REVIVAL, REBIRTH AND RENAISSANCE, YES! RESURRECTION LIKE BEFORE, NO!

"It’s by following the walking one that we find the way.”

Comparison is a fundamental mental process: grouping some facts together under common categories but also noticing differences. Such connections and relationships are the basis of thought and science. Otherwise, there are only isolated facts without links between them. It is therefore on the basis of comparison that generalizations, interpretations and theories are formed. Comparison creates new ways of viewing and organizing the world.Comparative religion is therefore old as the hills. Herodotus was already doing it. As far as ancient religions are concerned, this intellectual approach has produced many books stored in the "comparative mythology" shelves since Max Muller (1823-1900).As far as religions are concerned, it is quite different.Each religion was, of course, compared to those with which it was competing but first to denigrate or affirm its superiority.The first elements of a more objective beginning of comparative religion are currently scattered under the label of "religious dialog" and generally come from religions that define themselves as monotheistic because of their worldwide extension. The whole for an apologetic or missionary purpose, of course. Hence problems.We also find useful reflections in circles more or less coming under atheism but they are

-either detailed but focused on a particular religion.

-or being more general but rather basic.

And, moreover, they also are most often found in the history of religions, but all in a non-religious perspective.Great names punctuate this story from William Robertson Smith (religion of the Semites) to Mircea Eliade through Emile Durkheim.Other authors have opened many insights in this field.Our idea is TO LENGTHEN A CERTAIN NUMBER OF THEM BY GOING FURTHER IN THIS COMPARATIVE RELIGION (widening of the field of anthropological research, deepening of the psychological foundations, end of the overvaluation, decolonization, antiracism, new hypotheses ....) AND BY RESUMING THE INTERRUPTED THREAD OF THEIR FASCINATING QUEST FOR THE GRAIL BECAUSE ancient druidism is a little like the famous story of the grail of Perceval and Gawain.It is an unfinished story, which stops abruptly after the first 9000 lines of verse. Our project is to write the rest of it. A continuation it was said at the time.These small notebooks intended for future high-knowers, want to be both an imitation (a pastiche) and a parody. An imitation because they were composed in the manner of theologians (Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, etc.) at least in what they had, all, of better (elements in fact often of pagan origin).

One of the functions of the imitation was always, indeed, in the popular oral literature, to answer the expectation of audiences, frustrated by the break of the original creation [in this case the druidic philosophy]. To this expectation, in the Middle Ages, the cyclic narrative technique of the epics singing the heroic deeds, or of the Romances of the Round Table, has responded.The way of the pastiche is the one which consists in enriching the original by supplementing it with successive touches, by developing just outlined details, or by interpreting its shadows. And this, the thought of our ancestors needed well!But the reasoned compilation, due to the hand of Peter DeLaCrau, also is in a way a parody, because it was never a question, nevertheless, for the project supervisor of this collective work, of supporting such as it was and unconditionally, the whole of these doctrines.He wished on the contrary, by all sorts of literary means (reversal of arguments, opposing views, etc.) to bring out their often negative, harmful, alienating or obscurantist, aspects; and if this text can sometimes seem, to pay indirect homage to the capacity of reflection of the various current theological Schools, Christian, Muslim, Jewish or other, it is involuntary; because his purpose is well, to do everything, in order to wrest from their hands, the monopoly of discourses on the divinity (see on this subject the remarks of Albert Bayet), even if it means finishing discredit them definitively in the public eyes.Except as regards the best ideas they have borrowed from paganism, of course, and which are enormous; because in this last case, it is, let us remember it once again, from the prospect supervisor of this compilation, a readjustment to our world, of the thoughts of these theologians' apprentices ((the god of philosophers, the Ahura Mazda, the immortality of souls, the god-men, the sons of a god, the messiah Saoshyant, the Trinity, the tawaf, the sacrifices, the life after death, not to mention cherubim paradise, etc.).In other words, not history, but historical fictions, according to the works of...see the bibliography at the end. In accordance with this, our "imitation” is only a return to our roots. In short a homage."Druidism" is an independent review (independent of any religious or political association) and which has only one purpose: theoretical or fundamental research about what is neo-paganism. For, as Carl Gustav Jung saw it very well, religion is only "the attentive observation of forces held to be 'powers': spirits, demons, gods, laws, ideas, and “the careful consideration and observation of certain dynamic factors,

understood to be “powers,” spirits, demons, gods, laws, ideas, ideals or whatever name man has given to such factors as he has found in his world powerful, dangerous or helpful enough to be taken into careful consideration, or grand, beautiful and meaningful enough to be devoutly adored and loved” (Psychology and Religion 1937). The double question, to which this review of theoretical studies tries to answer, could be summarized as follows:"What could be or what should be a current neo-druidism, modern and contemporary?”"Druidism" is a neo-pagan review, strictly neo-pagan, and heir to all genuine (that is to say non-Christian) movements which have succeeded one another for 2000 years, the indirect heir, but the heir, nevertheless!Regarding our reference tradition or our intellectual connection, let us underline that if the "poets" of Domnall mac Muirchertach Ua Néill still had imbas forosnai, teimn laegda and dichetal do chennaib, in their repertory (cf. the conclusion of the tale of the plunder of the castle of Maelmilscothach, of Urard Mac Coise, a poet who died in the 11th century)*, they may have been Christians for several generations. It is true that these practices (imbas forosnai, teimn ...) were formally forbidden by the Church, but who knows, there may have been accommodations similar to those of astrologers or alchemists in the Middle Ages.Anyway our "Druidism" is also a will; the will to get closer, at the maximum, to ancient druidism, such as it was (scientifically speaking).

The will also to modernize this druidism, a total return to ancient druidism being excluded (it would be anyway impossible).

Examples of modernization of this pagan druidism.

— Giving up to lay associations of the cultural side (medicine, poetry, mathematics, etc.). Principle of separation of Church and State.

— Specialization on the contrary, in Celtic, or pagan in general, spirituality history of religion, philosophy and metapsychics (known today as parapsychology).

— Use in some cases of the current vocabulary (Church, religion, baptism, and so on).A golden mean, of course, is to be found between a total return to ancient druidism (fundamentalism) and a too revolutionary radical modernization (no longer sagum).

The Celtic PAA (pantheistic agnostic atheist) having agreed to sign jointly this small library *, of which he is only the collector, Druid Hesunertus (Peter DeLaCrau), does not consider himself as the author of this collective work. But as the spokesperson for the team which composed it. For other sources of this essay on druidism, see the thanks in the bibliography.

* This little camminus is nevertheless important for young people ... from 7 to 77 years old! Mantalon siron esi.

* Do ratath tra do Mael Milscothach iartain cech ni dobrethaigsid suide sin etir ecnaide 7 fileda 7 brithemna la taeb ogaisic a crech 7 is amlaidsin ro ordaigset do tabairt a cach ollamain ina einech 7 ina sa[ru]gad acht cotissad de imus forosnad [di]chetal do chollaib cend 7 tenm laida .i. comenclainn fri rig Temrach do acht co ti de intreide sin FINIT.

CELTIC CHRISTIANITY.

Without having reached the level of Romanization of the Continent, England (let us understand here the part of Great Britain located to the south of Hadrian's Wall, from Carlisle to Newcastle upon Tyne) was rather thoroughly and durably marked by Roman occupation. Cities like London, York or Lincoln, had a forum, thermal baths, a theater, just like Nimes, Arles or Autun on the Continent. A network of roads covered the country; a whole hierarchy of civil servants carried out administration, the army made the order prevail. We can therefore speak, without misuse of language, of a “Romano-British “ civilization equivalent of the “Gallo-Roman “one in the south of the English Channel.

The coming of Christianity in Great Britain was a consequence of the Roman invasions and of their occupation of the country. Everywhere the Roman Law prevailed, it is probable that there were Christians.

Therefore there was not a massive irruption of Christianity, but a progressive and gradual appearance, which followed the ancient Roman roads; and which, like Islam today, was not regarded at the beginning, as a threat by the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) or the bards of the local tribes.

There were also territories subjected to the Law of Rome during a certain time in the North-East of the country. Between the Antonine wall in the north and the Hadrian's Wall more in south.

The Antonine wall is a wall which the emperor Antoninus Pius made build circa 140 in Britain (Great Britain) by Quintus Lollius Urbicus, between the Firth of Forth and the Clyde; and which “doubled “ in north the fortification already built by his adoptive father Hadrian. It was submerged by the Pictish (Scottish) invasions at the end of the second century. The Roman Emperor Septimius Severus therefore preferred to give up the Antonine wall and to reinforce that of Hadrian, the pressure of the peoples in the North of the island having become too strong.

Christianity thus also reached the garrisons of the South of Scotland and particularly the South of Galloway. It was undoubtedly spread in the valleys of the Dee and of the Don starting from Roman camps like those of Normandykes, Raedykes, Kintore and Durno !

Tertullian, in the very beginning of the third century (circa 200?) speaks about the “Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo vero subdita “, some Breton localities, out of reach of the Romans, but overcome by true Christ.

Origen too, circa 240, speaks about Christianity as a force able to unite the Breton ones (quando enim terra Britanniae ante adventum Christi in unius dei consensit religionem).

Considering the primarily rural nature of the country, Great Britain undoubtedly did not have any of the large dioceses we can find on the Continent, dioceses primarily centered on the cities and in full expansion. The Breton bishops were therefore probably more “regional “even if it seems that in Wales there were more resemblance to the continental model (diocesan bishops with fixed sees).

The importance of this Breton Church can be deduced from the fact that its bishops were invited to take part in the great continental councils of the time: bishops of York, London and Colchester, in the council of Arles in 314; including a bishop by the name Eborius (Yvor, Ifor), but there was also some of them in Nicaea in 325, in the council of Rimini in 359; and by contrast, from the fact that one of the great “heresies “of the time, Pelagianism, appeared in Great Britain. Pelagianism witnesses indeed, indirectly it is true, the profundity of the theological thought of this Church.

Pelagius (360 - 418) was, of course, regarded as a heretic by the Roman Church. We do not know much of the biography of Pelagius, but some of his writings or some accounts of the time provide us indications. Pelagius was called Morgan, it was therefore perhaps a Breton having Latinized his name in Pelagius, following the fashion prevailing at the time (for Augustine he was a Britto, for Marius Mercator a Britannus).

He would have been from a Breton tribe of what we now call Wales. As saint Jerome, in his prologue of the book of Jeremiah refers to him in an ultra-racist way by calling him “pultibus Scottorum praegravatus “(stuffed with the oat gruel of Scots: the famous porridge); that led some authors to suppose that he was a Scot, but under the hand of saint Jerome, Scot is most often an insult like another.

He was a man of humble social origin , but of great learning. He also had a Scot (Scottish or Irish) companion called Celleagh, or Kelly, who also, to follow the fashion of the time, took a Latin name, Coelestius.

Morgan and Kelly, or as we will call them henceforth, Pelagius and Coelestius, came in Rome before the year 400.

Yough Pelagius gave his name to the heresy, he was not the most passionate propagandist of it. This role fell to his disciple Coelestius.

As we saw, saint Jerome fought this first attempt at a Reform of the Church, with energy, it is the least we can say: he did not hesitate to resort to racist insults for that! He compared Pelagius with Pluto and Coelestius with his hound Cerberus, while speaking about him for example in these terms: “the hound “is better than “the king “.

After the departure of Jerome to the East, Pelagius undertook to preach to the Christian Roman aristocracy. He preaches a life rule rather hard in order to make it “an elite of virtue “. But his message therefore was not limited to the only aristocracy, this one was just better prepared to receive it. His ascetic life, as Servus Dei and his teaching, caused a considerable passion.

In 410, after the fall and the sack of Rome, he leaves for Africa with his disciple Coelestius and lands in Hippo to meet Augustine there, but this one being absent, he will finally meet him in Carthage. He leaves then as of 411 for Jerusalem, Coelestius remaining, as for him, in Africa. The continuation is only justification expulsion and judgment. We are unaware of the date of his death, even if it is generally placed circa 420.

Here below the essence of his doctrines. There is no original sin. Adam was created mortal and prone to concupiscence. Baptism does not erase an original spot - which does not exist - but only the current sins, for those who made some of them (it should not be forgotten that at the beginning of Christianity baptism was reserved for adults). Baptism is only necessary to enter the community of faithful, and Christ himself underwent this test (because it is an initiatory test). As for the grace, this word designates only natural goods given by God (or the Demiurge of course) to Man, particularly his freedom, to which are added the lessons that the revelation and preaching of Jesus Christ bring to us.

These doctrines, which went very far away, was taken up and developed by Coelestius: “sin is not born with man. It is an act of his will to which his individual imperfection can lead him, but it is not a necessary effect of the intrinsic imperfection of Mankind “. Coelestius did not want baptism for children, through fear administration of this sacrament causes this so false and abusive idea for the Creator: “Man is malicious by nature even, before to have done any evil “…

Saint Augustine (354-430).A Manichean converted to Christianity, as we have already said. Moron and Christian are besides two words having the same origin in the French language. In this field, saint Augustine was sinisterly one and the other.

[A part of men only is predestined to eternal life, and the number of them is rigorously set [as for Jehovah’s witnesses if we understand well. Strange pettiness of God who, apparently, does not know infinity. Editor’s note].

Saint Augustine gives up making predestination depending on the prescience or the forecast by God or the Demiurge,

of the merits of each one. Predestination is absolute and fully gratuitous; but in a stricter sense, it only aims at saved people… for the others, Augustine admits, not that they are predestined to death, but that they are left, by a judgment of God, in the mass doomed to perdition and destruction.

The refusal to admit the accuracy of Pelagianism, at least partially, will complicate during centuries the reasoning (if one can say) of Christian theology, and will make it a true headache (Jansenism and so on…)

Three councils were opposed to Pelagianism: those of Carthage, 415 and 417, and that of Antioch in 424. The General Council of Ephesus too, in 431, condemned, this typically Breton Christianity, in spite of the corrective measures of Pelagius. Pelagianism remained nevertheless until the sixth century. It was therefore especially fought by saint Augustine who, from 412, literally broke out against his former friend, and who did everything so that Pelagius is excommunicated. In 419, emperors Honorius and Theodosius condemned Pelagianism solemnly. Fortunately at the time they had not yet invented the stakes of the Inquisition. But Theodosius, on the other hand, in 390 in Thessalonica… an effect of the religion of love perhaps. Oh the joys of love…

Pelagian doctrines were partly supported by Saint John Cassian and Vincent of Lerins. There was a light dissension between the East and the West in the manner of dealing with this problem. Several orthodox theologists will blame Augustine and support on the contrary Cassian.

The central axis of the theology of Pelagius was the moral development of Man, as ancient druids taught it apparently. Pelagianism would therefore have been only some druidism clothed in a Christian manner. To be seen!Central idea of Pelagianism was the free will of Man is intact and he is absolutely free to choose between good and evil. But our good doctor, any heir to the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) he was, was mistaken. We know now (see the study of dreams started with true druids) that human being is also determined by his unconsciousness, and his instincts, because Man is also an animal.

Pelagius therefore does not preserve only, he amplifies, the druidic doctrines of balance. God or the Demiurge is no longer only the cause and end of Man: in the interval, the latter walks alone. Pelagianism is not druidism, far from it. But we can only recognize a very Celtic tendency in these doctrines based on freedom… By rejecting the need for divine grace, Pelagius fought against the Latin superstition, restored the idea of human responsibility, and raised his dignity, that the first Fathers of the Church sought, on the contrary, to lower, in the name of a very bad understood evangelical humility.

In 429, Agricola, the son of a Pelagian bishop named Severianus, led the Breton churches in this way. Bede adds that the other bishops were unable to refute the teaching of Pelagians and that they had to be, for that, helped by continental bishops. Germanus of Auxerre and Lupus of Troyes went to Great Britain in order to take part in a large debate against Pelagians.

Official Christianity presents their mission as having been successful but we can doubt that since saint Germanus had to go back once again in 444 in the company of a disciple of saint Lupus called Severus; still to fight Pelagianism.

Many later disputes about dogmatic Christianity left this flaw in the Christian doctrines and thus were, in reality, only variants of Pelagianism.

SAINT NINIAN.

As we have already pointed out, higher, the Antonine wall was a wall the emperor Antoninus Pius had made it build circa 140 by Quintus Lollius Urbicus between the fjord shaped estuary of the river called Forth and that of the Clyde. It “doubled “in the north the fortification already built by his adoptive father Hadrian. The Roman Emperor Septimius Severus preferred to give up it in order to reinforce that of Hadrian, the pressure of the peoples in the North of the island being done too strong.

Saint Ninian (Nenn, diminutive Nennan, which in Latin produced Nennius or Ninnianus) was born circa 360 in the North-West of England (or if you prefer in the South-west of Scotland). In what was then a become again independent territory after the retreat of the Roman army. It was the son of the chief of a tribe called Novantae.

The Roman general Theodosius known as the Elder could nevertheless reconquer the area located between both (Hadrian and Antonine) Walls before he is ten years old.

The future saint Ninian was then sent to Rome as a hostage, to be educated there in the manner of Romans. Other authors think that he was never sent to Rome, but educated in the Roman way, what is not at all the same thing.

There was indeed, in this part of the British Isles, an already well-established Church, and it is impossible to be more official for several decades, since the father of Ninian himself was already Christian.

Ninian is regarded as the first major Christian preacher of the peoples living beyond Hadrian's Wall, i.e., apart from the territory formerly under Roman domination.

What is certain it is that he became bishop, but decided to return to his after having become acquainted with saint Martin of Tours, and accompanied, perhaps, by continental masons and artists.

He lands in Whittern (Quhithern, Witerna), today, the island of Whithorn (which, in fact, is no longer an island) in the south-west of Caledonia, future Scotland, in the county of Wigtonshire (or Witgtownshire). In short the area of Galloway, then become again Roman for a few years, as we could see it. It is there he founds circa 385-397 the monastery of Candida Casa (Latin translation of the Pictish “Hwit Aerne “: “White House “or “Bright House “), but also Monasterium Magnum, Monasterium Rosnatense, Monasterium Alba; in short, a monastery placed under the patronage of saint Martin. It is from there that he will leave to evangelize Northern Bretons and Southerner Picts, after the departure of the Romans. Because while evacuating the area, “Roman “soldiers (quotation marks are necessary, many were native) left indeed behind them, in the area of the Solway, a bishop who succeeded in doing what legions had never been able to achieve up to that point.

Ninian did not remain indeed a long time in his Candida Casa. Bede mentions the work of Ninian beyond the ardua et horrentia montium juga, the long ridge of the watershed which is Druim Albann, known by Romans as being Dorsum Britanniae. Bede speaks about these tribes as being some “ Southerner Picts “but, when his famous chart is well directed, south becomes east on it. Ninian has, in fact, followed the natural route starting from Whithorn and going through Glasgow, Stirling, to end in the North-East plains, where modern archeology revealed very decided remains of his stay.

The influence of saint Ninian developed even beyond Caledonia, since many great Irish saints were formed over there. Particularly saint Tighernac and saint Kiaran, the founder of the great school of Clonmacnoise; saint Finian and saint Kevin; saint Finnbarr of Moville, the teacher of Colum Cille (saint Columba of Iona) supposed founder of Dornoch cathedral ; and Caranoc, the one who baptized the future saint Patrick.

The body of saint Ninian was buried in the church of Whithorn (Wigtownshire), but there is no relic of it. The “Clogrinny “ or bell of saint Ringan (Ninian), on the other hand, is preserved at the national museum of antiquities in Edinburgh.

At the time when Ninian died, in 432, the Empire had lost Spain, Gaul, Great Britain. The community of saint Ninian therefore became the ultimate refuge of a certain number of exiled people, including, perhaps, scientists having fled the Continent.

Among first Christians, communities generally bore the name of their founder.

We find church sites consecrated to saint Ninian including in the far north of Scotland as in the Shetlands islands. Some were so old that they were already deserted in the sixth century.

Some historians think nevertheless that people exaggerated much the number and the extent of his conversions. Saint Patrick, in his letter to Coroticus, calls the Picts apostates, and allusions to a possible abandoning Christianity by the converts of saint Ninian, are also under the hand of saint Columba of Iona, or saint Kentigern. What is certain nevertheless, it is that many churches bear his name in the south of Scotland.

After the usurpation of Constantine III (407-411), the native Bretons were constrained to carry out, alone, the defense of their country against the increasingly frequent and increasingly dangerous infiltration, of Jutes, Angles, and Saxons. It is indeed generally thought that the campaigns led by the usurper on the Continent, both for to repel the Barbarians and to support his imperial claims; caused such a drain on military manpower of (Great) Britain, that from 411 the country was almost deprived of “Roman “troops.

Native Breton resistance was effective during about forty years. Barbarian incursions remained limited or sporadic. But in 449, “something “ seems to be happened because of a certain Vortigern. This one would have, it is said, beseeched the Saxons to intervene in Britain , in order to defend his authority threatened by domestic enemies.

Vortigern in reality has perhaps quite simply tried to pit Barbarians the ones against the others (Saxon against Picts, Scots against Pictes, Angles against Scots, etc.) in accordance with quite a Roman but also universal, of course, strategic tradition… What is certain, on the other hand, it is that this affair eventually turned out badly for Bretons: the Saxons called by Vortigern were so happy in (Great) Britain, that they invited their fellow countrymen to come and to join them. Then, they were allied with the Angles and with the Jutes, instead of fighting them, and it was the beginning of the end of the Romano-British civilization in what was going to become England…

The destruction of towns by the Anglo-Saxons repelled Christianity in the poor lands of the West in which then it took a character rural and therefore Celtic…. New for it.

Isolated on the Western borders of the Continent by the invasions of Barbarians remained pagan (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians and other Franks), the Christianized Celts were consequently cut from Rome and from the official doctrines of the Church during several centuries. Thus was gradually formed, by the keeping of former practices, as much as by the input of new elements resulting from the Celtic nature, an original Christendom.

PALLADIUS OR PLEDI.

The life and the work of Palladius are obscure. The Pope of the time sent the deacon on a mission to counter the progress of Pelagianism in the British Isles. Chronicles by Prosper of Aquitaine, in 431: “ Palladius, having been ordained by Pope Celestine, is sent as their first bishop to the Scots believing in Christ. “The expression “In Christum credentes “means the existence, already on the spot, of Christian communities, and this mission emphasizes the will of Rome besides to insert them in the pontifical obedience.

But of what Scots could it be a question? ? Those of Ireland or those of Scotland precisely? ? Without any doubt those of Ireland. There were already Christians over there at this time. Perhaps thanks to the sea trade connecting Spain and Gaul to Ireland.

And as Pelagianism was progressing there, it is probable that Celestine sent Palladius into it to also fight it on this island. Oldest Irish traditions designate Wicklow as being the place where Palladius landed and went inland.

Scots in Ireland gave him a rather cold welcome. The mission of Palladius was a failure and the same year which saw his arrival also saw his departure. The Christian Irishmen were wary of Rome and from all that came from there. Its bishops, they knew it, followed the traces of its emperors, and sought to seize the universal government of the Church.

Moreover druidic priesthood was still powerful in Ireland, Romans never having succeeded in settling in it (durably). Pagan Irishmen therefore were not even interested in it. According to Daibhi O'Croinin, the bishops Secundinus (Sechnall) Auxilius (Usaille) and Iserninus were nevertheless three of his traveling companions left behind him on the spot. Anyway what is certain is that Palladius crossed again the sea and lives out his days among the Picts in Scotland (Muirchu).

The precise place in Pictish territory where the unfortunate legate of Pope Celestine died, is indicated to us by another ancient biography. The scholia on St. Fiace's Hymn reported by Colgan, in his collection of the Lives of saint Patrick; says to us indeed in connection with Palladius: “ He was not well received by the people, but was forced to go round the coast of Ireland towards the north, until, driven by a great tempest, he reached the extreme part of Moidhaidh towards the south, where he founded the Church of Fordun, and Pledi is his name there.”

Another biography dating back approximately to the year 900 specifies that Celestine, when he sent him on a mission, gave to him relics of saint Peter and of Saint Paul ; that he landed in Leinster that a chief named Garrchon resisted to him, that, nevertheless, he founded three churches, and deposited in them the bones of the apostles as some books the Pope had given to him; but that, little time after, he died on the plain of Girgin, in a place called Fordun . Girgin or Maghgherginn is the Irish name designating the Mearns. Another of his biographers writes that he received the crown of a martyr in Fordun. What is far from being assured (an additional umpteenth lie from Christian people), because Picts in the South were already Christian at the time and did have consequently no reason to treat him thus. See the case of saint Ninian. The history of Palladius or Pledi therefore is muddled enough.

It is to the Scots in Ireland that he is sent, but it is among the Picts in the Mearns that we find the first monument attesting his action. If Palladius had directly sailed towards Rome, he should have landed in Wales or in the North of France. Instead of that, we find him landing on the Eastern coast of Scotland. There was to be some reason for that. Palladius was in no way in a hurry of returning to Rome in order to announce there the failure of his mission , namely that Christian Scots had not wanted him as a bishop and that pagan Scots had ignored him completely. Expelled by King Garrchon, he has perhaps sailed towards the north in the hope to find in another part of Ireland a tribe more favorable to his venture; and whose conversion to Christianity could have compensated for the failure of his first attempt? But a storm decided differently on this subject!

What is certain it is that after years of wandering Palladius/Pledi ended his days at Fordun in the Mearns.

The village of Fordun is located on a promontory of the Grampian Mountains, overlooking the farmed plains of Mearns. In its cemetery there is a small house looking very old. Its thick walls, its very low roof, and the small window, through which the sun struggles without much success to clear the darkness of the inside, make it a cave rather than a sanctuary. This building is supposed to have been the chapel of Palladius.

When Palladius/Pledi arrived in Scotland, it is said that he found there individuals “habentes fidei doctores et sacramentorum ministros presbiteros et monachos, primitivae ecclesiae solum modo sequentes ritum et consuetudinem “. There exist doubts about this visit of Palladius in Scotland, but

documents like the Aberdeen breviary, although lacking in any historical value, nevertheless preserved to us probable traces of it. The Aberdeen Breviary reports to us indeed that saint Serban or Serf lived “sub forma et ritu primitivae ecclesiae “. Therefore that there were Christians before saint Serban or saint Serf himself, in the area. The work of Ninian among Picts consequently seems to be continued, not only by his disciples, but by saint Palladius/Pledi, who died while leaving his office to his pupils saint Ternan and saint Serf/Serban. Banchory-Ternan is the bangor or monastic school of saint Ternan. As for saint Serban (saint Serf) too, he continued the work of saint Ninian in the South-west, but under another king than the one of the Picts. He was the teacher of saint Kentigern in Culross.

SAINT PATRICK.

As the very words of the mission letter of Palladius show it well, there were already Christians in Ireland at his time therefore, some “in christum credentes” people. One of the first known Irish saints seems to have been for example the bishop of Ossory saint Ciaran the elder who lived in the second half of the fourth century (352-402 ?) Men by the name Auxilius, Secundinus and Iserninus are also regularly quoted as regards Munster and Leinster.

But the first true contact of Ireland with Rome was through the Christianity of saint Patrick who was therefore a bridgehead of this form of religion in the island. Unfortunately, we know nothing really sure about him. The history of Roman Britain in the fifth century is known rather little, and more we move in the century, more documents are rare… until disappearing completely – or nearly - after 450.

According to saint Patrick himself, he would have been pagan or almost until he was sixteen years old.

“My name is Patrick. I am a sinner, a simple country person, and the least of all believers. I am looked down upon by many. My father was Calpurnius. He was a deacon; his father was Potitus, a priest, who lived at Bannavem Taburniae (a vicus is a village). His home was near there, and that is where I was taken prisoner. I was about sixteen at the time. At that time, I did not know the true God. “. (Extracted from a document entitled “the confession of saint Patrick “.)

Let us note nevertheless, just like in the case of Muhammad for example, that nothing proves with certainty that this document is authentic. It contains many assertions (accounts of miracles in particular or some contradictions) difficult to believe.

But there still, like in the case of Muhammad, we have nothing else to satisfy our curiosity, so….

Born in a Romanized then Christianized Breton family, Calpurnius and Conchessa - his father was a subaltern of the Roman army (a decurion) and his grandfather deacon - Patrick would have been born circa 385-390 in England, in the area of Dumbarton, or in Wales. His most probable birthplace is a small village along the Western coast of what was then the Roman Great Britain, close to the mouth of the Severn. Whatever was exactly his place of origin, what is certain, it is that he was Celt. He was given the name of Magonus Succatus, in Welsh Maelwyn Succat. He admits himself not having shown a very obvious Christianity until he was sixteen years old. If he had been at the time arrested under the inculpation to be a Christian, he would undoubtedly have been released, as it is said a little familiarly, “for lack of evidence “.

In the first years of the fifth century (circa 401 or 402), he is kidnapped at the time of a raid of Irish pirates on his village. Hundreds of people were captured then sold as slaves with him besides. For six years he served as a pig keeper in the mountains of Northern Ireland, for the local king. It was at that time (apparently filled with long periods of loneliness in the middle of these lost mountains, in the only company of his herds of pigs) that Maelwyn seems to be really converted to Christianity. While learning Gaelic and a rudimentary knowledge of druidism with the advisers of his master, particularly the druid in charge of his herds of pigs, who was named Miluc.

In 411, after having seen in dream God (or the Devil?) informing him that a ship awaited for him in Westport, 300 km away from there, then he would be escaped, and would have managed to join his family in Great Britain. He becomes priest and leaves for twelve years to get on the Continent the religious formation which is missing to him. Then it is possible that he was fixed at Auxerre, as the life of saint Patrick according to Muirchu maintains it, and that he was even ordained bishop by saint Germanus, before being sent in Ireland by the pope Celestine. He takes then name of Patricius, Patrick in Latin ( Padraig in Gaelic).

Meanwhile he had made a whole series of strange dreams in which inhabitants of the island of Ireland begged him to return by saying to him, “ Rogamus te, sancte puer, ut venias et adhuc ambules inter nos “- “We beg you to come and be again among us “. In one of these dreams, a man named Victoricus even issued to him a message entitled “the Voice of the Irish people“.

A. B. E. Hood suggests that this Victoricus may be identified with Saint Victricius, bishop of Rouen, who was the only European churchman of the time to advocate or practice conversion of pagans, and who visited Britain in an official capacity in 396.

His superiors, however, found him too ignorant or judged him in no way qualified, as a theologist or as a speaker, for such a mission. It is at least what we can deduce indirectly or by contrast, of the avowal of his “confession.” On this point it is to be authentic.

But when Palladius gave up Ireland to settle in Scotland, Patrick renewed his request, and then his superiors agreed finally, this time, for want of anything better, to send him on an official mission in the country in order to establish in it the Christianity of Roman Catholic type.

According to the Annals of Ulster, Patrick would have arrived on the island in 432, by landing in Saul, close to Downpatrick. According to tradition, it is him who would have converted Ireland by challenging the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) in singular jousts, like the fire test. And by explaining the mystery of the Holy Trinity with the trefoil leaf of the clover, which will thus become, with the harp, one of the symbols of Ireland.

The druidic symbol of clover was indeed taken up by saint Patrick, in order to explain the mystery of the holy poly-unity reduced to three persons. The fact that there is one stem shows well there are not three distinct god-or-demons, but only one, ending in three distinct entities. The festival of saint Patrick besides is still called today "shamrock festival “ i.e., the clover festival. If uncertainties persist about the exact date of his death, undoubtedly circa 461, at the end of the fifth century, pagan Ireland, however, was mainly Christianized.

Isolated from Roman papacy by Barbarian invasions, Ireland, like the other Celtic countries, during nearly two centuries will be therefore the last refuge of Western Christianity facing a Continent fallen down mainly in barbarity. But an original center that Rome will hardly be long in wanting to grip again . It was then a true headlight in the night which had fallen down on the West. Its schools competed with the monastic communities of the Continent and attracted even to them some disciples from Gaul. There ancient humanities were cultivated, not only Virgil and Ovid, but Greek authors too. It is for example astonishing to see that Columban of Bobbio too composed acrostic poems claiming to follow the poetess Sappho (in a letter sent to his friend Fedolius).

Haply the meter

May to you seem strange.

Yet it is the same which

She, the renowned bard

Sappho, the Greek, once

Used for her verses.

It is besides in this worship of Antiquity practiced in Ireland at the time it is necessary to seek the germs of what will be the Carolingian Renaissance on the Continent.

Now, as regards Ireland, all this process produced in the Far West of Europe from the sixth century to the tenth century, the Hiberno-Latin or Hisperic Latin; whose most representative works are at the same time the prayers of litany type or lorica type (see Gildas and his excidio Britanniae for example) as well as the Hisperica famina. School exercises the purpose of which was to teach to foreign students a Latin far away from popular Latin (rare and erudite words, archaisms, or on the contrary neologisms, plays on words, etc.). In addition to Gildas and his famous lorica, the main authors having written in Hisperic Latin or Hiberno-Latin, are saint Columbanus of Iona (his anthem entitled “altus prosator “) and saint Adamnan. John Scottus Eriugena will be perhaps the last to use it. Unless one also attaches to this current some of the poems of saint Hildegard of Bingen. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce gives us an idea of what this kind of literature could produce.

The Hisperica Famina were perhaps composed in Bangor and it is undoubtedly also to Bangor that we owe the adventures of Bran son of Febal, and of Mongan, as well as the text entitled “the rustling of the cattle of Froech “. The monastery of Bangor seems well to be their principal center of circulation.

The question is: can find traces of druidic THought in these texts written in such a strange Latin, in the sixth century probably from 660? The answer of the current specialists is no, but what is certain it is that the general tune of these texts is not especially Christian.

The venerable Bede and saint Aldhelm of Malmesbury confirm that Irish schools also had a purely non-religious teaching. Bede reports for example an anecdote, ascribed to an English man named Willibrord, which speaks to us about an Irish student, very well-read man, but hardly worried by the salvation of his soul (HE III, 13). Aldhelm too, between 673 and 706, wrote a letter to an Englishman named Wihtfrith, who intended to go to continue his studies in Ireland. Aldhelm warns him against temptations and encourages him to avoid learning concerning the god-or-demons of Antiquity, as their myths.

It is possible to separate the “speech of the litanies “from the other speeches in prose or verses aiming to praise or to describe. By emphasizing a direct message, and by using the maximum resources of the vocabulary in a precise field, litany appears to us to pave the way to what will be our true modern prose. But litany is also based on another postulate: a whole can be traversed, painting of the world is therefore possible, even if now accumulation prevails.

If we add to them some short poems resembling prayers and which comprise a keen sense of the beauty of Nature; or these “armors “(“loricae “) which are used to protect the one who recites them against all the troubles of his existence; that gives us already a tasty production, of a beautiful lyricism, and worthy to appear in poetic anthologies. “Et argute loqui “ Cato the Elder notices about the Celts.

“Firinde inàr croidhedhaibh, 7 neart inàr làmhaibh, 7 comall inàr tengthaibh “. “The truth in our hearts, the strength in our arms and the art of subtly speaking, “ Caletios/ Cailte answers saint Patrick, in the Acallamh na Senorach.

MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF CELTIC CHRISTIANITY.

We will leave here voluntarily aside the controversy about the Roman fort of the Drumanagh promontory (Loughshinny) located at 24 km north of Dublin and the quotation of Juvenal reporting: “we have advanced arms beyond the shores of Ireland“ considering their anecdotal nature.

Tacitus Life of Agricola chapter XXIV: “One of the petty kings of the nation [Ireland], driven out by internal faction, had been received by Agricola, who detained him under the semblance of friendship till he could make use of him. I have often heard him say that a single legion with a few auxiliaries could conquer and occupy Ireland. “

Romans therefore can have perfectly helped Túathal Techmar *, or somebody like him, to recover his throne, in order to have a friendly neighbor, able to prevent Irish incursions.

* Editor’s note. As we have already said it, T.F. O'Rahilly thinks that, like in the case of many accounts of “come back from exile “ Túathal is, in fact, the chief of an invasion of foreigners, who established their dynasty in Ireland. The supports of this dynasty then made an Irish origin to him, in order to give him more legitimacy. Their genealogists incorporated all the dynasties, Goidelic and other, as well as the god-or-demons of their ancestors, in a family tree going back, on more than a thousand years, to the mythical Míl of Spain. They would be these invaders who would have brought the Gaelic or Q-Celtic language among various native populations.

But finally it does not matter. What is certain it is that Ireland, unlike Great Britain, was not subjected to Rome or Roman Law, as this famous quatrain of the ninth century, undoubtedly composed by a disillusioned pilgrim, points it out for us, not without humor,

Techt do Rôim…

To go to Rome

is little profit, endless pain;

the master that you seek in Rome

you find at home or seek in vain.

(These two Irish quatrains are on the folio 23 of the Boernerianus codex of the royal library in Dresden.)

On the Continent Christianization was run in the Roman mode of organization of territory, and that therefore gave us bishops and fixed dioceses, centered on the big urban centers. In Ireland it was completely different, because the conversion of the island was done by the top (kings, chiefs of clans) and not by the bottom (slaves, common people). Some chiefs of tribes therefore conceded to Christians, and particularly to monks, more or less large parts of their territory, in order to build there some places of worship. In no case some towns since there was no city in the country at the time. It is therefore in the shape of monasteries that Christianity will develop in Ireland in the sixth and seventh centuries, and not by the establishment of dioceses, apart from that of Armagh. Perhaps.

Their founding saints never refer to Palladius or Patrick, whose names seem to have been forgotten, as we have already said it. Here are some ones.

Ibar, Iberius, Ivor. Worked in current County Wexford from 425 to 450. He would have admitted the supremacy of saint Patrick , and would have been confirmed by him in his episcopate. Circa 480 he settles in Begerin, where he built an oratory and a cell. In the “Life of saint Abban “his nephew, it is indicated that the retreat of saint Ibar was quickly filled with many disciples coming from all parts of Ireland. And the “Litany of Aengus “calls upon the 3000 confessors who placed themselves under his direction. His nephew, saint Abban, a twelve-year-old boy, came in Begerin whereas he was already passably old then accompanied him on pilgrimage in Rome. His death is reported by a Chronicle which dated it April 23rd, 500, the day when his festival is observed.

Enda, Eanna, Endeus, Enna, born in Meath; died in Killeany, circa 530 or 590. He was an Irish prince, son of Conall Derg of Oriel (Ergall) in Ulster. He would have learned the principles of monastic life in Rosnat/Rosnan, a foundation of saint David in Pembrokeshire, in Wales, or of saint Ninian in Galloway. Come back to Ireland, he built churches in Drogheda, and a monastery in the valley of the Boinne.

Circa 484 he got from his brother-in-law, King Oengus (Aengus) of Munster, the island of Aranmore, in the bay of Galway. He founded there the monastery of Killeany, which is regarded as the first true Irish monastery in a stricter sense of the term.

Finian, Finden, Vennianus, Vinnianus, were born in Leinster circa 470, within a noble family of Myshall in County Carlow. And it is undoubtedly there that he became Christian since his first three foundations are in the area: Rossacurra, Drumfea, and Kilmaglush. He spent then several years in Wales with saint Cadoc of Llancarfan, saint David of Menevia, and saint Gildas. He lived on bread, vegetables, and water, and slept on the floor with a stone as a pillow. Circa 520, he came back to Ireland where he built churches and several monasteries, of which Aghowle (County Wicklow) and Mugna Sulcain. His most remarkable foundation was Clonard, upon the Boinne, in Meath, which will be the greatest school of the time. More than 3000 disciples. Each one of them left the monastery after his formation while carrying with him a Book of the Gospels, a crosier, and a reliquary, on which he could build a church or a monastery.

Saint Comgall. Born in Ulster, circa 517; died in Bangor, in Ireland, in 603. The chroniclers describe us Comgall as a warrior when he was a young man; but also say to us that he studied under saint Fintan in the monastery of Cluain Eidnech, that he was ordained a priest before he was forty years old, and that he left and found a hermitage with some companions in Lough Erne. The rule he imposed was so severe that seven of them died because of it. He left the island and founded then a monastery in Bangor (Bennchor), on the southern bank of the Belfast Lake, where he formed saint Columba of Bobbio and many monks who evangelized the center of Europe thereafter. Two others of his monks Christianized Scotland, saint Moluag of Lismore, in Argyll and saint Maelrubha of Applecross in Ross. Bangor was the most famous monastery of its time in Ireland, and Comgall is famous to have directed up to 8000 monks, in this place or in establishments founded by Bangor.

Although Comgall is especially known for his asceticism (it is reported that he had a complete meal only once per week, on Sunday), many miracles relating to him precisely concern food. One day a farmer refused to sell wheat to his monks, by saying that he preferred that his mother-in-law (called Luch) eats it, rather than them. However “Luch “in Gaelic language also means “mouse “. Saint Comgall therefore answered him: “ So be it, that Luch eats it “. And this night, an army of mice came to devour all wheat of the man in question, that is to say the equivalent of 30 carts.

A group of robbers one day got into the lands of the monastery, in order to steal vegetables, but the prayers of Comgall made them blind, until they repent. Then they were admitted into the community.

Another time still, whereas the monks were short of supplies, and they, however, awaited visitors, saint Comgall requested God, and a shoal of fish miraculously ran aground on the bank. The brethren could thus receive their guests with dignity.

Comgall is known as being left some time also to Scotland, where he would have lived in a monastery located on the island of Tiree. He would also have accompanied saint Columba of Iona in his missionary travel in Inverness, in order to Christianize Picts. Columba and Comgall would have walked on together through the Great Glen and preached in front of King Brude, then founded a monastery in the area.

According to the use in force at the time, the abbot or the abbess therefore became the owner of the lands and of the wealth of the monastery. However the territory concerned by this kind of establishment could have the size of a principality sometimes, and the monks must obey their abbot or their abbess, like the members of a clan must obey their chief. Christian people who lived in the surrounding villages were also dependent on his authority. A reason why the chiefs of a clan claimed besides often the dignity of an abbot for themselves, or for one of their close relations, and handed down it from generation to generation.

Celtic Church therefore at the beginning never had a territorial organization as clear as on the Continent nor a fixed number of bishops. Those were generally monks, elected to this dignity. They remained cloistered in their abbey or circulated through the country, without having well determined episcopal see. The priests, coming too from monasteries, were also itinerant, and did not feel bound to respect territorial limits. Moreover like each tribe or clan had its own monastery, each monastery therefore had its own habits, and its own religious holidays.

Christianity which developed in Ireland was therefore centered on the aforementioned monasteries. It was directed according to the life which was current in these institutions, and varied between cenobitism and eremitism. An ancient pagan tradition according to the account of Plutarch on this subject.

As each tribe or clan had his monastery, each monastery had its own habits and its own religious holidays, therefore its own rule, we have said but this one also depended obviously on the contour that wanted to give it the one who directed the establishment. Besides most of the time nevertheless, the founding abbot took up that of the monastery from where he resulted.

Founder and living in the chief town of his community, the abbot therefore was the central figure of the religious population who lived there, he had a right of inspection on all his jurisdiction. As a spiritual leader, he visited, celebrated divine offices, but also acted as temporal authority by appointing , punishing , or moving, the local superiors, by supervising the management of the goods, by appointing his possible substitute. Besides the abbot often doubled his title with that of a bishop. That was done much in Ireland, in Great Britain, or in Armorica. The office of a bishop was very diversified then and concerned as well abbots as simple itinerant monks. If an election to a succession was necessary, all the followers of the institution were brought together,and they chose a member of the founder's family.

THE WORSHIP.

There never existed Celtic liturgy in the strictest sense of the term, but the Gallican rite had to be the core of the first liturgy. The Celtic churches were distinguished from the Church of Rome, not by a particular dogma, but by the conservation of former rites, often dating back to the first times of Christianity. The Saxon conquests having cut the Celtic world from the rest of the Continent, and particular from Gaul, there was then divergent evolution. The Celtic Church and that of Rome differed on a certain number of points: mass tonsure and ordinations, for example. We don’t know much about the rules of the worship at that time, except that on the Maundy Thursday monks washed their feet mutually and that on Easter Day, they solemnly kindled the Easter fire.

A quotation of Gildas assures that lessons resembling no other were recited during ordinations, and he perhaps refers to the laying on of hands during these latter.

No precise historical document exists on a specifically Scottish liturgy. But its existence is proven by a fragment of the Leabhar Dhèir (Book of Deer) many allusions in the work of Adamnan and by the reaction of the queen saint Margaret in the 11th century (she tried to remove the last remains of them).

It is only at the time of saint Margaret, the wife of King Malcolm III (dead in 1093), indeed, that the Celtic practices ended up being eradicated, even if that took much time. The reforms related to the following “uses “:

1. Beginning of Lent on Monday instead of on Ash Wednesday.

2. No Eucharist on Easter Day.

3. Working on the Lord’s Day.

4. Strange customs in the mass.

5. The transverse tonsure “adz-shaped“ like in the case of saint Patrick instead of the tonsure “in the Roman manner“. In other words, the tonsure known as that of Simon of Samaria instead of that of his assassin, the apostle Peter.

NOTICE ABOUT THE TONSURE.

The Celtic tonsure, also known as “ adz-shaped tonsure“ or “transverse tonsure “ consisted in shaving all the hair growing ahead of a line going from one ear to another; releasing thus entirely the brow and the front of the skull but leaving the hair long behind. Strangely enough, it was there what Lucian of Samosata had noted in connection with the picture of the Celtic Hercules discovered by him in the area of Marseilles.

The problem of the tonsure was the occasion of fierce controversies in Great Britain during the seventh century. Same thing in Normandy, where a Saxon settlement in Bayeux copied the Celtic tonsure of Bretons before 590; and in Spain, where a tonsure like Celtic tonsure was condemned by the Fourth Council of Toledo.

The Celtic rite continued to be used by certain Culdees during more than one hundred years, in fact, until their communities are completely removed from History.

BAPTISM.

Celts had habits different and did not use oil devoted to anointing. In this case, the holy chrism was replaced by various other liquids (a triple immersion or anointing in water alone, or milk, or even beer, as if it was to wash the new born from every impurity ...) For more details see the Synod of Cashel and Archbishop Lanfranc's letters on this subject.

CLOTHING OF EVERY DAY.

Monks were little clothed, they did not have yet a frock, but a woolen tunic (tunica) on which was put in a cowl (cuculla) made of goatskin to which was added, in rainy weather, a hood. The ordinary dress of a Breton priest for outside seems to have been a long fur-lined coat called caracalla (wool bardocucullus more or less waterproof). The feet of these monks were covered by leather shoes (calcei) or by sandals (ficones).

FORMAL GARMENTS.

A strange small treatise in Irish language of the ninth about formal garments in mass gives eight liturgical colors for the chasuble: gold (yellow), blue, white, green, brown, red, black and crimson (some Scottish fabric therefore???).

A low-relief found in an old ruined chapel in the valley of Glendalough, in County Wicklow, shows us a bishop with a crown on his head. Celtic bishops wore consequently crowns instead of miters, and the use of such crowns, in a more or less modified shape, went on under the Anglo-Saxon domination until the tenth century; time therefore when miters started to be spread.

The bishops of this time had, of course, no precise diocese well their, and they exerted their ministry where they were. They were episcopi vagantes, some gyrovague bishops. When they lived in communities, they were subjected to the authority of their abbot.

Tradition has it perhaps that a bell and a stick are given to every new bishop.

The pastoral staff or cambutta, was to have the shape of a stick which, when it was damaged or worn unduly, was sometimes covered with silver (or gold). The modern shape appeared in the ninth or tenth century. Its manufacture was one of the industries of monastic Ireland. The oldest mention of a staff (cambutta) is probably that which relates to that of saint Columba of Bobbio which, after his death, was sent to the monastery of Saint- Gall.

Some authors put forward the assumption that, just like the “adz-shaped” tonsure of St. Patrick , this pilgrim's staff of the first Christian bishops in this area of the world would be of druidic origin: it would be the voulge with which they gathered mistletoe.

The comb of saint Kentigern, preserved as a relic in Glasgow, was probably intended for liturgical use, just like that of saint Cuthbert, who was buried with him, and was released from his grave in 1827.

Another tradition of Celtic Clergy seems to have been to carry a copy of the Gospels in a leather bag provided with a belt thrown on shoulders. To transport liturgical reliquaries and books at a distance leather bags called tiag lebair (cf.the famous corrbolg of Camulos/Cumall, the father of Vindos/Finn) were used indeed.

The National Museum of Dublin preserves that of the reliquary of saint Moedoc, decorated with interlaces and spirals on its four sides. Apart from this latter, it remains of them only two others, the tiag lebair (corrbolg) of the missal at the college of Corpus Christi, in Cambridge, and the tiag lebair (corrbolg) of the Book of Armagh, at Trinity College, in Dublin.

Monks were also accustomed to carry with them Blessed Sacrament, in a small container (chrismal), slung over the shoulder, or in a small bag (perula), hung around the neck, under clothing. Magic perhaps intended to protect themselves from the most various dangers, or because of its undeniable placebo effect.

The first Celtic saints were therefore men carrying a leather bag slung over the shoulder (tiag lebair), a staff (cambutta or bacall) a bell (clocca) and a small container for hosts.

EUCHARIST.

The tradition was to say mass very early in the morning, or even at dawn.

We can deduce from various sources that the Lord’s supper was given in the kind of bread and wine. We find in the rule of saint Columban of Bobbio a special penalty for whom bit the chalice at the time of the mass. The women could receive eucharist, but were to then wear a veil over their head. They could also apparently distribute this communion under the name of “conhospitae “.

CONHOSPITAE.

In 511 three Continental bishops, Licinius of Tours, Melanius of Rennes, and Eustochius of Angers, wrote to Breton priests, Lovocatus and Catihernus; a very malicious letter asking them to give up the habit to allow women, at the time of the communion, to hold the chalice, and to give to drink wine supposed being the blood of Christ. Threatening even to excommunicate them if they did not do it. Some graffiti of the area of origin of these three bishops (Poitiers), but of an unknown date, however, signal to us the existence of woman also taking part in the liturgical service on the Continent: “Martia presbyteria/ferit oblata Olebri/o par (iter) et Nepote “.

Mommsen and Diehl combine presbyteria and oblata, and translate by “priest’s offerings “. It could very well be a question, not of the wife of the priest officiating, but of a woman priest called Martia, and making more than to carry the devoted bread and wine, just like the two other priests called Olibrius and Nepos.

AURICULAR CONFESSION.

The principle “contraria contrarias sanantur “, “opposites are cured by their opposite “ popularized by John Cassian, was borrowed initially by Welshmen, then by Irishmen.

In the Penitential of Finnian, we find this piece of advice: "By contrary let us make haste to cure contrary and to cleanse away these faults from our hearts and introduce heavenly virtues in their places : patience must arise for wrathfulness ; kindliness, or the love of God and of one’s neighbor, for envy ; for detraction, restraint of heart and tongue ; for dejection, spiritual joy ; for greed, liberality.”

Confession was a current and frequent practice, but not necessarily to prepare to receive Lord’s supper. The ordinary Irish name of the confessor was anamchara or “friend of soul/mind “and everyone seems to have had his. The druidic practice of the anamchairdeas, the spiritual direction, literally “soul friendship “ practiced by a confidant called anamchara or “friend of soul “- also being worth for laymen - therefore contributed to promoting private penitence as well as auricular confession.

“Colainn gan cheann duine gan will anamchara “(a person without confidant - literally without a friend of soul - is like a headless body) was a common maxim at the time.

Three points are consequently to be noticed with regard to this confession.

It was private therefore non-public.

It was optional and non-obligatory.

Absolution was given only after penitence had been done.

CALCULATION OF EASTER'S DATE.

Celtic Churches did not have a particular date of Easter, they had simply remained about it in the old way of calculating of Roman Church, before this one changes it (for various, divine, astronomical, or others, reasons). Saint Augustine of Canterbury therefore found Bretons celebrating Easter between the 14th and the 20th day of the Moon, according to a way of calculating given up for a long time.

ALL SAINTS' DAY.

See the article on the subject in our essay devoted to Christian religion.

CONSECRATION OF BISHOPS.

In Celtic lands, bishops did not have a fixed diocese, and it therefore happened that you can find two or three bishops at once in the same community.

It is said for example that Colum Cille was greeted by a certain number of bishops when he was approaching the island of Hy (lona) off Scotland, but that they tried to dissuade him from landing there!

Celtic Church was satisfied with only one bishop to consecrate another one, instead of the three bishops required by the Roman Church. In Ireland this tradition of the simple consecration still existed in the eleventh century, about what saint Anselm complained, in a letter to the Irish king Tirlagh, in 1074, and Lanfranc, in a letter to King Muriardach, in 1100. We also find trace of it in the Life of saint Kentigern in which Jocelin notes: “Rex et clericus Cambrensis (in Glasguo)… accito de Hibernia uno Episcopo, more Britonum et Scottorum, in Episcopum ipsum consecrari fecerunt “.

CONSECRATION OF CHURCHES.

In general, churches and monasteries of Celtic communities were not designated by the names of died saints, but by the name of their founder, even still alive. Traces of that are found everywhere , especially in Scotland, despite all the attempts made to replace them with the names of saints from the Roman calendar. The consecration of a church or of a monastery was preceded by a long fast. Bishop Cedd fasted thus for 40 days. Having completed his fast and his prayer having been said, he built a monastery, which is now called Lastingham, and equipped it with religious habits of Lindisfarne, where he had been taught.

SMALL BELLS.

Patrick, according to the book of Armagh, would have transported beyond Shannon fifty bells. This text refers to the small portable bells, 15,20 or 30 centimeters high, which were alone known formerly in Celtic Christendoms.From a Celtic “klokko “ which produced through borrowing late-Latin clocca: English clock, German glockes; Breton kloc' h; Welsh clogh; Cornic clogh; old Irish clocc; Irish clog.

Oldest of these portable bells are of an extremely simple manufacture and completely lacking in artistic value, made of two bent plates riveted together so that it is rectangle shaped ; a handle at the top; an iron clapper inside; the whole dipped in bronze. Such were the materials and the manufacturing process used.

The use of the bells or more exactly of the small bells is without any doubt of druidic origin. Almost all the countries evangelized or visited by Breton and Scot saints, still preserve specimens of these small bells, to which the traditional veneration of the faithful was attached. In Ireland, we see a bishop receiving, during his consecration, among other badges, a pastoral staff, and a small bell. These small bells were used , in fact, for calling monks and faithful to the mass. They were also used, on the occasion, as curse instruments. The saint offended by the chief of a clan cursed this one by striking his bell with the end of his staff. A use to be compared with the fragments of following text:

“Bad look-out to-night,” said Cunocavaros/Conchobar. He struck the silver scepter that was in his hand against the bronze pillar of the couch and the folks gat seated [....] Once more the hall became a babel of words, the women lauding their men. Then essayed Conall Loegaire and the Hesus Cuchulainn to stir up dissension. Sencha, son of Ailill, got up and shook his scepter. To him the Ulaid gave ear, and then to restrain the ladies he made speech… etc. “ (Fled Bricrend. The feast of Bricriu).

BELLS.

Various documents of the fifth century show the activity of bell founders monks in Ireland. But it is between the 8th and the 12th century that the shape and the processes of founding were improved, and that the first large bells (a few 100 kg) appeared. Although the founding was almost the prerogative of monasteries at that time, it is a question, however, as of the eighth century, of non-religious itinerant bell founders.

Many archeological excavations made it possible, indeed, to find the sites of the first casting , at the foot even of the buildings for which the bells were intended: churches, monasteries, cathedrals. These founders of the time moved to carry out work on the spot, and thus to avoid the tiresome work of routing. Large cars brought personal and materials. The construction of the smelting furnace, and the molding of the profiles, could last several months, according to the importance of orders. Bells were found in most of the zones known to be visited by Celtic saints, and many still exist there, for example in the church of Insch, near Aviemore.

ROUND TOWERS.

In Scotland these towers are called “broch “and they seem to have been initially pre-Christian (the Broch of Mousa in the Shetland Islands, the Orkneys and the High-Lands of Scotland), even prehistoric (some megalithic monuments?) Most beautiful is in Brechin.

In Ireland most of them were built between the 9th and the 12th century, in the vicinity (but not as an integral part) of a church or of a monastery. Their door is located at a certain height from the ground and requires the use of scale to reach it (a little as in the case of the Meccan Kaaba besides); and opens towards the main door located towards the west.

There is of them more than one hundred of which a score in good enough state like in Devenish in Northern Ireland, Glendalough, and Clondalkin. That of Kilmacduagh is highest in Ireland.

Their height ranges from 20 to 40 meters and their diameter from 4 to 5 meters.

Their name in Gaelic language (cloictheach) makes them bell towers or belfries (not for large bells then), but it is possible also that they could be used as a watchtower during Viking invasions; even that they symbolized the power and of the importance of a community.

Other authors compare these monuments to the lanterns of the dead found on the Continent, for example in Oleron Island. The lantern of the dead is a tower-shaped construction , made of built stones, generally hollow. At the top is the skylight is (the “lantern“ itself), with its openings to let the light pass. By nightfall , a lamp was placed there, most of the time thanks to a pulley system. These lanterns located, then, in the cemeteries which surrounded churches, were supposed to protect or guide the dead. The habit does not seem to be of a Christian origin.

THE BUILDINGS OF THE MONASTERY.

There are very few vestiges of the monasteries of the Early Middle Ages. The wars and the wear of time or of men reduced these witnesses of the past progressively. Only remain famous and relatively well-preserved crypts. It seems, taking into consideration this architectural heritage, that the techniques and the styles were different. Only common point: inside the monastery buildings monks were to keep silent.

Every Celtic Monastery then was made of a group of individual hive-shaped cells, built without precise order around a central church; the other constructions being the common refectory or the kitchen, the library or scriptorium, the house of the abbot, as well as the boarding house intended for visitors. The configuration of monasteries varied according to their importance or the area in which they were. In Ireland like on the Continent, the residences of cenobites as those of anchorites were made of wood and clay or cob (branches covered with dried mud).

Sometimes, all the built area is surrounded by a palisade or a protection wall . Generally, there is also a tower, equipped with bells. The cemetery is outside the walls, but is always surrounded by a palisade or a wall. The way leading there is surrounded by stone or wood cross.

PRAYERS OF LORICA TYPE. (The word lorica is a Latin term meaning armor).

Strange vestiges of druidic mentalities are found in the individual prayers or in the private devotions of the Early Middle Ages, for example the book of Cerne, of Nunnaminster or the libellus precum of Fleury. You can also find some traces of prayers or of druidic thoughts in the Antiphonary from Bangor, a Latin manuscript written in Northern Ireland at Bangor at the end of the seventh century, and found in Bobbio in Italy. But also in the metric anthems ascribed to various Irish saints, the second aisling or vision of Adamnan (Leabhar Breac), the book of Mulling (ninth century), the Irish Liber hymnorum, as many others.

Druidic private prayers were especially some focusing of reflections or (positive) thoughts centered on the body. Human anxiety and frailty, but also intervention of the divinity in the everyday life are expressed there. One of their characteristics is systematization: by choosing pairs of opposites, by scanning a totality. Indeed, if black is evoked, why not evoke white, does not a movement also go with the stop, north and south with east and west? All that suggests that nothing was forgotten nor cannot be so, that all is taken into account. And if a whole can be traveled, the painting of the world is therefore possible.

This enumeration of names does not go besides without some logic. From top to bottom as regards human body, for example.

These loricae had nothing in common with liturgical prayers used in the rest of Christendom. The starting point is a ready-made phrase learned by heart probably, but its development is an authentic improvisation where imagination gives free rein to itself. We know some of these loricae, they are surprising enough by their tune, their sensibility. The soul/mind of the orant in an unfettered way gives in one’s belief, one’s mysticism, and this in an emphatic language which borrows much from lyric or epic poetry. The method seems copied on that of the bards who, from some verses, embroidered on a topic and told vast epics about the great heroes of olden days. The analogy is so striking that we should not doubt the influence developed over Christian monks in Ireland and [Great] Britain by the Celtic ancestral epic tradition.

There is also in these loricae something of the frightening Celtic geis, this magic incantation which is sometimes cast to somebody, and whose nature was compulsory under death, shame or rejection from the community, penalty. But with Christianization, the level of these prayers was reduced to the level of simple more or less magic incantations. They became spells intended to weaken the will of God or Demiurge and to make him achieve the actions that are requested from him. By certain aspects, these loricae are besides in fact prayers against God. Once again, we find, through this practice, the concern of the Celtic monks of being heroes able, through surpassing oneself and inner force, to change their destiny. The idea is not Christian. It is a topic which is obviously druidic, and which is found in the thought of a Pelagius, for whom only the will made it possible the Man to be redeemed (at least according to Jean Markale and with reservations , because we don’t always agree with this contemporary French historian author of many books about Celtic women).

Below an extract of the lorica of saint Fursa (Fursy or Fursey), whose language dates back to the ninth century approximately.

The arms of God be around my shoulders

The touch of the Holy Spirit upon my head,

The sign of Christ’s cross upon my forehead,

The sound of the Holy Spirit in my ears,

The fragrance of the Holy Spirit in my nostrils,

The vision of heaven’s company in my eyes,

The conversation of heaven’s company on my lips,

The work of God’s church in my hands,

The service of God and the neighbor in my feet,

A home for God in my heart,

And to God, the Father of all, my entire being.

THE LORICA OF SAINT PATRICK.

It is there also a very strange prayer that the legend known as having been composed by saint Patrick himself, what is more than doubtful of course (the text was written down in Latin during the eighth century by an anonymous Irish monk). It was a daily prayer of intercession and blessing, with some elements of the creed or of psalms, which was recited when your life was thought to be in danger.

On the way to go to find King Loegaire, Laeghaire or Leary, saint Patrick realizes that he will fall into an ambush and therefore improvises this anthem (lorica), known today under the name of “cry of the deer.“ He and his were changed then into stags in the eyes of the soldiers who awaited them, at least always according to this legend worthy of the most unbridled druidism. But finally, it is not the first time that Christianity will have had recourse to a lie to establish its authority over consciences.

THE CRY OF THE DEER.

I arise today

Through a mighty strength,

The invocation of the Trinity,

Through belief in the Threeness,

Through the confession of the Oneness of the Creator of creation.

I arise today

Through the strength of Christ with His Baptism,

Through the strength of His Crucifixion with His Burial,

Through the strength of His Resurrection with His Ascension,

Through the strength of His descent for the Judgment of Doom.

I arise today through the strength of the love of Cherubim

In obedience of Angels,

In the service of the Archangels,

In hope of resurrection to meet with reward,

In prayers of Patriarchs,

In predictions of Prophets,

In preaching of Apostles,

In faith of Confessors,

In innocence of Holy Virgins,

In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today,

Through the strength of Heaven:

Light of Sun,

Brilliance of Moon,

Splendor of Fire,

Speed of Lightning,

Swiftness of Wind,

Depth of Sea,

Stability of Earth,

Firmness of Rock.

I arise today,

Through God's strength to pilot me:

God's might to uphold me,

God's wisdom to guide me,

God's eye to look before me,

God's ear to hear me,

God's word to speak for me,

God's hand to guard me,

God's way to lie before me,

God's shield to protect me,

God's host to secure me:

Against snares of the devil,

Against temptations of vices,

Against inclinations of nature,

Against everyone who shall wish me ill,

Afar and anear,

Alone and in a crowd.

I summon today all these powers

Between me (and these evils):

Against every cruel and merciless power

That may oppose my body and my soul,

Against incantations of false prophets,

Against black laws of heathenry,

Against false laws of heretics,

Against craft of idolatry,

Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,

Against every knowledge that endangers man's body and soul.

Christ to protect me today

Against poison, against burning,

Against drowning, against wounding,

So that there may come abundance of reward.

Christ with me,

Christ before me,

Christ behind me,

Christ in me,

Christ beneath me,

Christ above me,

Christ on my right,

Christ on my left,

Christ in breadth, Christ in length, Christ in height,

Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,

Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today

Through a mighty strength,

The invocation of the Trinity,

Through belief in the Threeness,

Through the confession of the Oneness of the Creator of creation.

Domini est salus.

Christi est salus.

Salus tua, Domine,

Semper vobiscum.

Amen ! Amen ! Amen !

Salvation is of the Lord,

Salvation is of Christ

May Your Salvation, O Lord,

Be ever with us.

Amen ! Amen ! Amen !

MORTIFICATION OF THE BODY AND PURIFICATION OF MIND.

Man must indeed be free to open his mind to the higher mystical religious truth which exceeds mystical thought as much as metaphysical speculation, but which becomes accessible only in focusing. Man opens himself to the ultimate truth, beyond any word and any thought, a truth which is obvious only in the vacuum of mind, only by using certain means. The best means found then to reach that point was to start by spending whole nights reciting EVEN IMPROVISING litanies or loricas. 10 times 50 times or 150 times if necessary. Loricas are a kind of litany made of repeated invocations. Loricas were behind the spiritual exercises intended to make the blank in the mental process of the subject who is devoted to it. He empties his unconscious of all the negative thoughts which can be repressed in it: hubris, jealousy, envy, fear, fright, etc. beginning with conceptualizing them… in order to exhaust them by themselves. The demons are harmful and negative ideas which often haunt our unconscious. And by expressing them explicitly, in other words, by making them pass from unconscious to conscious, you are likely to succeed in freeing yourself from them. In a way, a self psychoanalyze before the word is invented, quite before Freud.

In this kind of typically druidic prayer, imagination gives free rein to itself; the soul/mind gives in it in an unbridled way and it expresses its confidence in an emphatic language. These prayers look magic incantations; and, de facto, in Ireland they were given particular virtues, became very popular,and passed into Celtic Christendoms. There is, in the prolixity of these prayers, something which reminds the exuberance of the illuminations or the abundance of the genuflections and of the signs of the cross, that Celtic monks performed.

The gloss of the Liber hymnorum concerning one of the most famous loricas of saint Patrick is very clear besides on this subject. And in the case, most interesting it is not the text ascribed to the saint himself, but its comment, because this explanation, in spite of its obvious Christianization, is still completely druidic as regards its spirit, or its general meaning. “It is a faith armor for protection of the body and of the soul against demons, men, and vices. When any person recites it daily with pious meditation on God, demons shall not dare to face him. It shall be a protection to him against all poison and envy “. In other words, as the mother of the future saint Symphorian of Autun in Burgundy said just before his death: “Nate, nate, mento beto to deuo “.

Caesar. B.G. VI, 13. In connection with the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) and their pupils. “Magnum ibi numerum versuum ediscere dicuntur “. “It is said they learn by heart there, a great number of verses “.

As these druidic litanies did not correspond to the official prayers of Christianity ( Our Father, etc.), loricas and litanies were therefore regarded as “PRIVATE“ prayers by staunch Christians (those who were of Roman obedience). But, in reality, let us repeat it once again, these “private “prayers were at the beginning only spiritual exercises intended to purge unconscious of all its dregs, of all his bran, by expressing them openly, and therefore to make in it the blank necessary to intensive focusing. A hallucination risk was not excluded from it , if one believes about this subject the same comment on this saint Patrick's lorica.

Liber Hymnorum. Patrick made this hymn : in the time of Loegaire son of Neill it was made, and the cause of its composition was for the protection of himself and his monks against the deadly enemies that lay an ambush for the clerics… Patrick sang it when the ambuscades were laid for him by Loegaire, in order that he should not go to Tara to sow the Faith, so that on that occasion they were seen before those who were lying in ambush as if they were wild deer having behind them a fawn, viz. Benen.

Let us be a little Monganian, what the devil, and let us allow us a little to doubt the reality of this “patrician “ miracle.

Patrick and his were lucky to escape the watchfulness of the men-at-arms of King Loegaire AND THEY BELIEVED THAT IT WAS BECAUSE THEY HAD BEEN CHANGED INTO DEER.

Nota Bene.

Let us point out in any event that this text dates back to the time when Rome began to want Irish Christianity brought into line with its designs to it, and by no means to the time even of saint Patrick , or to the years which followed his death immediately.

DE ARREIS.

Latinization of an Irish old word meaning “equivalent “. It is Kuno Meyer who kept this title to designate a table of commutation of penances in old Irish (in the Irish Penitentials by Ludwig Bieler).

It is therefore initially a group of techniques of druidic origin (although making druidism a sin like brigandage) intended to channel energies of the individual, and intended to precisely compensate (burn) the karmic bran (baco) being able to delay its accession to the true world.

INTRODUCTION.

In order to harden the bodies and the hearts, a whole series of practices of self-discipline or of mortifications, was recommended. Most famous were swims in ice-cold water, whatever the time or the place. The recitation of the psalms in icy water is indeed so often mentioned that, as Bieler remarked it, it was to be undoubtedly a current ascetic practice. They had recourse frequently also to scourging or self-flagellation sessions. This punishment could be given publicly by a foreign hand or in a private way. Every Friday of the year, the administration of this punishment joined together the monks.

ARREUM No. 1: SELECTIVE AND TEMPORARY VEGETARIANISM OR VEGANISM (See Yama yoga in India).

Most of the monastic rules or of the penitentials, advocate an undeniable reduction of meat consumption.

This technique to be precise joined that of herbal medicine. It was a question of assimilating the force and the power of certain plants. Some spinach cures (elefleog, elefreog, or elethreog, in Gaelic language) of fennel (sistrameor) or of cress (berula) for example. Thus Saint Fiacre became the patron saint of gardeners. See also on this subject the famous Saint-Gall's plan.

N.B. The loathing for horse meat is undoubtedly a religious dietary restriction particular to the class of knights at least in the beginning. The other taboos are Christian phantasms completely comparable with those of Islam.

ARREUM No. 2: THE FAST (see also Yama yoga in India).

Several days. Separated or consecutive.

Two days and two nights (Latin biduanae).

Three days and three nights (Latin triduanae).

And so on.

According to Myles Dillon and Nora K. Chadwick, Celtic Christianity also admitted the “fasting against God “. When an Irish Christian thinks that God was unjust towards him, he has the right to undertake a fast intended to force God to admit his error. It is in reality at the beginning a Celtic non-Christian and therefore druidic habit (Celtic law).

In certain cases when the defendant was of a higher rank (nemed), the plaintiff was led to fast in front of the house of the defendant before making the seizure of his assets. He thus placed the defendant in the obligation to provide the proof that he would accept an arbitration (by giving him pledges). The plaintiff came at the sunset, and he fasted until the sun rising. The defendant too was obliged to fast, and, if he broke the fast, you could claim to him the double of the sum in question. If he wished to take food, he was initially to offer some of it to the plaintiff, and to give the guarantee that he was willing to discharge his debt, or to subject himself to an arbitration. If he did nothing of all that within three days, he could be seized just like a simple commoner. The defender, if he resorted to disregard the fast and refuse to pay, therefore lost quite simply his honor. He could no longer take legal action by himself. The use has its equivalent in the Hindu legislation, the procedure was called prayopavesana. A creditor can sit down at the door of his debtor and fast there until this one, in order not to be responsible for his death, ends up yielding.

ARREUM No. 3: For example absolute immobility, in ice-cold water, in trees (see the cases of Merlin Lailoken and Suibhne). Or then the tailor sitting position which is that of Hornunnos. Etc.

The recitation of prayers was indeed often accompanied by gestures of worship like prostration, genuflections or with his arms outstretched , lying down or standing (crossfigill, crosfhigheall) during hours. On this subject, we cannot resist the urge to point out the undoubtedly somewhat exaggerated cases of Colomb Mac Crimthann, a disciple of saint Finian, in ecstasy , with his arms outstretched, and some birds settled on his arms; or of saint Kevin of Glendalough, who would have spent seven years in this position, so that some birds had nested on his still outspread arms. What is undoubtedly excessive, but one we can conclude from it that the mystical state was not unknown to them.

Every year, last Sunday of July, thousands of pilgrims climb, sometimes bare feet and even on their knees, the 763 meters of a “sacred mountain “ located in County Mayo.

But more terrible still than the ascent of the Croagh Patrick is the pilgrimage of the “ saint Patrick’s Purgatory “ on Station Island in Lough Derg (county Donegal); where, between on June 1st and on August 15th, pilgrims spend three days in prayer. Practically without sleeping, and while subjecting themselves to a very strict fast. This pilgrimage always attracts many penitents. But in reality, it was a “druidic “cave supposed being a way towards the other world.

PENITENTIALS.

Celtic monks wrote in the Middle Ages some lists of penances the confessors were to inflict.

These penitentials or regula coenobialis, legislated on the breaches of the principles of monastic life: obedience, chastity, moderation, poverty, silence. They were particularly severe and wavered between recitation of psalms, fasts, insulation or whiplash…

The punishments themselves varied according to the importance of the misdemeanor, six whiplashes to have served the mass without being oneself shaved, two hundred whiplashes to have spoken with a woman without witness.

You can reproach this system for its rigid legalism and his asceticism (envisaged penances were not a joke). But it was not less at the time a factor of important moral change, because Penitentials were also made for laymen; for example, as regards marital relations. Celtic monks did not have the role to enlist all the men in their lifestyle, but to help them through their example, to become better. These penitentials had a large influence and are the origin of the private auricular confession, since after saint Columban of Bobbio the latter became the standard in Christendom.

CENOBITISM.

As we have had already the opportunity to see it, the traditional teaching mode of former druids was the boarding school: pupils lived for several years with the teaching druid, a little as if they were his adopted children. The first Christian monks have therefore quite naturally taken up this way of doing and have lived as a community, but a little set back from the society.

EREMITISM OR ANCHORITISM.

A particular form of this marginal life which was Celtic monasticism was eremitism. Some monks were detached from their community to live in a solitary retreat, a disert or diseart in Ireland (there are of them 80 which are listed) or in Scotland, a dysert in Wales, a penitii in Brittany.

In Armorica, saint Ronan lived like an anchorite, and saint Gall, before separating from his brethren in Switzerland, made a cell built for him in which, withdrawn from the world, he could end his days.

It was a very old tradition of the pagan Celtic world according to Plutarch.

(De defectu oraculorum 18).

THE EXILE OR THE PILGRIMAGE.

The two other forms of asceticism the most valued were the exile and the perpetual pilgrimage. N.B. This need for mortification led the Celtic monks in all kinds of remote islands, including the Faroe Islands or Iceland. There still it was a pagan tradition: see the voyage of Bran son of Febal.

Nothing proves anyhow that in this field the monks of Ireland knowingly sought to imitate saint Patrick. Exile was often imposed at the time in order to punish somebody, but the reason these monks provide is generally positive and personal: they leave in exile for Christ, the celestial fatherland, and so on. Saint Columba of lona is the archetypal example of such a quest for the Grail, of such a positive exile (his biographer, Adamnan, give us precisely the reason for it).

Saint Columba of Iona (Colmcille, Columcille, Colum Cille, Columkill) was born on December 7th, about year 521, at Gartan (Donegal), from Fedhlimidh and Eithne of the Ui Neill (O'Donnell) clan.

It should not be confused with his famous homonym, the great evangelist reformer of the continent, born twenty years later, saint Columban of Luxeuil, having died in Bobbio.

Young man, this first Columba is interested in the Church, and joined the monastery of Moville where he is made deacon by Finnian. After having studied with a bard called Gemman, he is ordained a priest by Etchen, the bishop of Clonfad.

He enters then the monastery of Mobhi Clarainech, but circa 550 will leave it to found the monastery of Derry more in the north.

Tradition places the famous incident of the Cathach after the foundation, by him, of this monastery.

Cathach is the oldest illuminated manuscript we know. This work is traditionally ascribed to saint Columba of Iona. It would be the copy of a psalter lent by saint Finnian of Moville, his teacher. Copy carried out without his knowledge. Finnian claimed the copy from Columba. The latter refused and it is the king of Meath, who arbitrated the disagreement. He decided, just as each calf belongs to the cow which dropped it that every copy of a book belongs to the owner of the original (it is the proof the prohibition of the unauthorized copies is not exactly new), in the case Finnian. Columba found the sentence unfair and announced it.

This dissension of Columba of Iona with the verdict involved, circa 561, the battle of Culdreimhe (or Cul Dremhne, in the County Sligo). The family of Columba left from it victorious, and the famous copy remained in the hands of the clan of Columba, the O'Donnell. The manuscript was from then on called “Cathach “ because of the habit consisting in making three times the turn of a battle field with it in one's right hand, to get the victory. (Editor’s note. It was carried in France in 1691, but was given back in 1802).

Tradition has it that saint Molaise of Devenish, his spiritual father, then ordered him to win to Christ men as many as those of whom he had caused the death by waging war at the time of this famous Cathach.

Modern criticism doubts the attribution to Columba as well as the dating of this manuscript. And we really do not know with certainty if Columba came to lona in order to atone for his responsibility in the battle of Cuildreinhne (Culdremhne, County Sligo) two years before; or, like his Gaelic “Life “ says, quite simply to preach the Gospel to men in Alba (the Scots) as well as to the Bretons and to the Saxons.

At all events, in 563, consumed with remorse to have caused such slaughter, or for other reasons we are unaware of, Columba left for Iona (Hy = island) with some disciples, and founded there a new monastery.

Iona is a small island in the North-West of Scotland, in the Inner Hebrides, separated from the Isle of Mull by Iona’s strait. This little piece of land, with its 4,8 km from north to south and its 2,4 km from east to west, stretches on approximately 800 hectares. The highest point, Dun I culminates at 101 m. The island, of course, had been inhabited before that, since a fort of the Iron Age on it, Dun Cul Bhuirg, was occupied from - 100 before our era to + 300.

Before the arrival of saint Columba , the island was called in Gaelic language, “Innis nam druidneach “what means “island of druids “. Some authors even think that it was perhaps the island evoked by the famous text of Plutarch in connection with the ceasing of oracles.

“…Demetrius said that among the islands lying near Great] Britain were many isolated, having few or no inhabitants. Some of which bore the names of divinities or heroes. He himself, by the emperor's order, had made a voyage for inquiry and observation to the nearest of these islands which had only a few inhabitants, holy men who were all held inviolate by the [Great] British. Shortly after his arrival there occurred a great tumult in the air, and many portents; violent winds suddenly swept down and lightning flashes darted to earth. When these abated, the people of the island said that the passing of someone of the mightiest soul/minds [in Greek megalai psychai] had befallen. "For," said they, "as a lamp when it is being lighted has no terrors, but when it goes out is distressing to many, so the great souls/minds [Greek megalai psychai] have a kindling into life that is gentle and inoffensive, but their passing and dissolution often, as at the present moment, fosters tempests and storms, and often infects the air with pestilential properties “(Plutarch. De defectu oraculorum 18).

We can think, on the other hand, that the island was perhaps abandoned in the time of saint Columba, and known only of some Celtic hermits like saint Otteran, Odran, Oran.

According to Irish tradition indeed, saint Otteran, Odran, or Oran, would have been an abbot in Meath, and would have founded Lattreagh. According to the documents, he is presented in turn as a companion, brother, or uncle, of saint Columba of Iona. The legends surrounding his death, which has occurred very little time after the arrival of saint Columba (his grave was the first of the whole island) are at the very least not very Christian. All that resembles much indeed a foundation sacrifice, as in the legend of Merlin (when he was a child Merlin was almost sacrificed to secure the foundation of Vortigern’s castle). Or then an ordeal in the style of that of the purgatory of saint Patrick on Station Island.

In the case of the legend of saint Otteran, Odhran, or Oran, it would have been a chapel. As saint Columba did not succeed in making it built, a mysterious voice would have explained it would be thus, as long as they would not have buried alive somebody in foundations. Oran would then have offered himself for that. But little time after, his phantom would have gone out from one of the walls to say that hell does not exist, that heaven is not what it said about it , and so on.

Another legend assures that it would be saint Columba, curious, who would have made the grave of Otteran, Odhran, or Oran, reopened, a few days later, and that the latter, still alive, would have then reported to him horrible things like "hell does not exist" and so on…

At all events, what is certain, it is that, as a result of that , all the greats in the area wanted to be buried at his sides in the soil thus sanctified by his grave; and that the cemetery around the chapel was called Reilig Odhráin, in his honor.

Hy was the main door towards the ex-Roman Britain and the Continent, although being sufficiently insulated so that one can live there in peace or serenity. After having again founded several other monasteries while ousting local druids, Columba will take part in another battle, this time against saint Comgall , from whom he will snatch the church of Colethem. He died on June 9th, 597.

RULES AND USES.

Among the many rules which reached us ( twenty-four of them are counted) of course, those formatted by the great names of Celtic Christianity stand out. These rules were often presented in a versified way. We know that of saint Ailbe of Emly, saint Ciaran of Clonmacnoise, that very short of Columba of lona, and that of saint Comgall of Bangor. They are written in old or middle Irish. For the rules adapted to continental world, and therefore written in Latin, we know that which was written by saint Columban of Bobbio , and which is undoubtedly a resumption of that of Bangor, where he had been trained.

The penitential compiled in the regula cujusdam patris ad monachos, which has twenty-two chapters, is added to it.

The rule written for women under the denomination Regula cujusdam patris ad virgines, and which also has twenty-four chapters, was written under the Benedictine influence.

Of the original Irish rule, we know no longer something apart from these few stanzas of an Antiphonary.

NB. On the right my translation but my seven years of Latin are nevertheless far.

Benchuir bona regula… The good rule of Bangor…

Recta atque divine…… Upright and divine…

Stricta, sancta, sedula…Diligent,holy, and strict…

Summa, justa ac mira….Wonderful, just and sublime …

Irish monks developed a tradition of asceticism, being based on a triple classification of martyrdom. We find the ideal of martyrdom indeed curiously expressed, in various texts as well Latin as Irish.

Let us point out that at the beginning a martyr was only a man or a woman preferring to die rather than to do the small symbolic gestures proving one’s allegiance towards the State, that the authorities required of him to make. For example, burning a few grains of incense in front of a statue of the goddess Rome or a portrait of the emperor.

The white martyrdom implied to withdraw from the society or to leave in exile for the purpose of serving God or the Demiurge. In short the ordinary ascetic life. The typical example of it is St. Columba of lona, who is also called Colomban the elder.

As we saw it higher, this Columcille came from a famous family, he was born in 521 and received , from the age of fifteen, a sound education in several monasteries. The chronicles describe him as a tall man, endowed with great intelligence, driven by an impetuous enthusiasm, excellent poet and good copyist of ancient texts (see the history of the Cathach). When he was about thirty years old, he left his abbey with seven companions in order to found new monasteries in Ireland. In Durrow, he had then a daring idea, which he put at once into practice: in 563, he crosses the sea to be withdrawn on Hy, on the Western coast of Scotland.

Green (or blue) martyrdom seems to have been a development peculiar to Ireland. It matched the mortifications related to repentance and penance, to do in remorse and work therefore. The range of hues, that the Gaelic word glas designates , without equivalent in our language, matched perhaps the liturgical color of mourning for druids. In short most severe asceticism. Green martyrdom formed the character of man by the practice of repentance and penance. It made him become aware of the greatness of the spirit, able to control material desires.

Red martyrdom implied to fight for the cause. Some Colombanian monks on the Continent, such Germanus of Granfelden (610-675), met his death while trying to convert pagans. But these conflicts hardly lasted. Pagans lived their faith for themselves, and by no means sought to fight Christianity by developing equivalents of crusades or "moonades" (jihad). It will be only with the Carolingian territorial expansion that the royal power will begin to support actively, and on a large scale, Christianization.

The rules which governed the monasteries of Luxovian type owe to saint Colomban, the frequent recourse to the spiritual adviser (anamchara) and to tariffed penances (penitential) with the possibility of commutation of punishments (probable origin of indulgences). See on this subject the table of commutation of penances written in old Irish published by Kuno Meyer under the title De Arreis. At the beginning hostile, the bishops brought together in council in Chalon-sur-Saone in 647, ratified this procedure.

The social relations were naturally made easier by the discipline, the obedience, and the simplicity of the lifestyle which prevailed inside the monastery. The ideal of Egyptian monks, however, was not imposed there immediately.

Within Celtic Christianity, anchorites formed only a minority of fringe elements, the majority of monks rather perpetuated the traditional relation druid/pupils and therefore lived as cenobites.The celibacy, for example, was imposed only after long arguments, circa the end of the seventh century and still, not among the Culdees. As from this time, the infringements to the monastic laws will be punished with heavy penalties.

It is known that the contempt of material wealth was for saint Columban of Bobbio, the first of virtues. The venerable Bede says about saint Colman of Lindisfarne and the abbey of the same name, that apart from herds, no wealth is theirs, and that, when they receive some money, they hasten to give it to the poor.

One enters there when you are about sixteen years old. One spends there initially three years of probation. The monks took care of education and teaching. Inside the monastery everybody, old people (seniores), workers (operarii), young people (juniores), lived therefore in poverty, continence and humility. The sleep was reduced to a few hours, six or seven. One slept completely clothed, on a straw mattress (lectulus). The sleep was equal the awakening, hard and interrupted with prayers.

As soon as you were admitted in the community, you were ipso facto reduced to the ground zero of your personality: a friar owed to his superiors an every moment, passive and absolute, obedience. Except for useful and necessary reasons, he was to bury oneself in a perpetual silence, only interrupted by prayers. Psalms formed the major part of these orations, and each monk recited at least three fifties or so of them each day.

The diet was very austere. Only some vegetable salted dishes formed the base of the meals of then, to which a monastic bread was added. Bread is indeed the main food, and fresh water or some milk diluted with water, will be there at the beginning the only tolerated drinks. It is only after long decades of quarrels that new rules will accept ale and (more rarely) wine. As probably druids did it, besides. They often abstained from fish and meat. During the periods of fast, food was even scantier. The rejection of any horse meat consumption is explained nevertheless only by use peculiar to the class of knights or chariot warriors: it was prohibited to eat one’s mount.

To Colombanian monks, whatever their health condition, it was granted only fish, vegetables, some gruel or porridge, a piece of bread. Twice a day (in the morning and in the evening).

Saint Columban of Bobbio, during his single meal, was satisfied with a little bread, a hen's egg, and diluted milk . He often repeated: we must fast daily as we must pray daily. This ascetic habit was so flourishing in Ireland that Wednesday was known as “cet ain “(first fast) and Friday “ain didin “(or last fast).

The day was therefore to be devoted to fast, prayer, reading, calligraphy .

In the islands as on the Continent, many monks copied tirelessly the works of the Fathers or the sacred texts that some of them illustrated with an admirable talent. Their personality appears through the few words they sometimes left on the margins of manuscripts.

I and Pangur Bán, my cat

'Tis a like task we are at;

Hunting mice is his delight

Hunting words I sit all night.

The intellectual work which was carried out in the Irish monasteries consisted in an improvement of the elements of Christian belief; but more especially in handing down the knowledge of classical Antiquity, from the available manuscripts, a well as in transcribing the oral heritage of Celts. In the illuminations, which are among most beautiful in the world, we find symbols of former Ireland and of the East. In the visual arts, these symbols are also very present (great Irish or Celtic crosses). Latin is the language of the Church, of Science and of Writing; but the daily language, the Gaelic language, will not be eradicated.

Agricultural works were added to these intellectual works, tilling, care of animals, and all the sum of daily maintenance work, repairing buildings, or utensils…

The monks, including their abbot, must be autonomous and produce themselves their subsistence. They must therefore work the ground, rear cattle, spin or weave, make their clothing, manufacture pieces of furniture and tools.

We owe to these monks therefore the introduction or the development of hospices , mills, fish farming, poultry yards, stud farms, pigsties (and even stadia according to the great French specialist on the

question George BRICHE) bearing in mind gardens. They farm in them mint, rosemary, Madonna lily, sage, gladiolus, pennyroyal, sainfoin, rose, cress, cumin, lovage, fennel, tansy, savory.

Saint Fiacre (died circa 670. Celebrated on August 30th) is he not still besides the patron saint of gardeners? Born at the beginning of the seventh century in a noble Irish family, he went on the Continent by following the great religious movement which carried there many of his fellow countrymen.

He stops near Paris (Meaux) where he is welcomed by the bishop, saint Faro, brother of saint Fara, which gives him the authorization to settle as a hermit in the Breuil forest. Many destitute persons flocking to his hermitage, Fiacre then requires of his bishop a land which he will be able to farm in order to feed the poor. The bishop granted to him the property of the land space he could surround by a ditch in one day.

Fiacre, letting his stick hanging down behind him, would have seen the soil dig itself and the uprooted trees fall on the right and on the left. Once his vegetables planted, Fiacre thinks even of the medicinal plants for patients and of flowers, “these smiles of the earth, “ to decorate his oratory. He also builds a hospice for the increasingly many patients brought to him from everywhere in the country. He shares his daily time between prayer, manual work, or care of the poor, and dies circa 670 at Breuil, where a monastery is built, around which a village is formed which will have his name. The pilgrims will flock on his grave to ask for the cure of all kinds of diseases. People came even formerly to call upon him against hemorrhoids, the “Saint Fiacre's illness “ tradition maintaining it was enough to sit down on the stone on which the saint was accustomed to have a rest, to be healed.

Remarks. Many lies or untruths as usual in this pious Christian mythology. The Breuil in question was perhaps a former druidic sacred grove.

Let it be enough for us nevertheless to point out that the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) had developed much knowledge regarding medicinal plants. And that the god-or-demon of medicine, assisted by his daughter (Diancecht and Airmed in the Irish legend entitled in Gaelic language Cath Maighe Tuireadh = the battle of the Plain of the standing stones or mounds, Mag Tured); is supposed to have discovered, but concealed at once, 365 different medicinal plants.

“Leech Medocios, heal yourself once again, since you are so strong, he exclaimed it. In any event, it still remains me as children Armeditrina and Octorigillos! “

And he buried him, but plants and herbs grew on his grave, one per day of the year, i.e., 365, which corresponded very precisely to the number of his sinews or of his nerves.

Armeditrina then gathered these herbs on the tomb of her brother, and brought back them in her coat.

But Diancecht having surprised her carrying out this harvest, he mixed the plants, so that one can no longer know the virtues of them since, without the assistance of the Holy Spirit “ [the copyist monk having transcribed this ancient legend added].

ON THE PROGRESSIVE EXTINCTION OF THE CELTIC CHURCH.

(Its takeover by the Roman Church embodied by Anglo-Saxons.)

- Central England.

The Celtic Church in the center of England disappears at the end of the fifth century; its members having been killed or having had to take refuge in more distant sectors in order to protect themselves from the Germanic invasions come from Jutland or from the Schleswig-Holstein. They continued nevertheless to live their faith in these areas, a long time after the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, got by Augustine of Canterbury.

- Wales.

The Bretons in the north of Wales were not brought into line with the uses of the Anglo-Saxon Church before youar 768, those in the south of Wales not before 777.

It was not besides without resistance. The Chronicle of Brat-y-Tywysog reports that in 809, a great turmoil emerges about the question of Easter, and that the bishops of Llandaff and Menevia, bishops of oldest dioceses, had refused the change dictated by the Church of Rome. The supremacy of the seed of Canterbury was definitively established only in the twelfth century.

- South England.

The Celtic Church of Somerset and Devon (i.e. the Bretons overcome by the Saxons from the West) joined the Church of Rome at the beginning of the eighth century. Thanks to the influence of Aldhelm who, according to Bede, became abbot of Malmesbury in 671, and to that, then, of the bishop of Sherborne, in 705.

- Cornwall.

The bishops of the Breton Church were not subjected to the seed of Canterbury before Athelstan (925-940), the submission of the bishop Kenstec to the archbishop Ceolnoth (833-870) being the only exception.

The area having been then conquered by the Saxons, the bishop Conan was submitted to the archbishop Wulfhelm, and was recognized by King Athelstan, who formally confirmed him in the seed of Bodmin in 936.

- Northumbria.

The Celtic Church, established in Northumberland by King Oswald in 634-635, remained flourishing under the “Scottish “bishop Aidan, but Finan and Colman of Lindisfarne adopted the Roman practice in the Synod of Whitby (664). That was not done without difficulty nevertheless, because Colman preferred to leave Northumbria, with all his (they withdrew on Iona in Scotland then in Ireland on Inishbofin).

- Strathclyde.

The Bretons of Strathclyde conformed to Roman use in 688, one year after the death of saint Cuthbert, at the time of a visit of Adamnan, abbot of lona; who had adopted the Roman use, although his monks were not favorable to it. Sedulius was perhaps the first bishop of Strathclyde to conform to this use.

- Dalriada.

When Adamnan found again his community in lona, he tried to convert it to Roman uses, but vainly. At the time of his death in 704, the monastic community was still divided on this subject, and it is only in 710 that the problem began to be solved, in favor of Rome besides, thanks to the intervention of Nechtan son of Derelei, king of the Picts. It is only in 772, however, under the abbot Suibhne, that the problem was definitively settled.

-Pictish land in Scotland.

When Margaret, a Saxon princess, married the king Malcolm III, in 1069, she found many “anomalies “in his Church, particularly in what had been the Pictish land. The final extinction of the Celtic Church

in these territories was nevertheless as much due to its own decline than to the efforts of Margaret and of her sons. This church spent nevertheless much time disappearing definitively, because many years later we will still find communities of Culdees side by side with monks of Roman obedience, in localities like St Andrew and Monymusk.

- Ireland.

Papacy undertook to regain control of the Celtic Christendoms as of the end of the seventh century: at this point in time one began to present saint Patrick as being the founder of the Irish Church, what he was not truly. While being subjected to Rome on the liturgical level, Ireland succeeds in keeping its organization.

The Celtic Church in the south of Ireland began to conform to Roman uses during the pontificate of Honorius in 626-638. The letter of Cummain, abbot of Durrow, sent in 634, to a certain Segen, fifth abbot of lona, and announcing the determination of South Ireland to follow Roman practice, exists besides still. The Church in Northern Ireland, in spite of the efforts of Colman and because of the influence of Adamnan, also decided to follow the same way at the time of the synod of Tara, in 692. As in the Pictish land of Scotland, last vestiges of the Celtic Church had a long time to disappear in this area.

In the 12th century, the establishment on the island of continental monastic orders - Benedictines about 1135 and Cistercians, in 1142 - then the Norman Conquest, was the final nail in the coffin for the traditional Irish monasticism. But it was only with saint Malachy, bishop of Armagh (1134-1148), one of the first Irish prelates to obtain the full powers of the e »l that the Irish Church became definitively Roman. With the synod held in Kells, under the presidency of Johannes Paparo, new steps were crossed in this direction. In 1172, with the synod of Cashel, chaired by Christianus, bishop of Lismore and papal legate, it was decided that the» English » version of the Roman missal, from now on would be used everywhere in Ireland.

- The Continent.

As we could see, Celtic churches were founded on the continent by Irish or Breton missionaries, during the fifth sixth and seventh century, in Spain, in France, in Belgium, in Germany, in Austria, in Italy, and in Switzerland. Not forgetting Iceland and the Faroe Islands, even Greenland, which were initially filled with Celtic missionaries, according to some interpretations of saint Brendan’s legend.

This continental Celtic Church began nevertheless to decline from 680 to 755.

N.B. There existed in Spain a “Breton “diocese (Santa Maria de Bretona) in Galicia. A bishop having an undoubtedly Breton name, Mailoc or Maeloc (Maclou/Malo in France: it is a very known Breton anthroponym) took part besides in the councils of Lugo and Braga of 569 and 572.

Celtic habits were prohibited by the Fourth Council of Toledo in 633.

In Armorica, Breton uses persisted longer, until 818, the year when they were removed by Louis the Debonaire, after his victory over the Bretons * and when the rule of saint Benedict replaced that of saint Colomban of Bobbio everywhere, with an exception nevertheless. By a daring challenge, the abbey of Redon, founded 14 years after this general transformation, took for rule precisely, with the support of Nominoe, that of saint Columban of Bobbio. For little time nevertheless. The Benedictine rule was introduced there by a monk of Glanfeuil named Gherfred. It entered it, he says, after a dream (the monastery was, in fact, threatened of closing by the emperor).

* The emperor Louis the Pious or Louis the Debonaire, the son and successor of Charlemagne, had come to Brittany in 818 in order to fight the Bretons and their chief. Louis the Debonaire had fixed his camp on the river Elle, close to Priziac. The origin of the conflict is given to us by the biographer astronomer of Louis the Pious. “The arrogant rebellion of the Bretons, who had come at the point to call a king one of theirs, named Morvan, and to refuse any service, was announced to the emperor. To punish these bold people, Louis assembles troops from everywhere and marches on Brittany “. Morvan died in the battle. Franks again imposed their law over Bretons as well as a duty of fidelity. But Louis the Debonaire, understanding that he will not succeed in pacifying entire Brittany, named a Breton leader, Nominoe, duke of the country, i.e. “envoy from the emperor in Brittany “. After the death of Louis the Debonaire, feeling no longer bound to Franks, Nominoe will then inflict on Charles the bald severe defeat, at Ballon, close to Redon, in 845.

CULDEE MONKS.

Culdees are the descendants of the first Christians in Ireland, not necessarily those of saint Patrick besides, since there were Christians in Ireland before the latter, as we have had the opportunity to see it. Their main features are the following ones: they did not live completely away from the world, and only partly in a community (common house, common table, and common oratory). They could be married, therefore to have children. They had not taken the wow of poverty, therefore could have possessions. They were priests saying the mass, but also often artists (poets, singers…) or craftsmen, whose association (10 to 20 people) made the church of the place live. We do not know many things of the rules of Christian worship at that time, except that on Maundy Thursday, monks washed their feet mutually or that on Easter Day, they performed the old rite of Easter fire.

The question is the following one: were Irish Culdees thus, from the beginning ; or was it the slackening of an initial ecclesiastical discipline much more severe?

Answer. About the middle of the seventh century, a name appeared to designate this situation in Ireland, that of culdee. One of the first people to have spoken of that was John Toland besides. According to Toland (Nazarenus), Culdees appeared in Ireland and Scotland in the eighth century. It was a very egalitarian spirituality, not hierarchical, without a diocesan bishop, and without the pope, recognizing to each one a total conscience freedom. According to him, culdees disappeared in the 11th century and it is a bull of the pope Adrian IV which would have decided the English king Henry II, in 1154, to undertake the conquest of Ireland, to bring this original Christianity to a close.

Editor’s Note. Foreword. In what follows the adjective “regular” must be understood, to simplify, like being equivalent to “Roman Catholic” because Culdees too were well to have a rule. Useful specification for a good understanding of the extent of the settings of score having then took place between all these dreamers followers of the god of love and whose behavior, it is that of one or others, is rather pathetic (idolatrous worship of stolen relics, systematic denigration of competitors, etc.).

Also let us note that secular means “which did not live as a recluse away from the society in a convent.” In this meaning is opposed to “conventual” (who lives in a convent). A priest or a minister are secular clergymen, a monk or a nun are “conventual.”

A canon is a member of the clergy attached to the service of a church. In the Early Middle Ages, the word could designate certain members of the lay staff of the churches.

! ------------- ---------- ------------------ !

The Culdees of the British Islands as they Appear in History with an Appendix of evidences

By William Reeves Dublin 1864.

The devotion and self-denial which characterized monastic life during its appearance in Ireland brought to those who adopted it the designation of "Servus Dei ," which over time became almost a

synonym of the Latin word monachus. Ancilla Dei was understood to mean " prioress " (nun) and "servire Deo" to have a monastic life.

The expression Servus Dei having become well known in their culture, it was inevitable that the Irish try to find an equivalent of it in the language of their people.

Célé = companion?

But the term cele, as well as the Latin words “puer” and “comes” , or Irish gilla, also admit as a secondary meaning the submission or the relation being able to exist between a master and a servant. For minds full of declarations of the kind: “Henceforth I will call you no longer servants, but friends”; the adoption of the expression servus Dei in the meaning of brethren, companions, or comrades, perhaps suggested an equivalent like that of Célé-dé in Gaelic language. It is important to point out that the word that comes into the composition of certain proper or common nouns, in the same way as gilla and mael, with the more or less explicit meaning of companion, servant, or dedication/devotion to God.

We can therefore safely attribute to this origin the creation of the Gaelic compound Céle-Dé, which in its usage had all the meanings of its initial model, and, in the lapse of ages, underwent all the modifications or limitations of meaning which the changes of lime and circumstances, or local usage, produced in the class to whom the epithet was applied. Of this we have an interesting example in the Irish Annals of so late a period as 1595, in which year the Four Masters apply the term CéilenDé to the Dominican Friars of Sligo, members of an order which was not formally instituted till the year 1215. The Book of Fenagh, a compilation or the sixteenth century, on the other" hand, anticipates the actual introduction of the term, and in applying, by a prolepsis of some centuries, the word Celedei to St. John the Evangelist, necessarily employs it in the general sense of devotional sanctity, and probably poverty.

Two earlier manuscripts, the Book of Leinster and the Book of Lismore, preserve a legend of St. Moling, in which that ecclesiastical classes himself among the Céle-nDé, and implies that his associates were chiefly to be round among the miserable, to wit, the sick and lepers. Now, St. Moling, the founder of Tech-Moling, which is known in modern times by the name of St. Muffins, in the county of Carlow, was the contemporary of St. Adamnan, and died in the year 697. He was not only an abbot but a bishop, and was the successor to St. Moedoc in the episcopal see of Ferns.

Passing over to Scotland, whither the term had been imported with the language and institutions of the Scotic immigrants, we find, about the middle of the thirteenth century, certain ecclesiastics, entitled, Keledei sive Canonici. In fact, during the range of time in which the term is of record, we discover the greatest diversity in its application, sometimes borne by hermits, sometimes by conventuals ; in one situation implying the condition of celibacy, in another understood of married men ; here denoting regulars, there seculars ; some of the name bound by obligations of poverty, others free to accumulate property ; at one period high in honor as implying self-denial, at another regarded with contempt as the designation of the loose and worldly-minded.

Some, who would contend for the uniformity of an order bearing the name of Céli-dé, endeavor to reconcile these incompatibilities by supposing the existence of two classes in the order, the one of stricter, the other of laxer discipline : but this expedient is unsupported by record authority; and when at last Céle-dé does become a distinctive term, it is only so as contrasting those who clung to the old conventual observances of the country with those who adopted the better organized and more systematic institutions of medieval introduction ; in fact, as denoting an old-fashioned Scotic monk in an age when the prevaIence of such surnames as Mac Anaspie, Mac Nab, Mac Prior, Mac Intaggart, Mac Pherson, Mac Vicar, Mac Clery, indicated a condition of clerical society not exactly in accordance with the received notions of ecclesiastical discipline.

The earliest instance in which we have observed the adoption of the Latin term by an Irish writer is in Tirechan’s memoirs of St. Patrick, written in the early half of the eighth century, where the bishop, from whom Killespugbrone in the County Sligo derives its name, is called Bronus filius Icni, servus Dei, socius Patricii. Had the Tripartite Life translated this into Irish, as it has must do Tirechan’s narrative, we should in all probability be supplied with an important testimony as to the origin of our vernacular Céle-dé; but unfortunately it transfers the Latin sentence as it stands on to the body of its own recital.

We have, however, in another part of this ancient and valuable compilation an example of the Irish term, which is one of the earliest instances of it we have yet found. Speaking of St. Patrick in reference

to a lad who had lost his life, it goes on to say : " He ordered a céle-dé of his family, namely Malach the Briton, to restore him to life’: where Colgan incorrectly renders the term in question by cuidam advenoe, instead of monacho-or servo Dei, the more reasonable translation.

And now that the term has come before us in its primitive form, it is time to examine its component elements, céle and Dé.

The word céle is of frequent occurrence in the earliest Irish manuscripts and. is the usual gloss on the words socius and maritus, where they occur in the Wurtzburg copy of St. Paul’s Epistles, and the St. Gall Priscian ; it further supplies the grammarian Zeuss with the paradigm of an old declension of a noun in his first series. In like manner, céle ingine (i. e. socius filioe) is the gloss on "gener", and coceilfine on " societas". From this it passes into the pronominal sense of alius, alter, and the adverbial of seorsum. The cognate Welsh word cilid (gelyd of later time, now gilydd), the Cornish gele, and the Breton gile, are only found in this secondary use.

More rarely the word céle has the sense of servus : thus the Wurtzburg Epistles gloss libertus by roirmug, roirchéle ; that is " freed slave." In O'Davoren’s Glossary chéle is explained by gilla, that is "a servant," and with this interpretation it is found in modern Irish and Gaelic dictionaries. We also meet with the term in the composition of a few proper names, combined in the same manner that the commoner elements mael and gilla are found ; as, Celecleirech, Celeclamh, Celecrist, Cededabhaill, Celedulaisi, Celeisa, Celepetair, Celetighernaigh."

The other component, Dé, is the genitive of Dia, " God," and is occasionally found as a kind of religious intensive in combination with certain monastic terms, as ancor Dé, anchorita Dei, caillech Dé, monialis Dei; deoraidh Dé, peregrinus Dei : and a man was said to renounce the world ap Dia " for God.”

Taking, therefore, into consideration the true form of the term, it may safely be pronounced that the Scotch charter of the twelfth century, which represents it by chelede and Jocelin, who latinizes it calledeus, and the generality of Scotch records, which have it in the form keledeus, are more correct than the York Chartulary, Giraldus Cambrensis, and the Armagh records, which presume some affinity between the Irish céle and the Latin colo when they represent the term by colideus and coelicola ; in fact, making céledé the Celtic equivalent for the familiar deicola.

We therefore wonder when we find Colgan , who was a master of the Irish language, say concerning Kele-De, " quae vox latine reddita Deicolam, seu Amadeum designat."

In Scotland, Hector Boece, followed by George Buchanan , gave currency to the term culdeus, out of which grew, in that country, the vulgar form, culdee, which has come into general acceptance, and has been the subject of so much mystification.

The foreign Culdees.

That the class of persons denoted by the term Céli-dé were not supposed by the Irish to be peculiar to this country we learn, not only from the passage of the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick above cited, which represents Malach, a Briton, as a Céle-dé among the saint's companions, but also from two very curious entries in the Annals of the Four Masters, though the source whence they were derived is uncertain. At 806, which is 811 of the common era, they relate that " In this year the Céile-dé came across the sea with dry feet, without a vessel; and a written roll was given him from heaven, out of which he preached to the Irish, and it was carried up again when the discourse was finished. This ecclesiastic used to go southwards across the sea, every day when his preaching was finished."

Setting aside the marvelous part of this statement, which ill assorts with the matter-of-fact entries among which the compilers have inserted it, one can easily perceive that it records the arrival of a foreign monk, whose object was to bring about some reformation in morals, or change in discipline, among the natives, and whose exhortations possessed pretensions or force sufficient to invest his message with a heaven-sent character.

Again, at the year 919, the same annalists record that " Maenach, a Céledé, came across the sea westwards to establish laws in Ireland." The Celtic form of this individual's name suggests North Britain as the quarter whence he came, it being a common practice with the ancient Irish to style Scotland "the eastern country." Or else we may suppose him to have been an Irish settler on the Continent, who came pack charged with some temporary commission regarding ecclesiastical discipline.

IRELAND.

St. Maelruain and Tamhlacht.

The close of the eighth century presents to us the term Céle-dé in a definite sense and in local connection with a religious class or institution.

St. Maelruain, founder, abbot, and bishop of the church of Tamhlacht, now Tallaght, near Dublin, gathered round him a fraternity, for whom, amidst the prevailing corruption of religion and laxity of monastic discipline, he ordained certain rules of stricter observance, which consisted partly of precepts for conventual and sacerdotal guidance. Of his history we know nothing beyond a few broad facts. A religious rule, ascribed to him, is preserved, in manuscript, in the Leabhar Breac, entitled Riagail na Celed-nDe, oMoelruain cecinit, that is, " The Rule of the Céle-ndé [ from the poem] which Moelruain composed."

The language in which it is written is Irish; and is proved by the orthography and grammatical structure to belong to a date not earlier than the twelfth or thirteenth century. It may be fairly regarded as a modernized and perhaps amplified version [stanzas or paragraphs 59 to 65] of a much earlier document. The length of the tract allows of great variety in the subjects of which it treats but its contents are greatly deficient in arrangement and are in many places obscure. Though of importance in the illustration of the subject, in hand, its insertion here would break the continuity of this memoir and introduce matter foreign to the immediate discussion. It is therefore reserved for the Appendix. It is sufficient to observe in this place that the subjects of its precepts are in various places styled Céle-nDé, either in an application limited to a particular Order so called, or, what is more likely, in a sense allied to that of "ascetics," or " clerics of stricter observance."

Beside this, there is a religious poem of twelve stanzas preserved in another venerable manuscript, having the superscription, Do Cheliu De inrorir, "Of the Céli-Dé down here," or, " as follows," and chiefly devoted to precepts regarding divine worship, according as their subjects might be cleric readers or laymen.

This poem forms the seventh division in a metrical com position of 145 stanzas, which is ascribed to St. Carthach or Mochuda of Lismore, and immediately succeeds a division containing nineteen stanzas on the duties of a monk. If this be a genuine composition, or even a modernize copy, it will follow that the Céli-dé were a separate class, previously to the year 636, when St. Carthach died, and that they were distinct from the order called monks.

St. Maelruain died on the 7th of July, 792 ; and his death is thus recorded at 791, in the Annals of Ulster : " Maelruain Tamlachta episcopus et miles Christi in Pace dormivit."

In his fraternity there lived an ecclesiastic, somewhat his junior, called Aengus, surnamed from his father, Mac Oengobann, and from his grandfather, Ua Oiblen, whose poetical compositions obtained great celebrity among the Irish. This distinguished writer, having spent the early part of his monastic life at Cluain-Eidhnech, now Clonenagh and having founded a church in the neighborhood, called after his name, Disert-Aenguis, now Disertenos, was afterwards induced by the celebrity of Maelruain's institution, and what was probably a stronger attraction, the congeniality of its discipline to his peculiar habits, to attach himself to the congregation of Tamhlacht.

Here he is said to have composed his metrical calendar, or Felire, and to have taken part in compiling the Martyrology of Tamhlacht. Besides these works, the authorship of various religious poems and tracts of a liturgical and historical character is ascribed to him, and the title by which he is invariably designated is that of Céle-dé ; so that " Aengussius Keledeus" in Latin, and " Aengus the Culdee" in English, is a name familiar to everyone at all conversant with Irish history.

As a member of the community for whom the title Céle-dé has been especially claimed, he may have borne it rather as denoting his order than for any peculiar quality which he possessed ; or, as Colgan supposes, his personal holiness procured him, par excellence, the title of Céle-Dé in the sense of " a Iover or worshipper of God”: to which Dr. Lanigan adds, as a "surname peculiar to himself."

A better view to take of it in the case of Aengus is to suppose that it was a received term denoting rigid monastic observance, especially in the order of divine service, and to have been applied to him as one who both contributed to the devotional compositions of the church, and also lived according to the strictest sect of his religion.

From the manner in which it is mentioned in the Annals and the Rules, there can be no doubt that it was a common term; and we even find it, in one instance, coupled with the name of an obscure individual : Comgan céle-de, " Comgan the Culdee," is commemorated in the calendars of Tamhlacht, Marianus Gorman, and Donegal, at the 2nd of August, but without any comment concerning his date

or place. It may appear strange that the title is not oftener applied to saints of conventual distinction, amidst the host of names which crowd the Irish Calendar; but it is to be remembered that the term only came into use with anything like a determinate application towards the end of the eighth century, when the Irish Calendar was nearly closed.

The church of Tamhlacht was founded about twenty-four years after the institution by Chrodegang of the order of canons, to whom the title of Fratres Dominici was given, and afterwards that of canonici.

They were an intermediate class between monks and secular priests, adopting to a great extent the discipline, without the vows, of the monastic system, and discharging the office of ministers in various churches. At the Council of .Aix-la-Chapelle in 817, a new rule and additional regulations were enacted for them. Possibly the institution of Maelruain may have borrowed from, or possessed some features in common with, the order of canons : for certain it is that in after ages both the Keledei of Scotland and the Colidei of Ireland, exhibited in their discipline the main characteristics of secular canons.

Armagh.

The next church on record as having a fraternity of Céli-dé in connection with it is that of Armagh; and here we have a great range of time for their continuance, namely, from the commencement of the tenth century to the Reformation.

At the year 920, or 921 of the common era, the Annals of Ulster relate that " Ardmacha was pillaged on the Saturday before St. Martin's day, which was the 10th of November, by Gofrith, grandson of Ivar, and his army, who saved the houses of prayer with their people of God, that is Céli-dé, and their sick, and the whole church-town, except some houses which were burned through neglect."

The remarkable feature in this passage is that there is no mention of abbot, subordinate officers, or monks, of Armagh, although it possessed several churches, and was from an early period very fully provided with all grades of conventual ministers.

There seems to have been no secnab or prior, no bishop, no ferleghinn or Iecturer, no anchorite, nor any of the usual officers of a great monastery at this date. In fact, the Viking pillaging and burning, of the years 830, 839, 850, 867, 879, 890, 893, and 914, as recorded by the Four Masters, had so desolated the ancient establishment that we can conceive it almost deserted reduced to a condition in which scarcely any but the most devoted and self-denying ministers of its churches and hospitals would remain in it. Hence we can understand how the annalist dispatches all the religious of the place under the term " people of God," or, more precisely Céli-dé,who would seem to have been the officiating attendants of the choir and altar, and in close connection with whom were the receptacles for the sick and poor. In this view the Céli-dé of Armagh would denote the ministerial portion of the old conventual society.

This is the first and last time that the Irish annals notice the Céli-dé of Armagh and it is not till the year 1366 that they reappear upon the page of history. In the interval, the Norsemen having ceased from their depredations, and Armagh having recovered her normal condition, the chief local clan acquired a religious as well as a secular ascendancy, and the six hereditary successions of lay abbots occurred, together with other abuses, which grew out of an enervated state of the conventual system. During this period we may suppose, however, that while the wealthier portion of the community became so much secularized, the officiating priests continued to discharge the duties of the sacerdotal office, as in former times, living in community, and it may be, like the Céli-dé at Clonmacnois, or the Keledei of Scotland, occasionally entering the married state.

The laxity of their discipline was the probable cause which rendered the introduction of regular canons into Armagh a desideratum; and we can easily understand how the public recognition of this order in 1126 would greatly tend to diminish the influence and importance of the secular corporation, who hence forward took rank in the diocese after the regulars, though they represented the original clergy of the place.

The exact date when the cathedral economy was recast is not recorded, but it probably took place in the interval between the retirement of Malachi O'Morgair and the conquest of Ireland, during the episcopate of Gelasius: and then the normal cathedral staff of dean, chancellor, treasurer, archdeacon, and canons, hitherto unknown in Ireland, but now borrowed from English or Continental usage, was introduced.

In other dioceses a different process took place, as in Down, where Malachi O'Morgair, in 1138, founded a priory of regular canons, leaving the cathedral church to its old corporation of secular canons, who, I presume, were akin to the Céli-dé, and who continued, to conduct its services till 1183, when John de Courcy turned them out, and Anglicized the church by bringing over Benedictines from St. Werburgh’s (Chester).

In Meath, however, there has never been a cathedral establishment of any kind, and the Céli-dé who formerly served the church at Clonard, merged, with their privileges, in the parochial clergy of the diocese.

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Editor’s note.

Malachy (Ireland, around 1094 - France 1148) was the pioneer of the Gregorian reform in Ireland.

Son of a schoolmaster, Malachy became monk with Abbot Imar and was ordained a priest by saint Celsus in 1119. He continued to study during some time, under the direction of Malchus of Lismore. When Cellagh (Celsus), archbishop of Armagh, left for Dublin, Malachy directed his diocese as a vicar.

In 1123, Malachy was entrusted the re-establishment of the deserted abbey of Bangor and, the following year, he became bishop of Connor. With a handful of monks, he built a church out of wooden. He had few priests and few resources (the tithe was hardly lucrative), and the authority of the tradition overrode that of the Church. His perseverance and his skill had nevertheless some results. But he was forced to leave because of the war. He flees in Lismore where he founded a monastery in lveragh.

In 1129, he was appointed archbishop of Armagh by Cellagh, dying. During several years, the powerful family which, by tradition, gave the holders of this see, prevented him from exerting this ministry. Malachy, eager to avoid the confrontations, waited for the intervention of the papal legate Gilbert of Limerick, to carry out the jurisdiction of the diocese. When Muirchertach died, his rival, Malachy requested the see of Armagh from his successor, Niall, who, however, kept a great influence in the North.

Malachy resigned in 1137, and a compromise was found by all the parties, in the person of the abbot Gilla of Derry.

Coming back to Connor, Malachy divided the diocese into two sees, Connor and Down. He left for Rome in 1139, visited Bernard of Clairvaux along the way, and left him some monks to be trained. His request concerning the pallium was rejected, but Pope Innocent II appointed him legate for Ireland. On his return, Malachy founded the monastery of Mellifont. Then he set out again for Rome, stopped again in Clairvaux, and died in the arms of St. Bernard who wrote his Life.

Prophecy of the popes. In 1595, the monk Arnold de Wyon published a document of a few pages which he wrongfully ascribed to this archbishop of Armagh. It is a succession of one hundred mottos which were to apply to all the popes since Celestine II (1113-1114). We realize that some mottos adapt well to the reigns of the popes whom they designate. Brief comments reinforce the fit with it. But, starting from Urban VII who died in 1590, there is no longer comment, nor obvious fits. It thus seems well that true prophecy starts only with this motto and its realization becomes as a result more doubtful. After the motto of Paul VI, the last three mottos are the following ones: De mediatate Lunae; middle or half of the moon? (John-Paul 1st, pope from August to September 1978;) De labore solis, sun at work? (John-Paul II, pope in October 1978;) then De gloria Olivae, the glory of the olive-tree…..

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But, to return from this digression, the ancient system was not altogether superseded, as elsewhere, but the old society of the Céli-dé, who now began to be called, after the Latin fashion, by the name Colidei, were continued in their endowments and religious functions, only in a less prominent position. Their ministrations in the " great church" proceeded as hitherto, and their head or prior (which was a title of precedence, but not authority) fell into the place, though not the name, of the ordinary first singer, while his fraternity of Colidei performed the office or vicars in the choir. They continued to be a severed corporation, and never merged in the chapter, their prior only having a place and voice in capitular meetings. Hence the formal communications from the archbishops ran thus—" Decano, Priori

Colideorum…" or, " Decano, Priori Colideorum, omnibusque et singulis Canonicis et Colideis ecclesiae nostrae Armachanae."

The first place that the name appears in the records of Armagh is in the Register of Primate Sweteman, at 1367, where that prelate remonstrates with Ohandeloyn [O'Hanlon] for the injuries that he had offered to the " Decanus et omnes alii Canonici et Colidei." In the same year Cristinus, a Colideus, was the bearer or a letter from the primate to the dean. Odo M'dynim, or M'doynym, the prior of the Colidei, was dispatched to Rome, in 1366, as the primate's proctor in a case pending there and he is also styled " Prior communitatis nostri capituli Armachani." In his absence he was elected to the office of chancellor in the cathedral, which had precedence, and was better endowed.

During the course of this and the following centuries there is repeated mention of the Colidei and their prior in the Registers, and from the incidental notices we collect the following particulars regarding their constitution and office.

1. The body consisted of a prior and five brethren. 2. The celebration of divine offices was discharged by them; and skill in music as well as eloquence in preaching were considered necessary qualifications for the office of prior, which, was in their election. 3. The office of Colideus was accepted as a title for holy orders. 4. The repair of the fabric of the church was in their hands; and among them was frequently found the office of " Magister operis Majoris Ecclesiae," and of Apparitor. 5. License to appoint a confessor was granted to them by the primate under certain conditions. 6. Their consent was not required for the ratification of the primate's official acts. 7. They had no voice in the election of the diocesan, except so far as their prior, in virtue or his first singer position, had a vote in the chapter. 8. They took no part in the custody of the spirituals of the diocese sede vacante. 9. In the order or precedence, as a body, they ranked third in the diocese; the dean and chapter being first, the convent of regular canons of St. Peter and St. Paul being second, they third, and the clergy at large fourth. 10. Their inferior position was implied in the title of canonici majores, which was applied to the non-dignified members of the chapter while the secular character of their head distinguished him from the prior claustralis, who was an officer among the regular canons. 11. Their prior ranked in the cathedral next after the chancellor. 12. Rectories or vicarages with cure of souls were generally held by the priors, and occasionally by the inferior rnembers, as the rectories of Achlunga [Aghaloo], Carnsegyll [Carnteel], and the vicarages of Twyna [Tynan], Onellan [Kilmore], and Drumcrygh [Drumcree]. 13. In 1427 they were possessed of the rectory and certain town lands in the parish or Derenoysse [Derrynoose]. 14. At the dissolution they were found to have been seized of seven town lands, now in the parish of Lisnadill, consisting of 1423 acres ; the rectories of seven parishes, with the vicarages of three ; and some small holdings, all in the county of Armagh. 15. The archbishop had a residence among them; for in 1462 Primate Bole speaks of his accustomed abode " in loco collideorum vulgariter nuncupato -" This connection was probably a vestige of their ancient relation, when the " Successor of Patrick" was the abbot, and their predecessors his brotherhood.

In Primate Mey's Register" is entered a long and detailed account of certain proceedings which took place relative to the title of one of the vicarages above mentioned; and as this involved an examination into the nature of the office of Colideus, we possess in the record an amount of contemporary evidence which is of great importance in the discussion of this question.

In the year 1430, David McGillade, prior of the Colidei of Armagh, died, and Donald O'Kellachan, a canon of the church, was unanimously elected by the college of Colidei to succeed him, who was thereupon duly installed. On the 17th of May he presented himself to Primate Swayne, at his residence in Drogheda, for confirmation, which was readily granted, inasmuch as he was, to use this prelate's words, " in expositione verbiDei , etaliorum exponendorum plurimum facundus," and also qualified to conduct divine service as being " cantilena peritus”: The primate further, with the approbation of the dean and chapter, granted him a dispensation for holding the perpetual vicarage of Tynan whereof he was then possessed.

But towards the close of 1442, Donald McKassaid, a priest of the diocese of Clogher, having misrepresented the case at the court of Rome, by stating that the office of prior was incompatible with a benefice having cure of souls, obtained a decree that the vicarage of Tynan, which Donald O'Kellachan had held for twelve years, and was estimated at the annual value of five marks sterling,

was now unlawfully occupied, and therefore void, and, by virtue of a canon of the Council of Lateran, devoluted to the see of Rome. Accordingly a bull of Eugenius IV was obtained, dated February 28, 1443, directed to the dean and Arthur and John McCathmayll, canons of Armagh, empowering them to evict Donald. O'Kellachan from his benefice, and induct McKassaid therein ; to whom, " propter defectum natalium, urpote de soluto et soluta natus," a dispensation was granted, together with license to hold two or more vicarages, or two prebends or canonries, and liberty of exchange; as also an express faculty to hold the rectory of Teachtalan [Tehallan], in the diocese of Clogher. Whereupon Arthur McKathmayll proceeded to execute the said mandate, declaring the vicarage empty, and Donald the prior smote and to be expelled as an unlawful intruder. Donald McKassaid, on bended knee, received investiture, and was decreed into corporal possession. At the same time sentence of canonical censure was pronounced against all contraveners, not excepting the diocesan himself .Having no seal of his own, the commissary borrowed that of Eugenius, abbot of St. Peter and Paul's of Cluaineysse (now Clones).

The prior appealed to the court of Rome directly, and to that of Armagh , employing John White as his proctor, who died at Rome on the 13th of October, 1445, before he was able to execute his commission. A delay consequently occurred in the prosecution of the suit, and, owing to the poverty of the prior, as well as the detention of the vicarial revenues by the friends of Donald McKassaid. (Patrick McKassaid, a kinsman, being herenach of Tynan), he was unable to employ a fresh proctor till the close of the following year, when Thomas O'Kellachan, a clerk of Armagh, was despatched by the prior and Colidei. In his journey he was waylaid near Carryk, in Meath, by certain malandrini, and robbed of his money and credentials. The appeal, however, was proceeded with, and, pending the decision, the primate sat in court in Armagh cathedral, on the 24th of July, 1445, to receive evidence and pronounce judicially on the matter of fact whether the priorate of the Colidei was an "office" or " dignity with cure."

The following parties were examined on oath:—Charles O’Mellan, the dean. Salomon McCreanayr, the chancellor ; Arthur McCathmayll, official of Tullaghog; Thomas McGillacrany, Nicholas McGillamura, Donatus O'Hallian, and John McGeerun, Colidei ; Philip McKewyn, herenach of Dareynoysse ; William O'Moryssa, prier claustralis ; John O'Goddane, canon regular ; O'Coffy, O'Martanan, and McGillamura, captains of their clans.

The primate thereupon delivered judgment that the priorate was not incompatible with a benefice in cure. Meanwhile the prior's appeal was pressed at Rome, and a bull of Nicholas V, dated 1447, was issued, stating that the petition of Donald O'Kellachan, vicar of Tynan; had been received, setting forth that the " Prioratus collegii secularium presbyterorum, Colideorum vulgo nuncupatorum," was a simple office, and praying that the accidental delay in the appeal might not bar his rights. The rescript empowers the primate and the abbot of St. Peter's and St. Paul's of Armagh, or either of them, to hear the appeal, and to affirm or annul the antecedent decision, as the ends of justice might demand. This was lodged with the primate on the 23rd of March, 1448, by Thomas O'Kellachan, the prior's proctor; and after some preliminary hearings, the archbishop sat, on the 7th of November, in the house of the Friars Minor of Armagh, outside the town, which was chosen for safety's sake, as the plague was raging within. After various adjournments, the appellant produced in court a,'' liber notabilis de antiquis cronicis," and proceeded to examine witnesses, among whom was William O'Moryssa, a canon regular and prior claustralis, who swore that the priorate was not a dignity, but only a precedence among the Colidei, and that at the time he himself " intravit religionem," David McGillade, prior of the Colidei and vicar of Onellan, was his kind master, but that he incurred his displeasure by entering a regular order instead of becoming a Colideus.

Nicholas O'Hernaid swore that the prior was only " inceptor in executione divinorum." On the 16th of November, 1448, the primate gave definitive sentence, declaring McKassaid's title null and void, and decreeing the said priorate to be merely an office, and tenable with a beneficed cure; at the same time condemning McKassaid in all the costs and fees of court incurred by reason of his temerary vexation. On the 16th of December letters refutatory were dispatched to the pope, refusing to admit McKassaid’s further appeal, as being frivolous. Thus was delivered from the gravest ecclesiastical tribunal in the land an authoritative definition of the office and functions of the Irish Culdee in the middle of the fifteenth century.

There are occasional notices of the Colidei in the Armagh registers during the succeeding century, after which they become silent; but the Antiphonary of Armagh, which came into the possession of Archbishop Ussher, and is preserved among hic manuscripts in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, contains some obituary entries, which are of importance in confirmation of what has been now advanced.

These entries are all subsequent to the Act for the suppression of Religious Houses, and seem to imply that, notwithstanding the inquisition which had been taken, in 1541, on the priory of the Colidei of Armagh, means had been found to evade its operations. This was in a great measure effected by annexing the office of prior to that of the dean, thus divesting the corporation of that appearance of severalty which it had hitherto possessed, and by the primate's subjecting its revenues to his own more immediate control. On the death of Edmund McCamyl, who was both dean and prior, Terence Danyell succeeded to the deanery ; and on the 31st of May, 1550, received a commission from Primate Dowdall to exercise the rule and government of the Colidei and other ministers of divine service in the college, " sub nomine Magistri aut Rectoris collegii, et non Prioris," but was at the same time inhibited from the alienation or disposal of any lands, rents, tithes, or other emoluments belonging to the said Colidei, without his and their consent. The religious changes which soon after took place broke up the corporation, and the succession of the Colidei was interrupted, so that before 1600 they were found to have entirely died out. The Crown, however, neither took possession, nor made any grant of their estates, but they continued to be farmed by the primates and others for the use of the cathedral till 1625, when Charles I. ordered an Inquisition of Discovery concerning their possessions as unlawfully concealed or detained. Whereupon it was found that, previously to the year 1541, there had been a priory or religious house incorporated at Armagh under the name of "Prior et Collodei" , " the prior and vicars choral of Armagh." Two years after the king granted a charter incorporating a prior and five vicars choral, to be called '"The College of King Charles in the cathedral church of Armagh." In this instrument he confirmed to them all the original estates of the Colidei, excepting the rectories and vicarages of parishes which had been consolidated under James I. And it is a curious historical fact that the ancient title survived the Reformation, and existed in the year 1628, when a deed was executed in which the lessor was " Edward Burton, prior of the cathedral church of Armagh, on behalf of the vicars choral and Colideans of the same." The corporation was soon after increased to eight, but the office of prior was suppressed, there being now a first singer in the capitular body. Their endowments were also augmented, without disturbing their old estate, which continues in their possession to the present day, and contributes towards the maintenance of a body who, within the same walls, discharge the same duties in person, or by representation, which the Colidei did six hundred years ago.

Culdees are also mentioned at :

— Clonmacnois (in 1031).

— Clondalkin (in 1076).

— Monahincha (in 1143).

— And lastly Devenish

The island of Daimh-inis, in Loch Erne, was celebrated for its monastery, which St. Molaisi founded in the sixth century, out of which grew that striking memorial of pristine importance, the noble round tower which still remains there in its original proportions.

[Editor’s note. These round towers which stand as lanterns of the dead (cf. that of Saint-Pierre d’Oleron) , near the Culdees churches, are a specificity of Celtic Christianity].

In the twelfth or thirteenth century, a body of regular canons superseded the ancient community of the island, and became possessed of their church and endowments, allowing, however, a small society of secular canons, probably the representatives of the original occupants, to remain, but in a subordinate position. The notices of Devenish in the Annals of the Four Masters contain the names and offices of various individuals connected with its monastery; but there is only one which specifically mentions the fraternity under consideration, in which they record, at 1479, the death of Piarus (or Piers), the son of Nicholas O'Flanagan, who had been a canon chorister, a parson, and prior of Céle-ndé, a, sacristan at Devenish, and an official of Loch Erne. Here, as in the case of Armagh, we observe the musical qualifications in the prior of the Céli-ndé. He was a canon choral of the cathedral of Clogher.

The O'Flanagans were the chiefs of Tooraa, a district on the west side of Loch Erne, and for several generations furnished incumbents to the parishes of Devenish, and Inismacsaint. Nicholas, father of the above-mentioned Piers, was parson of Devenish, and died in 1450. A son of the same Piers, also called Nicholas, who died in 1520, was also parson of Devenish. Thus we again perceive that the office of Céle-dé did not necessarily require a single life, unless we make an exception in favor of Piers O'Flanagan and the O'Neacbtains of Clonmacnois on the score of their being priors, and

therefore entitled to the exemption enjoyed by heads of houses in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

At the dissolution of monasteries, there were two conventual societies on the island—one a priory of regular canons, and the other described as " the late priory or house of secular priests of Collidea in the same island, with an orchard

thereunto belonging, and four tates (240 acres) of land possessed by Rory Ballogh O'Corcon as coarb ; the tithes of which were possessed by the prior O'Flanagan of the abbey." In a patent of James I., the buildings are described as " a cell or chapel called Callidea alias Colldea, in said island, to said abbey near and belonging."

The house of these secular priests appears to have been a relic of the ancient establishment of St. Molaisi, who were superseded by the regular canons, and to whom they stood in the same relation that the Colidei of Armagh did to the cathedral chapter.

Inis-Catbaigh, is situated in the River Shannon, near its mouth. A church was founded upon it by St. Senan, son of Gerrcind, about the year 540. This foundation came to an end when the see of Inis-Cathay was annexed to that of Killaloe, about the close of the twelfth century, and the lands were transferred to the bishop. In 1599, a deed was executed by Maurice, bishop of Killaloe, to Teige McGillchanna, or Gillehanna, prior of Inis-Cathay, the representative of the ancient society, who was married, and whose son and daughter were living in 1667. Bishop Worth, in his rental of Killaloe, drawn up in that year, recites the above inquisition, and adds as a note on the thirty-three canons, " These in Ulster are called Culdees, i.-e. Dei Cultores."

REMARKS.

Having examined the origin of the name Céle-dé, and traced its application in the country where it took its rise, we now, proceed to notice its appearance in British records, in connection with foundations, which either were direct offshoots of the Irish Church, or were to a great extent influenced by it. In this inquiry we shall have to do with Scotland extendedly, and with England and Wales in the single cases of York and Bardsey, respectively.

The primitive history of the Church of Scotland is essentially Irish in its character; and during a long period our annals afford the most trustworthy materials for the chronology of that country.

Situate in the west, the great monastery of Hy exercised a religious influence which was felt in every quarter of Scotland. In the extreme north, the Orkneys were rendered safe to the devout pilgrim by St. Columba of Iona ; in the far south Melrose attained its greatest celebrity under Eata, one of St. Aidan's twelve disciples; and in the eastern extremity of Pictland, Drostan son of Cosgreg accompanied the indefatigable Columba of Iona, when he founded the churches of Aberdour and Aberlour, becoming their joint patron saint, and perpetuating in Buchan the remembrance of fraternal attachment, in a church whose name of Deir, that is, " tear," commemorated their parting scene, and whose after history, now preserved in the oldest book of Scotland, as well as the sole relic of its early literature, gave proof of the fulfillment of the promise which was made to them who " sow in tears." Even the nunnery of Coludi, or Coldingham, is introduced to notice by the father of English history, to illustrate his narrative of one Adamnan, a Scot of Ireland.

There were, it is true, two ecclesiastical establishments in the south-west which were not of Columbite origin. Rosnat, the Whithorn of Saxon, and the Candida Casa of Latin history, was founded by St. Ninian, prior to St. Columba of Iona's date ; while the see of Glasgow owes its origin to St. Kentigern, a Strathclyde Briton. But Ninian, though British by race, and Roman by education, was intimately associated with many Irish ecclesiastics of his day, and, if we may credit his Irish life, as cited by Archbishop Ushher, finished his course in a monastery which he had founded at Cluayn-Coner in the modem county of Kildare. St. Kentigern, or Munghu, as he was familiarly called, was consecrated, after the Irish fashion, by a single bishop, who had been brought over from Ireland for the purpose; and Rhydderch Hael, his regal patron, had been baptized by St. Patrick's disciples in Ireland.

In the history of St. Kentigern, as compiled by Jocelin, we have the earliest Scottish record of the name and discipline of the Céli-dé. For, although this piece of biography was not written till close of the twelfth century, it was compiled from much earlier authorities.

Thus we learn that the Céli-dé, (latin Calledei), were understood by the Scotch, in the twelfth century, to have been a religious order of clerks who lived in societies, under a superior, within a common enclosure, but in detached tells, associated in a sort of collegiate rather than cenobitic brotherhood; solitaries in their domestic habits, though united in the common observances, both religious and secular, of a strict sodality. Such was the nucleus of the great city of Glasgow. With St. Kentigern's death, its church and monastery disappear from history till 1116, when David, prince of Cumbria, and brother of King Alexander I., ascertained by an inquisition of the seniors and sages what the ancient possessions and jurisdiction of the see were ; and, having probably cut off the hereditary entail of its estates, caused his tutor, John, to be consecrated under the long dormant title of bishop of Glasgow.

This was just the time when Malachy O’Morgair (in Ireland) found the once famous abbey of Bangor, a kindred institution, in lay occupation, and its church in ruins ; an evil result which in both countries had grown out of the universal prevalence of the monastic, as distinguished from the diocesan system. The distribution of the country into dioceses and parishes was practically unknown in the Scotic Church tilt the beginning of the twelfth century. The whole ecclesiastical fabric was constructed on the monastic foundation, and its entire economy regulated by the discipline of conventual life. This was the system which for ages placed the episcopate in subordinate position, exalting the office of abbot to the pinnacle of preferment, and subjecting all other relations to its social weight, until, in the lapse of time, it lost much of its sacred character, and became compatible with a secular life.

Sometimes the abbot was in holy orders, sometimes not ; and at all times the monastic profession was respected above the ministerial calling.

Thus the useful ferleghinn, or lecturer, and the contemplative anchorite, often in our annals take precedence of the bishop. The essential officer was the abbot, but the presence of the bishop was an accident ; and hence, even in the best times, his office was intermittent, so that in the worst it became defunct, and with it, in many instances in Scotland, the entire religious character of a monastery perished except in name ; and a species of lay property called an Abthein, or Abbacy, is presented to view in the twelfth century, embracing the site of a primitive abbey, accompanied, it may be, by a cemetery and holy well, the annual resort of a whole country side, and held in prescriptive right, by the simple tenure of a bell or crosier (bachall).

Where secularization was only partial, a shadow of the old society continued to exist. The representatives were known as Kele-dei, a title which, with portions of the church property, in some cases descended from Father to son, and in others was practically entailed to members of certain families.

In any districts where secular influence led to the erection of a stated diocese, the principal monastery therein became the bishop see, and the appointment of the bishop, as of old, was exercised by the conventual body who had hitherto been the officiating clergy of the place. Thus the diocese of Dunblane, on its creation, was made conterminous with the earldom of Stratherne, the nucleus being the ancient monastery of Dun-Blaan, which was founded by, and derived its name from, Blaan, an Irish ecclesiastic of the sixth century. Now, although Dunblane was so ancient a foundation, the first recorded bishop is of the date 1160, alter the restoration of the see under David I., when little more seems to have been done than secure an endowment, and define the limit of jurisdiction.

Sometimes a bishop's see was erected, as at Aberdeen, in a town of growing importance, where there had not previously existed a monastic foundation of any celebrity. Here, as might be expected, we discover no trace of Kele-dei.

Again, we meet with churches which possessed Keledei, but were never raised to the rank of bishop sees. This was owing to some secular influence or peculiarity of position. And these merely retained their conventual character, with diminished importance, as being inside the jurisdiction of more favored churches, until, in the course of events, their societies were suppressed or died a natural death. In Ireland, in like manner, churches such as Bangor, Moville, and Lusk, though of great celebrity as seats of learning and sanctity, and possessing long catalogues of abbots, bishops, and other functionaries, never rose above the level of monastic distinction ; while churches of much inferior claims, as Kilkenny, Kilfenora, Killaloe, and Aghadoe, or of recent origin, as Dublin, Limerick, and Waterford, became the seats of bishops and the centers of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

In fact, the generality of monasteries, both in Scotland and Ireland, were in a state of decrepitude at the beginning of the twelfth century, and those which survived for any length of time owed the continuation of their existence either to the super addition of a bishop and chapter, or to their reconstruction on a new model. Most of the old religious communities were Keledei, till the changes just mentioned took place.

It was in the reign of David I (1124-1153) that the great change in the framework of the Scottish Church took place. His biographer states that he found three bishoprics in Scotland, but left nine. By which we are to understand that he revived, and perpetuated the succession of bishops in six decayed communities, securing to them a mensal provision, or assigning them respectively a defined diocese.

He merely added a bishop to the existing societies at Brechin, Dunblane, Ross, and Caithness ; while in the earlier sees of St. Andrews and Dunkeld, he superseded the Keledei by instituting chapters of regular canons. His English education and connections, no doubt, weakened his attachment to the institutions of his native country; and Robert, the bishop of St. Andrews, an Englishman born, seems to have quickened his distaste for the old-fashioned Keledei. The encouragement of their lax and impotent system would have ill accorded with the vitality and reforming spirit which pervaded all his measures ; and further, as the representatives of the Celtic clergy, they were little likely to be acceptable to a prince who wished to infuse the Saxon element into the Scottish Church.

Note. What goes to show that perverse effects of anti-racism and of globalization are not new ! When the independence of Scotland?

Among the Cotton manuscripts in the British Museum is preserved a catalogue of the religious houses of England and Wales, at the end of which is a list of the Scotch sees, and the orders of their respective societies. It is annexed to Henry of Silgrave's Chronicle ; and as that compilation comes down to the year 1272, and is in the same handwriting as the catalogue, the latter cannot be referred to an earlier date. Ussher, Lloyd, and Tanner, regard this catalogue as the work of Silgrave. I select from it those names which are to the present purpose.

Episcopatus S. Andree : Canonici nigri – Keledei.

Episcopatus Dunkeidre, S. Columkille : Canonici nigri – Keledei.

Episcopatus de Brechin : Keledei.

Episcopatus de Ros Keledei.

Episcopatus de Dublin : Keledei.

Episcopatus de Katenesio : Keledei.

Episcopatus d’Argiul : Keledei.

Abbatia in Insula (Iona): Keledei.

These are the only instances where the term Keldei, or Keledei occurs in the record. The Canonici nigri are regular canons of St. Augustin, and are represented as existing in St. Andrews and St. Columba's of Dunkeld collaterally with Keledei. The societies at Mureve (Moray) and Glascu are styled Canonici seculares.

To these may be added, from charter sources, some non-cathedral monasteries, namely

The church of Lochlevin (Kirross).

The church of Abernetby in Perthshire.

The church of Monyrnusk in Aberdeenshire.

The church of Muthill in Perthshire.

The church of Monifeith in Forfarshire.

This list might be considerably enlarged, if such churches as Scone, Melrose, Montrose, Abirlot, Dun, Ecclesgirg, and others, which are presumed to have resembled the foregoing, were admitted but my object is to treat only of those in which we have record evidence that Keledei did exist. These, however, are twice as numerous as the analogues societies which are on record as existing in Ireland, an anomaly which is best accounted for by supposing that the term Céle-dé was not so generally applied in Ireland.

Without attempting the hopeless task of determining the priority of foundation among the Scotch Keledean houses, we shall now proceed to treat of them briefly.

— lona.

Silgrave's catalogue styles the Monastery of Ionea Abbatia in Insula, and its society Keledei.

Iona is the modern name of the Ioua of Adamnan. In Bede, it is Hii. The Gaelic form is always I or Y, which becomes Hy by anteposition of a euphonic H. This storm-swept harsh island , is five kilometers long and two kilometers wide on average, it was the ancient monastery of Columba, or Colomban or Columkill or Colomkille or Colum (b) Cille in Gaelic Irish (i.e. “church dove”), born in 521 died into 597; “a primatial island ” light of all Northern Europe. In close relationship with Ireland during at least six

hundred years, Iona can be regarded as an Irish island in Scottish sea. Columba landed here one day with twelve of his monks at the southern end of the island - called since Porta Churraich, or Bay of the Island - on May 12th, 563.

He had obtained this land from his relative Conall, king of Dalriada, a donation confirmed by Brude, king of the Picts, when this last was converted to Christianity. He was immediately set to work in order to build his monastery, which was at the beginning only made up of various structures of branches covered with clay. Hence comes that there remains no longer some trace now, current ruins dating from the Middle Ages.

Adamnan, the most famous ornament of the School of lona, just after Columba himself, in his “Life” of the founder, refers explicitly to the tabulae (tablets) out of wax to write; to the calami (feathers) and to the cornicula atramenti (horn containing ink) which one could find in the scriptorium. Columba was, of course, a copyist and an accomplished illuminator if the Book of Kells can be ascribed to him. He was besides recopying a psalm when, caught up by a fatal disease, he died after having ordered his nephew Baithen to finish the work. Baithen during his short three years succession following Columba is said too, like his teacher, to be engaged “in writing, prayer and teaching, until the hour of his death.” Questioned in connection with Baithen, Fintan, one of his monks, answered one day what follows. “Be certain that he was second to no one on this side of the Alps as regards the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures or the profundity of his science.” As he was a former student and professor of the School of lona, one could regard that as exaggerated if we did not have also the writing of Adamnan, the ninth abbot of lona, a famous scientist, to confirm it.

Adomnan/Adamnan, in other words, Eunan, originating in the County Donegal, and member of the same clan that Columba, was taught in the island, and in a sense his knowledge was that of lona. His “Life of St.Columba,” written at the request of the community, in Latin, and not in Gaelic, constitutes, of course, one of the most interesting works of the Western Church at the seventh century. It provides us more accurate and authentic information on the Gaelic Churches of Ireland and Scotland than any other author, even the Venerable Bede . We know thanks to his writing that Adamnan was an accomplished Latinist, and that he knew very well also the Greek, even Hebrew rudiments.

He was, moreover, meticulous, judicious, and careful in his quotation of these authorities. This outstanding well-read man was a true monk and as Columba himself it took part in the manual work of the monastery. He helped to skid with his own hands many oaks of one of the close islands - perhaps Erraid - enough to load twelve boats with them in any case. And he perhaps took part in the building of the monastic cells, like in the case of that of Columba, which was, he says us, tabulis suffulta, made out boards and harundine tecta, covered with thatch of reeds. Columba and his monks had converted the whole Pictland like its leaders. lona glowed with all its glory during the century which ended with the death of Adamnan/Adomnan. It gave three famous prelates. Finan, Aidan, and Colman, were deserving men, even in the eyes of the venerable Bede. The unhappy controversies in connection with the tonsure and the calculation of the Easter date disturbed much in the seventh century, as well lona as its new houses. When Ireland and England gave up it, monks of lona, by respect for the traditions of their saint founder, clung with tenacity to their Easter to them. After 716, when lona itself ends up conforming to the Roman use, some new dependent houses in the Pictland persisted . Besides this obstinacy led a few years later to the expulsion of the Columbite monks from the country by King Nechtan, this one having rallied to the Roman mode.

The ninth century brought sorrow and disaster as well to lona as to Lindisfarne. In 793, Vikings destroyed the church of Lindisfarne, and ransacked it. In 795 they took it out first once also on lona, but the monks then seem to have survived. In 806, on the other hand, sixty-eight members of their community were killed, in Port na Mairtir on the eastern shore of the island. In 825 there was a new massacre of monks in lona. That of St. Blathmac, who had refused to give up this holy place and his companions (poetry of Blathmac in honor of the Virgin Mary , show a great tenderness and much humanity). His heroic death was celebrated in Latin lines of verses by Walafrid Strabo, the abbot of Reichenau, in the south of Germany.

Notwithstanding all that has been written concerning the emanation of the Culdees from Iona, and their essentially Columbite character, there is only one other record of their existence, and that of a comparatively recent date. The Annals of Ulster relate, at 1164, that a deputation of the chiefs of the family of Ia, consisting of Augustin the archpriest, Dubsidhe the lecturer, MacGilladuff the recluse,

MacForcellaigh head of the Ceili-ndé, and such as were of eminence in the island, waited on the abbot of Derry, and invited him to accept the abbacy of their church. From this we learn that the Céli-dé of Hy were only a section of the community, whose superior was styled a " head" not "prior," and took a low rank among the notables of the place. He probably held a position similar to that of first singer elsewhere, and his subordinates were most likely the clerical body who performed the ordinary services of the church.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century (1204), the Celtic ancient monastery had definitively disappeared, and some Benedictine monks had settled there. But the original cemetery - Reilig Odhrain - is always regarded as the holiest earth in Scotland, the grave stones of the kings, chiefs and prelates, pile up there.

N. B. The Culdees of lona therefore probably represent the primitive occupiers of this island, an older form of Celtic Christianity, ousted by a new one, the Roman Catholicism. As in the case of Monahincha, of Devenish and of Armagh.

— St. Andrews.

This church, whose Celtic name was Cill-Righmonaigh, appears, like most of the early Scottish foundations, to have been of Irish origin. St. Cainnech, the patron of Kilkenny and the diocese of Ossory, whose labors in Scotland were followed by the wide diffusion of his celebrity in that country, died in 600, and is commemorated in the Scotch as well as Irish calendars at the 11th of October, two churches only are associated with his memory, namely, Achadh-bo, now Aghabo, in Ireland, and Cill-Righmonaigh (in Scotland).

The probability is that the ancient but inconsiderable church which existed here from primitive times, and of which we have one notice in the Irish Annals, at the year 747, was, about the beginning of the ninth century, extended and endowed by the Pictish sovereign, under the title of St. Andrew the Apostle, and that, to shed luster on the proceeding, the story was circulated that the relics of the saint, consisting of three fingers of the right hand, the humerus and patella of the same side, and one tooth, were stolen from Patrae, and brought by Regulus to this place, and, by their supposed importance, helped to procure for the church which possessed them a degree of distinction which resulted in its becoming the seat of the Scotch primacy. The unhistorical nature of the legend is shown by its representing the emperor Constantius as the contemporary of AtheIstan, Hungus, and Regulus, an anachronism of nearly five centuries, which stamps the whole story of the origin of St. Andrews with the character of a gross and comparatively modern fabrication. Authentic history pretends to no earlier bishop at St. Andrews than Cellach, or Fothadh, in the tenth century.

The early condition of the see appears to have been similar to that of the principal monasteries in Ireland, wherein the bishop was incorporated with the brotherhood, at first in a subordinate position as regarded local jurisdiction, but gradually gaining more and more official importance till he emerged from the society as its chief, and eventually depressed it by his influence.

The names of the first twelve bishops of St. Andrews are Celtic in form, and indicate an undisturbed possession of the see by native ecclesiastics for a period of above two centuries.

Owing to the Saxon relations created by Queen Margaret, an element was introduced into this society which paved the way for its extinction.

There can be little doubt that Bishop Turgot checked the Culdees in their alienation of church property at St. Andrews.

Eadmer, a monk of Canterbury, was sent for by the king, and was, at his instance, elected successor to Turgot, but did net receive consecration. Robert, an Englishman, and a canon of St. Oswald's in Yorkshire, was brought to Scotland, with five others, to promulgate the rule of St. Augustine, and made abbot of Scone, from which office he was promoted to the see of St. Andrews, in 1124, but was net consecrated until 1128. He carried out with great zeal the work which his predecessor had commenced and finding in King David a prince whose views regarding monastic discipline were coincident with his own, he founded and endowed at St. Andrews a priory of regular canons; to which the hospital formerly belonging to the Culdees, was transferred, and in juxtaposition with which the elder community became enfeebled, and eventually sank into insignificance.

Keeping up their old rules and observances, the representatives of the primitive establishment retained the title of Keledei ; and when they first present themselves, after the long night of silence in

which their history slumbers, we find them giving way to the newly introduced order of regulars, who had taken in hand to reform the ecclesiastical discipline of the church, and awaken the dormant religion of the diocese. The priory of regular canons of St. Augustine was formally recognized at St. Andrews in 1114, and, shortly after, one of the fraternity undertook to draw up a sketch of the history of its church, partly with a view to appropriate its past glory, and partly to justify the recent reform of its economy. The writer, probably Bishop Robert, or the prior of the same name, strongly condemns the degenerate condition of the Keledei; and though the picture is perhaps overdrawn, as by an unfriendly hand, and occasionally indistinct in its representations, it is still a record of great historical importance. Having adverted to the decay of religion at St. Andrews, consequent upon the death of St. Regulus and his followers, it proceeds to describe the more recent particulars of its ecclesiastical condition in the following manner.

" There were kept up, however, in the church of St. Andrew, such as it then was, by family succession, a society of thirteen, commonly called Keledei, whose manner of life was shaped more in accordance with their own fancy and human tradition than with the precepts of the holy fathers. Nay, even to the present day their practice continues the same ; and though they have some things in common, these are such as are less in amount and value, while they individually enjoy the larger and better portion, just as each of them happens to receive gifts, either from friends who are united to them by some private tie, such as kindred or connection, or from those whose souls friends, that is, spiritual advisers, they are, or from any other source. After they are made Keledei, they are not allowed to keep their wives within their lodgings, nor any other women, who might give rise to injurious suspicions. Moreover, there were seven beneficiaries, who divided among themselves the offerings of the altar ; of which seven portions the bishop used to enjoy but one, and the hospital another ; the remaining five were apportioned to the other five members, who performed no duty whatever, either at altar or church, and whose only obligation was to provide, after their custom, lodging and entertainment for pilgrims and strangers, when more than six chanced to arrive, determining by lot whom and how many each of them was to receive. The hospital, it is to be observed, had continual accommodation for a number not exceeding six; but from the time that, by God's goodness, it came into the possession of the canons till the present it is open to all comers.

The above-mentioned beneficiaries were also possessed of their private revenues and property, which, upon their death, their wives, whom they openly lived with, and their sons or daughters, their relative; or sons-in-Iaw, used to divide among themselves : even the very offerings of the altar at which they did not serve, a profanation which one would blush to speak of, if they had not chosen to practice. Nor could this monstrous abuse be corrected before the time of Alexander of happy memory, a sovereign of exemplary devotion to God's holy Church, who enriched the church of the blessed Apostle Andrew with possessions and revenues, loaded it with many and valuable gifts, and invested it with the liberties, customs, and royalties which appertained to his royal donation. The lands also called the Boar’s Chase, which the above-named King Hungus had presented to God and to the holy Apostle St. Andrew at the time that the relics of St. Andrew arrived, but which were subsequently usurped, he restored to their possession, with the professed object and understanding that a religious society should be established in that church for the maintenance of divine worship. Because hitherto there had been no provision for the service at the altar of the blessed Apostle, nor used mass to be celebrated there, except upon the rare occasions that the king or bishop visited the place: for the Keledei were wont to say their office after their own fashion in a nook of a church which was very small. Of which royal donation, there are many witnesses surviving to this day. And it was further confirmed by his brother Earl David, whom the king had constituted his heir and successor upon the throne which he now occupies.”

From this labored and ill-digested statement we learn that, at some period anterior to 1107, the ecclesiastical community of Cill-Righmonaigh had become parted into two sections, and that each carried with it a portion of the spiritualities and temporalities, which we may reasonably conceive had been originally combined. One party was the Keledei, consisting of a prior and twelve brethren, who numerically represented the old foundation, and as clerical vicars performed divine service, having official residences, and enjoying certain estates as well as the minor dues of the sacerdotal office. With them also, as the clerical portion of the society, rested the election of the bishop, when a vacancy occurred in the see. The other party included the bishop, the eleemosynary establishment, and the

representatives of the abbot and other greater officers now secularized, yet enjoying by prescription another portion of the estates and the greater ecclesiastical dues.

In 1144 the hospital, with its parsonage or impropriation, was transferred to the regular canons, and they were confirmed in the possession of two more of the parsonages which had already been assigned to them, the bishop retaining his own seventh, thus leaving three of these sinecures in the former condition. And matters continued so till 1156, for in that year Pope Adrian IV only confirmed to the canons regular the hospital and their two sevenths (of the offerings). But in that or one of the two following years, the old impropriators having probably dropped by death, resignation, or amotion, Bishop Robert granted to the canons all the portions, reserving only his own. Finally, in 1162-3, Bishop Arnold surrendered his seventh, and thus put them in possession of the whole. The seven portions were then consolidated, and went into a common fund. Thus, in the first instance, the regular canons seem to have been established on the reversion of the secularized property of the old foundation.

There were now two rival ecclesiastical bodies in existence at St. Andrews, one the old corporation of secular priests, who were completely thrown into the shade, and shorn of many of their privileges and possessions ; and the other, that of the regular canons.

But this rivalry or coexistence was very distasteful to the chief authorities both lay and ecclesiastical, as soon became manifest. Immediately upon the foundation of the latter house, King David, as he also did in, the case of Lochlevin, made an ordinance that the prior and canons of St. Andrews should receive into incorporation with them the Keledei of Kilrimont, who were to become canons, together with all their possessions and revenues; that is, provided they would consent to conform to the canonical rule. But in case they should refuse, they were to have a life interest in their possessions; and, according as they dropped, their places were to be filled up on the new foundation by regular canons. All the farms, lands, and offerings of the Keledei should be transferred to the use of the canons of St. Andrews in frank and quit almoigne. In 1147, Pope Eugenius III decreed that thenceforward the places of the Keledei, according as they became vacant, should be filled with regular canons. But the Keledei were able to withstand the combined efforts of king, pope, and bishop for we meet with a recurrence of this provision under successive pontiffs till 1248 ; and yet we find the Keledei holding their ground.

Nay, in 1160, King Malcolm actually confirmed them in a portion of their possessions. In 1199 we find them engaged in a controversy with the prior of the other society, which terminated in a compromise by which the tithes of their own lands were secured to them, they at the same time quitting claim to all parochial fees and oblations. And it was not till 1273 that they were debarred from the prescriptive right to take part in the election of a bishop.

They met with like treatment in 1279, and again in 1297, when William Comyn, the provost of the Keledei, went to Rome, and lodged a protest against the election then made, on the ground of their exclusion but Boniface VIII decided against him. He appealed again in 1328, but with no better success.

Neither does the name Keledei occur again in existing records, although the corporation still continued in the enjoyment of their privileges and possessions. In the succeeding centuries frequent mention is made of the institution under the names of the " Praepositura ecclesiae beatae Mariae civitatis Sancti Andreae; the " Ecclesia beatae Mariae de Rupe," and " the Provostry of Kirkheugh" ( the society is said to have consisted of a provost and ten prebendaries). Their superior was variously styled " Praepositus Sancti Andreae," " Praepositus capellae Sanctae Mariae," " Praepositus capellae regiae" . After the Reformation the provostry became vested in the Crown; and in 1616 was annexed, together with the appendant benefices, to the see of St. Andrews.

— Dunkeld.

Culdees are also mentioned at Dunkeld (a church founded in 840).

Dean Mylne, who was a canon of Dunkeld, about 1485, has left to us, in his History of the Bishops of Dunkeld, the following description of their ancient chapter. " In this monastery Constantine, king of the Picts, placed religious men, commonly called Kelledei, otherwise Colidei, that is, God-worshippers, who, however, after the usage of the Eastern Church, had wives (from whom they Iived apart when taking their turn in the sacred offices). But when it seemed good to the supreme controller of all Christian religion, and when devotion and piety had increased, St. David, the sovereign, who was the younger son of King Malcolm Canmor and the holy Queen Margaret, having changed the constitution of the monastery, erected it into a cathedral church; and, having superseded the Kelledei, created, about the year 1127, a bishop and canons, and ordained that there should in future be a secular

college. The first bishop on this foundation was for a time abbot of that monastery, and subsequently a counselor of the king."

In the concluding passage, the writer seems to imply that the Kelledei, who occupied the monastery which was attached to the mother church, were removed from this position, and constituted a college of secular clergy, while their former place was assigned to a society of regular canons, with the bishop, now made diocesan instead of abbot, at their head. These two corporations coexisted for nearly two centuries; and as at St. Andrews, so at Dunkeld, Silgrave's catalogue notices the collateral societies of Canonici nigri and Keldei.

— Rosemarkie.

Silgrave's catalogue designates the society as Keledei, that is, the representatives of the old secular college.

Early in the thirteenth century, however, the cathedral body was reconstituted, for at 1224 we find a dean of Rosmarkyn, and a chanter, chancellor, treasurer, archdeacon, sub-dean, second singer, and canons.

— Brechin (1180 et 1222).

— Dunblane (1238).

— Dornoch (1222).

— Lismore. The diocese of Argyle, or Argiul, as the name is written in Silgrave's catalogue, had as its cathedral the church of St. Moluoc, in the island of Lismore. It was founded by St. Lughaidh, familiarly called Moluoc, an Irishman, who died in 592. He is noticed in the principal Irish chronicles, and in all the Irish calendars at the 25th of June ; on which day he is commemorated in the Scottish calendars also, under the name of Molocus, and in the Aberdeen Breviary is styled a bishop. His bell and pastoral staff were long preserved in this church, and are still in existence.

The monastery founded by St. Moluoc no doubt continued to exist through successive ages, until, in the course of time, its society, in conformity with the progress of native monasticism, settled down into the condition which obtained for them the name of Keledei. During this long period the office of bishop, if it was preserved in this church, was, in all probability, intermittent, and at such times as it did exist, was of a conventual rather than of a diocesan character. And after that, in the infancy of diocesan distribution, Dunkeld obtained territorial jurisdiction, Lismore was included in it, and continued to be a portion of that great diocese till about the year 1200, when it was severed by Pope Innocent III, and formed with the mainland of Argyle into a diocese, sometimes named Lismorensis, but more generally Ergadiensis. Silgrave's catalogue calls it Argiul, and styles its chapter Keledei. But this society did not long retain their cathedral position, for there is charter evidence to show that before 1251 a dean and chapter had been called into existence; and in 1249 Pope Innocent IV. recognizes the right of electing the bishop as vested in the Canons of this church.

— Lochlevin.

The fate of the Keledei in this place was sealed about 1145, when King David, under the influence of feelings which I have already adverted, declared that "he had given and granted to the canons of St. Andrews the island of Lochlevene, that they might establish canonical order there ; and the Keledei who shall be found there, if they consent to live as regulars, shall be permitted to remain in society with, and subject to, the others ; but should any of them be disposed to offer resistance, his will and pleasure was that such should be expelled from the island .” Robert, the English bishop of St. Andrews, who dictated this stern enactment, was not slow to carry its provisions into effect ; for immediately after, he placed these Keledei in subjection to the canons regular of St. Andrews, and converted their old conventual possessions into an endowment for his newly erected priory. He even transferred the ecclesiastical vestments which these Chelede possessed, and their little library, consisting for the most part of ritual and patristic books, the titles of which are recited in the instrument.

Thus terminated the separate and independent existence of one of the earliest religious foundations in Scotland, which probably owed its origin. to St. Serf/Serban, in the dawn of national Christianization; and was, before the middle of the eleventh, brought into close connection with the see of St. Andrews, through the influence of one of the earliest recorded bishops of the Scottish Church, who was probably a Céle-dé himself, and allowed to exercise a kind of bishop superintendence over his own community of St. Andrews and the neighboring monasteries, foreshadowing a function which afterwards developed itself in diocesan jurisdiction, and eventually became invested with metropolitan preeminence.

— Monymusk. In 1211 a complaint was laid before the Pope, by William, bishop of St. Andrews, in which he stated that certain Keledei who professed to be canons, and certain others of the diocese of Aberdeen, in the town of Monymusc, which pertained to him, were endeavoring to establish a system of regular canons, contrary to right and his desire. Whereupon a commission was issued to the abbots of Melrose and Dryburg, and the archdeacon of Glasgow, empowering them to examine into the case and adjudicate thereon. Accordingly they held their court ; and their award was that the Keledei in future should have one refectory and one dormitory in common, and one oratory without a cemetery ; and that the bodies of the Keledei, and of clerks or laymen who might die when with them, should receive the rites of sepulture at the parish church of Monymusc ; that the Keledei should be twelve in number, and that Bricius the thirteenth, whom the Keledei were to present for confirmation to the bishop of St. Andrews, should be their master or prior ; that on his retirement or death, the Keledei were to choose three of their society, from among whom the bishop was to select the one he considered best suited to become prior or master ; that it should not be lawful for them at any future time to take vows of canonical or monastic life without the bishop's consent, nor exceed the limitation prescribed for the number of their body ; that when a Keledeus died or withdrew, those who remained were to fill up the vacant place; and that the newly elected member was, upon his admission, to swear before the bishop or his deputy that he would observe the terms of this composition.

This society, which consisted of secular priests, thirteen in number, was probably the representative of an ancient monastic foundation.

ENGLAND.

There existed in York, till the dissolution of monasteries, a hospital called St. Leonard's, the cartulary of which, a beautifully written volume, engrossed in the reign of Henry V., passed into the Cotton. From this book Dugdale has printed, in his Monasticon, an abstract, which furnishes us with the following particulars.

When King Athelstan was on his march against the Scotch, in 936, he halted at York, and there besought of the ministers of St. Peter's church, who were then called Colidei, to offer up their prayers on behalf of himself and his expedition, promising them that, if he returned victorious, he would confer suitable honor upon the church and its ministers. Accordingly, after a successful campaign, he revisited this church, and publicly returned thanks for the favor which heaven had vouchsafed to him. And observing in the same church men of holy life and honest conversation, then styled Colidei, who maintained a number of poor people, and withal had but little whereon to live, he granted to them, and their successors forever, for the better enabling them to support the poor who resorted thither, to exercise hospitality, and perform other works of piety, twenty-four sheaves of corn from every plow land in the diocese of York, a donation which continued to be enjoyed until a late period, under the name of “Petercorn.” The record goes on to state that these Colidei continued to receive fresh accessions to their endowments, and especially from Thomas, whom William the Conqueror advanced to the see of York in 1069. This prelate rebuilt the cathedral church, and augmented the revenues of its clerics. The Colidei soon after erected or founded in the same city, on a site which had belonged to the crown, a hospital or halting place for the poor who flocked thither ; to which were transferred the endowments which the said Colidei or clerics had hitherto received. William Rufus removed the hospital to another part of the city; and King Stephen, when further augmenting its resources, changed its name from St. Peter's to St. Leonard's hospital. It contained a master or warden, and 13 brethren, 4 secular priests, 8 sisters, 30 choristers, 2 schoolmasters, 206 beadsmen, and 6 servitors.

It would appear that these Colidei were the officiating clergy of the cathedral church of St. Peter's at York in 936, and that they discharged the double function of divine service and eleemosinary entertainment; thus combining the two leading characteristics of the old conventual system, which was common to the Irish and Benedictine rules. But when things assumed a new complexion, and a Norman archbishop was appointed, and the foundation of a new cathedral laid, and a more magnificent scale established for the celebration of divine worship in this metropolitan church, the Colidei, or old order of officiating clergy, were superseded ; and while they were excluded from their cathedral employment, they received an extension of their eleemosinary resources, and, in order to mark their severalty, they were removed to another quarter of the city, whither they took their endowments with them, and thus continued through several centuries, under an altered economy and title, till all memory of their origin had perished, save what was recorded in the preamble of their charter book.

The existence of the name Colidei at York in the beginning of the tenth century indicates some surviving traces of the Celtic school of ecclesiastical discipline. For the name is undoubtedly technical, and a form of Céli-dé suited to the ears of a people who were ignorant of Gaelic, but were familiar with Latin; and as the etymology of Colideus was in such harmony with the profession of the Céli-dé, the

adaptation which the ear suggested was sanctioned by an apparent fitness. When this transformation of the name took place, it is hard to say; but the memoranda from which the charter book derived its earliest entry seem to indicate that before the year 936 the term had undergone the change.

Other trace of the presence of Culdees more in south. In the Cotton collection is preserved a Privilege which king Ethelred is alleged, to have granted to the church of Canterbury. It is written in Saxon, with a counterpart in Latin. In the former there is a passage to this effect: "I observe and clearly perceive this discipline far and wide corrupted through the laxity and negligence of the priests," which the Latin counterpart represents in these words: " Dei servitium passim nostra in gente a cultoribus clericis defleo extinctum et tepefactum.” In the charters the prebendaries are termed cultores clerici, a singular expression, which seems to intimate that the collegiate clergy were even then styled Culdees, cultores Dei, in the south as well as the north of England.

WALES. Bardsey.

In a record of Carnarvon of 1252, the ecclesiastics of the place are styled Canonici, most probably regular ; for, as contrasted with them, the occupants of the neighboring house of Aberdaron were styled Canonici Seculares. The latter was subject to Bardsey, which probably adopted about this period the regular discipline called after St. Augustine [of Canterbury].

Here then, in the only Welsh institution where the existence of Colidei is recorded, we find regular canons as the representatives of the ancient order. Now, as the order of canons represented a class of ecclesiastics who occupied an intermediate place between the monks and secular clergy, so we may regard these Colidei, out of whom the British canons grew, to have been of a somewhat similar nature—at first all secular, that is, net bound by vows, and differing only from secular clergy in that they lived aggregately, having a common house, table, and oratory. But when, in the middle of the eleventh century, a separation took place between those who adopted the stricter observance introduced by Ivo of Chartres, and those who adhered to the old system, then the distinctive terms of regular and secular were introduced ; and the same variety which existed in practice between these two sections seems to have prevailed among the Keledei or Colidei, until the stricter portion abandoned the name for that of regular canons of St. Augustine [of Canterbury] ; and the laxer portion, which retained it longer, held on till they were either summarily extinguished by suppression, or gradually merged in the absorbing mass of the better organized and more effective system. AFTER THE BOOK (1864) OF WILLIAM REEVES ON THE SUBJECT.

HYPOTHESIS.

What is certain is that the Culdees are not the direct descendants of ancient druids.

They are :

-either some direct descendants of the lower druids of the type bard, gutuater, velede or vate and so on, converted by St Patrick.

-or some descendants of the early ascetics of Celtic Christianity but with a discipline that would have been relaxed.

We leave to Christian scholars like William Reeves care to decide.

-There is, of course, a third hypothesis, that there were always at the same time ascetics and simple artists or intellectuals gravitating around, coexisting in the same community.

Their Third Order, true synthesis between the Catholic unmarried monks living withdrawn from the world, and the priests engaged in the life of the society; matched well to the spirit of druidism (no obligation of celibacy, and action in the world, including taking part in battles*). And they preserved (not much more than Celtic Christendoms nevertheless, since they were members of them) many detail characteristics of druidism.

Skill as regards music, song, eloquence, frame, community life, but without obligatory celibacy and so on.

Hence their success in Ireland and Scotland, and the fact that the Roman Catholic Church did everything in its power to replace them.

In Ireland, on the island of Devenish, Culdees persisted until the Reformation, jointly with canons of Roman obedience; and in the diocese of Armagh, they fulfilled a purpose which, with their name, even survived the Reformation; but in Scotland, where the Celtic use, when it competed with Saxon

institutions, let them have precedence, and on a date much older, the name and the office of Keledei disappear from History since 1332. The only vestige which survived to them for some time was the direction of Kirkheugh at St.-Andrews; while in York, it was to Norman policy to retrogress Colidei in subordinate rank and to move away them from this ancient church. On the ruins of which a splendid cathedral was built, with such sumptuous resources that the traditional poverty or original simplicity of Athelstan Colidei would have some difficulty to maintain it.

* Defensive wars, or to help theirs in dying well (the vates).

APPENDIX No . 1.

THE VOYAGE OF ST. BRENDAN THE ABBOT (NAVIGATIO SANCTI BRENDANI ABBATIS).

The date of drafting of this story is undoubtedly situated between the seventh and tenth centuries. Without we are knowing exactly who is the author of if (it is likely he is Irish, because of its tinged with insular turns Latin). Nor in which place in Europe it was written.

It is possible that a Life of the saint was previous to it by little, and therefore made it belong to the medieval genre called hagiography. But the reverse is also possible, namely the success of the Voyage perhaps generated in turn the desire for making the text more in conformity with the literary requirements of the time; for example, by integrating it within the usual framework of the life of a saint.

Archbishop P. F. Moran has been, in 1872, one of the first to gather the up to that point scattered, texts. Two manuscripts preserve it: the manuscript No. 321 of Saint-Gall in Switzerland; and that of the Bibliotheca Sessoriana in Rome (B. CXXVII). The Oratio Sancti Brendani is interesting in many respects. It belongs to the genre of the “loricae “or “ protection armors “and shows the undeniable spirit of classification of the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) as regards medicine or vocabulary. The imrama are in general much more Christian than Pagan. But what is interesting in this one, it is that if the island of the blacksmiths represents hell, the island which was promised to the saints resembles heaven well, drawn, of course, from druidic obviously mythology (Avalon = apple orchard).

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Chapter I.

St. Brendan, son of Finnlug Ua Alta, of the race of Eoghan, was born in the marshy district of Munster. He was famed for his great abstinence and his many virtues, and was the patriarch of nearly three thousand monks.

While he was in his spiritual war–fare, at a place called Ardfert Brendan there came to him one evening, a certain father, named Barinthus, of the race of King Niall, who, when questioned by St. Brendan, in frequent converse, could only weep, and cast himself prostrate, and continue the longer in prayer; but Brendan raising him, embraced him, saying: ‘Father, why should we be thus grieved on the occasion of your visit? Have you not come to give us comfort? You ought, indeed, make better cheer for the brethren.

In God’s name, make known to us the divine secrets, and refresh our souls by recounting to us the various wonders you have seen upon the great ocean.’

Then Barinthus, in reply, proceeds to tell of a certain island: ‘My godchild, Mernoc, the steward of the poor of Christ, had fled away from me to become a solitary, and found, near unto Stone mountain, an island full of delights. After some time I learned that he had many monks there in his charge, and that God had worked through him many marvels. I, therefore, went to visit him, and when I had approached within three days’ journey, he, with some of the brethren, came out to meet me, for God had revealed to him my advent. As we sailed unto the island, the brethren came forth from their cells towards us, like a swarm of bees, for they dwelt apart from each other, though their intercourse was of one accord, well grounded in faith, hope, and charity; one refectory; one church for all, wherein to discharge the divine offices. No food was served but fruits and nuts, roots and vegetables of other kinds. The brethren, after compline, spent the night in their respective cells until the cockcrow, or the bell tolled for prayer. When my godson and I had traversed the island, he led me to the western shore, where there was a small boat, and he then said: ‘Father, enter this boat, and’ we will sail on to the west, towards the island called the Promised land for the saints (Latin terra repromissionis sanctorum), which God will grant to those who succeed us in the next days.’

When we entered the boat and set sail, clouds over–shadowed us on every side, so dense that we could scarcely see the prow or the stern of the boat. After the lapse of an hour or so, a great light shone around us, and land appeared, spacious and grassy, and bearing all manner of fruits. When the boat touched the shore; we landed, and walked round about the island for fifteen days, yet could not reach the limits thereof. No plant saw we there without its flower; no tree without its fruit and all the stones thereon were precious gems. But on the fifteenth day we discovered a river flowing from the west towards the east, when, being at a loss what to do, though we wished to cross over the river, we awaited the direction of the Lord. While we thus considered the matter, there appeared suddenly before us a certain man, shining with a great light, who, calling us by our names, addressed us thus: ‘Welcome, worthy brethren, for the Lord has revealed to yon the land He will grant unto His saints. There is one half of the island up to this river, which you are not permitted to pass over; return, therefore, whence you came’ .

When he had ceased to speak, we asked him his name, and whence he had come. But he said: 'Why do you ask these questions? Should you not rather inquire about this island. Such as you see it now, so has it continued from the beginning of the world. Do you now need food or drink or clothes? Because indeed you remained here during a whole year. Have you been weighed down by sleep, or shrouded in the darkness of the night. Here it is forever day, without a shadow of darkness, for the Lord Jesus Christ is the light thereof, and if men had not transgressed the commandment of God, in this land of delights would they have always dwelt.’

Hearing this we were moved to tears, and having rested awhile, we set out on our return journey, the man aforesaid accompanying us to the shore, where our boat was moored. When we had entered the boat, this man was taken from our sight, and we went on into the thick darkness we had passed through before, and thus unto the Island of delights. When the brethren there saw us, they rejoiced with great joy at our return, as they had long bewailed our absence, and they said: ‘Why, O fathers, did you leave us, your little flock, to stray without a shepherd in the wilderness? We knew, indeed, that our abbot frequently departed somewhere from us, and remained away sometimes a month, sometimes a fortnight, or a week more or less but never a whole year..

When I heard this I tried to console them, and said: ‘Brethren, harbor no thought of evil, for your lives here are, of course, passed at the very portals of paradise. Not far away from you lies the island, called the Promised land for the saints,’where night never falls nor day closes; thither your abbot, Mernoc, resorts, and the angels of God watch over it. Do you not know, by the fragrance of our garments, that we have been in the paradise of God?’

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Neo-druidic (comment) counter-lay No. 1.

Brethren. We translate in this way the Latin word fratribus.

Compline. We translate so the Latin word completorium : last prayer of the day.

Flock. We translate so the Latin term oves.

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Saint Brendan having wanted in turn to leave and research this little place of paradise located on a remote island, at least according to Barinthus, the text tells us the multiple adventures of his voyage or of his sea tour (imram).

Imramma are accounts describing the progression of the soul after death and its various meetings or tests (with what the Tibetan Buddhists call wrathful or soothing deities).

These accounts of druidic origin intended to prepare the living to have “a good death” would have ended up, following Christianization, being no longer understood and becoming matter for non-religious tales and legends.

These imarama range from simplest (the soul is found directly in the heaven ) to most complicated, the voyage of Ossian in the Land of Youth, the voyage of Bran son of Febal, the voyage of St. Brendan.

Each island or wonders of these immrama match one of the stages of the voyage or one of the states of the being after the death of the body, in the anteroom of Heaven , before its rebirth in the next world parallel to ours of paradisiac nature where it will be able to complete the purification necessary to its blossoming (moksha in Hinduism). Stage therefore placed under the aegis of a soothing deity or a wrathful deity.

Soothing or wrathful deities we have said (Epona, Belin/Belen/Belenos/Manannan, etc.) But a very useful point of comparison for all these immrama is also the Egyptian book of the dead. But look at, we claim by no means that former druids were to be made initiate in Egypt, we say only the universal permanent features of the human being (nothing is more universal than paganism) had as a result that, confronted with similar challenges to take up, he often came at the same solutions (because all we have a nose a mouth two eyes two lungs a stomach and so on, see loricae). No primordial tradition therefore but harmonies or parallels due to a common human nature (once again let us repeat it, we have all a nose a mouth some eyes, etc. see the loricae).

Lastly, let us signal that the purpose of this journey of the soul according to ancient Egyptians was an ideal land according to their criteria to them, of course, so much it is difficult to a human being normally formed (two eyes a mouth a tongue, etc. see your preferred lorica) to imagine or design another thing.

There existed among Egyptians of Antiquity a book the purpose of which was to make it possible the soul of the deceased to be guided at the time of its voyage in the hereafter. From this point of view, the deceased therefore sought to sail on the boat of the sun-god Ra then to cross the kingdom of Osiris (night version of the diurnal sun in the course of his regeneration).

This book indexes consequently the whole geography of the world of the hereafter according to former Egyptians, the traps to be avoided, as well as the various expressions of the famous negative confession of the misdeeds which were not perpetrated, that the dead must recite to make his soul lighter than Maat’s feather, during the weighing of his soul.

The Book of the dead of Former Egyptians had for a true title, at the time of ancient Egypt, Book of Coming Forth By Day. The “day” in question being that of the living , but also any luminous principle being opposed to darkness, forgetting , destruction and death.

No known specimen contains all the expressions listed by the philologists of the old Egyptian languages. The most complete specimens are late ( Ptolemaic dynasty) such the Turin papyrus studied by Karl Richard Lepsius. This specimen takes up 165 of the 192 formulas listed to date. The book of the dead is a very heterogeneous whole of texts. This collection was formed at the time of the Egyptian New Kingdom under the reigns of the first kings of the 18th dynasty, circa -1550. This corpus of funerary texts was therefore in use in Egypt during more than sixteen centuries.

Contrary to the pyramid texts , reserved to the sovereigns of the Egyptian Ancient Kingdom only, the book of the dead of the New Kingdom is intended for a larger population. Its various chapters or formulas were therefore registered on many and various supports. A considerable number of specimens on papyri were discovered in graves of deceased having belonged to the middle-class (priests, scribes, soldiers).

The Egyptologists call Theban recension , these specimens of the “Book of the Dead ” from 18th to the 25th dynasty. One of the most beautiful achievements of this time is the papyrus of Ani dated back to the 18th or 19th dynasty. In this specimen, the judgment of the soul is evoked twice, around the beginning and the end.

The first part of this book gathers the expressions 1 to 16. The funerary procession goes towards the necropolis and the mummified deceased arrives in the world of the hereafter.

In the second part, the deceased proclaims his rebirth but also his power over the elements of the universe as over all his potential enemies.

Transfiguration. In this third part, the Coming forth by Day becomes a reality.

The fourth part of the book of the dead can be divided into two sections.

Weighing of the soul.

Once the death of the body happened, the deceased had, according to Egyptian religious tradition, to have his heart weighed, heart having a symbolic value being equivalent to that of soul in our latitudes. The deceased arrived in a place where Osiris sat, surrounded by Isis, Nephthys and sometimes Ra. The heart of the deceased was placed on a side, the feather of Maat of the other. If the heart were heavier than the feather, Thoth, the ibis-headed god, made the deceased thrown to the large eater or great devourer, a hybrid monster with the body of a lion, the head of a crocodile and the hindquarters of a hippopotamus which fed on him (a kind of hell therefore). If the heart were lighter than the feather of Maat, it is that he had had on the contrary a righteous life, Osiris therefore opened then the doors of his heaven before him.

Formula 110 of the Book of the Dead describes us this paradisiac place inspired by the geography of the Nile delta. It has several names; Field of offering, Field of the Sedges (or of the Rushes), Field of Hetep. This description is already well established in the Coffin Texts. According to the specimens of the book, written description is more or less developed. Concerning this expression 110, most important for the deceased is to make , in his specimen of the book, its large illustrative vignette, appear. The latter occupies all the height of the papyrus sheet . It represents the chart of a world where the deceased is worshipping deities and taking part in agricultural work (plowing, sowing and harvest). The geography is that of the Egyptian countryside. Fertile strips of fields are surrounded by irrigation canals. Trips from town to town are done by means of boats; so we see the deceased paddling on the canals of Hetep. Other boats are moored to an unloading dock where the guardian deities of the place welcome the newcomers. The text of this expression indicates that the deceased wishes for his ka (vital essence), the bread, the beer, the wine, the cakes laid down by the gods on the offering altars.

However as a god of abundance, he also takes part in the distribution of this food. He wishes to make there his usual activities (to drink, to eat, to sleep, to make love) as on earth and to live there an eternal existence without concerns nor reproaches.

BASIC DIFFERENCES WITH DRUIDISM BUT RESEMBLANCE WITH CHRISTIANITY OR ISLAM.

Where the ancient Egyptian religion differed basically from druidism it is that it was a very moralizing religion and that before arriving in its paradise the soul according to the Ancient Egyptians was to face two last tests or ordeals:

- That of the negative confession when the soul explained why it was not the worst of monsters that earth has ever seen, that it was not a Hitler a Stalin nor even a Gilles de Rais known as Blue-Beard (the soul makes the long list of all the sins it did not commit, wily these Egyptians).

- That of the judgment when the heart is weighed (it should not be heavier than a feather).

In ancient Egypt, this judgment of the soul was compared with a lawsuit in which the deceased one was to appear to make his rights to eternal life be admitted.

Three different designs of this legal confrontation are nevertheless distinguished.

The first design is a mythical model in which Horus, the successor of Osiris, faces Seth to get the succession to the throne of Egypt. The ritualistic priest evokes this mythical precedent as a jurisprudence. The deceased is compared with Horus. Just like Horus obtained the throne of Egypt at the conclusion of his lawsuit against Seth, the deceased at the conclusion of his own procedure must get the eternal life through his recognition as a "righteous" person.

The second idea is more general; the deceased faces his enemies, dead or alive, who stripped from him his earthly life.

The Egyptian of this time indeed did not see death as a natural and biological phenomenon. His demise was caused by the malevolent action of an enemy moving among human beings. The deceased therefore sought to be avenged of them. But he has initially therefore to bring his enemy in the court of Osiris. His righteous revenge could be indeed wreaked only after a favorable recommendation of the court:

“I am a human being who came dissatisfied (from the world of the living). Let the door of the court opened before me because my enemies harmed me ! (...) I am now a falcon man, who goes away as a man (...) to reach my enemy among men. Having appeared against him in the court of the Chief of the Westerners (Osiris), I have spent a whole night discussing with him in the presence of the inhabitants of the kingdom of the dead; his lawyer in the court then rose, his hands in front of his face, when he saw that I was proclaimed a righteous person and that one granted that I have power over my base enemy and that I seize him in the presence of the men who had come to fight with me by means of the magic power of their words.”

The third design is that the book of the dead of the Former Egyptians popularized through the scene of the heart weighing. In this last model, the deceased is confronted with a divine accuser. Judged by the yardstick of Maat, the goddess of truth and justice, the deceased must give account to Osiris (or Ra) of his actions and of his way of life on earth. This image will last until Diodorus of Sicily. The Greek historian of the first century of our era reports indeed that between the mummification and the burial, the mummy (the deceased ) can be confronted with accusers. If the 42 judges brought together around the body consider the charge credible, the mummy is not buried and the deceased is deprived from his eternal life. If there is no charge, the deceased is buried with all the honors.

The Papyrus of Ani.

The illustration of the first evocation of the judgment of the soul shows Ani and his wife respectfully bowed in front of a beam balance where two plates are suspended. The heart of Ani is posed on the plate of left in perfect balance with the plate of the right-hand side which contains a feather of ostrich symbol of the straightness (Maat). The good progress of the weighing is carried by Anubis and Thoth records the result. Behind him stands the monster Ammit, the devourer of impure hearts. Twelve gods form the divine court; Harmakhis, Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Isis, Nephthys, Horus, Hathor, Hu and Sia. The text of this scene is that of the chapter 30B of the “Book of the dead.” Ani requires of his heart not to betray him. As Thoth does not notice any sin, the judges declare the deceased righteous person.

The illustration of the second evocation of the divine judgment represents the court of the hall of the two Truths. Inside forty-two judges sit. To each one of these judges, Ani declares not to have committed such or such sin. On the right, four superimposed levels are illustrated. At the higher level sat, each one on a throne, two Maat capped with an ostrich feather. In the lower part, Ani is worshipping Osiris who sits on his throne. Between both characters a lotus flower is placed, a symbol of the revival. Lower, Anubis controls the good performance of a balance, under which the monster Ammit appears which is also named “great devourer.” The heart of the deceased is on the same level as the feather of Maat. Completely in the bottom, ibis-headed Thoth sat in the position of the scribe in front of another figuration of the feather of Maat.

The late versions of the “Book of the dead” (Saite recension) had considerably developed the negative confession; this declaration being doubled. While arriving in front of the hall of the two Truths (name of the court of Osiris therefore), the deceased is welcomed by Anubis, the god of mummification. After being smelled and recognized by this god, the deceased affirms to him that

before coming here he visited all the holy places in Egypt. Thereupon, Anubis tests the knowledge of the deceased by asking him the name of the door, of its lintel and of the threshold. Having well answered , the deceased is allowed to come in. Arrived in front of Osiris, the deceased salutes the god. The deceased enumerates then about forty sins he did not commit during his lifetime. This once made, he reaffirms in front of the 42 judges, of whom he knows the names, that he did not commit their 42 faults and he is pure and innocent.

Below some extracts of one of these negative confessions.

Hail to you, great God, Lord of the Two Truths! (sic)

I have come to you, my Lord,

I was brought to see your beauty.

I know you, I know the names of the forty-two gods,

Who are with you in the Hall of the Two Truths,

Who live by warding off the evildoers,

........................

I have not done crimes against people,

I have not mistreated cattle,

I have not sinned in the Place of Truth.

I have not known what should not be known,

I have not done any harm.

I did not begin a day by exacting more than my due,

My name did not reach the bark of the mighty ruler.

I have not blasphemed a god,

I have not robbed the poor.

I have not done what the god abhors,

I have not maligned a servant to his master.

I have not caused pain,

I have not caused tears.

I have not killed,

I have not ordered to kill,

I have not made anyone suffer.

I have not damaged the offerings in the temples,

etc.,etc.

In the chapters of the Khebes-ta (or hacking of the earth ) ritual, it appears that during the Middle kingdom, the deceased must fight juridically in a court chaired by Geb, the father of Osiris. The dead appears in it, as an offended victim, to affirm his rights and to see them confirmed by gods. During the New Kingdom , the court is chaired by Osiris. It gets a more marked moral character in it. Here it is no longer the dead, through Seth or his assistants, which is judged but the deceased himself. He must affirm and prove his innocence. This last design of the divine court appears already in the “Teaching for Merikare.” This literary work is a piece of wisdom literature (a collection of advice) taught by King Khety I to his son, the future sovereign Merikare. These two kings of the ninth dynasty of Herakleopolis lived at the time of the first intermediate period. The oldest specimens of this teaching are only dated back nevertheless to the 18th dynasty.

Extenuating circumstances.

The continuation of the Khebes-ta ritual tries to make forgotten by the gods the faults committed by the deceased as all his breaches of Maat. It appears that the deceased must come in front of a court chaired by Geb in which a divine accuser, Thoth, ignores nothing of the sins of the deceased all the more they can be reported by witnesses for the prosecution (dead or alive, men or women):

“Hail to you, the court of the gods which will have to judge (name of the deceased ) who is here, on what he said being ignorant, being young, being happy, not being yet suffering. (...) let the Osiris (Name of deceased ) be proclaimed a righteous person in front of Geb, prince of the gods by this judge who judges him in accordance with what he knows, after he appeared in the witness stand , his

feather on his head, his Maat on his forehead. His enemies are in affliction because he took again all his goods, being proclaimed a righteous person. ”

To defend himself the deceased puts forward the argument of youth; the unknowing of childhood being his extenuating circumstances. All the faults and the sins of life are rejected towards the time of childhood, a time of ignorance when you cannot distinguish good from evil. The ritualist priest exhorts then Thoth and the divine judges to retain only the fine words and therefore the good deeds of the deceased.

Yes really the ancient Egyptian religion was a really very moralizing but rather hypocritical also, religion. Were crooked lawyers in its divine Bar? Fortunately that former druids knew how to avoid this pitfall, for them, except for extremely rare exceptions (Stalin Hitler and Gilles de Rais for example, who does not go to hell, of course, since hell does not exist, but who are again embodied into bacuceos on earth) everyone goes to heaven.

N.B. Geb and Osiris, etc. are members of the soothing deities, Seth Ammit and Thoth are members of the wrathful deities.

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Chapter XXIII. THE ISLAND OF BLACKSMITHS.

When those days had passed, they came within view of an island, which was very rugged and rocky, covered over with slag, without trees or herbage, but full of smiths’ forges. St. Brendan said to the brethren: ‘I am much distressed about this island; I have no wish to enter it or even to approach it , yet the wind is driving us directly towards it, as if it were the aim of our course.’

When they had passed on further, about a stone’s cast, they heard the noise of bellows’ blowing like thunder, and the beating of sledges on the anvils and iron. Then St. Brendan armed himself all over his body with the sign of the Cross, saying: ‘O Lord Jesus Christ, deliver us from this malign island.’ Soon after one of the inhabitants came forth to do some work; he was all hairy and hideous, huge and dark (tenebrosus). When he saw the servants of Christ near the island, he withdrew into his forge hurriedly.

St. Brendan again armed himself with the sign of the Cross, and said to the brethren: ‘Put on more sail, and ply your oars more briskly, that we may get away from this island.’ Hearing this, the savage man, above mentioned, rushed down to the shore, bearing in his hand tongs with a burning mass of the slag, of great size and intense heat, which he flung at once after the servants of Christ; but it did them no hurt, for they were protected by the sign of the Cross. It passed them at a stade’s distance (150 to 200 meters), and where it fell into the sea, it fumed up like a heap of burning coals, and a great smoke arose as if from a fiery furnace. When they had passed on about a (Roman) mile ( =1,5 km) beyond the spot where this burning mass had fallen, all the dwellers on the island crowded down to the shore, bearing, each of them, a large mass of burning slag, which they flung, everyone in turn, after the servants of God; and then they returned to their forges, which they blew up into mighty flames, so that the whole island seemed one globe of fire, and the sea on every side boiled up and foamed, like a cauldron set on a fire well supplied with fuel. All the day the brethren, even when they were no longer within the view of the island, heard a loud wailing from the inhabitants thereof, and a noisome stench was perceptible at a great distance. Then St. Brendan sought to animate the courage of the brethren, saying: ‘Soldiers of Christ, be strong in faith unfeigned and in the armor of the Spirit, for we are now on the confines of hell; watch, therefore, and act manfully.

Chapter XXIV.

On another day there came into view a large and high mountain in the ocean, not far off, towards the north, with misty clouds about it, and a great smoke issuing from its summit, when suddenly the wind drove the boat rapidly towards the island until it almost touched the shore. The cliffs were so high they could scarce see the top were black as coal, and upright like a wall. Here the monk, who remained of the three who followed St. Brendan from his monastery, leaped from the boat, and made his way to the foot of the cliff, wailing and crying aloud: ‘Woe is me! Father, for I am forcibly torn away from you, and cannot return.’ But the brethren, seized with a great fear, quickly drew off from the shore; and,

lamenting loudly, cried unto the Lord: ‘Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us!’ St. Brendan plainly saw how the wretched man was carried off by a multitude of demons, and was already burning among them, and he exclaimed: ‘Woe is yours, unhappy son who has found the life’s end that you earned.’

Afterwards a favorable breeze caught the boat, then drove them southwards; and as they looked back, they saw the peak of the mountain unclouded, shooting up flames into the sky, which it drew back again to itself, so that the mountain seemed a huge living and breathing pyre (rognus ?) in flames.

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Neo-druidic (comment) counter-lay No. 2.

The island of blacksmiths. It is difficult to understand which stage of the progression of the soul after the death of the body can match such a description, so much the Christians distorted the druidic myths speaking of that. It should not be forgotten indeed if the first Christians in Ireland took over many techniques and details of druidic spirituality (like the loricae for example) they also completely reorganized them or added them with many elements having nothing to do with Celtic-druidism. The skeptics will see there the somewhat naive and simplistic description of a volcanic eruption, they evoke even on this subject the Jan Mayen islands (Norway).

It is clearly in any case that, in this episode, blacksmiths are compared to devils or demons, and that this island of blacksmiths is therefore in a way a prefiguration of hell. Our Latin text speaks well, besides, of the confines of hell, confinibus infernorum.

We translate by "savage" the Latin word “barbarus” which strictly speaking means “barbarian.”

Rognus. The old Latin dictionary that I kept of my youth bears “rogus” with a small illustration which does not leave any doubt.

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Chapter XXVII.

St. Brendan and his brethren, having received the blessing of the man of God, and having given mutually, the kiss of peace in Christ, sailed away towards the south during Lent, and the boat drifted about to and fro, their sustenance all the time being the water brought from the island, with which they refreshed themselves every third day, and were glad, as they felt neither hunger nor thirst. On the day before Easter, they reached the island of their former steward , who came to meet them at the landing place, and lifted everyone of them out of the boat in his arms. As soon as the divine offices of the day were duly performed, he set before them a repast.

In the evening they again entered their boat with this man, and they soon discovered, in the usual place, the great whale, upon whose back they proceeded to sing the praises of the Lord all the night, and to say their Masses in the morning. When the Masses had concluded, Iasconius moved away, all of them being still on its back; and the brethren cried aloud to the Lord: ‘Hear us, O Lord, the God of our salvation.’ But St. Brendan encouraged them: ‘Why are you alarmed? Fear not, for no evil shall befall us, as we have here only a helper on our journey.’

Chapter XXVIII. THE LAND PROMISED TO THE SAINTS.

The great whale swam in a direct course towards the shore of the Paradise of Birds, where it landed them all unharmed, and on this island they sojourned until the Octave of Pentecost. When that solemn season had passed, their steward , who was still with them, said to St. Brendan: ‘Embark now in your boat, and fill all the water-skins from the fountain. I will be the companion and the conductor of your journey hence–forth, for without my guidance you could not find the land you seek, the Land Promised to the Saints.’ Then, while they were embarking, all the birds of the island, as soon as they saw St. Brendan, sung together in concert: ‘May a happy voyage under his guidance bring you safely to the island of your steward.’

They took with them provisions for forty days, since their voyage towards the East was to last all that time, during which the steward went on before them, guiding their way. At the end of forty days, towards evening, a dense cloud overshadowed them, so dark that they could scarce see one another.

Then the steward said to St. Brendan: ‘Do you know, father, what darkness is this?’ And the saint replied that he did not know. ‘This darkness,’ said he, ‘surrounds the island you have sought for seven years; you will soon see that it is in reality the entrance to it ’; after an hour had elapsed a great light shone around them, and the boat stood by the shore.

When they had disembarked, they saw a land, extensive and thickly set with trees, laden with fruits, as in the autumn. All the time they were traversing that land, during their stay in it, no night was there, but a light always shone, like the light of the sun at midday. They ate only apples, and were watered with the springs strewing the country but and for the forty days they viewed the land in various directions, they could not find the limits thereof. One day, however, they came to a large river flowing in the middle of the land, which they could not by any means cross over. St. Brendan then said to the brethren: ‘We cannot cross over this river, and we must therefore remain ignorant of the size of this country.’ But while they were considering this matter, a young man of resplendent features, and very handsome aspect, came to them, and joyfully embracing and addressing each of them by his own name, then said to them: ‘Peace be with you, brothers, and with all who practice the peace of Christ. Blessed are they who dwell in your house, O Lord; they shall praise You forever and ever.’

He then said to St. Brendan : ‘this is the land you have sought after for so long a time, but you could not hitherto find it, because Christ our Lord wished fist to display you His diverse mysteries in this immense ocean. Return now to the land of your birth, bearing with you as much of those fruits and of those precious stones, as your boat can carry, for the days of your earthly pilgrimage must draw to a close, when you may rest in peace among your saintly brethren.

After many years this land will be made manifest to those who come after you when days of persecution may come upon the people of Christ. The great river you see here divides this land into two parts; and just as it appears now, teeming with ripe fruits, so does it ever remain, without any shadow of death whatever, for Christ’s light unfailing shines thereon.’ When St. Brendan inquired whether this land would be revealed unto men, the young man replied: ‘When the Most High Creator will have brought all nations under subjection, then will this land be made known to all His elect.’

Chapter XXIX. RETURN AND DEATH OF ST, BRENDAN.

Soon after, St. Brendan, having received the blessing of this man, prepared for his return to his own country. He gathered some of the fruits of the land, and various kinds of precious stones; and having taken a last farewell of the good steward who had each year provided food for him and his brethren, he embarked once more and sailed back through the darkness again.

When they had passed through this, they reached the ‘Island of Delights,’ where they remained for three days, as guests in the monastery; and then St. Brendan, with the abbot’s blessing, set sail in a direct course, under God’s guidance, then arrived at his own monastery, where all his monks gave glory to God for the safe return of the patriarch whose they had deplored the absence so much, and learned from him the wonderful works of God, which he had seen or heard during his voyage.

Then he precisely indicated the hour of his death to them, in accordance with the prophecy of the young man met at the edge of the river, and at which time should appear the land promised to the saints. What was confirmed by the course of events. Because, after having made arrangements, strengthened by the divine sacraments; little time after he ended in peace the days of his life, between the hands of his disciples, and went in glory to our Lord, to whom belong honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen!

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Neo-druidic (comment) counter-lay No. 3.

On the day before Easter. We translate so the Latin expression Sabbato Sancto.

Steward. We translate so the Latin term procurator, literally “who takes care.”

Land promised to the saints. We translate so the Latin expression Terram Repromissionis sanctorum.

Towards the East. Contra orientalem in Latin. It is to be a mistake.

When the days of great persecution fall down on the people of Christ. This prophecy concerning a great antichristian persecution to come leaves us, on the other hand, quite as perplexed. Would this be an allusion to the growing importance of Islam in the world? Which since the beginning of the 20th century, after being fallen very low with colonization, does not cease regaining even gaining ground. In any event, this promised land of the saints, anybody could not yet see it, despite all the research started by the voyage of St. Brendan, no ? That made us a little thinking of the land of the Yajuj and Majuj (Gog and Magog) in the chapter 18 of the Quran, in connection with the very pagan and even blasphemer Dhu’l- Qarneyn.

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Neo-druidic (comment) counter-lay No. 4.

As we have had already the opportunity to say , the voyage of St. Brendan is the ultimate result (it is a story of the eighth century) of the rewriting, so far as clumsy and awkward, distorted , manipulated, cut with many passages but on the contrary added with many interpolations having nothing to do with the original Celtic-druidic content , of a druidic legend describing for laymen the various states of the being lived by the soul/mind after the death, in the form of meeting with soothing deities like Epona/Niamh, Belin/Belen/Belenos known as Manannan the god of the harmony, or wrathful , kind Cathubodua, the ram-headed snake … as our Tibetan friends would say . The whole concretely taking the form of a long sea tour from island to island.

In the Latin text of the Christian legend , Heaven is compared to a land of Cockaigne , is separated into two by a river running in its middle, and is inhabited by male angels (in the Celtic-druidic versions there are also many female angels).

This Irish but in Latin language account reflects the monastic practices of time. And particularly that which consisted in being withdrawn on desolate rocks in the middle of the floods, as we can see it in the various accounts of Plutarch concerning mysterious islands in the Ocean around Great Britain. Case later also of the Skellig Island.

But the voyage of St. Brendan makes more than to insert Christian images in a beforehand bowdlerized druidic account . It remains overall based on the postulate there exists a border zone of this world, where various miracles can give us an idea of the life in the parallel universe generally designated by the name of hereafter. What is in conformity with the ancient druidic design of the hereafter which is not a disembodied world basically different from ours, according to Lucan about it: in it men eat drink make love, there are sun flower trees fruits and harvests, music, spectacular brawls without dead nor wounded for those who like that, books for the intellectuals in the islands of Plutarch, etc.?

Modern Druidism.

The Christian hagiography of this time borrowed or developed; more especially as the establishment of Christianity in Ireland, historically speaking, was not done at the expense (and with violence) of Irish paganism. It is better to suppose some syncretism (Plummer had had a presentiment of it in his study, although he then gave a particular attention to Aryan or pre-Aryan paganism). The island of delights located just beside the land promised to the saints, it is, of course, an allusion to Mag Meld or the other world of Irish druidic mythology.

Modern criticism withdraws the additions, and brings back the work to its primary form.

The will shown by modern " brendanian" criticism to locate the Voyage will be spread in two different directions.

a) To locate the Voyage historically, by the census and the dating of the manuscripts.

b) Same effort as regards the place of writing, by the research of influences explaining the genesis of the work. That makes it possible to get some assumptions about the place and the date of its composition, for want of having certainty.

With regard to the census and the dating of the manuscripts or versions, it is necessary to retain the name of Carl Selmer who, after exhaustive examination, drew from it a theory about the origin and the author of the Voyage . Whereas his predecessors kept to partial censuses without other consequences.

This census and this dating of the manuscripts of the Voyage, in a systematic way, came after the compared editions of a Latin text and of texts in vernacular languages, or even making these various versions merge in one adaptation.

The Vita secunda, the poem of Benedeit, and the Vita of the Lisbon manuscript.

The hagiography sticks by no means to these only aspects when you also take into account the Anglo-Norman poem by Benedeit - beginning of the 12th century - and the texts which are contemporary and relating to it. The Vita Secunda Sancti Brendani, of the manuscript number 3496 at the Bodleian Library – 13th century - and the Vita of the Lisbon manuscript, Codex 256 – 14th century -. The hagiographic work concerns only the adventure at sea, since, as for the Voyage, the life of St. Brendan is limited there to this same adventure. But if there is no more childhood nor feats once the test at sea passed, notable differences appear between the Voyage and the poem of Benedeit. The curiosity or the desire to find the place promised to the saints is the reasons for the departure. Although St. Brendan increases precautions, by confessing his project to Barintus, by fasting and by praying until an angel appears and helps him to prepare his voyage, and therefore to approve it. Benedeit insists more on the preparations, the unusual aspect of the voyage, and the efforts to perform it. So that we discover, in this worry for emphasizing the human qualities of the saint, a dramatization of the story that the Voyage hardly underlines on its side. In this sense also, Benedeit and the two other Lives, are relatively far away from the attempts of the Vita Prima (a rationalization in which the voyage is made practically possible) since the encountered difficulties are overcome mainly by the efforts of the saint and of his companions. And aim at increasing the interest of the listeners.

From the Voyage of Mael Duin to the Voyage of saint Brendan, the transposition appeared very clear to Zimmer. The Voyage of St. Brendan, in this case later to that of Mael Duin (seventh-eighth century), would be to situate in the 11th century) and would come from a mix-up between two Brendan.

- Brendan of Birr, whose Mael Duin during his voyage meets the community on an island.

- Brendan of Clonfert, younger, and which would have become, by mistake, the hero of this Voyage.

To criticisms of Zimmer's theory, other condemnations were added, which proposed the Voyage as a model to imrama and echtrai. The voyage of Mael Duin would have thus succeeded the Voyage of Brendan, instead it is the reverse. What is shown, for Nutt and Brown, by the fact that the voyage of Mael Duin too, borrows the stylistic process consisting in parceling out the description of Heaven (sic) in several islands, in order to keep the attention of listeners. These last criticisms were not totally without foundation , considering the antiquity (proven by J. Orlandi) of the Voyage, seventh century-eighth century, the probable date of drafting also of imrama and echtrai.

APPENDIX No. 2.

THE RULE OF THE CULDEES AS GIVEN BY SAINT MAELRUAIN OF TALLAGHT.

1.The Beatitudes of the refectory is sung standing, and thereafter the Magnificat and Ego vero and other canticles.

2. It is usual to make a brew of thick milk, with honey added on the eve of the chief festivals, namely, Christmas and the two Easters ((Easter and following Sunday ) . It is not lawful to make a feast or drink beer on these nights, because of going to Communion the next day.

3. On the Sundays of Great Lent (see notice No. 2) a draft of milk is allowed to those undergoing strict penance. A half-measure (selann) at night is, however, not forbidden on these Sundays. Penitents get no butter, but only on Saint Patrick's Day, and further, when this feast falls on a Friday or Wednesday, a draft of milk is what is taken on it. On a Sunday, or on a festal day if it falls otherwise than on a fast day, a half-measure (selann) is taken. Of bread the Culdees allow no increase, even on the festivals, but only of drink and of condiment and other things.

4. If there chance to be any kale, the quantum of bread is not diminished, because they regard kale as a condiment, and it is dressed with milk, not butter. As for a piece of fish, or a little beestings or cheese, or a hard-boiled egg or apples, none of these things diminish the quantum of bread, so long as not more than a little of any of them is eaten, nor all of them together. Of apples, five or six along with the bread are enough if they are large; while if they are small, twelve are sufficient.

5. Three or four heads of leeks are allowed. Curds and medg ( whey) are not eaten by them, but are used to make cheese. Flummery is made for them, and is not forbidden, provided that no rennet is put into it.The reason why it is not forbidden may be that it counts as bread. Whey (medg) of curds is not drunk alone, but is mixed with small curds as well.

6. The relaxation at Easter permits eggs and lard and the flesh of deer and wild swine.

7. It is usual to lay additional penance on cooks and milkers and scullions on account of spilling the produce, both milk and corn.

8. You may have flesh meats in Great Lent , when other things are scarce, yet unless lives are in danger, it is better to keep the fast.

9.On principal feast days which fall on a Thursday or Tuesday outside Lent a quarter of measure is allowed, with a small amount (bochtan) of beer or medg water (whey water). If, however, a sip of med -water (whey water) or a goblet of beer is not to be had, then a small mess of gruel is made instead, that is, a quarter ration. When there chances to be a goblet of beer, it is not drunk at a draft, though they may be thirsty, but in sips, because these quench thirst, and you do not have less sense of pleasure from them in your drink.

10.No half-measure of butter is made, but instead of them a draft of medg water (whey water) is taken on the evening of a Monday or Wednesday or Friday or Saturday, even outside of Lent , or on a principal feast day; but the feast day which comes on a Monday is transferred to Tuesday, one which

comes on Wednesday is transferred to Thursday, and one which comes on a Friday is transferred to the Tuesday following.

11. To a draft on new milk, if there be no other milk [mixed with it], a fourth part of water is added.

12. With the Culdees, castigation is not inflicted on a man by himself, but by some one else; and it is administered between Epiphany [and Easter], and between Low Sunday and Christmas Day following.

13. He that goes for the first time to midnight Mass [on Easter Eve] receives only the Bread and not the Cup, and he does not go again until the end of the year. He goes again to midnight Mass the year after, and receives the Bread of Easter on the morrow. The third time, he goes to midnight Mass and receives the Bread at Easter and on Christmas Day. The fourth time, he goes at Christmas and at the two Easters and at Pentecost. In the fifth year, he goes at the high festivals, and also after every forty nights. In the sixth year at the end of each month. In the seventh year, at the end of every fortnight. After seven years, he goes every Sunday.

14. The Our Father and Deus in adiutorium as far as festina are recited first facing east, with both hands raised to heaven and making the sign of the Cross with your right hand: then thus similarly facing each quarter, downward and upward . This they call "the Shrine of Piety"; but first a vigil with arms outstretched is made, and the name of this is "the Corslet of Devotion.”

15. When anyone fails to go to Communion on a Sunday, he goes on the Thursday following, because to wait until the next Sunday would be too long a delay for one who goes to Communion regularly every Sunday: for these two days are always specially observed by them for attending Mass.

16. Further, it is not necessary to put off minor confessions of evil thoughts and faults of idleness and bitter words and anger and so forth until Sunday, but they should be confessed immediately as they are committed.

17. He that makes confession to a soul friend, if he does penance as he directs, need not confess to another soul friend, excepting such sins as he may subsequently commit.

18. Frequent confession, however, does not profit, if the transgression be also frequent.

19. On Maundy Thursday ( see notice No. 3) no half-measure is made, except a draft of milk or a goblet of beer and, it may be, a spoonful of honey, for this is usual on solemn days and high festivals, without a vigil or castigation being imposed as punishment. Whey water and bread are the diet for this day: a sermon is preached, and then dinner in the afternoon.

20. At the washing of the feet the Beatitudes are recited as long as the washing lasts. After that comes the Sermon on the Washing.

21. When intercession is made for anyone at the celebration of Vespers, his Baptismal name is used.

22. When the Psalms are recited, one division is said standing and the next sitting, because when they remain seated, it begets sleep: while if they remain too long standing, it is wearisome.

23. Twelve repetitions of the Beati are a substitute for the hundred and fifty Psalms.

24. A mess of gruel is allowed to penitents on festivals and on Sundays and they have no exemption from vigils, except for one evening of very principal festival between Easter and Pentecost, and on Tuesday and Thursday between Christmas and Epiphany.

25. He that regularly abstains from flesh takes a small particle at Easter, as a precaution against the occurrence of dearth or famine during the year; for he that does not relax on Easter Day has no opportunity to do so till the following Easter.

26. The priest who falls away from his Orders may not offer the Sacrifice of the Mass thereafter, even though he do penance, since it is not admissible for a man without Orders to offer it.

27. When a chief festival falls on a Saturday, if it be outside Lent , the evening vigil is excused. If, however, it comes on a Wednesday or Friday or Monday, the indulgence is transferred to Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday.

28. Irksome, truly, is the matter of soul friendship, because if the proper remedy is prescribed, it is more often violated than fulfilled: while if the soul friend does not prescribe it, liability falls upon him; for there are many who deem it sufficient to make confession without doing penance. So it is better for the soul friend to admonish them of what is profitable for them, even though he does not demand confessions.

29.Recourse may be had, if necessary, to another soul friend, on obtaining leave from the original soul friend.

30.With the Culdeees it is not the practice to sleep in the oratory. Their practice is that two of them should remain in the oratory until Midnight, and recite the hundred and fifty Psalms: they dine at Nones and sleep until night, and sleep [again] from Midnight till Matins. Two others then remain from Midnight till Matins, and they also recite the hundred and fifty Psalms, and then sleep until Terce and say the Office of Terce in company with all the brethren.

31. It is the practice of the Culdees that while they are at dinner one of them reads aloud the Gospels and the Rule and miracles of Saints, to the end that their minds may be set on God, not on the meal: and the man who preaches at that time has his dinner in the afternoon, and in the course of the [next] day they are questioned severally about the subject of the sermon, to see whether their minds were occupied with in, on [the previous] night or not.

32. He that has not attended Mass on Sunday must recite fifty [Psalms], standing, in a closed house, with his eyes signed with the Cross: this is the price he pays for the Mass. A hundred genuflections and a vigil with arms outstretched , with the Beatitudes, discharge his obligation.

33. However much a man may suffer from thirst, he may not take a drink before midnight. He may drink between midnight and the office at bedtime.

34. If you are angry with a servant, and there is no cursing and abuse, you must first receive a hundred blows on the hands, and [also] pass that night on bread and water.

35. It is not lawful for a Culdee to drink anything after making water.

36. All Maelrúain's community keeps a fast once a month, namely, half rations of bread and half rations of water medg (of whey water).

37. It is proper to refuse the confession of one who does not perform the penance imposed by his soul friend. If anyone does not happen to find nearby a soul friend whom he considers sufficient (that is, one learned in the rules of conduct laid down in Scripture and in the Rules of the Saints), and if the precepts he brings from the learned soul friend whom he first met are observed, and if there be, moreover, some one to whom he may make confessions on each point, and if penance be done thereafter according to the rules of minor confession, it is no matter to whom his confession is made, even though it be to a student or to a young cleric.

38. There are four things for which no penance can be done in the land of Erin, namely

-lying with a dead woman

- transgressing with a sister or daughter

- falling into sin while holding higher Orders (i.e.: that of Bishop or Priest)

-and divulging a confession by saying, 'This is what this man did.'

39. Some persons aver that the small, delicate diet is safer and better for the soul than the large coarse diet. On the Feasts of the Apostles and high Festivals and Sundays a change of diet (that is, something more delicate than other fare) is proper, rather than an increase.

40. Further, when they are thirsty, a small amount (bochtan) of medg (whey) or buttermilk, with water added, may be taken. This is to be drunk in sips.

41.Anyone who eats before the time, or takes such food that is not customary for him to take, must fast for doing so two nights on bread and water.

42. Privies and urinals are abodes for evil spirits. The sign of the Cross should be made over these places, and a man should cross himself when he enters them, and it is not lawful to pray in them, except to repeat Deus in adiutorium (down to festina).

43 The food that is in a house when anyone dies in it ought to be blessed and distributed among the poor: because food ought not to be kept in the same house with a sick man, or eaten in the same house with a dead man, however holy he may be.

44 This is what Maelrúain heard by venerable persons about deserting the country. Anyone who deserts his country (save by removing from the east of it to the west and from the north of it to the south) is a denier of Patrick in heaven and of the faith he brought to Erin.

45.There is nothing that a man does on behalf of the soul of one who dies that does not help it, whether vigil or abstinence, or requiem or frequent benediction. Sons ought to do penance for their dead parents. Maedoc of Ferns and all his community had a full year on bread and water in order to gain the release of the soul of Brandub mac Echach from hell.

46. Now if a man should desire to practice abstinence, and if it has not been his habit to subtract from his rations, let him subtract one eighth for a period of six months. What he can bear then throughout that period in point of abstinence or in foregoing part of his sleep will abide with him till his death. If he desires further abstinence, let him subtract another eighth of his rations in the same way, up to three, four or five eighths. He can bear all that amount, provided he does it gradually; also, what he subtracts by degrees from his sleep will not be harmful to him. A man, however, who disciplines himself severely, and whom sickness or disease distresses through his abstinence, must impose upon himself only a little additional, like a child. If he endures for six months, he will be able to bear the further imposition until death.

47. It is forbidden to bathe in polluted water, and it is a defilement for everyone who pours such water upon his head. Persons in Orders whose head it touches must take care to anoint and cross themselves thereafter.

48. If you give your ration to God and consume the other half yourself, this serves instead of a fast.

49.When disease attacks a pregnant woman so that she is near to death, the Baptismal service is read aloud over water, and the woman makes confession on behalf of her unborn child, and the name of Flann or Cellach is given to it (each of these names being common to man or woman), and let the mother drink the water, so that it passes over the child, and this constitutes Baptism for it.

50.During the monthly sickness of daughters of the Church, they are excused from vigils, morning and evening, so long as it lasts, and gruel is to be made for them at Terce, at whatever time this happens, because it is right that this sickness should have attention. They do not attend Communion in such case, for they are unclean at these times.

51.Food that is brought from a distance on a Sunday as an offering to anyone, it is not lawful for him to eat, but he should distribute it among the poor.

52.The castigation of Sunday evening is administered on Saturday at the hour of Nones.

53.Tonsure is regularly performed once a month, on a Thursday.

54. Tithes are collected in this way. Every animal that a man owns is let out through a gap, and every tenth beast is given to God, except only oxen: because every tenth cartload of [the fruit of] their labor is taken.

55.Three profitable things in the day: prayer, labor and study: or it may be teaching or writing or sewing clothes, or any other profitable work that he can do; so that none be idle, as the Lord has said: 'You will not appear in my sight empty.'

56.Do not eat till you be hungry: do not sleep till you be ready for it: speak to none till there be cause.

57.The free tenure of the Church of God, in return for Baptism, and Communion and intercessory prayer, with boys for study and with the sacrifice of the Body of Christ on every altar. Churchmen have no claim to tithes, nor to the heriot cow, nor to the third that belongs to the patron's church, nor to compensation for valuables, unless the church provides its proper equivalents in Baptism and Communion and intercessory prayer for her tenant both living and dead, and unless there be sacrifice upon the altar on Sundays and high days, and every altar have its complete furniture. Any church which does not have its proper provision [of equipment and services] has not claim to the full compensation due to a church of God; but the name that Christ gives it is 'a den of thieves and robbers.”

58. In any church, moreover, in which there is an ordained priest from the minor churches of the laity, he has the claim to the stipend of his Orders, namely a house and garden and bed and a habit every year, so far as shall be in the power of the church, a sack [of seed corn] with its yield, a cow in milk every quarter, and every reasonable demand of his generally. On his part again, the rites of Baptism and Communion (that is the Communion Sacrament) and intercessory prayer for the living and the dead, and Mass every Sunday and every chief high day and every chief Festival: celebration of all the canonical hours, and chanting of the hundred and fifty Psalms daily, unless hindered by teaching or hearing confessions. Any Priest, therefore, who has no lawful title nor knowledge to discharge the duties of his Orders so that he is incompetent to celebrate the Hours and the Mass in the presence of kings and bishops, has no claim to the privileges of an ordained priest in state or in church.

NOTES.

1. We have deleted in reality paragraphs 59-65, which were added to the original rule by copyist monks of Roman Catholic obedience. Repeated reference to St. Patrick, various threats, will of controlling consciences, submission to the Church, in short, a prose that hardly honors Mankind.

2. Major fasting periods or major fasts are the following ones: 40 days before Easter, 40 days before Christmas and 40 days after Pentecost.

3. On Holy Thursday, monks washed each other's feet.

4. Medg = whey. Old Celtic mesgos.

Conclusion.

The Rule of Tallaght Culdees (the rules of life given to the Culdees in Tallaght by St. Maelruain) is a bewildering mixture of noblest precepts.

Rule No. 28. Irksome, truly, is the matter of soul friendship, because if the proper remedy is prescribed, it is more often violated than fulfilled: while if the soul friend does not prescribe it, liability falls upon him; for there are many who deem it sufficient to make confession without doing penance.

So it is better for the soul friend to admonish them of what is profitable for them, even though he does not demand confessions.

Here we find again indeed the role of spiritual advisor carried out by ancient high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht).

And more base concerns, not eschatological but SCATOLOGICAL.

Rule number 42, given to Culdees according to St. Maelruain of Tallaght.

It sounds like Jewish or Muslim precepts on purity.

What is less funny by contrast it's the incredible intellectual terrorism of paragraphs numbered 63, 64 and 65, intended to secure the domination of those odd Christians on the minds of their contemporaries.

APPENDIX No. 3.

THE RULE OF THE MONKS OF COLUMBAN OF BOBBIO.THE REGULA MONACHORUM.

I.OF OBEDIENCE.

At the first word of the senior, all on hearing should rise to obey, since their obedience is shown to God, as our Lord Jesus Christ says: "He who hears you hears Me.’’ (Luke 10 :16).Therefore if anyone hearing the word does not rise at once, he is to be judged disobedient.

II. OF SILENCE.

The rule of silence is decreed to be carefully observed, since it is written: " the nurture of righteousness is silence and peace.’’ (Isaiah 32 :17). And thus, lest one be apprehended as guilty of much talking, it is needful that he keeps silence, except for things profitable and necessary, since according to Scripture : in many words sin will not be lacking.’’ (Proverbs. 10 :19). Therefore the Savior says: "By your words you will be made a righteous person, and by your words you will be condemned.’’(Matthew 12 :37).

Justly will they be damned who would not say just things when they could, but preferred to say with garrulous loquacity what is evil, unjust, irreverent, empty, harmful, dubious, false, provocative, disparaging, base, fanciful, blasphemous, rude, and tortuous. Therefore we must keep silence on these and kindred matters, and speak with care and prudence, lest either disparagements or swollen oppositions should break out in vicious garrulity.

III. OF FOOD AND DRINK.

Let the monks' food be poor and taken in the evening, such as to avoid repletion, and their drink such as to avoid intoxication, so that it may both maintain life and not harm; vegetables, beans, flour mixed with water, together with the small bread weighing a paximatis (200 grams???) lest the stomach be burdened and the mind confused. For indeed those who desire eternal rewards must only consider usefulness and use. Use of life must be moderated just as toil must be moderated, since this is true discretion, that the possibility of spiritual progress may be kept with a temperance that punishes the flesh. For if temperance exceeds measure, it will be a vice and not a virtue; for virtue maintains and retains many goods. Therefore we must fast daily, just as we must feed daily; and while we must eat daily, we must gratify the body more poorly and sparingly; since we must eat daily for the reason that we must go forward daily, pray daily, toil daily, and daily read.

IV.OF POVERTY AND OF OVERCOMING GREED.

Since this is so, we have need of a few things, according to the word of the Lord, or even of one.’’ For a few things are true necessities without which life cannot be led, or even one thing, like food according to the letter. But we require purity of feeling by the grace of God, that we may understand spiritually what those few gifts of love are which are offered to Martha by the Lord.

V. OF OVERCOMING VANITY.

Let no large word proceed from a monk's mouth, lest his own large labor perish.

VII. OF THE CHOIR OFFICE.

But concerning the synaxis, that is, the office of psalms and prayers in canonical manner, some distinctions must be drawn, since its observance has been variously bequeathed to our remembrance by different authorities. Thus, in accordance with the nature of man's life and the succession of the seasons, the same will be variously suggested by myself also in writing. For it should not be stereotyped in view of the mutual changes of the seasons; for it is fitting that it be longer on the long nights and shorter on the short ones. Hence, in agreement with our predecessors, from the twenty-fourth of June, while the night increases, the office begins to grow gradually from twelve chants of the shortest measure on the night of the Sabbath or the Lord's Day, up to the beginning of winter, that is, the first of November. Then they sing twenty-five antiphonal psalms [of twice the same number] which always follow third after two chanted, in such a way that within the two aforesaid nights they sing the entire total of the psalter, while they modify the remaining nights for the whole winter with twelve chants. At winter's end, gradually each week throughout the spring, three psalms are always dropped, so that only twelve antiphons remain on the holy nights, that is, the thirty-six psalms of the daily winter office, but it is twenty-four throughout the whole spring and summer and up to the autumn equinox, that is, the twenty-fourth of September. Then the fashion of the synaxis is like that on the spring equinox, that is, the twenty-fifth of March, while by mutual changes it slowly grows and lessens.

Thus we must weigh our watching according to our strength […..]

However, as I have said, the true tradition of praying is that the capacity of the man devoted to this work should be realized without wearying of his vow, whether the excellence of his capacity allows this, or whether his mental grasp or physical condition could allow it, considering his limitations, and that it should be realized as far as the zeal of each demands, if he be unhampered and alone, or as far as the scope of his learning requires, or the leisure of his position, the amount of study, the type of occupation and the difference of ages permits, although this is to be reckoned as the excellence of a single work in such various ways, because it alternates with labor and circumstance. And thus, although the length of standing or singing may be various, yet the identity of prayer in the heart and mental concentration that is unceasing with God's help will be of a single excellence.

VIII. OF DISCRETION.

How necessary discretion is for monks is shown by the mistake of many, and indicated by the downfall of some, who beginning without discretion and passing their time without a sobering knowledge, have been unable to complete a praiseworthy life;’’since, just as error overtakes those who proceed without a path, so for those who live without discretion intemperance is at hand, and this is always the opposite of virtues which are placed in the mean between each extreme. Its onset is a matter of danger, when beside the straight way of discretion our foes place the stumbling blocks of wickedness and the offenses of various mistakes.Therefore we must pray God continually that He would bestow the light of true discretion to illumine this way, surrounded on every side by the world's thickest darkness, so that His true worshippers may be able to cross this darkness without error to Himself.

So discretion has got its name from discerning, for the reason that it discerns in us between good and evil, and also between the moderate and the complete. For from the beginning either class has been divided like light and darkness, that is, good and evil, after evil began through the devil's agency to exist by the corruption of good, but through God's agency Who first illumines and then divides (Genesis 1 :364). Thus righteous Abel chose the good, but unrighteous Cain fell upon evil (Genesis 4: 1-8) .

[Editor’s note. Let us remind, with due respect to noibo Columbanus, that nothing, but then nothing, in the biblical text, indicates that Cain was impious BEFORE being a victim of the divine discrimination we know. If he became impious, it is after, without confessed reason, being rejected by God, finally at least by the god-or-demon, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob].

God made all things good that He created (Genesis 1: 31), but the devil sowed evils over them ( Matthew 13: 24-30) by cunning craftiness and the sly inducement of a perilous design (Genesis 3 : 1-5) . What things then are good? Doubtless those which are untouched, and have remained in the undefiled state of their creation;’’which God [alone] created and "prepared’’, according to the Apostle (Ephesians 2: 10), " that we should walk in them; [which are] the good works in which in Christ Jesus we were created,’’ namely goodness, innocence, righteousness, justice, truth, pity, love, saving peace, spiritual joy, together with the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5 : 22). All these with their fruits are good.

But to these the evils are opposed, namely wickedness, seduction, unrighteousness, injustice, lying, greed, hatred, discord, bitterness, together with their manifold fruits, things which are born from them.

For countless are the things that are produced from the two opposites, that is, from goods and evils.But what departs from its established goodness and innocence is the first evil, which is the hubris of primal wickedness; the opposite of which is the lowly esteem of a righteous

goodness that acknowledges and glorifies its Creator, and this is a rational creature's first good. Thus the rest also have gradually grown to a huge forest of names in two sections.

Since this is so, the good must be firmly held by those that have God's help, which is ever to be prayed for in prosperity and in adversity, lest either in prosperity we be lifted up to hubris, or in adversity be cast down to despair. Thus we must always restrain ourselves from either danger, that is, from all excesses by a splendid temperance and true discretion, which cleaves to Christian lowliness and opens the way of perfection to Christ's true soldiers, namely by ever discerning rightly in doubtful cases, and everywhere dividing justly between good and evil, whether between both in external acts, or between flesh and spirit in the inner life, or between good works and character, or between action and contemplation, or between official duty and private devotion.

Therefore the evils are to be equally avoided, hubris, ill will, lying, seduction, unrighteousness, wicked transgressions of morality, gluttony, fornication, avarice, wrath, dejection, inconstancy, vainglory, boasting, slander; the goods of the virtues are also to be followed, lowliness, kindness, purity, obedience, temperance, chastity, liberality, patience, cheerfulness, constancy, zeal, persistence, watchfulness, silence, which through an enduring courage and sobering moderation, as in some weighing balance of discretion, are to be weighed in the performance of our customary work, according to the capacity of our endeavor, if everywhere we seek sufficiency. For it is doubtful to none that the man to whom sufficiency is not enough’’ has overstepped the measure of discretion, and whatever oversteps the very measure is clearly a vice.

Thus between the little and the excessive there is a reasonable measure in the midst, which ever recalls us from every superfluity on either side, and in every case posited provides what is universally fixed by human need, and spurns the unreasonable demand for superfluous desire. And this measure of true discretion, weighing all our actions in the scales of justice, in no wise allows us to err from what is just, or to suffer a mistake, if we ever follow straight behind it as our leader. For while we must always restrain ourselves from either side, according to that saying "Keep yourselves from the right and from the left,’’ (cf. Deut. 5: 32) we must ever proceed straight forwards by discretion, that is, by the light of God,

while very often we say and sing the victorious psalmist's verse, "My God, enlighten my darkness, since in You I am rescued from temptation’’(Ps. 17: 29-30). For "temptation is the life of man on earth’’ (Job 7: 1)

IX. OF MORTIFICATION.

Thus there is a threefold scheme of mortification: not to disagree in mind, not to speak as one pleases with the tongue, not to go anywhere with complete freedom. Its part is ever to say to a senior, however adverse his instructions, "Not as I will but as You wilL,’’ (Matt. 26: 39) following the example of the Lord and Savior, Who says, "I came down from heaven, not to do My will, but the will of Him Who sent Me, the Father (John 6 : 38).

THE END.

Bobbio manuscripts add a paragraph.

X. OF THE MONK’S PERFECTION.

Let the monk live in a community under the discipline of one father and in company with many, so that from one he may learn lowliness, from another patience. For one may teach him silence and another meekness. Let him not do as he wishes, let him eat what he is bidden, keep as much as he has received, complete the tale of his work, be subject to whom he does not like. Let him come weary to his bed and sleep walking, and let him be forced to rise while his sleep is not yet finished. Let him keep silence when he has suffered wrong, let him fear the superior of his community as a lord, love him as a father, believe that whatever he commands is healthful for himself, and let him not pass judgment on the opinion of an elder, to whose duty it belongs to obey and fulfill what he is bidden’’. As Moses says, "Hear, O Israel and be quiet’’ (Deut. 27: 9).

APPENDIX No. 4.

COMMUNAL RULE ASCRIBED TO COLUMBAN OF BOBBIO.

A post-Columbanian compilation (which is not therefore due to the hand of St. Columban ) and of which the final development had to be done about 620-630. It is a long text, difficult, probably written in several stages. The Benedictine influence is already appreciable besides in it.

As we have already said elsewhere in this little book, this penitential, or regula coenobialis, therefore legislated on the violation of the primary principles of monks: obedience, chastity, moderation, poverty, silence. It was particularly severe * besides and fluctuated between recitation of psalms, fasts, isolation, or whiplashes. The punishments themselves varied according to the importance of the fault.

* With some exceptions : the prayers said for the culprit of certain faults by the victims of the aforesaid faults, venial it is true (minor sins). The opposite would have been expected : the offender (awkward?) condemned to recite the Lord's Prayer and three Ave Maria. For example. Could they be mistakes in the handing down of the texts?

It is by no means up to us, who are not very kosher, to produce a detailed publication of such a document. It is to the experts of Christianity to do it! In what concerns us, we will be satisfied to provide below an outline of it.

REGULA COENOBIALIS.

A diversity of faults should be cured by the application of a diversity of penance. Therefore, my dearest brethren:

See below.

First penitential.

I.Confession and penance free from death. Therefore not even the very small sins are to be omitted from the confession, since, as it is written, ’’He who omits small things gradually declines’’ [confession should be made before meat, before entering our beds, or whenever it is opportune to make it].

Thus him who has not kept grace at table and has not responded ‘Amen,’ it is ordained to correct with six blows. Likewise him who has spoken while eating, not because of the wants of another brother, it is ordained to correct with six. If one has called anything his own, with six blows. Him who has spoken with a shout, that is, has talked in a louder tone than the usual, with six blows.

II. If he has not blessed the lamp, that is, when it is lighted by a younger brother and is not presented to a senior for his blessing, with six blows. If he has called anything his own, with six blows. [If he has done some idle work, with six blows]. Let him who has cut the table with a knife be corrected with ten blows. Whoever of the brethren, to whom the care of cooking or serving has been entrusted, has spilt any drop, it is ordained to correct him by prayer in church after the end of the office, so that the brethren pray for him. Let him who has forgotten the prostration at the synaxis, that is, at the office, namely the prostration in church after the end of each psalm, do penance likewise. In the same

manner let him who has lost the crumbs be corrected by prayer in church; yet this small penance is only to be assigned to him, if it is something small that he has spilt.

III. But if through negligence or forgetfulness or failure of care he has lost more than usual either of fluids or of solids, let him do penance with a long pardon in church by prostrating himself without moving any limb while they sing twelve psalms at the twelfth hour. Or, of course, if it is much that he spilt, according to the measures of beer or portions of whatever things he has lost in spilling through the occurrence of neglect, let him supply for an equal number of days what he had been accustomed to receive lawfully for his own use, and know that he has lost them to his cost, so that he drinks water in place of beer. For what is spilt on the table and runs off it, we say that it suffices to seek pardon in his place.

IV. Him who through a cough has not chanted well at the beginning of a psalm, it is ordained to correct with six blows. Likewise him who has bitten the cup of salvation with his teeth, with six blows. Him who has not followed the order for the sacrifice for celebrating, with six blows. [ A priest when celebrating who has not trimmed his nails, and a deacon, whose beard has not been shaved, him who receives the sacrifice, approaches the chalice, straight from farm-work, with six blows]. And him who is smiling at the synaxis, that is, at the office of prayers, with six blows; if his laughter has broken out aloud, with an imposition, unless it has happened pardonably. [ A priest, when celebrating, and a deacon, who are holding the sacrifice, should beware lest they wander with roving eyes; and if they neglect this, they must be corrected with six blows].

He who tells idle tales to another, if he censures himself at once, with a mere pardon; but if he has not censured himself [but has declined the way in which he ought to excuse them] with an imposition of silence during a day or fifty blows. He who without reflection sets counsel against counsel, with fifty blows. He who has struck the altar, with fifty blows.

V. He who utters a loud speech without restraint, unless where there is need, with an imposition of silence or fifty blows. He who has replied to a brother on his pointing something out, ‘It is not as you say,’ except for seniors speaking honestly to juniors, with an imposition of silence during a day or fifty blows; unless this only be allowed that he should reply to his brother of equal standing, if there is something nearer the truth than what the other says and he remembers it, ‘If you recollect rightly, my brother,’ and the other on hearing this does not repeat his assertion, but humbly says, ‘I trust that you remember better; I have erred in speech by forgetfulness, and am sorry that I said ill.’

VI. Whoever has not fled to the haven of rest of the Lord's humility, when opening the way of argument for others largely as he sticks to a word of hubris, let him be cut off in his cell from the freedom of holy church in order to do penance, until his good will is made known, and through humility he be joined afresh to the holy congregation.

He who utters a loud speech to censure the porter's work, that the porter has not kept the hours well, with an imposition of silence during a day or fifty blows. Let him who corrects or slanders other brethren's works, do penance with three impositions. Let him who utters reproof against reproof, that is, who chides one who is chiding him, likewise do penance with three impositions of silence.

VII. He who slanders a brother, or hears one slandering, and does not at once correct him [immediately] , with three impositions of silence. He who utters some abuse with spleen, let him likewise do penance with three impositions.

VIII. He who advises a relative when learning some skill or anything enjoined by the seniors that he should rather learn reading, with three impositions of silence.

He who dares to say to his immediate superior, ‘You shall not judge my case, but our senior, or the remaining brethren,’ or, ‘We will all go to the father of the community,’ must be punished with forty days in penance [on bread and water] unless he himself says [lying prostrate before the brethren] ‘I am sorry for what I said.’

He who does not bring back what he is furnished with until the morrow, if he himself remembers and brings it back, with six blows; if he forgets until it is sought for, with twelve. If anyone has forgotten to ask his due of penance until the morrow, with six blows. He who murmurs, who says, ‘I will not do it unless the abbot or prior tells me,’ with three impositions. He who makes unnecessary journeys or detours, with twelve strokes.

[Let the overseer provide for showing hospitality to arrivals, whether pilgrims or other brethren, and let all the brethren be ready to serve with all diligence for the sake of God. Although the overseer has not noticed or has not been present, let the remainder do carefully what is needful, and guard their baggage, until this is prepared and allotted to a keeper; but if they have neglected it, with a penance for this as seems good to be applied according to the judgment of the priest].

Let him who does not ask pardon when corrected do penance with an imposition of silence. He who has visited other brethren in their cells without asking leave, let him do penance likewise; or if he has gone to the kitchen after nones [without instructions or orders] with an imposition of silence; or if he

has gone outside the wall, that is, outside the bounds of the monastery, without asking, with an imposition of silence.

Youths who are assigned a period for not speaking to each other, if they have transgressed it, with three impositions of silence. [Let them say this only, ‘You know that we are not allowed to speak with you’]. And if anyone has commanded what they are not allowed, let them say, ‘You know that we are not allowed’; and [if] the other commands further, let him be condemned to three impositions of silence, but let them say, ‘We do what you say, so that the good of obedience may be preserved.’ But they must particularly beware, that just as they do not speak together among themselves, so they do not confer either through the lips of another brother. But if they have transgressed this knowingly, let them do penance in the same way as if they had spoken among themselves.

IX. He who utters an idle word, to be condemned to silence for the two following hours, or to twelve blows.Let brethren do penance, however hard and dirty the work they do, not wash their heads except on the Lord's day, that is, the eighth, but if not, on every fifteenth day, or, of course, on account of the growth of flowing locks, let each employ the judgment of his senior in washing.[ For turning aside from the way without asking leave or receiving a blessing, six blows]. If the immediate superior is made aware of minor penances at table, let him impose them there, and let no more than twenty-five blows be given [at one time].

If a monk to whom his abbot or immediate superior has given commandments, repeats the same command to the brethren, it must be kept in such a way that the junior obey the senior; yet let him be careful to see whether what he has told them be correct. If the abbot or principal overseer commands something, and the deputy overseer repeats something else, the monk himself must obey, though silently pointing out what the other principal has commanded; but within the monastery, let none command with another overriding commandment, except him who bears supreme authority.

Let the ranks who are senior be in the middle of the oratory, and the rest stand by on right and left, except for the celebrant and him who serves him. And on every dominical festival let the hymn of the Lord's Day be sung, and on the opening day of Easter-tide. Now let him who has begun to approach the altar, to receive the sacrifice, prostrate himself thrice. A penitent also, when overtaken by the necessity of a journey, and walking with the rest who are lawfully using food, if the third hour has come and they are making a long march, let him also receive some measure of food for a portion, and let him receive what is lacking to it when he goes to rest.

Second penitential.

X. If any brother has been disobedient, let him spend two days on one loaf (one paximatis) and water. If any says, ‘I will not do it,’ three days on one loaf (one paximatis) and water. If any murmurs, two days on one loaf ( one paximace) and water. If any does not seek pardon or mentions a bad excuse, two days on one loaf (one paximatis) and water. If two brethren have had an argument and come to anger, two days on one loaf (one paximatis) and water. If anyone maintains a falsehood and affirms his difference, two days on one loaf (one paximatis) and water. If any contradicts a brother and does not ask his pardon, two days on one loaf (one paximatis). If any cuts short what he is bidden and breaks the rule, two days on one loaf (one paximatis) and water. If any when a task is enjoined him, actually does it carelessly, two days on one loaf (one paximatis) and water. If any has slandered his abbot, seven days on one loaf ( one paximatis) and water; if his brother, twenty-four psalms, if a lay person, twelve psalms. If any forgets something out of doors, if it is comparatively small, twelve psalms, if it is greater, thirty psalms. If any has lost or destroyed something, according to its price, so also is his penance.

XI. If any holds converse with a lay person unbidden, twenty-four psalms. If any, when he has completed his task, does not ask for something else and has done something unbidden, let him sing twenty-four psalms. If anyone has been double-tongued and distresses the hearts of the brethren, one day on a loaf (one paximatis) and water. If any has eaten in a strange house unbidden and reaches his own house, one day on one paximatis.

If any has related a past sin, one day with a paximatis. Or he who has walked in the world and speaks of the world's sin, one day on bread and water. And the lukewarm, who has heard someone murmuring and slandering or doing something against the rule and agrees to withhold confession, one day on a paximatis.

XII. If any excites anger in his brother and afterwards makes it up to him, and the other does not forgive him but sends him to his senior, he who has excited anger, twenty-four psalms, and the other, one day on bread and water. If any has wanted something and the overseer forbids and the abbot orders, five days.

XIII. If any eats before the ninth hour on the fourth and sixth day, unless he be sick, [living] two days on bread and water. If any has told a lie unwittingly, fifty lashes; if he speaks wittingly and presumptuously, two days on bread and water. If his lie is contradicted and he affirms it, seven days on bread and water.

If any monk has slept in the same house as a woman, two days on bread and water; if he did not know that he ought not, one day. If any does not shut the church, twelve psalms.

XIV. If any comes too slowly to the prayers, fifty, or noisily, fifty, or if he is too slow in doing what he is told, fifty. If he has made a sound after the peace, fifty. If he has replied stubbornly, fifty. If he comes into the house with his head covered, fifty lashes. If he has spoken with something in his mouth, fifty. If he has caused a noise while prayer is made, fifty lashes. If any retains anger or spleen or ill will against his brother, according to the time he has kept it, so shall be his penance on bread and water; but if he has confessed on the first day, let him sing twenty-four psalms.

XV.Whoever has lost a host and does not know where it is, let him do penance for a year. He who has shown neglect to the host, so that it is dried up and eaten by worms, with the result that it is reduced to nothing, let him do penance for half a year. He who has been guilty of neglect to the host, so that a worm is found in it and yet it is entire, let him burn the worm with fire and hide its ashes in the earth near the altar, and himself do penance forty days. And he who neglects the host, and it has been changed and the bread has lost its savor, if it is colored red, let him do penance twenty days, if deep purple, let him do penance fifteen days. But if it has not been changed in color, but is congealed, let him do penance seven days.

He who has vomited the Supper on a day of sacrifice, with the excuse of richer food than usual and not through the vice of gluttony but of indigestion, twenty days; if because of ill health, let him do penance ten days on bread and water.

Let him who corrects ungently, be taken note of, until he asks pardon from the brother who has been reproved, with (for him) thirty strokes also or fifteen psalms. He who upbraids another with a shameful sin, before he corrects him alone between themselves,’’ let him be reproved as the Lord says, until he makes it up to the one who has been upbraided, and let him do penance for three days on bread and water.

He who breaks the rule of a particular command or of the general discipline, let him be expelled and remain without food, that he may be readmitted on the morrow. He who speaks freely to a woman quite alone without the presence of trusty persons, let him remain without food, or two days on bread and water, or two hundred strokes.He who dares to make a journey without the permission of the superior, by going out free and unrestrained without any need, let him be chastised with fifty strokes.

The taking up of private work, with a hundred strokes, the possession of anything, which need does not universally allow the brethren, must be restrained with the loss of the same and a hundred strokes.

But to cause to give or receive something necessary and lawful without orders, with twelve strokes, unless some reason forbids it, so that a prayerful reparation should win pardon.He who speaks while eating, with six strokes. And the man whose voice carries from table to table, with six strokes; if he has sent a shout from the house out of doors or from outside into the house, with twelve strokes.Leaving or entering the house or doing a task without prayer and the sign of the cross, with twelve strokes. Saying mine or yours, with six strokes. An affirmation without reflection made against another, with six blows; if it is an altercation, with a hundred strokes or an imposition of silence.

If he has not kept the order of chanting, with six blows.If at the appointed time of silence, he has dared to speak without necessity, with seventeen strokes.

If any has lost or wasted anything from the furniture of the monastery through lack of regard, let him restore it by his own sweat and application of work, or in proportion to its value at the judgment of the priest let him do penance with an imposition of silence , or one day on bread and water. If he has lost or broken it not through lack of regard but by some accident, let him pay for his neglect not otherwise than by a public penance; when all the brethren are gathered at the synaxis, he will ask pardon lying prostrate on the ground all the time, until the performance of the prayers is finished, and will receive it when he has been ordered at the abbot's judgment to rise from the floor. In the same way let any make satisfaction who has come too slowly when summoned to prayer or to some work.

If he has faltered in chanting a psalm, if he has replied needlessly, too harshly, or too proudly, with an imposition of silence . If he has fulfilled the obedience enjoined too carelessly, with an imposition. If he has murmured even slightly, with an imposition of silence. If preferring reading to work or obedience,

with an imposition of silence. If he has carried out his appointed duties too lazily, with an imposition of silence. If at the dismissal of the synaxis, he has not hastened back to his cell at once, with an imposition of silence. If he has stood with another for a short time, with an imposition of silence. If he has gone aside anywhere for a short space of time, with an imposition of silence. If he has dared to converse at all with one who is not the partner of his cell, with an imposition of silence. If he has seen any of his relatives or lay friends, or spoken to such unbidden, if he has received a letter from anyone, if he has dared to send one without asking his abbot, with an imposition of silence. If he has hindered anyone from the fulfillment of a necessary deed, with an imposition of silence. If through enthusiasm of mind, he has gone beyond the lawful measure of devotion, with an imposition of silence. If thanks to his own indifference, he has dared to restrain another who is zealous from some lawful deed, with an imposition of silence.

He who has occasioned a brawl, let him do penance for seven days. However, he who has despised his immediate superior or spoken evil of the rule is to be cast out, unless he himself says, ‘I am sorry for what I said. ’ Yet if he has not humbled himself, let him do penance for forty days, since he is infected with the disease of hubris [The talkative is to be punished with silence, the restless with the practice of gentleness, the gluttonous with fasting, the sleepy with watching, the hubristic with imprisonment]. Let each suffer exactly in accordance with his deserts that the just may justly live. Amen.

[These things have seemed good to be ordained for those who wish to take the high road to the topmost peaks of heaven,’’ and who, while the sins of savage men surround them in the darkness, wish to cleave to the One God, sent upon this earth].

Here ends the Communal Rule of St. Columban the Abbot.

APPENDIX No. 5.

THE PENITENTIAL (IN THE STRICTEST SENSE OF THE WORD) OF ST COLUMBAN OF BOBBIO.

“DE PAENITENTIA.”

1 . True penance is not to commit things deserving penance but to lament such things as have been committed. But since this is broken by the weakness of many, not to say of all, the measures of penance must be known. A scheme of these has been handed down by the holy fathers, so that in accordance with the greatness of the offenses the length also of the penances should be ordained.

2. Therefore, if anyone has sinned in thought, that is, has desired to kill a man, or to commit fornication, or to steal, or to feast in secret and be drunken, or indeed to strike someone, or to desert, or to do anything else like this, and has been ready in his heart to carry out these sins: let him do penance for the greater ones half a year, for the lesser ones forty days on bread and water.

3. If anyone has sinned in acts with the common sins, if he has committed the sin of murder or sodomy, let him do penance for ten years. If he has committed fornication once only, let the monk do penance three years, if oftener, seven years; if he has deserted and broken his vows, if he repents and returns at once, let him do penance three forty-day periods, but if after a period of years, three years.

4. If anyone has stolen, let him do penance for a year.

4 a. If anyone has perjured himself, let him do penance for seven years.

5. If anyone has struck his brother in a quarrel and spilt blood, let him do penance for three years.

6. If anyone has gotten drunk and vomited, or, being overfed, for this reason has vomited the host, let him do penance forty days. However, if he is forced by ill health to vomit the host, let him do penance seven days. If anyone has lost the host itself, let him do penance for a year.

12. The talkative is to be punished with silence, the restless with the practice of gentleness, the gluttonous with fasting, the sleepy with watching, the hubristic with imprisonment, the deserter with expulsion; let each suffer exactly in accordance with his deserts, that the just may live justly.

Diversity of offenses causes diversity of penances. For doctors of the body also compound their medicines in diverse kinds, thus they heal wounds in one manner, sicknesses in another, boils in another, bruises in another, festering sores in another, eye diseases in another, fractures in another, burns in another. Then so also should spiritual doctors treat with diverse kinds of cures the wounds of souls, their sicknesses, offenses, pains, ailments, and infirmities. But since this gift belongs to few, namely to know to a nicety all these things, to treat them, to restore what is weak to a complete state

of health; let us set out even a few prescriptions according to the traditions of our elders, and according to our own partial understanding, ‘For we prophesy in part and we know in part. ’

1. First we must enact concerning capital sins, which are punished even by the sanction of the law……

Finally, we must deal with the minor sanctions for monks.

26. If anyone has left the enclosure open during the night, let him do penance with a special fast ; but if during the day, with twenty-four blows, if others were not following behind when he left it open. If someone has gone immediately in front of himself without permission, let him do penance with a special fast.

APPENDIX No. 6.

RULE OF SAINT BENEDICT OF NURSIA AS FOR CLOTHING.

Chapter 55.

Let clothing be given to the brethren1) according to the nature of the place in which they dwell and its climate; for in cold regions more will be needed, and in warm regions less. This is to be taken into consideration, therefore, by the Abbot.

We believe, however, that in ordinary places the following dress is sufficient for each monk, a cowl 2) thick and woolly for winter, thin or worn for summer, a tunic 3),a scapular 4) for work, stockings and sandals to cover the feet.

The monks should not complain about the color or the coarseness of any of these things, but be content with what can be found in the district where they live and can be purchased cheaply.The Abbot shall see to the size of the garments that they be not too short for those who wear them,but of the proper fit.

Let those who receive new clothes always give back the old ones at once, to be put away in the wardrobe for the poor.

For it is sufficient if a monk has two tunics and two cowls, to allow for night wear and for the washing of these garments; more than that is a superfluity and should be taken away. Let them return their stockings also and anything else that is old when they receive new ones.

Those who are sent on a journey shall receive boxer shorts 5) from the wardrobe, which they shall wash and restore on their return. And let their cowls and tunics be somewhat better than what they usually wear.

These they shall receive from the wardrobe when they set out on a journey,and restore when they return.

For bedding let this suffice: a mattress, a sheet ? a woolen blanket and a pillow…..

In order that the vice of private ownership may be cut out by the roots, the Abbot should provide all the necessary articles: cowls, tunics, stockings, sandals, belts, knives, styluses, needles, handkerchiefs, writing tablets; that all pretext of need may be taken away.

1) What the primitive Benedictine costume could well resemble ? Everything considered, it seems that it hardly differed from that of the farmers of the time.

2) The cowl was the outerwear: it was, it seems, a coat equipped with a big hood. Let us remark on this subject that the traditional costume of the Christian cenobitic monks of the Egyptian Thebaid was probably inspired by the caracalla or hooded tunic imposed by the emperor Antoninus, son of Severus, in a form lengthened down to heels it is true, and this caracalla antoniniana or major, thus forms another of the possible origins of the traditional monastic habit.

3) The tunic, or underwear, was worn t in Rome for a long time by everyone; at the time of saint Benedict, it had lengthened and had sleeves. It was tight at the waist by a belt, which was also used to hike the tunic up, in order to work, or to walk. It was therefore in fact a kind of shirt.

4) The scapular was an additional clothing that people wear only to make work more easily. It was to be a kind of strip which, slipped around the neck and crossed on the chest as well as the back, tightened the more or less loose tunic.

5) The wearing of boxer shorts on a journey is explained by a reason for decency, the travelers being accustomed to hike very high their dress at certain times (crossing of a river, etc.).

6) At that time a stylus was generally used for writing, a stylus with which characters were traced on tablets (tabulae) coated with wax.

Reform of saint Benedict of Aniane at the council of Aachen in July 817.

Decisions are promulgated in the form of a capitulary, the Capitulare monasticum of July 10th, 817. This text imposes on all the monasteries the rule of saint Benedict re-examined and updated by Benedict of Aniane because indeed it is the latter who codified it. In the future, the monks will have all to follow only one and the same rule - una regula - as only one and the same interpretation of this rule (that by Benedict of Aniane), materializing in the capitulary of 817 by a common habit - una consuetudo - i.e., by a set of practical measures relating to the daily life: poverty of clothing and of food, regulation of the fasts, of the tonsure, of schedule and of the contents of prayers.

In his concordia regularum saint Benedict of Aniane also supplements the primitive Benedictine rule by adding precise details in his comment of saint Benedict of Nursia.

Length of the cowls two cubits or 90 centimeters that is covering the knees

Etc.etc.

APPENDIX No. 7.

“ They are said there to learn by heart a great number of verses [......] That practice they seem to me to have adopted for two reasons ; because they neither desire [.....] nor those who learn among them, to devote themselves the less to the efforts of memory, relying on writing; since it generally occurs to most men, that, in their dependence on writing, they relax their diligence in learning thoroughly, and their employment of memory” (Caesar. B.G. VI, 13).

RECONSTRUCTION ATTEMPT (BEYOND THE COLUMBANIAN VENEER?) OF THE FUNCTIONING

OF A DRUIDIC SCHOOL.

To only see what that could produce, since Alexander BERTRAND stated that Christian monasteries in Ireland succeeded druidic schools, we tried to find again what could be the hypothetical druidic rule at the origin of that of noibo Columban of Bobbio.

But let our readers make no mistake there! So sympathetic can the work of Columban of Bobbio seem to be, on a certain number of points, the fact remains that this fanatic monk set up an inquisitorial covering of countries; to impose on them, through terror (of the punishment in hell) most obscurantist or retrograde dogmas , of his Church. That of the Blessed Virgin, for example. The point 25 of his penitential also attacks Bonosians. And he also equates , of course, former gods of the Celtic temples (fana, singular fanum), with demons.

Item No. 24. “If a layman has eaten or drunk beside temples (fana) if he did it through ignorance , let him undertake forthwith never to do it again, and let him do penance forty days on bread and water ; but if he did it in derision, that is, after the priest had declared to him that this was sacrilege, and if then he communicated (latin communicaverit) at the table of demons, if it was only through the vice of greed that he did or repeated it, let him do penance for three forty-day periods on bread and water ; but if he did it in worship of the demons or in honor of their symbolic representation ( simulacrum) , let him do penance for three years .”

RULE OF NOIBO COLUMBAN OF BOBBIO THEREFORE REDONE.

(Draft found between the pages of a book by the heirs to Peter DeLaCrau.)

I.OF OBEDIENCE.

At the first word of the senior, all on hearing should rise to obey.

II. OF SILENCE.

Will they be damned who would not say just things when they could, but preferred to say with garrulous loquacity what is evil, unjust, empty, irreverent , dubious, false, provocative, disparaging, base, rude, and tortuous. Therefore we must keep silence on these and kindred matters, and speak with care and prudence, lest either disparagements or swollen oppositions should break out in vicious garrulity.

III. OF FOOD AND DRINK.

Vegetables, beans, flour mixed with water, together with a small bread lest the stomach be burdened and the mind confused. Use of life must be moderated just as toil must be moderated, since this is true discernment, that the possibility of spiritual progress may be kept. If temperance exceeds measure, it will be a vice and not a virtue; for virtue maintains and retains many goods. We must eat daily for the reason that we must go forward daily, pray daily, toil daily, and daily learn.

IV.OF VOLUNTARY POVERTY AND OF THE FIGHT AGAINST GREED.

Few things indeed are true necessities without which life cannot be led, or even one thing, like food according to the letter.

V. OF OVERCOMING VANITY.

Let no large word proceed from a monk's mouth, lest his own zeal to labor perish.

VI. OF PURITY.

What profit is it if he be pure in body, if he be not pure in mind?

VII. OF THE OFFICE.

There are some people who have the same number twelve of recitations, whether on short nights or on long ones, but they render this duty in four portions during the night; at nightfall, at midnight, at cockcrow and at morning. This office seems small to some in winter, so in summer it is found burdensome and heavy enough, while with its frequent risings in the night's short length it does not cause so much weariness as exhaustion. But on the most holy nights, namely on those of the Sunday or Monday, three times the same number is performed at the morning, that is, with thrice ten and six.

However the true tradition of praying is that the capacity of the man devoted to this work should be realized without wearying of his vow, whether the excellence of his capacity allows this, or whether his mental grasp or physical condition could allow it, considering his limitations, and that it should be realized as far as the zeal of each demands, if he be unhampered and alone, or as far as the scope of his learning requires, or the leisure of his position, the amount of study, the type of occupation and the difference of ages permits, although this is to be reckoned as the excellence of a single work in such various ways, because it alternates with labor and circumstance.

But concerning the moments when all get together for offices or the length of the songs, some distinctions must be drawn, since its observance has been variously bequeathed to our remembrance by different authorities. Thus, in accordance with the nature of man's life and the succession of the seasons, the same will be variously suggested by myself also in writing. For it should not be stereotyped in view of the mutual changes of the seasons; for it is fitting that song be longer on the long nights and shorter on the short ones.

Hence, in agreement with our predecessors, from the twenty-fourth of June, while the night increases, the length of the chants of the office begins to grow gradually from twelve chants of the shortest measure on the night of the Sunday or Monday, up to the beginning of winter, that is, the first of November. Then they sing twenty-five recitations while they modify the remaining nights for the whole winter with twelve chants.

At winter's end, i.e. February the first, gradually each fortnight throughout the spring, three recitations are always dropped, so that only twelve antiphons remain on the holy nights, that is, the thirty-six recitations of the daily winter office, but it is twenty-four throughout the whole spring and summer and up to the autumn equinox, that is, the twenty-fourth of September. Then the fashion of the synaxis is like that on the spring equinox, that is, the twenty-fifth of March, while by mutual changes it slowly grows and lessens.

VIII. OF MEASURE IN EVERYTHING.

Measure is what discerns in us between good and evil, and also between the moderate and the complete. For from the beginning either class has been divided like light and darkness, that is, good and evil, after evil began, by the corruption of good.

What things then are good ? Doubtless those which are untouched, and have remained in the undefiled state of their creation. Truth, justice, innocence, piety, peace, goodness, pity. All these with their fruits are good.

But to these evils are opposed, namely lying, injustice, unrighteousness, discord, bitterness, greed, hatred, together with their manifold fruits, things which are born from them. For countless are the things that are produced from the two opposite. And therefore the rest also has gradually grown to a huge forest of names. That involves always discerning rightly in doubtful cases, and everywhere

dividing justly between good and evil, whether between both in external acts, or between works and habits , or between action and contemplation, or between public and private life.

Therefore the evils are to be equally avoided, hubris, ill will, lying, seduction, avarice, wrath, vainglory, slander.

And now the goods of the virtues are also to be followed, lowliness, kindness, purity, obedience, liberality, patience, zeal to labor, cheerfulness, watchfulness, silence.

All that through an enduring courage and sobering moderation, as in some weighing balance of discretion, are to be weighed in the performance of our customary work, according to the capacity of our endeavor, if everywhere we seek sufficiency. For it is doubtful to none that the man to whom sufficiency is not enough has overstepped the measure of moderation , and whatever oversteps the very measure is clearly a vice.

This measure of true moderation, weighing all our actions in the scales of justice, in no wise allows us to err from what is just, or to suffer a mistake, if we ever follow straight behind it as our leader.

Because just as the error mislays those who live without moderation, disproportion is inevitable, and the latter is always contrary to the virtues, which are in the middle, between two contrary excesses.

IX. OF MORTIFICATION.

Thus there is a threefold scheme of mortification: not to disagree in mind, not to speak as one pleases with the tongue, not to go anywhere with complete freedom.

X. OF THE MONK’S PERFECTION.

Let the disciples live under the discipline of one man and in company with many, so that from one he may learn lowliness, from another patience. For one may teach him silence and another meekness ! Let him not do as he wishes, let him eat what he is bidden, keep as much as he has received, complete the tale of his work, be subject to whom he does not like. Let him come weary to his bed , let him fear the person in charge of the institution as a lord, love him as a father, believe that whatever he commands is healthful for himself, and let him not pass judgment on his opinions.

APPENDIX No. 8.

PENITENTIAL OF NOIBO COLUMBAN REDONE IN THE SAME WAY.

Through penance or deprivation, we understand especially in these texts the fact to be put on dry bread and water, to even be condemned to silence or to remain standing, etc. The blows are given on the palm of the hand or elsewhere (on the buttocks for example). They should in no case, from their severity or their quantity, make unfit for manual work or endanger health definitively (the hand of a thief should not be cut for example because that also impairs the possibility of repairing what one did, such a cruelty must therefore be banished, we are not in Islamic land (Dar Al Islam) and sharia is not our law.The length of these penances or deprivations is, of course, proportional to the seriousness of the faults. They can be replaced by harder, but shorter punishments.

Example: one day of imposition on silence can be replaced by 50 blows on the palm of the hand.

3 hours of silence by 12 blows, etc. (On the principle of the commutation of the punishments, to see the other Irish penitential.)

TO BE MEDITATED BY THE PERSONS IN CHARGE OF THE FUTURE WARRIOR MONKS.

FIRST PENITENTIAL OF NOIBO COLUMBAN REDONE.

COMMUNAL RULE (first part).

It has been ordained, my dearest brethren, by the elders that we confide in a soul/mind’s friend before meat or before entering our beds or whenever it is opportune because it makes free. Therefore not even the very small sins are to be omitted from the confession, since, as it is said, He who omits small things gradually declines’’.

II. REFECTORY.

Him who when the signal is given by the person in charge of the tables has not recited the prayer chosen by the latter before sitting down, always when the signal is given by the person in charge of the tables, it is ordained to correct with six blows.

Likewise him who has spoken while eating, not because of the wants of another comrade : with six blows. Him who has spoken with a shout, that is, has talked in a louder tone than the usual : with six blows.

III.

If he has called anything his own (my spoon, my knife, my bread, etc.) with six blows. Let him who has cut the table or its cloth with a knife be corrected with ten blows.

IV.

Whoever of the comrades, to whom the care of cooking or serving has been entrusted, has spilt any drop of fluid or bit of solid ,in not insignificant quantity, if it is through negligence or forgetfulness, will beg pardon at bedtime.

if it is much that he spilt, according to the measures of beer or portions of whatever things he has lost in spilling through the occurrence of neglect, let him supply for an equal number of days what he had

been accustomed to receive lawfully for his own use, and know that he has lost them to his cost, so that he drinks water in place of beer. As much day than it will be needed to compensate for this loss.

Him who has eaten without waiting for the signal, it is ordained to correct with twelve blows.

Likewise him who has forgotten the evening prayer.

But the brother who has admitted all these things and others as far as those which deserve an imposition of silence, to a soul or mind friend, with half penance, as for similar faults, he will have to abstain from them henceforth.

V. OFFICE.

Him who through a cough has not chanted well at the beginning of a recitation, it is ordained to correct with six blows. And him who is smiling during the sacrifice offered to the deity, with six blows; if his laughter has broken out aloud, with an imposition of silence during one day, unless it has happened pardonably. He who tells idle tales to another, if he censures himself at once, with a mere pardon; but if he has not censured himself but has declined the way in which he ought to excuse them with an imposition of silence for one day or fifty blows. He who brings forward an excuse honestly, when examination is made of something, and does not at once say in begging pardon, ‘It is my fault, I am sorry,’ with fifty blows or an imposition of silence for one. He who without reflection sets counsel against counsel, with fifty blows or an imposition of silence for one day. He who has struck the altar reserved for the divine sacrifices, with fifty blows.

VI.

He who utters a loud speech without restraint, unless where there is need, with fifty blows or an imposition of silence for one day. Let him who makes excuses for pardon do penance likewise.

He who has replied to a comrade on his pointing something out, ‘It is not as you say,’ except for seniors speaking simply to juniors, with fifty blows or an imposition of silence for one day; unless this only be allowed that he should reply to his comrade of equal standing, if there is something nearer the truth than what the other says and he remembers it, ‘If you recollect rightly, my brother,’ and the other on hearing this does not repeat his assertion, but humbly says, ‘I trust that you remember better; I have erred in speech by forgetfulness, and am sorry that I said ill.’

VII.

Whoever has not fled to the haven of humility rest , when opening the way of argument for others largely as he sticks to a word of hubris, let him be cut off in his cell from the freedom in order to do penance (in solitary confinement , in a dungeon) until his good will is made known, and through humility he be joined afresh to the congregation.

He who utters a loud speech to censure the porter's work, that the porter has not kept the hours of opening or closing well, with fifty blows or an imposition of silence for one day.

He who conceals some fault when he sees it in his comrade, until he is reproved over another failing or over the same, and then brings it forward against his comrade, with an imposition of silence during three days.

Let him who corrects or slanders other comrades' works, do penance with an imposition of silence for three days. Let him who utters reproof against reproof, that is, who chides one who is chiding him, likewise do penance with an imposition of silence for three days.

VIII.

He who slanders a comrade, or hears one slandering, and does not at once correct him immediately , with an imposition of silence for three days.

He who utters some abuse with spleen, let him likewise do penance with an imposition of silence for three days.

He who in censuring something does not wish to show it to his immediate superior, until he may show it to the superior of this superior, with an imposition of silence during three days, unless all these things are done in order to show restraint. If a comrade has been melancholy, if he can contain himself, let him keep back his confidence for the meanwhile, so that he may speak more restraint, when the melancholy has ceased.

Let anyone who finds fault for showing obedience to a comrade do penance likewise.

IX.

He who advises a relative when learning some skill or anything enjoined by the elders that he should rather learn reading, with an imposition of silence for three days.

He who dares to say to his immediate superior, ‘You will not judge my case, but the responsible for our Institution, or the remaining brethren,’ or, ‘We will all go to the responsible for our community ,’ must be punished by forty days in penance [on bread and water] unless he himself says in front of all the brethren : ‘I am sorry for what I said.’

Let him who does not ask pardon when corrected do penance with fifty blows or an imposition of silence for one day.

He who has visited other brethren in their cells without asking leave, let him do penance likewise; or if he has gone to the kitchen without instructions or orders with an imposition of silence for one day; or if he has gone outside the bounds of the institution, without asking, with an imposition of silence for one day.

Youths who are assigned a period of not speaking to each other, if they have transgressed it, with an imposition of silence for three days.

If anyone has commanded what they are not allowed, let them say, ‘You know that we are not allowed’; and if the other commands further, let him be condemned to an imposition of silence for three days, but let the brethren say, ‘We do what you say, so that the good of obedience may be preserved.’

But they must particularly beware, that just as they do not speak together among themselves, so they do not confer either through the lips of another comrade.

But if they have transgressed this, let them do penance in the same way as if they had spoken among themselves.

He who utters an idle word will be sentenced to twelve blows or to silence for the two following hours. Let brethren do penance, however hard and dirty the work they do, not wash their heads except on Sunday, but if not, on every fifteenth day, or, of course, on account of the dirt , let each employ the judgment of his senior in washing.

If he who presides a table is made aware of minor penances, let him impose them there, and let no more than twenty-five blows be given [at once].

Brethren doing penance, and those who need a penance consisting in reciting prayers or sacred texts , do it on the atenoux and divertomu’s night.

COMMUNAL RULE (second part).

If any has been disobedient, let him spend two days on one loaf (250 g) and water.

If any says, ‘I will not do it,’ three days on one loaf (250 g) and water.

If any murmurs, two days on one loaf ( 250 g) and water.

If any does not seek pardon or mentions a bad excuse, two days on one loaf (250 g) and water.

If two comrades have had an argument and come to anger, two days on one loaf (250 g) and water.

If anyone maintains a falsehood and affirms his difference, two days on one loaf (250 g) and water.

If any cuts short what he is bidden and breaks the rule, two days on one loaf (250 g) and water.

If any when a task is enjoined him, actually does it carelessly, two days on one loaf (250 g) and water.

If any has slandered the person in charge of his Institution, seven days on one loaf ( 250 g) and water.

If his comrade, twenty-four recitations.

If any forgets something out of doors, if it is comparatively small, twelve recitations, if it is greater, thirty recitations.

If any has lost or destroyed something, according to its price, so also is his penance.

XI.

If any holds converse with an outside person unbidden, twenty-four recitations.

If any, when he has completed his task, does not ask for something else and has done something unbidden, let him sing twenty-four recitations.

If anyone has been double-tongued and distresses the mind of the comrades, one day on a loaf (250 g) and water.

If any has related a past fault, one day with a bread of 250 g.

He who has walked in the world and speaks of the world's faults, one day on bread and water.

XII.

If any excites anger in his comrade and afterwards begs his pardon, and the other does not forgive him but sends him to his senior, he who has excited anger, twenty-four recitations, and the other, one day on bread and water.

If any has come late at the evening meal or after food : twelve recitations.

If any has slept while prayer is made, if often, twelve recitations, if not often, six recitations.

If any comes to the morning sacrifice and his night garment around him, twelve recitations.

XIII.

If any has repeated a lie unwittingly : twelve recitations.

If he speaks wittingly : two days on bread and water. If his lie is contradicted and he affirms it, seven days on bread and water.

If any does not shut the temple or the place of worship , twelve recitations.

If any spits and touches the altar, twenty-four sacred songs; if he touches only a wall, six.

If he forgets chanting or reciting , three prayers.

XIV.

If any comes too slowly or noisily, fifty lashes.

If he is too slow in doing what he is told, fifty lashes.

If he has made a sound after lights out i.e., after the sleeping signal, fifty lashes.

If he has replied stubbornly, also fifty lashes.

If he comes into the house with his head covered, fifty lashes.

If he has spoken with something in his mouth, fifty lashes.

If he has caused a noise while prayer is made, fifty lashes.

If any retains anger or spleen or ill will against a comrade, according to the time he has kept it, so shall be his penance on bread and water (Editor’s note . Preface of Gildas the Wise respecting penance: 40 days); but if he has confided on the first day : twenty-four recitations.

XV.

Whoever has lost what is offered in sacrifice and does not know where it is, let him do penance for a year. He who has shown neglect to what is offered in sacrifice , so that it is dried up and eaten by worms, ashes will be buried close to the altar [in the sacrifice pit ], and the responsible for that will do penance for half a year.

He who has vomited the supper on a day when he has eaten offerings intended to the deity , with the excuse of richer food than usual and not through the vice of gluttony but of indigestion, twenty days on bread and water.

APPENDIX No. 9.

THIRD PENITENTIAL OF NOIBO COLUMBAN, REDONE : THE PENITENTIAL ITSELF.

The diversity of offenses makes a diversity of penances. For doctors of the body also compound their medicines in diverse kinds; thus they heal wounds in one manner, sicknesses in another, boils in another, bruises in another, festering sores in another, eye diseases in another, fractures in another, burns in another. Then so also should soul or mind doctors treat with diverse kinds of cures the wounds of souls or minds, their sicknesses, offenses, griefs, distress, and pains. So let us set out even a few prescriptions according to the traditions of our elders, and according to our own understanding (see conclusion of the penitential of Finnian).

(First part.) SMALL MISDEMEANORS.

He who does something by himself without asking, or who contradicts and says, ‘I am not doing it,’ or who murmurs, if it is a serious matter, let him do penance with three impositions of silence, if a slight one, with one.

An affirmation frankly made against another without reflection is to be rewarded with fifty strokes, if it is a simple altercation, or with an imposition of silence for one day ; if it is made through contentiousness, the penance should be for a week.

He who slanders or willingly hears a slanderer, let him do penance with an imposition of silence for three days; if it concerns the superior, let him do penance for a week.

He who has despised the worker of such or such task or has spoken evil of the rule is to be cast out, unless he has said immediately, ‘I am sorry for what said’; and if he has not done that in a fitting way let him do penance forty days, because he is infected with the disease of hubris !

If any has left the enclosure open during the night, let him do penance with an imposition of silence for one day.

It is allowed to wash oneself completely, but alone and privately outside the showers.

If somebody outside the showers washes himself completely and in an ostentatious way in front of his comrades, except if it needs really to be washed thoroughly, let him be corrected with 40 days.

(Second part.) SERIOUS MISDEMEANORS.

Therefore, if any has sinned in thought, that is, has desired to kill a man, or to steal, or to feast in secret and be drunken, or indeed to strike someone, or to desert, or to do anything else like this, and has been ready in his heart to carry out his design; let him do penance for the greater in half a year on bread and water (Penitential of Finnian : with in addition one year without wine nor meat), for the less in forty days on bread and water.’’

But if any, through one’s fault, has sinned in acts, if he has committed a murder (Penitential of Finnian) let him do penance ten years.

If he has deserted the community and broken his vows (his oath) , if he repents and returns at once, let him do penance a hundred and twenty days, but if it is after a period of years, three years.

If any has stolen, let him do penance for a year.

If any has perjured himself, let him do penance for seven years.

If any has struck his comrade in a quarrel and spilt blood, let him do penance three years (Finnian : one year).

If any has made himself drunk and vomited, or being overfed, for this reason has vomited, let him do penance on bread and water forty days (Preface of Gildas the Wise respecting penance : seven days).

However, if he is forced by ill health to vomit the sacrifice, let him do penance seven days on bread and water. (Preface of Gildas the Wise respecting penance : one day.)

If any has borne false witness knowingly, let him do penance for two years, together with the loss or restitution of the object in dispute.

Note of Peter DeLaCrau.

Nothing replaces personal meditation, including about obscure or incomprehensible lays in certain texts.

These some sheets therefore are not dogmas to be blindly followed and literally . As you undoubtedly know it, it is necessary to avoid the letter like the plague. Letter kills , only the spirit gives life !

“They are said there to learn by heart a great number of verses; accordingly some remain in the course of training twenty years. Nor do they regard it lawful to commit these to writing, though in almost all other matters, in their public and private transactions, they use Greek characters. That practice they seem to me to have adopted for ...

Concerning those who learn among them, to devote themselves the less to the efforts of memory, relying on writing; since it generally occurs to most men, that, in their dependence on writing, they relax their diligence in learning thoroughly, and their employment of memory (Caesar. B.G. VI, XIV).

Nothing replaces either the personal experiment, because it is by following the walking one that we find the path.

It is up to each one therefore now to judge if such a discipline can be useful or not for the training of the men or women, in our time.

APPENDIX No. 10.

BODHIDHARMA THE WARRIOR MONK (440-543).

Bodhidharma. In Chinese: Putidamo or simply Damo, Tamo; in Japanese: Bodaidaruma or Daruma; in Tibetan: Bodhidharmottara or Dharmottara.

Bodhidharma means in Sanskrit “Enlightening “(Bodhi) "bearer" (dharma). A name sometimes translated by “Enlightened “.

Our sources differ with regard to his nationality like his origin area. Chinese sources make him apparently a blue-eyed red-headed Barbarian come from Persia of Afghanistan or Central Asia.

Other sources make him born in the south of India, perhaps in the town of Kanchipuram about 440.

He would have been the third child of King Sugandha, therefore a member of the Indian warriors caste called Kshatriya.

If that is true, it is therefore probable that he knew already the techniques of weapons handling of this class and particularly the art of Vajra-mushti (thunder fist or diamond fist) and that would explain many things.

Bodhidharma was endowed with a vivid intelligence which nothing escaped. After having decided to devote himself to the Mahayana, he gave up the white clothing [ of the laymen] for the habit of monks. The mind deep in serenity and tranquility , he examined with penetration the non-religious affairs.

Dismayed by the decline of Buddhist doctrines, he crossed the mounts and the rivers to go and preach in China. It is enough to follow on a map the tour of this man, who went from North-West or South India , crossed the plain of the river Ganges, crossed the mountainous ranges of Yunnan, before going down towards Hebei (Ho-Pei); to be convinced that Bodhidharma was also an extremely robust man. He was to be a handsome old man, because he was more sixty years old when he penetrated in China in 475 or 520, like those who have “ a sound mind in a healthy body“.

There, he visited several monasteries, teaching the contemplative method and giving sermons sometimes.

We have on Bodhidharma one eyewitness account, which we owe to Yang Xuanzhi , an inhabitant of Lo-yang. This account, dating back to 547, is entitled Luyang Qielanji (records of the monasteries of Luoyang ).

The author tells there he met Bodhidharma one day that he went to the temple of Yong Ning “… At that time there was a monk of the Western Region named Bodhidharma, a Persian from Central Asia. He traveled from the wild borderlands to China. Seeing the golden disks……He said: ‘I am 150 years old, and I have passed through numerous countries. Even the distant Buddha-realms lack this.’"

This reference which appears to confirm the existence of Bodhidharma is very useful, but it should be, however, taken with some prudence, because Chinese texts, as in the West, were copied innumerable times, and the transcription mistakes are not rare. Moreover, other mistakes can occur when these texts are translated into another language. Assuming that the translation is faithful, which is its significance? What language used Bodhidharma when he spoke thus to the author? Did he usually

speak Chinese? Did he want to really say that he was a hundred and fifty years old? If it is the case, did Bodhidharma say what he believed being the truth, or spoke he in enigmas,in the way that will adopt later the Chan and Zen monks ?

Does the expression used by Yang Xuanzhi mean that he was Persian or that he resembled a Persian?

In this case, the character thus described could have been an Indian, even if he was fair-skinned, because a fair complexion and blue eyes are not rare in the North-West of India.

Come from Indies or from elsewhere this Buddhist monk had requested a meeting with the emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty (Wudi), promoter of Buddhism in China. And had explained to the latter that in spite of his efforts and of all the good works achieved, he had not acquired the shadow of one merit yet.

According to him the only conceivable merit lay in the immediate and mystical knowledge of the nothingness of everything. In a word, temples, gilded statues, holy pictures, rituals, gifts… therefore all that Buddhism made in China… deserved nothing in respect of the search for enlightenment . And this enlightenment could be gotten only by the means of meditation, Dhyana in Sanskrit.

The meeting did not lead to something positive. The followers of tranquility and silence were won over to his faith, but he was quickly exposed to various calumnies and the emperor took it the very wrong way . He dismissed Bodhidharma who had his life safe only because he was the disciple of Prajnatara (the twenty-seventh patriarch). He took refuge in the most famous monastery of the time, the monastery of the little forest (Shaolin in Chinese).

Shaolin Si is a monastery, located at a score kilometers in the North-West of Dengfeng, not far from Lo Yang, the regional capital of Henan. It had been founded in the first century of our era by a certain Batuo. And devoted in 496 by the emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei , who granted to it the title of “First or ultimate beneath the Sky “. It was consequently a monastery already known before the arrival of Bodhidharma and undoubtedly housing, already, monks versed in martial arts, or some warriors attracted by the recent renewal of Buddhist doctrines.

It is therefore about 475 or 520 of our era, according to sources, that a strange individual, fair-skinned , shaggy-bearded and fiery-eyed, clothed like a Southerner Barbarian would have arrived there. After being arrived in the monastery, he started a long meditation, motionless, in front of a cave wall. A meditation which therefore lasted nine years and brought enlightenment to him , but he nearly lost the use of his feet as well as of his hands because of that.

Bodhidharma concludes from it that the search for enlightenment was not to be done to the detriment of the body, but rather by the union of the body and of the soul or of the mind (anaon).

The tradition maintains the bonzes of this monastery, starved-looking because badly fed, could not support the immobility that meditation imposed on them. Bodhidharma therefore explained to them that to meditate while moving is ten, hundred, even a thousand times better, than the motionless meditation, and taught a whole series of physical exercises intended to strengthen their body. By using for that the various gymnic forms, more or less warlike, that he had studied during his childhood under the direction of his father. The latter was, indeed, as we saw , in addition to his function of a king, a member of the Kshatriyas caste, and therefore knew martial arts (Kalaripayattu ?). At the time, Bodhidharma found [for true disciples] only two monks called Daoyu and Huike. Only these two sramanas (only these two ascetics), in spite of their young age, could show determination in their will to follow him.

Having been lucky to meet the master of the Dharma, they asked him to initiate them in his teaching, and assimilated his thought. Bodhidharma, liking their extreme sincerity, taught to them the authentic Path in these terms.

“To calm one’s mind thus, to devote oneself to the practices, to go along with the nature of things, to resort to the expedients which are saving. Such is the Mahayanist method for calming our minds which will enable you to avoid any error “ (treatise on the two entrances).

Editor’s Note. Calming thus one’s mind… it was the motionless contemplation facing a cave wall.

To devote oneself to practices: “the four practices “.

To go along with the nature of things: to avoid calumny and hatred.

To resort to the expedients which are saving: to avoid every desire.

N.B.There existed in the original Indian Dhyana, two different types of practice, one called “bahiranga “(external and moving, meditation, active with reference to the standing posture) and one called “antaranga “(internal and motionless meditation, with reference to the sitting posture).

Dhyana became in Chinese transcription Chan , transcribed Zen in Japanese.

An attentive study of the Sushruta Samhita (a treatise on Ayurvedic medicine) shows an obvious resemblance between the points of vital energy of the body called marmas in Sanskrit, and those of Chinese acupuncture. The lucterios of Kalaripayattu in India had for a long time discovered that the 108 points which killed or wounded, could also be used to cure. Shalaka technique used for example wood rods for that, as in the acupuncture. In Shaolin, Bodhidharma taught consequently probably the Kalaripayattu and the knowledge of these 108 vital points of the body, as well as techniques inspired by the dhyana, to help monks to better endure the exhausting meditation sessions. Besides it is ascribed to Bodhidharma a work in two volumes with obvious physiological concerns. The “ Yijin jing “(“muscles and tendons change“), a treatise on the limbering of the muscles, and the “Xi sui jing “(“marrow washing “), another medical-physiological treatise.

The contribution of Bodhidharma will mark martial art and will develop during the following centuries in all Far East. Much more than if it was only technical innovations: he had breathed a new spirit to it.

By maintaining that body and soul/mind are indivisible notions and that the ultimate truth; i.e., the sudden enlightenment bringing to wise men the true knowledge and the peace of their soul as well as of their mind ; could not be found outside this union; the Indian monk gave a new meaning to martial arts in this area of the world. They were consequently regarded as a means of arriving at a strict discipline of the body, through physical exercises.

The monks of the monastery of the little forest (Shao lin) sought to purify their mind; Bodhidharma taught them how to reach that point without disregarding body. He brought in China his spiritual and physical teaching through treaties called Sutras. In two of them, as saw we it, Yijin jing and Xi sui jing (“muscles and tendons change and marrow washing “); he developed even an elementary principle of gradual physical training making it possible to get strength and endurance. This training method based on breathing in yoga and techniques of combats fought with bare hands, which therefore appeared in the Monastery of Shaolin, evolved very quickly towards methods of unarmed fight : Kung-fu (even Kenpo). And therefore inspired many Schools who contributed to perfecting the techniques and to spreading its teaching beyond its Chinese borders. This gymnastics worked out by Bodhidharma is still practiced nowadays, fifteen hundred years after its creation, by the monks of the monastery in Shaolin. The main point of this gymnastics is based on a harmonious agreement of the natural physiological laws. Thus mind, breathing and energy, are coordinated by the performing of various exercises.

N.B.The works in which the lessons of Bodhidharma are expounded were all written a long time after his death because these exercises books were written down probably thousand years later. The fragments of his teaching of martial arts they contain, consequently were changed or diluted during centuries and centuries.

What is certain it is this semi-gymnic, semi-martial, method, apparently caused a lot of ink to flow , since it is considered by some people as being in the beginning even of the famous various martial practices of the Monastery in the Little-Forest.

Therefore of the majority of Chinese martial arts and so consequently, of Japanese martial arts (Bujutsu and Budo) …

The warlike, or martial practices (wu and bu representing at the same time the warrior or the brave man who is opposed to the use of weapons, therefore of violence) nevertheless had well already in China before the coming of Putidamo (Bodhidharma). But before his arrival those who practiced martial arts in China, trained especially to fight, and they spent their time ill-treating the weak. Bodhidharma (Putidamo) brought the wu-te, which teaches that martial arts,not practiced in a combative mind, have among their purposes to actually encourage the development of the soul/mind t and of the body.

As we could see it, it existed in the original Indian Dhyana, two different types of practice. The bahiranga dhyana or external and moving meditation, active, with reference to the standing posture, and the antaranga dhyana or internal and motionless meditation, with reference to the sitting posture.

After Bodhidharma's move in the Monastery of Shaolin, these two ways were therefore found in China in the form of the Zuo Chan, literally sitting meditation, and of the Zhan Zhuan, literally standing meditation.

At the beginning it was simply a question of differentiating the meditation practice “sitting facing a cave wall “such as Bodhidharma practiced it; from various more or less gymnic forms (“muscles and tendons change, marrow ashing “). Or more simply, from ritual walking (kin hin).

The same distinction will be found, thereafter, in Japan, between the Zazen (sitting Zen) and the Ritsu Zen (standing Zen). These two aspects during centuries, if not a thousand years, were considered to be complementary and essential, it is only extremely recently that the “active “part disappeared from several tendencies. Currently, if certain Schools continue to practice walking, the old gymnic forms, sometimes called “Buddhist gymnastics “ are only very little studied.

As we could see it also, Bodhidharma literally means “ Awakening “(Bodhi)» bearer » (dharma).

This “Awakening bearer “or this “Enlightened “was therefore at the origin of the Chan, although for some people it is rather to a person by the name Huineng) (638-713) that the honor of it comes down.

Between Bodhidharma, represented by Shenxiu, and Huineng, there exists a great difference.

Bodhidharma puts the emphasis on the progression of the stages and of the means used to get the awakening.

Huineng insists on the sudden nature of this awakening (satori) designed as enlightenment.

Bodhidharma proclaims: “The body is the awakening tree and the mind is like a bright mirror. Take care to wipe it all the time, and allow no dust to be deposited on it“.

Huineng answers: “ Fundamentally no awakening tree exists,nor mind mirror. Since all is empty from the beginning, where can the dust be deposited ? “

As you can remark it, Huineng goes really too far in the negation of reality.

!---------------- --------------------------- ------------------------------ !

Notice. There did not exist in reality a sitting cross-legged meditation, opposed to the standing one , but a meditation resorting only to the sitting position, and a meditation resorting to both positions: sitting or standing. The meditation sitting in silence (zuo chan, zazen) was nevertheless the common denominator or the hyphen between the two approaches, since it was also practiced with the standing meditation.

Za, in Japanese, Zuo in Chinese, means to seat, simply, and, by extension, to sit down without making noise. The Sanskrit word used in the original Dhyana, Antara, is very close to Asana (seat, posture) used in hatha yoga… “To do zazen “ it is therefore to be seated in silence. The zazen is the quiet meditation.

Technically, the practice of Zen requires zazen (za - to sit down- Zen) in other words respiratory techniques in sitting position. The application to sport is obvious. It is thanks to the practice of zazen that man succeeded in exceeding 100 meters depth in apnea.

Sitting (za) can, technically, have several aspects… that of lotus (padmasana) resulting from the practice of dhyana; of half-lotus (siddhasana) resulting from Chinese Chan; of kneeling seiza (literally “proper sitting in Japanese “) known as Burmese, or of vajrasana (diamond pose ) more characteristic of Japanese practices. This sitting is generally made easier, particularly in the Soto School, by use of a meditation cushion (zafu) on which buttocks are based, while your knees, in contact with the ground, are based; either on the tatami (mat of braided straw) or on a square cushion (zafuton). Or, for want of anything better, on a folded blanket.

On this subject, an Indian master of ashtanga yoga (yoga of the eight limbs) from where the dhyana is originally resulting, become the Chan then Zen, Patanjali, did not accept as his pupils, and with all the more reason as his disciples (sisya); only those who were able to reproduce perfectly and without hesitation the particular folding of this blanket. To those who claimed to be come in order to study yoga, and not to fold blankets, he retorted: “If you are not able to learn how to practice the simple folding of a blanket, how will you be able to teach being folded to your body? “

But whatever the pose, therefore the sitting (za), it is appropriate especially, as Patanjali, founder of the astanga yoga… therefore of the dhyana… specified it that this one is simply “shtira sukham “ (Japanese shikantaza), i.e., in balance and pleasant…, therefore right!

Your back is straight, your chin slightly pulled back, your mouth closed, the tip of your tongue touching the anterior palate, your eyes half-closed. Breathing, deep and fluid, must result from the abdomen (tanden). The position of the hands can vary according to Schools. The Soto School recommends, for example that your left hand rests in your right hand, with your joined thumbs not forming “neither valley, nor mountain “.

Several Chinese Schools of Chan as well as the Taego Korean School recommend, on the contrary, that your right hand is pressed on your left hand, as for a simple greeting or prayer with joint hands ; and that both thumbs and the fingers are lotus button shaped…

Some Schools recommend focusing on breathing, others on the koans (paradoxes) or on the “non-focusing“ (shikantaza) of the “correct sitting. “ From there, it is, of course, possible to supplement this meditation with a ritual then to locate this ritual in a sacred space.

On this assumption, it is then advisable to adapt this space. Once consecrated, this space must also be recognized. Ritual, consecration and recognition, therefore appear in as dissimilar and complementary activities as the various walking and initiatory ceremonies making it possible to delimit an enclosure.

Several Schools practice ritual walking thus (kin hin) as well as various activities of manual labor (samu) of which some simply consist in cleaning the meditation place. *

The consecration required, formerly, a symbolic combat or fight against the powers of darkness, then a purification of the sacred enclosure. The known and famous means lay mainly in the archery (to shoot several arrows considered as purifying or magic).

It is therefore completely normal and in conformity with this old tradition that archery is still regarded as being a part of the Chan or of Zen practice.

The other purification means known from time immemorial lies in the ritual fight. And yet, nowhere elsewhere than in the Monastery of Shaolin, initial cradle of Chan, art of the unarmed fight was developed better. Monks of this monastery having got from the emperor of China himself the authorization to have or use weapons; like that, in addition, to eat meat. But the unarmed fight has, in reality, no other logical justification than that of the sacred ritual. This principle is found again in the Japanese sumo. This membership, to Buddhist movement, of the martial forms resulting from Shaolin, therefore linked, like it or not, to Chan, remains explicit; since they are called in China, external (wai jia) in contrast to the forms resulting from the Taoist tradition described as internal (nei jia).

These purification practices were also necessarily accompanied by the use of particular instruments, called , wrongly, worship instruments.

N.B.Originally dhyana belonged to the Buddhism known as “Great Vehicle “(Mahayana), in contrast to the Buddhism of the “Smaller Vehicle “(Hinayana) considered as more formal and ritual.

* There is an excellent example of it even more barbarian than Bodhidharma in the eyes of Chinese, in the behavior of the Celtic priestesses evoked thus by Strabo (IV,IV,6).

“ In the ocean, he says, there is a small island, not very far out to sea, situated off the outlet of the Liger River; and the island is inhabited by women of the Namnetes (in Greek Samnitôn], they are possessed by Dionysus and make this god propitious by appeasing him with mystic initiations as well as other sacred performances....And, he says, it is a custom of theirs once a year to unroof the temple and to roof it again on the same day before sunset, each woman bringing her load to add to the roof; but the woman whose load falls out of her arms is rent to pieces by the rest, and they carry the pieces round the temple with cries of (Dionysian) enthusiasm and do not cease until their frenzy ceases; and it is always the case, he says, that someone jostles the woman who is to suffer this fate “.

APPENDIX No. 11.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF BODHIDHARMA.

To reach absolute immanent “ultimate “ reality…, there exist several methods. According to Bodhidharma, they can come down to two: the awakening through intuition (case of Welsh auentieticos), a deep faith, and, on the other hand, by using a practice, an attitude, that to have, of course, concerning negative forces. This talk called “Treatise on the two entrances “was preserved to us in a collection dating back to the 10th century entitled “the transmission of the lamp “ and of which Bodhidharma would be the author. This treatise, the oldest text of Chan Buddhism , forms one of the central pillars of original Zen. This Zen of the first steps still extremely influenced by Indian spirit, after being translated into Tibetan and handed down in a partial way in Korea and in Japan, was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century. Among the thousands of manuscripts hidden in a cave of Dunhuang, an oasis located at the borders of China, on the old silk road. It is in fact a summary of various doctrinal treatises (Treatise on the two entrances but also Miscellanies I, II, III); in which subjects like the praise of spontaneousness, even the demonic dhyana, are dealt with a dialectic characteristic of the Madhyamika school, the whole combining the Buddhist scholastic of the Great Vehicle with the most radical anti-intellectualism. Its contradictions even, as its style, show the vitality as the variety of this Chan incipient tradition which was to revolutionize Buddhism in China, and finally to produce what we know today by the name Zen.

THE TWO ENTRANCES.

There are many ways to enter the Path, but briefly speaking they are of two kinds only. The one is the entrance through one's mind * and the other the entrance through practical living. By "Entrance through one's mind" we mean "the realization of the essential principle with the aid of the scriptural teaching.” That gives us a deep faith in the True Nature which is fundamentally the same in all beings. When a man, giving up the falsehood and embracing the truth, in the singleness of his thought, practices the wall-gazing, he realizes that there is neither self nor other, that the masses and the elites are of one essence, and he firmly sticks to this belief and never moves away therefrom. He will not then be a slave of the words, for he is in silent communion with the spirit itself, free from conceptual discrimination; he is serene. This is called "Entrance by the Mind.”

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Neo-druidic (comment) counter-lay No. 5.

In other words, what matters is to melt oneself in the Pariollon or Big Whole thanks to an enlightenment of your mind of awenydd (auentieticos) type??

* The used Chinese word can also be translated by “superior Intuition” what makes us much closer to the Welsh awenydd.

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By "Entrance through practical living " is meant the four behaviors in which all other acts are included. What are the four?

A)To know how to respond hatred.

B) To be in harmony with what determines us.

C) Not to crave something;

D)To be in perfect accord with the Dharma (one’s destiny ?)

1) What is meant by "How to respond hatred?” He who follows the Path should think thus when he has to struggle with adverse conditions: "During the innumerable past ages I have wandered through a multiplicity of existences, all the while giving myself to unimportant details of life at the expense of essentials, and thus creating infinite occasions for hate, ill-will, and wrongdoing. While no violations have been committed in this life, the fruits of evil deeds in the past are to be gathered now. Neither gods nor men are responsible for what is coming upon me. I will therefore submit myself willingly and patiently to all the ills that befall me, and I will never bemoan or complain. The Sutra teaches me not to worry over ills that may happen to me. Why? Because when things are surveyed by a superior intellect, the foundation of causation is reached. When this thought is awakened in a man, he will be in accord with his mind because he makes the best use of hatred and turns it into the service of his progress on the Path in question. This is called "to respond hatred" as it is fitting.

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Neo-druidic (comment) counter-lay No. 6.

Two points therefore.

The first, Indian belief in the systematic reincarnation. A belief by no means druidic as we could see it. The possibility that the bran (karma) can explain the destiny of certain individuals is accepted only exceptionally in true druidism (in the case of bacuceos). The general rule is non-reincarnation in this world, the general rule is a reincarnation IN ANOTHER WORLD.

The second. We must know to remain positive facing adversity even cruelest and to accept one’s destiny.

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2. The second practice consists in “being in harmony with what determines us “. There is nothing in the individuals that are not produced by the interplay of conditions coming from their most distant past ; pleasure and pain I suffer are also the results of my previous action. If I am rewarded with fortune or honor, etc., this is the outcome of my past deeds which by reason of causation law affect my present life. When the force is exhausted, the result I am enjoying now will disappear; what is then the use of being joyful because of it? Gain or loss, let me accept the process as it brings to me the one or the other; the Mind itself knows neither increase nor decrease. The wind of pleasure [and pain] will not stir us, for we follow the Path. Therefore this is called " being in harmony with what determines us “.

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Neo-druidic (comment) counter-lay No. 7.

Same thing that previously!

What happens to us is only the result of our INDIVIDUAL Fate or Tokad (middle Welsh tynghed, Breton tonket, intended, old Irish tocad, fate, toicthech “fortunatus “, tonquedec in Breton. The labarum is its messenger). It is necessary to take everything with philosophy.

Any action, the quivering of a branch, the fall of a leaf, the movement of clouds can be a message from Fate or Tokad. Studying and then interpreting these messages (labarum) was already the great business of the former druids.

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3. The third practice consists in “not craving “. By "not craving (ch'iu) anything" is meant this: Men of the world, in confusion, are attached to one thing or another, which is called craving. The wise, however, understand the things truth and are not like the ignorant. Their minds abide serenely in the uncreated while the body moves in accordance with the laws of causation. All things are empty and

there is nothing desirable to seek after. Where there is the merit of brightness there surely lurks the demerit of darkness. This triple world in which we stay is like a house on fire; everything that has a body suffers, and nobody really knows what tranquility is. The wise are thoroughly acquainted with this truth, they are never attached to things that change unceasingly; their thoughts are quieted, they never crave anything. The Sutra says: "Wherever there is a craving, there is pain; cease from craving and you are blessed." Thus we know that not to crave something is indeed the way to the Truth. Therefore, it is taught "not to crave something.”

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Neo-druidic (comment) counter-lay No. 8.

The Buddhist philosophy of nothingness, a philosophy the true high-knower of the druidiaction (druidecht) will never be able to agree completely. What remains it is that everything is relative and every flow has its ebb but from an evil a good can emerge, life can emerge from death, etc. See what Caesar says about the Celtic “Dispater.”

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4. The fourth practice consists in “being in perfect accord with the Dharma “.

"Being in perfect accord with the Dharma" means that the Fate we call Dharma is by nature pure , and that this Fate is the principle of emptiness in all that is manifested; it is above defilements and excessive attachments, there is no "self,’ no "other" in it. The Sutra says: "In the Dharma there are no sentient beings, because it is free from the stain of being; in the Dharma there is no 'self' because it is free from the stain of selfhood." When the wise men understood this truth and believe in it, their lives will be "in accordance with their Fate ( Dharma).

As there is in the essence of Dharma no desire to possess, the wise men are ever ready to practice charity with their body, life, and property, and they never begrudge, they never know what an ill grace means. As they have a perfect understanding of the threefold nature of emptiness, they are above partiality and attachment. Driven by their only will to cleanse all beings from their stains, they come among them as one of them, but they are not attached to specific form. This is the self-benefiting phase of their lives. They, however, also know how to make others benefit from it, and again how to glorify the truth of enlightenment.”

In short, Boddhidharma’s teaching can thus be summarized as follows: a particular handover of Buddhism, outside official Scriptures, no depending upon words and letters, and directly targeting the soul of man, introspection into one’s own nature in order to reach buddhahood.

-------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------- -----

Neo-druidic (comment) counter-lay No. 9.

In other words, generosity, ardor and no fear of death. But none of these concepts were unknown by ancient Celts.

And for the rest the same idea is found in Far-West according to this text of Plutarch (De defectu oraculorum ).

On the failure, ceasing, or obsolescence, of oracles [in Greek Peri tôn ecleloepόtôn chrêstêriôn].

…Demetrius said that among the islands lying near Great] Britain were many isolated, having few or no inhabitants. Some of which bore the names of deities or heroes. He himself, by the emperor's order, had made a voyage for inquiry and observation to the nearest of these islands which had only a few inhabitants, holy men who were all held inviolate by the [Great] British. Shortly after his arrival there occurred a great tumult in the air, and many portents; violent winds suddenly swept down and lightning flashes darted to earth. When these abated, the people of the island said that the passing of someone of the mightier soul/minds [in Greek megalai psychai] had befallen. "For," said they, "as a lamp when it is being lighted has no terrors, but when it goes out is distressing to many, so the great souls/minds [Greek megalai psychai] have a kindling into life that is gentle and inoffensive, but their passing and dissolution often, as at the present moment, fosters tempests and storms, and often infects the air with pestilential properties." Moreover, they said that in this part of the world there is one island where Cronus is confined, guarded while he sleeps by Briareus; for his sleep has been devised

as bondage for him, and round about him are many daemons as attendants and servants…” (Plutarch, Moral Writings, volume V, 29).

The higher beings or great soul/minds of this text (semnothei) are the exact same thing tan the Bodhisattvas in Buddhism.

------------------ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Neo-druidic (comment) counter-lay No. 10 .

All that is previous is, of course, my personal interpretation of the original thought of Bodhidharma. Jews can have another one, Christians another one, and Muslims another one again, because Chinese is a language quite as difficult as French, a language I regret not to control as well as I would like (I am neither a professor of French language nor a member of the French Academy). I am therefore constantly forced to consult dictionaries or to check my orthography.

APPENDIX No. 12.

THE KUNG FU.

The word 'kung fu' (or 'gung fu') literally means 'achievement through great effort' but is also the name of a group of Chinese martial arts which typically feature sharp blows and kicks.

History of Kung Fu

Many authors think that Kung Fu originated with the Shaolin Temple in China. It did not.

Although many people believe that the Chinese martial arts originated at Shaolin there is some evidence to suggest that the Chinese martial arts were well developed before the Temple was built. The temple was built in the third century of our era, but there are references to such individuals as the physician Hwa Tuo who was using exercises based on animal movements to improve the physical health of his patients well before that date. Hwa Tuo lived at the time of the Three Kingdoms, around 220-65. Hwa Tuo is said to have created a set of exercises based upon five animals: the tiger, bear, monkey, stork and deer. The reason this is significant is that there is even today a strong relationship between animal movement and the Chinese martial arts.

Da Mo (Bodhidharma)

In the year 527, a monk known as Da Mo (Bodhidharma) arrived at the Shaolin Temple. Da Mo is believed to have been an Indian monk who was probably born in Kanchipuram near Madras. Da Mo traveled to the city of Kuang, now known as Canton, where he was granted an audience with the Emperor at the time, Wu Ti of the Liang Dynasty. The Emperor had instructed local monks to translate Buddhist texts from Sanskrit to Chinese with the intention that the populace would then have the ability to practice the Buddhist religion. After his audience with the Emperor, Dat Mo traveled to a monastery in the Kingdom of Wei before finally arriving at the Shaolin temple. He was refused admittance, perhaps because he was a foreigner. Rejected by the monks, Da Mo went to a nearby cave and meditated by staring at the cave wall for nine years until the monks recognized his religious prowess and admitted him. Legend has it that he bored a hole through one side of the cave with his constant gaze.The real reason that Da Mo earned his recognition from the Shaolin monks is lost. Once admitted to the temple Da Mo would have found its monks too weak, both physically and mentally, to practice the intensive meditation required by their enlightenment. Da Mo is regarded as the founder of Chan Buddhism which is probably better known by its Japanese derivative, Zen Buddhism.

To rectify monks' fitness problem, Dat Mo devised exercises combining physical movement and breathing, thus strengthening the bodies and minds of his disciples. This enabled them to pursue the spiritual path with more vigor. Since Da Mo was himself of the warrior Caste (Ksatriva), it is therefore possible some of the exercises were drawn from the Indian martial tradition. The first exercises of Kung Fu were largely internal in nature, being designed for the improvement of health, control of the mind and the perception of the Buddha nature. The content of this training has come down to the present as:

- Exercises designed to strengthen the physical body by working tendons : Ye Gun Kung.

- The art of cleansing (his body - his mind) : Sai Choi Kung.

- Meditation practice incorporating: stationary or moving exercises training the practitioner to sense, improve and finally control the movement of the Chi in his body; and spiritual training, an effort to directly perceive one's 'Original face' or 'Buddha Nature' (Sime Kung).

The Chinese martial arts, and indeed the martial arts that followed, appear therefore to be the result of a cultural cross-fertilization between India and China and the passage of people between the two countries. Monks and merchants were constantly making the journey and it is not unreasonable to assume that they required trained body guards or even to learn to defend themselves.

APPENDIX No. 13.

THE KALARIPAYATTU.

The name kalaripayattu comes from two words used in Malayalam, a language of Kerala in India. Kalon means “battle field “and payit "practice.” The word means therefore “battle field practice “.

This discipline has its origin in ancient art of war of India (Dhanurveda 1) and in Indian traditional medicine (Ayurveda). Vajramushti influenced also, of course, kalaripayattu. It is regarded as the oldest traditional form of physical training, self-defense, and martial techniques. Technique of self-defense especially, it is practiced with weapons or hand-to-hand, but does not go without spirituality. Kalaripayattu pupil develops focusing, suppleness, reflexes, power and breath.

It is impossible to know with precision to when the beginnings of kalaripayattu go back. We hardly have for that only Indian legends. That of Parasurama, reported especially in the songs of the Malabar Coast (Northern of Kerala), says that this noble lord founded AND the State of Kerala (by throwing his battle axe in the sea of Arabia!), AND the kalaripayattu. Having got the double quality of a sage and a warrior, Parasurama, first lucterios (master), would have handed down his art to 21 disciples and made 108 kalaris (schools) built so that they protect his new State.

Circa 520, legend says that a Buddhist monk of the South of India, Bodhidharma, a member of the caste of warriors, would have learned from a great lucterios of the kalaripayattu, the art to handle the staff (silambam), only “weapon“ allowed to the pilgrims of the time, as well as the combat fought hand-to-hand (suvadu); and breath control (pranayama). Bodhidharma plays an important role in the history of martial arts: he is considered as having developed the Shaolin boxing , at the origin of kung fu. What is certain it is that the martial arts practiced in India and China show many similarities. The sequences of movements, the positions of animal inspiration and the secret techniques used in kalaripayattu, are in many points similar to these of kung fu.

To stick to the undeniable history, Kalarippayattu, such as it is practiced today, appeared between the 12th and the 14th century. And then reached its height between the 15th and the 17th century. At the time, the area of Kerala was divided into many kingdoms and principalities, each village therefore had its kalari (place of practice of kalaripayattu) in which the lucterios (master) played a central role in the education of young people, as well as in the training of warriors. It then gathered men and women without regard to race, religion or caste. Practitioners then had to fight (sometimes in duels) at the time of the multiple conflicts between kingdoms within Kerala.

With the colonization of India by English, science of kalaripayattu almost disappeared. The colonists prohibited even its practice in 1804. It began again in 1947, but women were then drawn aside, we wonder well why.

Kalaripayattu is not only gymnastics, it is a redoubtable martial art. These forms are, it is true, somewhat esoteric: its martial applications are not given from the start, it should be practiced to discover them.

It is a discipline made up of a complex mixture of bodily prowess, of a strong mentality, of martial techniques, as well as of solid ancestral medical knowledge. If, in the majority of the other forms of martial arts, fighters use armor to protect their chest, their front arm levers, or their head, in Kalarippayatt, which, however, uses most fatal weapons, such a protection does not exist. The wrestler must, in order to protect himself, rely only on his vigilance, his agility, as on fast movements for the attack and the self-defense. This is why therefore we can regard this discipline as a demanding combat sport.

One speaks about THE kalaripayattu , but there exists in fact various styles, including two main ones: Northern style and Southern style. In the first, the emphasis is placed rather on weapons; in the second, on hand-to-hand techniques.

Northern style.

The north of the State is the true cradle of kalaripayattu. Its combat techniques were born directly from the observation of nature and animals by men. Later, knowledge of Dhanur-Veda (second book) went down from the north of India with the Aryan ones and mixed with the local native knowledge.

The training is gradual. Before even to approach the handling of a weapon, practitioner must yield to a long body preparation (what is rather rare in martial arts!)

The Northern style is especially practiced by Nayar or Nair of Malayalam language, who have their roots in the cultural tradition of the North of India.

The Northern kalaripayattu is practiced in a building the dimensions of which are always the same ones, 14 meters out of 7. The house has thick walls, it is approximately one meter below ground level. This building, the kalari or battle field of the village, belongs to the lucterios who sometimes uses it as a dispensary or massage parlor. The pupils always practice inside its walls and during the night, in order not to reveal the secrets of their art.

Technically, northern style is characterized by very high leaps and kicks, long strides, a very huddled guard position, as by blows and blocking with almost completely outstretched arms and hands. Exercises of warm-up are particularly exhausting. The bent position is a characteristic of the Northern style. Near to the ground, the practitioner protects better his main vital points located on the front of his body. The Northern style owns itself also a whole range of movement sequences, armed or not, and several respiratory techniques, probably borrowed from yoga, which are a part of the training. Before approaching the free or improvised combat, the pupil must control several series of codified fights in a duel.

Weapons.

- Long Stick or pandicuran. The pandicuran is a flexible and long stick. Its objectives, limited because of its size, are the top of the skull, the temples, under the chin, the sides, the legs. Its handling is declined in 12 sequences. The training with a pandicuran begins with a short prayer called mukakettu.

- Short Stick or mucan. The mucan is also practiced in a duel in a codified way, with a slight difference, attacks are much shorter and fast. This steady rhythm prepares to hand-to-hand techniques. The training also begins with a specific prayer or mukakettu.

- Curved Stick or otta. Aesthetic, martial, fluid, otta is regarded by many lucterios (master) as a model technique. It also requires bodily and psychological good qualities. With it occurs the “internal “ or energetic form of martial art, provided that the position is right, and the mind focused.

- Dagger. This thousand-year-old weapon was already used in the Vedic period. There still, the fights are codified. At this stage of the teaching, balance, focusing, and glance fixity, must be perfect.

- Knife. There, no sequence, because it consists, simultaneously, in blocking/striking, blocking/disarming or dodging/disarming, his adversary.

- Swords or shields. Favorite weapons of Nayars or Nairs (the caste of Keralan warriors) during the feudal period, the sword remains still the major weapon today. Compared to other styles, the puliyankam (or “leopard style“) is most sophisticated. A very catlike and rapid practice in which the attacker, hidden behind his shield, is ready to leap.

- Urumi and shields. The sword with a flexible blade called urumi is by far most dangerous, but also most spectacular, of kalaripayattu weapons. Rolled up around the waist, it can be rolled out in a split moment. The beginner trains first for making it whirling alone before moving on duels with a shield.

The Southerner kalaripayattu is often practiced outside and during the day. Some lucterios use as training ground a kind of pit, others dispense their teaching beneath the coconut trees, behind their home. Many Southerner lucterios give their lessons in several villages and therefore spends long hours moving from a place to another one in order to take care of their pupils when the sun rises.

The altars built in honor of the Hindu deities are fewer and less worked out on the training grounds in the South; but in all cases the pupils of both styles must present their greetings to their particular god-or-demons, as to their lucterios, before starting to begin their training. The kalari has in fact a whole Panth-eon of deities, whose dominant figure is, of course, Kali, Indian goddess-or-demoness of the war (Catubodua in the far west or in Ireland).

The Southerner style uses more circular movements, and perhaps looks rougher than that of the North. The blows and blocking are generally performed with open hand and bent arm. As for the techniques of using the weapons and the sequences of movements practiced for the training, they differ from these in Northern style.

Thus, the leaps and kicks in height are rare. The guard is higher and better self-assured. Lastly, the Southerner style involves powerful movements of arms, shoulders and chest.

Kalari medicine.

Traditionally, the gurukkal, of course, must know how heal his fighters. The care given in kalaris comes from a medicine which developed in the same way as ayurveda , so much so that today they come to merge. Nevertheless, pure kalari medicine is based on the knowledge of the 107 marman (vital points), it is necessary to massage in the event of wound. It is an external health system which helps organisms to regenerate itself. Currently, the lucterios of kalari have for patients pupils and villagers. Some of them still cultivate their medicinal garden from which they prepare their own oils and potions. The kalari (arena) is therefore divided in two spaces. One dedicated to the practice of martial art; the other, to medicine.

In the famous epic texts of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, it is frequently referred to the Dhanurveda, as a system of worked out training, thanks to which the people called for fighting could get qualities necessary for the achievement of their duty. The practice was surrounded by rituals and combined technical training with exercises of yoga, meditation, and use of mantras, giving access to a higher self-control as well as to prowess in the use of combat weapons. Editor's note. The Dhanurveda, or “Bow Veda “ is also a treatise on the archery and the art of war.

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AFTERWORD IN THE WAY OF JOHN TOLAND.

Pseudo-druids with fabulous initiatory derivation (the famous and indescribable or hilarious perennial tradition) having multiplied since some time; it appeared us necessary to put at the disposal of each and everyone, these few notes, hastily written, one evening of November, in order to give our readers the desire to know more about true druidism.

This work claims to be honest but in no way neutral. It was given itself for an aim to defend or clear the cluto (fame) of this admirable ancient religion.

Nothing replaces personal meditation, including about obscure or incomprehensible lays strewing these books, and which have been inserted intentionally, in order to force you to reflect, to find your own way. These books are not dogmas to be followed blindly and literally. As you know, we must beware as it was the plague, of the letter. The letter kills, only spirit vivifies.

Nothing replaces either personal experience, and it’s by following the way that we find the way. Therefore rely only on your own strength in this Search for the Grail. What matters is the attitude to be adopted in life and not the details of the dogma. Druidism is less important than druidiaction (John-P. MARTIN).

These few leaves scribbled in a hurry are nevertheless in no way THE BOOKS TO READ ON THIS MATTER, they are only a faint gleam of them.

The only druidic library worthy of the name is not in fact composed of only 12 (or 27) books, but of several hundred books.

The few booklets forming this mini-library are not themselves an increase of knowledge on the subject, and are only some handbooks intended for the schoolchildren of druidism.

These simplified summaries intended for the elementary courses of druidism will be replaced by courses of a somewhat higher level, for those who really want to study it in a more relevant way.

This small library is consequently a first attempt to adapt (intended for young adults) the various reflections about the druidic knowledge and truth, to which the last results of the new secularism, positive and open-minded, worldwide, being established, have led.

Unlike Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which swarm, concerning the higher Being, with childish anthropomorphism taken literally (fundamentalism known as integrism in the Catholic world); our druidism too, on the other hand, will use only very little of them, and will stick in this field, to the absolute minimum.

But in order to talk about God or the Devil we shall be quite also obliged to use a basic language, and therefore a more or less important amount of this anthropomorphism. Or then it would be necessary to completely give up discussing it.

This first shelf of our future library consecrated to the subject, aims to show precisely the harmonious authenticity of the neo-druidic will and knowledge. To show at which point its current major theses have deep roots because the reflection about Mythologies, it’s our Bible to us. The adaptations of this brief talk required by the differences of culture, age, spiritual maturity, social status, etc. will be to do with the concerned druids (veledae and others?)

101

Note, however. Important! What these few notes, hastily thrown on paper during a too short life, are not (higgledy-piggledy).

A divine revelation. A (still also divine) law. A (non-religious or secular) law. A (scientific) law. A dogma. An order.

What I search most to share is a state of mind, nothing more. As our old master had very well said one day : "OUR CIVILIZATION HAS NO CHOICE: IT WILL BE CELTISM OR IT WILL BE DEATH” (Peter Lance).

What these few notes, hastily thrown on paper during a too short life, are.

Some dream. An adventure. A journey. An escape. A revolt cry against the moral and physical ugliness of this society. An attempt to reach the universal by starting from the individual. A challenge. An obstacle fecund to overcome . An incentive to think. A guide for action. A map. A plan. A compass. A pole star or morning star up there in the mountain. A fire overnight in a glade?

What the man who had collected the core of this library, Peter DeLaCrau, is not.

- A god.

- A half god.

- A quarter of God.

- A saint.

- A philosopher (recognized, official, and authorized or licensed, as those who talk a lot in television. Except, of course, by taking the word in its original meaning, which is that of amateur searching wisdom and knowledge.

What he is: a man, and nothing of what is human therefore is unknown to him. Peter DeLaCrau has no superhuman or exceptional power. Nothing of what he said wrote or did could have timeless value. At the best he hopes that his extreme clearness about our society and its dominant ideology (see its official philosophers, its journalists, its mass media and the politically correct of its right-thinking people, at least about what is considered to be the main thing); as well his non-conformism, and his outspokenness, combined with a solid contrariness (which also earned to him for that matter a lot of troubles or affronts); can be useful.

The present small library for beginners “contains the dose of humanity required by the current state of civilization” (Henry Lizeray). However it’s only a gathering of materials waiting for the ad hoc architect or mason.

A whole series of booklets increasing our knowledge of these basic elements will be published soon. This different presentation of the druidic knowledge will preserve nevertheless the unity as well as the harmony which can exist between these various statements of the same philosophical and well-considered paganism : spirituality worthy of our day, spirituality for our days.

Case of translations into foreign languages (Spanish, German, Italian, Polish, etc.)

The misspellings, the grammatical mistakes, the inadequacies of style, as well as in the writing of the proper nouns perhaps and, of course, the Gallicisms due to forty years of life in France, may be corrected. Any other improvement of the text may also be brought if necessary (by adding, deleting, or changing, details); Peter DeLaCrau having always regretted not being able to reach perfection in this field.

But on condition that neither alteration nor betrayal, in a way or another, is brought to the thought of the author of this reasoned compilation. Every illustration without a caption can be changed. New illustrations can be brought.

But illustrations having a caption must be only improved (by the substitution of a good photograph to a bad sketch, for example?)

It goes without saying that the coordinator of this rapid and summary reasoned compilation , Peter DeLaCrau, does not maintain to have invented (or discovered) himself, all what is previous; that he does not claim in any way that it is the result of his personal researches (on the ground or in libraries).

What s previous is indeed essentially resulting from the excellent works or websites referenced in bibliography and whose direct consultation is strongly recommended.

102

We will never insist enough on our will not be the men of one book (the Book), but from at least twelve, like Ireland’s Fenians, for obvious reasons of open-mindedness, truth being our only religion.

Once again, let us repeat; the coordinator of the writing down of these few notes hastily thrown on paper, by no means claims to have spent his life in the dust of libraries; or in the field, in the mud of the rescue archaeology excavations; in order to unearth unpublished pieces of evidence about the past of Ireland (or of Wales or of East Indies or of China).

THEREFORE PETER DELACRAU DOES NOT WANT TO BE CONSIDERED, IN ANY WAY, AS THE AUTHOR OF THE FOREGOING TEXTS.HE TRIES BY NO MEANS TO ASCRIBE HIMSELF THE CREDIT OF THEM. He is only the editor or the compiler of them. They are, for the most part, documents broadcast on the web, with a few exceptions.

ON THE OTHER HAND, HE DEMANDS ALL THEIR FAULTS AND ALL THEIR INSUFFICIENCIES.

Peter DeLaCrau claims only one thing, the mistakes, errors, or various imperfections, of this book. He alone is to be blamed in this case. But he trusts his contemporaries (human nature being what it is) for vigorously pointing out to him.

Note found by the heirs to Peter DeLaCrau and inserted by them into this place.

I immediately confess in order to make the work of my judges easier that men like me were Christian in Rome under Nero, pagan in Jerusalem, sorcerers in Salem, English heretics, Irish Catholics, and today racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, person, while waiting to be tomorrow kufar or again Christian the beastliest antichrist of all the apocalypses, etc. In short as you will have understood it, I am for nothingness death disease suffering ……

By respect for Mankind , in order to save time, and not to make it waste time, I will make easier the work of those who make absolutely a point of being on the right side of the fence while fighting (heroically of course) in order to save the world of my claws (my ideas or my inclinations, my tendencies).

To these courageous and implacable detractors, of whom the profundity of reflection worthy of that of a marquis of Vauvenargues equals only the extent of the general knowledge, worthy of Pico della Mirandola I say…

Now take a sheet of paper, a word processing if you prefer, put by order of importance 20 characteristics which seem to you most serious, most odious, most hateful, in the history of Mankind, since the prehistoric men and Nebuchadnezzar, according to you….AND CONSIDER THAT I AM THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF YOU BECAUSE I HAVE THEM ALL!

Scapegoats are always needed! A heretic in the Middle Ages, a witch in Salem in the 17th century, a racist in the 20th century, an alien lizard in the 21st century, I am the man you will like to hate in order to feel a better person (a smart and nice person).

I am, as you will and in the order of importance you want: an atheist, a satanist, a stupid person, with Down’s syndrome, brutish, homosexual, deviant, homophobic, communist, Nazi, sexist, a philatelist, a pathological liar, robber, smug, psychopath, a falsely modest monster of hubris, and what do I still know, it is up to you to see according to the current fashion.

Here, I cannot better do (in helping you to save the world).

[Unlike my despisers who are all good persons, the salt of the earth, i.e., young or modern and dynamic, courageous, positive, kind, intelligent, educated, or at least who know; showing much hindsight in their thoroughgoing meditation on the trends of History; and on the moral or ethical level: generous, altruistic, but poor of course (it is their only vice) because giving all to others; moreover deeply respectful of the will of God and of the Constitution …

As for me I am a stiff old reactionary, sheepish, disconnected from his time, paranoid, schizophrenic, incoherent, capricious, never satisfied, a villain, stupid, having never studied or at least being unaware of everything about the subject in question; accustomed to rash judgments based on prejudices without any reflection; selfish and wealthy; a fiend of the Devil, inherently Nazi-Bolshevist or Stalinist-Hitlerian. Hitlerian Trotskyist they said when I was young. In short a psychopathic murderer as soon as the breakfast… what enables me therefore to think what I want, my critics also besides, and to try to make everybody know it even no-one in particular].

Signed: the coordinator of the works, Peter DeLaCrau known as Hesunertus, a researcher in druidism.

103

A man to whom nothing human was foreign. An unemployed worker, post office worker, divorcee, homeless person, vagrant, taxpayer, citizen, and a cuckolded elector... In short one of the 9 billion human beings having been in transit aboard this spaceship therefore. Born on planet Earth, January 13, 1952.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE BROAD OUTLINES.

As regards the bibliography of details see appendix of the last lesson because, as Henry Lizeray says it so well, traditions that must be interpreted. It is there the whole difference which exists between

former druidism and neo-druidism.

-Lebar Gabala or The Book of Invasions. Paris 1884 (William O'Dwyer)

-Base of the druidic Church. The restored druidism. Henry Lizeray, Paris, 1885.

-National traditions rediscovered. Paris 1892.

-Aesus or the secret doctrines of the druids. Paris 1902.

-Ogmius or Orpheus. Paris 1903.

CONTENTS.

Celtic Christianity. Page 005

St. Ninian Page 008

Palladius or Pledi Page 010

St. Patrick Page 012

Main characteristics of Celtic Christianity Page 015

On the progressive extinction of the Celtic Church Page 033

Culdee monks. Page 035

APPENDICES.

No. 1 The voyage of St. Brendan. Page 054

No. 2 The rule of the Culdees as given by Maelruain of Tallaght Page 065

No. 3 The rule of the monks of Columban of Bobbio Page 069

No. 4 The communal rule ascribed to Columban of Bobbio. Page 072

No. 5 The penitential of Columban of Bobbio Page 077

No. 6 Rule of saint Benedict of Nursia as for clothing Page 078

No. 7 Reconstruction attempt of the functioning of a druidic school Page 079

No. 8 First penitential of St. Columban REDONE. Page 082

No. 9 The penitential itself of St. Columban REDONE. Page 086

No.10 Bodhidharma the warrior monk. Page 088

No.11 The philosophy of Bodhidharma. Page 093

No.12 The kung-fu. Page 096

No.13 The kalarippayattu Page 097

Afterword in the manner of John Toland. Page 100

Bibliography of the broad outlines Page 103

104

BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

1. Quotations from the ancient authors speaking about Celts or druids.

2. Various preliminary general information about Celts.

3. History of the pact with gods volume 1.

4. Druidism Bible: history of the pact with gods volume 2.

5. History of the peace with gods volume 3.

6. History of the peace with gods volume 4.

7. History of the peace with gods volume 5.

8. From Fenians to Culdees or “The Great Science which enlightens” volume 1.

9. Irish apocryphal texts.

10. From Fenians to Culdees or “The Great Science which enlightens” volume 2.

11. From Fenians to Culdees or “The Great Science which enlightens” volume 3.

12. The hundred paths of paganism. Science and philosophy volume 1 (druidic mythology).

13. The hundred paths of paganism. Science and philosophy volume 2 (druidic mythology).

14. The hundred ways of paganism. Science and philosophy volume 3 (druidic mythology).

15. The Greater Camminus: elements of druidic theology: volume 1.

16. The Greater Camminus: elements of druidic theology: volume 2.

17. The druidic pleroma: angels jinns or demons volume 1.

18. The druidic pleroma angels jinns or demons volume 2

19. Mystagogy or sacred theater of ancients Celts.

20. Celtic poems.

21. The genius of the Celtic paganism volume 1.

22. The Roland’s complex .

23. At the base of the lantern of the dead.

24. The secrets of the old druid of the Menapian forest.

25. The genius of Celtic paganism volume 2 (liberty reciprocity simplicity).

26. Rhetoric : the treason of intellectuals.

27. Small dictionary of druidic theology volume 1.

28. From the ancient philosophers to the Irish druid.

29. Judaism Christianity and Islam: first part.

30. Judaism Christianity and Islam : second part volume 1.

31. Judaism Christianity and Islam : second part volume 2.

32. Judaism Christianity and Islam : second part volume 3.

33. Third part volume 1: what is Islam? Short historical review of the set QUR.HAD.SIR. and SHAR.FIQ.MAD.

34. Third part volume 2: What is Islam? First approaches to the set QUR.HAD.SIR. and SHAR.FIQ.MAD.

35. Third part volume 3: What is Islam? The true 5 pillars of the set QUR.HAD.SIR. and SHAR.FIQ.MAD.

36. Third part volume 4: What is Islam? Sounding the set QUR.HAD.SIR. and SHAR.FIQ.MAD.

37. Couiro anmenion or small dictionary of druidic theology volume 2.

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Peter DeLaCrau. Born on January 13, 1952, in St. Louis (Missouri) from a family of woodsmen or Canadian trappers who had left Prairie du Rocher (or Fort de Chartres in Illinois) in 1765. Peter DeLaCrau is therefore born the same year as the Howard Hawks movie entitled “the Big Sky.” Consequently father of French origin, mother of Irish origin: half-Irish, half- French. Married to Mary-Helen ROBERTS on March 12, 1988, in Paris-Aubervilliers (French department of Seine-Saint-Denis). Hence three children. John Wolf born May 11, 1989. Alex born April 10, 1990. Millicent born August 31, 1993. Deceased on September 28, 2012, in La Rochelle (France).

Peter DELACRAU is not a philosopher by profession, except taking this term in its original meaning of amateur searching wisdom and knowledge. And he is neither a god neither a demigod nor the messenger of any god or demigod (and certainly not a messiah).

But he has become in a few years one of the most lucid and of the most critical observers of the French neo-druidic or neo-pagan world.

He was also some time assistant treasurer of a rather traditionalist French druidic group of which he could get archives and texts or publications.

But his constant criticism both domestic and foreign French policy, and his political positions (at the end of his life he had become an admirer of Howard Zinn Paul Krugman Bernie Sanders and Michael Moore); had earned him, moreover, some vexations on behalf of the French authorities which did everything, including in his professional or private life, in the last years of his life, to silence him.

Peter DeLaCrau has apparently completely missed the return to the home land of his distant ancestors.

It is true unfortunately that France today is no longer the France of Versailles or of Lafayette or even of Napoleon (who has really been a great nation in those days).

Peter DeLaCrau having spent most of his life (the last one) in France, of which he became one of the best specialists, even one of the rare thoroughgoing observers of the contemporary French society quite simply; his three children, John-Wolf, Alex and Millicent (of Cuers: French Riviera) pray his readers to excuse the countless misspellings or grammatical errors that pepper his writings. At the end of his life, Peter DeLaCrau mixed a little both languages (English but also French).

Those were therefore the notes found on the hard disk of the computer of our father, or in his papers.

Our father has certainly left us a considerable work, nobody will say otherwise, but some of the words frequently coming from his pen, now and then are not always very clear. After many consultations between us, at any rate, above what we have been able to understand from them.

Signed: the three children of Peter DeLaCrau: John-Wolf, Alex and Millicent. Of Cuers.