Corkagien. et Cloinen. invicem unitas in Provincia cuidam principi
Catholico subjecta, pro Hyberno scholari Collegii Germanici".
In the list of the Irish clergy above referred to, under the heading
"qui sunt extra Hiberniam", is mentioned _Darmisius Craticus_, who
is described as studying in Rome, and in his thirtieth year. He is
subsequently again mentioned among those who might be destined for the
Irish mission, and it is there added that he was a native of Munster,
and though he was skilled in both the English and Irish languages, he
was more conversant with the Irish: "melius loquitur Hibernice". From
the consistorial acts we further learn that he applied himself to
sacred studies in the illustrious college which had been founded a few
years before for the purpose of supplying missioners to Germany and
other countries suffering from the oppression of heresy, and among his
companions in its hallowed halls was Nicholas Skerrett, who was destined
to be sharer of his missionary toils and perils as Archbishop of Tuam.
Dr. Graith was one of the most illustrious missioners who laboured in our
Irish Church during the sixteenth century; and, as Peter Lombard informs
us, was at one time the only bishop in the province of Munster. Soon
after his arrival in our island, the agents of heresy mainly directed
their efforts towards his apprehension, and so chagrined were they at
his escape that they even accused Sir John Perrot of having secretly
favoured him and thus baffled their designs. In a memorial presented
to government in 1592, "Doctor Creagh, Bishop of Cloyne and Cork",
appears first on the list of those who in Munster were enemies of the
Elizabethan rule, having lived "in the country these eleven or twelve
years past, without pardon or protection, consecrating churches, making
priests", etc.; and it is further added that "he did more evil", that
is, he was more zealous in propagating our holy faith, even "_than
Dr. Sanders in his time_" (see _Essays_, etc., by Rev. Dr. M'Carthy,
pag. 424). Another State Paper, being a letter from the Lord Deputy to
Lord Burghley, in England, dated 17th May, 1593, gives us the following
particulars:--
"We have laboured with all possible endeavours with the Earl
of Tirone, as well by private conference as by our sending
letters, for the apprehension of the titular bishops remaining
in these parts; yet can we by no means prevail, though it is
very well known to us that the earl might have done great and
acceptable service therein, on account of the friendship between
him, O'Donell, and Maguire--Maguire being cousin-germain, and
altogether at his service, and, as report goeth, either hath or
is to marry the earl's daughter. And as in this I made bold,
I humbly pray your lordship's pardon, to state what little
success hath followed of the great shams of service made by
the Archbishop of Cashel and Richard Power, rather in regard
for their own benefit and to serve their own turns, than for
any performance of actions at all. Upon the Archbishop's coming
over they pretended a plot, both for the getting of great sums
of money for her Majesty and for the apprehension of Dr. Creaghe,
to the second of which we rather first hearkened, but in the end
nothing was done more than to spend so much time, and an open
show, as it were, made to the world how that traitor was sought
and laid for, whereby the other traitorous titular bishops might
take warning to be the more wary upon their keeping" (S. P. O.).
The accusation which is here made against the unfortunate Miler MacGrath,
Protestant Archbishop of Cashel, had probably more foundation than the
Lord Deputy imagined; and whilst much noise was made for the arrest of
our Bishop Dermitius, intelligence of all such schemes was communicated
to him by Miler himself. One letter of MacGrath to his "loving wife Any"
is preserved in the S. P. O., dated from Greenwich, the 26th of June,
1592, in which he writes: "I have already resolved you in my mind
touching my cousin Darby Creagh, and I desire you now to cause his
friends to send him out of the whole country if they can, or if not to
send (to him) my orders, for that there is such search to be made for
him that unless he be wise he shall be taken".
On the 31st of October, 1595, a brief was addressed to "Dermitio Episcopo
Corcagiensi", commissioning him to grant some ecclesiastical livings to
Owen MacEgan, who a few years later became illustrious in the annals
of our church as Vicar Apostolic of Ross.--(See _Irish Ecclesiastical
Record_, vol. i., p. 110). In 1599 Dr. Graith was visited by the
Franciscan Father Mooney, who in his History of the Order, commemorating
this visit, describes the bishop as "vir valde prudens et in rebus
agendis versatus". This must have been a period of harrowing anxiety
for the worthy bishop. His diocese was laid waste by fire and sword,
the Irish chieftains driven to arms by the iniquitous policy of the
agents of Elizabeth, having made the southern districts of Ireland the
theatre of their struggle. Dr. Graith shared the perils of their camp,
ministering to them the comforts of religion. One of his hair-breadth
escapes is thus described in the _Hibernia Pacata_, pag. 190:
"The Earl of Thomond, Sir George Thornton, and Captain Roger
Harvey, with their companies, following the direction of their
guide, were conducted to Lisbarry, a parcel of Drumfinnin woods.
No sooner were they entered into the fastness, than presently
the sentinels who were placed in the outskirts of the wood,
raised the cry which it would seem roused the Earl of Desmond
and _Dermod MacCraghe, the Pope's Bishop of Cork_, who were lodged
there in a poor ragged cabin. Desmond fled away barefoot, having
no leisure to pull on his shoes, and was not discovered; but
MacCraghe was met by some of the soldiers clothed in a simple
mantle, and with torn trousers like an aged churl, and they
neglecting so poor a creature, not able to carry a weapon,
suffered him to pass unregarded".
This happened in the month of November, 1600.
It was on the 30th March that year, that O'Neill and the other Irish
princes addressed a letter in common to the Sovereign Pontiff, unfolding
to him the miseries which laid desolate our island, attesting too their
resolute desire to combat for the Catholic faith, and to promote the
interests of Holy Church, and petitioning in fine, that the vacant sees
of the province of Munster might be filled by those who were recommended
by the Bishop of Cork and Cloyne: they add that the only bishop then in
the southern province was "Reverendissimus Corcagiensis et Cloanensis
qui senio et labore jam paene est confectus"; and as a special motive
why the Holy See should not delay to make these appointments to the
vacant dioceses, they write: "Hoc eo confidentius petimus quia qui electi
conservati et ad nos dimissi fuerunt a vestra sacrosancta Sede, ad
vacuas his in partibus sedes occupandas, a nobis pro viribus, in iisdem
Dei gratia defenduntur, ut gregibus sibi commissis tuto invigilare
queant".--_Original Letter in Hib. Pacat._, page 311.
The next notice that we find of our aged Bishop is in the appointment
of Luke Archer to administer the see of Leighlin during the absence of
its Bishop Ribera, on whose death, in 1604, the same Luke Archer was
constituted Vicar-Apostolic of that see. From the words used by Harty
when registering this appointment made by our Bishop, we may conclude
that Dr. Graith, as his predecessor, had received special faculties
from Rome not only for his own diocese, but also for the province of
Leinster. "Dermitius Chrah (he writes), Corcagiensis et Clonensis tunc
Episcopus _apostolica auctoritate qui fulserat_".
As regards the precise period of Dr. Graith's death, no record has
come down to us. Mooney, the Franciscan annalist, merely attests that
"he lived for some time subsequent to 1599". Dr. Matthews, who was
consecrated bishop of Clogher in 1609, reckons him amongst the bishops
who survived Elizabeth, and lived for some years "aliquibus annis" under
James I. This would lead us to conclude that his life was prolonged
till the year 1605. O'Sullivan Beare, writing in 1618, leaves us in a
like uncertainty, as he refers his death in general terms to the first
year of the seventeenth century, after an episcopate of more than twenty
years. The eulogy, however, passed upon this bishop by O'Sullivan Beare
deserves to be cited in full:--
"Catholicorum infelicitati adscribendum est", he writes, "quod
sub id tempus fato functus sit vir integerrimus atque clarissimus
Dermysius Mac Carrhus, Corcaghae et Clueniae Episcopus, qui annos
viginti et amplius in hac insula in fide retinenda magnopere
insudavit, dumque bellum hoc gerebatur, movendis Catholicorum
animis, ut Christianam pietatem armis defenderent, multum studii
et laboris impendit: cujus interitu Ibernorum concordia non minima
parte elanguit. Quae ob merita in Dei ecclesiam et Iberniae
regnum collata, cum ejus caput Angli diu frustra impetiverint,
tandem illius interfectori vel deprehensori grandem pecuniae
summam constituerunt, quin etiam tam inexpiabili odio eum
prosequuti sunt ut illius etiam consanguineos labefactare non
destiterint. Ex quibus Thomam MacCrachum antistitis nepotem ex
fratre Thoma deprehensum ad fidem Catholicam deserendam cogere
et praemiis et terrore sunt conati: qua spe dejecti magni et
maxime Catholici animi virum securi percusserunt. Sed quoniam in
episcopi mentionem incidimus, illud ejus magnum atque rarum mirum
nequeo silentio praeterire quod chirographum vix male effingeret,
aliam vero ne litteram quidem unam visus sit unquam scribere, cum
tamen adeo disertus atque sapiens evaserit ut doctor in utroque
jure creatus sacram Theologiam Lovaniae annos aliquot publice sit
professus, quippe tanto ingenii acumine tamque felici memoria
pollebat ut ne discipulus quidem necesse habuerit lectionem
notis excipere, et de doctrina Christiana libellum Ibernice
scriptum posteris reliquerit, cujus praeceptis in hunc usque
diem juventus in ea insula excolitur" (_Hist. Cath._, pag. 223).
We may now inquire who were the individuals chosen by Elizabeth to hold
the temporalities of Cork and Cloyne during this interval. The first
Protestant bishop of these sees was Richard Dixon, a chaplain of the
Lord Deputy Sydney. The see in 1568 had received a Catholic appointment,
but it was only on the 17th of May, 1570, that Elizabeth wrote to the
Lord Deputy: "We are pleased that Richard Dixon, being by you very well
commended for his learning and other qualities, shall have the bishoprics
of Cork and Cloyne"--(_Morrin_, i. p. 539). Nevertheless, the prelate
thus warmly commended was, on the 7th of March, 1571, sentenced by a
royal commission to perform public penance in the Cathedral of Christ
Church, Dublin, which penance, adds the government record, he went
through in _hypocrisy and pretence of amendment_; wherefore, on the
7th of November following, the same commission proceeded to depose him
from his Protestant episcopal functions, declaring him guilty of public
immorality and other crimes.--(See _Brady Records_, iii. 47). Mathew
Sheyn, or Shehan, was the next episcopal incumbent chosen by Elizabeth:
only two events are commemorated to mark his episcopate: 1. that in
1575 "he leased away the whole see of Cloyne for ever for five marks
per annum"; and 2. that in October, 1578, he made public display of
his impiety by consigning to the flames at the high cross of Cork a
statue of St. Dominick, long held in veneration by the faithful of that
city (_Ibid._, pag. 49). The next Protestant Bishop, William Lyons,
combined in his commission the sees of Cork, Cloyne, and Ross. We have
already spoken of this dignitary under the head of Ross (_Record_,
vol. i. pag. 110-1): we will now only add that his chief enmity seemed
directed against the faithful of Timoleague. Already in 1589 he had
destroyed a portion of its venerable monastery to erect a house with
the materials. In 1612 he resolved to complete his work of destruction;
for intelligence was conveyed to him that a large concourse of Catholics
had assembled there to assist at midnight Mass on the great Christmas
festival. Though advanced in years, he set out with a troop of soldiers
to punish these offenders; however, he had proceeded only a little way
from the city when he was seized with such violent pains throughout his
whole body that he was obliged to desist from his undertaking. During
the five remaining years of his life he displayed less violence against
the Catholics, and to his dying day he retained a lively memory of his
Christmas excursion to Timoleague--(Mooney's _MS. Hist._, p. 49).
THE CHURCH AND THE BIBLE.
II.
We have seen in a former article that the Catholic Church was the careful
guardian and zealous propagator of the original texts of the inspired
volume. We now proceed to show that her missionaries and her most devoted
sons were most earnest in communicating its sacred truths to all the
faithful, by diffusing throughout the various nations of Christendom
untainted and authentic versions of the Holy Scripture. This assertion
must be proved not by theory but by facts. In producing these facts
our task will be comparatively easy, on account of the many able and
interesting essays which have already been published, in illustration
of this subject.
At the very time that Luther and his followers were engaged in declaiming
against Holy Church, and in withdrawing so many of her children from the
hallowed fold, the words of a Prophet were first echoed on the shores of
a new world; "quam pulchri pedes evangelizantium pacem, evangelizantium
bona". The losses of the Church in Europe were more than counterbalanced
by her gains among the new nations of America, whose fervour and faith
formed a striking contrast to the frenzy and irreligion of the sophists of
Germany. Now no sooner were these western children summoned to the bosom
of the Church than versions of the Sacred Scripture were made for their
use, in their yet uncouth and unpolished tongues, by the missionaries of
the Cross. "Benedict Fernandez, a Dominican Friar (writes the Protestant
Horne), being appointed Vicar of Mixteca, in New Spain, translated the
Epistles and Gospels into the dialect spoken in that province. Didacus
de S. Maria, another Dominican and Vicar of the province of Mexico (who
died in 1579), was the author of a translation of the Epistles and Gospels
into the Mexican tongue, or general language of the country. The Proverbs
of Solomon and other fragments of the Holy Scriptures were translated
into the same language by Louis Rodriguez, a Spanish Franciscan Friar;
and the Epistles and Gospels appointed to be read for the whole year were
translated into the idiom of the western Indians, by Arnold a Basaccio,
also a Franciscan Friar" (_Introduction_, vol. ii. pag. 120). Besides
these various Mexican versions, there were others which escaped the
researches of Mr. Horne. Thus, for instance, within the past years was
printed the "Evangeliarium, Epistolarium, et Lectionarium Aztecum",
composed nearly three centuries and a half ago by a Spanish Franciscan
named Bernardine Sahagyn. This zealous religious entered on his missionary
career in Mexico about the year 1520, and for sixty years devoted
himself to the spiritual culture of that new vineyard of God. He was not
inattentive at the same time to the literature and ancient monuments
of the Aztec race, and his name is well known to Mexican antiquarians
for his researches regarding the language, history, and antiquities of
the New World. Lord Kingsborough, in the seventh volume of his great
work, published the _Historia Universal de las Cosas de Nueva Espana_,
composed by our Franciscan about the year 1550, and his version of
the Sacred Scripture, when first announced to the literary world, was
thus described by M. Beltram: "J' ai une trouvaille a vous montrer,
la plus interressante, je crois, de toutes celles que vous avez deja
vues ... on y voit un beau reste de l'illustre philanthrope et moine
Bernardino de Sahagun" (_Le Mexique_, vol. ii. pag. 167. Paris, 1830).
Nevertheless, this version was destined to remain still thirty years
a hidden treasure, and it was only in 1858 that its publication was
commenced in Milan by the accomplished Mexican scholar Biondelli. From
the introduction of the learned editor we learn that Bernardino's
version comprised almost all the New Testament and a portion of the
Old, and that its date was anterior to those commemorated by Mr. Horne,
the manuscript from which the text was printed having been copied in
the year 1530. (_See Evangeliarium, etc., ex antiquo codice Mexicano
nuper invento depromptum._ Milan, 1858, 4to, page xlix. 576).
Returning to the old continent, the first country which we meet is our
own beloved land. Now was the Bible _a sealed Book_ in our Catholic
island, and were our sainted fathers enemies of, or strangers to, its
inspired truths? Oh! ask the great apostle of North England, St. Aidan,
whose disciples, as Bede informs us, "whether they were of the clergy
or of the laity, were bound to exercise themselves either in reading
the Scriptures or in learning the Psalms" (_Hist. Eccl._, iii. 5). Ask
St. Livinus, "who", as his ancient biographer relates, "was trained up
from his youth by his holy Master, Benignus, in singing David's Psalms,
and reading the holy Gospels". Ask St. Columbanus, in whose "breast
the treasures of the Holy Scriptures were so laid up, that within the
compass of his youthful years he set forth an elegant exposition of the
Book of Psalms" (_Vita, cap._ 2); or ask the Northumbrian King Alfred,
of whom Bede again writes that, "residing in Ireland, he imbibed there
celestial wisdom in his attentive soul, and became a man most learned
in the Scriptures: having left his native country and his pleasant
fields, that in diligent exile he might learn the mystery of godliness".
St. Furse, from his youth, was taught to drink in heavenly wisdom at
the sacred source of the inspired volume. St. Columbanus expressly exhorts
his disciple Hunaldus to its diligent study: "Sint tibi divitiae, divinae
dogmata legis" (_epist. ad Hunald._); St. Patrick himself teaches us
that "meditation on the Sacred Scriptures gives strength and vigour
to the soul"; "St. Kieran", as Dr. King learnedly writes, "when thirty
years old, went to Rome and spent there twenty years reading the Divine
Scriptures and collecting copies of them" (_Ch. Hist. of Irel._, i. 323):
and as to St. Columba, we may adopt the words of the Campleton minister,
who in his life of that great saint says: "His passion for studying the
Scriptures was most intense, when the other parts of ministerial duty
allowed him to indulge it. Thus we find him sometimes engaged for whole
days and nights in exploring dark and difficult passages of Scripture,
and accompanying his study and application with prayer and fasting"
(_Life, etc._, by J. Smith, pag. 113). It was in the Latin version that
all these saints usually meditated on the heavenly truths, and Bede
does not hesitate to say that, though the Irish, Britons, Picts, and
Angles had their own peculiar languages, yet, "by the meditation of the
Scriptures", the Latin tongue became common to them all (_Hist. Eccl._,
lib. i. cap. i.). How many noble monuments, too, remain to attest,
at the same time, the artistic taste and the devotion of our Catholic
fathers, in adorning and illustrating the books of Holy Writ! The
_Domhnach Airgid_ is well known to the students of Irish Ecclesiastical
antiquities; it is a MS. copy of the Latin text of the Gospels, described
by Petrie as "perhaps the oldest copy of the Sacred Word now existing"
(_Trans. R. I. A._ xviii. _Antiq._, pag. 17), and which, as Eugene Curry
adds, "we have just reason to believe, was the companion in his hours
of devotion of our Patron Saint, the apostle Saint Patrick" (_Lect._,
pag. 321). This venerable text is encased in three distinct covers, the
first or inner one being of yew, and probably coeval with the manuscript
itself; the second of copper plated with silver whose interlaced
ornaments indicate a period between the sixth and twelfth centuries;
whilst the third or outer one, of the fourteenth century, is of silver
plated with gold, being decorated with relievos of the crucifixion,
of the Blessed Virgin, and the other Patrons of Ireland. Thus are all
the ages of faith in our island, anterior to the Reformation, linked
together in a holy union, to proclaim with one accord the love and
devotion of our Catholic fathers for the inspired text. The _Cathach_,
or vellum Book of Psalms, handed down from St. Columbkille, with its
rich case of solid silver, is scarcely less interesting; and what shall
we say of the Book of Kells, _i.e._, the Latin Gospels of St. Columba,
"a manuscript (as Petrie remarks) which for beauty and splendour is not
surpassed by any of its age known to exist" (_Round Towers_, pag. 203),
and of which Westwood thus writes: "Ireland may justly be proud of
the Book of Kells: it is unquestionably the most elaborately executed
MS. of early art now in existence" (_Palaeog. Sac._). Besides these,
there are _Dimma's Book_ and the _Gospels_ of MacDurnan, the _Psalter_
of St. Ricemarch, the _Evangeliarium_ of St. Moling, Bishop of Ferns,
and the fragments of several Gospels, rivalling in point of ornament and
accuracy the most precious MSS. of the Continent (_Ibid._). There is one
copy of the sacred text which it is sad to miss from the collections
of our Christian antiquities. It is the so-called Book of Kildare,
which was publicly destroyed by the fathers of Protestantism in this
country, but which has happily been described by Giraldus Cambrensis, a
writer whom none will suspect of bias in favour of our Irish Church. We
will give the original text of his description, which may not, perhaps,
be easily accessible to the reader:--
"Inter universa Kyldariae miracula nil mihi miraculosius
occurrit, quam liber ille mirandus, tempore virginis Brigidae
(ut ajunt) Angelo dictante conscriptus. Continet hic liber
quatuor Evangelistarum juxta Hieronymum concordantiam, ubi
quot paginae fere sunt, tot figurae diversae variisque coloribus
distinctissimae. Hic majestatis vultum videas divinitus impressum:
hinc mysticas Evangelistarum formas: nunc senas, nunc quaternas,
nunc binas alas habentes, hinc aquilam, inde vitulum, hinc
hominis faciem, inde bovis, aliasque figuras pene infinitas,
quas si superficialiter et usuali more minus acute conspexeris,
litura potius videbitur quam ligatura; nec ullam attendens
prorsus subtilitatem, ubi nihil tamen praeter subtilitatem. Sin
autem ad perspicacius intuendum oculorum aciem invitaveris, et
longe penitius ad artis arcana transpenetraveris; tam delicatas
et subtiles, tam actas et arctas, tam nodosas et vinculatim
colligatas, tamque recentibus adhuc coloribus illustratas
notare poteris intricaturas, ut vere haec omnia Angelica potius
quam humana diligentia jam asseveraveris esse composita. Haec
equidem quanto frequentius et diligentius intueor, semper quasi
novis obstupeo, semperque magis ac magis admiranda conspicio"
(_Topogr. Hib._, ii. 38, pag. 730).