ON ST. ALBEUS OR AILBEUS, BISHOP OF EMLY,
IN MUNSTER, A PROVINCE OF IRELAND,
Sixth century.
A HISTORICAL-CRITICAL COLLECTION.
Albeus or Ailbeus, bishop of Emly, in Munster, a province of Ireland (St.)
BY C. S.
§ I. An account of the saint's episcopal see: his memory in some martyrologies: a proper Mass: fabulous Acts, not to be published.
[ ] Imelaca, commonly Emly, today a village of the county of Tipperary in Munster, Of Emly a province of Ireland extended to the south, is reported to have been formerly a famous city, and ennobled with one of the earliest bishoprics of that island, which at length in the year 1568, by order of the supreme council of England which they call Parliament, was annexed to the see of Cashel, on the testimony of James Ware in his Commentary on the Prelates of Ireland. This see of Emly St. Albeus founded — otherwise also called Ailbeus, Alveus, and Elvius — who, subject to the primate of Armagh alone, is read to have presided over all Munster. Of that place Camden briefly makes mention in his Ireland, where, describing the county of Tipperary in Munster, he speaks thus: The river Glason waters the western part in a long course, from whose bank Emly, or Awn, an episcopal see, is not far distant, which they report to have been formerly a most populous city.
[2] More at length the praised Ware treats of the same, whose words I subjoin. an account. After Cashel shall be mentioned Emly, otherwise Imeca-Ī, a most ancient episcopal see, situated in a pleasant and fertile region, and formerly endowed with very ample estates; where there was also formerly a most famous city, which nevertheless little by little dwindled into a tiny hamlet. To this place St. Albeus was the greatest ornament, called a second Patrick, and the second patron of the men of Munster after Patrick; who, while he was sowing the Gospel doctrine in Ireland, God so blessed his endeavors that he converted very many of the nobility and of the common people to the faith of Christ, as much by teaching as by the example of his life. At length, the whole island having been traversed with these offices of piety, he fixed his cathedral church at last at Emly, beside a lake now almost dried up.
[3] I have wondered not a little that this saint, who among Irish writers is everywhere called a second Patrick, The saint's memory has been almost unknown to the martyrologists at hand. Indeed among those whom it has been permitted me to consult, Castellanus is the one in whom I find his memory set down at the twelfth of September in these words: In Munster, a region of Ireland, St. Albaeus, bishop of Emly, in the county of Tipperary. Nor was he sufficiently known to John Wilson himself, when in the second edition of his English Martyrology, at the twenty-seventh day of February, he announced a certain St. Elvius, confessor and bishop of St. David's, in the county of Pembroke in Wales in England, as my predecessors observed at that day among the things passed over; nor do we doubt that Wilson erred there both in assigning the bishopric and in assigning the day of cultus, and wrongly made our saint Elvius the prelate of St. David's — as Michael Alford also noted in the Annals of the Ecclesiastical History of Britain at the year of Christ 462, no. 7. Likewise to be corrected are the Catalogues of the Saints of Ireland of Henry Fitzsimon, in which St. Albius is indeed rightly referred to the twelfth day of September, but is wrongly called bishop of Stanihurst.
[4] in certain martyrologies Besides, certain Irish martyrologies, unknown to me, mention our St. Albeus, concerning which Hugh Ward, an Irish Franciscan, in a letter given to Bolland at Louvain in the year 1634, writes these things: Alveus (so he calls our holy prelate) I see nowhere among places or books outside the twelfth of September; as is established from the metrical Martyrology of St. Aengus the Culdee, and from another metrical one of blessed Marianus Gorman, abbot of the Hill of the Apostles; of whom the first flourished eight hundred years ago, the other four hundred. Likewise from the metrical Martyrology of O'Breslen, and from another most ancient one in prose, and from the book which they call the Psalter of Verses, composed by the same St. Aengus, and from the Psalter of Cashel and the book collected thence and from others by Possidius, arch-poet and historian. And again after a few words: The feast of St. Alveus is celebrated even today in the diocese of Emly at the twelfth day of September. So he; but whether the martyrologies mentioned by him are of that age, and were composed by those authors to whom he attributes them, I do not inquire.
[5] and in Irish writings: Among the manuscripts pertaining to the affairs of Ireland there exists in our Museum a certain Poem, concerning some of the chief saints of that island, or the virtues in which they excelled; which Don Philip O'Sullivan says was composed in Irish by St. Comminus, bishop of Conry, and which he himself, having given it a Latin dress, sent from Madrid to my predecessors in the year 1635. In this poem St. Albeus is praised for his bountiful piety toward the needy in this manner:
Albius must be sung by me with eternal praise; I know not whether any more liberal hand be alive. He alone was ever the patron of the needy, Helping these with clothing, those with money and food.
Finally, in various Lives of Irish saints frequent mention is made of our Albeus with the title of Saint, so that we cannot doubt of his ancient cultus.
[6] But his sacred veneration at the present day is made certain by a Missal existing in our Museum, his cultus from a proper Mass. containing the proper Masses of the patron and tutelary saints of France and Ireland, published by order of Pope Clement XII and printed at Paris in the year 1734. For among the rest a proper Mass is set forth, to be said at the twelfth day of September, on the feast of St. Albeus, bishop and confessor, general patron of the church and diocese of Emly, of the Order of Canons Regular. It has the following prayers: O God, who didst translate blessed Albeus the pontiff to the heavenly kingdoms, by his intercession stir up the hearts of thy faithful, that, faithfully laying hold of the sacred examples of his virtues, they may deserve to attain eternal joys. Through our Lord. Secret: May he himself offer to thee, O God, our Sacrifice, who willed that blessed Albeus the pontiff should be the minister of his charity and a partaker of his glory in heaven, our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth with thee etc. Postcommunion: May the divine Sacraments which inebriated the soul of blessed Albeus the pontiff with heavenly richness fill thy people, O Lord, with thy good things. Through our Lord etc. Now let us proceed to the Acts.
[7] Of his Acts we have three manuscript copies, formerly granted to us by the praised Father Hugh Ward. Transcripts of the Life Whence he received them he did not note; but they are doubtless the same of which he says these things in the letter mentioned above: Likewise from his Life, which I have from two different Irish codices, and from two others in Latin; of one of which the author is St. Evinus, abbot of the monastery of St. Alban in Leinster, a contemporary of the disciples of Alveus. And after a few words interposed: The Life itself, which Don O'Sullivan rendered into Latin from the codex of the lord count of Berehaven, is also in my keeping, extracted thence eight years ago. However that may be, from those things which John Colgan, likewise an Irish Franciscan of the same convent of Louvain, reckons in Appendix 2 to the Life of St. Brigid, p. 604, nos. 9 and 10, it is clear that one of those transcripts was taken from the Kilkenny codex, the other from the Inis codex, or from one like these. The beginning of the first is: Albeus, most blessed father of the men of Munster, and the second patron of the whole island of Ireland after St. Patrick, was born in the eastern part of the region of Cliach, which is in Munster.
[8] are reckoned, The other thus begins: Helveus, the most blessed bishop, the second Patrick of the island of Ireland, was a native of the eastern part of the region which is called Anycliach. Finally the third exists also in our parchment manuscript codex of Salamanca, marked P. MS. II, and has a beginning of this sort: St. Albeus the bishop, most blessed head of the holy men of Munster, the second Patrick of the island of Ireland, was a native of the eastern part of the region of Cliach. Further, those Acts in all the mentioned copies are ample enough; but — as also frequently happens in other Lives of the saints of Ireland — the ampler they are, the more fables they contain, and with the more little tales and enormous anachronisms do they obscure the true deeds of the holy prelate. In a word, they are nothing but a certain hodgepodge of fictions, which will move the reader alike to laughter and to disgust
and therefore I cannot without injury ascribe any of the mentioned Lives to St. Evinus, whoever that saint may finally have been. But lest I should seem to have said these things gratuitously, it is necessary here to exhibit some specimens of the little fables. and on account of the insipid
[9] Our fabulist had doubtless read of the origin of Romulus and Remus from the stolen embrace of Ilia, and of their rearing by a fictitious she-wolf, and it pleased him to begin the Life of our holy bishop with a like little fable. Receive the words from the Inis transcript. His father also, Olcueus by name (in others it is written Olenais), when he was in the retinue of a certain petty king named Cronanus, fell in love with his handmaid (she is called in the Kilkenny manuscript Handith, in the Salamanca one Sant) and of her begot this son of life. But Olcueus, understanding that the girl had been got with child by him, fearing the indignation of his lord, withdrawing himself from his face, fled away. And when the months customary for childbearing had run their course, the handmaid bore her blessed son; and when the cruel petty king heard this, he said: "This boy, conceived against my will and now born, shall not be reared in my house; nay, I order him to be given to dogs and wild beasts to be devoured."
[10] fables, And when the servants had fulfilled the commands of the cruel king, and had let the infant down beneath a certain great rock, behold a she-wolf, coming up, carried the boy away with her and placed him among her own cubs; for beneath that same rock that she-wolf had brought forth and was nursing her cubs. And what follows is marvelous in our eyes: for the she-wolf, forgetting her ferocity, loved the tender boy, and like a mother offered him her teats; for he who preserved Daniel unharmed from the teeth of lions, he himself caused this infant to be nursed among wolf-cubs. But on a certain day, when that beast went [to] the woods to be ranged over in search of food for her cubs, behold a certain man, by name Lochanus, came up; who, although still a heathen, yet full of natural goodness, drew near that rock, and seeing among the cubs a boy elegant in form, drew him out of the cave and carried him home with him.
[11] out of which they are stitched together, Then the she-wolf, returning after him to her cubs, and not finding the boy among her own, followed the man swiftly on his track. And when the man was drawing near his house, the beast rushed upon him and seized his cloak, and did not permit him to enter the house until she had looked upon the boy in his bosom. Then Lochanus said to the she-wolf: "Go in peace; for the boy shall henceforth be with me, and I will not leave him with you." Then the she-wolf, roaring and howling, returned to her cave; but Lochanus, rearing the boy, had committed the care of him to certain Christian Britons, by whom this name Helveus was given him, because he was found alive beneath a rock. Concerning this etymology of the name there is written in the margin of the transcript: Alveus, as it were Albeo; Ail in Irish sounds a rock or stone; … but Beo, alive — whether which be true I leave to be judged by the Irish.
[12] and of which some specimens You have here, reader, the birth of St. Albeus feigned by the fabulist no less ineptly than injuriously, who, provided he might blurt out marvels, cared little for the good name of his parents. Hear now what returns, if you believe the biographer, the saint, now a bishop, made to the she-wolf his nurse. Not so far from the end he says these things: At another time, when the people of the Aradenses — that is, of that land which is called Ara — wished to root out from their borders the wolves that were harming them, and the wolves were fleeing hither and thither from the face of the pursuing multitude, it happened that one she-wolf fled for refuge to the place where the saint was staying; and she laid her head beneath the handmaid (in the Salamanca manuscript it is beneath the cowl, that is, the hood or garment; in the Kilkenny, in the bosom) of the man of God, as though under a firm protection. To whom St. Helveus said: "Fear no more, for none shall dare to harm you; for I deservedly ought to be your protector, because in the days of my infancy, when men had spurned me and had exposed me to wild beasts to be devoured, I was reared by you with great gentleness. Go therefore in safety to the place whence you came, and do you with your seed henceforth harm no one; but at the hour of refection come to me daily with your brethren, that you may eat bread with me." And this the beast fulfilled, coming daily with her cubs, four in number, and taking refection with the man of God and the brethren.
[13] So much of the she-wolf, the saint's nurse; now receive another monstrous invention of the same biographer. to the cutter Two lions, he says, coming from the desert, killed two horses of that king (who this was he has left for the reader to guess). Then the king said to the saint: "O saint of God, I know that nothing is impossible to you; I ask you therefore that you be willing to raise up my horses, which I greatly loved." Then … he raised the king's horses to life, the sign of the Cross being made over them. The two lions also, which had killed the horses, coming to the man of God, licked his feet and wiped them with their manes as with a kind of linen cloth. But the king, seeing these unwonted miracles, said to the saint of God: "Drive these lions away from you, lest they harm us again." To whom the holy man said: "Do not send them away empty from your sight, but give them lodging; for your horses were snatched from their mouth. Grant them therefore a hundred horses, that they may depart from your borders without any harm."
[14] To whom the king said: "I have not the number of so many horses." are exhibited, And the saint answered: "I will render those horses for you in the name of my God." Helveus, taking with him the king's prefect, went to a neighboring mountain; and when he was there devoutly praying to the Lord, behold a great cloud, descending from heaven to the earth, appeared, out of whose belly a hundred horses burst forth. And the holy man said to the lions: "Drive these horses before you into the desert, and devour them there as it shall please you." And the lions did so, as it was said to them. The same things may be read in the Salamanca manuscript; but to the writer of the Kilkenny one the condition proposed by the saint to the king doubtless appeared too unfair — namely, that he was bidden to render a hundred horses for two — and therefore instead of the hundred he simply substituted a dinner, which, since the king did not have it ready, he fables to have been brought down by a cloud in the manner we have said, and carried off by the lions into the desert.
[15] I could here recount other inventions of this trifler no less insipid, as unworthy of the press such as that prodigious rain of apples of marvelous size and honeyed taste, which at the saint's prayers filled the whole city of Rome — as the Inis and Salamanca manuscripts have — or at least the whole enclosure of some monastery, I know not which, in the same city; likewise five other rains, namely of honey, of fishes, of oil, of wheat or of the best bread, and of most excellent wine, which he trifles to have fallen down so abundantly upon the same city of Rome, as the two former manuscripts have — or into the saint's storeroom, as the Kilkenny one prefers — on the very day on which he was made bishop, that the Roman Pontiff and all the Roman people were abundantly satisfied with those prodigious viands for three days and as many nights. These trifles, I say, and the like, I could here recount; but there are fables enough.
[16] Yet it was necessary to exhibit some, that anyone may clearly perceive they are rejected. how little credit these Acts deserve, and how deservedly our Papebroch hissed them off both in the Patrician appendix, §1, where the reader will find that prodigious banquet, and elsewhere, against Colgan and others, who had not hesitated to rely on them as ancient monuments worthy of all credit. And so it does not please me to commit to type this Life, which is nothing but a hodgepodge of inept fables; but, letting it go, I shall in the following paragraph examine only the few things which also receive from elsewhere some appearance of truth.
Notes\ add ad*
§ II. The time of his coming into Ireland, at which he could have been sent by Pope St. Hilary: his deeds in the episcopate, his death, his burial.
[ ] He did not preach the Christian faith Concerning the time at which our holy prelate began the labors of his episcopate in Ireland, writers do not agree, some placing it before the coming of the great Patrick into the same island, others after his death. Of the number of the former, John Colgan, reported in Papebroch, tom. 2 of March, in the appendix to the Acts of St. Patrick, §1, no. 2, says these things: From the most ancient Acts of our saints, written about a thousand years ago, we have it that not only did very many believe in Christ in different parts of Ireland, but that many illustrious for holiness — such as the bishops Kieran, Albeus, Declan, and Ibar … and several others — flourished in Ireland before St. Patrick and St. Palladius. I do not deny that it is so asserted in the Acts of the aforesaid saints; but what credit is to be given them may be seen both generally in the praised Papebroch, and severally at the 5th day of March, on which the deeds of St. Kieran of Saighir, at the 23rd of April, on which those of St. Ibar, and at the 24th of July, on which those of St. Declan, were discussed.
[18] in Ireland, being already a bishop Further, among the manuscript copies enumerated above, the Kilkenny one alone asserts that too early coming of St. Albeus into Ireland, in the words which I subjoin. But St. Albeus after these things went about all Ireland, preaching baptism, and converted many there to the faith, but not all; because almighty God willed that St. Patrick the bishop, who came into Ireland after St. Albeus, should convert all the Irish to the faith. So indeed there; but from the same transcript compared with the two others the contrary is proved. For the Kilkenny manuscript relates the saint's baptism in these words: After these things there came a certain priest, sent from the Apostolic See to the island of Ireland many years before St. Patrick, to sow there the faith of Christ. But the Irish were then heathen, and did not believe him, save a few. And when he had come to the men of Munster, he found the holy boy Albeus praying outside, looking to heaven and praying assiduously that the true belief might be shown to him, saying: "Pray that I may know the Creator of all things, and may believe in him who made heaven and earth and all creatures…"
[19] before St. Patrick When therefore the holy boy Albeus had prayed this prayer, that priest, hearing from near by, greeted him, and according to the desire of his heart taught him concerning all these things, and baptized him. That this priest was St. Palladius the Salamanca and Inis transcripts affirm, of which the latter has: After this came St. Palladius, sent by Pope Celestine before Patrick to Ireland, that he might preach there the faith of Christ; and when the land
had been traversed in preaching, at length, coming to the land of the men of Munster, he found this boy praying in a certain place. It then goes on to relate the rest which we have reported from the Kilkenny manuscript.
[20] But now from the deeds of St. Palladius the bishop, illustrated at the 7th day of July, we have it as some have believed from certain fabulous Acts that he was in fact sent by Pope St. Celestine to attempt the conversion of Ireland, so that we can scarcely doubt that by that priest sent from the Apostolic See the Kilkenny manuscript also means St. Palladius — unless we should wish, without solid foundation, to feign another unknown man likewise deputed to that island by the same holy See. Further, that that expedition of Palladius belongs to the year 431 has been shown in the same place from the Chronicle of Prosper. How then could St. Albeus — if, as the mentioned Lives will have it, he was then only a boy — preach the Christian faith in that island as a bishop already before the coming of St. Patrick into Ireland, that is, before the year 432, in which Papebroch teaches that he was sent by Pope St. Celestine? These are paradoxes which no one can reconcile.
[21] It remains therefore that in this darkness we should trace out the time they have believed: to which the episcopate of St. Albeus and his mission to the Irish may probably be referred. The chief persons with whom the Life relates that he lived are, besides Palladius, Hilary the bishop, under whom he was instructed in sacred letters at Rome; Pope Clement, under whom he was consecrated bishop there; and St. Patrick, with whom he is said to have dealt in Ireland. That the baptism conferred by St. Palladius by no means coheres with the biographer's statements has just been shown. The episcopal consecration made under Clement is evidently fictitious, unless you wish to refer it to the end of the first century, in which St. Clement I held the pontificate, or to about the middle of the eleventh, in which Clement II was raised to the same; for no pontiff of this name sat in the Chair of St. Peter throughout that whole intervening space of so many centuries.
[22] That Albeus was instructed at Rome under Hilary the Life of St. Declan also hands down, but it is more probable illustrated at the 24th day of July, chapter 4, where concerning that saint's Roman journey I read these things: Then it came into the mind of St. Declan to go to Rome, that there he might learn the ecclesiastical customs, and receive the grades, and have license to preach from the Apostolic See… At the same time St. Albeus was at Rome for many years in the discipleship of St. Hilary the bishop, at whose command and request Albeus was ordained bishop by the blessed Pope. Papebroch at the 17th day of March, in the Appendix to the Acts of St. Patrick, §1, judges that this Hilary is the Roman Pontiff himself, namely St. Hilary or Hilarus, who is proved to have discharged the pontificate most holily from the year 461 to 467, at the 10th day of this month, on which he is venerated. Nor did he so judge without reason; for although the mentioned Lives of Albeus and Declan distinguish their Hilary from the Roman Pontiff, yet, since they will have it that he was both a bishop and dwelt at Rome, and moreover either do not mention the name of the Roman Pontiff distinct from Hilary, St. Albeus' teacher, or unskillfully thrust in St. Clement by a monstrous anachronism, and mix in many futile little fables, there is no reason why we should assent to them in this part also; especially since in the opposite opinion the chief things which are handed down concerning St. Albeus, otherwise by no means coherent, can be reconciled.
[23] Receive now Papebroch's conjecture on this matter. He in the praised Patrician Appendix conjectures that he, furnished at Rome with virtues and learning, that among the various men who, when the faith of Christ had already been preached by St. Patrick throughout the whole island of Ireland, set out thence to Rome for the sake of learning letters abroad, were SS. Albeus and Declan, and that these same men, after they had sufficiently proved their virtue and learning, were ordained bishops by Pope St. Hilarus and sent back to Ireland for the help of their own people. And this he thinks was done, in §5 of the Preliminary Commentary in the Chronology, in the year 464, in which St. Patrick the apostle had already died, and in which the other St. Patrick, who was also called Sen-Patrick, had already succeeded to the see of Armagh. Consequently upon these things he lays down that whatever is read in the Life of St. Albeus and in others concerning his dealings with St. Patrick must all be referred not to that great apostle of Ireland, but to his namesake, his successor in the primacy of that island.
[24] and thence sent back to Ireland by Pope St. Hilarus, This opinion appears to me very probable; for it cannot be denied that for writers somewhat removed from Patrick's age it was easy to confuse the one with the other; into which error indeed the celebrity of the great Patrick could easily lead them, which seems so to have obscured the other of the same name, his immediate successor, that later writers, if they understood that anything had been nobly done by a St. Patrick, did not hesitate to ascribe it to their great apostle — as Papebroch rightly observed in the Appendix, §1, no. 7. And this confusion once committed, a manifold disturbance of persons and times could not but creep into the various Acts of the saints of Ireland, as Papebroch complains in the same place; which disturbance, when the twin Patricks are distinguished — both saints, both primates of Armagh — in great part vanishes, as will appear from what is to be said, so far as concerns the Life of our saint.
[25] after the death of St. Patrick, In the first place, we cannot in this opinion deny that St. Albeus could as a boy have been instructed in the Christian mysteries and baptized by Palladius in Ireland, as the Acts report — although we deny that this was done many years before the coming of the great Patrick into the same island. Nevertheless, since the Annals to be cited below tie the death of this our saint to the year 527, and thus he would have to be said to have died more than a hundred years old, we cannot admit the mentioned instruction and baptism as solidly probable from Acts so fabulous, and we strongly suspect that it arose from nothing else than the premature dating of the saint's mission and the confusion of the twin Patricks. Secondly, nothing stands in the way of our saying that he went with some companions to Rome, and there, while St. Hilarus held the Apostolic See, was instructed in the divine Letters, and then, initiated into the episcopate, returned to Ireland. But that our saint, while not yet a bishop and dwelling at Rome, was ordered by St. Hilary or Hilarus to feed his swine for three years and to gather in his harvest, we reckon among the fables of the trifler. Nor do we believe that his companions were forty or fifty in number, and among these twelve Colmans and twelve Coemgens and twelve Fintans, as the Acts will have it.
[26] after the death of St. Patrick, We have seen above that his coming into Ireland is placed by Papebroch after the death of the great Patrick, namely at the year 464; and this coheres excellently with what has been said. For if in the year 431 he was really baptized as a boy, but nevertheless a very little one, he could number a few years above thirty when, having returned to his native land, he began to discharge the episcopal office. See, however, what we have just now mentioned concerning the year of his death, and what we shall say below. Further, into the see of Armagh of the deceased great Patrick, which held the primacy of all Ireland, St. Sen-Patrick was substituted, called by others simply Patrick, of whom in our work there has been treatment in tom. VI of August, in the Appendix to the 24th day of the same month. Under this primate of Ireland it must be laid down, from what has been said, that St. Albeus, already a bishop, landed in that island; and therefore under him we think happened the things which are read in some Lives concerning the controversy of SS. Albeus and Patrick about the same primacy.
[27] The matter is narrated in the Life of St. Declan, at the 24th day of July, chapter 5, in this manner: St. Patrick, between whom and Albeus The aforesaid four bishops, who were in Ireland before St. Patrick, sent from Rome as he himself was — namely Albeus, Declan, Kiaran, and Ibar — had not one will with St. Patrick, but a different one; yet in the end they made concord with him. For Kiaran gave all subjection and concord and mastership to St. Patrick, both in his presence and in his absence. But Albeus, seeing that the great men of Ireland were flocking after Patrick, came to St. Patrick in the city of Cashel, and there received him with all humility as his master before king Aengus — which before he had not had in mind. Those bishops had already before appointed Albeus himself their master, and therefore he came before them to St. Patrick, lest they on their own behalf should gainsay him. But Ibar was by no means willing to consent to St. Patrick, nor to be subject to him… But afterward, at an angel's persuasion, they made peace and concord and brotherhood among themselves.
[28] But Declan was unwilling to gainsay St. Patrick, there was a controversy about the primacy, because he had before made brotherhood with him in Italy; nor indeed did he think to be his subject, because he himself had Apostolic dignity; but he was at length so admonished by an angel that he should come to him to do his will. Then in chapter 6 these things may be read: St. Patrick, St. Albeus, and St. Declan, dwelling together in the city of Cashel with many holy disciples at the court of king Aengus, established many things concerning the laws of ecclesiastical government and Christian vigor, and for the further propagation of the Christian faith. And St. Patrick and king Aeneas, with all his people, ordained the archbishopric of Munster in the city of St. Albeus (that is, Emly), who was then ordained by them archbishop in perpetuity; and to St. Declan they appointed the bounds which he had converted from heathenism to the faith, that is the Desii, that they should be in the parish of his bishopric. Then two little verses are subjoined, uttered by St. Patrick in Irish, which in Ussher, in the Antiquities of the British Church, p. 867, stand thus rendered into Latin:
Albeus is humble, said the offspring of Calphurnius \* And be thou henceforth, Albeus, the Patrick of Munster. Let Declan likewise be the patron of the Desii, And a Patrick among his own men of Desies.
[29] The writer of the Life of St. Albeus, passing over that controversy in silence, was probably St. Sen-Patrick, only says that he subjected himself to Patrick, and was appointed by him archbishop of the men of Munster. Receive the words from the Kilkenny transcript. When blessed Albeus had heard that St. Patrick was converting to Christ the king of the men of Munster, Aengus, that is Aeneas son of Nefrich, and was with him in the royal city of Cashel, he came to greet them; and the king and blessed Patrick rejoiced at the coming of Albeus, and he in turn rejoiced at seeing them. And there St. Albeus received blessed Patrick as his master, because Albeus was very humble. Then king Aengus, that is Aeneas, and Patrick ordained that in the city and see of St. Albeus there should always be the archbishopric of all the men of Munster. If here by St. Patrick, the successor of the great Patrick, whom also Sen-Patrick
we have noted was called, we understand, the mentioned controversy does not lack likelihood.
[30] the successor of the great Patrick For, as Papebroch rightly observes in §1 of the Patrician Appendix, SS. Albeus and Declan, having returned to Ireland with their companions from Rome, where they had been consecrated bishops, did not think it fair that they should be subjected to one from whom they had not received their ordination; especially after St. Patrick — to whom perhaps they would willingly have yielded on account of the prerogative of his apostolate — ceased to live. Wherefore they refused to acknowledge the primacy of the bishop of Armagh, although he called himself the Comorban (that is, successor) of Patrick. And so, without any dependence on him, Albeus was ordering the churches of Munster, and Declan those of the Desii, until Sen-Patrick, not so much by authority and command as by offices of kindness and the weight of miracles and the example of his humility, so moved them that, taking away the seeds of a schism one day to come, for the sake of the public good and the common peace, they suffered the see of Armagh, by Patrick's ordinance approved by pontifical letters, to be called and to be the first — on this condition, that to each should remain his own preeminence, to Declan among the Desii, to Albeus among the bishops of Munster, as metropolitans, subject to one primate only, and governing their own suffragans by themselves. So he, very probably; for what the Lives mentioned above will have — that they preached to the Irish before St. Patrick, and that thence the cause of the dissension must be sought — we judge to have been sufficiently refuted.
[31] He is said to have been the first abbot of Emly; In the Missal praised at no. 6 our saint is said to have been of the Order of Canons Regular; but on what foundation, I confess, is plainly unknown to me. Colgan, however, on the 13th day of February in the notes on the Life of St. Dominic, nos. 7 and 8, hints that he wrote some Rule, when he says: But that in Ireland, before this St. Dominic was born, there were bees and honey, is established from the irrefragable testimony of the Rule of St. Ailbeus, in which at no. 37 it is thus read: "When they sit at table, let there be brought herbs or roots, washed with water, in clean dishes; likewise apples, ale, and from the hive honey to the breadth of a thumb, that is, some combs." The same writer more than once elsewhere mentions the monastery of Emly, which he himself calls Imleach Jobhuir and Jobhair, and asserts, in the notes on the Life of St. Molagga, no. 27, that it is established from his Life that our saint was its first abbot and at the same time bishop. But whether the aforepraised Rule was written for Canons Regular, and whether the monastery of Emly was inhabited by them, we cannot divine.
[32] and to have died in the year 527 The marvelous deeds of the saint, which are narrated very many in his Life, it does not please me to recount here on the fabulist's credit, as I have already noted above. But I pass over also a few other things which are found in the Lives of other saints, likewise sprinkled with fables. It remains therefore that we say something of the holy bishop's death and burial. Ussher in his Chronological Index at the year of Christ 527 writes thus on this subject: To the same year the Annals of Ulster and of Inisfallen refer the death of St. Ailbeus, bishop of Emly; and that Colman, brought into the light eleven years before, learned sacred letters from him, we read in the Acts of the same Colman; neither of which can stand with the reckonings of those who lay down that Ailbeus announced the Christian faith to the Irish before the coming of Patrick. So he, rightly observing that the assigned year of death by no means coheres with that early coming into Ireland which the same Ussher had referred to about the year 412; for thus he would have to be said to have numbered more than a hundred and forty years when he died. But this need not delay us, who with Papebroch have judged that the coming of the same saint is more probably to be placed after the death of the great Patrick. What is added about St. Colman being instructed by him is likewise of no moment, since his Acts are equally fabulous, as was said at the 7th day of June, where they were published.
[33] James Ware, in the Bishops of Emly, where he lays down with us that the saint's coming was later than Patrick, and to have been buried at Emly, brings forward a twofold opinion concerning his death, in these words: This man, so great and such as he was, died at last full of years, yet with the faculties of mind and body unimpaired, on the 12th of September, in the year of the Lord 527, or, as others will have it, 541, and was buried in his own church of Emly. But on what monuments the latter opinion rests he does not indicate; wherefore it seems that we should rather stand by the Annals praised by Ussher, especially since otherwise the saint would have been more than a hundred years old, or else would have landed in Ireland later than the year 464.
[34] where his miter was long preserved. For the rest, the praised Ware, reckoning the saint's successors in the see of Emly, after O'Ligbai, who died in the year 1122, subjoins: Maelmordha, son of Inclodna, succeeded; in whose time, in 1123, Emly was plundered, and the miter of St. Albeus, preserved there with great care through many centuries, was burned by robbers.
Notes\* i.e., Patrick