The letter of Dungal in reply is exceedingly interesting. It is addressed to Charles, and is entitled, “Dungali Reclusi Epistola de duplici solis eclipsi, anno 810 ad Carolum Magnum.” We have read it over carefully. It is written in excellent Latin, and shows that the writer was intimately acquainted with many of the classical authors, especially with Virgil and Cicero. But we cannot guarantee its scientific accuracy in all points. He starts with an explanation of the celestial sphere according to the Ptolemaic system, and hence some of his statements seem very strange to those acquainted with the Copernican theory only of the heavenly bodies. In the main, however, his explanation of the eclipses of the sun and moon is accurate enough.[306] “The Zodiac,” he says, “or space through which the planets revolve, is bounded by two lines,” which he takes care to explain are imaginary. “A third line drawn between them is called the ecliptic, because when the sun and moon during their revolution happen to be in the same straight line in the plane of this ecliptic, an eclipse of one or the other must of necessity take place; of the sun, if the moon overtake it in its course—ei succedat; of the moon, if at the time it should be opposite to the sun. Wherefore,” he adds, “the sun is never eclipsed except the moon is in its thirtieth day; and in like manner the moon is never eclipsed except near its fifteenth day. For only then it comes to pass that the moon, when it is full, being in a straight line with the earth opposite to the sun receives the shadow of the earth; while in the other case, when the moon overtakes the sun (is in conjunction), by its interposition it deprives the earth of the sun’s light. Therefore when the sun is eclipsed, the sun itself suffers nothing, only we are robbed of its light; but the moon suffers a real loss by not receiving the sun’s light through which it is enabled to dispel our darkness.” We think it would require an intermediate exhibitioner to give as lucid an exposition of the cause of the eclipse as was given by this Irish monk of the ninth century, and we are quite certain he would not write it in as good Latin.
As for determining the exact dates of the eclipses of the sun, and, therefore, the possibility of having two in the year A.D. 810, Dungal cannot undertake to compute them, not having near him Pliny the Younger, and some other necessary works. However, the thing is quite feasible, and many ancient philosophers knew and foreknew—scierunt et praescierunt—all about these eclipses. He concludes his letter with an elegantly written eulogy of Charles the Great, imploring all Christians to join with him in beseeching God to multiply the triumphs of Charles, to extend his empire, preserve his family, and prolong his life for many circling years. The language in the original is exceedingly well chosen and harmonious.
After this time we lose sight of Dungal for several years. Charlemagne died in A.D. 814, and was succeeded by his son Louis the Pious, and on the 31st of July, A.D. 817, Louis associated with himself his son Lothaire in the Imperial Government. Lothaire, young and energetic, was crowned King of Lombardy in A.D. 821, and next year proceeded to put his kingdom in order. The warlike Lombards, though conquered by Charlemagne, and kept in restraint by his strong arm, were a restless and turbulent people. Lothaire, believing that education and religion would be the most efficacious means to keep them in order, and consolidate his own power, induced Dungal and Claudius of Turin, as well as several other scholars of the Imperial Court, or the famous Palace School, to accompany him to Italy. Claudius, a Spaniard, of whom we shall have more to say again, was made Bishop of Turin; and Dungal opened a school at Pavia. In a short time it became famous; for the master was the first scholar in the Court of the Emperor. Students flocked from every quarter—from Milan, Brescia, Lodi, Bergamo, Novara, Vercelli, Tortona, Acqui, Genoa, Asti, and Como.[307] This was about A.D. 822, the very year, or as others say, the year after Claudius became Bishop of Turin. About the same time Lothaire himself went on to Rome, where he was crowned emperor by the Pope, Pascal I., with great solemnity in A.D. 823.
Dungal and Claudius were thus immediate neighbours. Both were ripe scholars, both held high and responsible positions; but Claudius, who had long held erroneous doctrines, now thought it safe to throw off the disguise. The wolf showed himself, and at once the Irish wolf dog sprang upon his foe. In order to understand this struggle, which was the last effort of Western Iconoclasm, we must go back a little and trace the chain of events which led up to the crisis.
The Seventh Æcumenical Council, and Second of Nice, was concluded at that city in A.D. 787. This Council, accepting the teaching propounded by Pope Hadrian I. in his letter to the Empress Irene, and her son Constantine, explained and defined the Catholic doctrine concerning the worship of images. It was distinctly declared that supreme worship was due to God alone; but that an inferior worship should be rendered to the Blessed Virgin and the saints; and, finally, that a relative worship was due not only to the sign of the Cross, but also to the pictures and images of the Blessed Virgin, of the angels, and of the saints of God. This relative worship was not, however, paid to the images on account of their own supernatural excellence; it was only a token of the love and honour which Christians have for the originals represented by the images.
The acts of this famous Synod were, of course, in Greek, so Pope Hadrian had them translated into Latin, and sent a copy to Charlemagne, apparently in A.D. 789 or 790.
Unfortunately the Latin version was very faulty in many respects. Anastasius, the Roman Librarian, a most learned scholar and competent authority, declares that the translator knew very little of the genius either of the Greek or Latin language; that he made a word-for-word translation, from which it was frequently impossible to ascertain the real meaning; and hence, in his time, about sixty years later, few persons were found to read or transcribe this faulty copy. So Anastasius himself found it necessary to make a new and correct translation. The French theologians, therefore, at whose head was the keen-eyed Alcuin, found in this translation many things to censure, in which they were right, and many other things they censured in which they were clearly wrong. The result of their labours is known to history as the famous Caroline Books—Libri Carolini. They were published under the name of Charles himself, but Alcuin is generally regarded as the real author.[308]
The emperor was so pleased with his work that he resolved to send this treatise to the Pope himself. Meantime, however, he convened the Synod of Frankfort in A.D. 794, at which some three hundred Bishops of the Frankish Empire are said to have assembled.[309] Here, again, the great monarch, following the example, but scarcely imitating the modesty of Constantine at Nice in A.D. 325, presided in person, and resolved to prove himself a theologian. The Synod met in the great hall of the Imperial Palace. The emperor was on his throne; the bishops were seated round in a circle; an immense throng of priests, deacons, and clerics filled the hall. Rising up from his seat Charles advanced, and standing on the step of the throne pronounced an elaborate harangue, mainly on the heresy of the Adoptionists, but referring also to the errors of the last Greek Synod regarding image worship, and he called upon the prelates present to judge and decide what was the true faith.
The Council did so, at least in their own opinion, after ten days’ discussion. They very properly condemned the heresy of the Adoptionists, and the condemnation was approved in Rome; but in the Second Canon they very improperly censured the Second Council of Nice, as if it declared that the same worship and adoration were due to the images of the saints, as are paid to the Holy Trinity. Of course the Council of Nice in their authentic acts had declared exactly the reverse. Moreover, the prelates of Frankfort added that they would give neither servitus nor adoratio to the images of the saints; and, no doubt, they were right in the sense in which they used these terms.
It seems probable that the Caroline Books, written about A.D. 790 or 791, were approved of in this assembly before they were sent to the Pope. But when Hadrian received them he very promptly and effectively refuted them. To each censure of the Council of Nice he gave an elaborate answer, in which the Pope convicts the authors of the Caroline Books, from the extracts sent to him, of grave errors in doctrine, as well as of misquotations and misrepresentations of the Fathers. He shows that they did not understand the true meaning of the Sacred Scriptures in those passages which they cited, that they attributed to the Nicene Fathers errors which they never taught, and that it was the Pope, not the French bishops, who had received authority to teach the Universal Church.