The more one examines this subject the more he is inclined to accept this theory which gets over the difficulty of assuming that the Irish obtained their classical learning from Britain where as Zimmer has shown there was not any classical learning wide and profound enough to produce such results;[48] nor were the High Schools of Gaul a quiet place for learning in the fifth century[49] though Colgan would have us believe—we know not on what authority—that St. Patrick sent St. Olcan to Gaul to study sacred and profane learning so that he might return to Ireland to establish “publicas scholas.”[50]
There is nothing improbable in supposing that these rhetoricians should flee to Ireland for safety just as refugee Christians fled to the same island from the persecutions of the Emperor Diocletian more than a century before St. Patrick’s time.[51] Indeed Ireland was well known to Roman geographers, though their ideas of its location were rather inaccurate. Tacitus informs us that Ireland is situated between Spain and Britain,[52] a conception which points to direct communication with the Empire. The same author further informs us that the harbours of Ireland were well known to merchants through trade and commerce.[53] As the researches of Mr. George Coffey and Mrs. Greene have shown, intercourse and commerce between Ireland and Gaul had been constant and regular for centuries before the fifth.[54] There were even Gallic mercenaries in the service of Irish kings during the early centuries of our era.[55] Moreover, Irishmen at this time were familiar figures on the Continent. Amongst these may be mentioned Mansuetus, Bishop of Toul about 350 A.D.[56] There can be little doubt that Sedulius, the great Christian poet, author of Carmen Pascale, was an Irishman.[57] Sedulius, sometimes called Sedulius the Elder (to distinguish him from another Sedulius who was at Compostella in the eighth century and still another Sedulius who was at Liège in the ninth), flourished between 423–450 A.D.[58] His work treating of the chief events recorded in the Old and New Testament was “the first Christian Epic worthy of the name.”[59] Dr. Sigerson by a scholarly analysis[60] of the verse structure traces the influence of the Irish school of prosody referred to in the previous chapter. Though Sedulius wrote in Latin and followed the classical forms of verse, yet he infused into them certain characteristics of Irish poetry, such as systematic alliteration, assonance and rhyme—qualities that reveal the Gael.
Ireland is also credited with the doubtful honour of having given birth to Pelagius and his associate Caelestius.[61] Both flourished in the beginning of the fifth century. Zimmer contended that Pelagius was an Irishman,[62] but Healy shows that he was a British monk of Irish origin.[63] Healy also endeavours to prove that the assumption that Caelestius was an Irishman is based on a misconception.[64] Against this view we must place Meyer’s opinion. The latter asserts that whether Pelagius was an Irishman or not “his faithful henchman, Caelestius, he of the plausible tongue, certainly was.”[65] The weight of evidence seems to point to the conclusion that one or other, if not both, of these heresiarchs was Irish or at least of Irish descent.
Enough was written to show that some Irish families at least were in reach of a classical literary education and were prompt to grasp it even before the middle of the fifth century.[66] Hence we cannot attribute the introduction of classical learning to St. Patrick as has been so often asserted. Nor can we attribute to St. Patrick the introduction of Christianity itself. According to Zimmer there were missionaries at work in the third century in the southern part of Ireland.[67] It would seem, however, that Zimmer makes too sweeping a statement when he says that Ireland was a Christian land before the fifth century; for, as MacCaffery has pointed out, the Irish Hero Tales which were taken down about the beginning of the eighth century represent the life of the first, second and third centuries and paint the social life as unaffected by Christianity.[68]
That there were some Christians in Ireland before the time of St. Patrick there can be no doubt. Bede distinctly states that Palladius, the predecessor of St. Patrick, was sent by Pope Celestine to the Irish who believed in Christ—“ad Scottos in Christum credentes.”[69] Here it should be pointed out that the word Scoti or Scotti wherever it occurs in writings prior to the tenth century means the Irish, and the Irish alone, the inhabitants of Scotia Major (Ireland). Later the term was extended to include the Irish colony in North Britain (Scotia Minor). Eventually the name was still further extended to include the inhabitants of the whole country now called Scotland.[70]
It has been necessary to go into some detail in order to refute a popular fallacy that it was due to the labours of St. Patrick that Ireland owes the introduction of Christianity as well as the beginnings of classical learning. However, as Professor Bury points out, the fact that the foundations of Christianity had been laid sporadically in certain parts of Ireland does not deprive St. Patrick’s mission of its eminent significance. He did three things: he organised the Christianity which already existed; he converted many districts which were still pagan, especially in the West; he brought Ireland into connection with the Church of the Empire and made it formally a part of universal Christendom.[71] While as has been shown he did not introduce classical learning, his indirect influence must have been considerable. The very fact that Latin was the ecclesiastical language of the new religion gave it an importance and a dignity. Besides St. Patrick and his fellow workers would naturally help to diffuse a knowledge of ecclesiastical Latin at least in every part of the island which Christianity reached,[72] but it must be remembered that Ireland was not a completely Christian land even at his death.[73] Paganism still lingered in many parts and its influence can be traced in the early native literature,[74] and even in the early Lives of the Irish Saints.[75] To complete the work which he did so much to promote as well as to supply the spiritual wants of the converted, a native ministry was essential. In order to equip such a ministry Christian schools had to be established. Unable to give proper attention to the instruction of these ecclesiastical students, St. Patrick after about twenty years’ peripatetic teaching established c. 450 A.D. a school at Armagh of which St. Benin or Benignus was given charge. The primary aim of this school was to train subjects for the priesthood.[76] A knowledge of Latin and perhaps Greek were acquired. To supply the various churches with books there was a special house in which students were employed as scribes.[77]
From what has been said about the presence of Gallic scholars in Ireland we may infer that there were classical schools in existence in certain localities, but in the foundation of the School of Armagh we have the first recorded attempt at the organization of instruction in Christian theology and classical learning in Ireland. We append a list of other schools which the most reliable authorities ascribe to the latter half of the fifth century. It is doubtful whether these were really monastic schools at first for reasons that will be given in the next chapter. It is more likely that they were ecclesiastical seminaries during the time of the First Order of Saints (c. 440–534 A.D.).[78]
The significance of these fifth century schools from the point of view of the present study lies in the fact that they were the precursors of the great monastic schools which sprang up in such numbers in the sixth century. We have good reason for believing that it was in these early schools and by the labours of Gallic scholars and their pupils that the foundations were laid of that classical scholarship that drew the eyes of Europe upon Ireland during the sixth, seventh and eighth and ninth centuries.