I.

1. _Essays on the Origin, Doctrines, and Discipline of the Early

Irish Church._ By the Rev. Dr. Moran, Vice-Rector of the

Irish College, Rome. Dublin: Duffy, 1864, pp. 337.

2. _History of the Catholic Archbishops of Dublin since the

Reformation._ By the Rev. Dr. Moran, Vice-Rector of the Irish

College, Rome. Vol. I., Part I. Introduction. Dublin: Duffy,

1864, pp. 192.

There are two positions that command the whole field of Irish Church

history. The first is the original connection of the Irish Church

with the See of Rome; the second is that her hierarchy has remained

ever faithful to Rome, especially in the time of the Reformation.

Deny either of these, and the whole aspect of our ecclesiastical

history is immediately changed. The supernatural virtues that spring

from Catholicism nowhere had a fresher bloom than in Ireland. Faith,

and hope, and charity, and love for the evangelical counsels were in

a special degree the ornaments of the nation which, Saint Patrick

tells us in his _Confessions_, "had been bestowed upon him by the

charity of Christ". The schools of Ireland, her art, her literature,

her laws, her social customs, all felt the influence of the intense

religious feeling that existed throughout the land. The Irish monastic

superiors, says a lively French writer, aimed at making their monks

saints, and were surprised to find them become poets likewise. Now

this rich superabundance of spiritual blessing, as it was the fruit of

union with Rome, so also ought it be traced back to Rome as its source

under God. And the more marvellous its richness, the more striking the

necessity of being able to show that it has come to us through Saint

Peter. Besides, all these graces were, if we may use a theological

expression, _gratiae gratis datae_, as well as _gratum facientes_. They

were given to the Irish Church not only to make her the glad mother of

saints, but also, and in a singular manner, for the benefit of others.

It is, we think, impossible not to recognize in the history of the

Irish Church, both ancient and modern, this missionary character. Her

cloisters had the gift of sanctity; but did not the odour of this very

sanctity draw to her shores crowds of foreign ecclesiastics--Egyptian,

Roman, Italian, French, British, and Saxon? Her schools had the gift

of wisdom; but did not this wisdom cry out to the men beyond the seas

to come and buy of it without price? Where was the bishop's throne

encircled by a more dense crown of Priests and Levites than in

Ireland? and was it not that many of them might be spared for those

places abroad where the little ones were asking for bread, and there

was none to break it to them? The flower of her youth thronged her

monasteries; she took them to her bosom as children, that she might

make them fathers; and among the monks of the West what fathers were

more fruitful of good? And in our own day let England, and Scotland,

and Australia, and America, and Africa, and India, tell what part

Providence has assigned to the Irish Catholics in that wonderful growth

of Catholicism which refreshes the heart in these days of indifference

and infidelity. To Ireland may well be applied the words used by Saint

Gregory Nazianzen, of the Constantinople of the fourth century, when

he calls it "the bond of union between the east and west, to which the

most distant extremes from all sides come together, and to which they

look up as to a common centre and emporium of the faith". This being

the case, it becomes a cardinal point to show the unbroken connection

between Rome and Ireland through all the chequered course of our

history. If she be not sent, how shall she preach?

This central truth is the subject of Dr. Moran's two books, although

under a different aspect in each. He could not have rendered better

service to our Church than by establishing so clearly and firmly as

he has done, that Saint Patrick had his mission from Rome, and that

the Irish Church was never merged in the so-called Church of the

Reformation. Under any circumstances, such a work would be entitled

to our gratitude. But the exceptional circumstances of the times were

such as to make its appearance a real necessity. Dr. Todd, of Trinity

College, in his _Memoir of Saint Patrick_, added his honoured name

to the list of those who deny that Saint Patrick's mission to our

island had any connection with, or sanction from, the Roman Pontiff,

Celestine. In his preface to the same work he lays down the theory that

the new Irish Church, which was long in opposition to the church of the

English Pale, at last combined with it in embracing the reformed creed.

In face of such assertions, coming from such a source, and which, as

we have seen, strike at the very heart of our ecclesiastical glory, we

had need of a work conceived in good temper, executed with scholarly

precision, and giving proof as well of extensive acquaintance with

our ancient records, as of critical skill in their interpretation.

These qualities we find in Dr. Moran's works. In addressing himself to

his task, he starts from the principle, that as being a question of

facts, it must be discussed on its intrinsic merits, and decided by the

mere authority of historical records and critical arguments. To this

principle he carefully adheres to the close.

The work which we have placed first on our list contains three essays.

The first treats of the origin of the Irish Church and of the labours

of Saints Palladius and Patrick; the second, of the Blessed Eucharist;

the third, of the Blessed Virgin. The first essay is divided into

three parts. Part I. treats of Saint Palladius and Saint Patrick, and

is divided into four chapters respectively headed: Mission of Saint

Palladius; general sketch of Saint Patrick's history; Saint Patrick's

connection with Saint Germanus; Saint Patrick's mission from Rome. In

Part II. various modern theories respecting Saint Patrick are reviewed

and refuted. Chapter i. refutes Dr. Ledwich's theory that Saint Patrick

never existed; chapter ii. refutes the statements of Sir William

Betham, that Saint Patrick lived long before A.D. 432, and of Usher,

that Ireland possessed a hierarchy long before Saint Patrick's time;

chapter iii. examines Dean Murray's theory, that Saint Patrick had no

mission from Rome; chapter iv. refutes the opinion of Dr. Lanigan,

that Saint Patrick died A.D. 465, and then Dr. Petrie's conjecture,

that our ancient writers have so blended together the acts of two

Saint Patricks, that it is no longer possible to say which belongs to

the Apostle Patrick; chapters v. vi. vii. deal with Dr. Todd's theory

reduced to three heads:--1. that Saint Palladius was not a Roman

deacon; 2. that Saint Patrick did not commence his apostolate until

A.D. 440; 3. that Saint Patrick received no mission from Rome. Part

III. sets before us the sentiments of the early Irish Church regarding

Rome. Three classes of witnesses are called, in as many chapters, to

testify that the ancient Irish acknowledged with filial reverence

the divinely given authority of the Holy See. First come the ancient

writers, next the canons which regulated the discipline of the Church,

then the Irish saints who gave evidence of their sentiments by their

pilgrimages to Rome, and by their appeals to the supreme power of Saint

Peter's chair.

The second essay treats of the teaching of the ancient Irish Church

regarding the Blessed Eucharist. That Christ is really present and

offered on our altars for the living and the dead, was held by our

Christian fathers as tenaciously as by their Catholic children of

to-day. The documents which illustrate this point are arranged by

Dr. Moran under the following heads:--1. Liturgical treatises; 2.

Penitentials and other records; 3. the words and practice of the early

saints; 4. the ancient writers cited by Protestants as favourable to

the reformed doctrine. The examination of these witnesses occupies four

chapters.

In the third essay Dr. Moran brings conclusive testimony to show that

devotion to the Blessed Virgin was part of the primitive teaching. He

alludes to the beautiful prayer of Saint Colgu which we have been

enabled, at page 4, to present in full to our readers.

The work is closed by various appendices, each dealing with some one

monument of sacred antiquity. In these appendices the reader will find,

together with a valuable mine of precious information, the following

documents, either whole or in part:--an old Irish tract on the various

liturgies referred by Spelman to about A.D. 680, the Penitentials of

Saint Cummian, Saint Finnian, Saint David, Saint Gildas, and Saint

Columbanus; the canons of Adamnan, the Synodus Sapientium, the Bobbio

Missal, the Profession of Faith by Saint Mochta, of Louth, of the fifth

century, the sixth canon of Saint Patrick, the Irish synod of A.D. 807,

and various hymns from the Bangor Antiphonarium.

The second of Dr. Moran's books noticed above is the introduction

to a larger work which we hope soon to see published, the _History

of the Catholic Archbishops of Dublin since the Reformation_. This

introduction is intended to prepare the reader for that history by

describing the first attempts to root out the ancient religion of

Ireland, the unworthy arts by which the Catholic Church was assailed,

and the evil effects of the Reformation. It also gives a sketch of the

persecutions in Ireland under Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth. The

whole is divided into four chapters. Chapter i. treats of the first

efforts of the English government to introduce the Reformation into

Ireland; chapter ii. of the appointment of Hugh Curwin to the see of

Dublin, and his apostacy; chapter iii. of the vacancy of the see after

the apostacy of Curwin, and how the diocese was administered until the

end of the sixteenth century; chapter iv. of the persecution of the

Irish Catholics during the reign of Elizabeth. In the appendix Dr.

Moran shows from the Consistorial Acts and other genuine sources, that

the succession of our Irish Catholic bishops has remained unbroken.

The immense value of such an appendix will best be recognized when we

recall to mind the confident statements to the contrary continually

put forward by Protestant writers. The late Protestant Dean of Ardagh

asserts that the bishops, with the exception of two, and all the

priests embraced the Reformation. The Hon. and Rev. A. Percival, in _An

Apology for the Doctrine of Apostolical Succession_, states that "at

the accession of Queen Elizabeth, of all the Irish bishops, only two

were deprived, and two others resigned on account of their adherence

to the supremacy of the See of Rome. The rest continued in their sees;

and from them the bishops and clergy of the Irish Church derive their

orders.... This has never been disputed". Dr. Mant, the Protestant

bishop of Down and Connor, attempts to prove statistically that the

Irish hierarchy adopted the Reformation. On this, his chosen ground of

statistics, he is met by Dr. Moran, who shows that he omits three sees

occupied by Catholic bishops, viz.: Mayo, Ross, and Kilmacduagh; that

he falsely supposes Armagh to have been vacant after Dr. Dowdal's death

in 1558, until Adam Loftus' consecration in 1561, whereas Dr. Donatus

Fleming had been appointed in February, 1560, and was then in actual

possession of the see; that seven other sees, whose occupants were _not

known_ to Dr. Mant, were, nevertheless, held by canonically appointed

prelates, viz.: Kilmore, Dromore, Raphoc, Derry, Kilfenoragh, Killala,

Achonry; that the eleven sees vacated by death retained beyond a doubt

the Catholic succession. Dr. Mant's opinions as to the other sees are

carefully examined, and the result of the whole investigation is to

establish triumphantly against Dr. Todd and Dr. Mant, that, "so far

from the old clergy of Ireland having _merged_ into the reformation of

Elizabeth, the succession of the Catholic hierarchy remained unbroken".