[489] John xx. 30.
[490] This date is vague. But the period of three years must be reckoned from the death of Murtough (September 17, 1134), or from the subsequent ejection of Niall. Since stress is laid on the shortness, rather than the length of the period, we may therefore conclude that peace was established not long before October 1137, or, at any rate, after the beginning of that year. And as St. Bernard believed that the inauguration of Gelasius "immediately" followed the resignation of Malachy, we may gather that both these events took place in 1137. A.F.M. date Malachy's resignation in 1136; but the chronology of St. Bernard is to be preferred. See Additional Note C, pp. 168, 169.
[491] Ps. xciv. 2.
[492] Gelasius—in Irish Gilla meic Liag, the servant of the son of the poet—was born about 1087. His father was apparently the poet of a Tyrone sept, named Dermot (O'Hanlon, Saints, iii. 965). About 1121 he was appointed abbot of Derry, and held that office till he became archbishop of Armagh in 1137. He had a long episcopate and seems to have been a vigorous prelate. His age and infirmity (says Giraldus) prevented him from attending the Synod of Cashel in 1172. But he subsequently visited Henry II. in Dublin. Thither he brought the white cow, whose milk was his only food (Giraldus, Expug. i. 35). He died March 27, 1174, in his eighty-seventh year. For a Life of Gelasius, see Colgan, A.S.H. p. 772.
[493] See § 21.
[494] I.e. diocese.
[495] The two episcopal sees are evidently Connor and Down. But in early time there were many more sees than two in that district (see Reeves, p. 138), and there is no evidence that any one of them was the seat of a diocesan bishop. But, even if it were so, St. Bernard's statement that the two supposed dioceses were "welded into one" by some ambitious prelate prior to Malachy is unhistorical. A bishop of Connor and a bishop of Down both died in 1117, just seven years before Malachy became bishop of the diocese which included these two places; and there is no trace of a bishop in either of them in the interval. The fact seems to be that the diocese of Connor or Down was constituted for the first time at the Synod of Rathbreasail in 1110. It remained on paper until Malachy was appointed its first bishop. For the probable reason of Malachy's division of the diocese, see p. lvii. f.
[496] This cannot be the true reason for Malachy's choice of Down rather than Connor. If he had wished to go to Connor on his retirement from Armagh he could have consecrated a bishop for Down. It is more probable that his preference was due to his love for Bangor, where he resided during his first episcopate, and where he probably resided also when he was bishop of Down. But, however that may be, Bangor was necessarily under his jurisdiction as bishop of Down; his connexion with it would have been severed if he had assumed the oversight of the new diocese of Connor.
[497] Isa. li. 9; Amos ix. 11.
[498] Cp. Cant. i. 15; iv. i.; v. 12.—St. Bernard himself is said to have had "dove-like eyes" (V.P. v. 12); and the meaning of the phrase is explained thus: "In his eyes there shone a certain angelic purity and a dove-like simplicity (single-mindedness)" (ibid. iii. 1).