Ninian

ON ST. NINIAN, BISHOP, APOSTLE OF THE SOUTHERN PICTS,

AT WHITHORN IN SCOTLAND,

In the fifth century.

HISTORICO-CRITICAL COMMENTARY.

Ninian, bishop, Apostle of the Southern Picts, at Whithorn in Scotland (S.)

BHL Number: 6241

BY U. S.

§ I. Notice of the Picts and of our Saint's episcopal see: the year of his death, and the beginnings of the apostolate he undertook.

[ ] Being about to treat of the Apostle of the Picts (whom Bede calls Ninia, Who the Picts are and whence so called; Malmesbury Nina, others Ninus, and the Scots in the vernacular tongue Ringen; we with the Roman Martyrology shall call him Ninian), I have judged that some things ought to be tasted beforehand which may lead to a knowledge of the nation of the Picts and of our Saint's episcopal see. The name of the Picts, arisen from the painting of their bodies, if we believe Camden and Alford, does not occur among writers before the times of Diocletian and Maximian. Alford in the Ecclesiastical Annals of Britain, at the year of Christ 210, number 3, thinks that the Picts are none other than those whom Dio, describing the British expedition of Severus, in book 17 distinguished into Caledonians and Maeatae, speaking thus: For the rest, there are especially two kinds of Britons (namely against whom the war had to be waged), the Caledonians and the Maeatae… The Maeatae dwell beside that wall which divides the island into two parts; the Caledonians are beyond them. Alford proves it from this, that Herodian, in book 3, depicting the nations subdued by Severus in Britain, writes of them among other things thus: Nay, they mark their very bodies with various painting.

[2] Ammianus Marcellinus in book 27, chapter 8, divided the Picts into Dicalidones (Camden prefers to read Deucalidones) and Vecturiones. their region is the Scotland of today. The Dicalidones, says Alford at the year of Christ 365, number 2, were those who among the Picts held the West of the island, as it were the right hand, which is marked by the syllable Di or Deu: as they had the Vecturiones on the left. Bede in the Ecclesiastical History of the English nation, book 3, chapter 4, distinguished the Picts into Southern and Northern: he calls the northern provinces of the Picts those which are cut off from their southern regions by steep and rugged mountain ridges; he calls the Southern Picts those who have their seats on this side of those same mountains. Of that most warlike nation only the memory now survives, the very name of the Picts being abolished: their seats are held by those whom today we call Scots. But whether the Picts were none other than Britons, or a nation carried in from elsewhere, and other things like these, let him discuss who will: it suffices me to have given here some notice of the Picts.

[3] All the authors, plainly, who have mentioned our Saint write that he was bishop of Candida Casa. The etymology of Candida Casa, Now Candida Casa, called by the Britons Withern or Wit-Herne, Camden in his Scotland, the situation of the places so requiring, thinks to be no other than Ptolemy's Leucopibia, which he himself, after his manner, would have called from the Greek Λευκ᾽ οἰκίδια, that is, white dwellings, in whose place, by the change of one or two letters, the typesetters foisted in Leucopibia. Alford at the year of Christ 394, number 3, says: This place is among the Novantes, which today they call Galloway: and Galloway or Galdia is, in Baudrand's Geography, an ample province of Southern Scotland, on the western shore, where the southern part begins, over against Ireland and the isle of Man, from which it is distant only fifteen Scottish miles. Malmesbury, in book 3 On the Deeds of the English pontiffs, among the bishops of Candida Casa, speaks thus: A place in the furthest borders of England next to Scotland is called Candida Casa… The name was given to the place from the work, because he — namely Saint Ninian — made a church there of stone, a marvel to the Britons. Ussher, On the Origins of the British churches, Dublin edition, page 665, thinks that that church was doubtless built of white stone, the appellation, he says, being retained from the white colour also.

[4] its situation and its various appellations. Bede, in book 3 of the Ecclesiastical History of the English nation, chapter 4, touched both on the etymology of the name Candida Casa and on its situation in these words: Which place, belonging to the province of the Bernicians, is commonly called At Candida Casa, because he made there a church of stone in a manner unusual to the Britons. And this authority of Bede, Malmesbury, Ussher, and others whom I think it superfluous to adduce, makes the origin of this appellation so likely to me that I believe it cannot prudently be doubted. Another cause is assigned by a certain manuscript Life of our Saint, of which below. Candida Casa is sometimes found marked by other names also: thus Baudrand is witness that it was called Niniapolis from the name of St. Ninian, its first prelate: some have called it St. Martin's, from a church erected there in honour of St. Martin of Tours. Under whose jurisdiction Candida Casa was, whether of the Anglo-Saxons or of the Scots, is keenly disputed between the writers of both nations: I should not wish to sit as arbiter of this suit, and after the practice of my Elders I have thought that I ought to abstain from this odious controversy. Let Bede nevertheless be heard in the place commended: Whose (our Saint's) see of the bishopric, distinguished by the name and church of the holy bishop Martin, … the nation of the English now holds. Which the Scots contend that Bede said for the future time; others take it, as the words seem to bear, for Bede's own time. But of these things enough: now something must be said of the time of our Saint's apostolate and of the conversion of the Picts.

[5] But from the very entrance upon the enquiry I think the reader ought to be warned What the Scottish writers relate that in the investigating of both these points many things occur so perplexed that the true time is not easily to be determined: receive meanwhile, reader, what the Scottish writers relate about the time of their own conversion. Hector Boece, in book 6 of the History of the Scots, folio 86 verso, speaks thus: While Severus ruled the Romans, Donald, king of the Scots, obtained by envoys from Victor, the Supreme Pontiff, … that men distinguished in learning and religion should be sent by him into Scotland, and should mark with baptism him, together with his children and wife, professing the name of Christ. The Scottish nobility followed the king's example, and turning away from impiety and embracing the religion of Christ, was washed in the sacred font. That year, in which the Scots were called and received to the light of true piety by the kindness of God the Best and Greatest, was from that which was the first of human salvation the two hundred and third… Something different had befallen our people and the Britons, although the latter came earlier to the true religion. For the Britons, having been rightly instructed at first in the faith, afterwards several times turned away from it through the savagery of persecutions and the persuasions of the heathen. Our people, in the faith and piety in which they were once instructed, persevere to this day, having spurned errors.

[6] Leslie, On the Deeds of the Scots, book 3, in Donald I, followed Boece, about the conversion of Scotland; from whom he differs only in words. George Thomson, On the Antiquity of the Christian religion among the Scots, page 2, speaks thus: For it is established from the Annals of the Scots and from a certain perpetual tradition of our forefathers that under Pope Victor, in the year of Christ 203, Donald king of Scotland with his whole kingdom took up the Christian rites; of which matter also Tertullian is no obscure witness, who in his book against the Jews says, "The places of the Britons inaccessible to the Romans have been subdued to the true Christ." And on page 4 he relates the same constancy of the Scots in the faith as Boece and Leslie commended above. Tillemont, in tome 16 of the Monuments, in St. Patrick, article 10, pronounces thus briefly upon the conversion to Christ of the whole kingdom of the Scots along with Donald in the said year, as asserted by the Scottish writers: But of all these things no trace is found in approved authors. I should not indeed wish to subscribe in every way to Tillemont's censure against the Scottish writers. Yet the Scots will pardon me if I say that they have been a little too liberal in the commendation of their fatherland, for the reasons which I shall presently subjoin.

[7] Leslie, who in Donald I proclaimed the acquisition of the whole kingdom of Scotland for Christ and its unconquered constancy in the faith, are altogether doubtful and perplexed. has this at the year of Christ 290, in Crathlint: There flourished about these times among the Scots Amphibalus, Modocus, Priscus, Ferranus, Ambianus, Carnocus, and many other men distinguished in learning and religion, worshippers of God (called Culdees in our common tongue), fugitives from Britain on account of the tyranny of Diocletian and Constantius, whom king Crathlint received courteously and kindly: and he handed over to them the isle of Man to be inhabited, the Druids its ancient inhabitants being expelled, and caused Amphibalus to be made their bishop. Thus all the profane rites of the heathen, which up to those times could not be utterly extinguished there, were abolished by this king's piety. Whether what Leslie here writes does not in any way conflict with what he said in Donald, I do not examine: this in the account displeased Ussher above all, that he makes Constantius an enemy of the Christian religion, and by me certainly it is altogether disapproved, since it is plainly established that Constantius favoured the Christians exceedingly. See the manifold testimony of authors in Ussher, page 170 and the following. One I add, greater than any exception, Lactantius in the book On the Deaths of the Persecutors, chapter 15: Constantius (who held Britain with the Gauls), lest he should seem to dissent from the precepts of his elders, suffered the conventicles, that is, the walls, which could be restored, to be pulled down: but the true temple of God, which is in men, he kept unharmed. From which you have that Constantius indeed permitted some churches to be overthrown, yet enjoined it by no edict: Lactantius had premised the slaughter of the whole Roman world, the Gauls subject to Constantius excepted.

[8] From the Scots' own testimonies Now I pursue in few words what makes against the origin of the Christian faith among the Scots asserted for the year of Christ 203. The Scots themselves refer the beginnings of the Christian religion among them to after the coming of the Saxons into Britain: so they write in the Apology directed to Boniface VIII, in Ussher page 646: Nay rather, through the venerable relics of the blessed Apostle Andrew, brought by divine revelation by ship from Greece into Scotland, king Hungus then reigning there (concerning the Saxons themselves who were then attacking Scotland in hostile fashion, a very great victory having been granted by God to the Scots at the mouth of the river Tyne, as the History has it), the Scots themselves first received the faith of Christ, etc.: and Boniface VIII in the Bull to Edward I says: Your royal highness may know how that kingdom (of Scotland) was acquired through the venerable relics of the blessed Apostle Andrew, not without a great gift of the heavenly Godhead, and converted to the unity of the Catholic faith. By these things are plainly undermined the statements about the faith received in the year of Christ 203 adduced at numbers 5 and 6. For Boece ties the coming of the relics of St. Andrew into Scotland to the year of Christ 369; Leslie agrees with Boece; Dempster in the Apparatus to Scottish history, book 2, chapter 22, §4, writes that it took place in the year 362.

[9] it is shown that it cannot probably But it also makes against the beginnings of the faith among the Scots being tied to the year of Christ 203, that they speak of a victory won over the Saxons by Hungus, king of the Picts: for the Angles or Saxons could not have landed in Britain long before the year 449; nay, it seems capable of being shown from Bede that their coming must be assigned to about that year: for, although the printed copies of Bede, both in the History and in the Epitome, express the year 409,

One ought to read, says Alford at the said year 449, the year 449, as is expressly found in the most correct manuscript which is in my keeping. That Alford judged rightly is clear also from what Bede reports in book 1 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 13: To him (Aetius) the poor remnants of the Britons send a letter, whose beginning is this: "To Aetius thrice consul, the groans of the Britons." For the third consulship of Aetius fell in the year 446 from Christ's birth, as Bucher's Chronicle and Pagi's Critica teach. And Bede subjoins in the same place: Yet neither in doing this could they obtain any help from him. And after various calamities of the Britons he at last narrates, in chapter 15, how the nation of the Angles or Saxons, invited by king Vortigern, was carried into Britain.

[10] that conversion be tied From these things it is to be gathered that the antiquity of the Christian faith among the Scots is not so great as their historians vend; nor can the beginnings of Christianity among them be tied upon a solid foundation to the third century scarcely yet begun. But neither does the passage of Tertullian adduced above by Thomson stand against my opinion, whom I know to have flourished in the third century, and whom I do not deny to have been most conversant in the histories of the Romans: for my part I allow also that, as Thomson would have it, by the inaccessible places of the Britons that part of Britain must be understood which is now called Scotland, into which the arms of the Romans had not yet at that age penetrated: but it is not on that account necessary to admit so universal, so constant, so unstained a conversion of the whole kingdom of Scotland to Christ as they themselves boast. I say therefore that Tertullian in the book against the Jews laid out all his effort upon this, that he might demonstrate to that faithless nation the most happy increases of the Christian religion, showing that the empire of Christ had by its humility and meekness extended its dominion more widely and more easily, and had penetrated whither the Roman eagles with so great a clatter of arms had not been able to make their way, and that bars as it were of iron, and obstacles insuperable to the Roman majesty, had yielded of their own accord to the conquering standards of our Saviour.

[11] to the year of Christ 203. By these things I think Tertullian's mind is sufficiently expressed, and it is not to be extended more widely than that we acknowledge certain rudiments of the faith and a slender handful of Christians in Scotland in Tertullian's time, nay, if you please, before it. For may I not say: Long before the times of Tertullian the most remote nations of the Indians were subdued to the true Christ, since it is established by most certain monuments that the seeds of the Christian religion were sown among the Indians by St. Thomas the apostle, and it can by no means be doubted that at least some fruit came of his labours — yet not so great that the whole of India was plainly won for Christ and never fell away from Him? So likewise I agree with the Scottish writers that this region which is now called Scotland was illumined by the rays of the holy faith; I do not deny that a certain Donald, whether he was king of the Scots or a chief man among his people, was initiated in the Christian rites, and by his example gained some for Christ. This one thing I deny, as resting on no foundation, namely that the whole nation of the Scots or Picts received the light of Gospel truth from the year of Christ 203 in such a way that it never fell away from it. The falling away of the Scots and Picts from the faith is certainly shown most clearly by the harsher words of St. Patrick, which I subjoin here. In the Epistle to the Christians subject to the tyrant Coroticus, which is extant in tome 2 of March, page 538 and following, I read thus: The allies of the Scots and Picts have apostatized: and below: especially of the most unworthy and most wicked and apostate Picts.

[12] What I have discussed thus far suffices for everyone to discern that the Scottish writers are not altogether to be believed concerning the beginnings of the faith in their region, Various opinions of authors especially since there are not wanting older authors of that same nation who passed over in silence that royal conversion of Donald, and since the Scots' opinion about the manner of the conversion is divided, as may be seen in Alford at the year of Christ 203. Rejecting therefore what no one would easily approve, let us pass on to what can be said with somewhat greater likelihood. In a certain sheet written in Papebroch's hand, on the time of the conversion of the Picts, after it has been said that a manifold fable has been attached by the Scots to their conversion, it goes on thus: This is more certain, that St. Ninian about the end of the fourth century, a little before St. Martin died, began to sow the faith among the Picts: and there, his master's death being divinely made known to him, consecrated the first church in his name: after whom, since there was no one to carry on what had been well begun, and since the Picts pursued with capital hatred all Romans and the Britons who adhered to the Romans (by whom they might have been helped in this part), it could scarcely be otherwise than that the young shoots of the still tender faith should wither, and the tares of errors sprout up again: to the plucking out of which St. Columba at last, crossing from Ireland into Albany, began to devote most useful labour in the year, as Bede is the author, book III, chapter IV, five hundred and sixty-five of the Lord's Incarnation. See Papebroch's Annotations on the letter of St. Patrick commended above.

[13] about the time of St. Ninian's Fordun had lighted the way for Papebroch, in book 3 of the History of the Scots, chapter 9, writing thus: They report that the holy bishop Ninian died in the times of that emperor Theodosius the younger: for we know truly from the writings of the Histories that he flourished under the rule of his father Arcadius and of his uncle Honorius: for in the fifth year of these the blessed Martin, bishop of Tours, died, with whose conversation, while he yet lived in the flesh, the holy Ninian merited to be most healthfully refreshed. Pitseus, On the Writers of Britain, in St. Ninian marked the year of his death in this manner: At Candida Casa he most holily ended his day, and there received burial in the church dedicated to him, on the sixteenth of the Kalends of October, in the year of restored salvation 432. Alford followed Pitseus at the year of Christ 432, number 12, subjoining these words from the Magdeburgians, Century 5, folio 1429: Among whom (the Picts) at last, at Candida Casa in Galloway, he died as their first bishop in the year of salvation 432. A manuscript Catalogue of the Saints of Scotland, which is kept among the writings pertaining to the affairs of Ireland and Scotland in our Museum, adorns our Saint with this eulogy at the sixteenth day of September: St. Ninian, nephew of St. Martin by his sister, bishop of Candida Casa in Galloway, a region of Scotland, a notable teacher of the Picts and Britons, to whom a most celebrated pilgrimage used to be made. He flourished in the year 437. But Brunus, who sent this Catalogue to my Elders from Louvain, otherwise known to me only from that subscription, writes thus in his letter: There is also in these very things in places a conjecture not certain enough about the time in which the Saints lived, but the error is neither great, nor in many places.

[14] death Patrick Ninian Wemyss of the Society of Jesus, in a manuscript on the undoubted Saints of Scotland sent to Sollerius on the 2nd of July in the year 1720, marks the time of our Saint's death as the year 437. The English Martyrology of John Wilson, published in the year of Christ 1608, has it thus: He died afterwards (our Saint) in Scotland about the year of Christ 512: others mark another year. Since the writers judge so diversely about the time of our holy Prelate's death, I have preferred at the beginning of this Commentary to fix that time broadly in the fifth century, rather than to arrive at it by divination. I have not thought, however, that Wilson should be assented to, who removes St. Ninian's death to the sixth century, on account of what we shall say both from the Acts (though exceedingly suspect) and from almost all the authors about our Saint's converse with St. Martin of Tours: for since there is no one, at least whom I have seen, who places the death of St. Martin later than the year of Christ 402 — nay, since it is most likely that he died even some years earlier — who could persuade himself that St. Ninian survived to the year 512? Especially if what the author of the Life of St. Ninian relates be true, namely that he turned aside to St. Martin when he was already consecrated bishop.

[15] and the year of the apostolate undertaken among the Picts. But neither does the year seem capable of being fixed with certainty in which St. Ninian undertook the office of Gospel preaching among the Picts. Alford ties the beginnings of his apostolate to the year of Christ 394, speaking thus at the said year, number 1: At which time also our Ninian … consecrated bishop by Pope Siricius, is bidden to return into the island and to subdue the Picts to the Roman Church and faith. He goes on at number 3: Where (at Candida Casa) on Camden's testimony Ninian erected an episcopal see in the time of Theodosius the younger. Whence to these times rather, not to earlier ones, as some do, we refer both the conversion of the Southern Picts and the institution of the new see: and although this Theodosius is reckoned not the younger, but, in respect of the other Augustus, the elder, yet Bede in book 1, chapter X (there is an error here, and one should read chapter XI) calls this Theodosius the younger, and so must Camden be understood. I should prefer to take the words of Camden and the others as they sound, and, when they tie these events to the times of Theodosius the younger, I think that by them Theodosius is designated, not the Great, the father of Arcadius and Honorius, but Theodosius the son of Arcadius. But as regards Bede, I think that our Chifflet judged rightly, when in the more correct Paris edition of the year 1684 he restored the passage of Bede thus: The empire being held by Honorius Augustus, the younger son of Theodosius. And in the Notes the aforesaid Chifflet observes thus: The common editions have: Theodosii junioris, the Trier codex: Theodosii minoris. I restore from the truth and from Bede's own mind: Filio Theodosii minore: for his elder son was Arcadius. And indeed it is more likely that a careless copyist erred in transcribing Bede, and wrote minoris for minore, for which others substituted junioris, than that Bede himself was so deceived as to call Theodosius the Great — before whom no emperor of that name is found — the younger.

[16] The aforesaid Alford, at the year of Christ 395, says that the faith preached by Ninian among the Picts was confirmed in the following year, that is, the three hundred and ninety-fifth of Christ, Theodosius for the third time and Abundantius being consuls, by St. Regulus; who, coming from Achaia into Britain, carried with him the sacred relics of the apostle Andrew to be laid in the newly erected churches… As regards the time, Holinshed affirms that the coming of St. Regulus happened one year or two after the death of Valentinian: which agrees excellently with the conversion of the Picts. What is to be judged about these relics of St. Andrew brought into Scotland may be discussed either at the fifteenth of October, where St. Regulus, or at the thirtieth of November, where St. Andrew must be treated of. Upon the rest asserted by Alford I make a few observations. First, it is certain that false consuls are marked by him: for in the year of Christ 395 the consulship was held by Sextus Anicius Olybrius and Sextus Anicius Probinus. Secondly, I shall not easily admit so great progress of the faith in so short a time among a barbarous people as Alford seems to build up, seeing that he places St. Ninian as consecrated bishop at Rome only in the year 394, and thence carried through the Gauls into the lands of the Picts, and yet

writes that in the very next year various churches were erected. Thirdly, it is not proved from Holinshed that the relics of St. Andrew were brought into Scotland in the year 395: it is true indeed that Valentinian II died in the year 392, but since Holinshed writes simply after the death of Valentinian, as I read in Alford, and Valentinian I died in the year of Christ 375, it remains doubtful whether he designated Valentinian I or II. I therefore fix the conversion of the Southern Picts broadly either toward the end of the fourth century or toward the beginning of the fifth, since this alone is certain from Bede, that they were brought to the faith long before the year 565.

§ II. Various Lives of our Saint, one of which is fabulous, the others by no means authentic: a compendium from them of his deeds up to his episcopate.

[ ] Various Lives of St. Ninian: Ussher, On the Origins of the British churches, page 669, speaks thus of the Acts of St. Ninian: We have seen in the libraries of England the Life of St. Ninian … composed by Ælred, abbot of Rievaulx. Pitseus on page 230, among the Works of Ælred of Rievaulx, reckons the Life of St. Ninian the bishop, one book, and adds Multorum bonorum virorum, by which words the beginning of that Life is designated: this has not come down to us. Patrick Wemyss in the writing commended above has this: I have learned from men worthy of credit that his (our Saint's) Life, composed in various forms, is to be had in the libraries of England, which it has never been permitted me to see. Ussher on page 1059 writes thus of another Life of St. Ninian: There is extant also among our Irish a Life of the same Ninian: in which he is related, on account of the importunate visitation frequently made both by his mother and by his kinsfolk, to have deserted Candida Casa, that he might give himself to his own quiet with his disciples, and to have sought Ireland, and there, having obtained from the king a fit and pleasant place called Cluayn Coner, to have established a great monastery, and to have died there after many years passed in Ireland. Ussher and the Life commended by him in the second place were followed by Louis Augustin Alemand in the Monastic History of the kingdom of Ireland, under the title: The chief holy founders, who are almost all Irishmen, and founded houses of Regulars there, where he adds this: St. Ninian in the fifth century was the founder of the house called Cluain Coner. And at the beginning of that catalogue he had premised that a house pertaining to the institute of the Regular Canons must be understood whenever he does not express another Order. Now the word Cluain, as the same Alemand observes on page 24, added by way of distinction, signifies nothing else in Irish than that these houses, to which that word Cluain is prefixed, were situate in pleasant meadows.

[18] that this is justly to be rejected, Alford, after the words recited which I gave from Ussher in the second place, pronounces thus at the year 432: But well known is the ambitious piety of the Irish, who draw to themselves the Saints of Britain, if they cannot by right, then by wrong. A greater witness is Malmesbury, who has this about Ninian's tomb in book III of the Deeds of the pontiffs: "A place in the furthest borders of England next to Scotland," he says, "is called Candida Casa: where the blessed confessor Ninia rests." Alford could also have adduced for himself the passage of Bede, book 3 of the History, chapter 4: Where (in the church of St. Martin at Candida Casa) he himself (our Saint) also rests in body together with many Saints. The Life repudiated by Alford, or at least one very like it, we have as a transcript from a manuscript of Father Fitzsimon, which my Elders received from Ireland by his procurement. What prevents us from acquiescing in it and believing that St. Ninian, abandoning Candida Casa, migrated into Ireland, is the manifold little fable out of which almost the whole of it is stitched together.

[19] There comes in another reason too, and no light one. For St. Ninian had undertaken to imbue the Picts with the Christian faith, and had erected an episcopal see at Candida Casa. Who therefore would easily believe an inept fable-monger that the newborn church which writes that he died in Ireland, and the flock tender in the faith were deserted by him — especially since no fit reason is adduced for a thing so unusual; and since other, less fabulous Lives are utterly silent about that Irish journey, and relate that the Saint died in his bishopric?

[20] But that it may be made more fully clear to the reader how foolish the author is in many things, it is proved from the ancient discipline of the Church, and how often he is by no means consistent with himself, I faithfully transfer hither a very few of his words which demonstrate it. His father, he says (that is, our Saint's), was a king of Britain, who joined to himself in matrimony as his lawful wife the daughter of the king of the Spaniards, comely in life and manners. From these two faithful ones faithfully persevering in God's service, etc. And a little below: He is at last handed over by his father to clerical discipline. Then he goes on to set out his rare endowments of mind, his zeal for prayer and holy vigils, his fasts and macerations of the body, and subjoins: Mass having been celebrated in the morning, and the aforesaid Hours, diligently applying himself to divine reading, etc. And after other things like these he subjoins: Meanwhile the king his father strives to call him back to his court… For the holy Man was tall of stature, vigorous of body, illustrious of face, and among all the fellow citizens of the whole country he stood out taller by a head. For this reason his father wished him to be girded with the soldier's sword.

[21] However changeable men's sentiments may be, who nevertheless could bring himself to believe and by the manifold little fable that St. Ninian's parent, whom the author of this Life called faithful and indeed faithfully persevering in God's service, suddenly became impiously sacrilegious? What of the fact that he makes even the holy Ninian himself in a manner forgetful of himself and of the manner of life he had taken up: for among his other virtues he had celebrated his zeal for chastity in these words: He fled not only the conversation of women, but even the sight of them, lest he should give heed to it: and behold, our Saint had scarcely set foot in Ireland when he is narrated to have been present at a scene of such a sort that even eyes only lightly chaste would plainly shrink from it, and he is said to be the author of a certain miracle which I have thought must altogether be passed over in silence, lest an immodest narrative wound modest ears. After these things, who would believe the fable-monger, even if what he narrates could be true? Whence at least the things he writes must be held doubtful concerning the bell that fell down from heaven at the Saint's prayers, that by its benefit he might call his subjects together to study and sacred reading. No more certain either is what he relates about a wooden church, built rather by divine power than by the work of craftsmen: for whose building the most ferocious stags carried the necessary material from the wood to the place destined for the church, while the craftsman himself was a harper, who neither before nor afterwards was versed in architecture.

[22] Describing both flights of our Saint, the one into Galloway, with which this Life is stuffed. and thence the other into Ireland, he calls them clandestine, yet in each he asserts that he was attended by a numerous company of clergy and disciples. Another fable, related at length in this Life of which we are treating, I compress into few words. St. Ninian, fleeing his father's vexation, boards a ship and is carried into Galloway: he sits down in a broad field, and sends messengers to a smith, the lord of the surrounding fields, to beg that lodging for one night and the necessaries of life be supplied to him and his. But, the messengers having been proudly and insultingly rejected, the Saint was compelled with indignation to withdraw, who, passing by the smith's house, drove his staff to the depth of three fingers into the anvil with such force that it could not be plucked out by a human hand. Stupefied by this prodigy, the smith with his son casts himself at the Saint's feet, and begs and obtains pardon. Afterwards the Saint enters the smith's house, and without any trouble draws out his staff, but, says the author of the Life, the hole always stood open in the anvil and shall stand open for ever. On the next day the smith offers the farm with the adjacent fields to the Man of God to be possessed in perpetuity, this condition alone being added, that from the name of the smith, Terna, and of his son, Wyt, the place should be called; And the name of that place, says the inept trifler, was compounded from Wyt and Terna: Wytterna, or Candida Casa. I forbear more; for what has already been said is enough for us to hold St. Ninian's migration into Ireland as invented, and for anyone to judge that this Life is plainly unworthy to receive a place in our Work.

[23] Likewise a twofold manuscript Life Besides, we have a twofold manuscript Life of our holy Apostle, of which one is a transcript from a Manuscript of Rooklooster, and the other Father Hugh Ward received from a Manuscript of the Charterhouse of Cologne and sent to my Elders, who in the preface which he prefixed to it confesses, first, that the Life of St. Ninian published by Capgrave is more exact and fuller, of which presently. Secondly, that faults and errors have crept into the Carthusian Manuscript, such as the sixteenth of the Ides of October for the sixteenth of the Kalends, and a Scottish bishop for a British one. Thirdly, that Finian is written for Ninian, and he says that this has its origin from the likeness of the letters N and V in old manuscripts, and from the like sound of the letters F and V among the Germans. Fourthly, Some things can, he says, be supplied which are lacking in the historian Capgrave, such as that about Ninian's staff growing into a tree, and a spring flowing out near it, which happened in Ireland. But I read both these stories expressly set forth in the London edition of Capgrave of the year 1516. And that both those miracles were done in Ireland is not proved to me from what Ward subjoins: From which (Ireland) that disciple of Ninian seems to have sprung: for unruly boys fleeing foreign schools are wont to return home to their parents. He could certainly, if the whole narrative be true, have fled from Galloway to his parents, though not precisely into Ireland; to refute which more fully makes nothing to the present matter. For the rest, this Life agrees with Capgrave in the chief matters in such a way that it is only sometimes more compressed, sometimes fuller in words.

[24] and the Acts published by Capgrave Therefore only the Life which was brought to light by Capgrave is to be examined, that the prudent reader may determine about the others. That I may proceed in order, I begin from the author himself. Capgrave, on Pitseus's testimony a man distinguished by the praises of piety and erudition, published a Catalogue of the Saints of England. Henry Wharton, in the Appendix to the Ecclesiastical History of William Cave, says that Capgrave unfolded that History from a certain volume which is preserved in manuscript in the Cottonian library. With Wharton agrees Oudin in the Commentaries on ecclesiastical writers, tome 3, column [ ], asserting that Capgrave excerpted his Legend from a manuscript volume of John of Tynemouth; of which unfolding Dr. Smith, a priest of the English church, also informed our Janning. However that may be, whether Capgrave was the first to compose this Catalogue of the Saints of England, or transcribed word for word one composed earlier by John of Tynemouth, each of them is certainly too far removed from Ninian's age for us to give undoubted assent to the deeds related in this Life: for John of Tynemouth flourished in the year of Christ 1366, and Capgrave, if we believe Bale and Wharton, died in the year of Christ 1464; if Pitseus, Vossius

and Miraeus, in the year 1484: but St. Ninian, by the vote of nearly all writers, is said to have died while Theodosius the Younger reigned, whose last year of empire and of life fell in the year of Christ 450. Besides, what makes against our holding this Life as properly authentic and altogether sincere is the affinity of the miracles with those which are reported as wrought by other Saints in the same Catalogue, as I shall now and then observe in the course of it; this one thing I would have the reader warned of, that I by no means deny those prodigies, but since they were not committed to writing by older authors, that holds good here which the author of the Catalogue of the Saints of England writes in St. Neot the abbot, folio 240, after the narration of an unusual miracle: This, he says, I neither strive to assert, nor, distrusting God's power (I add: or Ninian's merits), do I presume to deny.

[25] It will be of use to set the several points before the reader's eyes, and thus to present some sort of compendium of the deeds done by St. Ninian. whence they were drawn, and how great is He begins in this manner: The holy beginnings of St. Ninian the confessor's converse, and the marks of his sanctity, the dignity of his office and the fruit of his ministry, his most excellent end and the reward of his labour, the Venerable Bede in the History of the English (book 3, chapter 4), commending in very few words, writes thus of him. What properly concerns St. Ninian I transcribe, other things being omitted, from Bede himself, whom the author of the aforesaid Catalogue transcribed not accurately enough: The Southern Picts, … having left the error of idolatry, had received the faith of truth, the word being preached to them by Ninia, a most reverend and most holy man, of the nation of the Britons, who had been regularly taught the faith and the mysteries of the truth at Rome; whose episcopal see, distinguished by the name and church of the holy bishop Martin (where he himself also rests in body together with many Saints), the nation of the English now holds. Which place, etc. Then the author of the Life subjoins: But what Bede wrote more briefly, it pleases us, God being the author, to pursue more fully. One may suspect that he used a book written on the miracles of St. Ninian, which has not come down to us, and became known only from the manuscript Breviary of the church of Aberdeen, where in the Office of St. Ninian, in the seventh lection, the aforesaid book is said to be written in barbarous fashion; which conjecture of mine is confirmed by the almost complete conformity of what is recited in the said Office with what is recorded in the published Life of St. Ninian.

[26] Pitseus, in John of Tynemouth, treating of the Volume embracing the Lives of the Saints, their authority. The birth says: Out of almost infinite authors he so fitted together the various matters that what was lacking in some he added from others; what was superfluous he cut away so discreetly that there is nothing in that whole History superfluous or mutilated. So far am I from subscribing to Pitseus's favourable judgment, that I rather hold it for certain that whoever, even drowsily, shall turn over the Lives of the Saints of England will at first sight stumble upon not a few things which must be recalled to a more exact balance (not to say anything harsher). I take up again the epitome interrupted for a while, being about to use hereafter no words but those of the Capgrave edition, except where I shall have expressly said the contrary: In Greater Britain the blessed Ninian was sprung of royal stock, in that region, as is thought, which, situate in the western parts of that island, where the ocean, stretching out as it were an arm and making as it were two corners on either side, now divides the Scots and the English (kingdoms, is added in the Rooklooster manuscript), and which, it is proved not only by the credit of the Histories but also by the memory of certain men, had its own king up to the most recent times of the English. By these words the author of the Life manifestly intimates that our Saint was born in the ancient kingdom of the Cumbrians, which is established from the Annals of the English cited by Ussher page 664, and by Camden page 648, in Cumbria, to have obeyed its own kings up to the year 946. Now the situation of the Cumbrian province agrees excellently with the description of St. Ninian's birthplace, as is plain to the eye from the geographical maps. But Bale and others make him a Venedotian: and Venedotia, on Baudrand's testimony in his Geography, is a part of northern Wales in England, a region altogether different from the Cumbrian kingdom. Which of the two determined more rightly about St. Ninian's birthplace I do not enquire, since this alone is certain from Bede, that he was of the nation of the Britons.

[27] and adolescence of St. Ninian: But as regards the royal birth of St. Ninian asserted by the author of the Life, I neither impugn it, nor yet admit it as certain. Let Alford be heard speaking thus of these matters at the year of Christ 370, number 6: When you hear Ninian called a king's son, think it the dialect of the legend-writers, who are exceedingly liberal in attributing that title to many. But by that word they understand chief men and petty kings in a province: of whom without any doubt Britain had many in every age. After these things the author is wholly taken up with describing St. Ninian's undefiled manners and excellent virtues. In the Carthusian manuscript and in the ninth Lection of the Office of the church of Aberdeen commended above it is read thus: He, born again in his very infancy in the water of most holy baptism, keeping unspotted the nuptial garment which he received as one clothed in white, a conqueror of vices, presented it to the sight of Christ, and merited to have the Holy Spirit, whom he first had as cleanser, as the illuminator of his sacred breast by most holy manners. Then the author of the Life pursues in few words our Saint's pilgrimage to the City. To this pilgrimage David Camerarius, in the Saints of Scotland at the eighteenth day of September, prefixes our Saint's dwelling together with the Culdee fathers: Ninian, having embraced their (the Culdees') institute, he says, it is wonderful with how great a longing for the conversion of souls he was held: but because it was then the custom among the Culdee fathers that no one should undertake the Gospel and apostolic burden before he had visited the thresholds of the Apostles, he sets out for Rome, etc. What is to be determined about the Culdees (some write Culdaeans, others Keldees, others Colidei), whom the Scots affirm to have flourished in their country even in the third century, may be gathered from what was said at number 7.

[28] the Saint's journey to Rome is tied by Alford Alford thinks that this pilgrimage was undertaken by St. Ninian in the year of Christ 370, writing thus in the Annals at the said year, number 1: As regards the time, the setting out must have fallen then, when Pope Damasus sat as Pontiff in the City. Because after the space of some years Ninian must return into his country, and greet St. Martin of Tours … on the way. The law also of the emperor Valentinian passed in this year (370) … invited many… And because it was given at Trier, … it at once became known to our Britain. The same Alford, at the year of Christ 394, relates that St. Ninian was at that time consecrated bishop by Pope Siricius and sent back to imbue the Picts with the true faith, and thus makes his stay in the City about 24 years. Since Alford alleges no monuments by which to establish his chronological arrangement, he seems to rest on conjectures alone, which in my judgment by no means settle the matter; and all that is related of Ninian's Roman pilgrimage and of his stay in the City seems to me sufficiently saved even if it be determined that the Roman journey happened some years later; nor is it at all necessary to build up so many years in order that, as Bede writes, the Saint may have been regularly taught the faith and the mysteries of the truth at Rome.

[29] In the Life he is said to have set out for Rome as a youth, and to have dwelt in the City for several years: to the year 370, and his stay there but by the ancients also those were called youths who had passed the twenty-ninth year of their age, as may be seen from the authors adduced in Robert Estienne's Thesaurus of the Latin language, under the word Adolescens; and a stay of many years may be called that which is far short of a space of 24 years. But, says Alford, The setting out must have fallen then, when Pope Damasus sat as Pontiff in the City. Even granting this gratis, you will still not hammer out the year 370; because Damasus sat until the year 384. Gratis, I say, granted, because I find no Pontiff named either by the author of the Life or by anyone else, either by whom St. Ninian was kindly and courteously received when he came to Rome, or by whom he was afterwards ordained bishop; nor does anything hinder both from having been able to happen under Damasus's successor Siricius. For since Siricius occupied the Chair of St. Peter from the beginning of the year 385, if we tie St. Ninian's setting out for Rome to that year, time will abundantly suffice up to the year 397, before which certainly St. Martin of Tours did not die, in which our Saint could both be imbued with a wonderful erudition in the divine Scriptures and be taught the mysteries of the faith, and at the same time turn aside to St. Martin; and I embrace that reckoning of the years the more willingly because I cannot be brought to believe that the most fervent zeal for souls and ardour for propagating the faith with which St. Ninian burned, and for the fulfilling of which, on Alford's testimony, he sought Rome, was cramped for about 24 years, especially in so great a need of the Picts, doubtless most well known both to Ninian and to the Prelate of the Roman See.

[30] But the law of Valentinian concerning the right ordering of studies and the choosing of pupils, is set at about 24 years; Alford's which Alford calls in for help, proves nothing. It belongs indeed truly to the year 370, since it is marked with the third consulship of the Augusti Valentinian and Valens, falling in the year of Christ 370; and, because it was passed at Trier, I do not deny that it could easily become known to Britain; yet it does not follow from this that Ninian betook himself to the Roman schools immediately after that law was passed. Since therefore solid monuments are lacking by which Alford might establish his chronological arrangement, I think it better to depart from it than to admit so long a stay of our Saint in the City, especially since it seems certain to me that his mission to the Picts cannot be placed long before the year 394, to which Alford ties it. For the church of Candida Casa was dedicated by St. Ninian to St. Martin of Tours; and it does not seem that this could prudently have been done among a people lately imbued with the faith, before the veneration of the holy bishop of Tours throughout the West, and the fame of his sanctity and miracles, had become widespread. These things I have discussed somewhat more fully, lest anyone too confidently embrace Alford's chronology: from which it is also clear, as I have often hinted in the first paragraph, that neither the beginnings of the faith among the Picts, nor the year in which Ninian undertook the apostolic office, can be safely determined.

[31] But the appellation of the church of Candida Casa from St. Martin, just now mentioned, also makes me believe without difficulty, at least in part, John Spotswood, who in the History of the church of Scotland, page 6, asserts that our Saint had dealings with St. Martin before his Roman journey. arguments are discussed: Spotswood is refuted, who asserts, For if we determine that our Apostle was refreshed by his most healthful converse toward the last times of St. Martin's life, and then dwelt some years at Rome, we shall have a space in which the memory of St. Martin could grow bright,

and in which it would have been possible for Ninian to erect a church to his name without any offence to the newly converted. And although the Acts of St. Ninian record his meeting with St. Martin as after the Roman journey, and immediately, after they have narrated the building of the new church, subjoin: When he had now learned that the holy Martin, whom he always venerated with wondrous affection, had passed from earth to heaven, he dedicated that church in his honour; yet since, as is clear from what has been said and will appear more fully from what is to be said, those Acts are of very slight authority, I do not see why it should be wrong to suspect that by the author of the Life, far removed from St. Ninian's age, the order of that meeting, if it ever took place, was inverted; nor do I hesitate at all to assert that what is recorded by the author of the Life as immediately after St. Martin's departure was done some years after his death.

[32] that St. Ninian was brought up by St. Martin. And in this way more than one difficulty is avoided which can be objected to the arrangement of Alford's chronology. But, as I warned beforehand, I should believe Spotswood only in part: for that he asserts with Boece and others that Ninian was St. Martin's nephew by his sister, and was brought up under his discipline, is plainly uncertain to me; for the author of the Life, exceedingly liberal in scraping together other things, as we shall see, would not have kept so deep a silence about both these points; nor would that kinship and holy upbringing have escaped Bede, from whom Ninian's setting out for Rome, to draw Christian discipline from the first and purest fount of truth, did not lie hid. But the authority of Bede, who says of Ninian in book 3 of the History, chapter 4, Who had been regularly taught the faith and the mysteries of the truth at Rome, Spotswood wished, I know not how prudently, to weaken, adducing no fit witness, and adding that it is easy to judge that Ninian, brought up under the discipline of so great a man as Martin, did not set out for Rome as a novice. It certainly seems to me that Spotswood here indulged a little too much the genius of men of his own bran, who strive invidiously to turn aside whatever can in any way make for the commendation of the Roman Church, though it be brought forward by witnesses greater than any exception. Let us pursue the examination of the Acts, interrupted for a while, and the compendium of our Saint's life from them.

§ III. The remaining deeds of St. Ninian: miracles wrought in his lifetime: various eulogies of writers.

[ ] The Saint was likely ordained bishop at Rome: Before I set forth St. Ninian's apostolic labours in his bishopric of Candida Casa and their fruit, and weigh the prodigies asserted by the author of the Life, it pleases me to observe a few things upon the passage of David Camerarius commended (at number 27), where among other things he speaks thus of our Saint's return from the City: Returning into Scotland through Gaul and Belgium, in which he is read to have wrought wonderful conversions of souls, he bent himself wholly to converting souls to God their creator. And when he had done this vigorously for a long time, and had led among mortals a life most like that of the angels, he is named first bishop of Candida Casa and is compelled to accept it by name. Would that Camerarius had adduced testimonies of authors or other monuments in which he had read of those immense gains of souls which he proclaims! It is indeed altogether likely that a Man full of the apostolic spirit worked even on his journey for God's glory and the salvation of souls; but since both the author of the Life and other writers are silent about Ninian's preaching through Gaul and Belgium and its admirable effects, let the credit of what Camerarius asserts rest with him. But that he asserts that Ninian laboured many years in Scotland (he doubtless understands the Southern Picts), and was at last ordained bishop, is certainly repugnant to the author of the Life and to other writers, who relate that he was raised to the grade of the episcopate before he departed from Rome, to whom in this part I think more deference is due than to Camerarius. For since we cannot doubt that he was formed at Rome for the apostolic office, and since besides it is certain that he was a bishop, it is more likely that he was consecrated at Rome, that from the very beginning of his preaching he might be able to profit more fully the people to whom he was destined.

[34] Now let us hear the author of the Life: When Ninian had come to the place of his legation, his apostolic labours among the Picts. there is a great concourse of peoples, a huge gladness in all, a wondrous devotion, and the praise of Christ resounds everywhere: since they held him as a prophet. Presently he began to pluck up what was ill planted, to scatter what was ill gathered, to destroy what was ill built. The minds of the faithful being purged of every error, all that the faithful must do he taught by word, showed by works and examples, and confirmed by many miracles. And he chose for himself a see in the place which is now called Witerna, on the sea shore; it is shut in by the sea itself, yet on the north side a way lies open to those who wish to enter. There he built a church of stone, before which they say none was built of stone in Britain. And since he had now learned that St. Martin, whom he always venerated with wondrous affection, had passed from earth to heaven, he dedicated that church in his honour. And below, after he has narrated two miracles, of which presently, he goes on thus: Meanwhile St. Ninian, approaching the Southern Picts, whom the error of heathenism still clinging to them compelled to venerate and worship idols, preached the truth of the Gospel with signs following. The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dumb rise again, those oppressed by demons are freed: and thus the faith is received, error is renounced, the temples being destroyed churches are erected; rich and poor run to the laver of salvation; they give thanks to God, and there are dwellers far off in the islands. He ordained priests, consecrated bishops, and divided the whole land into fixed parishes. All being confirmed in the faith, when he had returned to his own church, etc. Thus the author on the Saint's Apostolic labours. Now let us inspect the miracles recorded in the Life of St. Ninian.

[35] The first is narrated in these words: There was in that same region (of the Picts) a certain king … He gives light to a blind man; he drives off a calumny from an innocent man; named Tudwald, rich and haughty, despising the admonitions of the Man of God… But on a certain day, when he was more troublesome than usual to the Man of God, the heavenly Judge, no longer suffering the injury of His Servant to go unavenged, struck the proud man in the head with an intolerable disease, and a sudden blindness came upon those haughty eyes… Led at length to a sounder counsel, he sent to the Man of God beseeching … that he would render him good for evil… But the Man of God first rebukes the king by chiding him; then, touching him, imprinted the sign of the Cross upon his eyes; and without delay the pain flees, the blindness is put to flight, etc. Altogether akin to this is a story in the Life of St. Kentigern, and likewise in the Life of St. Malachy, to which I refer the reader. The other, because it is longer, I compress into few words. A certain girl had yielded to the lust of a shameless wooer, and had fastened the crime upon a certain priest of Ninian's clergy, and, being now become a mother, having cast off all shame, crying out in the very church that the priest was her corrupter, she flung the boy in his face: then Ninian said to the boy, born only a few days before: Ho there, O boy, in the name of Jesus Christ, if that presbyter begot thee, declare it before the people: and without delay a clear voice sounded out of the infant's body, convicted the liar, and absolved the innocent priest: and stretching out his right hand and pointing out his own father among the people, This, he said, is my father, he begot me, etc. The like is read in the Life of St. Aldhelm with this sole difference, that there only the innocence of the accused is uncovered, but here besides the shameless slanderess's partner is revealed (which indeed was not necessary for absolving the priest).

[36] [vegetables born in one day; the cattle preserved; the Saint untouched by the rain;] The third prodigy is a manifest testimony of the divine providence toward our Saint: for when whatever vegetables had been left over had in the morning been committed to the earth, and nothing remained fit for eating, the brother to whom the care of it had been entrusted, entering the garden at the Bishop's bidding, seeing that the leeks and herbs planted in the earth that same day had not only grown but had even produced seed, plucked as much as would suffice. The fourth the author of the Life narrates thus: When thieves strove to lead away his (our Saint's) cattle, a certain bull, as if turned to fury, rushed upon them and laid low their leader, and, piercing his belly with its horns, drove out his life together with his entrails. Then, digging the earth with its hooves, with a wondrous rush it struck with its foot a rock which it had found, and in testimony of so great a miracle the foot sinks into the stone as into soft wax, leaving a footprint in the rock, and from the footprint a name to the place even to this day. Then St. Ninian is said to have called back the dead robber to life by his prayers. The remaining miracles and divine favours recorded in the Life I dispatch in a few words. When, reclining in the open air, he either meditated or read even amid the densest rains, he himself with his little book always remained free from all wet: the like is reported by the Life of St. Kentigern.

[37] [Ninian's staff stills a storm, becomes a tree and at its root a spring bursts forth:] But, the author of the Life goes on, while chanting the psalms the blessed Ninian turned his eyes from his little book, being touched a little by an unlawful thought, and when in punishment of the distraction a shower had fallen upon his book, Coming to himself, he says, the Bishop blushed, … and in the same moment of time both laid aside the thought and suspended the shower. No less singular is what follows. Among the several young men who were being trained under St. Ninian's discipline, one had transgressed, who, fearing the punishment he had deserved, fled, and, carrying off the staff on which the Saint was wont to lean, boarded a little boat, and, being now about to be swallowed up by the waves, fixed Ninian's staff in one of the holes, and came safe to shore: but by no means content with that prodigy, he fixed the Saint's staff on the sea shore, praying that in testimony of so great a miracle it might put forth branches and leaves; to which prodigy another was straightway added; For, says the author of the Life, a clear spring bursting forth at the root of the tree sent out a rivulet with a rather long course, useful and healthful to the sick on account of the Saint's merits. I shall readily admit that God, to make known the sanctity of His servant Ninian, wrought very many and those most illustrious prodigies; but that I should believe that the last two miracles were truly wrought at the prayers of some unruly boy — that more certain and firmer testimonies are required, anyone not too much given over to partisan zeal will, I think, acknowledge with me.

[38] I conclude this compendium of the Life of St. Ninian and of his deeds from the Catalogue of the Saints of England with these words, he is said even by the heterodox themselves to be celebrated for miracles. which I gave at the end of number 24: I neither strive to assert, nor, distrusting God's power, do I presume to deny the prodigies recorded above; but I hold them as doubtful so long as no other monuments shall be brought forward: for altogether weak in my eyes is the authority of the Catalogue of the Saints of England, whose writer does not seem to have examined accurately enough what he transmitted to posterity, whence also anyone who cares to turn over the Lives of the Saints composed by him will discover that he not rarely inserted little fables into his Work. More certain is what Fordun relates in the History of the Scots, book 3, chapter 9: He was (our Saint) a man of wondrous power and of sanctity

before God and men, and while living a wondrous worker of innumerable miracles, and even after his passing and to this day. So constant, that is, was the fame of Ninian's miracles that even the heterodox have not dared to deny them, however impiously they turn away from miracles and from the cultus of the Saints. The words of the Magdeburgians, century 5, folio 1429, Alford gives at the year of Christ 432, number 12; whoever wishes to see them, let him go to Alford. This eulogy, although it cannot be held suspect of flattery, I forbear to report, because it is not necessary for establishing the Saint's veneration, and because more welcome to the pious reader, and of greater weight, will be the testimonies which I subjoin.

[39] The Roman Martyrology at the sixteenth of September announces our Saint thus: Ninian's memory in various Martyrologies. In Scotland, the holy Ninian, bishop and confessor. In plainly the same words Grevenus and Molanus recall him in their auctaria to Usuard: but in Usuard himself I do not find Ninian, although Camerarius asserts that he is recorded in him, saying: Of the holy Ninian treat Usuard in the Martyrology, Molanus, etc. Castellanus in the Universal Martyrology has it thus: In Scotland, St. Ninian, bishop and confessor, and adds, about the year 428; but in the margin he notes, Without cultus: in the Supplement, however, he writes thus: To the note on St. Ninian add, unless he be the one who is venerated at Courtrai on the seventeenth day of November by the nuns of St. Catherine of Sion. When on account of that observation I had judged that I must enquire whether perhaps in that place some relics of the Saint were preserved which might have given occasion for a cultus, the most religious prioress of the aforesaid convent, the lady Maria Anna Tyberghein, asserted that there are in her convent no relics of St. Ninian, and no indication or document of any cultus, and at once produced and gladly gave to our Museum a copy of the Proper of the Saints which the aforesaid convent uses, and which is that of the Regular Canons of the Windesheim congregation, in which there is not a word about St. Ninian. Yet when Castellanus writes without cultus, he is most manifestly mistaken, because he had not seen what I shall presently adduce. The English Martyrology of Wilson, published in the year 1608 and reprinted in the year 1640, celebrates him more at length. I here transcribe only what is more peculiar: His sacred body, buried in that same church of St. Martin, was there preserved with great veneration up to the times of king Henry VIII (the other edition has of king James VI, which reading is altogether to be preferred). Many notable churches also and altars were erected and dedicated in his honour in the kingdom of Scotland in the former times of the Catholics.

[40] Boece in the History of the Scots, book 8, page 115, speaks thus of the same Saint: A no common teacher and instructor, that is, of the Scots, the Picts, and the Britons, Churches erected to him, pilgrimages instituted. and for that reason held in much veneration by all who inhabit Albion, even in this age of ours. Leslie in the Description of Scotland, page 9, says: Candida Casa was adorned with an episcopal see, and also with a most celebrated monastery before the heresies arose. There the lord Ninian … was most religiously venerated with a great concourse of the whole island, God showing many powers through him. And in book 4 On the Deeds of the Scots, page 133 and following, he adds this: Although this had been the most brilliant testimony of his (our Saint's) most excellent virtue, yet this above all argues his exceedingly notable piety, that, whereas the wars (which raged most fiercely between Scots, Picts, and Britons) had closed off every road either for these to those or for those to these, yet to him a most safe approach lay open to each of them whenever he pleased. For they judged that into Ninian, a man excelling in the glory of solid virtue, deceit, guile, and malice could in no way fall. Upon the words of both authors, Boece and Leslie, by which they build up that Ninian was apostle to the Scots, Picts, and Britons, I observe with John Major, himself certainly a Scot, On the Deeds of the Scots, book 2, chapter 2, that the Scots are wrongly thrust in. He has it thus: Here you may understand that the blessed Ninian preached the word of God to the southern Picts and the Britons, and this is gathered from his collect, in which it is said thus: "O God, who hast taught the peoples of the Picts and Britons through the doctrine of St. Ninian, bishop and confessor." In which no mention is made of the Scots: but for many years now, since the kingdom of the Picts was overthrown, the Scots have the place and the holy body.

[41] Other eulogies, prayers asked at his tomb. Patrick Ninian Wemyss in the Manuscript on the undoubted Saints of Scotland closes his observations on St. Ninian thus: The solemn fast of the holy Prelate is in the mouth of all: for the most holy Man was wont every year, from the fifth Feria of Holy Week, to abstain from all food and drink until he should perform the mysteries of the most sacred day of the Paschal Resurrection of the Lord, being for the glory of his miracles by far the most celebrated in the kingdom of Scotland along with St. Duthac. To all these eulogies let there be added the testimony of that most upright man Alcuin the deacon, who flourished in the eighth century, and testified his highest esteem for Ninian's merits in a letter to the brethren of Candida Casa, which Ussher reports in On the Origins of the British churches, page 669. It will be of use to transcribe it here: To the brethren of venerable love serving God in the place which is called Candida Casa, Alcuin the deacon, greeting. I beseech the unanimity of your piety that you keep memory of our name, and deign to intercede for my littleness in the church of your most holy father Ninia the bishop, who shone with many powers: as was lately reported to me through poems of the metric art, which were directed to us by our faithful disciples the scholars of the church of York, in which I recognized both the erudition of the maker and the sanctity of him who works the miracles, from those things which I read there. Would that those poems had come down to us! For since their author comes nearer to St. Ninian's age, we should have more certain monuments for illustrating his deeds; for those which now survive supply only a doubtful knowledge of the holy Bishop's Acts.

§ IV. His ancient and lawful cultus: his posthumous glory: writings attributed to him by some.

[ ] His cultus in Scotland is shown to be most ancient. Although what I adduced in the preceding paragraph could scarcely leave anyone any doubt of the lawful cultus of St. Ninian, yet, lest anything be wanting here, and that it may be most clearly established that the veneration of our Saint was public and consecrated by the use of many centuries, and extended also to other regions outside Scotland, I add the few things I have found. From what has been said above it is plain both that churches and altars were erected to his name, and that already in Alcuin's age Ninian was celebrated for miracles, to whose patronage the aforesaid deacon wished himself commended, asking the prayers of others at the Saint's tomb for himself. This is also made clear by the Breviary of the church of Aberdeen, of which at number 25, from which Breviary it is clear that the memory of St. Ninian used to be kept in the said church: and it is an Office of nine lections, all of which are taken from Bede and the Life of St. Ninian; the Antiphons too, the hymns, and most other things are proper. I here add the Collect: O God, who hast dedicated this present day to be honourable to us by the festivity of the blessed Ninian, thy confessor and bishop; mercifully grant that we, who are flooded by the light of thy truth through his teaching, may by his intercession obtain the joys of heavenly life.

[43] But the veneration of St. Ninian did not stand in Scotland alone; The arm of St. Ninian is religiously preserved at Douai. it spread also to our Belgium, his most sacred relics having by God's kindness been brought to the Scots seminary at Douai; of whose authenticity Rayssius published in print a public instrument of the most illustrious bishop of Arras in the Hierogazophylacium Belgicum, page 489, which, so far as it concerns St. Ninian, I transfer hither: Paul Boudot, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See bishop of Arras, to all who shall inspect these presents, greeting in the Lord. Whereas according to the holy canons and the decrees of the Council of Trent the relics of the Saints, whose living bodies were the dwelling of the Holy Spirit, and by whose intercession many good things are afforded to men, are to be venerated with due honour, and no [\] new relics are to be received unless the bishop recognize and approve them: hence it is that, the testimonies established being worthy of credit, the relics exhibited to us by the reverend Father Lambert Lobetius, superior of the seminary of the Scots at Douai — namely the arm of St. Ninian, bishop and confessor, recovered by the reverend Father Alexander Marquarri, priest of the Society of Jesus, from certain English Catholics and consigned to the countess of Linlithgow, which afterwards, in the presence of the most reverend bishop of Antwerp, the upright and honest man Alexander Selonius had handed over to the reverend Father John Robie, likewise a priest of the Society of Jesus, to be carried to the seminary… We, at the humble supplication of the aforesaid reverend Father superior of the seminary of Douai, having first seen the attestations of the most reverend lord of Antwerp, of the lady countess of Linlithgow… recognizing and approving the same relics as true.., have decreed and do decree that they may be publicly exposed to be venerated and honoured by each and all of the faithful of Christ, by the testimony of these letters, confirmed by the impression of our seal. And that cultus and veneration toward those relics may be stirred up, to all who shall devoutly venerate them we impart an indulgence of forty days. Given in our episcopal palace at Arras on the fourth day of September in the year one thousand six hundred and twenty-seven. By the mandate of the most reverend lord. The seal hung in red wax. John Monnier, secretary.*

[44] Miracles after his death, The veneration of the faithful was followed by miracles wrought at the Saint's tomb, which, scattered among various authors, I here gather. I begin from the author of the Life, whose rather prolix narrative I present in summary. A certain woman of the common people had brought forth a pitiable infant, with all its limbs turned the wrong way: the parents, overcome with weariness and grief, carried the misshapen boy to the tomb of St. Ninian, who in the night time saw a Man gleaming with heavenly light and shining in pontifical vestments, who, touching the sick child's head, bade him rise up whole, all his limbs being twisted back to their natural places with an easy motion. He, says the author, in process of time was tonsured for the clerical state and promoted to the priesthood, and ended his life in the service of St. Ninian. And he subjoins: Two lepers, coming to the spring of St. Ninian, wash themselves with its water, and their flesh, being cleansed, was restored like the flesh of a little child. Perhaps he here designates that spring which flowed forth miraculously at the prayers of the unruly boy. See what I said of it at number 37.

[45] and benefits at the Saint's invocation David, king of Scotland, experienced St. Ninian's beneficence toward him in the year 1348, as Hector Boece is the author, History of the Scots, book 15, page 324, in these words: But one dart fixed in the king's leg could not at once be drawn out, nor before he should visit St. Ninian: for then the leg was seen manifestly to open and the dart to leap forth. James IV, king of the Scots, also obtained a recompense for his piety toward St. Ninian, who frequently came to venerate the holy body of St. Ninian, as Camerarius narrates in the Saints of Scotland at the eighteenth day of September in this manner: Among other things

it once happened that queen Margaret his wife (she was the daughter of Henry VII, king of the English) was assailed after childbirth by the most grievous pains of illness, and could be soothed by no human consolation. Seeing which, the king, placing all hope of his wife's health in God, sets out on foot with the utmost lowliness of mind to the church of the lord Ninian in Galloway. That the king's devotion was most pleasing to God is clear from this, that a little after the queen, all the vehemence of the disease being wiped away, recovered… And when she was possessed of her full strength, she set out with the king to the same church of Ninian in the following month of July of the year 1507, to give thanks to God and to His servant the lord Ninian.

[46] obtained by many. Another miracle is subjoined in the same place, the rest, as Camerarius says, being passed over, and it is said to have happened about the year of Christ 1608. I give Camerarius's own words: There was a chapel sacred to the lord Ninian not far from the river Spey, where it flows into the ocean. A certain man had lain sick a year or two: being now destitute of strength, his wife saw to it that he was carried into the said chapel, although it was without a roof, that he might there for piety's sake render up his spirit to God his creator. All night the sick man remained under the open sky awaiting death; but behold, about cockcrow he falls asleep: in his sleep there stands by him an old man exceedingly venerable, who, gripping his legs, bids him rise and go home again. He did what was commanded; his wife meets him, is troubled, thinks she sees a ghost. The sick man tells his wife that it is he, not a ghost: she cries out, tells the tale, and at last together they give thanks to God and to holy Ninian. All which things — would that an authority firmer and safer than that of Camerarius, Boece, and Capgrave had taught us!

[47] I conclude the narration of the miracles wrought since our Saint's departure with what Alford writes at the year of Christ 432, number 15, at the end, An apparition at St. Ninian's tomb. after the words of Malmesbury, This holy Ninia antiquity found illustrious for his powers, subjoining: He understands here, I think, the age of Alcuin, when he began to grow famous for miracles. For then the name of Ninian, or Ninia, or Ninus was celebrated, and then Paschasius Radbertus wrote the miracle which happened to a priest celebrating at his body. "There was a certain religious priest," he says (Radbertus, that is, in the book On the Body and Blood of the Lord, chapter 14, number 5), "Plecnils by name, frequently celebrating the solemnities of Masses at the body of the holy Ninus, bishop and confessor: who, when he led a holy life with worthy governance, began to knock upon almighty God with pious prayers, that He would show him the nature of the body and Blood of Christ; not from unbelief, as is usual, but from piety of mind he asked these things." Then he narrates more fully that Christ appeared to the priest in the form of a boy: who perhaps was none other than Ninian's brother, whom writers commonly call Plebeia, but Capgrave and John of Tynemouth call him Sanctus. That this miracle happened at our Saint's tomb becomes likely from this, that Radbertus asserts that he drew this narrative from the Deeds of the English. Martène, moreover, who published this book of Radbertus in a new printing in the year 1733, notes that in the printed codices is read Nini, but in the Manuscript of the Greater monastery of Tours Nili.

[48] As regards the writings of St. Ninian, Ussher in On the Origins of the British churches speaks thus, somewhat doubtfully, on page 669: Whether St. Ninian left any writings to posterity, Ninian himself too, lest he should seem altogether unmindful of posterity, was tracing out with an unaffected but useful pen one book of Meditations on the Psalter, and one book from the sentences of the Saints, if we believe John Bale. With Bale agrees Dempster in book 13 of the Ecclesiastical History of the Scottish nation, and Pitseus, On the illustrious writers of Britain, where he has this in St. Ninian: But what he had taught as a younger man, now become old he committed to writing and handed on to posterity, of which nevertheless the greatest part afterwards perished. Of those which he left behind him we hold at least some by name, on the testimony of Sixtus of Siena: one book of Meditations on the Psalms of David, one book on the sentences of the Saints. And others. I have read Sixtus of Siena, Holy Library, book 4, in St. Ninian, carefully, but I have found no other words pertaining hither than the following: He wrote some commentaries on the sacred Letters of great piety and erudition: of which the most celebrated are the meditations on the Davidic hymns. Possevino too may be seen in the Apparatus sacer, where in St. Ninian he writes conformably to the words of Sixtus of Siena. Since those writings of St. Ninian have not come down to us, and since Ussher, who doubtless surveyed the libraries of England, speaks of them ambiguously, let the reader determine about them what he will; I neither plainly affirm nor plainly deny them, but leave them to the credit of the authors who allege them.

[49] and what John Foxe thought of him? Dempster in the place commended above says: The heretic John Foxe is injurious to him (our Saint). Dempster did not add his words; and if he truly accuses Foxe, that man must have been by no means consistent with himself. For Alford adduces these words of Foxe in the Acts and Monuments at the year of Christ 432, number 15: In this century there followed in Britain Fastidius, Ninian, Patrick and several others, who for a long time governed the church of the Britons with Christian and saving doctrine: and in all this time, that is, in the space of four hundred years, both religion was uncorrupted from king Lucius, and the Word of Christ was truly announced up to the coming of Augustine and his Companions. In these words certainly there is nothing injurious to Ninian, but rather an ample commendation of his uncorrupted faith. But, Alford goes on in the same place, presently he (Foxe) accuses Augustine, and calls him a corrupter of the faith: because, fortified by the authority of the Roman Pontiff, he propagated the cultus of the Saints in Britain: then Alford at greater length tears down Foxe's arguments. If therefore what Dempster says of Foxe is true (for it is neither useful nor necessary to enquire into that more laboriously), Foxe likely wished to present St. Ninian as favouring his own heresy, since he complains of St. Augustine for having propagated the cultus of the Saints in England. But whatever be the case, the authority of Foxe and of men of that kind ought by no means to detain us.

\ the &* is superfluous.