That the cipher implies that the alphabet for which its symbols are substituted was in use can hardly be questioned. As the date of the oldest ogam stones cannot be determined, we cannot fix a date for the introduction of Roman writing. But there can be no question that the older stones are pagan, and the inference is clear that this writing was introduced independently of Christianity.
Chapter IX
[P. 187.]—Bishop Nynias, generally called Ninian, see Bede, H. E. iii. 4. This passage in Bede furnishes the only trustworthy tradition about Nynias. His expression ut perhibent shows that his information was oral. Bede does not fix the date of Nynias further than by the vague multo tempore before St. Columba, and by the statement that the church which Nynias built was dedicated to St. Martin. The usually accepted date, c. 400 A.D., depends on the statement in Ailred’s Vita Niniani, c. 2, that Nynias visited St. Martin (and obtained at Tours masons to build his stone church). There is no evidence that the Life composed by Ailred, abbot of Rievaulx in the twelfth century, was based on any ancient documents unknown to Bede; Ailred seems to have drawn his material, mainly legendary, from traditions in Galloway, and, with the exception of the visit to Martin, he adds nothing that can pretend to be a historical fact to the brief notice of Bede. The personal contact of Nynias with Martin, however, may be a genuine tradition; and it furnishes the most probable explanation of the connexion of Martin’s name with Candida Casa. But we have an independent testimony that the conversion of the Picts of Galloway must have been at least early in the fifth century—namely, their description as apostatae in Patrick’s Letter against Coroticus, which shows that they had been converted and fallen away before the middle of the fifth century. [The fullest collection of everything bearing on Nynias is Forbes’s Lives of St. Ninian and St. Kentigern, 1874. A more recent edition of Ailred’s Vita will be found in Pinkerton’s Lives of the Scottish Saints, revised by W. M. Metcalfe, vol. i. 1889. For a criticism on Ailred, see J. Mackinnon, Ninian und sein Einfluss auf die Ausbreitung der Christenthums in Nord-Britannien, 1891. See also Plummer’s note on Bede, H.E. iii. 4.]
[Ib.]—Candida Casa, Whitern, was known in Ireland in the sixth century as Magnum Monasterium or Rosnat, and had a high reputation as a monastic school: see passages in Colgan, Acta Sanctorum Hib. i. p. 438. This reputation led to the rise of a legend that Nynias founded a church in Ireland and died there. A lost Irish life, known to Ussher (Brit. Eccl. vi. 209) contained this story, and Nynias appears in Irish Martyrologies under the name of Moinenn “my Nynias” (Mart. of Tallaght, ed. Kelly, p. xxxiv.; Mart. Dung. ed. Todd, p. 249).
[P. 190.]—Ceretic or Coroticus. The only source for the following events is Patrick’s Letter (see below); but the identification of Coroticus, who is the subject of the Letter, depends on other considerations which seem quite conclusive. The Table of Contents to Muirchu’s Life describes the section which Muirchu devoted to him as de conflictu sancti Patricii adversum Coirthech regem Aloo[351] (p. 271; in Muirchu’s text he is simply described as cuiusdam regis Britannici, p. 498). Aloo at once suggests the Rock (Ail) of Clyde, Bede’s Alcluith (ciuitas Brettonum munitissima usque hodie quae uocatur Alcluith, H.E. i. 1), Adamnan’s Petra Cloithe; and this identification agrees with the close association of Patrick’s Coroticus with the Picts and Scots, which shows that he must have ruled in Northern Britain. But the determination of Coroticus as ruling at Alcluith is demonstrated (as has been most clearly shown by Zimmer, Celtic Church, p. 54, cp. Skene, Celtic Scotland, i. 158, note) by a genealogy of the kings of that place, preserved in a Welsh source. In the last quarter of the sixth century, in the time of Columba, Rodercus, or Rhydderch, reigned at Alcluith (Adamnan, V. Col. i. 15: Rodercus filius Tothail qui in petra Cloithe regnavit), and we find him also as Riderch hen (Rhydderch the Old) in the Historia Brittonum (ed. Mommsen, p. 206). Now the pedigree of this Rhydderch is found in a Welsh genealogy (ed. Phillimore, in Y Cymmrodor, 9, 173): he was son of Tutagual (cp. Adamnan, filius Tothail), who was son of Clinoch, who was son of Dumngnal, who was son of Cinuit, who was son of Ceretic guletic. It is evident that Ceretic, from whom Rhydderch was sixth, corresponds chronologically to Coroticus, the contemporary of St. Patrick, reckoning a generation—thirty years—to each king. The identification so completely fits with all the data that we can have no doubt of its truth. Thus Zimmer fixes the date of Ceretic or Coroticus as 420-450 A.D. But it is better to say that the reigns of Ceretic and his son Cinuit probably fell more or less between 420 and 480.
Zimmer thinks that the description of Ceretic as guletic in the Welsh source points to his position as claiming to be a successor of the Roman dux Britanniarum. I do not feel certain that we can go so far, but I have no doubt that Ceretic and his milites represented the Roman defence of North Britain. That these milites were Roman citizens is clear from Patrick’s words (Letter, p. 375₂₃, militibus—non dico ciuibus meis atque ciuibus sanctorum Romanorum sed ciuibus demoniorum—the sting of this reproach is that they professed to be Roman). Coroticus was a tyrannus for Patrick (per tirannidem Corotici, p. 376₁₉). It is not clear whether the reges and tyranni who arose in various parts of Britain in the fifth century (for example, Vortigern) bore Roman official titles: the fact that there were also generals who were not reges and who seem to correspond to the Roman commanders (Ambrosius Aurelianus; Arthurius) cannot be considered decisive. For the continuance of Roman civilisation in Britain after the rescript of Honorius (A.D. 410), see Mr. Haverfield’s observations in “Early British Christianity” in Eng. Hist. Rev., July 1896, pp. 428-30; and on the other hand for a Celtic revival, his paper on “The Last Days of Silchester,” ib. Oct. 1904, pp. 628-9.
[It is hardly necessary to mention the old view in Rees, Welsh Saints, p. 135, followed by Todd, St. Patrick, p. 352, that Coroticus was Caredig, of Cardigan, son of the Welsh chief Cynedda.]
[P. 192.]—That the scene of the outrage was in North Ireland, in Down or Antrim, is only a probable conjecture: (1) these coasts were the most likely destination of an expedition from Strathclyde; and (2) the circumstance that Patrick happened at the time to be close to the place suggests Ulster. Zimmer says nothing as to this; but his theory would evidently compel him to assume that the outrage was committed in South Ireland, for otherwise the Letter of St. Patrick would imply that his activity was not confined, as Zimmer contends that it was, to North Leinster. For a conjecture that the date may have been A.D. 459, see above, [App. B, p. 303].
[Ib.]—Heathen Scots. Scottorum atque Pictorum apostatarum (Patrick, Letter, p. 375₂₆). The Picts, not the Scots, are apostates (cp. p. 379₇); the natural inference is that the Scots (of Britain) were still heathen. Zimmer’s inference that they were Christians (p. 55) seems extraordinarily perverse. He asks us to observe that the Scots “are not reproached with paganism.” The implication is inadmissible. Their paganism is taken for granted; in fact, it is their excuse. If they had been professing Christians their guilt would have been greater even than that of the Picts, who had fallen away from Christianity. The fact that it is on the Picts, not on the Scots, that Patrick’s reproaches fell, proves that the Scots were heathen and therefore might not be expected to know better.