The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Volume 1, October, 1864

by Unknown

I.

1. Essays on the Origin, Doctrines, and Discipline of the Early Irish Church. By the Rev. Dr. Moran, Vice-Rector of the Irish College, Rome. Dublin: Duffy, 1864, pp. 337.

2. History of the Catholic Archbishops of Dublin since the Reformation. By the Rev. Dr. Moran, Vice-Rector of the Irish College, Rome. Vol. I., Part I. Introduction. Dublin: Duffy, 1864, pp. 192.

There are two positions that command the whole field of Irish Church history. The first is the original connection of the Irish Church with the See of Rome; the second is that her hierarchy has remained ever faithful to Rome, especially in the time of the Reformation. Deny either of these, and the whole aspect of our ecclesiastical history is immediately changed. The supernatural virtues that spring from Catholicism nowhere had a fresher bloom than in Ireland. Faith, and hope, and charity, and love for the evangelical counsels were in a special degree the ornaments of the nation which, Saint Patrick tells us in his Confessions, "had been bestowed upon him by the charity of Christ". The schools of Ireland, her art, her literature, her laws, her social customs, all felt the influence of the intense religious feeling that existed throughout the land. The Irish monastic superiors, says a lively French writer, aimed at making their monks saints, and were surprised to find them become poets likewise. Now this rich superabundance of spiritual blessing, as it was the fruit of union with Rome, so also ought it be traced back to Rome as its source under God. And the more marvellous its richness, the more striking the necessity of being able to show that it has come to us through Saint Peter. Besides, all these graces were, if we may use a theological expression, gratiae gratis datae, as well as gratum facientes. They were given to the Irish Church not only to make her the glad mother of saints, but also, and in a singular manner, for the benefit of others. It is, we think, impossible not to recognize in the history of the Irish Church, both ancient and modern, this missionary character. Her cloisters had the gift of sanctity; but did not the odour of this very sanctity draw to her shores crowds of foreign ecclesiastics—Egyptian, Roman, Italian, French, British, and Saxon? Her schools had the gift of wisdom; but did not this wisdom cry out to the men beyond the seas to come and buy of it without price? Where was the bishop's throne encircled by a more dense crown of Priests and Levites than in Ireland? and was it not that many of them might be spared for those places abroad where the little ones were asking for bread, and there was none to break it to them? The flower of her youth thronged her monasteries; she took them to her bosom as children, that she might make them fathers; and among the monks of the West what fathers were more fruitful of good? And in our own day let England, and Scotland, and Australia, and America, and Africa, and India, tell what part Providence has assigned to the Irish Catholics in that wonderful growth of Catholicism which refreshes the heart in these days of indifference and infidelity. To Ireland may well be applied the words used by Saint Gregory Nazianzen, of the Constantinople of the fourth century, when he calls it "the bond of union between the east and west, to which the most distant extremes from all sides come together, and to which they look up as to a common centre and emporium of the faith". This being the case, it becomes a cardinal point to show the unbroken connection between Rome and Ireland through all the chequered course of our history. If she be not sent, how shall she preach?

This central truth is the subject of Dr. Moran's two books, although under a different aspect in each. He could not have rendered better service to our Church than by establishing so clearly and firmly as he has done, that Saint Patrick had his mission from Rome, and that the Irish Church was never merged in the so-called Church of the Reformation. Under any circumstances, such a work would be entitled to our gratitude. But the exceptional circumstances of the times were such as to make its appearance a real necessity. Dr. Todd, of Trinity College, in his Memoir of Saint Patrick, added his honoured name to the list of those who deny that Saint Patrick's mission to our island had any connection with, or sanction from, the Roman Pontiff, Celestine. In his preface to the same work he lays down the theory that the new Irish Church, which was long in opposition to the church of the English Pale, at last combined with it in embracing the reformed creed. In face of such assertions, coming from such a source, and which, as we have seen, strike at the very heart of our ecclesiastical glory, we had need of a work conceived in good temper, executed with scholarly precision, and giving proof as well of extensive acquaintance with our ancient records, as of critical skill in their interpretation. These qualities we find in Dr. Moran's works. In addressing himself to his task, he starts from the principle, that as being a question of facts, it must be discussed on its intrinsic merits, and decided by the mere authority of historical records and critical arguments. To this principle he carefully adheres to the close.

The work which we have placed first on our list contains three essays. The first treats of the origin of the Irish Church and of the labours of Saints Palladius and Patrick; the second, of the Blessed Eucharist; the third, of the Blessed Virgin. The first essay is divided into three parts. Part I. treats of Saint Palladius and Saint Patrick, and is divided into four chapters respectively headed: Mission of Saint Palladius; general sketch of Saint Patrick's history; Saint Patrick's connection with Saint Germanus; Saint Patrick's mission from Rome. In Part II. various modern theories respecting Saint Patrick are reviewed and refuted. Chapter i. refutes Dr. Ledwich's theory that Saint Patrick never existed; chapter ii. refutes the statements of Sir William Betham, that Saint Patrick lived long before A.D. 432, and of Usher, that Ireland possessed a hierarchy long before Saint Patrick's time; chapter iii. examines Dean Murray's theory, that Saint Patrick had no mission from Rome; chapter iv. refutes the opinion of Dr. Lanigan, that Saint Patrick died A.D. 465, and then Dr. Petrie's conjecture, that our ancient writers have so blended together the acts of two Saint Patricks, that it is no longer possible to say which belongs to the Apostle Patrick; chapters v. vi. vii. deal with Dr. Todd's theory reduced to three heads:—1. that Saint Palladius was not a Roman deacon; 2. that Saint Patrick did not commence his apostolate until A.D. 440; 3. that Saint Patrick received no mission from Rome. Part III. sets before us the sentiments of the early Irish Church regarding Rome. Three classes of witnesses are called, in as many chapters, to testify that the ancient Irish acknowledged with filial reverence the divinely given authority of the Holy See. First come the ancient writers, next the canons which regulated the discipline of the Church, then the Irish saints who gave evidence of their sentiments by their pilgrimages to Rome, and by their appeals to the supreme power of Saint Peter's chair.

The second essay treats of the teaching of the ancient Irish Church regarding the Blessed Eucharist. That Christ is really present and offered on our altars for the living and the dead, was held by our Christian fathers as tenaciously as by their Catholic children of to-day. The documents which illustrate this point are arranged by Dr. Moran under the following heads:—1. Liturgical treatises; 2. Penitentials and other records; 3. the words and practice of the early saints; 4. the ancient writers cited by Protestants as favourable to the reformed doctrine. The examination of these witnesses occupies four chapters.

In the third essay Dr. Moran brings conclusive testimony to show that devotion to the Blessed Virgin was part of the primitive teaching. He alludes to the beautiful prayer of Saint Colgu which we have been enabled, at page 4, to present in full to our readers.

The work is closed by various appendices, each dealing with some one monument of sacred antiquity. In these appendices the reader will find, together with a valuable mine of precious information, the following documents, either whole or in part:—an old Irish tract on the various liturgies referred by Spelman to about A.D. 680, the Penitentials of Saint Cummian, Saint Finnian, Saint David, Saint Gildas, and Saint Columbanus; the canons of Adamnan, the Synodus Sapientium, the Bobbio Missal, the Profession of Faith by Saint Mochta, of Louth, of the fifth century, the sixth canon of Saint Patrick, the Irish synod of A.D. 807, and various hymns from the Bangor Antiphonarium.

The second of Dr. Moran's books noticed above is the introduction to a larger work which we hope soon to see published, the History of the Catholic Archbishops of Dublin since the Reformation. This introduction is intended to prepare the reader for that history by describing the first attempts to root out the ancient religion of Ireland, the unworthy arts by which the Catholic Church was assailed, and the evil effects of the Reformation. It also gives a sketch of the persecutions in Ireland under Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth. The whole is divided into four chapters. Chapter i. treats of the first efforts of the English government to introduce the Reformation into Ireland; chapter ii. of the appointment of Hugh Curwin to the see of Dublin, and his apostacy; chapter iii. of the vacancy of the see after the apostacy of Curwin, and how the diocese was administered until the end of the sixteenth century; chapter iv. of the persecution of the Irish Catholics during the reign of Elizabeth. In the appendix Dr. Moran shows from the Consistorial Acts and other genuine sources, that the succession of our Irish Catholic bishops has remained unbroken. The immense value of such an appendix will best be recognized when we recall to mind the confident statements to the contrary continually put forward by Protestant writers. The late Protestant Dean of Ardagh asserts that the bishops, with the exception of two, and all the priests embraced the Reformation. The Hon. and Rev. A. Percival, in An Apology for the Doctrine of Apostolical Succession, states that "at the accession of Queen Elizabeth, of all the Irish bishops, only two were deprived, and two others resigned on account of their adherence to the supremacy of the See of Rome. The rest continued in their sees; and from them the bishops and clergy of the Irish Church derive their orders.... This has never been disputed". Dr. Mant, the Protestant bishop of Down and Connor, attempts to prove statistically that the Irish hierarchy adopted the Reformation. On this, his chosen ground of statistics, he is met by Dr. Moran, who shows that he omits three sees occupied by Catholic bishops, viz.: Mayo, Ross, and Kilmacduagh; that he falsely supposes Armagh to have been vacant after Dr. Dowdal's death in 1558, until Adam Loftus' consecration in 1561, whereas Dr. Donatus Fleming had been appointed in February, 1560, and was then in actual possession of the see; that seven other sees, whose occupants were not known to Dr. Mant, were, nevertheless, held by canonically appointed prelates, viz.: Kilmore, Dromore, Raphoc, Derry, Kilfenoragh, Killala, Achonry; that the eleven sees vacated by death retained beyond a doubt the Catholic succession. Dr. Mant's opinions as to the other sees are carefully examined, and the result of the whole investigation is to establish triumphantly against Dr. Todd and Dr. Mant, that, "so far from the old clergy of Ireland having merged into the reformation of Elizabeth, the succession of the Catholic hierarchy remained unbroken".