the whole; but we do not see any trace of the metropolitan jurisdiction of the church of Armagh
over the rest."^64
The second period was monastic and missionary. All the presbyters and deacons were
monks. Monastic life was congenial to the soil, and had its antecedents in the brotherhoods and
sisterhoods of the Druids.^65 It was imported into Ireland probably from France, either directly
through Patrick, or from the monastery of St. Ninian at Galloway, who himself derives it from St.
Martin of Tours.^66 Prominent among these presbyter-monks are the twelve apostles of Ireland
headed by St. Columba, who carried Christianity to Scotland in 563, and the twelve companions
of Columbanus, who departed from Ireland to the Continent about 612. The most famous monastery
was that of Bennchar, or Bangor, founded a.d. 558 by Comgall in the county of Down, on the south
side of Belfast Lough. Comgall had four thousand monks under his care.^67 From Bangor proceeded
Columbanus and other evangelists.
By a primitive Keltic monastery we must not understand an elaborate stone structure, but
a rude village of wooden huts or bothies (botha) on a river, with a church (ecclais), a common
eating-hall, a mill, a hospice, the whole surrounded by a wall of earth or stone. The senior monks
gave themselves entirely to devotion and the transcribing of the Scriptures. The younger were
occupied in the field and in mechanical labor, or the training of the rising generation. These monastic
communities formed a federal union, with Christ as their invisible head. They were training schools
of the clergy. They attracted converts from the surrounding heathen population, and offered them
a refuge from danger and violence. They were resorted to by English noblemen, who, according
to Bede, were hospitably received, furnished with books, and instructed. Some Irish clergymen
could read the Greek Testament at a time when Pope Gregory J. was ignorant of Greek. There are
traces of an original Latin version of the Scriptures differing from the Itala and Vulgate, especially
in Patrick’s writings.^68 But "there is no trace anywhere of any Keltic version of the Bible or any
part of it. St. Chrysostom’s words have been misunderstood to support such a supposition, but
without ground."^69 If there had been such a translation, it would have been of little use, as the people
could not read it, and depended for their scanty knowledge of the word of God on the public lessons
in the church.
The "Book of Armagh," compiled by Ferdomnach, a scribe or learned monk of Armagh,
in 807, gives us some idea of the literary state of the Irish Church at that time.^70 It contains the
(^64) Skene II. 22
(^65) Ammianus Marcellinus (XV. 9) describes the Druids as "bound together in brotherhoods and corporations, according
to the precepts of Pythagoras!" See Killen, I. 29.
(^66) See next section. St. Patrick also is said to have been one of St. Martin’s disciples; but St. Martin lived nearly one
hundred years earlier.
(^67) Angus the Culdee, in his Litany, invokes "forty thousand monks, with the blessing of God, under the rule of Comgall
of Bangor." But this is no doubt a slip of the pen for "four thousand." Skene II. 56. Bangor on the northeastern coast of Ireland
must not be confounded with Bangor on the westem coast of Wales.
(^68) Haddan & Stubbs, Vol. I., 170-198, give a collection of Latin Scripture quotations of British or Irish writers from the
fifth to the ninth century (Fastidius, St. Patrick, Gildas, Columbanus, Adamnanus, Nennius, Asser, etc.), and come to the
conclusion that the Vulgate, though known to Fastidius in Britain abouta. d.420, was probably unknown to St. Patrick, writing
half a century later in Ireland, but that from the seventh century on, the Vulgate gradually superseded the Irish Latin version
formerly in use.
(^69) Haddan & Stubbs, I. 192; Comp. p. 10. Ebrard and other writers state the contrary, but without proof.
(^70) First published in the Swords Parish Magazine, 1861.