[216] Malachy completed his twenty-fifth year in 1120. See p. 130, n. 2. For the date of his ordination to the priesthood see p. 16, n. 2.
[217] For the canons of councils which regulated the minimum age of deacons and priests reference may be made to the article "Orders, Holy," by the late Dr. Edwin Hatch in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 1482 f. From a very early date they were respectively twenty-five and thirty years, in accordance with the statement of the text, though there were some exceptions in remote places. The eighth-century Irish Canons, known as the Hibernensis, prescribe the same minimum ages for the diaconate and presbyterate, and add a clause, the gist of which seems to be that a bishop at the time of his consecration must be thirty or forty years of age (Wasserschleben, Irische Kanonesammlung, 1885, p. 8). As late as the year 1089, at the Council of Melfi, presided over by Pope Urban II., it was decreed (can. 5, Mansi, xx. 723) that none should be admitted deacon under twenty-four or twenty-five years of age, or priest under thirty. But at the Council of Ravenna, 1315 (can. 2, ibid. xxv. 537), the ages were lowered to twenty and twenty-five respectively.
[218] Cellach would hardly have understood the need for this apology. It is more than probable that he was ignorant of the canons referred to. He himself was ordained, apparently to the priesthood, in 1105, when he was under twenty-six, and consecrated bishop in 1106, when he was under twenty-seven years of age. St. Bernard himself seems to have been ordained priest when he was about twenty-five years old (Vacandard, i. 67).
[219] In other words he made him his vicar. This may well have been in 1120; for the Annals record that in that year Cellach made a visitation of Munster. It was quite natural that during a prolonged absence from his see he should leave its administration in the hands of one who had proved himself so capable as Malachy. And we shall see that this date harmonizes with other chronological data. If, then, we place the beginning of Malachy's vicariate in 1120, his ordination as priest, which appears to have been not much earlier, may be dated in 1119, when he was "about twenty-five years of age," i.e. probably soon after his twenty-fourth birthday. His admission to the diaconate may be placed at least a year earlier, i.e. in 1118. Indeed, if we could be sure that in Ireland the normal interval between admission to the diaconate and to the priesthood was at all as long as in other countries we might put it further back.
[220] Luke viii. 5.
[221] 1 Pet. ii. 9.
[222] Rom. ii. 12.
[223] Rom. xii. 11.
[224] Cp. Matt. xxv. 24 ff.
[225] Jer. i. 10 (vg.).