[305] John ii. 11.
[306] "Scotic" is obviously to be understood here in its earlier meaning as equivalent to "Irish." From this departure from his ordinary usage (see p. 20, note 1) we may infer that St. Bernard is quoting the words of his authority. The habit of constructing churches of wood prevailed in early times among the Celtic and Saxon tribes in the British Isles, the introduction of stone building for such purposes being due to Roman influence (Plummer, Bede, ii. 101). The older custom lingered longer in Ireland than elsewhere; and by the time of Bede it had come to be regarded as characteristically Irish, though wooden churches must still have been numerous in England (Bede, H.E., iii. 25). In a document of much later date, the Life of the Irish Saint Monenna (quoted in Adamnan, p. 177 f.), we read of "a church constructed of smoothed planks according to the custom of the Scottish races"; and the writer adds that "the Scots are not in the habit of building walls, or causing them to be built." Petrie (pp. 138-151) maintained that stone churches were not unusual in early Ireland; but he admits (pp. 341-344) that one type of church—the oratory (in Irish dairtheach, i.e. house of oak)—was very rarely constructed of stone. The only two passages which he cites (p. 345) as mentioning stone oratories (he says he might have produced others) are not to his purpose. The first is a notice in A.U. 788, of a man being killed at the door of a "stone oratory": but another, and apparently better, reading substitutes lapide for lapidei, thus altering the entry to a statement that the man was killed "by a stone at the door of the oratory." The second is Colgan's rendering (Trias, p. 162) of a sentence in Trip. iii. 74, p. 232, in which there is in reality no mention of any ecclesiastical edifice. So far as I am aware, there is no indisputable reference in Irish literature to a stone oratory earlier than the one mentioned below, § 61.
[307] Cp. the quatrain of Rummun on an oratory which was in course of construction at Rathen (Otia Merseiana, ii. 79):
"O my Lord! what shall I do
About these great materials?
When will these ten hundred planks
Be a structure of compact beauty?"
[308] Evidently until he became bishop. The next sentence implies that the time spent at Bangor was of considerable length, as does also the remark at the end of § 15. St. Bernard, however, seems to have been mistaken in supposing that Malachy resigned the abbacy on his consecration. See p. 36, note 5; p. 40, note 1; p. 80, note 1; p. 104, note 3; p. 112, note 5; p. 113, note 1.
[309] Cp. p. 11, note 1.
[310] Luke i. 75.
[311] John xviii. 10.
[312] For Christian and Mellifont Abbey, see § 39. This Malchus is mentioned again in § 52.
[313] This is not a mere conventional phrase. In a passionate outburst of grief St. Bernard says of his brother Gerard, who had recently died, "He was my brother by blood, yet more my brother in religion" (Cant. xxvi. 4).