"Catholicorum infelicitati adscribendum est", he writes, "quod sub id tempus fato functus sit vir integerrimus atque clarissimus Dermysius Mac Carrhus, Corcaghae et Clueniae Episcopus, qui annos viginti et amplius in hac insula in fide retinenda magnopere insudavit, dumque bellum hoc gerebatur, movendis Catholicorum animis, ut Christianam pietatem armis defenderent, multum studii et laboris impendit: cujus interitu Ibernorum concordia non minima parte elanguit. Quae ob merita in Dei ecclesiam et Iberniae regnum collata, cum ejus caput Angli diu frustra impetiverint, tandem illius interfectori vel deprehensori grandem pecuniae summam constituerunt, quin etiam tam inexpiabili odio eum prosequuti sunt ut illius etiam consanguineos labefactare non destiterint. Ex quibus Thomam MacCrachum antistitis nepotem ex fratre Thoma deprehensum ad fidem Catholicam deserendam cogere et praemiis et terrore sunt conati: qua spe dejecti magni et maxime Catholici animi virum securi percusserunt. Sed quoniam in episcopi mentionem incidimus, illud ejus magnum atque rarum mirum nequeo silentio praeterire quod chirographum vix male effingeret, aliam vero ne litteram quidem unam visus sit unquam scribere, cum tamen adeo disertus atque sapiens evaserit ut doctor in utroque jure creatus sacram Theologiam Lovaniae annos aliquot publice sit professus, quippe tanto ingenii acumine tamque felici memoria pollebat ut ne discipulus quidem necesse habuerit lectionem notis excipere, et de doctrina Christiana libellum Ibernice scriptum posteris reliquerit, cujus praeceptis in hunc usque diem juventus in ea insula excolitur" (Hist. Cath., pag. 223).
We may now inquire who were the individuals chosen by Elizabeth to hold the temporalities of Cork and Cloyne during this interval. The first Protestant bishop of these sees was Richard Dixon, a chaplain of the Lord Deputy Sydney. The see in 1568 had received a Catholic appointment, but it was only on the 17th of May, 1570, that Elizabeth wrote to the Lord Deputy: "We are pleased that Richard Dixon, being by you very well commended for his learning and other qualities, shall have the bishoprics of Cork and Cloyne"—(Morrin, i. p. 539). Nevertheless, the prelate thus warmly commended was, on the 7th of March, 1571, sentenced by a royal commission to perform public penance in the Cathedral of Christ Church, Dublin, which penance, adds the government record, he went through in hypocrisy and pretence of amendment; wherefore, on the 7th of November following, the same commission proceeded to depose him from his Protestant episcopal functions, declaring him guilty of public immorality and other crimes.—(See Brady Records, iii. 47). Mathew Sheyn, or Shehan, was the next episcopal incumbent chosen by Elizabeth: only two events are commemorated to mark his episcopate: 1. that in 1575 "he leased away the whole see of Cloyne for ever for five marks per annum"; and 2. that in October, 1578, he made public display of his impiety by consigning to the flames at the high cross of Cork a statue of St. Dominick, long held in veneration by the faithful of that city (Ibid., pag. 49). The next Protestant Bishop, William Lyons, combined in his commission the sees of Cork, Cloyne, and Ross. We have already spoken of this dignitary under the head of Ross (Record, vol. i. pag. 110-1): we will now only add that his chief enmity seemed directed against the faithful of Timoleague. Already in 1589 he had destroyed a portion of its venerable monastery to erect a house with the materials. In 1612 he resolved to complete his work of destruction; for intelligence was conveyed to him that a large concourse of Catholics had assembled there to assist at midnight Mass on the great Christmas festival. Though advanced in years, he set out with a troop of soldiers to punish these offenders; however, he had proceeded only a little way from the city when he was seized with such violent pains throughout his whole body that he was obliged to desist from his undertaking. During the five remaining years of his life he displayed less violence against the Catholics, and to his dying day he retained a lively memory of his Christmas excursion to Timoleague—(Mooney's MS. Hist., p. 49).
THE CHURCH AND THE BIBLE.
II.
We have seen in a former article that the Catholic Church was the careful guardian and zealous propagator of the original texts of the inspired volume. We now proceed to show that her missionaries and her most devoted sons were most earnest in communicating its sacred truths to all the faithful, by diffusing throughout the various nations of Christendom untainted and authentic versions of the Holy Scripture. This assertion must be proved not by theory but by facts. In producing these facts our task will be comparatively easy, on account of the many able and interesting essays which have already been published, in illustration of this subject.
At the very time that Luther and his followers were engaged in declaiming against Holy Church, and in withdrawing so many of her children from the hallowed fold, the words of a Prophet were first echoed on the shores of a new world; "quam pulchri pedes evangelizantium pacem, evangelizantium bona". The losses of the Church in Europe were more than counterbalanced by her gains among the new nations of America, whose fervour and faith formed a striking contrast to the frenzy and irreligion of the sophists of Germany. Now no sooner were these western children summoned to the bosom of the Church than versions of the Sacred Scripture were made for their use, in their yet uncouth and unpolished tongues, by the missionaries of the Cross. "Benedict Fernandez, a Dominican Friar (writes the Protestant Horne), being appointed Vicar of Mixteca, in New Spain, translated the Epistles and Gospels into the dialect spoken in that province. Didacus de S. Maria, another Dominican and Vicar of the province of Mexico (who died in 1579), was the author of a translation of the Epistles and Gospels into the Mexican tongue, or general language of the country. The Proverbs of Solomon and other fragments of the Holy Scriptures were translated into the same language by Louis Rodriguez, a Spanish Franciscan Friar; and the Epistles and Gospels appointed to be read for the whole year were translated into the idiom of the western Indians, by Arnold a Basaccio, also a Franciscan Friar" (Introduction, vol. ii. pag. 120). Besides these various Mexican versions, there were others which escaped the researches of Mr. Horne. Thus, for instance, within the past years was printed the "Evangeliarium, Epistolarium, et Lectionarium Aztecum", composed nearly three centuries and a half ago by a Spanish Franciscan named Bernardine Sahagyn. This zealous religious entered on his missionary career in Mexico about the year 1520, and for sixty years devoted himself to the spiritual culture of that new vineyard of God. He was not inattentive at the same time to the literature and ancient monuments of the Aztec race, and his name is well known to Mexican antiquarians for his researches regarding the language, history, and antiquities of the New World. Lord Kingsborough, in the seventh volume of his great work, published the Historia Universal de las Cosas de Nueva Espana, composed by our Franciscan about the year 1550, and his version of the Sacred Scripture, when first announced to the literary world, was thus described by M. Beltram: "J' ai une trouvaille a vous montrer, la plus interressante, je crois, de toutes celles que vous avez déja vues ... on y voit un beau reste de l'illustre philanthrope et moine Bernardino de Sahagun" (Le Mexique, vol. ii. pag. 167. Paris, 1830). Nevertheless, this version was destined to remain still thirty years a hidden treasure, and it was only in 1858 that its publication was commenced in Milan by the accomplished Mexican scholar Biondelli. From the introduction of the learned editor we learn that Bernardino's version comprised almost all the New Testament and a portion of the Old, and that its date was anterior to those commemorated by Mr. Horne, the manuscript from which the text was printed having been copied in the year 1530. (See Evangeliarium, etc., ex antiquo codice Mexicano nuper invento depromptum. Milan, 1858, 4to, page xlix. 576).
Returning to the old continent, the first country which we meet is our own beloved land. Now was the Bible a sealed Book in our Catholic island, and were our sainted fathers enemies of, or strangers to, its inspired truths? Oh! ask the great apostle of North England, St. Aidan, whose disciples, as Bede informs us, "whether they were of the clergy or of the laity, were bound to exercise themselves either in reading the Scriptures or in learning the Psalms" (Hist. Eccl., iii. 5). Ask St. Livinus, "who", as his ancient biographer relates, "was trained up from his youth by his holy Master, Benignus, in singing David's Psalms, and reading the holy Gospels". Ask St. Columbanus, in whose "breast the treasures of the Holy Scriptures were so laid up, that within the compass of his youthful years he set forth an elegant exposition of the Book of Psalms" (Vita, cap. 2); or ask the Northumbrian King Alfred, of whom Bede again writes that, "residing in Ireland, he imbibed there celestial wisdom in his attentive soul, and became a man most learned in the Scriptures: having left his native country and his pleasant fields, that in diligent exile he might learn the mystery of godliness". St. Furse, from his youth, was taught to drink in heavenly wisdom at the sacred source of the inspired volume. St. Columbanus expressly exhorts his disciple Hunaldus to its diligent study: "Sint tibi divitiae, divinae dogmata legis" (epist. ad Hunald.); St. Patrick himself teaches us that "meditation on the Sacred Scriptures gives strength and vigour to the soul"; "St. Kieran", as Dr. King learnedly writes, "when thirty years old, went to Rome and spent there twenty years reading the Divine Scriptures and collecting copies of them" (Ch. Hist. of Irel., i. 323): and as to St. Columba, we may adopt the words of the Campleton minister, who in his life of that great saint says: "His passion for studying the Scriptures was most intense, when the other parts of ministerial duty allowed him to indulge it. Thus we find him sometimes engaged for whole days and nights in exploring dark and difficult passages of Scripture, and accompanying his study and application with prayer and fasting" (Life, etc., by J. Smith, pag. 113). It was in the Latin version that all these saints usually meditated on the heavenly truths, and Bede does not hesitate to say that, though the Irish, Britons, Picts, and Angles had their own peculiar languages, yet, "by the meditation of the Scriptures", the Latin tongue became common to them all (Hist. Eccl., lib. i. cap. i.). How many noble monuments, too, remain to attest, at the same time, the artistic taste and the devotion of our Catholic fathers, in adorning and illustrating the books of Holy Writ! The Domhnach Airgid is well known to the students of Irish Ecclesiastical antiquities; it is a MS. copy of the Latin text of the Gospels, described by Petrie as "perhaps the oldest copy of the Sacred Word now existing" (Trans. R. I. A. xviii. Antiq., pag. 17), and which, as Eugene Curry adds, "we have just reason to believe, was the companion in his hours of devotion of our Patron Saint, the apostle Saint Patrick" (Lect., pag. 321). This venerable text is encased in three distinct covers, the first or inner one being of yew, and probably coeval with the manuscript itself; the second of copper plated with silver whose interlaced ornaments indicate a period between the sixth and twelfth centuries; whilst the third or outer one, of the fourteenth century, is of silver plated with gold, being decorated with relievos of the crucifixion, of the Blessed Virgin, and the other Patrons of Ireland. Thus are all the ages of faith in our island, anterior to the Reformation, linked together in a holy union, to proclaim with one accord the love and devotion of our Catholic fathers for the inspired text. The Cathach, or vellum Book of Psalms, handed down from St. Columbkille, with its rich case of solid silver, is scarcely less interesting; and what shall we say of the Book of Kells, i.e., the Latin Gospels of St. Columba, "a manuscript (as Petrie remarks) which for beauty and splendour is not surpassed by any of its age known to exist" (Round Towers, pag. 203), and of which Westwood thus writes: "Ireland may justly be proud of the Book of Kells: it is unquestionably the most elaborately executed MS. of early art now in existence" (Palaeog. Sac.). Besides these, there are Dimma's Book and the Gospels of MacDurnan, the Psalter of St. Ricemarch, the Evangeliarium of St. Moling, Bishop of Ferns, and the fragments of several Gospels, rivalling in point of ornament and accuracy the most precious MSS. of the Continent (Ibid.). There is one copy of the sacred text which it is sad to miss from the collections of our Christian antiquities. It is the so-called Book of Kildare, which was publicly destroyed by the fathers of Protestantism in this country, but which has happily been described by Giraldus Cambrensis, a writer whom none will suspect of bias in favour of our Irish Church. We will give the original text of his description, which may not, perhaps, be easily accessible to the reader:—
"Inter universa Kyldariae miracula nil mihi miraculosius occurrit, quam liber ille mirandus, tempore virginis Brigidae (ut ajunt) Angelo dictante conscriptus. Continet hic liber quatuor Evangelistarum juxta Hieronymum concordantiam, ubi quot paginae fere sunt, tot figurae diversae variisque coloribus distinctissimae. Hic majestatis vultum videas divinitus impressum: hinc mysticas Evangelistarum formas: nunc senas, nunc quaternas, nunc binas alas habentes, hinc aquilam, inde vitulum, hinc hominis faciem, inde bovis, aliasque figuras pene infinitas, quas si superficialiter et usuali more minus acute conspexeris, litura potius videbitur quam ligatura; nec ullam attendens prorsus subtilitatem, ubi nihil tamen praeter subtilitatem. Sin autem ad perspicacius intuendum oculorum aciem invitaveris, et longe penitius ad artis arcana transpenetraveris; tam delicatas et subtiles, tam actas et arctas, tam nodosas et vinculatim colligatas, tamque recentibus adhuc coloribus illustratas notare poteris intricaturas, ut vere haec omnia Angelica potius quam humana diligentia jam asseveraveris esse composita. Haec equidem quanto frequentius et diligentius intueor, semper quasi novis obstupeo, semperque magis ac magis admiranda conspicio" (Topogr. Hib., ii. 38, pag. 730).