[14a], [14b], and [14c]. Conyngham, D. P., op. cit. p. 539.
[15a], [15b], and [15c]. Conyngham, D. P., op. cit. p. 538.
[16a], [16b], and [16c]. Conyngham, D. P., op. cit. p. 539.
This list does not claim to be complete. The above dates agree with those given by the most careful authorities. The four saints whose names are marked (*) are usually called the pre-Patrician Saints. Their chronology is very difficult. Some authorities place them as early as the fourth century and some as late as the sixth.
CHAPTER III
IRISH MONASTICISM
As the organization of the Irish monastic schools was so intimately connected with the Irish monastic system it is impossible to form a clear idea of the character, aims, curriculum, or the scope of scholarship of these schools without some reference to Irish monasticism and its relation to other types of monasticism.
Monasticism in general is a system of living that owes its origin to those tendencies of human nature which are summed up in the words mysticism and asceticism. Mysticism may be defined as the efforts to give effect to the craving for union with the Deity even in this life; and asceticism, as the effort to give effect to the hankering after an ever progressive purification of the soul, and an atoning for sin by the renunciation and self-denial of things lawful.[79] These two tendencies would appear to be inseparable from humanity, because though not always called into activity, they are always liable to be invoked, and in all ages and among all peoples they have frequently asserted themselves.[80] In one form or another monasticism had appealed to people of various countries long before it became associated with Christianity. In the early years of Christianity monasticism took a definite shape in Syria, Egypt and Armenia. From Egypt and Syria it was brought to Rome about the middle of the fourth century by Athanasius, the great champion of the Divinity of Christ; by Honorius, the founder of the island monastery of Lerins; and by Cassian whose “Institutes” were a kind of manual for all the earlier monasteries of the West.[81]