An Irish precursor of Dante

by Charles Stuart Boswell

The exact place of St. Fursa’s birth and race appear to be unknown, though it seems that he was a Munsterman. The principal scene of his early ministrations was the neighbourhood of Loch Orbsen (Corrib), and he afterwards spent some time as a hermit upon an island in the ocean. At a later date he visited England, probably about 633 A.D., as recorded by Bede, and won the favour and respect of Sigebert, King of East Anglia. The monastery of Burghcastle, in Suffolk, was founded under his auspices, and his labours were attended with many conversions among the Saxons. He next passed over to Gaul, where he enjoyed a great reputation, and exercised influence over King Clovis II. In Gaul he founded the monastery of Lagny, and a branch of it at Perronne.

Fursa’s visions of the Otherworld must have appeared to him before his visit to England, probably during the solitude of his ocean retreat. However, he continued to see visions, of one sort or other, during the latter part of his life. Indeed, it is probable that in his case, as in so many others, the visions were largely produced by physical causes—a constitutional tendency, stimulated by special circumstances—for we read that the first of his visions came to him in a trance, during an illness, and the rest after long fasting.

In the first vision, his soul was conveyed out of the body, and ‘he was graced with the sight and the hearing of the praises of the Heavenly Hosts.’ Three days later, he was again taken by three angels, who represented the Trinity, and borne through clouds of hideous, misshapen demons, who attempted to bar his progress, and cast at him showers of fiery arrows, which the leading angel caught on his buckler.[147] On their way they passed by Satan, who raised up his head, like that of a serpent, and argued against Fursa’s acceptance into Eternal Life, by reason of the sins to which he was prone, and among these, chiefly, a vindictive spirit; but although he showed that ‘the Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose,’ the angels answered his arguments, and they passed on. Then Fursa, like Scipio in the ‘Dream,’ was bidden to look back upon the world; and it appeared to him as it were a dark valley, and in the air about it four fires were burning. These were the fires that destroy the world; and the first fire was Neglect of the Baptismal Vow to renounce the Devil and his works; the second fire was Covetousness; the third Dissension, and the fourth Injustice. Fursa descried a fire approaching, and was dismayed; but the angel said to him, ‘What thou hast not kindled shall not consume thee’; for the fire tried every one according to his works; and ‘as the body is consumed by self-willed pleasure, so shall the soul burn with everlasting punishment.’ The doctrine is as old as the Rabbis, but the moral lesson is here finely conceived and forcibly conveyed. Seven times more did as many demons in succession attempt to bar Fursa’s progress, contesting his right to admittance with various eristic arguments, supported by texts of Scripture. It is to be remarked that the obstacles which commonly obstruct the hero’s access to the enchanted lands of fable, and often survive in theological adaptations of the subject, have here assumed an aspect almost purely intellectual and spiritual. All objections having been satisfactorily answered by the angels, Fursa found himself surrounded by a great brightness, and saw vast multitudes of angels and saints flying with wings in motion. Among these Fursa recognised several friends, with whom he held converse. He then approached a region of serener air, where the angelic host, disposed in four choirs, were singing the Tersanctus. Here he received long instructions in theology and morals, which he was bidden to announce to the princes and prelates of Ireland; he was then conducted back to his body. On the way, a great fire approached in a threatening manner; the angels diverted it, but from out of the midst of it demons shot forth a sinner, aiming him at Fursa. The angels cast him back, but not until he had struck Fursa’s shoulder and burnt it. This was a sinner from whom Fursa had accepted a cloak, while ministering to him on his deathbed.[148]

Another of the Visions of the Irish saints, attributed to St. Laisrén, has been made available for the first time by Professor Kuno Meyer.[149] This Laisrén, he thinks, was probably the most celebrated of the many saints bearing that name, the Abbot of Lethglenn (Leighlin) in the Co. Carlow, who died in the year 638. From the mere fragment that survives, it would seem that the complete Vision must have treated the subject with great fulness, though a part of Laisrén’s visit to Hell is all that is left. It is more in the style of Fursa’s vision than that of Adamnán, though it differs from both in certain respects, notably in the manner of the revelation to the seer of the vision. Laisrén had gone to Cluain Cháin, in Connacht, to purify a church there, and after nine days’ fasting fell asleep. In his sleep he heard a voice say ‘Arise!’ and upon this command being repeated, he raised his head, crossing himself. The church was all lighted up, and between the chancel and the altar stood a shining figure, who said to him, ‘Come towards me!’ At this Laisrén was seized with a trembling, and in some mysterious manner he became aware that his own spirit was parted from the body, and was hovering over his head. The roof of the church then opened, and two angels, taking Laisrén’s soul between them, bore him aloft into the air, where a host of angels received him. Further progress was opposed by three hordes of fiery demons, armed with fiery spears and darts, one of whom preferred against Laisrén a long charge, enumerating all the sins which he had committed since birth, and of which he had failed to make confession; ‘and the demon said nothing that was not true.’ However, ‘an angel of the great host’ succeeded in answering all charges, and dismissed the demons; he then bade Laisrén’s conductors take him to see Hell. The two angels let him down into a glen lying towards the north, which seemed to be as long as from the rising of the sun to his setting. They entered into a pit like a cave between two mountains, and at length came to a lofty black mountain, in the upper part of which was a glen, broad below and narrow above, and this was the porch of Hell. In the midst of the glen Laisrén saw very many of the people of Ireland, wailing; so many that he thought a pestilence must have brought them thither, but the angel explained that ‘whoever is under the displeasure of God after thee, here do they behold (their) souls, and this is their certain fate, unless they repent’ (tr. K. M., loc. cit.). Laisrén would fain have spoken to them, but the angel forbade it, ‘lest they despair.’ However, he enjoined Laisrén to preach repentance to them, whereby they should escape that evil. ‘And again, he who shall live in righteousness, he sees life while he is in the body, and he shall be in life if he is steadfast in righteousness. Tell them also,’ said the angel, ‘that he who lives in righteousness be steadfast in it, for there is not much time for them to consider, until death comes to them’ (Ibid.).

They entered into Hell, and saw a wild and billowy sea of fire, and the souls aflame therein, wailing, their heads above the surface. Some had fiery nails through their tongues, others through the ears, or the eyes; others, again, were being driven by demons with fiery forks. Laisrén, asking what these different torments might mean, was told that those with nails through their tongues had been less frequent in worship and praise than in blasphemy, falsehood, prying, and boasting. Here the fragment breaks off.

In his preface to the foregoing work, Professor Meyer appears to anticipate further discoveries in this field of research; however, of all the Irish Visions yet brought to light, the Fis Adamnáin excels the rest in interest and importance even more completely than the Voyage of St. Brendan excels all other members of its own class, and may be regarded as the type of its genre, in its most highly developed form.

Before proceeding to examine the contents of that Fis, we may glance at two other works by Irish ecclesiastical writers which show that a great part of the imagery and incidents contained alike in the sacred Imram and in the Fis belonged to a common stock of ideas current in the Irish eschatology of that period.

One of these is the Scél Lái Brátha (‘Tidings of Doomsday’), a homily ascribed to ‘Matthew, son of Alphæus,’ which is preserved in the Lebor na h-Udri, and was therefore written in the eleventh century at latest.[150] In it occurs the familiar distinction between the Mali sed non valde and the Mali valde, both of whom are condemned in their several degrees; the Boni sed non valde, who are finally saved by virtue of their almsgiving, and the Boni valde, who go direct to Heaven. This classification, though not expressly made in the Fis Adamnáin, lies at the root of the scheme of rewards and punishments there set forth. Indeed, Professor Zimmer points out the frequency of this division in works written by Irish authors or under Irish influences.[151] The Limbus patrum, the Limbus infantium, etc., represent similar attempts of the mediæval theologians to provide for cases which do not seem to them to be adequately dealt with by the broader distinctions. Dante, in effect, adopts an analogous fourfold arrangement; the infernal regions inside and without the City of Dis being allotted to sinners of greater or less degree of guilt, while the system of Purgatory is adapted to the respective cases of the Boni valde and the Boni sed non valde respectively.

In its descriptions of both regions of the Otherworld, the homily presents several points of resemblance to the Fis Adamnáin. ‘In no wise pleasant is the path of the sinful; they find not food nor drink, but perpetual hunger, great thirst, and bitter cold. Then they are conducted to the Devil’s house amid the sound of despair and heavy, long-drawn moaning. Piteous are the crying and wailing, the weeping and sighing, the mourning and smiting of hands of the sinners, as they are dragged towards Hell’s torments. But theirs is the weariness of remorse without avail; for their prayer is not heard there, seeing that they had not hearkened aforetime while they were in this life, body and soul dwelling together.’ Here, too, we have the simile of the closing of the locks, which are here threefold: ‘to wit, the closing of Hell upon them through ages everlasting; the closing of their eyes to the world upon which they had set their love; and the closing of the Kingdom of Heaven against them.’ The description of the torments of Hell is copious and varied. Cold, gloomy tracts, abounding in dark, fœtid lakes, alternate with regions of glowing though murky flames,[152] where the sinners stand on red-hot flagstones. Herein swarm monsters of various kinds: adders, toads, cats which rend the damned, demons who torment them and hew them with swords, and, above all, the Piast, the old serpent—‘a strange serpent,’ indeed, for he is depicted with one hundred necks, and one hundred heads on each, and five hundred teeth in every mouth; one hundred arms he has, one hundred hands on every arm, and one hundred claws on every hand.[153]

There is little attempt made to discriminate between the penalties accorded to different kinds of guilt.