oldest extant memoirs of St. Patrick, the Confession of St. Patrick, the Preface of Jerome to the
New Testament, the Gospels, Epistles, Apocalypse and Acts, with some prefaces chiefly taken
from the works of Pelagius, and the Life of St. Martin of Tours by Sulpicius Severus, with a short
litany on behalf of the writer.
In the ninth century John Scotus Erigena, who died in France, 874, startled the Church with
his rare, but eccentric, genius and pantheistic speculations. He had that power of quick repartee for
which Irishmen are distinguished to this day. When asked by Charles the Bald at the dinner-table,
what was the difference between a Scot and a Sot (quid distat inter Scottum et Sottum?), John
replied: "Nothing at all but the table, please your Majesty."
§ 16. Subjection of Ireland to English and Roman Rule.
The success of the Roman mission of Augustin among the Anglo-Saxons encouraged attempts
to bring the Irish Church under the papal jurisdiction and to force upon it the ritual observances of
Rome. England owes a good deal of her Christianity to independent Irish and Scotch missionaries
from Bangor and Iona; but Ireland (as well as Germany) owes her Romanism, in great measure, to
England. Pope Honorius (who was afterwards condemned by the sixth oecumenical council for
holding the Monothelite heresy) addressed to the Irish clergy in 629 an exhortation—not, however,
in the tone of authoritative dictation, but of superior wisdom and experience—to conform to the
Roman mode of keeping Easter. This is the first known papal encyclical addressed to that country.
A Synod was held at Magh-Lene, and a deputation sent to the Pope (and the three Eastern patriarchs)
to ascertain the foreign usages on Easter. The deputation was treated with distinguished consideration
in Rome, and, after three years’ absence, reported in favor of the Roman cycle, which indeed rested
on a better system of calculation. It was accordingly adopted in the South of Ireland, under the
influence of the learned Irish ecclesiastic Cummian, who devoted a whole year to the study of the
controversy. A few years afterwards Thomian, archbishop and abbot of Armagh (from 623 to 661),
and the best Irish scholar of his age, introduced, after correspondence with the Pope, the Roman
custom in the North, and thereby promoted his authority in opposition to the power of the abbot of
Iona, which extended over a portion of Ireland, and strongly favored the old custom. But at last
Abbot Adamnan likewise yielded to the Roman practice before his death (704).
The Norman conquest under William I., with the sanction of the Pope, united the Irish
Church still more closely to Rome (1066). Gregory VII., in an encyclical letter to the king, clergy
and laity of Ireland (1084)., boldly, challenged their obedience to the Vicar of the blessed Peter,
and invited them to appeal to him in all matters requiring arbitration.
The archbishops of Canterbury, Lanfranc and Anselm, claimed and exercised a sort of
supervision over the three most important sea-ports, Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick, on the ground
that the Norman settlers applied to them for bishops and priests. Their influence was exerted in
favor of conformity to Rome. Clerical celibacy was more generally introduced, uniformity in ritual
established, and the large number of bishoprics reduced to twenty-three under two archbishops,
Armagh for the North and Cashel for the South; while the bishop of Dublin was permitted to remain
under the care of the archbishop of Canterbury. This reorganization of the polity in the interest of
the aggrandizement of the hierarchy was effected about 1112 at the synod of Rathbreasail, which