Having written his last verse the saint went to the church to join in the first vespers of the Sunday, which are chanted on Saturday evening; and when the office was over he returned to his little cell and sat down upon his bed during the night—that bed was a naked rock with a stone for a pillow—the stone that now stands beside his grave as the title of his monument. Whilst sitting thus on the rocky bed he gave his last instructions to his monks in the hearing of Diarmait alone. “My little children,” he said, “my last words to you are:—Cherish mutual and unfeigned love for each other, and God will never let you want the necessaries of life in this world, and you will have, moreover, eternal glory in the world to come.”
And now, as the happy hour of his departure was quickly approaching, he became silent for a little. But as soon as the bell for matins struck at the midnight hour, he rose up quickly, and going to the church before the others he entered it alone and threw himself on his bended knees in prayer near the altar. Diarmait, his attendant, followed a little more slowly to the church, and at that moment as he approached the door, he saw the church lit up with a bright angelic light as if shining over the saint. Others saw it too at the same moment, but when they came nearer it disappeared. Diarmait then entered the church, and groping through the darkness—for the lights were not yet brought in—he found the saint stretched before the altar, and raising him gently, he sat down beside him and took his holy head and laid it in his bosom.
The crowd of monks now coming up with lights, and seeing their father dying, broke out into lamentation. But the saint, as we heard from those who were present, lifting his eyes towards heaven, looked around him on both sides, and his face was full of a wondrous heavenly joy, as if he were looking at angels. Then Diarmait raised the saint’s right hand to bless the circle of monks, and our holy father moved his hand as well as he could, so that he might with the motion of his hand give them that blessing which he could not utter with his voice. Having thus blessed them, he immediately expired; yet his face remained still bright-coloured, so that he did not look like one that was dead but only sleeping. Meanwhile, the whole church was filled with wailing.
So passed away the blessed Columba, as he had foretold, on Sunday night a little after 12 o’clock, the 9th of June, in the year of our Lord 597. It was the seventy-seventh of his age, and the thirty-fourth of his pilgrimage in Iona.
As soon as matins were finished, the blessed body of the saint was carried back to the hospice, accompanied by all the brethren chanting psalms. Thereafter for three days and three nights the obsequies of the saint were celebrated with all due and fitting rites. After which the venerable body of our holy patron was wrapped up in clean linen and buried in a coffin with all reverence—but Adamnan does not mention the exact spot, where it was laid.
IV.—The Writings of Columba.
Many writings have been circulated under the name of the great St. Columba—some few of which are genuine, but most of them spurious. We shall very briefly call attention to both. There are three Latin poems published in the second volume of the Liber Hymnorum by the late Dr. Todd, which are generally regarded by critics as genuine. The first and most celebrated is the Altus Prosator. It was first printed by Colgan from the Book of Hymns preserved at St. Isidore’s. A splendid edition has also been lately printed by the Marquis of Bute, who has good reason to regard Columba as the patron saint of his family, which is sprung from the early Dalriadan Kings.
The Altus Prosator is beyond any doubt a very ancient poem, written in rather rude Latinity, but syntactically correct, that is, if we make allowance for the errors and ignorance of the copyists. It consists of twenty-two capitula or stanzas, each stanza consisting of six lines, except the first which being in honour of the Holy Trinity has seven, and each line has sixteen syllables. The meter is a kind of trochaic tetrameter, with a pause after the eighth syllable, and a rhyme or assonance at the end of the lines. The first word of each of the twenty-two stanzas begins with one of the letters of the alphabet in regular order according to the Hebrew letters.
There is a preface, or introduction, to the whole poem, and a brief notice of the title and subject matter at the head of each stanza. The preface which is substantially the same both in the Book of Hymns and in the Leabhar Breac, sets forth as usual the time, place, motive, and author of the poem, but gives two different accounts. The author was, according to all accounts, Columcille, and he wrote the poem in the Black Church of Derry after much careful preparation. His motive was to praise God and do penance for the sins he had committed, especially in causing the bloody battle of Cuil-Dreimhne. The time was during the reign of Aedh Mac Ainmire in Erin, and of Aidan, son of Gabhran in Dalriada. The other account represents the poem as written in Iona, while Columba was grinding a bag of meal in the mill for the entertainment of some clerics who came from Rome to present him, in the name of Pope Gregory, with a richly enshrined relic of the true Cross, known afterwards as Morgemm, and long, it is said, preserved at Iona. This is a much less plausible explanation than the former, and probably invented by some foolish admirers of the saint, who did not relish the idea of Columcille having to do penance for grave faults of anger and indiscretion.
The poem is the production of a fervent and pious spirit that feels the power and mercy of God’s all-ruling Providence in the past, and in the present. It describes the Trinity, the Angels, the creation of the world, and the fall of man, also the deluge and other noteworthy events in sacred history, ending with a vivid description of the terrors of the last judgment. Many graces are promised to those who recite it worthily: Angels will attend them while chanting it; the devil shall not know their way to lie in wait for them, nor their enemies to destroy them; there shall be no strife in the house where it is sung; it protects against sudden and violent death; and there shall be no want where it is regularly recited.