{12} About A.D. 368. See the details in Ammianus Marcellinus, lib.
xxviii.
{15} In the Celtic Irish Church, there seems to have been no other
pattern. The hermits who became abbots, with their monks, were the only
teachers of the people—one had almost said, the only Christians. Whence,
as early as the sixth century, if not the fifth, they, and their
disciples of Iona and Scotland, derived their peculiar tonsure, their use
of bells, their Eastern mode of keeping the Paschal feast, and other
peculiarities, seemingly without the intervention of Rome, is a mystery
still unsolved.
{17a} A book which, from its bearing on present problems, well deserves
translation.
{17b} “Vitæ Patrum.” Published at Antwerp, 1628.
{23} He is addressing our Lord.
{24} “Agentes in rebus.” On the Emperor’s staff?
{27} St. Augustine says, that Potitianus’s adventure at Trêves happened
“I know not when.” His own conversation with Potitianus must have
happened about A.D. 385, for he was baptized April 25, A.D. 387. He does
not mention the name of Potitianus’s emperor: but as Gratian was Augustus
from A.D. 367 to A.D. 375, and actual Emperor of the West till A.D. 383,
and as Trêves was his usual residence, he is most probably the person
meant: but if not, then his father Valentinian.
{29} See the excellent article on Gratian in Smith’s Dictionary, by Mr.
Means.
{30} I cannot explain this fact: but I have seen it with my own eyes.
{32} I use throughout the text published by Heschelius, in 1611.
{33} He is said to have been born at Coma, near Heracleia, in Middle
Egypt, A.D. 251.
{34} Seemingly the Greek language and literature.
{35} I have thought it more honest to translate ασκήσις by “training,”
which is now, as then, its true equivalent; being a metaphor drawn from
the Greek games by St. Paul, 1 Tim. iv. 8.
{41} I give this passage as it stands in the Greek version. In the
Latin, attributed to Evagrius, it is even more extravagant and
rhetorical.
{42} Surely the imagery painted on the inner walls of Egyptian tombs,
and probably believed by Antony and his compeers to be connected with
devil-worship, explain these visions. In the “Words of the Elders” a
monk complains of being troubled with “pictures, old and new.” Probably,
again, the pain which Antony felt was the agony of a fever; and the
visions which he saw, its delirium.
{44} Here is an instance of the original use of the word “monastery,”
viz. a cell in which a single person dwelt.
{45} An allusion to the heathen mysteries.
{49} A.D. 311. Galerius Valerius Maximinus (his real name was Daza) had
been a shepherd-lad in Illyria, like his uncle Galerius Valerius
Maximianus; and rose, like him, through the various grades of the army to
be co-Emperor of Rome, over Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor; a furious
persecutor of the Christians, and a brutal and profligate tyrant. Such
were the “kings of the world” from whom those old monks fled.
{52a} The lonely alluvial flats at the mouths of the Nile. “Below the
cliffs, beside the sea,” as one describes them.
{52b} Now the monastery of Deir Antonios, over the Wady el Arabah,
between the Nile and the Red Sea, where Antony’s monks endure to this
day.
{60} This most famous monastery, _i.e._ collection of monks’ cells, in
Egypt is situate forty miles from Alexandria, on a hill where nitre was
gathered. The hospitality and virtue of its inmates are much praised by
Ruffinus and Palladius. They were, nevertheless, the chief agents in the
fanatical murder of Hypatia.
{65} It appears from this and many other passages, that extempore prayer
was usual among these monks, as it was afterwards among the Puritans (who
have copied them in so many other things), whenever a godly man visited
them.
{66a} Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis, was the author of an obscure schism
calling itself the “Church of the Martyrs,” which refused to communicate
with the rest of the Eastern Church. See Smith’s “Dictionary,” on the
word “Meletius.”
{66b} Arius (whose most famous and successful opponent was Athanasius,
the writer of this biography) maintained that the Son of God was not
co-equal and co-eternal with the Father, but created by Him out of
nothing, and before the world. His opinions were condemned in the famous
Council of Nicæa, A.D. 325.
{67} If St. Antony could use so extreme an argument against the Arians,
what would he have said to the Mariolatry which sprang up after his
death?
{68a} _I.e._ those who were still heathens.
{68b} ἰερεύς. The Christian priest is always called in this work simply
πρεσθύτερος, or elder.
{72a} Probably that of A.D. 341, when Gregory of Cappadocia, nominated
by the Arian Bishops, who had assembled at the Council of Antioch,
expelled Athanasius from the see of Alexandria, and great violence was
committed by his followers and by Philagrius the Prefect. Athanasius
meanwhile fled to Rome.
{72b} _I.e._ celebrated there their own Communion.
{77} Evidently the primæval custom of embalming the dead, and keeping
mummies in the house, still lingered among the Egyptians.
{108} These sounds, like those which St. Guthlac heard in the English
fens, are plainly those of wild-fowl.
{115} The Brucheion, with its palaces and museum, the residence of the
kings and philosophers of Egypt, had been destroyed is the days of
Claudius and Valerian, during the senseless civil wars which devastated
Alexandria for twelve years; and monks had probably taken up their abode
in the ruins. It was in this quarter, at the beginning of the next
century, that Hypatia was murdered by the monks.
{116} Probably the Northern, or Lesser Oasis, Ouah el Baharieh, about
eighty miles west of the Nile.
{117a} Jerome (who sailed that sea several times) uses the word here, as
it is used in Acts xxvii. 27, for the sea about Malta, “driven up and
down in Adria.”
{117b} The southern point of Sicily, now Cape Passaro.
{118} In the Morea, near the modern Navarino.
{119a} At the mouth of the Bay of Cattaro.
{119b} This story—whatever belief we may give to its details—is one of
many which make it tolerably certain that a large snake (Python) still
lingered in Eastern Europe. Huge tame snakes were kept as sacred by the
Macedonian women; and one of them (according to Lucian) Peregrinus
Proteus, the Cagliostro of his time, fitted with a linen mask, and made
it personate the god Æsculapius. In the “Historia Lausiaca,” cap. lii.
is an account by an eye-witness of a large snake in the Thebaid, whose
track was “as if a beam had been dragged along the sand.” It terrifies
the Syrian monks: but the Egyptian monk sets to work to kill it, saying
that he had seen much larger—even up to fifteen cubits.
{121} Now Capo St. Angelo and the island of Cerigo, at the southern
point of Greece.
{123a} See p. 52.
{123b} Probably dedicated to the Paphian Venus.
{130} The lives of these two hermits and that of St. Cuthbert will be
given in a future number.
{131} Sihor, the black river, was the ancient name of the Nile, derived
from the dark hue of its waters.
{159} Ammianus Marcellinus, Book xxv. cap. 9.
{160} By Dr. Burgess.
{163} History of Christianity, vol. iii. p. 109.
{203} An authentic fact.
{204} If any one doubts this, let him try the game called “Russian
scandal,” where a story, passed secretly from mouth to mouth, ends
utterly transformed, the original point being lost, a new point
substituted, original names and facts omitted, and utterly new ones
inserted, &c. &c.; an experiment which is ludicrous, or saddening,
according to the temper of the experimenter.
{209} Les Moines d’Occident, vol. ii. pp. 332–467.
{210} M. La Borderie, “Discours sur les Saints Bretons;” a work which I
have unfortunately not been able to consult.
{212a} Vitæ Patrum, p. 753.
{212b} Ibid. p. 893.
{212c} Ibid. p. 539.
{212d} Ibid. p. 540.
{212e} Ibid. p. 532.
{224} It has been handed down, in most crabbed Latin, by his disciple,
Eugippius; it may be read at length in Pez, Scriptores Austriacarum
Rerum.
{238} Scriptores Austriacarum Rerum.
{245} Hæften, quoted by Montalembert, vol. ii. p. 22, in note.
{256} Dr. Reeves supposes these to have been “crustacea:” but their
stinging and clinging prove them surely to have been jelly-fish—medusæ.
{257} I have followed the Latin prose version of it, which M. Achille
Jubinal attributes to the eleventh century. Here and there I have taken
the liberty of using the French prose version, which he attributes to the
latter part of the twelfth. I have often condensed the story, where it
was prolix or repeated itself: but I have tried to follow faithfully both
matter and style, and to give, word for word, as nearly as I could, any
notable passages. Those who wish to know more of St. Brendan should
consult the learned _brochure_ of M. Jubinal, “La Légende Latine de St.
Brandaines,” and the two English versions of the Legend, edited by Mr.
Thomas Wright for the Percy Society, vol. xiv. One is in verse, and of
the earlier part of the fourteenth century, and spirited enough: the
other, a prose version, was printed by Wynkyn de Worde, in his edition of
the “Golden Legend;” 1527.
{260a} In the Barony of Longford, County Galway.
{260b} 3,000, like 300, seems to be, I am informed, only an Irish
expression for any large number.
{269} Some dim legend concerning icebergs, and caves therein.
{270} Probably from reports of the volcanic coast of Iceland.
{272} This part of the legend has been changed and humanized as time ran
on. In the Latin and French versions it has little or no point or moral.
In the English, Judas accounts for the presence of the cloth thus:—
“Here I may see what it is to give other men’s (goods) with harm.
As will many rich men with unright all day take,
Of poor men here and there, and almisse (alms) sithhe (afterwards)
make.”
For the tongs and the stone he accounts by saying that, as he used them
for “good ends, each thing should surely find him which he did for God’s
love.”
But in the prose version of Wynkyn de Worde, the tongs have been changed
into “ox-tongues,” “which I gave some tyme to two preestes to praye for
me. I bought them with myne owne money, and therefore they ease me,
bycause the fysshes of the sea gnaw on them, and spare me.”
This latter story of the ox-tongues has been followed by Mr. Sebastian
Evans, in his poem on St. Brendan. Both he and Mr. Matthew Arnold have
rendered the moral of the English version very beautifully.
{274} Copied, surely, from the life of Paul the first hermit.
{283} The famous Cathach, now in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy,
was long popularly believed to be the very Psalter in question. As a
relic of St. Columba it was carried to battle by the O’Donnels, even as
late as 1497, to insure victory for the clan.
{290} Bede, book iii. cap. 3.
{292} These details, and countless stories of St. Cuthbert’s miracles,
are to be found in Reginald of Durham, “De Admirandis Beati Cuthberti,”
published by the Surtees Society. This curious book is admirably edited
by Mr. J. Raine; with an English synopsis at the end, which enables the
reader for whom the Latin is too difficult to enjoy those pictures of
life under Stephen and Henry II., whether moral, religious, or social, of
which the book is a rich museum.
{299} “In this hole lie the bones of the Venerable Bede.”
{303} An English translation of the Anglo-Saxon life has been published
by Mr. Godwin, of Cambridge, and is well worth perusal.
{312} Vita S. Godrici, pp. 332, 333.
{316} The earlier one; that of the Harleian MSS. which (Mr. Stevenson
thinks) was twice afterwards expanded and decorated by him.
{323} Reginald wants to make “a wonder incredible in our own times,” of
a very common form (thank God) of peaceful death. He makes miracles in
the same way of the catching of salmon and of otters, simple enough to
one who, like Godric, knew the river, and every wild thing which haunted
it.
{330} That of the Salisbury Manual is published in the “Ecclesiologist”
for August 1848, by the Rev. Sir W. H. Cope, to whom I am indebted for
the greater number of these curious facts.
{331} I owe these facts to the courtesy of Mr. John Stuart, of the
General Register Office, Edinburgh.
{333} “History of England,” vol. iii. p. 256, note.