The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore | Page 4

such a sense as rather an evil
thing and use of it as irreverent. He does not, as a consequence, succeed
in presenting us with a very life-like or convincing portrait of either the
man or the saint. Indeed the saint, as drawn in the Lives, is, as already
hinted, a very unsaintlike individual--almost as ready to curse as to
pray and certainly very much more likely to smite the aggressor than to
present to him the other cheek. In the text we shall see St. Mochuda,
whose Life is a specially sane piece of work, cursing on the same
occasion, first, King Blathmac and the Prince of Cluain, then, the rich
man Cronan who sympathised with the eviction, next an individual
named Dubhsulach who winked insolently at him, and finally the
people of St. Columba's holy city of Durrow who had stirred up hostile
feeling against him. Even gentle female saints can hurl an imprecation
too. St. Laisrech, for instance, condemned the lands of those who
refused her tribute, to--nettles, elder shrub, and corncrakes! It is pretty
plain that the compilers of the lives had some prerogatives, claims or
rights to uphold--hence this frequent insistence on the evil of resisting
the Saint and presumably his successors.
One characteristic of the Irish ascetics appears very clear through all
the exaggeration and all the biographical absurdity; it is their spirit of
intense mortification. To understand this we have only to study one of

the ancient Irish Monastic Rules or one of the Irish Penitentials as
edited by D'Achery ("Spicilegium") or Wasserschleben ("Irische
Kanonensamerlung"). Severest fasting, unquestioning obedience and
perpetual self renunciation were inculcated by the Rules and we have
ample evidence that they were observed with extraordinary fidelity.
The Rule of Maelruin absolutely forbade the use of meat or of beer.
Such a prohibition a thousand years ago was an immensely more
grievous thing than it would sound to-day. Wheaten bread might
partially supply the place of meat to-day, but meat was easier to
procure than bread in the eighth century. Again, a thousand years ago,
tea or coffee there was none and even milk was often difficult or
impossible to procure in winter. So severe in fact was the fast that
religious sometimes died of it. Bread and water being found
insufficient to sustain life and health, gruel was substituted in some
monasteries and of this monastic gruel there were three varieties:--(a)
"gruel upon water" in which the liquid was so thick that the meal
reached the surface, (b) "gruel between two waters" in which the meal,
while it did not rise to the surface, did not quite fall to the bottom, and
(c) "gruel under water" which was so weak and so badly boiled that he
meal easily fell to the bottom. In the case of penitents the first brand of
gruel was prescribed for light offences, the second kind for sins of
ordinary gravity, and the "gruel under water" for extraordinary crimes
(vid. Messrs. Gwynne and Purton on the Rule of Maelruin, &c.) The
most implicit, exact and prompt obedience was prescribed and
observed. An overseer of Mochuda's monastery at Rahen had occasion
to order by name a young monk called Colman to do something which
involved his wading into a river. Instantly a dozen Colmans plunged
into the water. Instances of extraordinary penance abound, beside
which the austerities of Simon Stylites almost pale. The Irish saints'
love of solitude was also a very marked characteristic. Desert places
and solitary islands of the ocean possessed an apparently wonderful
fascination for them. The more inaccessible or forbidding the island the
more it was in request as a penitential retreat. There is hardly one of the
hundred islands around the Irish coast which, one time or another, did
not harbour some saint or solitary upon its rocky bosom.
The testimony of the "Lives" to the saints' love and practice of prayer is
borne out by the evidence of more trustworthy documents. Besides

private prayers, the whole psalter seems to have been recited each day,
in three parts of fifty psalms each. In addition, an immense number of
Pater Nosters was prescribed. The office and prayers were generally
pretty liberally interspersed with genuflexions or prostrations, of which
a certain anchorite performed as many as seven hundred daily. Another
penitential action which accompanied prayer was the 'cros-figul.' This
was an extension of the arms in the shape of a cross; if anyone wants to
know how difficult a practice this is let him try it for, say, fifteen
minutes. Regarding recitation of the Divine Office it was of counsel,
and probably of precept, that is should not be from memory merely, but
that the psalms should all be read. For this a good reason was given by
Maelruin, i.e. that the recitation might engage