A little later St. Finian founded his great school of Clonard, whence, says Usher, issued forth a stream of saints and doctors, like the Greek warriors from the wooden horse. Finian was baptized and instructed by one of the immediate disciples of St. Patrick, and after studying under various Irish masters he passed over into Britain, and there formed an intimate friendship with St. David, St. Gildas, and St. Cadoc. He remained for several years in Britain, and on returning to his own country founded several religious houses, in one of which he lectured on the Holy Scriptures for seven years. At last, about the year 530, he fixed his residence in the desert of Clonard in Westmeath, which had up to that time been the resort of a huge wild boar. This desolate wilderness was soon peopled by his disciples, who are said to have numbered 3000, of whom the twelve most eminent are often termed the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. Finian himself is commonly spoken of as the Master of Saints, and is esteemed, next to St. Patrick, as the greatest doctor of the Irish Church. “He was,” says the writer of his life, “replenished with all science as a learned scribe to teach the law of God; and he was most compassionate and charitable, weeping with those that wept and mildly healing the bodies and souls of all who applied to him. He slept on the bare ground with a stone under his head, and ate nothing but bread and herbs,” and his disciples followed the same severe manner of life. Among them none were more famous than St. Columba, St. Kieran, and St. Brendan. The first of these is known to every English reader as the founder of Iona; and Kieran, the carpenter’s son, as he is called, is scarcely less renowned among his own countrymen. Some anecdotes are told of the school life of these two great men, in which the youthful infirmities[42] so frankly recorded of both will certainly not prejudice our opinion of their future sanctity. A school in those days was not exactly arranged after the fashion of Eton or Rugby: the scholars worked for their own maintenance and that of the house; and under monastic masters this initiation into the holy law of labour was never spared even to those of princely blood. The prince and the peasant were accustomed to work and study side by side; and so it was in the school of Clonard. Columba was of royal extraction, while Kieran was of humble birth. The first task assigned the young prince was to sift the corn that was to serve for next day’s provision, and to the surprise of his more plebeian associates he accomplished it so neatly and with such rapidity that they all declared he must have been helped by an angel. Royal and noble scholars, however, are seldom popular in public schools, and Columba had not a little to endure from his companions on the score of his gentle blood. He exacted a deference from them which Kieran in particular would not submit to, and the result was a continual bickering. But at last, says the old legend, an angel appeared to Kieran, and laying before him a carpenter’s rule and other instruments of his trade, said to him, “Behold what thou hast renounced in giving up the world, but Columba has forsaken a royal sceptre.” The good heart of the carpenter’s son was touched with this reproach, and from that time he and Columba only contended in the generous rivalry of the saints.
Of St. Columba’s apostolic mission to North Britain we shall presently have occasion to speak; but first we must trace the fortunes of his schoolfellow, Kieran, who became the founder of another of the most renowned schools of Ireland. Kieran’s future sanctity had been detected by the quick eye of St. Finian before he left Clonard. One day as he was studying St. Matthew’s Gospel, having come upon the sentence, “All things that ye would that men should do unto you, do ye to them also,” he closed the book, saying, “This is enough for me.” One of his comrades, jesting with him, observed, “Then we shall call you not Kieran, but Leth-Matha (half-Matthew), for you have stopped in the middle of the Gospel.” “No,” said Finian, who overheard the remark, “call him rather Leth-Nerion (half-Ireland), for one-half of this island shall be his,”—a prophecy which was fulfilled when half the Irish monasteries accepted his rule. After leaving Clonard, Kieran, having received his master’s blessing and license, repaired to an island in the lake of Erne, where he spent some time studying under St. Nennidius, another of the Clonard scholars. At last he found his way to Aran, where Enda, who was still living, received him joyfully, and employed him during the intervals of study in threshing out the corn for the use of the other monks. After remaining there seven years he founded two great monasteries, one of which was situated on the west bank of the Shannon, at a spot called Cluain-Mac-Nois,[43] or the Retreat of the Sons of the Noble. This foundation took place about the year 548, and thence the austere rule or law of Kieran spread into a vast number of other religious houses.
It is indeed worthy of note that all the great masters of the Irish schools were followers of the most severe monastic discipline. The nurseries of science were often enough the rude cave, or forest hut of some holy hermit, such as St. Fintan, the founder of Cluain-Ednech, or the Ivy Cave, near Mount Bladin in Queen’s County; whose disciples lived on herbs and roots, laboured in the fields, and, like the monks of Menevia, renounced the assistance of cattle. Yet Abbot Fintan was a polished scholar, and particularly noted for his skill as a logician; and learned men came in crowds to the Ivy Cave to perfect themselves in sacred science and the rules of a holy life. One of Fintan’s most celebrated scholars was St. Comgall, who in 559 became the founder of Benchor, near the bay of Carrickfergus. The fame of this great school of learning and religion has been celebrated by St. Bernard, who, in his “Life of St. Malachi,” speaks of the swarm of saints who came forth from Benchor, and spread themselves like an inundation into foreign lands. In the Latin hymn of its old Antiphonary it is extolled as the ship beaten with the waves, the house founded on the rock, the true vine transplanted out of Egypt whose rule is at once holy and learned, simplex simul atque docta. The most famous of its scholars was St. Columbanus, the founder of Luxeuil in Burgundy and of Bobbio in Italy, whose rule spread over most European countries, and promised at one time to rival that of St. Benedict. The letters of Columbanus prove him to have been “a man of three tongues,” to use the ordinary term applied in old times to one who added to his Greek, Hebrew. His acquaintance with the Latin poets is evident in his letter to Hunaldus, and his familiarity with those of Greece in his poetical epistle to Fedolius. And as he was fifty years of age before he left his native land, it is certain that his learning must have been entirely gained in her native seminaries. Another of the Benchor scholars was Molua, or Luanus, as he is called by St. Bernard, who tells us that he founded at least a hundred monasteries. The story of his first introduction to St. Comgall has been often told, but is one of those that can scarcely be told too often. He was keeping his flocks on the mountain-side, when Comgall, attracted by his appearance, wrote out the alphabet for him on a slate, and seeing his eagerness to learn, took him to Benchor and placed him in the school. Luanus conceived such a thirst for the waters of science that he prayed night and day that he might become learned. The prudent abbot, while he admired the zeal of his new scholar, was not without some anxiety lest his craving after human learning might sully the purity of his soul. One day he beheld the boy seated at the feet of an angel, who was showing him his letters and encouraging him to study. Calling Luanus to him, he said, “My child, thou hast asked a perilous gift from God; many, out of undue love of knowledge, have made shipwreck of their souls.” “My father,” replied Luanus, with the utmost humility, “if I learn to know God I shall never offend Him, for those only offend Him who know him not.” “Go, my son,” said the abbot, charmed with his reply, “remain firm in the faith, and the true science shall conduct thee on the road to heaven.”
Luanus was the founder of the monastery of Clonfert, in Leinster, and the author of another religious rule highly prized by his countrymen. The no less celebrated school of Clonfert, in Connaught, owed its foundation to St. Brendan, the fellow-student of Kieran and Columba. Having passed some years under the direction of St. Jarlath at Tuam, and St. Finian at Clonard, and become as familiar with Greek as he was with Latin, he is declared by his historians to have set sail on a voyage in search of the Land of Promise, which lasted seven years. In the course of these wanderings by sea he discovered a vast tract of land lying far to the west of Ireland, where he beheld wonderful birds, and trees of unknown foliage, which gave forth the perfumes of such excellent spices, that the fragrance thereof still clung to the garments of the travellers when they returned to their native shores.
But it is time to speak of the Irish monastic patriot, whose name is known in our own time, as it was probably revered in his own, beyond any of those that have hitherto been mentioned. It was in the year 563 that St. Columba,[44] after founding the monasteries of Doire-Calgaich and Dair-magh in his native land, and incurring the enmity of one of the Irish kings, determined on crossing over into Scotland in order to preach the faith to the Northern Picts. Accompanied by twelve companions, he passed the Channel in a rude wicker boat covered with skins, and landed at Port-na Currachan, on a spot now marked by a heap of huge conical stones. Conall, king of the Albanian Scots, granted him the island of I, Hi, or Ai, hitherto occupied by the Druids, and there he erected the monastery which, in time, became the mother of three hundred religious houses. If Johnson felt his piety grow warmer amid the ruins of Iona, we surely cannot be indifferent while contemplating the site of that missionary college which educated so many of our early apostles, and diffused the light of faith from Lindisfarne to the Hebrides. The life led by its inmates was at once apostolic and contemplative. If at one time the monks of Iona were to be met with travelling through the islands and highlands of Scotland, preaching the faith and administering baptism where no Christian missionaries had hitherto penetrated, at others they were to be seen tilling the soil, teaching in their schools, and transcribing manuscripts. In whatever labours they engaged, Columba himself was the first to lead the way. “He suffered no space of time,” says Adamnan, “no, not an hour, to pass in which he was not employed either in prayer, or in reading, or writing, or manual work. And so unwearied was his labour both by day and night, that it seemed as if the weight of every particular work of his seemed to exceed the power of man.” He penetrated into the Hebrides, and twice revisited his native shores, but on his return from such expeditions he loved to take part in the agricultural or scholastic pursuits of his brethren. He would hear them read or himself read to them, and overlook their work in the Scriptorium, where he required the most scrupulous exactitude. He himself was a skilful penman, and the magnificent Codex of Kells, still preserved in the library of Trinity College, is known to have been written by his hand. Iona, or I-Colum-kil, as it was called by the Irish, came to be looked on as the chief seat of learning, not only in Britain, but in the whole Western world. “Thither, as from a nest,” says Odonellus, playing on the Latin name of the founder, “these sacred doves took their flight to every quarter.” They studied the classics, the mechanical arts, law, history, and physic. They improved the arts of husbandry and horticulture, supplied the rude people whom they had undertaken to civilise with ploughshares and other utensils of labour, and taught them the use of the forge, in the mysteries of which every Irish monk was instructed from his boyhood. They transferred to their new homes all the learning of Armagh or Clonard. Of St. Munn, one of the pupils of Columba, it is said that he spent eighteen years in uninterrupted study, yet this devotion to intellectual pursuits was accompanied by a singular simplicity and love of poverty. Wherever the apostles of Iona appeared, they carried with them the reputation of frugality and self-devotion. Thus Bede remarks on the extreme simplicity of life observed by Bishop Colman and his disciples, how they were content with the simple fare, “because it was the study of their teachers to feed the soul rather than the body.” “And for that reason,” he continues, “the religious habit was then held in great veneration, and wherever any monk appeared, he was joyfully received as God’s servant; and if men chanced to meet him on the way they ran to him bowing, glad to be signed with his hand and blessed by his mouth. And when a priest came to any village the inhabitants immediately flocked to hear from him the Word of Life, for they went about on no other account than to preach, baptize, visit the sick, and take care of souls.”
In every college of Irish origin, by whomsoever they were founded or on whatever soil they flourished, we thus see study blended with the duties of the missionary and the cœnobite. They were religious houses, no doubt, in which the celebration of the Church office was often kept up without intermission by day and night; but they were also seminaries of learning, wherein sacred and profane studies were cultivated with equal success. Not only their own monasteries but those of every European country were enriched with their manuscripts, and the researches of modern bibliopolists are continually disinterring from German or Italian libraries a Horace, or an Ovid, or a Sacred Codex whose Irish gloss betrays the hand which traced its delicate letters. The Hibernian scholars were remarkable for combining acuteness of the reasoning powers with the gifts of the musician and the poet. There were no more accurate mathematicians and no keener logicians than the sons of Erin, whose love of syllogism is spoken of in the ninth century by St. Benedict of Anian. They are admitted to have been the precursors of the mediæval schoolmen, and to have been the first to apply the subtleties of Greek philosophy to Christian dogma. Their love of Greek was, perhaps, excessive, for they evinced it by Hellenising their Latin, and occasionally writing even their Latin missals in the Greek character. In the disputes that arose on the subject of the Paschal computation, they astonished their adversaries with their arithmetical science and their linguistic erudition. St. Cummian, in the Paschal epistle wherein he so ably defends the Roman system, examines all the various cycles in use among the Jews, Greeks, Latins, and Egyptians; quotes passages from Greek and Latin fathers, and manifestly proves how well the libraries of Ireland were furnished, and how competent her scholars were to use them. Nor whilst cultivating the exact sciences did they abandon the muses. Both St. Columbia and St. Columbanus enjoyed a reputation as poets. St. Ængus, the martyrologist, began life as a professional bard, and did not lay aside his harp when he assumed the cowl of the cœnobite; while Ruman, the son of Colman, was called “the Virgil of Ireland,” and is described as an “adept in chronology, history, and poetry.” Rhyme, if not invented in Ireland, was at least adopted by her versifiers so generally, and at so early a period, as sometimes to be designated “the art of the Irish;” and, as Moore observes, the peculiar structure of their verse shows that it belonged to a people of strong musical feeling. Hence they soon became famous for their skill in psalmody, and were esteemed both at home and abroad as first-rate choir-masters; and the legends of the Irish saints are full of passages which describe the kind of ecstasy produced in the minds of this people, so susceptible to the beautiful in every form, by the melody of the ecclesiastical chant. We will give one of these stories, because it introduces us to the founder of the school of Lismore, the last of the great Irish seminaries which we shall notice in this place. Though said to be of noble extraction, Mochuda was employed by a chief in the humble capacity of swineherd. One day as he tended his herd by the banks of the river Mang, he was rapt out of himself by a sight and a sound of beauty altogether new to him. It was the holy bishop St. Carthag the elder, accompanied by a procession of his clergy, who as they went along made the hills of Kerry re-echo to the Psalm-tones, ever ancient and ever new, of the Gregorian chant. St. Augustine has confessed to their power over his heart, and the poor Irish swineherd was not less enraptured by their beauty than the African rhetorician had been. Drawn along, as it were, by the charm of the melody, he left his herd in the fields and followed the singers to their monastery. All night he remained outside the gates, catching at intervals the distant sound of the night office, till when morning dawned he was found there by his master Moelthuili, who desired to know why he had not returned home in the evening as was usual. “Because I was charmed with the holy songs of the servants of God,” replied Mochuda, “and I desire nothing else on earth than that I also may learn to sing those songs.” Moelthuili, who loved the boy, made him large promises of favour if he would remain in his service, but finding his words unheeded, he at last took him to the bishop and begged him to receive the youth among his disciples. St. Carthag bestowed his own name upon him, and admitted him among his scholars, and in process of time the fame of the pupil surpassed even that of his master. In 630 St. Carthag the younger, as he is called, became the founder of Lismore, the fame of whose schools extended into Italy.
“One-half of this holy city,” says an ancient writer, “is a sanctuary into which no woman may enter; it is full of cells and monasteries, and religious men resort thither from all parts of Ireland and England.”[45] One of the most famous masters of Lismore was St. Cathal or Cataldus, the patron saint of Tarentum in Italy, and his numerous biographies in prose and verse never fail to commemorate the glories of his Alma Mater.
Whatever exaggeration may have been committed by the national annalists when they speak of the foreign students who resorted to the Irish schools, it is impossible to doubt that they were eagerly sought by nations of the most distant lands, who, in an age when the rest of Europe was sunk in illiterate barbarism, found in the cloisters of Armagh, Lismore, Clonard, and Clonmacnois, masters of philosophy and sacred science whose learning had passed into a proverb. Camden remarks how common a thing it is to read in the lives of our English saints that they were sent to study in Ireland, and the same expression occurs quite as frequently in the Gallican histories. The prodigious Litany of the Saints, composed in the eighth century by St. Ængus, includes the names not only of Britons, Picts, and Saxons, but also of Gauls, Germans, Romans, and Egyptians, all buried in Ireland. The tomb of the “Seven Romans” may still be seen in the churchyard of St. Brecan in the Isle of Aran, and a church at Meath was commonly known as the Greek Church, so called from having been served by Greek ecclesiastics. Even in the eleventh century the fame of the Irish schools was undiminished, and Sulgenus, bishop of St. David’s, spent ten years studying under their best masters.
Great as was the learning of the Irish scholars, it had in it a certain character of its own. Their theology was deeply tinged with a metaphysical spirit, and in their grammar, no less than their poetry, they displayed a taste for the mystic and the obscure. This is partly to be attributed to the influence of the Toulouse academicians, with whom the Irish scholars eagerly fraternised. They seem to have found something unspeakably attractive in the bizarre language of the twelve Latinities and the novelties of the Toulouse prosody. The strange jargon in which some of their professors were accustomed to indulge occasionally steals into the Hibernian hymns and antiphons; and the Anglo-Saxons who flocked in such multitudes to the Irish seminaries, were not slow in catching the infection. They soon learnt to disfigure their pages with a jumble of Greek, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon syllables, and to expend their patience and ingenuity over compositions in which the great achievement was to produce fifteen consecutive words beginning with a P.
If Ireland gave hospitality in these remote ages to men of all tongues and races, she in her turn sent forth her swarms of saints who have left their traces in countless churches founded by them in Gaul, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. The children of St. Columbanus reformed the Austrasian clergy, and were the first apostles of the Rhetian wildernesses. At Fiesole, in Tuscany, we find the Irish St. Donatus, compelled by the people to accept the office of bishop, and restoring, at one and the same time, sacred studies and ecclesiastical discipline. The myrtle bowers of Ausonia, however, did not make him forget his native land, for in some Latin verses which Moore has thought worthy of translation, he dwells like a true patriot on the praises of that remote western island, so rich in gems and precious metals, where the fields flow with milk and honey, and the lowing herds and golden harvests supply all the wants of man. At Lucca the English traveller is still startled to find the relics of his own Anglo-Saxon countrymen, St. Richard and St. Winibald, preserved and venerated in a church dedicated to the Irish bishop, St. Frigidian. And whilst the southern shores of Italy were welcoming the coming of St. Cataldus, Iceland and the distant Orcades were receiving missionaries of the same Celtic race.[46]