the better and stronger things, approved, brought to us (by St. Augustine) from the fount of our baptism and wisdom and from the successors of the apostles of the Lord."
[26] to the abbot of Iona Afterward they rose together and celebrated a prayer (as is the custom) for us on this matter, that they would celebrate Easter with the universal church in the coming year. But not long afterward there rose up a certain whited wall, pretending to keep the tradition of the elders, who did not make both one, but divided them, and in part made void what had been promised; whom the Lord (as I hope) will strike in whatever way He wills. Then it seemed good to our elders, according to the commandment, that if a difference should arise in a case, and judgment should vary between leprosy and not leprosy, they should go to the place which the Lord chose (Deut. XVII, 8); so that, if the causes were greater, according to the Synodal decree (on the antiquity of which decree John Lanigan discourses Loc. cit. page 391.), they should be referred to the head of cities. We sent those whom we knew to be wise and humble, as children to their mother. And having a prosperous journey in the will of God, and some of them having come to the city of Rome, they returned to us in the third year. And so they saw all things as they had heard them, but found them very much more certain, as being seen rather than heard. And they were in one lodging with a Greek and a Hebrew, a Scythian and an Egyptian, in the church of Saint Peter together at Easter (in which we were separated by an entire month); and before the holy things they thus testified to us, saying: "Throughout the whole world, as we know, this Easter is celebrated." And we proved that the power of God was present in the relics of the holy martyrs and the writings which they brought. We saw with our own eyes a girl wholly blind opening her eyes at these relics, and a paralytic walking, and many demons cast out.
[27] Ussher Loc. cit. judged that this passage of Cummian refers to that synod which is mentioned in the Acts of St. Fintan (above, num. 18), according to Ussher's opinion. The place, he says, in which the aforesaid synod was held was the Plain of Lenia (as it was anciently called Ussher, ibid. page 296, or 572 of the 1639 edition.), or Legh-Lenia, called by others the White Plain, on the bank of the river which Ptolemy calls the Birgus and we the Barrow, situated not far from Mount Margeus. The president was the archbishop of Emly, successor of St. Ailbe; the chief antagonists were Molaissi, also called Lasreanus, son of Kiarell, abbot of the monastery of Leighlin; and Abbot Fintan Munnu of Munnu's monastery, which likewise took the name Teachmunnu from him. And having added some things about our Saint and the passage written out from his Life, in which the Synod is treated, he proceeds thus: The year of the holding of that synod seems to have been the 630th of the Christian era, in which the Irish, following the cycle of 84 years, were observing the paschal Sunday on the Kalends of April, a whole week before the time appointed in the Alexandrian Enneadecaeteris (already received by the Romans) (nay, for an entire century, and as regards that part of it which had been adopted by Victorius of Aquitaine, for almost two centuries): whereas in the year immediately following (or 631) a difference of four whole weeks came between the two reckonings; they celebrating their Easter on the 21st of April, but the Romans on the 24th of March; to which we have not the least doubt that that narrative of Cummian looks: We sent those whom we knew to be wise, etc., as above, num. 26. And we judge that to the same may be referred what we read in the Life of Lasreanus: that he himself, in the last period of his life, went to Rome with fifty holy men, and that the Roman Pontiff both consecrated him a Prelate and, on his return, committed to him the office of Legation in Ireland. On which the Acts of St. Lasreanus may be consulted, in volume II of April Page 546, num. 14..
[28] Colgan thinks there were two synods Colgan at first followed this opinion Acta SS. page 53., but afterward proposed another Ibid. page 409.. He found, namely, that a certain place of the territory of Fearcal, in the present King's County, was formerly called Maghlene, and because the Irish word Magh signifies a plain, he judged that the council in the plain of Lene, of which Cummian writes, was held there; but that the one which in the Life of St. Fintan is said to have been held in the white plain near the monastery of Leighlin (above, num. 25) was later and different. The patrons of this opinion find another proof Lanigan, vol II, page 393. in the fact that Cummian does not utter so much as a word about any dispute that took place at the synod, such as St. Fintan's biographer relates at length (below in the Life, num. 22), or about our Saint himself and his antagonist St. Lasreanus. Lastly he adduces a third, but of no weight, arguing thus: in the Life of St. Fintan these words are read: For Lasreanus, abbot of the monastery of Leithglinne, under whom were fifteen hundred monks, defended the new order, who had lately come from Rome. Now, he says, these words, who had lately come from Rome, are to be understood not of the new order but of Lasreanus; which everyone sees is asserted gratuitously, however much we do not deny that he was at Rome, as is read in his Acts Vol. II of April, page 546, chap. 3.. In the Life to be published below (num. 22), which is defective in some places, that clause, who had lately etc., has been suppressed, but the shorter manuscript Life, which the same Salamanca codex presents no less than the longer one which we publish, entirely excludes Colgan's interpretation Salamanca Codex, folio 140 recto.: But Lasreanus, abbot of Lecglinne, says the epitomator, under whom were fifteen hundred monks, defended the new order, which had newly come from Rome.
[29] whose arguments are examined Colgan's first proof also establishes scarcely anything; for, to pass over the fact that one proper name is given by Cummian as Lene, the other by Colgan as Maghlene, what region is there where several places are not endowed with the same name? Then the place Maghlene, which Lanigan does not certainly affirm either to have been different from the white plain near Lenia or Leghlene, or indeed to have existed Vol. III, page 393., ought, in order to be preferred to this latter, to excel it by stronger titles, which seem to be wholly lacking. Lastly the second reason, that Cummian is profoundly silent about SS. Fintan and Lasreanus and about any contention that took place, proves nothing else than that our biographer, like most other Irish hagiographers Lanigan, vol. II, page 407, note 71., extolled his hero and his deeds too much and, as will be plain to the reader at first glance, interspersed his narrative with fables. For in the Life of St. Lasreanus Vol. II of April, loc. cit., which is quite prolix, there is not even the least mention of any synod, or of St. Fintan. The things, therefore, which are narrated by St. Fintan's biographer about the contention between the two, as though it had been the principal event of the synod, are not to be taken literally; but, apart from the chief circumstances of places and persons, which agree with authentic monuments, many other things are to be disregarded.
[30] and are refuted. But this reply having been given to the arguments of the adversaries, there are also some difficulties to which they are subject, which we here briefly set out. First, in Colgan's opinion Lasreanus undertook the Roman journey after the first or Maghlene synod, and on his return there was soon held the second great council of the peoples of Ireland, as the Life to be published says, in which there took place the contention so often mentioned; but why is Cummian wholly silent about this second synod, whether held or to be held? Second, Lasreanus had brought back the Roman commands and, as Lanigan seems inclined to think Loc. cit. page 392 and 394., also the letter of Pope Honorius. St. Fintan, then, would have resisted these; which, although we know it to have happened to St. Colman and to a few others, out of ignorance, reverence toward St. Columba and perhaps a certain obstinacy, ought not however to be admitted without serious proof. We, for our part, judge that St. Fintan resisted while the cycle of 532 years, to use Cummian's words, was beginning to be observed in Ireland, that is, in our opinion, about the year 628, and likewise at the synod of Lene; but what he thought after the return of the Roman legation, or after the arrival of the letter of Pope Honorius, provided this arrived before his death, we do not certainly know. For Bede, book III, chap. 3, mentioning the letter of King Oswald to the Scots, whether the Dalriadans or the northern Irish, which was written in the year 635 or a little after, adds this: Moreover the nations of the Scots, who dwelt in the Southern parts of the island of Ireland (among whom St. Fintan with his monks is to be numbered), had long since, at the admonition of the bishop of the apostolic see, learned to observe Easter according to the canonical rite. Third and lastly, the patrons of the other opinion, Colgan, O'Flaherty, Lanigan, each present a different chronological order of the synods, which will certainly not seem to favour their system.
[31] The Synod of which Cummian writes There remains, however, a certain argument of theirs, brought in by Lanigan as though by a return from exile Loc. cit. page 397., which alone is of some weight, and I do not deny that it lends a certain likelihood to the other opinion. It is of this kind: Cummian, as Colgan writes, is said to have been abbot of the monastery of Durrogh, which was situated in the plain of Maghlene, and since he himself was among the chief promoters of the Roman order, as is plain from his letter, the synod could have been held either in his own monastery itself or in the surrounding plain. Lanigan, however, notes this: Cummian may indeed have been abbot in Durrogh before his death, but it is more than doubtful, he says, whether he was adorned with this dignity
when he wrote the letter. He admits, therefore, only Page 395. that he was probably educated there, but that at the time of the synod he probably already had his own monastery, which most probably, he says, was Disertchuimin, today Kilcomin or Kilcummin, so called from his name, and situated in King's County. From which I deduce that that very specious proof, namely that Cummian at the time of the synod of which he was the promoter dwelt in the very plain of Maghlene in which the synod was held, does not rest on a sufficiently firm foundation.
[32] was held in southern Ireland. This proof would nevertheless move me, were it not that other considerations not to be despised stand in the way. We have just heard from Bede that the Irish began about this time to celebrate Easter according to the canonical rite, but only the southern Irish. Moreover Ussher observes Page 484. that the bishops who are praised by Cummian (above, num. 25), and whose successors came together at the synod of Lene, were all from the southern parts of Ireland, which, as he says, agrees with Bede's narrative. What, then, is more likely than that these prelates were assembled in those southern parts themselves, rather than in the middle of Ireland, whither they would have been summoned by an abbot or a monk? For the monastery of Durrogh or Dairmagh was situated there, in the midland part of Ireland, as Adamnan says Acta SS. vol. II of June, page 201, num. 7; cf. Lanigan, vol. II, page 123., and the same must be said of Maghlene. It is therefore much more probable that the southern bishops met in southern Lenia, or the white plain near Leghlene, from which it will also follow that they met only once, all the more because both Cummian and the Life of St. Fintan make mention of only a single synod. This opinion, neglecting the other, is followed also by Drs. Carew An Ecclesiastical history of Ireland. Dublin. 1835, page 257. and Brenan An Eccl. hist. of Ireland. Dublin. 1840, vol. I, page 131., whose published books on the Ecclesiastical History of Ireland were sent to me not long ago by the Rev. P. Hamilton, Archdeacon of Dublin. These things having been sufficiently explained, we judge that the chronological order of events can be arranged in this manner:
[33] The chronological order of events. In the year 628 the Dionysian cycle began to be introduced into Ireland and Easter to be celebrated at the due time, which the Saxons of England had long since learned from St. Augustine.
In the year 629, or perhaps 630 as Ussher judged (above, num. 27), the synod was held in the plain of Lene, or Lenia, adjacent to the monastery of Legh-lene in southern Ireland Lanigan, vol. II, page 390, note 29..
In the year 631, while the Irish envoys were at Rome, the Irish and the other Catholics differed by almost an entire month in celebrating Easter. In the same year or the next these envoys returned to their homeland, exhorting to the Catholic Easter, and since all sincere men, even a little learned in ecclesiastical matters, knew well enough that the Roman Pontiff wished to lead them to this, as had happened with the Saxons, Bede could write of this time that the southern Irish, at the admonition of the bishop of the apostolic see, had learned to observe Easter according to the canonical rite Cf. Lanigan, ibid. page 394, note 37.. These words of Bede, therefore, do not require us to say with Ussher In the Chronological Index. that the letter of Honorius, of which Cummian has nothing, was written in the year 629, which also does not seem to agree with Bede's narrative Hist. eccl. book II, chap. 18 and 19; cf. Lanigan, page 394..
In the year 631 or 632, Cummian, an Irishman and, as is likely, a Columban monk, wrote concerning Easter to Sigienus, abbot of St. Columba of Iona.
In the year 633 Honorius, the Roman Pontiff, likewise wrote concerning Easter to the Irish.
§ IV. The year of St. Fintan's death. His Acts. Of Conchenna his sister.
No writing of the Saint survives. He is shown to have died Dempster, with his usual audacity, makes a certain Fintan, and, as Colgan interprets Trias Thaum. page 470., Fintan Munnu, the author of various writings of which there is no mention anywhere else. Tanner gives their list in the Bibliotheca Britannica Under Fintanus., but it is not worth while to transcribe these invented titles here. As regards the year of the death of St. Fintan, Ussher writes this at the year 634 Antiq. in the chronological Index.: Munnu or Fintan, son of Talchan, who lately took part in the synod of Lech-lene, died in Ireland on the 12th of the Kalends of November, as the Annals of Tigernach have it. But let us hear Lanigan, who has called the monuments of Ireland anew to critical examination and to whom the reader has perceived that we owe much in this Commentary: having related Ussher's opinion Loc. cit. page 408., Ware, he says, more correctly substitutes the year 635 Scriptores, under Munnu., for the Four Masters, who are accustomed to anticipate by one year (which we have found frequently to happen with other Irish Annals also), likewise have the year 634 Colgan, Trias Thaum. page 373..
[35] in the year 635. Our Boschius Vol. I of August, page 352, dd. determined otherwise, but on a foundation not firm enough, arguing thus: in the manuscript Life of St. Lugid, or Luan, or Moluan, it is read that St. Fintan, having been admonished by an angel that he dealt too harshly with his monks, asked and obtained to be struck with leprosy; which is there said to have lasted until the day of his death. The printed Life of St. Luan has the same, adding that this leprosy lasted for twenty years. But our Lives of St. Fintan, which Boschius likewise saw and the one of which we here put into print, state only how many years the leprosy persisted (below, num. 21), not declaring whether or not he suffered it until his death, which seems to have escaped Boschius. However that may be, the same writer proceeds in this manner: In the Life of St. Mochua cited, he is said to have been a leper only up to seven years, when, healed by St. Mochua, he survived for a longer time (See below in the Annotations to num. 21 of the Life). But one testimony must yield to four others, at least equally ancient. Further, whether Fintan survived Moluan by only 20 years or by 24, his death cannot be put off until the year 634, as it is put off in Colgan at January 10, page 50, note 8, and in Ussher in the chronological Index: since the life of Luan cannot be extended beyond the year 602, as has been shown in the preliminary Commentary; where we extended it as far as was permissible, in order to come closer to those chronologers; until we ourselves should discuss the Acts of St. Fintan. These Acts, then, having now been examined, since St. Fintan treated at the synod of not introducing the new order of Easter, he cannot have departed from life before the year 629 (above, num. 33); and further, from the Annals of Ireland, which are safer in this matter than the Life of St. Lugid mixed with fables, we have learned that Fintan died in the year 635; and finally, concerning the year of the death of St. Lugid, on which, as on a foundation, Boschius relies, there is no sufficient agreement among the authors Lanigan, vol. II, page 211..
[36] To say now a few things about the Acts which we publish, it seems certain to me that they were first written in Irish and translated into Latin at different times. What kind of Acts are published. For the different Latin copies, of which we have seen excerpts, namely those of Ussher, Ware and Colgan, differ only in style, but not in substance; that which we publish below differs most of all. It was, however, according to our custom, to be preferred to the shorter Acts, which we likewise have, since these are nothing but an abridgement of the former. Both, however, are excerpted from the same Salamanca codex, very ancient, which our predecessors frequently used and which, while we are writing this, has been taken for a time to Ireland with other codices, so that some of the principal Lives, unless I am mistaken, may be copied. The Life of St. Fintan, however, like most Irish Lives Lanigan, vol. II, page 65., contains some anachronisms and is full of miracles and portents which the authority of scarcely anyone would make persuasive. One or another of them is repeated in other Lives of Irish Saints, as will be said in the Annotations. In the same Annotations we frequently compare the shorter Life, which we call Life B, with the fuller one which we publish. Finally we subjoin another Life of St. Munnu, or rather the Lessons of the Aberdeen Breviary concerning the same saint, at October 21, which we likewise illustrate with some Annotations.
[37] Whether Conchenna, sister of St. Fintan, was venerated as a Saint is uncertain. At the beginning of this volume Page 1. we had promised that in this Commentary we would treat of St. Conchenna, whom, standing on the words of Colgan Acta SS. page 606., we believed with certainty to be the sister of St. Fintan; but when the matter was examined she appeared to us too uncertain for us to present here the things which Colgan collected at March 13 concerning St. Conchenna of Kill-slebhe, few as they are. They come down, namely, to these three: the Four Masters, at the year 654, praise a certain St. Conchenna: St. Conchenna of Kill-slebhe died. The Irish Martyrologies also mark some St. Conchenna at March 13. Finally, in the Life of St. Fintan it is read that he raised to life his sister, by name Conchenna. The question is, therefore, whether these three are to be attributed to one and the same Conchenna. Colgan, before he had read the passage of the Four Masters, spoke doubtfully: she is venerated, he says Loc. cit. page 453., as it seems, on March 13, on which the martyrology of Donegal and Marianus Gorman treat of Conchenna, virgin. But in another place Page 606. he no longer doubts at all, yet demonstrates nothing, supposing the matter already settled. On which I observe these few things. It ought to have been shown first that St. Conchenna of Kill-slebhe is the one who is venerated on March 13, on which point one may rightly doubt. For I see that several Saints of this name In Lanigan, vol. III, page 19. are recorded by the Irish. Besides, the martyrology of Tallaght Under num. 5104 of the Brussels library. has at March 13 only the bare name of Conchenna; and Colgan cites nothing from the other more recent martyrologies, which he likewise indicates as announcing Conchenna on March 13 (namely Marianus Gorman, Cathal Maguire and the martyrology of Donegal), that in any way signifies which St. Conchenna is venerated on that day. Next it ought to have been shown that Conchenna, the sister of St. Fintan, was a saint, a title with which she is by no means honoured in the Acts, nor even in the Aberdeen Lessons; and, this having been placed beyond all doubt as a foundation, it had to be proved both that she lived at Kill-slebhe and that she is venerated on March 13. But since all these are lacking, and above all the foundation itself is lacking, everyone sees that I cannot stand by the mere assertions of Colgan, and that nothing is to be added to the passage of the Acts in which Conchenna, sister of St. Fintan, is treated.
LIFE OF SUSPECT CREDIT,
By an anonymous author.
From the Salamanca manuscript codex, now Brussels 7672.
Munnu, also called Fintan, abbot of Taghmon, in Ireland. (S.)
Conchenna, his sister, virgin, in Ireland. (S.)
BHL Number: 2996
BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR. FROM MANUSCRIPTS.
CHAPTER ONE.
The Saint's parents and masters. He goes to the monastery of St. Columcille at Iona. From there he is sent back to Ireland by Abbot Baithene.
Saint Fintan a, priest of the most high God, son of Tulcan, The Saint's birth. was sprung from the grandsons of Niall, of the race of Conall; and his mother, by name Fethelin, was of the race of Maine b, son of Niall c. The house in which Saint Fintan was born had been founded upon a great stone, and when the house fell into decay that stone was honoured by all with great honour, and upon that stone, even to this day, there has been no snow, because of the grace of the holy infant who was born upon that very stone.
One day, when Saint Columba Kille d had come in a chariot across the plain where Fintan was, he said to his charioteer: Get down and bring to me into the chariot that fair little boy e. And Columba asked: Whose is this boy? And it was said to him: He is the son of Tulchan; then Columba said: Nollmoferam f, Tulchan will be a famous man on account of his son.
III
[2] Now this Fintan, when he was a boy, used to guard his father's flocks alone in the woods, He has Cruin Grellam as master, but the boy, leaving the flocks alone, went out daily to read with a man called Cruim Grellam g, who dwelt in Achudbroan. But Tulcan, learning this, rebuked the boy, saying: Why have you left the flocks among the wolves in the woods? But his mother gently excused him, saying: Of our flocks nothing has perished so far. Then Fintan said to his father: Do not fear, for as long as you are in the world, nothing of your flocks shall perish from wolves and from all beasts, if you leave me to read with the servants of God. And on the next day Tulcan saw two wolves guarding his flocks like common dogs. From that day, for all time, Tulcan's flocks were always guarded by wolves, and the boy was let go to read h.
[3] Now one day Mochoma came from the regions of Connacht i, Congall, and found the boy Fintan at Huisnethmidi, and blessed the boy. And the boy wished to go with Congall to read, and went out with him; and when they had walked on the way, and had celebrated the third hour of the day beside the ford of Fene, the boy Fintan asked that in the excessive heat of the sun he might drink a draught of water; to whom Congall said: Hold out until midday. Now on that day Congall was with his people, very hungry on the journey, and no one invited them to hospitality. And when they had celebrated the middle hour of the day at Glassaid Assu, the boy again asked for a draught of water, and Congall said: Wait a little until the ninth hour. And they celebrated the ninth hour at Uc Combur Deglass, and Congall told Fintan to wait without drink until evening; and when evening had come, Congall found a great supper prepared for him on the way by the Lord, and a most excellent drink. Then Congall said: What we have done today was fitting for us, that we should chastise the diregiam (?) of Christ with thirst, because in return for his thirst this most excellent supper has been sent to us by Christ, after great hunger; fill, then, my cup and give it to the boy, who has provided this supper for the hungry. The boy Fintan, therefore, lived with Congall, and learned the rule k.
[4] After this Fintan came to the school of Saint Columba Kille l, and others. which was at Hikill Mair Diathrib; and there he read the divine Scripture with Columba. Now one day Saint Columba, after his manner, was filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit, and for a great space of the day he sang of all the things which the Holy Spirit dictated to him; and after he had ceased, Columba said: Who was nearest to me when I sang the words of the Holy Spirit? To whom Bithinus m answered: At your side, on your right hand, that boy, the son of Tulchan, was nearest to you. Then Columba said: He shall be a spiritual master and most learned, excelling above all this school.
Then Fintan went out to read with the wisest man of all Ireland and Britain, who was abbot Strennus Hidom Hinnis forlochaib Herni n, and stayed with him 19 years, reading Scripture; and nine other young men were with him, and they were under a most severe rule, so much so that they were not allowed to sift their meal; but the meal with its chaff was mixed with water in a basin and cooked with stones heated in the fire, and this was their daily food.
VII
[5] After this Fintan went on to the island of Ie o, that he might become a monk there with Columbkylle, He passes over to the island of Hy. but Columba before his arrival had departed to heaven; Columba, however, had left his words with Bithinus, saying: After my death there will come from Ireland a certain fair man, curly of head and with ruddy cheeks, Fintan, son of Tulchan, whom I have seen more often in heaven than on earth. He will come hither for this purpose, that he may become a monk here; and you shall not receive him, and this will not be good in his eyes. For the nature of that man is rough, but you shall tell him that he himself shall be an abbot and head of a people, and shall not be a laughing-stock behind another's back. He shall go to the right-hand part of the Leinstermen, beside the sea [p], because there is his honour and his resurrection. And although my portion of land is greater, yet my love and my power with God are not greater than his.
VIII
[6] Fintan therefore returned to Ireland and dwelt in the island of Cuinrigi, His return to Ireland and his journeys. and established there a place by name Athkaien [q]. Now one day he went out onto a lofty mountain of that island to pray, and there he heard the clamour of the men of hell, on the day on which the battle of Slenne was fought. Then Fintan left that island, saying: I will not dwell in a place where I have heard the clamour of the men of hell.
And as he was walking on the way, there met him a certain rich man, by name Enan Macc Nille; and the flocks of that rich man had a pestilence. Then Fintan blessed a certain stream, and by its water the rich man's flocks were healed, and until the end of his life that stream healed the men and the flocks of the rich man. And that rich man offered a field to Saint Fintan, and he established there a place, namely Achethliacc, and left there seven men of his household; and Fintan came to his own people where he was born, but yet he did not look upon that land except only the road his feet walked, nor did he greet anyone there, neither father nor mother, nor brothers nor sisters, who were all then living there.
ANNOTATIONS.
that some copies of the Life assert his monastic profession and others do not. What, then, is to be judged on this matter? Colgan, from the Life of St. Cannech, not only calls Tulchan a monk, but a monk of the monastery of St. Columba at Iona In the places cited., which I find somewhat harder to believe. For Adamnan, who was elected abbot of that monastery about thirty years after the death of St. Munnu (see the preliminary Comment. num. 8), discoursing at length about the son (ibid. num. 5 and following), has nothing about his father Tulchan, who in the monastery of Iona led a most holy Life, as Colgan puts it Ibid. page 452.. Moreover the Life of St. Cannech, on which alone Colgan relies, and an abridgement of which we have in the Salamanca manuscript codex, seems fabulous Acta SS. vol. V of October, page 643, num. 7.. However that may be, from the preceding testimonies I judge it can be admitted that Tulchan was a monk, perhaps of some Columban monastery in Ireland.
p. Prelim. Comment. num. 14. Life B: In the southern region of the Leinstermen, which is called Chensaelaich.
q. Life B: He came to the island of Cuirinrigi and established there a place which is called Athcain, that is, the gentle ford.
CHAPTER II.
He raises two dead persons. Other miracles. He founds the monastery of Teachmunnu.
After this he came to the region of Hele a, and built there the place which is now called Techtailli maicc Segeni, His sister and was there 5 years b; and his mother sent to him there to ask to what place she should come to greet him. He sent back to her: Come to the place which is called Lugmath c, and he raises another from death. and do not come nearer, and I will go out to you at that very place. His mother therefore came, and three daughters of Tulchan with her, namely two penitent women and one virgin. While the mother was awaiting Fintan's arrival in the town of Lugmath, her virgin daughter was struck with pain and died and was buried there. And on the next day Fintan arrived, and when he saw the new tomb, he recognized it, saying: This is Chonchenne d. Then the mother came sadly to him, saying: I beg you in the name of the Lord to raise my daughter to life for me. Fintan said to her: Withdraw, and come to me tomorrow. Then Fintan put everyone away from him, and that night he prayed there alone. And on the next day she returned in health with her mother to her home, and Fintan said to his mother: Take care that you do not come to me again, for if you come hereafter, I will depart from the province in which I shall be, across the sea into Britain.
He raised another dead man in the cell of Biesiche; for one day, when Fintan had come to that place, the inhabitants of that place said to him craftily: O holy man, see, a sick man lies with us in the house and gives no answer; come then that you may bless him: but they concealed the death of that man and kept silent. Then Fintan went out to that house, and, not knowing that the man was dead, simply blessed him with the sign of the cross, and at once the dead man rose up sound, blessing God.
XII
[8] Now when Saint Fintan had dwelt five years in his place, Other miracles of the Saint. in the region of Hele e, there came to him one day a certain handmaid of God, Kyaer, with five other handmaids of God. And the guestmaster went out to greet her. The handmaid said to him: Go to the strong man who dwells here, and tell him to give me this place, because he with his fifty young men is stronger than I with my five handmaids, so that he may build himself another place. And Fintan, hearing this, said to his brethren: What the handmaid of God has said is true; arise, let us withdraw from this place, because our resurrection will not be here, and now there is no sloth; let us leave our labour with the handmaids of God, and carry nothing with you from this place except your axes and your books, and the chrismals, and the common clothing, and let only two oxen be under the wagon with the books. And when the handmaid of God had asked a blessing of him, he answered her: The blessing of God be upon this place, and it shall be blessed before God and men. But you have not deserved a blessing from me, and I cannot shut heaven against you; yet your name and your rank shall not remain upon this place, and few shall know your tomb. And she said: Who then is it that shall dwell in this place? Fintan said: The man who today has borne three tribulations upon the maple of Midlochre, he shall possess this place: this is Tailli mac Segeni, who afterward came to this place f.
XIII
[9] Then Fintan went out to the borders of the Leinstermen, and one night he stayed beside the crosses in the plain of Mete, [His] and on that same night a certain chieftain of the Fotharta, by name Dimma son of Aed Croin, came to that place with sixty men with him. To them Fintan said: Eat the second ox, which draws the wagon with the books. And the laymen could not resist him and ate the ox. Now this Dimma is the one who afterward offered Fintan the place in which he now is g. And on the next day one ox was drawing the wagon, and as they were walking on the way, there met them a certain man with flocks and untamed oxen, to whom he said: Hold one of these calves under your wagon; and at once that calf, placed under the yoke, became gentle and tame.
XIV
[10] After this Fintan went out to the right-hand part of the Leinstermen, to the sea, journeys. according to the word of Columba Kylle h, and was there beside the sea in the place which is called Arid Crama, among the grandsons of Barriche. Now in that very place was the community of Saint Congall, abbot of Bangor; and a fosterling of Congall, by name Aied Gophan, was the chief of that place, who, going into exile, left Fintan in his place until he should return from exile i. And Fintan was in that place 12 years, and God gave him abundant fruit of sea and land and a great plenty, such as was neither before nor afterward in that place.
[11] Now one day there came Guori, son of Eugin, seeking the kingship of the Leinstermen: The Saint's prophecy fulfilled. he laid waste the people who were round about Saint Fintan, and carried off with him their flocks and herds. Then the widows and orphans of the people came to Fintan and wept before him. And Fintan, calling four men to him, said to them: Go and greet Guoire, and tell him to let go to us, in the name of the Lord, the flocks which he has seized. If he hears our prayer, tell him that he shall be king until old age, and shall not be slain, and his race shall hold the kingdom of the grandsons of Kenselach until the day of judgment. But yet I know that this hard man will not hear you, nor let go the flocks of this people, and at the hour when you greet him, his head is being shorn * before you, and you shall say to him: If you do not let go to us the flocks of the people which you have seized, your head shall not be shorn again, but before the hairs of your head grow you shall be slain, and your head shall be cut off, and you shall not be king. Those men who were sent went out, therefore, and greeted Guori, and as Fintan had said, so it was fulfilled; and Guori did not let go the flocks, and he himself was slain on the fifth day.
XVI
[12] Now it came to pass after the death of Saint Congall, abbot of Bangor k, The prelacy of the monastery of Bangor is said to have been offered to him. that his community came to Saint Fintan and said to him: The choice of three things is given you: namely, come with us and you shall be abbot of Bangor after Congall. Fintan answered them: I will not be in the place of another and in the fruit of his labour. I will be in the place which the Lord shall give me, with my monks, to live by the labour of our hands. And again they said to him: This place shall be given to you, and be a monk of Saint Congall. Fintan said: Since Columba Kylle does not receive me, I will hold no other abbot but the Lord. Thirdly the community of Congall said to him: If you accept none of these things, withdraw from this place. Fintan said to them: I will do that, when I have assigned this place to that man who entrusted it to me, namely Aiedgopan. They said: Seek that man, even though it be from Rome, and we meanwhile will remain until you return again. Then Fintan arose, with five men with him, and set out on the way to go to Rome, to
seek Aidumgopan. And when he had gone a little way from the place, across one field, they saw Aidan gopan coming to meet them after 12 years in exile l, and in the same hour they returned together to their home. Then Fintan said to them: Your place after our departure shall not grow greater, nor shall it have a parish, and the sea shall not give it its fruit.
XVII
[13] Then an angel of the Lord came to Fintan, saying: Angels give him Arise and take your monks, and go to that place which is called Aicheth liace Echdromma m, in the regions of Fothar, certain admonitions. because there is your ordination and your resurrection. Fintan therefore went on to that place, and stayed there.
XVIII
Now one day, when Saint Fintan was alone there in his woods, labouring with his hands, he saw three men in white garments coming to him, and he asked a prayer of them. They said to him: Come with us a little way. And when he had walked a little with them, they said to him: In this place shall be your city; and they marked out before him seven places, in which afterward the principal buildings of the city were built, and Fintan set up crosses in those places n.
XIX
[14] Now one night Fintan with his people, having lifted up their voices beside the cross, cried to the Lord; and on the other side, on the same night, a certain chieftain of the Fotharta, dwelling in a neighbouring place, namely Dimma, son of Aed Croin o, The chieftain Dimma offers him a field, to found a monastery. made jubilation with his attendants around the head of a slain layman. Then that chieftain, pierced in heart, said: These two jubilations cannot take place together, namely the jubilation with us around the head at the will of the devil, and the jubilation of psalms with Fintan at the will of God. And when morning came, that chieftain Dimma came and offered him the field in which his city now is [p], and said: What will you give me for this offering? Fintan answered him: The kingdom of heaven shall be given you for your land. Dimma said: That is not enough for me, unless you give me length of life in all my desires, and that my body be not slain, and that you discipline me to the clerical state when I myself wish it, and that I be buried after death among your monks in the holy place. Fintan said to him: All these things shall be given you; where you now are, there you shall be buried. There, therefore, Fintan built, as the angels had appointed for him [q].
[15] These are the petitions of Saint Fintan which the Lord granted him: The Saint's petitions. namely, that of his people the younger shall not die before the elder, but according to the order of age; that none of his race shall be alive seven years before the day of judgment; that everyone whosoever shall have been buried in the place of his tombs, which Fintan himself marked out with his own hand, shall have eternal life; and that when the sound of his bell is heard, which was always in his company and is not struck except at the departure of a soul, whosoever shall have been buried within that boundary, hell shall not be shut upon him after the day of judgment [r]. Therefore he commanded that his monks should not be buried in other places.
ANNOTATIONS.
p. Namely Teachmunnu, or the present-day Taghmon. See the preliminary Commentary num. 1. Life B: The chieftain came to the Saint, offering him the field in which St. Munnu was staying. Cf. the Life num. 13. From this, that chieftain Dimma, son of Aed Croin, may be held to be the founder of the monastery of Teachmunnu. For although in this Life many things are beyond doubt fabulous, yet I should not think that the names of places and princes, and the principal events, some circumstances apart, were invented or adopted at pleasure. Cf. Annot. f to chap. 3
q. As the angels had appointed for him, namely as is read in the Life above, num. 13.
r. These petitions, if there were any, St. Fintan's biographer has evidently disfigured. Life B has recorded the last more clearly in this manner: and that those buried at the time at which the sound of his bell is heard, which he himself was accustomed to have with him, shall not be shut in hell after the day of judgment.
* shall be shorn.
CHAPTER III.
Various miracles and prophecies.
XXI
There was a certain man doing penance with Fintan, by name Becan, Miracles son of Bleden, and that man dwelt with the other penitent men, fifty in number, who ate bread and drank water mixed with a little milk. And Fintan, taking pity on the sick Becan, blessed his cup a, and from that day for seven years fresh milk came to be in his cup, although clear water was drawn for him from one vessel with the other penitents.
XXII
[17] A certain young man of the monks, by name Fintan, son of Eugen, various asked Fintan to let him go to visit his homeland. Fintan said to him: Go, and take care that you drink nothing but water until we greet each other again; and he blessed the cup of that young Fintan. Now after the young man had set out on the way, Fintan, dying, went to heaven. The young man, therefore, having returned to his family, heard of Fintan's death, and would drink nothing but water, because Fintan had told him to drink nothing except water until they should greet each other. The young man, therefore, was content with water for 30 years. Now one day the abbot of the people, by name Mocommoc, incautiously tasted the water which was in that young man's cup, and saw that it was most excellent wine, and that liquor changed him from head to foot; and the abbot told this to the young man. And that young man, hearing this, was confounded, and said to the abbot: Give me the sacrifice, because on the third day I shall go to heaven, since another man on earth has come to know this; for such a savour has been upon my water for 30 years, from the day on which Fintan went out to heaven; because Fintan blessed his cup.
XXIII
[18] The king of the Fotharta, by name Dimma Camcholl, had two sons, Prophecy concerning the sons of King Dimma one by name Kellacan, who was fostered in Airbriu with Cuonan the anchorite. The other son, by name Killinus, was fostered in Munnu's house with Fintan b. Now one day King Dimma came, with the nobles of Fothart, sixty in number, to Cuan of Airbriu, and there they saw Cellach, son of Dimma, in a hyacinth-coloured hood, with purple arrows, having on his shoulders a quiver c with bronze heads, and on his feet he had shoes d adorned with partico and bronze, and the boy's attire pleased them, and they said: This one is well fostered
son of ours. After this the Fotharta came with the king to Munnu's house, and sat before the gate of the place; and the wagons came beside them, and the boys before the wagons with voices raised, singing psalms, and their tablets were fastened to the yokes. And they saw Cilline, son of Dimma, before the wagon, in a black hood, of the colour of sheep e, and in a short white tunic with a black border, and in poor shoes, and this attire displeased them, and they said: Here appears the greatness of our love in these two places, how the two sons are fostered. Then Dimma said to them: There will be great vengeance for these words, for Fintan hears all our words in his house. Then Fintan said to the guestmaster: Go and receive the Fotharta into the house, and do well by them; but yet it does not please them how their son is fostered with us, the son is better fostered in Arbriu. Tell them, then, that the dear son in Airbriu shall possess neither heaven nor earth, and the whole people of the Leinstermen shall slay him. But the son who is fostered here shall be a lord of the church, and a wise scribe, and a bishop, and an anchorite, and shall possess the kingdom of God; and so it was fulfilled.
XXIV
[19] After this King Dimma himself asked a small gift of Saint Fintan, Other and Fintan gave him his tunic, in which Fintan had slept one night, and said to the king: Guard this tunic diligently, for the day will come when this tunic will be timely for you and will deliver you from great danger. After this the aforesaid Kellach, son of Dimma, became a layman, and slew Odo Clane, son of Cruindmael, king of the Leinstermen. Then Cruindmael, having taken an army of all the Leinstermen, came and shut up the Fotharta in Inso Bairri f for loch edidach; but Dimma Cancholl g escaped from the island on his horse, and escaped through the throngs of all the Leinstermen, and no one saw him, because Fintan's tunic hid him. But his household, namely eighty men of the nobles of Fothart, were bound in chains on the island of Tobairri, and two men of them were slain each day; and Kellach, son of Dimma, was slain; and with them was bound Dimma, son of Aed Croin, the friend of Fintan. Then Fintan said to his people: Arise, let us go, for the man who offered us this place is held in chains, to be killed tomorrow. Then Fintan, having taken twelve men with him, came to the camp of the kings, and when the kings saw the chariot and the clerics from afar, they knew that it was Fintan, and that he had come to free Dimma son of Aed Croin. Then Cruindmael said: Carry the man away and hide him, and slay him before Fintan arrives, and meanwhile make a jubilation, as though he had been slain. And Fintan, hearing the jubilation, said: What is that song? Someone answered him: It is the jubilation after the slaying of a man. Fintan said: Until today I have not heard this cry; from this day the kings of this race, except Cruindmel and one other man after him, shall not hold the kingdom more than seven years, for ever. Cruindmel was called to Fintan, and he said to him: Let go to us Dimma, who is bound with you; to whom Cruinmel answered: He has been slain. And Fintan said: That cannot be, because that man shall never be slain. Those men, therefore, who were sent to slay him could not raise their hands nor the sword, and they could not wound him with the spear. Hearing this, Cruindmel offered that man, with his inheritance and progeny, to Saint Fintan for ever.
XXV
[20] There was a certain lay monk h of Saint Fintan, by name Malmarke, Miracles who, in the company of Kellach son of Dimma, had slain Ed Slani. Now this layman was in chains with Cruindmel, on the island of Liac Hain. Then Fintan said: Go out, that you may free your monk Melmarke, who is placed in danger. And five holy clerics of his monks, going out, stood upon the harbour of the island of Liac Hain; and the king knew that it was Fintan's community, and King Cruindmel said: Carry the bound man in a ship onto the sea, and slay him there before the clerics come. And when they had taken him a little way on the sea, the ship stood still in one place and could not be moved this way or that, and the men's hands withered about their weapons, and so they stood fixed and immovable for half the day. Then the king did penance, and released the man to the clerics.
XXVI
A certain woman suffering from an issue of blood was brought on a pallet to Fintan's city i. Then Fintan the guestmaster went out to Fintan, asking him to bless water for the woman. Fintan said to him: Do you want to make me an exorcist for the women of the Leinstermen? Then Fintan the minister went out from him, and secretly took away with him his little hood, which was upon his little bed, and placed it upon the woman; and at once she was cured, and returned on her own feet in health to her home.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER IV.
He asks for leprosy as a punishment and obtains it. The Synod on Easter in the white plain near Leghlene. The Saint's death.
XXVII
An angel of the Lord always came to greet Saint Fintan on two days in the week, He is visited by an Angel and struck with leprosy. namely on Sunday and on Thursday. Now it happened that on a certain Thursday the Angel did not come to him, until he came on the Sunday; to whom Fintan said: Tell me my fault, for which you did not come to me on the accustomed day. The Angel answered: It was not through negligence toward you that I did not come, but in these days a most dear guest entered heaven, at whose coming all the angels, taken up with exceeding exultation and joy, did not come this week to greet the saints of Ireland, namely Lugid mac Coche of Clona ferta a. Fintan said to him: It clearly appears that he alone truly fulfilled the commandments of God; go, then, and return to me again with an answer, that I may know for what reason it was dearer to rejoice at the coming of Lugid than to come to greet me. The Angel therefore came to him, saying: Because the face of no man ever blushed before Lugid, and his monks in heaven will be no fewer than your monks. But you rebuke your monks so that they blush. Then Fintan said: I know what I shall do … you shall not go into exile, but on the night of Thursday a messenger from God b shall draw near; he shall come to you, so that there shall not be greater joy in heaven at the coming of Lugid than at your coming, on the day of your departure. On that night, therefore, Fintan was struck with leprosy of great pain, and it remained upon him 24 c years, and in that time, as the experienced relate, Saint Fintan neither shaved his body with his own hands nor washed in a bath, except on one day only, namely on the day of the Lord's Supper.
XXVIII
[22] Now at a certain time there was a great council of the peoples of Ireland in the plains of Ailbe d, The Synod on Easter. among whom there was a great contention throughout the whole year e, between the new Easter and the old Easter. For Lasserianus of Lethglinne f, with his followers, defended the new Easter and the new order. But the other elders of Ireland praised the old Easter and the old order. Saint Fintan did not come at once to this council, and all the people were waiting for him; for he was the first and chief of those who defended the old Easter. Then Subne, son of Donall, king of Ambarriche g, said: Why do you wait so long a time for this leprous cleric? Even if he does (not) come, the Easter of Lasserianus will hold the primacy until the day of judgment. Lasserianus said to him: Be silent, for what you say Fintan hears in the place where he is, and vengeance
you will receive from him. Now on that day, before evening, Fintan came to the council, and he and Lasserianus greeted each other. And when King Subne had asked a prayer of Fintan, Fintan said to him: Why do you ask a prayer of a leprous cleric? When you spoke reproach against me, Christ blushed at the right hand of God the Father, because I am a true member of Christ; therefore before the harvest is completed you shall die, and your brothers shall slay you, and your blood shall be mingled, and the babtuca h and your head shall be thrown into the river Berbe, and shall appear no more; and so it was fulfilled. For in that month his brother's son slew him beside a small river which is called Blathach, and his head was left at the river Berbe. i And on the next day Fintan said to Lasserianus, before all the people: Now it is time that this council should be ended and each one return to his own places; therefore I briefly say three things to Lasserianus, namely: let our two books be cast into the fire, the book of the old order and that of the new order, that we may see which book escapes from the fire. Or else, let two of our monks be shut up in one house, and let the house be set on fire, that we may see which of the two will be delivered from the fire. Or let us go together, I and Lasseranus, to the tomb of some just monk long dead, and raise him, that he may declare to us the Easter which is celebrated in heaven this year. Lasserianus said to him: I will not go to judgment against the brute Dinnam; for the greatness of your labour, if you were to say that Mount Marce should be exchanged for the plains of Ailbe, and the plains of Ailbe into the place of Mount Marce, God would have done this for you k. Then Fintan said: Let each one, then, do what he believes and what seems right to him.
XXIX
[23] Now one day very early in the morning Saint Fintan came to the house of a certain holy Anchorite of the Britons, He visits a British anchorite. who, dwelling with Fintan in the furthest part of the city, made wagons for the brethren, and in his house a fire was lit for drying the timber of the wagon. And when he saw Fintan suddenly coming into the house, he bent his knees and said to him: Sit a little while in the chair, that your feet may be warmed. And when Fintan had sat down beside the fire, that man held his bare shoes, and saw in them damp sand, and taking it, tied it in his napkin and said: O Saint Fintan, I beg you to tell me what this sand in your shoes is. Fintan said to him: Promise me that you will not tell this to anyone in my lifetime; and when he promised, Fintan said to him: I have now come from the land of promise, in which we four, gathered together, have established our places; but Columba Kille and I, our two places stand together about a ford. And Kannech [l] and Brandinus Mac Ualthe, their places stand about the other ford. Now the name of the place of Columba Kille is called Ath Cain, and the name of my place Port Subi; the name of Kannech's place is called Sethath, the name of Brandan's place Aurphardus [m]. If, then, a temptation should come upon you which you will not be able to bear, you shall go out to that holy land; and it is permitted, if in this place there are always with you twelve new wagons and twelve bronze cauldrons in preparation for the journey. You shall go out, then, to the mountain of stones, in the region of the race of Bogen, to the headland that stretches into the sea, and there you shall begin to sail. Kill your oxen, and it is permitted you to eat the flesh of the oxen. For perhaps, through the haste of setting out, you will not be able to prepare provisions for yourselves, and in the hides of your oxen you shall sail prosperously to the holy land of promise. Now that anchorite told this tale after Fintan's death, and showed the sand which was in Fintan's shoes.
XXX
[24] Saint Fintan had this grace, that he knew the day of death of each one of his people, The gift of prophecy; he knows the secrets of hearts. and he would say to a strong man to whom death was drawing near: Behold, your time has come to go to heaven; and so on the third day that man would go to heaven. Fintan also would say to a man who had lain a long time in bed: Arise and do the works of that man who has died; and at once that sick man would rise up strong, and in health would do the works with the brethren.
XXXI
Fintan also had this grace, that he knew the thoughts of all the brethren, and declared all that took place in their hearts; he himself gave to each one their confessions n.
XXXII
Likewise Fintan would declare to the brethren the number of the guests who were to come, and their attire, before they arrived.
XXXIII
Likewise every word that was said in his absence he knew and heard, as though he were present.
XXXIV
Likewise, if Fintan had blessed the heart of a monk, every vice which grievously arose in his heart, from that hour until the day of his death, that vice did not come to him.
XXXV
Likewise, if Fintan had greeted any guest with a harsh and sudden word, he never ate food until that guest had been gently placated, and he would say: In the past hour I was carnally the son of Tulchan, but now I am spiritually the son of God. Every word of Saint Fintan was prophecy, and every coming in of his and his work was power.
XXXVI
Now when the day of his departure had come, he called his people to him, and blessed them, and, having received the body and blood of Christ, he fell asleep o, and an innumerable multitude of angels came to meet him. And when a throng of demons met him in the air, Saint Fintan looked back toward the heavens; and the demons, seeing the face of Fintan, fled hither and thither with exceeding fear, and no power remained in them, and until the end of the week they could not make war against anyone. And at the coming of Fintan the whole household of heaven rejoiced, where in the sight of the eternal king he remains without end, our Lord Jesus Christ reigning for ages of ages. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
have done. He would, moreover, have been a bishop without a see, for he is nowhere counted among the bishops of Ireland. Further, almost each of these points is subject to very many difficulties, and the last to no slight ones; besides, they rest on the Acts of St. Lasreanus alone. Let that Saint, then, have been sent to Rome; let him even, if you please, have been appointed legate for bringing the southern Irish to adopt the decisions of the Roman Pontiff and of the synod of Lene; but I do not think that more can be admitted. — It is also read in the Life of St. Lasreanus Acta SS. loc. cit. page 545, num. 4. that he was a disciple of St. Fintan; but we have found no proof of this, and Ware indeed writes that St. Lasreanus was the disciple of a certain Murinus. Moreover it has been shown in the preliminary Commentary that in the year 597 St. Fintan was still a young man, so that it is very likely that he did not exceed St. Lasreanus in age Lanigan, vol. II, page 403 note 60..
l. Life B: Chennachus.
Some other things being omitted, Life B adds: and I brought this sand from there, that it may be with me in my cemetery. This the monk related after the passing of the holy Father, and did with the sand as he had commanded while living. Fables of this kind, since we are accustomed to publish the Acts of the Saints entire, it was not permitted to omit. Safer, since they are drawn from a more approved source, are the miracles which are read in the Life of St. Aidan or Maedoc, although these too are very wonderful and were wrought not by St. Fintan but by St. Maedoc for his sake. They are narrated in this manner in the said Life Acta SS. vol. II of January, page 1116 and 1119.: At a certain time the holy bishop Maedhog went out to visit the abbot dwelling in his monastery, which is called Teach Muna; and the holy bishop was received with great honour. The holy abbot said to his brother who was serving: Tell the holy pontiff that all who are in this place should be refreshed tonight on the occasion of his coming. The holy pontiff said: All who are in this place shall be refreshed tonight. Saint Munna said again to the one serving him: Tell our lord the bishop: We cannot all be refreshed, because many of us are sick. The bishop, hearing this, said: The lord abbot has craftily asked health for his brethren; for my Lord is able, at my coming, to grant health to them all. And when he had said this, all the sick received health, and those who before could scarcely live supped vigorously with the rest. And on the third day, when Blessed Maedhog wished to go, Saint Munna said to him: You shall not go out until all the sick are in the same condition as they were before. The bishop said to him: The Lord has granted me their health. And Blessed Munna said: It shall not be so, for strength is made perfect in weakness. Then, Maedhog consenting, they were turned back to their pain. Afterward the holy bishop, bidding farewell to all with a blessing, went out.
One day, when the holy bishop Maedhog and the holy abbot Munna were in one place, the bishop raised himself on a high step in a corner of the church. Then the holy abbot Munna, son of Tolchan, seeing him to be so, said to him: What is it that you see? Reveal it to me. Then the blessed pontiff signed the eyes of the holy abbot, and he at once saw, with the holy pontiff, the whole world from the rising of the sun to its setting, as though it were one furlong. And giving thanks to God they came down; and Abbot Munna told the brethren what had happened.
LIFE OF ST. MUNDUS, ABBOT
From the Aberdeen Breviary at the 21st of October.
Munnu, also called Fintan, abbot of Taghmon, in Ireland. (S.)
Conchenna, his sister, virgin, in Ireland. (S.)
BHL Number: 2999
aFROM THE ABERDEEN BREVIARY.
The parents and The venerable father Mundus b, abbot of monks, took his birth from his father Tulcan and his mother Fechelem; and when in the first age of his youth he was put by them to the keeping of the flocks, being filled with the Holy Spirit, he went to a certain religious man for the sake of hearing the divine law, the flocks being left without a keeper in the wilderness; being rebuked by his father for deserting the flocks, he answers: For as long a time as you permit me to toil at the divine laws, for so long a time the flocks, though unguarded, shall not perish by wolves.
Lesson II. On the following day the father of the man of God went into the wilderness to see the animals, and arriving, he saw two wild wolves, like shepherds, guarding his flocks. And the father, knowing the holiness of his son, forsook the world, and thrust himself into a strict monastery, taking upon himself the habit of holy conversation, and was made a monk c. And blessed Mundus betook himself to the blessed abbot Congall, a most religious father d.
[2] masters of St. Mundus. He works many Lesson III. Then he went on to the holy abbot Sillenus e, who among all the Irish saints was held most famous in life and religion. Under his rule he spent eighteen years, living piously and holily in divine things; these being past, he came to the island of Iona in Scotland, in which he received the habit of religion from blessed Columba f. Lesson IV. But blessed Columba having been translated from the world to the homeland, Saint Mundus sought Ireland again. As he was walking on the way, there met him a certain rich man, by name Evanus, asking that his animals might be healed of their sicknesses by divine power; and blessed Mundus, turning aside to the nearest ford, blessing the ford with his hand, commanded the animals thereafter to drink from it, from which they might merit to receive health g.
[3] miracles. His death Lesson V. Moreover, before he came to his mother and sisters, he had known prophetically that one of his sisters, a virgin, had entered the way of all flesh; and when on the second day after her burial he came to her tomb, moved by mercy, on bended knees he eagerly besought the Lord; whereupon the tomb opened of itself, and the virgin rose alive, whom he restored again to her mother h. Lesson VI. And a little after he raised another dead man from death to life; he preserved a certain soldier from death by the ambushes of his enemies; he freed from her disease a woman suffering an issue of blood. One also struck with leprosy he cured, according to the prophecy of an angel. For he merited so great grace in the sight of the Lord that twice every week a heavenly paranymph was sent to him by the Lord for his consolation i. Upheld by these and other miracles, at a ripe age, on the twelfth of the Kalends of November, he gave back his spirit to God, and in the church of Kilmond k,0 which he himself had earlier founded, he was committed to honourable burial.